Page 87 - With George Prosser of Whitney Pier

ISSUE : Issue 74

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1999/6/1

George Prosser I always had a buddy. They put you out, two men. If we were having a rough night, there would be always four of us. Two and two. The other two would be behind or stand close by. We weren't all ganged up together. But that was certain nights when it was rough. Like the Palace Grill over there at that time. She would be a rough spot. On Charlotte Street. We'd get a call to go down there, and it used to be bad down there. Norwegians, and Swedes, and Limeys. All sailors. They were civilian sailors. Then the Navy would get down there and they'd fight down there. Oh, my son. All the civilian sailors, the city cops used to take them. I don't know what they charged them for, but they let them go back to the ship the next day. But I got along all right with them, any? way. I had buddies there--a couple of fel? las from Sydney here on with me, too--and every time they looked at a guy they were on a mean. JUst try to make a name for themselves. They didn't make a nsune for themselves. When the war was over they had to leave Sydney or get killed. Everybody was waiting for them. But I didn't have to do that. I got along with them all. That's one thing I do today the same. I go around today, the same thing, I got all kinds of friends. When I was in the Navy I had the same thing. I went up to you ax& told you what you had to do and you do it, instead of taking you and putting hemdcuffs on you emd lead you down next morning up before the commander, the officer. If you didn't watch what you were doing, what you said, you might get locked up (yourself). So, I never took a guy in front of an offi? cer in my life. Five and a half years and I got along with everybody, and if I told you what you had to do, you do it and get out of sight. That was my policy. Point Edward was a detention barracks then, right down to the harbour. It was CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 full of guys. They'd take them up to the barber and shave them, strip them. You couldn't win a war over there. You had to be overseas, or someplace where you could act. You couldn't do any help barred up in Point Edward. There was a lot of people over there, locked up there during the war, say a hundred, two hundred people at a time. It was the Army and the Air Force and the Navy. In Halifax they had McNab's Island, eh? They had that full, too. So what they'd do is ship them down to Sydney and send them over Point Edward. Right down in the bottom there, right out to the VOLUME ONE BOOKSTORE Bag No. 200 Port Hawkesbury Centre Port Hawkesbury, N. S. BOE 2V0 Phone (902) 625-1514 Wilson Timmons • Res.: 345-2387 NO POWER? MAJESTIC. • NO ELECTRICITY REQUIRED • NO CHIMNEY REQUIRED • INSTANT-ON HEAT • INSTALLATIONS ARE QUICK • A WIDE SELECTION OF MODELS • PROPANE OFFERS THE WARMTH, LOOK AND FEEL OF A WOOD- BURNING FIREPLACE WITHOUT THE HASSLE ''!' Ackaniage 1-888-310-1924 Toll free 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! 87

Cape Breton's Magazine