As soon as I bought the land here in the Okanagan, I hired my cousin James Godwin to be the estate manager. He had experience farming in South Africa, and I needed someone to help me start a farm here. I promised to leave Fintry to him in my will if he would come to Canada and work for me. But you know, I couldn’t get along with that fellow. I didn’t like the way he treated the farm workers. So in 1921, I bought him off. I paid him $40,000 to leave ($400,000 in today’s money), and I changed my will. Then I hired the Pym brothers, one to manage the ranch and one to manage the orchard. Guy Pym lived in the White House while Ronald Pym lived at Burnside. I had bad luck with managers. The Pym brothers were not good workers. It wasn’t until 1924, when I hired Angus Gray, that I found a capable manager. In fact, Gray worked as overall manager of Fintry for the next 24 years.

I did not want to be involved in the day-to-day running of the estate, so that is why I hired a manager to look after it for me. I wanted my time free to make plans for the estate and, of course, to go hunting. Sometimes I liked to work on the farm myself. I liked the physical labour involved in pulling out stumps, and I bought myself a one-person stump puller. Aye, there is a grand sense of accomplishment to get a stubborn stump out of the ground. Once, I decided to work alongside some men digging ditches on the estate. I was wearing old work clothes. They didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t tell them who I was. Soon one man started to complain about the boss. It was hot work, and they were sure the boss was sitting in the shade having a cold drink. When the manager came to ask my advice on a farm matter, those laddies were sure surprised to find out that I was the boss. I had a good laugh to myself about the whole thing. Just because I owned the estate didn’t mean I was better than anyone else.