A Full House But Empty
by Angus Munro
Paperback, 268 Pages
List Price: $20.95
Published in 2007
ISBN-10: 0-595-43719-2

About the book:
Product Description
Filled with anecdotes, lessons learned, and an inspirational message for everyone, who believes that hard work breeds success, this moving autobiography shares the remarkable story of Angus Munro.

Munro is just three when he suffers from appendicitis and spends several weeks in a Vancouver hospital as his family struggles to survive the Great Depression. After finally arriving home, Munro asks his sister, “Where is Mummy?” and is promptly told his mother doesn’t live there anymore. It is this traumatic event that changes the course of Munro’s life forever. His father is suddenly a single parent while simultaneously turning into Munro’s mentor and hero. He teaches Munro the motto, “Always do the right thing,” while raising his children in an environment that is at the very least hectic, and more often completely chaotic.

Through a potpourri of chronological and heartfelt tales, Munro reveals how he learned to view incidents in life in terms of responsibility, recognition, personal conduct, and consideration for others. Despite dropping out of school at a young age, Munro perseveres, eventually attaining professional success.

Munro’s memoir is a wonderful tribute to his father’s legacy and the greatest lesson of all—Whatever you do, follow through.

*****Guest Post*****

The Great Depression Versus Today
By Angus Munro

As a follow-up to my published book, A Full House – But Empty, I have been requested to make a comparison of the Great Depression versus today. I must preface the fact that I was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1930. Thus, growing up in the depth of those difficult Depression years until WWII started for the then British Empire in 1939. When I was three years old my parents separated and my two sisters and I being solely raised by our father. My older sister was six years old and my younger sister was still an infant.

Needless to say, those were very difficult and painful trying years for our small family. My father could only obtain sporadic employment and mostly dependent on the Welfare Assistance Program. Fortunately, to assist my father, the Provincial Social Services provided two ladies, who took turns taking care of our daily housekeeping and the needs of we children. When I was seven (1937) our situation greatly improved in terms of having a more desirable environmentally home situation. We moved with another single father who had five children ranging in age from seven to sixteen.

Our fathers rented a large frame house, complete with four prolific Gravenstein apple trees, along with an adjacent vacant corner lot that we usurped. We utilized both properties in vegetable gardens and we raised chickens and had two goats. There were vast grazing meadows overlooking our home on railway property that we utilized for pasturing our goats. Additionally, the fields contained bountiful wild blackberry bushes and parasite huckleberry plants growing prolifically out of old stumps.

Paramount to our food supply, my father “questionably” had access (a key to the locked gate) of a vast orchard in South Vancouver. Seasonally, and in hindsight, we “surreptitiously” harvested the fruit from a variety of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, along with an abundant section devoted to rows of raspberry canes. My father and we three lads stood at the back of the streetcar loaded with gunnysacks and containers representing the fruits of our harvest. We lads were totally embarrassed when other passengers had to squeeze by us. However, they exhibited both kindness and understanding of our predicament that was customary during the difficult Depression era.

Many of our neighbors, along with other family friends, would band together and go blueberry picking on rural Lulu Island. We would always go via open truck but with protective low siding – safely/securely seated in the back on low wooden benches. Adults and we children would sing the latest Hit Parade songs to and from our destination. It was communal, carefree and fun. Our yields were always very prolific and the berries were picked and contained in huge used lard metal tins. We shared those berries with other neighbors; however, we had our share of blueberry pies for a few days. The remainder of the yield we made into preserves.

The other father worked full time throughout the Depression. Reflectively, it appears in hindsight, that he was working ‘under the table’ at the owner operated chimney sweep business at a minimal wage. This bogus arrangement, as a bonus, enabled him to continue to receive welfare food benefits along with clothing/shoe allowances for his children and their basic dental and medical services. During those years my father worked sporadically and often for the city, being very dependent on governmental assistance. The onus was upon my father to creatively maintain our food supply for our large family. Apart from maintaining our gardens and compound, my father would regularly walk to the docks with containers seeking free salmon from the local fish canneries. When obtainable, it was always fresh and delicious. He would also acquire raw sugar from the local refinery that we used for preserving our jarfuls of fruit.

We had an iceman who delivered at least a block of ice weekly – more in the summer – for our wooden icebox. The icebox inwardly had a metal casement to accommodate the block of ice, thus keeping our perishable foods and liquids fresh. Additionally, we had a bread delivery man who also “sold slightly damaged goods” nefariously on the side at reduced prices to some of his route customers. As an example, he once sold us a large slightly damaged carton of ice cream cones. For about two or three weeks, our dinner dessert was crushed cones topped with goat’s milk if one could imagine. After that episode, the end result being, to this very day, anytime I have an ice cream & cone I eat the ice cream and discard the cone!

*****Guest Post*****

Angus Munro is the author of the memoir, A Full House – But Empty. You can find out more about his poignant tale of growing up during The Great Depression at www.angusrmunro.com.

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