My Mother, Sharon Chambers, is Alan’s cousin. However, that has always felt awkward and insufficient to explain my connection to Alan and Susan. My memories of Alan and Susan feel like a continuous conversation in kitchens and around food-filled tables that weave together time and landscapes along the West Coast. I think we first met…

I have memories of my Dad reaching back to when I was two—but I think my earliest one might be from even before that, because it’s not a picture in my mind. It’s a sound. And a feeling. The sound of his guitar, and the warmth of absolute safety. Dad’s parenting in the 80s didn’t…

The last time I saw Alan was last December at a music night in Metchosin. I mostly spent that evening chatting with Susan at the kitchen table, while the musicians played in the next room, but hearing Alan’s playing resonating through an old house felt very familiar and comforting.  I couldn’t say how many family…

I first got to know Alan when he would visit and later move into the apartment I shared with Bob, Ron, Judy, Maureen, and Glenn on Hotel de Ville in Montreal in the early 1970s. Great if somewhat foggy memories of making and listening to music, playing three-handed chess, and proposing solutions to all the…

Alan and I started hanging out together around 1967-68 or so in a group of friends that brought together “the boys from the west island” with the girls of the Town of Mount Royal in Montreal, a very successful mixer! We had lots of great times together, bopping around in his mother’s “White Tornado” (I…

Except from the Transition Sooke Newsletter from May 2025 by Susan Belford At the May monthly meeting a few days ago, Transition Sooke members shared what they miss and valued most about Alan… Alan is the reason I’m here (in Transition Sooke) today. Alan was a force of positive energy, compassionate and kind. Even if…

In the fall of 1971, Alan and I lived a few blocks apart in the McGill Ghetto area in Montreal. He had a ground-floor room on Pine Avenue, and I rented a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three-story walk-up on Lorne Avenue.   Alan loved to play his Guild F-50 guitar, and I…

We met Alan and Susan when we moved to Vancouver Island from Belgium in 2023. They welcome us with such warmth and generosity, and in our eyes, went on to become surrogate parents and mentors. They have been such an inspiration to us, as a young couple navigating the ups and downs of life, in…

When I joined the Green Party I was in my mid-20s and wanted to change the world NOW. Alan was involved in the party and an off-shoot called Rhythm’n’Greens. Not only was Alan the calm voice of reason, moderate and inclusive and engendering even more respect because of his earlier-than-most white hair. Over more than…