End of an era

After almost 50 years, Brown closes Havelock law office

Wally Brown in his Campbellford office.

Wally Brown will probably think that headline is misleading and should say his Havelock office is consolidating with his Campbellford office, not closing.

That’s because Wally wants it to be clear that while he’s 80, he’s not stopping work, just cutting his commuting time.

But Friday, May 1 is the last day his office on George Street in Havelock will be open.

Well, open is a bit misleading and Wally says that’s the main reason he is closing the location.

“George Street is all torn up because they are putting in water pipes and you can’t get to the office,” he said during a chat in his office on Front Street in Campbellford. “They say the sidewalk will be open but there is no place to park and my clientele won’t walk too far. I would have had to rent another location for six months and that made no sense.”

So, just a few months shy his 50^th anniversary in the location, Wally will stop going there five mornings a week to see clients and tend to their legal needs.

“This is a consolidation, that’s the right word,” he says in a clipped no-nonsense tone. “Clients can still come to this office for service.

One staffer in Havelock is retiring and the other will be relocating to Campbellford. Wally is keeping the Havelock building to store the decades of legal documents, at least until the roadway is reopened.

Wally was born and raised in Havelock, though he attended high school in Campbellford. After law school he worked a few years in Toronto but longed to return home.

“I opened the office in November 1976, so almost 50 years ago.”

In 1978 he acquired a practice in Campbellford and added an office here. For decades, he would start his day with a swim at the YMCA in Peterborough then spend his mornings in Havelock and his afternoons in Campbellford. On Tuesdays he has lunch with other members of the Rotary Club of Campbellford and usually plays an up-tempo version of O Canada on the piano.

Nowadays, he starts his mornings with a swim at the Sunny Life Rec Centre. “I’m there at 6 a.m. every workday,” he says.

It’s ironic that a construction project has led Wally to alter his work life, since last summer a potential construction project forced Wally and his wife Mary out of their home on Second Street in Campbellford where they had lived for many decades.

Northumberland County’s plan for a new bridge will encroach on their property and it said the Browns could accept a sale or face expropriation. After several meetings and the intervention of Mayor and Warden Bob Crate, the Browns received a price they could accept.

Some people would be angry or upset that various governments seem to be interfering with their golden years, but Wally is quite sanguine and determined to make the best of two frustrating situations.

The Browns now live on the river in Hastings. He spends a lot of his free time on a woodlot he owns near Havelock, or at their Belmont Lake cottage. A dedicated walker, he charts a route around the lake each winter as soon as the ice is safe.

I mentioned that I had just come from lunch at the new Golden Cafe, just a few doors north on Front Street.

“I heard it was open but I haven’t been in,” Wally responded. Now that he’s spending all day in Campbellford he’ll have more time to check out the local stores and restaurants.

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