Posts with the Distinguished Flying Cross tag

Barris Beat

The Order of things

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments
Charley Fox and I enjoying each other’s company at a regimental dinner in 2006.

The man told me my future. It happened back in the 1980s. But back then, Charley Fox, my oldest and dearest veteran friend, looked me straight in the eye and told me what I ought to be doing with the rest of my life.

“It’s your job to tell our stories,” he said. And each time we’d meet – usually every month or so at the Husky truck stop on Hwy 401 just east of London, Ont. – Charley would remind me with a “to-do list,” exactly how I was to research famous battles, conduct first-hand interviews and then write and publish the eye-witness stories of Canadian veterans’ experiences. Forty years and a dozen published books later, I realize Charley was right. History storytelling has become the centre of my life. (more…)

Barris Beat

A photo in-hand is worth…

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Photo of Dr. Carl Puterbough, taken in early 1990s by Fred Phipps, with wartime image of Puterbough as pilot trainee in background.

A friend and I got talking about our grandchildren the other day. Writer Peter Jennings and I were kind of comparing notes about our granddaughters. It turned out both granddaughters celebrate birthdays this fall, and Peter shared a magical discovery.

“You know what I got her for her birthday?” he said. “An Instax Mini 9 camera.”

I admitted to PJ that I had no idea what he was talking about.

“It’s an instant print camera,” he explained. “It takes a picture and spits it out – developed – within a minute.”

“You mean like those old Polaroid Land cameras.”

“Yup! And she loves it.” (more…)

Barris Beat

More than a century

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Rancher prisoner teacher and champ

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Noreen and Art Hawtin pose with the sign identifying their ranch est. 1936
Noreen and Art Hawtin pose with the sign identifying their ranch est. 1936

One of rancher Art Hawtin’s closest friends, another rancher in Beaverton, Ont., told me that Art had two personalities. One personality Art exhibited around family and friends, when he was soft-spoken and easy-going. Then, whenever he herded his cattle, he exhibited the firmness and purpose required. When he moved cattle into pens or onto trucks, his friend said, Art seemed to be able to speak to the animals with his eyes and his body posture.

“It was as if the cattle figured that it was their job to get into the chutes or onto the truck,” Bob Robertson told me this week. “Art made them do whatever he wanted.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Pre-Christmas dedication

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Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pins wings on the uniform of an early graduate of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during a symbolic ceremony on Parliament Hill. King made sure the plan became an entirely made-in-Canada phenomenon.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pins wings on the uniform of an early graduate of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during a symbolic ceremony on Parliament Hill. King made sure the plan became an entirely made-in-Canada phenomenon.

December 17 is an anniversary. It’s not the kind of anniversary Canadians notice much anymore. Indeed, the number of those who acknowledge it, dwindles each year. And yet, it’s the day back in 1939 that some historians suggest marked this country’s true declaration of independence. Then Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King signed an international agreement that day.

“I suppose no more significant agreement has ever been signed by the Government of Canada,” King wrote in his diary that evening. It also happened to be his 65th birthday, so it was doubly auspicious, he thought.

(more…)