Social skill without a cellphone

Closing night flowers (“One rose is just fine”) to “Frankie and Johnny” co-stars Grant Evans and Lisha Van Nieuwenhove. Photo Michelle Viney.

This week I’ve visited the Uxbridge Music Hall a lot. We were moving staging, lights, props and actors into the facility for performances of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Dec. 13-16. On Monday, as director Conrad Boyce and I opened the front door of the Hall to move a piece of furniture onto the stage, Benny, the custodian, greeted us with a big smile and handshakes.

“Isn’t it great? We don’t have to do this anymore,” and he mimicked avoiding somebody on the sidewalk the way we did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is great,” I agreed. “But we almost have to learn how to deal with people face-to-face all over again.” (more…)

Canada’s veterans would not be amused

Grace MacPherson put her pride of country above all else in the Great War.

Grace MacPherson had all the credentials she needed to become an ambulance driver in the Great War. The first woman in Vancouver to earn a driver’s licence. The first woman to purchase a car in that city. When war broke out in 1914, she even paid her own way to Britain offering her skills as a driver to the Red Cross ambulance corps.

When she gained an audience with Sam Hughes, Canada’s minister of militia and war in 1917, to plead her case, however, he turned her down.

“I’ll stop any woman from going to France,” Hughes blustered.

“With your help, or without it,” Miss MacPherson said, “I will serve.” (more…)

Invisible goodness

Veteran John Watson shares a lighter moment before my book talk in Swift Current, July 19, 2023.

I was told he was coming. John Watson arrived a few minutes before I began a presentation about a major Second World War story, last Wednesday night in Swift Current, Sask. Watson is a tall man. He wore a red jacket, a scarf, and had a twinkle in his eye as we shook hands.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Watson,” I said. “I understand you’re a veteran, that you served overseas in the last war with the Regina Rifles.”

“Yes, I did,” he said. “But don’t forget the ‘Royal’ part.”

“The Royal Regina Rifles,” I corrected myself, then added, “No doubt ‘Royal’ because of you.”

He laughed and said, “I was just a rifleman.” (more…)

In the face of cultural destruction

Allied troops march past what remained of Ieper’s Cloth Hall after German bombardment during the Great War.

I’d got lost in the main square at Ypres, Belgium. I’d asked for directions from the man at a reception desk inside the town’s massive Cloth Hall. As I thanked him for getting me reoriented, I asked him about the story of Ypres’ recovery and restoration after the Great War in 1918.

“You know that the war levelled the city, yes?” I nodded, and he continued. “It was the forethought of the mayor and aldermen and others that saved our city after World War I.”

“I’d heard that,” I said.

“They gathered all the diagrams of buildings in Ieper (as Belgians call Ypres) and hid them in France,” he said.

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Pilgrimages of loss and remembrance

Robin John prepares notes to remember her uncle’s service in the Great War. Photo Tom John.

We are virtually alone down this back road in northern France. A breeze rustling new spring leaves and chirping birds overhead provide the only sounds here. Nevertheless, because the lawn and flowerbeds look so immaculate, we know gardeners have tended here recently. At a headstone engraved with a maple leaf, our group gathers to listen to fellow traveller Robin John.

“John Alexander Edward Hughes enlisted in the Canadian Forces on May 22, 1917, five days after his 18th birthday,” she said of her uncle.

Which meant that Hughes was just legally eligible to enlist. (more…)

Tempest in a passport

Abandoned target range where 116th Battalion recruits honed their marksmanship for war in 1915.

Last April, about the middle of the month, I took a detour from my regular travels. I turned down a dirt road south of town, got out of my car and wandered into the bush. There, just a few feet into the woods lies a bunker containing the rusted frames of century-old shooting targets.

It was here young men, three generations ago, prepared to become part of Canadian wartime history. And as I imagined those young recruits of the 116th (Ontario County) Battalion, practising on their Ross rifles, I think of the photograph – at our township museum and depicted in our downtown mural – of troops leaving for the Great War in 1916.

Volunteers depart Uxbridge for overseas in 1916.

“God bless our splendid men,” the sign over Brock and Toronto streets reads in the photo and the mural. “Send them safe home again.”

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Truly unsung Canadian heroism

On his own initiative, RCAF pilot Norville Everett Small, quietly made Air Force anti-submarine attacks more effective.

His first job in the RCAF in the Second World War was training young military aircrew for combat. U-boats, the submarines of the German Kriegsmarine (war navy), had descended like wolf packs on merchant shipping off the coast of Nova Scotia since 1940 – sinking upwards of 300,000 tons of freight destined for Britain each month.

So, Canadian bomber pilot Norville Everett (Molly) Small had to teach his green bomber crews not only how to handle their aircraft, but also how to surprise and try to sink U-boats on the Atlantic. He and his Canso (flying boat) crew got their first opportunity on April 28, 1942. They attempted to drop bombs on an unsuspecting U-boat. The bombs exploded, but wide of the target.

“The captain of the aircraft,” Molly Small later reported drily of his attack, “feels though the possibility of a clean kill is not very strong, he is certain that he made their back teeth rattle. He’ll do better next time.” (more…)

Wrong cause using the wrong symbol

Rally at Vimy Memorial in Saskatoon’s Kiwanis Park. CKOM photo.

At first, I wondered why? Why would a TV news reporter in the middle of the country email me to speak about a COVID-19 question? I’m not a medical professional. When I called him back, he said he wondered if I would offer a comment on an event in Saskatoon? I lived there back in the 1970s, but what was it he needed?

“A group of anti-mask, anti-vaccine protestors staged a demonstration last Saturday,” he said.

“That’s disappointing,” I said.

“That’s not why I called,” Nate Dove of Global TV News continued. “A number of people showed up for the demo at the Vimy Memorial, here in Saskatoon. Some claimed that the location was important because it symbolized freedom of expression.”

“Not really,” I said. (more…)

Portrait of a war artist

Artist Dave Sopha about to reveal a unique tribute, August 2013.

Not a large man, he stood about as tall as the art easel he was about to unveil. But by the motion of his hands as he spoke and the animation in his face, we knew we had to listen. He wore a bright red and white shirt (I think I’ve always seen him in the colours of Canada). His commentary spoke of pride. His eyes sparkled telling a veteran’s story.

Then, he pulled away the easel’s covering to reveal his latest portrait honouring Second World War veteran and friend Harry Watts. There was instant applause from the audience, there to honour Harry’s 90th birthday in 2013. Then, portrait artist Dave Sopha and veteran Harry Watts hugged a genuine hug of appreciation and respect.

“Veterans like Harry Watts are larger than life,” Dave said. “We owe them everything.” (more…)

State of Statues

Down a country road, stands a stone marker, remembering Canadians in the Great War.

It stands about three feet tall. It looks like a stone pedestal, but it has no statue on it. It’s not located in an obvious public square or along a busy thoroughfare. It’s a war memorial, but it doesn’t glorify a victory, nor mourn a defeat, even though for Canadians it signifies tremendous loss.

When I’ve taken fellow Canadians there, I’ve always been struck by its simplicity, modesty and basic message. Its only identification is a brass plaque across one side of the pedestal with an inscription:

“Here, 8 May 1915, the ‘Originals’ of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, commanded by their founder Maj. A. Hamilton Gault, DSO, held firm and counted not the cost,” is all it says. (more…)