Howard Clifford
Excerpts From Oral History Interview
Howard Clifford lives in Ottawa, retired after a long career as a civil servant involved with child care. In 1992, he bicycled across Canada to raise the profile of child care. In this November 1, 2000 telephone interview with Debra Mayer, he recollects how the idea for the cross-country advocacy road trip began. Sadly, the tape quality is fuzzy.
listen to the audio clip 3 0:45 2,712KB
Howard: It was sort of funny, just daydreaming, just fantasies -- half calculating, but not serious. And I remember getting on the phone with the Canadian Advocacy Association and Martha Friendly. At the time I was saying "What would you think of me going across Canada on a bicycle for childcare?" She started to laugh. We were sounding pretty ridiculous. And so I said, I kept saying "I'm crazy, eh?" She said, "Well no, just a second. Just think: Mr. Daycare hits the road for childcare."
She [Martha] said "If you're serious, our Association would be supportive in terms of lining up who want to know you're coming, and stuff." I was still not really serious.
Then, I was at in Ottawa, and there was a conference of some kind -- I forget just what it was now.... [I was talking with Sandy Griffin] and I said "What about this? What do you think? She said "We're going to be having a conference in the end of April. If you're going do this, we'll have you as a guest speaker. We'll be the kick-off for it!"
So every place I turned around people were saying "Oh yes. Go for it!"
So pretty soon I found myself in the situation where I reluctantly going -- but didn't even know what you were getting yourself into!
Debra: What year would this have been, Howard?
Howard: 1992. I can still tell you a couple of funny stories. I was figuring out just on the map: how many days do you have? how far do you have to go each day? We figured out you had to average 64 kilometres a day to make it in time. If you stayed a day over, or something, you had to make that up.
So I got on my bicycle. I only went about 20 kilometers there and back, which is only about a third of the way -- and I was dead!
So, I said, maybe I'll start on the weekends to get in shape. And so the next weekend when I was about to start on a long trek, it snowed!
So then a daycare group in Carleton Place (just outside of Ottawa) invited me to speak. They were going to have an official send-off, too. I rode there by bicycle and back and that was exactly the same distance: 64 kilometres. I was just dead when I got back. I thought to myself: I've got to get up in the morning and do this over again!
