His phone calls were regular, the familiar number showing up in the digital call display bar.

I have to admit... I didn’t always answer. Sometimes I was on deadline, and Harold? Well, he liked to go on.

About health care. Politics. The state of the city.

He was an avid newspaper reader, poring over the various community papers, local dailies and national publications. Often a fax would arrive from Harold – photocopied articles with his comments scribbled in his telltale scrawl along the sides. If a fax came, a phone call would inevitably follow, so Harold could expand on his truncated notes.

He was passionate, smart and in his later years, a touch curmudgeonly, but if I had to pick one word to describe Harold Daykin it would be: Active.

He kept his mind sharp and his body lean, a lifestyle honed through intellectual pursuits and regular exercise.

The former computer analyst was the “grandfather” of school chess clubs in Surrey, starting and running several groups and encouraging hundreds of kids to learn both the basics of the game and the skills to compete.

Harold believed, and I agree, that youth who learned how to think strategically and plan a few moves ahead made better decisions later in life.

He was a fixture at chess championships, and he would promptly fax over the results, complete with the children’s names, schools and accomplishments laid out. In the follow-up phone call (of course), his voice was thick with the pride seniors usually reserve for their grandchildren.

But chess wasn’t his only pursuit. He was an avid walker and advocate for physical fitness.

As chair of the Prevention Public Policy Group, Harold lobbied for a discount on Medical Services Plan premiums for seniors like himself who stayed fit.

In one of his phone calls, he relayed a formula he had devised to keep track of his workouts.

“I have a ‘clicker’ at the top of my stairs at home, a golf ball-size counter that keeps track of how often I go up and down,” Harold told me.

“It’s a standard stairway, eight to nine feet (high), which is about 2½ metres. So if I go up and down that stairway 18 times a day, times 2½ metres, that’s 45 metres. Multiply that by five days a week for 40 weeks – 200 days – that’s 9,000 metres.”

The summit of his equation?

“Mount Everest is 9,000 metres. My aim is to climb Mount Everest each year ... but at home.”

Harold also knew there are 72 steps at the Surrey Central SkyTrain station and eight city blocks to a mile (1.61 kilometres).

In recent years, he took his calculations to new heights, consistently being the oldest participant to scale 793 stairs up 48 storeys at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver as part of the B.C. Lung Association’s annual Climb the Wall fundraiser.

You’d know him by his trademark fedora.

On Thursday morning, my phone rang, and Harold’s number appeared in the call display. I realized it had been a long, long time since I had last seen the familiar alignment of numerals.

I answered, but it wasn’t Harold. His wife Mary said I wouldn’t be getting his calls anymore.

Harold, who was 84, died this past weekend in Surrey Memorial Hospital.

He had recently fallen and broken his hip. The injury was healing, but Harold learned he wouldn’t be able to return home for a while.

Facing a lengthy hospital stay or admission into a care home, Harold made a decision.

He stopped eating and drinking and slowly slipped away.

In the end, being inactive was far less palatable than death for Harold Daykin, so he made his move.

He is survived by his children Gail, Bruce, Rachel, and Paul; 10 grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and his brother Philip.

And Mary, who noted that Sept. 2 would have been their 59th wedding anniversary.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday, Sept. 5 at 3 p.m. at Bethany Newton United Church, 14853 60 Ave.

It was always nice talking with you, Harold.

Goodbye.

Paula Carlson is the editor of the Surrey-North Delta Leader.