The Brighton Ringers Clock

by Britt Bowles

For this story to be told it must start with a bit of history. I will attempt to be as concise as possible in order to keep this interesting.

Mr. Arthur Haiseldean Noakes came to Paris, Ontario, in 1906 from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. Eveline Blanche Hobson who was to become Mrs. Noakes arrived the same year from Nottingham City, Nottinghamshire, England. Eveline worked in the stocking mills in Paris, Ontario. It was while she was singing in the choir there that Mr. Noakes met her and decided she was for him.

Arthur Noakes came to Balfour about 1908 and later sent for Eveline. Mr. & Mrs. A. H. Noakes were the first couple to be married in the St. Michaels and All Angels Church at Balfour. They later bought their own ranch at Balfour where they had 8 children.

Their daughter Grace, our mother, married John Bowles in 1939. John had moved out from Alberta to find work and met Grace. A couple of years later after working on different jobs John joined the army and went overseas in WWII. I was born in 1944 prior to his return from the army.

After our father’s return he just wanted a quiet life in the country so they borrowed some funds from our grandmother and purchased the Balfour General Store. The store was the hub of the community and also had the telephone exchange and post office along with a gas pump.

I mention this as dad delivered groceries to the residents of Queen’s Bay once a week where the Attree’s and many other persons from the “OLD” country had taken up residence. On occasion when the snow was too deep dad used a toboggan to pull their groceries anywhere from a few hundred feet to about a kilometer or more with one of us kids keeping the groceries from falling off.

George Frederic Attree, along with his wife Edith and their 2 sons, Alec and Kenneth, arrived in Queen’s Bay in 1908. Their 10 ½ tons of luggage and their Queen’s Bay acreage constituted the major part of the Attree fortune. I would assume that the Brighton Clock was a part of this shipment. By 1910 George had a large apple orchard in place along with some soft fruits and a good-sized vegetable garden. In 1912 Mr. Attree shipped over 2 tons of strawberries and one of their busiest seasons occurred in the early 1930’s when The Kootenay Fruit Growers Association shipped 11 box cars loaded with ‘Cox’s Orange’ apples to England.

When the Queen’s Bay church was nearing completion George Attree did much of the finishing work.

Kenneth Ross Attree was born in Brighton on May 22,1892 and came to the Kootenays with his parents in 1908.

Gladys Attree was born in Sussex, England July 26^th, 1885. She joined her family at Queen’s Bay in 1914. Gladys ran several dance schools including one in Calgary, Alberta where she met her husband to be John (Jack) Hirst.

Some time in the 1950’s Kenneth Attree married Joyce Hirst, his sister’s step-daughter. Joyce died in the early 1970’s and Kenneth about 1977. Prior to this when I was in my later teens they would ask me to house sit while they went on vacation.

After Kenneth and Joyce passed away Joyce’s niece came over from Venice to empty the house and put it up for sale. When the Hirst house was being emptied, a painting by Napoleon Bonaparte was discovered in the attic of the Hirst house and was subsequently confirmed as authentic.

It was at this time that Joyce’s niece offered our family any item in the house that we would like as a memento of her parents. Our parents were offered the mantle clock which they accepted and it sat on their mantle from the late 1970’s until 2025 when our dad (John W. Bowles) passed away in 2019 at the ripe old age of 102.

Bell Ringer Clock copyright Britt P. Bowles

The Brighton clock now sits on my son’s table in Cooper Creek just north of Kootenay Lake and is still ticking away nicely.

And that is the story of THE BRIGHTON CLOCK given to George F. Attree by the RINGERS in 1888 and how it ended up on our parent’s mantle prior to my son lovingly taking it home.