No one expects to celebrate their centennial behind Plexiglas, but, after 100 years on Earth, Archie Kay has learned to take things in stride.
Almost a dozen friends gathered outside the bistro of Amica West Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate the longtime North Shore resident on his 100th birthday.
“It went fantastic,” said Christine Hanson, a close friend of Kay’s who helped organize Wednesday’s physically-distant birthday celebration. “They set it up with a barrier and they put chairs up. … It went great.”
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, birthday revelers couldn’t get too close to Kay, who sat in a chair propped behind a transparent wall on the deck of the long-term care facility’s bistro.
His friends cheered him on and, naturally, there was a pied piper there as well to ring in Kay’s 100th year by paying homage to his Scottish ancestry.
“The piper – he was amazing,” said Hanson. “The piper played some Scottish music, and after that we sang happy birthday to him.”
Kay moved to Canada with his wife in 1950. He worked on a shipyard on Vancouver Island and, after it closed, eventually settled in West Vancouver. He was employed at the former Burrard Drydock for a number of years before finding long-term employment at Seaspan, where he worked as a consultant up until he was 90, according to Hanson.
He was originally born in Scotland, in 1920. When he left school, he did a five-year apprenticeship in heating and ventilating and when he finished at 21, it was right in the thick of the war effort, which he supported on the British front.
“One of the things he told me was the planes that the Germans were flying were flying at a higher elevation than the British planes. Their aim was to get one higher. He was part of that effort,” said Hanson. “He never wore a uniform but he was at that air force base.”
His shining token from his birthday party was a letter from the Queen and the Governor General celebrating his 100 years, according to Hanson.
“I’d framed it. That was his gift,” said Hanson. “You have to apply six weeks ahead of time.”
While Kay didn’t necessarily have the birthday he was expecting, he was touched by the affair nonetheless, said Hanson, who adds he hasn’t let the novel coronavirus crisis dampen his spirits.
“He’s definitely taken it in stride. He’s been through wars, right,” said Hanson. “He was thrilled.”
