I'm Roy Parrett in Victoria, British Columbia with some more pages of Parrett/Purchase happenings, past and present.































































My mother Mable (Purchase) was one of ten children, and my father George Parrett, one of seven, hence there is a large extended family in England, Canada, USA, Australia, Indonesia and even Cyprus. Many served in the armed forces in World War 1 and II and several were lost in the conflicts. And some pioneered on Canadian farms, surviving early and late frosts, hail, grashoppers,and poor market prices.

My father, George Parrett, came from England in 1908, lured by an Immigration poster showing a farmer with a wheelbarrow and one pumpkin, filling it, saying, "this is what YOU can grow in Canada," and a promise of "free land."



He worked around on Manitoba farms for $10 and board, to get some experience, got his own at Pilot Mound, and sent for my future mother, Mable Purchase, from Moreton, Dorset.



She came, expecting a modern farm, like in England, but ended up "in a shack on the Prairies," and five years of drought, grasshoppers, early and late frosts, and hailstorms- three miles from town, and a mile from the nearest neighbor!

Here is our growing family, on the right in the 1920s, after we moved to Brandon- my father, George Parrett, with my sister Mamie, me in the sailor suit, and young brother Stan.

Seven of our family took to the air, in planes, gliders and even in a blimp during World War One, and some have stories to tell from flying anti-submarine patrol off English coasts, to my wife Maude and I flying down the edge of an American bombing range in the States during the Korean conflict, and heading out over the Atlantic with a wheeled plane, out of range of onshore radio, to the Bahamas.

And in World War I, my uncle Al Purchase, of Winnipeg, flew this blimp on anti-submarine patrol off the British coast. More about the SSZ 34, and Alg Purchase on the Family Album page.

Several Parretts and Purchases served in the Armed Forces during both World Wars.Dad's twin brother Fred was reported Missing In Action in WWI and Fred's family had no details. But cousin Gerry Purchase and I found the details, and the monument location on the Commonwealth Graves Commission's

excellent Website. More on the following Family Pages.

More happenings- CLICK

Adventures on the River Kwei:

VIEWS OF THE RIVER PARRETT

More family happenings: