For Peter Lake’s 101st birthday Sept. 2, people filtered in and out of a backyard near Willows Beach Park.
Life has moved slowly in the year since the Oak Bay News last checked in with him, during his 100th birthday. In that year, Lake gave up his licence. Though he stopped driving by late 2019, it became official when he turned in the powerful little card in the spring of 2020. Lake decided it was too dangerous and the changes to the community and the drive were too daunting.
There were a few more falls and a few more injuries in the year between 100 and 101 as well, but Lake takes some credit for that.
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While he can’t garden much, and expects he shouldn’t at all, he still does and even got a bumper crop of both apples and cherries this year.
“Being so agile I’m a bit of a doer and I’m inclined to overreach myself too often,” he said.
He can still tell the tales of his youth, all interesting, of a life lived near Victoria Falls in Africa, Greater Victoria, and even before, to younger years in England and Borneo.
He was born in Borneo on Sept. 2, 1920 and lived in England and Zimbabwe. He met his wife Margaret in Rhodesia in 1954. The two married in 1957 and had their first son in 1959, William. They left for England and had their second son, Jeffrey, in 1961.
In 1972 they moved to Greater Victoria and soon purchased John McMaster Fine Clothes at 1012 Fort St., now the home of J.J. Wonton Noodle House.
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