Ross King
1942 ~ 2018
Ross King, loving husband & father, faithful friend, civil engineer & property developer, tireless campaigner for causes winnable & unwinnable, tilter at windmills and unrepentant iconoclast, died on Salt Spring Island on Sunday May 20th 2018 aged 75.
Ross leaves his wife Barbara, her family, his daughter Clara of Calgary, his son Jeremy his wife and 3 grandchildren of Boston.
Ross was born in England in the war years & grew up in the countryside of Lincolnshire and the Cotswolds. Trained as a civil engineer he emigrated to Calgary with his wife Madeleine in 1981. He later became a property developer in Calgary but his heart lay on the West Coast. In retirement he first moved to Wise Island, then in 2007 with his wife Barbara to the Beddis area of Salt Spring.
Retired but always busy, Ross took up many causes, local, national & global and fought hard for them, unflinchingly challenging what he saw as hypocrisy, selfishness or nimbyism. He was a relentless correspondent with the Driftwood and The National Post, urging readers to revisit their preconceptions with wit and vigour – & always in flawless English. Among his many battles, he cared deeply for and became involved with a small charity helping Cambodian children afford education, for which among other things he organized community bottle drives. That charity’s valuable work continues through the Homestay Volunteer Teachers Association of Cambodia. HVTA.org. Recently he was a passionate and vigorous advocate for affordable housing on Salt Spring enraged by impediments to its progress.
Always the rock to those close to him, Ross became depressed due to the effects of accident and illness, about which, characteristically, he was disarmingly frank & transparent. Tragically, he ended his life, to the heartbreak of those who loved him and the great sadness of many. Salt Spring is a poorer place without his vim & vigour, his larger than life presence, personality & brilliant wit, his compassion and his kindness.
In lieu of flowers, the family ask that donations kindly be made to the Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of B.C.