With title comes responsibility

Gen. Eisenhower encourages U.S. airborne members on eve of D-Day, June 5, 1944.

Conditions gave him little cause for optimism. A large low-pressure weather cell had socked-in England and occupied France. Low clouds and high winds portended the worst circumstances for a crossing of the English Channel. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces commander chain-smoked his Camel cigarettes and shared stiff drinks with other SHAEF members at the back of the Red Lion public house in Southwick, England, waiting for better news.

It came on June 5, 1944. The rain let up. Winds abated. The Channel calmed. And Gen. Dwight Eisenhower reclaimed the element of surprise and unleashed “Operation Overlord” against Nazi-occupied Europe on June 6, 1944.

“You are about to embark upon a great crusade,” he wrote to Allied troops on the eve of D-Day. “The eyes of the world are upon you…” (more…)

Beyond the stitches

Romeo Daley, a Korean War vet, and I met during a talk in Fort Erie, Ont.

He entered the hall a few minutes before the historical society began its monthly meeting. With a service dog at his side, he made his way to the last row of chairs and quietly sat down. His chocolate Lab settled beside him, and the meeting began. The chair of the society welcomed everybody, in particular the first-time attendees.

“Welcome to all our regular members,” she said, “and to those here for the first time too.”

I could see that being centred out that way made the man in the back row a bit uncomfortable. But friendly smiles were exchanged between the society chair and the new faces and the atmosphere became relaxed. (more…)

Squeezing Grapes out

Don Cherry has offered his opinion on everything during editions of “Coach’s Corner.” (cbc.ca)

This past Tuesday – the day after Remembrance Day – I rose to speak at a Probus club gathering in Bradford. I was still wearing a poppy on my jacket lapel. As I was about to speak, when someone asked if it was still OK to wear a poppy on Nov. 12. I nodded, suggesting that it’s still Remembrance Week and I was offering stories and reflections on the experiences of veterans, so why not still wear my poppy?

“Besides,” I added, “this is my ‘You People’ poppy.”

That got a few moans and a couple of laughs from the audience.

“No laughing matter,” I added quickly. “You see, I’m the son of immigrants to this country. And I’ve worn poppies proudly since I was a teenager in high school.” (more…)

More than a century

Mosquito pilot Russ Bannock (left) and his navigator Robert Bruce, c. 1944.

He was born the same year as the original Felix the Cat cartoon and the inventor of the Kalashnikov rifle. He survived the Spanish flu epidemic the year of his birth and, though he wouldn’t remember it, was a contemporary of the Treaty of Versailles that officially ended the Great War. His lifetime spanned the administrations of 22 Canadian prime ministers and four British monarchs. And tomorrow, Nov. 1, my friend and occasional visitor to our town, Russ Bannock, turns 100.

“The family’s gathering for birthday party – just the immediate family,” Russ told me this week. “They’ll fill a room at the Granite Club.” (more…)

The turns of war

Roger Parliament swears oath of allegiance at RCAF recruiting office, in front of his father, Garnott Parliament

When he turned 18, in 1941, Roger Parliament travelled to a recruiting office in downtown Toronto to join up for wartime service. He’d prepared all his enlistment papers and anticipated vision and hearing tests.

Then, LAC Parliament officially signed up.

But perhaps the most critical part of his decision to enlist in the armed services occurred when he came before the second-in-command at the recruiting office on Bay Street.

“I’ve decided to join the Air Force,” he told the pilot officer he faced.

Across the table from him was Pilot Officer Garnott Parliament, Roger’s father. (more…)

Arnold Hodgkins’ art comes home

Arnold Hodgkins’ portrait of war trauma. “Victim ’43”

Some things are just meant to happen. About five years ago, a woman in Port Perry made a decision about the artwork that had accumulated around her home for half a century. A large private collection of sketches, water colours and other paintings created by Carol Hodgkins-Smith’s father, Arnold Hodgkins, suddenly went public. The calendar was approaching Nov. 11, and Carol decided her father’s war art deserved a viewing right then and there in her home.

“I think it’s finally time to share my dad’s artwork with the rest of the world,” she told me. She even decided that she would allow some of the artwork to be sold as individual items. (more…)

What makes a kid’s summer?

My sister Kate  and I got an introduction to cottage life at the Globe and Mail cottages on Lake Erie in the mid-1950s.

I might have dismissed the email, but the subject line caught my attention. “A Quick Past Memory,” it said. A fellow named Bryan Graham contacted me this past week to remind me that his dad and mine had known each other on the job 60 years ago. He explained that he’d tripped over my name in a military newsletter and decided to get in touch to tell me about our families’ connection.

“My father, Al Graham, was a district manager in Waterloo for the Globe and Mail in the mid-1950s,” Bryan explained.

Of course, since my father Alex had worked as a reporter and then columnist for the Globe back then, I took a bit more time reading his note.

“The Globe and Mail owned a property on the shores of Lake Erie with 12 wooden, very basic cottages and a small recreation building,” Bryan continued. “I’m confident our families spent a summer or two there together in the ’50s.” (more…)

Don’t know what we’ve got, ’til it’s gone

Uxbridge Post Office, a symbol of what community can lose without a fight.

I’d overlooked it for years. I think it was back 2006 when a number of us organized a weekend to celebrate the township’s anniversary. We were artists, shop owners, civic workers and town boosters volunteering our time. Leading up to the event, we’d looked for a place to meet. That’s when financial specialist Brian Evans offered us a room at his Toronto Street office. I stepped into his board room for that first meeting and noticed a collage of photographs of a turn-of-the-century building framed on the wall. I’d never seen that Edwardian-era building before.

“What and where was that?” I asked.

“Don’t you know?” someone responded. “That was our original post office.” And when I asked where, they all said right where the new post office is today. “They knocked down the old one and threw up that new one.” (more…)

A tour to Remember

Caitlin Wager and her father Rob shared a moment on Dieppe Beach during their recent Remembrance Tour.

A few days ago, Grade 11 student Caitlin Wager and several of her Uxbridge Secondary School classmates stopped on a bridge in the Netherlands. The overpass was situated amid newly blooming tulips at a popular springtime tourist spot, called Keukenhof. Not surprisingly, the teenagers decided to take some selfies. Suddenly, a Dutch woman approached the Uxbridge girls, and Caitlin thought the woman was going to ask her take a photo for her.

“No,” the Dutch woman said. “I want to take a picture of you.”

“Pardon?” Caitlin asked, not quite understanding.

“All of you,” the woman repeated. “I want a picture of all of you.”

And when the girls asked why, she said, “Because you’re Canadians.” (more…)

Give ’em some wind

Though he rarely does, Ryan Robertson spoke at a cemetery memorial in France last Sunday.

The countryside outside Courcelette, in France, is not particularly remarkable. The land rolls innocuously through farmyards, bluffs of trees and tiny rural villages where, this time of year, people are tilling the soil for planting.

Amid the oats, barley and rape seed that farmers are cultivating in this part of France, a family arrived from Canada, this past week. Near Courcelette, that family – equally unassumingly – came to a small cemetery last Sunday afternoon. One of its youngest members, Ryan Robertson, stood in the cemetery and did something unusual. He spoke in front of his family and some of his Uxbridge classmates about a cousin who died here in France 103 years ago.

“Oliver Barton arrived in the country in the summer of 1916,” said Ryan, reading from notes he’d prepared specially for the occasion. “Assigned to the 13th Battalion, on Oct. 8 (1916), Private Barton left his trench. But his battalion was practically wiped out by German machine-gun fire.” (more…)