Homecoming lays foundation for celebration
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
If retired navy Lt. Roy Denny hadn’t returned home from the Canadian Navy during the Second World War, his daughter Cathy Denny wouldn’t be here today.
She was born a decade after the fighting stopped.
“We’re celebrating the fact that he did come home,” she says from her Oak Bay residence.
With her three siblings, Cathy bought a memorial brick inscribed with her father’s name. The brick will be part of the Homecoming, a statue celebrating the Canadian Navy’s 100th anniversary. It will be unveiled next May 2010 near the Tourist Information Centre on Wharf Street.
Her father will also celebrate his 100th birthday later this year.
“Dad, you’re the same age as the Canadian Navy,” Cathy said to him recently. He declined an interview for this story.
“He doesn’t talk about it, he doesn’t even consider his service to be out of the ordinary,” she says. “But he’s curious when he meets other navy people. They do like to talk boats.”
Her father took up painting in retirement and still paints today.
Blue and teal brushstrokes depict water scenes in about half-a-dozen of his paintings hanging in her living room. Driftwood is in the foreground of one and a sailboat floats through the background of another.
His paintings are as serene as Cathy describes her father.
“Dad always said he never fired a gun in anger. He values peace and he values harmony and getting along with people.”
The statue, designed by local artist Nathan Scott, will depict a sailor, arms reaching toward his daughter.
“This statue in many ways is coming from the community, not from the Navy,” says retired Rear Admiral Ken Summers, co-chairman of the centennial statue project.
“People can identify with it,” he says. “The connection between parent and child.”
lweighton@vicnews.com
Did you know?
• Bricks come in two sizes and are $200 or $350
• Excess funds will support the military family resource centre
• For more information or to order a brick, please visit www.homecomingstatue.com
v2
