Beachcombers

I once had a stint as a bank manager. It didn’t last long, less than three years. I was not comfortable in a suit and tie or boardrooms or offices. Never looked comfortable according to my then girl friend.

But with this new position under my belt, I decided to have my first house built. A small split level with an ocean [Straits of Georgia] view. Soon after, I made the acquaintance of a fellow who had just moved to the coast from Ontario. He was offering pool installations at cost to get his name out and his business growing again so I took him up on the offer [re-mortgaged] and had a small pool installed alongside the west end of the house [my girlfriend was a swimmer, me, not so much.]. As the pool had not been planned as part of the original build there was no direct access to it. One had to exit a set of sliding glass doors on the south side of the house and turn right. The importance of this will come later.

I then secured the services of a couple of guys who had a portable cedar mill to furnish me with some lumber to build the poolside decking. That pretty much filled the first summer. The following spring I was out at the pool starting to clean things up from the winter wind storms when I noticed a vehicle pass, then back up and stop for a while . The road sat higher up than the house so you could look down into the yard [before I eventually planted a screen of Leyland cypress]. I thought nothing of it at the time but awhile later there was a knock on the door and a couple of young fellows introduced themselves and stated they were with the CBC film crew scouting out locations to film the Beachcombers.

They were particularly interested in the pool but noticed the absence of a direct entrance to it from the house. I said it was in the works but the money wasn’t available right then and it was a trifle chilly to be putting doors in. This seemed a deal killer to them so I identified a couple of other pools I was aware of so they could check them out. But as they were leaving they asked IF they decided to use my pool would I be willing to let them put a door in and what kind would I like it to be. Now knowing they would actually consider this, I inwardly regretted being so accommodating with the other pool references.

It should be mentioned here that when I arrived on the Sunshine Coast and was introduced to the presence of the CBC production [The Beachcombers] a love/hate relationship seemed to have developed between the locals and the production. I was warned off volunteering myself as an extra [too long and too boring] or my property [they’re cheap, don’t pay anything for rental or your time]. At that time most of the ferry traffic went right by Molly’s Reach on its way up the coast. [There was an alternate route only locals knew but it was a tight switch back climb, too steep for most transport trucks.] For the production of the series, this meant employing flag people to stop traffic during filming to cut down the background noise and vibration. This happened all over the coast as they often filmed on location so it had become [after nine seasons] another point of irritation to some of the locals.

But, two days later, the two fellows were back and agreeing to put in a new six foot sliding glass door onto the pool at no charge to me. I was bribed. CBC didn’t seem that cheap after all. A day or two later the carpentry crew showed up and commenced work. At this point I might mention that I had an engineer dad who had coached me through a couple of home renos [for him] so I was a fair carpenter myself and familiar with joists, spans, lintels etc. and the various sundry [code] details that go into house construction. So I made myself available on that day in case they needed a hand.[any excuse to get out of going into work at the bank]

I was working [and listening] in the lower part of the yard as they opened up the wall and commenced framing for the door. After a period of time I could hear them whaling away at something with a hammer and then with a sledge. I became curious as to what they were having such difficulty with, so went up to have a peek.

This was an external bearing wall they were working on that supported the second story of the split level. In wrecking out the wall they had not provided any support for the upper joists on the inside AND instead of a lintel, they had inserted a pony wall???. The reason they were hammering so much was because the whole thing was sagging enough that they could not get their second support stud under their pony wall. I politely pointed out their problem at which point the lead hand turned red and apologized profusely offering that they had constructed 1×4 stage sets for so long they had gotten a bit rusty with their basic carpentry. I skeptically accepted their explanation and pointed out a spare 2×10 they could build their lintel out of and left them to it. The door got installed, the gyproc never cracked and the glass didn’t break for the next five years so I think everything worked out OK. But be wary of CBC carpentry.

The day before the shooting of the episode, the rest of the crew descended and completely took over the house. They moved all our living room furniture into one of the upstairs bedrooms. They then covered our walls with painted plywood sheets and laid carpet over top of ours. [They chose to use apprentices for this. I had to show them how to use a seaming iron and tape for the job]. The reason for all the cover up was that the plotline included a fight between Bruno and a female acquaintance in which she was to throw a few things at him. They weren’t taking any chances of damage occurring.

They adorned the front carport with lattice work and the front door was replaced with one of their own with sugar glass installed. Part of the script called for Constable Constable to break into the house after hearing a woman’s scream. They wanted an appropriate amount of glass breakage for dramatic effect. [Presumably the sound affect was added later]