Neil Reid: Born Nov. 16, 1946 in Kingston, N.S.; died April 11, 2024, in Signal Hill, Trinidad and Tobago, of a heart attack; aged 77.
Neil Reid.Courtesy of family
Neil Reid loved … Nova Scotia. He was born into a farming family and spent his youth earning 10 cents per acre planting and weeding neighbouring farms. He decided banking was less work and at 18 went to work for the Bank of Nova Scotia in the nearby town of Middleton, staying with the bank for his entire career. His interest in genealogy would eventually see him spend summers taking his children to churches and graveyards throughout the province, recording 350 years of his family’s presence throughout the Annapolis Valley.
Neil Reid loved … travelling. Early in his career, Neil criss-crossed Canada for the bank in his 1969 Dodge Dart before meeting Carole Als, a bank colleague, at her Toronto branch in 1970. Neil spent his 20s working for the bank in 16 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Fancying himself a debonair man of the world, he asked out the vivacious native Trinidadian on the day they met. Neil was reassigned to Canada two years later. He and Carole married and settled in St. Catharines, Ont., where they had a daughter, June Anne, and son, Nigel.
Neil Reid loved … learning. In his late 40s and once their children were in university and college, Neil and Carole moved to Venezuela where he worked for a Scotiabank affiliate and became fluent in Spanish. They lived in Caracas for nearly five years, returning to Canada after witnessing a military coup. He finished his career working throughout Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean from his new home base in calm, cold Toronto. In his downtime, Neil wore out several e-readers devouring mysteries, thrillers, literature and historical fiction in both English and Spanish. He loved talking to his daughter about Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which he completed in Spanish.
Neil Reid loved … arguing. After moving to Oakville, Ont., in 1987, Neil redirected his energy to organizing and chairing a community group that successfully forced a local polluter to install scrubbers on its chimneys. Graduating from arguing with polluters to arguing with the town, he was the founding president of his neighbourhood residents’ association and served as a school board trustee.
Neil Reid loved … hockey. Neil played twice a week into his 50s until moving to countries too warm to have arenas. He loved the Montreal Canadiens and never missed an opportunity to tease his best friend (and fellow Nova Scotian) Robbin over his love of the Toronto Maple Leafs. One morning, Robbin awoke to find Neil’s Habs jersey flying from the top of Robbin’s TV aerial, which Neil, always a prankster, had climbed in the middle of night. Neil and Robbin spent Saturday nights side by side in their jerseys watching Hockey Night in Canada, Neil always sipping a Labatt’s Blue and Robbin a Molson Canadian.
Neil Reid loved … his family. Winters were spent skating and tobogganing with his children, or snowmobiling with them across his mother’s farm fields during Christmas visits to Nova Scotia. Summers were spent exploring Atlantic Canada in his sister’s RV or camping in Ontario. Neil was a fierce cribbage player who rarely let his daughter win and frequently bankrupted his grandson at Monopoly. He spent a lifetime sharing power tools and projects with his son, evolving from teacher to student as their interests grew from table saws and drills to welding and structures.
Neil Reid loved … Tobago. He and Carole split their retirement between Toronto and rural Tobago, where he built his own home and kept busy on his tractor. With Tobago’s electricity, phone and water services occasionally unpredictable, he enjoyed writing letters of complaint and organizing his neighbourhood to hold the utilities to account. When not on his exercise bike, Neil spent his afternoons relaxing in his hammock or sipping tea under a saman tree with Carole. They’d watch their seven Belgian shepherds and three huskies chase butterflies and cocrico birds.
Neil Reid loved … lists. He would have been proud of this one.
June Anne Reid is Neil’s daughter.
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