Tillman Alfred Briggs, 1930 - 2009

It is impossible to tell the story of Tillman Alfred Briggs without first telling the story Maxine Lois Stokes, and the profound effect this amazing woman had on his life.
Everything Tillman did, everything he accomplished would have been impossible without her love and support.
He told me so himself in the final months of his life.
The lessons of teamwork work he so ardently preached, on the pitch and off, he learned in the Stokes' families small house in Union Bay.
Life was not easy for the Stokes upon arriving in British Columbia.
In search of a climate more suitable to Maxine's mother's tuberculosis, Maxine's father, a locomotive engineer with a large coal company was able to wrangle a transfer from Alberta to Vancouver Island.
However, the home they had been promised was little more than a shack, half reclaimed by the forest in which it lay. Originally built for Asian labourers, Tillman had to duck to enter the home when he came to pick up Maxine for their dates. The living room, if you could call it that, contained but a couch, which had to be moved to open the front door.
As Maxine's mother's tuberculosis worsened, Maxine became the glue that held the Stokes together.
She tended to the home. She cooked, she cleaned. Every morning, she would send her father on his way to work for readying little John for school.
Only after all the chores had been done would she prepare for her day, hitch-hiking all the way to her high school in Courtneay.
While the other girls her age were off playing, Maxine was busy being a mother instead of a child.
Yet she never complained, she never felt sorry for herself, and she never begrudged her family for the position she was in.
And this was not lost on Tillman.
Although theirs was not an easy life, there was love in that little Stokes house.
There was love in the sacrifices they made for each other. There was joy in the music they played together. And there was a strength of character that held them together in the face of adversity.
Tillman felthis family was aloof and distant by comparison. Despite their financial success, they were missing something money could never buy.
And in that little house Tillman saw a life with far more value.
And in Maxine he saw a woman with boundless strength and a seemingly endless capacity for love.
Together they created a loving family, and it was their greatest success.
The accolades Tillman received throughout his career were Maxine's as well, and he knew this.
For in rugby, as in life, great things are accomplished by working together.