The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

7| The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,S eptem ber 20,2018 theifp.ca • Truck Accessories • Upholstery • Heavy Equipment Glass •Window Tinting 354 Guelph Street, Georgetown 905-873-1655 Wehandleall insurance work. We handle all insurance work. Call for a FREE Estimate 25 Year Guarantee Award Winning Waterproofer Readers Choice 2018Silver 2018 Halton Hills Member of the www.crownseal.ca s CROWNSEAL INC. BASEMENT WATERPROOFING Furnace Air Conditioning Gaslines Boilers Water Heaters Radiant Heating 905-877-3100 proud local dealer of Canadian made products .ca This summer we've done a few projects around the farm, most of them in- volving concrete. Most recently, the driv- ing shed floor was poured, giving me a clean floor to work on equipment. The worst part of that job is preparing for it, which involves cleaning out the shed, right to the walls. Decades of accumulat- ed 'stuff' had to be cleared out to be able to pour the floor. And one item was my old work bench. I refer to it as the Avro workbench. More than 55 years ago, Jack Roughley lived up the road from us in Lime- house. Both Jack and his wife Ada were good friends of my parents, and Jack worked on aircraft engines at Orenda, a divi- sion of Avro Canada in Malton. Feb. 20, 1959, is known as Black Friday in Cana- da's aviation community. On that day, Prime Minis- ter John Diefenbaker rose in the House of Commons and scrapped the Avro Ar- row project, affecting thousands of employees - many of them Georgetown residents. People who owned houses in Georgetown were leaving in the night, walking away from houses they simply couldn't af- ford. It was a sad day. Years after the Avro Ar- row was scrapped, the buildings were cleared of equipment and several wooden machinist work- benches were among those items. Jack, in his typical en- trepreneurial way, decid- ed to take advantage of those workbenches, and he had a truckload of them dropped off in his front yard. He sold them off at about $5 each, and they were pretty good value, since they were eight feet long by 32 inches wide. Dad decided he could use one, so he bought one and placed it in one of the little outbuildings on the farm, to become a work- shop. That workshop was never really very conve- nient, so over the years, the old workbench became buried in 'stuff'. Fast forward 40 years, my nephew Rob developed a passion for tinkering. Whenever he was bored, he'd come over to the farm and tinker with a lawn mower, a chainsaw or any other thing he found interesting, usually under the watchful eye of dad. And after we lost dad in 2003, Rob still dropped by to tinker, and he later ran his landscaping business from the driving shed. Rob and I decided to lib- erate the old Avro work- bench from under 40-odd years of junk and move it to the shed. Once cleared off, we grabbed each end and tried to lift it. After the first attempt, I knew mov- ing it was probably going be followed up with a two- Tylenol night. Constructed of full size two- by eight-foot pine planks on top, screw- nailed to a four- by four- inch frame and legs, (some of which are made of hard- wood,) that bench weighs a ton. After much struggling and groaning, the bench once again saw the light of day, and Rob and I moved it over to the shed, using the front-end loader on the tractor. Uncovering a little bit of history, we discovered a little metal plate attached to the underside of the bench, stamped 'Property of Avro Aircraft, Malton, Ontario.' Moving ahead 14 years, The Sidekick and I found ourselves moving the Avro workbench out of the way (this time using a skid steer loader) to clear the way to pour the new con- crete floor. I was reminded of that metal plate under the bench - yup, still there. And once that concrete is fully cured, the bench will return to its resting place in the shed, to once again be useful, as well as remain a small reminder of a Canadian aircraft that affected countless people living in Halton Hills a half century ago. Ted Brown is a free- lance columnist for the IFP. He can be reached at tedbit@hotmail.com. IN THE DRIVING SHED OPINION WORKBENCH A REMINDER OF BLACK FRIDAY IN CANADIAN AVIATION HISTORY, WRITES TED BROWN TED BROWN Column THE WAY WE WERE Still a landmark on McIntyre Crescent, this stately Queen Anne style home was built and owned by the Reid family, farmers in the area for over 150 years. The two-storey structure features a stone foundation, hip roof with flat sections, brick chimney, segmentally arched windows with dichrome brick labels, stone sills, two-storey bay with gable roof, corner brackets and drops, one storey bay on the side, a front entry with sidelight, multi-light transom and large label with keystone above. Now serving as a multi unit condominium, it is a listed heritage property. -Submitted by Heritage Halton Hills HHH photo