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It’s a pretty cool thing and I really like doing it. And to the see the little kids’ eyes light up when I tell them Santa Claus is coming to visit is really magical. BILL MURPHY-DYSON
❞ That album was followed up a year later by another featuring the Christchurch Cathedral Choir with the young Bill as soloist. Later he sang with the Victoria Operatic Society, in musicals with Bastion Theatre and with Jerry Gosley’s Smile Show — a British Music Hall show. He also spent 25 years playing in the The Hudson’s Bay’s Breakfast with Santa entourage — a role that has morphed into his 12 Days of Christmas performance at the Oak Bay Light Up. In the early 1970s, when a young Bill Dyson played Prince Charming in Bastion Theatre’s touring company, he met Maureen Murphy in the role of Cinderella. They’ve been together for 43 years. (In wooing her, he says, he turned vegetarian for two years, but did not, in fact, try to fit her with a glass slipper.) Today, he dabbles in a “garage band,” but try as I might to trick him into revealing more about this “group of old guys,” it turns out journalistic ploys don’t work on lawyers.
But here’s a little more information about the man behind the microphone at Oak Bay’s Christmas Light Up.
You’ve been the MC of Christmas Light-Up in Oak Bay ever since it started. What can you tell us about it? Matt McNeil came up with the idea in 2001 as his response to 9/11. He thought we needed something to help “pick ourselves up and brush ourselves off.” So he asked me to emcee it and he even gave me a red scarf. The red scarf and I have shown up every year since. It’s so great to perform with Daniel Lapp and his Joy of Life Choir. … It’s a pretty cool thing and I really like doing it. And to the see the little kids’ eyes light up when I tell them Santa Claus is coming to visit is really magical.
What other Oak Bay entities have you been involved in? When I first moved to Oak Bay, I became involved in Oak Bay Little League at Fireman’s Park. My two boys “gradu-
ated” from that program. They are now 36 and 31 years old. David Naysmith had kids there too, and he and I got the pavilion built. I was also part of the Oak Bay Centennial Committee, and a founding member and first president of the Centaurs Soccer Club. At the time, it was an over-35 men’s team. We’ve recently been re-classified as an over-48 team.
What inspired you to take the helm of the Oak Bay Tea Party? The second chair of the Oak Bay Tea party after Fed Usher was Marcel Barsalou, who was a client of my law firm, Cox Taylor. One day I said to Marcel that I’d be interested in volunteering if he needed any help. One week later, he told me I was in charge of the parade! Now that was a lot of work! After that, I worked with Peter Insley with the entertainment on the stage. Eventually, Marcel decided to retire and recommended that I become chair; the volunteers have elected me every year since. WINTER 2014/2015
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