Yearbook Editorial on Mr. Fred Pain - 1965

OHS Yearbook 1965

Editorial

Again the time has come to wish all our members good gardening .lor the year, good showing, exchanging of ideas and all the other advantages of association with fellow gardeners.

It is with a great sense of loss that this year's Book is being produced. The death of Mr. Fred Pain, Past President, was a blow to the Ottawa Horticultural Society in general and to those of us associated with the Year Book in particular that is felt more strongly as time goes on.

Fred Pain, in his annual criticism of the Year Book, would have pointed out in no uncertain terms that an Editorial is no place for an Obituary Notice. Nevertheless, he might have been persuaded that for an appreciation of a man who was a gardener by avocation and a master-printer by profession, whose brain-child the Year Book was, the Year Book Editorial is the most fitting place.

He had, without doubt, one of the liveliest and most progressive minds of a man of his years - even half his years - we have ever had the privilege to know.

He bore no malice: his criticism was invariably constructive and completely objective, and he was always courteous.

Underneath that rather imposing manner was a sense of humour perhaps the more engaging because it was so unexpected.

No wonder, then, that we miss him, and will go on missing him for a long time. We only hope that with our own advancing years we shall, with his example, be able to retain even half of his freshness, his enthusiasm and his kindness.

Please contact the OHS or the author if you wish to republish these articles. © Ottawa Horticultural Society

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