74.7 F
Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesOn Island Profile: Norm Gledhill

On Island Profile: Norm Gledhill

May 29, 2006 – Now that he's 80 long-time resident Norm Gledhill may have slowed down some and put his vagabond days behind him, but he's still a man on the go. Attend just about any meeting that brings out the community, and Gledhill's there.
"I'm always interested in what goes on," he said.
Gledhill's been a mover and shaker in the island's recycling world, and has worked on projects that resulted in the Enighed Pond Marine Terminal, VITRAN bus service, and the V.I. Water and Power Authority's desalinization plant.
Gledhill said he's always been that way. A teenager born in Liverpool, England, as the world went to war in 1939, Gledhill served with his country's civil defense corps. He was also a Boy Scout, which he said gave him a good start on being interested in the world around him.
Gledhill said he left school at 14 to become an electrical engineering apprentice. However, as World War II continued, he joined the British Army in 1944, where he took engineering training, specializing in bridge building. Gledhill soon switched to the Indian Army, serving with an engineering company in the central part of that country.
After getting out of the military in 1949, he and three friends decided to see the world by hitchhiking.
"We split in Paris and I carried off on my own. Africa was my goal," Gledhill said.
Still hitchhiking through France, Spain and Tangiers, he paused in French Morocco to help an American company build an airport. From there, it was on to Tunisia with another hitchhiker, but Gledhill found conditions very difficult.
"There was no place to stay. We were sleeping outside," he said.
He headed back to England then moved to Canada in 1954. A job turned up with the Canadian National Railway, but after more than a year of that, Gledhill went off to northern Canada to work on a radar line.
He moved on to Vancouver, where he had trouble finding work, when in 1959 some friends asked him to come install electricity at Marina Cay, located just off Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
After about a year of that, Gledhill decided to go down-island, where he hooked up with a group of U.S. Virgin Islands folks who were trying to salvage a schooner located on the harbor floor in Castries, St. Lucia.
"They wanted to make a restaurant out of it," Gledhill said, adding that the boat did become a restaurant located near where the Addelita Cancryn Junior High School is now on St. Thomas.
Gledhill then worked on building the bulkhead at Subbase and other miscellaneous jobs until 1972, when he got a crew together to build a house at Hawksnest Bay on St. John. He's been a St. John resident ever since, building numerous other houses along the way.
"Including my own," he said, laughing as he noted that he's still working on it.
Gledhill continues to work at smaller construction jobs and said he still goes up on the roof, an aspect of the construction industry he really likes because it gives him a chance to employ English building methods not commonly used in the Virgin Islands.
As a concession to his age, he doesn't drive much at night and tries to quit working by 3:30 p.m.
A lifelong bachelor with no children, Gledhill agreed that he'd had an interesting life. But, he said a wife would be helpful at this point in his life.
"I get tired of that darn cooking," he said, laughing.

Back Talk

Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Keeping our community informed is our top priority.
If you have a news tip to share, please call or text us at 340-228-8784.

Support local + independent journalism in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Unlike many news organizations, we haven't put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as accessible as we can. Our independent journalism costs time, money and hard work to keep you informed, but we do it because we believe that it matters. We know that informed communities are empowered ones. If you appreciate our reporting and want to help make our future more secure, please consider donating.