Posts with the Second World War tag

Barris Beat

Celebrity, thy name is Uxbridge

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments

You probably missed it. You can be forgiven because I missed it too. But last Monday the Internet was all a twitter (yes, pun intended) about a birthday event. It’s one that your teeny-bopper kids (or grandkids) probably noticed. It appears that music heart-throb Justin Bieber celebrated his 16th birthday by visiting the Son of a Gun Tattoo and Barbershop in Toronto. There he had a tattoo of a seagull inked onto his left hip.

“That’s a bad area,” the tattoo artist told MTV News. “Justin was nervous, but then he got into it and it was done. It’s very tiny.”

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Barris Beat

Youth, the cost of war

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Dutch liberation vet Ron Charland (left) is joined by air cadet Bo Gibbons during VE Day parade in Apeldoorn, May 9, 2010.
Dutch liberation vet Ron Charland (left) is joined by air cadet Bo Gibbons during VE Day parade in Apeldoorn, May 9, 2010.

As a boy, not surprisingly, he joined the scout movement. He loved to listen to the wireless radio broadcasts that came all the way from the BBC in England. But in every other way Jan Van Hoof was an ordinary Dutch boy during the Second World War. That is, until Sept. 17, 1944. During the next 24 hours, as Allied paratroops descended through the skies over his hometown of Nijmegen, Van Hoof left his youth behind. And it was summed up in what he said to his parents that day.

“The bridge is safe,” he said.

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Barris Beat

Aunts and uncles that are not

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

T&J_RENTABUG-1It happened during my first great adventure as a writer. It was in the spring of 1973. Jayne and I packed up an orange VW bug with all our travel and camping gear and headed west on a 20,000-kilometre odyssey. We were beginning our summer-long journey to gather research and personal accounts for my first book of popular history. Two friends – brothers Hal and Jim Sorrenti – suggested when we arrived in Winnipeg that we drop in on a relative.

“Be sure to stop and see our Auntie Marg,” they said. “She’ll help you out.”

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