Daughter to celebrate pilot father’s 100th birthday by arranging a flyby

If all goes well on Friday afternoon, an aircraft will zip over Foster Avenue in Coquitlam and a 100-year-old man will look up and smile.

Before he was a father, a ballroom dancer, soccer coach, card counter and maybe the best strawberry farmer in the Fraser Valley, Ronald (Roy) Henry Bailey was a tailgunner.

Bailey, who grew up in the Isle of Wight, was barely out of his teens when he boarded the Handley Page Halifax bomber to fly raids over Germany in the last years of the Second World War.

“I’m pretty sure he would’ve liked to have been in there right from the get-go,” noted his daughter, Daphne Russo.

Bailey would tell stories about mechanical defects and about the way the food improved before a mission.

“The guys that were flying always got the best food,” Russo noted.

But, like a lot of Second World War veterans, Bailey didn’t tell many stories about his own experiences.

“He was fortunate. His squadron always returned. But he did tell me stories about other ones that didn’t make it back – but not too much,” she said.

In the years after the war, Bailey immigrated to Canada, hopeful there would be more opportunity for his family, Russo explained.

The family settled on a farm in Mission and, after spending a little time watching the chickens eat up the farm’s profits, Bailey started growing things, eventually settling on strawberries.

“People tell me that he grew the best strawberries in the valley,” Russo reminisced. “People would come from all over the valley to get strawberries. We even had people coming from the Interior and one family came from Prince George every year.”

Bailey had seen the tops of clouds from a four-engine Halifax bomber but – as much as he enjoyed flying – his favourite vehicle may have been something more down to earth.

“I think my dad was happiest when he was on his tractor,” Russo said.

On winter mornings he’d be up before light, clearing driveways and, depending on the speed of the city plows, he’d sometimes even clear the street, she recalled.

As a father, he brought a military discipline to the household.

“We were taught to be on top of everything and do everything as right as you can,” Russo said. “He ran the family like a military base . . . but he was also very funny.”

The stern father never let an April 1 go by without some sort of practical joke, Russo recalled, adding that he usually tricked them.

Always industrious, Bailey retired but never stopped working, Russo said, recalling her dad putting a metal roof on a barn when he was in his late-70s.

“Evern after he retired from strawberry farming, he still worked the land,” she said. “He just loved animals and the land and I think that’s what kept him going all those years.”

Having grown up with the roar of the sea in his ears, Bailey eventually sold the farm in Mission and moved to Gibsons.

Following the death of his wife, Bailey bought a house in Maple Ridge in 2015 to be closer to family. However, after suffering a femur fracture, he moved into the Madison Care Centre in Coquitlam.

“His most recent outing was to the casino, where he played blackjack, his favourite card game. My dad was very good at counting cards, he was a hard opponent to play against,” Russo noted.

Russo credited a combination of good genetics and good habits for her father’s longevity.

“In their later years my parents spent part of their summers on the sea and part of their winters heading south to Vegas, and the rest of the year with family. I believe that this is the secret to his longevity, along with good health.”

As her father’s 100th birthday approached, Russo found herself if there was something special she could do.

After some back and forth, the Royal Canadian Air Force ultimately agreed to send a Cormorant helicopter to do a flyby between 1:30 and 2 p.m. on Friday.

“He still enjoys flying,” Russo said. “If there was a Halifax Bomber still flying today, he would want to try to get a ride in it.”