PETROLEUM INDUSTRY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEWEE: Spike Brown INTERVIEWER: Betty Cooper DATE: July 1982 BC: This is Betty Cooper, it’s July 22nd, 1982 and I am in the home of Mr. R. S. Spike Brown of R. S. Spike Brown Consultants Ltd. at 240 - 8 Ave. N.W. What I’d like to do first, Mr. Brown is to get a little of your background, where you were born, where you grew up and how you got into the oil business. First I thought perhaps we should get your full name, R. S., what does it stand for please? SB: Robert Scott. BC: And where did the name Spike come from? SB: When I grew up here in Calgary, in this house actually, I was of very small stature and I had a paper route and all the different paper boys with the Calgary Herald, they called me Spike because they thought it was humorous for a small statured person to have a name like Spike and I’ve had it ever since, so all my life. BC: And what year were you born? SB: I was born October 10th, 1923. BC: And you’ve lived in Calgary all your life? SB: Yes. I was born in Sunnyside, just down below the hill here and I moved into this house that we’re in now when I was six years old and I bought this house from my father’s estate about ten years ago. So my family has been in this house all our lives. #014 BC: You lived somewhere else and then moved back in when you bought from the estate? What schools did you go to then? SB: I went to Balmoral public school and then Crescent Heights High School and then I joined the Navy when I was 17 ½ in 1941. BC: And where did you serve in the Navy? SB: I was on a Corbet??? doing combat duty from Newfoundland to Ireland for about 2 ½ or 3 years and then I was on a minesweeper at D-day. And then I was discharged on the 21st day of October 1945 and went immediately into the oil business the same day as a driller’s helper working for Imperial Oil. BC: As a driller’s helper? SB: On a geophysical crew, yes. BC: How did you manage to get a job so quickly? SB: My father had been in the car business all his life but during the war he sold his business and went to work for the government in the employment section and this job came up, so he gave it to me. And I was discharged in the morning and in the afternoon at 4:00, a taxi picked me up here at the house and I went out to Cochrane in the wildcat hills, working, 2 Spike Brown July 1982 Tape 1 Side 1 the 4-12 shift that afternoon. And I’ve been in the business ever since. #027 BC: Before we get into that I’d like to step back just a bit because I would like to get a little background on your family. You mentioned your father was in the car business, what was his name? SB: His name was Joseph Brown, J. M. Brown and his and his brother David were two of the original employees at Maclin Motors years ago. My Uncle Dave worked for Maclin Motors for over 50 years until he died. And my father had been in the car business all his life. His business was down on 5th Avenue and 1st Street West, where Imperial Oil’s new building is now. And he sold the business to Universal and then he worked for the government during the war and after the war he went into the investment business with Investors Syndicate and was there for probably 15 years. #035 BC: And were you the only one in the family? SB: No, I have a twin brother named William, my brother Bill, he’s in Edmonton now and I have an older brother named Don. He and I went to University of Toronto together. He was killed flying a jet, doing aerobatics at the Exhibition in Toronto on his 31st birthday. So when Donald was killed I left university and came home here. I didn’t think that I could keep going after the tragic thing that happened to him, so I came home here and went to work for Chevron. BC: So this would be after the war of course? Had your brother been a flyer during the war? SB: Yes, he flew Mosquito bombers overseas for about 2 years overseas, went through it all and then lost his life after the war. It was a tragic thing, he had a wife and a little baby and at the Mess in Toronto, the 400 Squadron, they had a big party there for him on his birthday and he had a flame out on a ??? jet and was killed right there in front of us all. BC: Very sad. SB: It was a very sad thing, yes it was. #046 BC: So you had, this is jumping ahead of course, because you had obviously left Imperial to go to university. SB: Yes, I worked for them in the summertime and when my university terms were over I’d go right back to work for them, whenever I was free I went to work for them. BC: So let’s go back then into Imperial, in 1945 you started and you were very fortunate, because coming right out and being rehabilitated so quickly. SB: Yes, it was strange. I remember, they offered me $1 an hour. .it worked out to $12 a day, it was 8 hours straight time and 4 hours with double time. .no it worked out to more than that. Anyway it was $8 plus. we worked 12 hour shifts. BC: Should be $16. SB: $16 a day and the money, after being in the Navy, I thought this was terrific you know. BC: What rank did you have in the Navy? SB: I was a Petty Officer. BC: So you would be getting a little more that $1.05 a day but not that much more. SB: well, when I joined the Navy, I was getting $20 a month until I was 18 and then I think $2 3 Spike Brown July 1982 Tape 1 Side 1 a day and as a Petty Officer I believe I was getting $2.60 or something like that a day. So to come out of the Navy and go into a job making $16 a day . and the strange thing is, they picked you up right at the house, drove you to work in a taxi, all the way out northwest of Cochrane and then they would pick the shift up there in the taxis and bring them back to Calgary and I thought boy, I’ve really got it made now. #064 BC: What was your job? SB: Actually, they were old, conventional drills and they have what they called a slush pit now, it’s a metal device with two pits side by side. But in those days they didn’t have any such pits so we had to dig these pits by hand with a shovel, so you would dig these pits and the drilling mud went down the hole and back into these pits and ??? the cuttings in them. And I changed the pipe on the rig, changed the bit, and I just helped the driller was all I did really. BC: Was this in the seismic work or was this in a well? SB: No, this was seismic work, geophysical. And the rigs in those days were a lot different than they are today. They were what we call a conventional rig, they were very slow drilling and there wasn’t that much work involved because you might only drill 10 feet an hour so that you only change the stem every hour. It was a real easy job really. And from there I went into other branches of the geophysical. BC: You didn’t know anything about geophysics at that point? SB: I had never seen a rig or crew in my life before, no. #076 BC: Do you remember who worked with you in that first job? SB: They were all Americans, the company I worked for had a contract with Imperial, it was called Max Drilling Contractors from Lubbock, Texas. They were all American boys every one of them. I think I was probably the only Canadian on the whole crew. BC: Did you work all through the winter then, at that time would they drill in the cold? SB: Yes, we started out at Cochrane and that winter we moved up south of Peace River, a little town called Fahler and we worked there all winter. BC: So your taxi rides didn’t last to long? SB: No. Then they paid. .I think they paid us $1 a day living allowance and we would find a room in a local house or a boarding house or something. BC: Did you live well on the $1 a day? SB: Oh in those days you did, oh yes, you sure did. And then I think they raised it to $2 a day and now it’s $30 a day, so you can see the difference. You lived quite well, you could get room and board for $5 a week in those days. I remember we stayed in Olds for awhile and this lady had about 40 people all there and I think it was $5 a week and she was doing really well and she fed us really well.