ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — He works eight hours a day, builds and sells hundreds of wood pieces every year and can describe in great detail how he designs each one of them.
“My birdhouses have the nice peaks and look pretty nice,” John Critchell said during a telephone interview from his home in Martin’s River, Mahone Bay, N.S., earlier this week. “They’re big sellers. The tourists love them.”
At 93 years old, Critchell is as sharp as his chisels, as driven as his drill and as precise as his measuring tape.
He can rattle off specific dates from six and seven decades ago like days of the week and can describe his life experiences like they were yesterday. He’s a cancer survivor and never saw a doctor until he was in his 70s, when he cut his finger while working on one of his wood pieces.
“I just live from day to day, working and going to church on Sunday,” said the soft-spoken Critchell, who has never lost his Newfoundland accent.
“The way I feel right now, I might feel 60.”
“As far I’m concerned, work never hurt anyone. I could sit down and watch TV, I suppose, but that would drive me nuts. I tell people, the best way to live life is get off your big fat bum and do something.” — John Critchell
Born in March 1927, Critchell grew up in Ramea, a tiny fishing village on Northwest Island, located off the south coast of Newfoundland. The youngest of four brothers, Critchell worked, as most did, in the fishery, but things were tough.
“We barely had anything to eat. We had nothing,” said Critchell, who was 11 when his mother died, forcing the boys to live with their grandmother.
“I knew I had to do something to make ends meet.”
At age 15 he left Ramea with $15 that had taken him two years to save. He joined the Newfoundland Merchant Navy, which was still under threat by German U-boats during the Second World War. Newfoundland was still seven years away from joining Canada through Confederation.
“To be honest with you, at that age, you didn’t know what fear was,” he said when asked if he was scared to leave home.
As a member of the navy, Critchell got to see the world, but also saw plenty of tragedy, as comrades and his brother, Joe, were killed during the war. Joe’s ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.
Joe wasn’t supposed to be on the ship that was torpedoed, Critchell recalled, but he had missed his scheduled departure from Corner Brook on another ship.
“Joe fell in love with a girl there and he missed the trip because he was with her,” Critchell said.
So, Joe took the train to Halifax to catch up with his ship, but by the time he got there, another crew member had replaced him. Joe ended up getting a position on the British motor merchant Afrika, which was attacked and sunk on Feb. 7, 1943, killing many on board, including Joe, who was 18.
In March 1944, Critchell became a landed immigrant in Louisburg, N.S., and soon joined the Canadian Merchant Navy.
Six years after the Second World War ended, he came ashore and began working at Imperial Oil on its tanks.
In 1949, when he was 22, Critchell moved back to Ramea, where he met a pretty young girl, Marjorie, at a community dance. The two fell in love and were married not long after.
The couple will celebrate their 71st wedding anniversary in September.
Other than a sore back now and then, Marjorie, 88, is as healthy as he is.
“We managed to get through the ups and downs over the years,” Critchell said when asked about the longevity of their marriage. “People today, when things get a little hard, they walk away. But if you have a little fallout, talk it out and you’ll get through it.”
In 1953, he and Marjorie moved to Halifax, where he worked as a supermarket meat manager for 40 years — 20 with Dominion and 20 with IGA — before retiring.
The couple has a son, John Jr., who lives in Ontario, and two daughters, Maxine in Quebec, and Christine, who lives three doors away in Mahone Bay, where Critchell and his wife moved in 2009. They have seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Critchell is also a cancer survivor. Six months after he and Marjorie moved closer to Christine, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Last year, he had a hip replacement. Recovered now, he’s still going strong.
“I tell you, Dad is fantastic,” said his daughter, Christine Symes. “He’s 93, he works every day. It’s only in the last few weeks that he quits at 3 o’clock (in the afternoon) because the heat has been so bad here. But any other day, he goes well past five.
“He thought because of COVID-19, 200 birdhouses would be enough to build this year, but no way, he had to make more, so many people want to buy them.
“Of all my friends, I’m the only one who still has their mother and father and, I tell you, they feel younger than I do. … I’m so thankful I’ve got both of them.”
Besides birdhouses, her father builds many hundreds of Adirondack chairs, wishing wells, benches, stools, swings, garbage bins, picnic tables and dressers. Not bad for a man who says he couldn’t hammer a nail straight until he retired.
Christine’s husband, Bob Symes, is so impressed with his father-in-law that he contacted the newspaper to inquire about coverage.
“I thought he would make a great story,” Symes said. “He’s a pretty amazing man who’s lived a pretty amazing life.”
Critchell said he thinks about Newfoundland every day and still has family there — including two nieces, Angela and Isabelle Critchell, in Mount Pearl — and a good friend, Bob Adams, in Conception Bay South.
Critchell has outlived his siblings and most of his friends, including his best friend, William Rose of Bonavista, who died three months ago.
But he has no plans to slow down.
When asked about the secret of his long life, Critchell’s reply was simple.
“As far I’m concerned, work never hurt anyone. I could sit down and watch TV, I suppose, but that would drive me nuts,” said Critchell, a member of the Masonic Lodge and Royal Canadian Legion, Vimy 27, in Halifax.
“I tell people, the best way to live life is get off your big fat bum and do something.”
Twitter: @TelyRosie