Book Captures May Gutteridge, the Fierce Anglican with the Green Beret
By Douglas Todd 25 Jan 2011
Filed under: Douglas Todd, Anglicans, May Gutteridge, Jack Webster
The impressive story of the tough British woman who was among the first to
go the extra mile for the poor of the Downtown Eastside has been published.
From Lost to Found is a biographical labour of love by a man who greatly
admired the woman who voluntarily ran Vancouver’s St. James Social Services
Society for more than 30 years, beginning in the 1960s.
Douglas Welbanks realized how much he missed May Gutteridge after she died
on Feb. 26, 2002, the same day as another feisty Vancouver legend, Harry
Rankin, who matched Gutteridge in his care for the poor but sometimes
clashed with her over methods.
To pay tribute to the woman who did so much for the needy, Welbanks talked
to those who knew her and put together a book that in part recreates her
life. The project includes a testimonial website, which can be found here.
Gutteridge received countless awards for her work at St. James Social
Services — which had a budget of $3 million, but she worked for no pay –
and became a fixture on the talk show of Jack Webster, another former
resident of Britain, who had seen the devastations of poverty in his native
Glasgow.
Curiously enough, one of the reasons Welbanks said he wrote the biography of
Gutteridge was his shock at discovering how little has been written about
her, despite her contributions to B.C.
A couple of years after Gutteridge died, Welbanks began researching her life
and the only thing he really found about her was my obituary.
“I was surprised to find so little information available,” Welbanks writes
in the preface to From Lost to Found.
“The best public acknowledgment of her work came from The Vancouver Sun, in
a one-page obituary by Douglas Todd that seemed too little, too late.”
From Lost to Found is Welbanks’ attempt to make things right in regards to
Gutteridge’s legacy
Click here to see my original obituary, as well as my earlier profile of May
Gutteridge
from Book captures May Gutteridge, the fierce Anglican with the green beret
written by Douglas Todd