It’s been one year since Paul Davey – dad, husband, brother, friend, Toronto District Fire Chief – passed away after a short illness. He was 86.
I had the honour of being Chief Davey’s son-in-law for quarter of a century, so here’s a few of my favourite memories of him.
But first … how did I come to be part of Paul’s family? Cast your mind back to 1997. I was with my mates on a boys’ trip to Amsterdam. I was in an empty bar the night before heading back to England, and a brazen Canadian girl walked up to my shy and introverted self and chatted me up. That was my future wife, Rebecca, and the rest is history.
And my first introduction to her dad, Paul Davey? Rebecca was at my mum’s place in England where I lived at the time and phoned her dad in Canada. “Hey dad, just to let you know I met a guy in a bar in Amsterdam and I’m moving here to live in England for a few years. Thought you should know.”
I could hear his muffled voice yelling down the phone: “Jesus Christ, Becka! What are ya thinking?” I was scared. Who was this loud and angry man I would have to meet one day? On his turf?
Turns out I had nothing to worry about. The big burly firefighter was a softie at heart. He treated Rebecca’s friends well, loved animals, and his favourite film was The Sound of Music.
We clicked from day one and actually had a lot in common. We both liked gadgets, computer games and watching the kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger classic where he blows up aliens in the jungle. Rebecca was glad he had a guy to hang with to take care of those things she didn’t want to.
But, if I had gone to school in North America, or been in the famous film The Breakfast Club, I would definitely have been with the nerds. Paul, the ultimate athlete, would definitely have been with the jocks.
He was excellent at sports, especially baseball. So good in fact, he got scouted professionally – but chose firefighting, and ended up saving lives instead of first base. He often predicted plays in baseball and hockey before they happened such was his knowledge of the games.
Rebecca and I took him to Vegas years ago and one regret we have is that we didn’t take him to a sports betting casino. We could have made a fortune and retired early!
As mentioned, Paul liked gadgets. He never read books or magazines, but give him the user manual of a cellphone, air dehumidifier or electric razor, and he’d be entertained for hours, much to his wife Marg’s joy.
We both liked playing classic shoot-em-up computer games, such as Doom, Duke Nukem, Soldier of Fortune and Half-Life, but Paul had no patience and always asked me to download cheat codes so he knew where the snipers were hiding or how to deal with the Big Boss at the final level. We had a lot of fun!
But he was also a computer hacker’s dream. Often, he’d phone me: “Hey Johnny, a Nigerian prince sent me an e-mail. I clicked on the attachment and now my computer won’t work. Can you come and fix it?”
I became so busy with that, restoring the contacts list on his phone that he’d always mistakenly delete, or rearranging the icons on his desktop, that I had to start a company called Unofficial Tech Support Down The Hall and Paul was my only client. But I didn’t mind. Doing Windows Updates relaxes me if that tells you anything.
It’s no secret that Paul liked the odd tipple. Rebecca and I went to Mexico and brought back a few bottles of a delicious liqueur that you can’t buy in Canada. Paul loved it. He’d come down to watch baseball, or hockey, or an Arnold Schwarzenegger film – no, not the one where he blows up aliens in the jungle, but the one where he blows up time-travelling robots – and he’d always ask: “Hey Johnny, how about you get me some of that Mexican shit? Thanks, pal.” And always with a bowl of popcorn.
That reminds me – in the ’90s I actually used to watch Hockey Night in Canada with my late dad in England, and now here I was, sitting with the man who threw popcorn at Maurice “Rocket” Richard on the ice and almost got into a fight with him. But I think Paul would have won. He was the guy his gang put up to oppose the rival gang’s guy in fights on the mean streets of Toronto. I wouldn’t mess with him.
Rebecca and I would throw big parties and invite lots of friends around. Paul was always the guest of honour, and would sit there drinking a glass of his favourite “Mexican shit” as he regaled our friends with stories from his firefighting days. Lots of tough times, but also lots of pranks he and his colleagues would play on each other. They were hilarious and I could tell many, but one day I may write some of those stories down.
What a legend. We all miss him.
Paul Davey: August 10, 1938 - November 18, 2024