“Roaring Lion” portrait of Winston Churchill by Yousef Karsh.
The famous picture was taken by a photographer in December 1941. It was taken by a thief exactly 80 years later. It was recovered last week when Ottawa police announced they had located the original print in Genoa, Italy.
A contemporary art collector had apparently purchased it, not realizing it had been stolen. He has now begun the process of returning the famous “Roaring Lion” photo of Winston Churchill to its rightful home at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa.
“I didn’t know about the theft in Canada,” art collector Nicola Cassinelli told the media this week.
The look Ken Welsh often brought to his December readings of A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Photo – Charlotte Hale.
I can think of all kinds of memorable spoken quotations. Winston Churchill’s wartime proclamation, “We will fight them on the beaches…” Oprah Winfrey’s motto, “Think like a queen.” Danny Gallivan’s “Savardian Spin-o-rama” on Hockey Night in Canada. Not only are the words etched in my memory, so are their voices. But there’s another memorable voice I’ve always heard around Christmastime offering these memorable words:
“I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was 12, or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was six.” Of course, those are words of Dylan Thomas, from the opening of A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
But I have only ever heard one voice associated with those lines, that of Kenneth Welsh. (more…)
When I was in Grade 3, back in the mid-1950s, an older and belligerent kid chose me as his victim in the schoolyard one day. He picked on me because I wore glasses. He knew I had just arrived in the neighbourhood, so he teased me for being the new boy. He taunted me because he knew I didn’t have any friends to turn to. He made fun of my name.
“Hey, Teddy Bear,” he kept calling from across the yard.
Bad memories of that schoolyard experience returned to me last week when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his columns of tanks, trucks and soldiers charging across his western frontier into Ukraine. (more…)
F/L William Nelson, a Canadian of Jewish faith, who served with distinction in the Battle of Britain. Photo – Canadian Jewish Heritage Network.
“We are all in this together.”
It’s a phrase often repeated in times of crisis, a common call to arms or for popular solidarity, that leaders have adapted in so many different ways. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s told Americans (at his inauguration in 1933) to pull together since, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
In October 1970, after the FLQ kidnapping of a politician and a trade diplomat, Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, encouraging Canadians, “If we stand firm, this current situation will soon pass.” (more…)
The occasion was our 20th wedding anniversary. As a gift to my wife Jayne and me, that spring of 1995, my parents had bestowed airfare to the U.K. We’d barely unpacked in London, when we saw on the news that one of our planned tourist destinations – Winston Churchill’s underground Cabinet War Rooms – was the to be visited by Dame Vera Lynn the next morning.
At a press conference, she’d be launching a fundraiser to assist needy veterans. Jayne and I decided to try to “accidentally” arrive there about the same time. I think we were first in line to tour the site the next morning.
“We understand that Dame Vera will be here,” I shared with the commissionaire at the ticket wicket.
“Oh, really?” the commissionaire kidded. “And who might you be?”
“Just a couple of curious Canadians,” I offered.
“Well, how appropriate. Today, Canadians get in free,” and he directed us – stunned but delighted – directly in. (more…)
Winston Churchill greets public with signature V-for-Victory signduring Second World War.
It’s come back to me often the past few weeks. It’s the last scene from the movie Darkest Hour. Winston Churchill, just a few weeks into his wartime administration in May 1940, watches across the English Channel as Belgium falls to the Nazis. Then, France falls. Desperately, he entreats thousands of private boat owners in England to retrieve retreating British Army troops – 300,000 of them – from the beaches of Dunkirk. And he contemplates Hitler’s invasion of Britain, delivering in the House of Commons one of many momentous wartime speeches:
“We shall fight on the beaches…” he proclaims. “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.” (more…)
Geraldine Hibbs illustrates how deep into the Bell Island iron ore mine our tour will go.
We met a hundred feet underground. The walls around us consisted of a seam of iron ore. It was about six degrees Celsius in there, but she said the temperature never changed year-round. At one point, when she turned out the lights and lit a single candle, she explained that was all the light miners had during their digging shifts – 10 hours a day, six days a week – year after year.
Then, she made the whole place human. She said her dad had worked there in the 1950s, lost the lower part of his leg in a mining accident, but was able to joke about it.
“He wagered strangers, he could put a foot down in one spot and his other 25 feet away,” she said. “When they bet he couldn’t, he took off his prosthetic foot and tossed it 25 feet away.” (more…)
It just looked like a pile of paper from the outside. And I guess because it was paper, it sort of weighed a lot. But the plastic bag I used to haul all that paper to the curb had probably previously hauled groceries from a local store so it could take the weight. And if you looked inside that bag, you’d have seen a number of famous people – John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and the Apollo 11 astronauts – all captured on the front pages of old newspapers with headlines such as:
“Kennedy Assassinated,” lamented the Globe and Mail in 1963.
“Churchill Mourned,” announced the Toronto Star in 1965.
“Man Steps On The Moon,” read the Toronto Telegram on July 21 1969. And the newsprint of the Tely, some of you will remember, was coloured pink! (more…)
Günter Kiel in full flight telling us about his favourite place – Dresden.
We were meeting for the very first time. I wanted to give my new acquaintance a gift that reflected where I came from and made a friendly first impression. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a souvenir. It was a lapel pin with the Canadian flag on it.
“Here,” I said, “please have a symbol of Canada – our flag pin.”
My acquaintance, one of the guides on our recent tour to Eastern Europe, looked back at me and said, “But I’m German,” meaning, “Why would I wear a pin that doesn’t represent who I am?”
I had to admit that Günter Kieb, our guide in Dresden, Germany, was absolutely correct. Why would a middle-aged German wear the emblem of Canada? Some hours later, however, when I was thanking Mr. Kieb for his service to us that day, I reminded him (and our touring group) that he had seemed perplexed by my Canada flag pin. “Not a problem,” I said. “But how about this?” And I pulled a small flask-shaped bottle from my backpack and gave it to him.
Günter’s eyes widened with delight. “Canadian whisky?” he asked.
“No. Better,” I laughed. “It’s maple syrup!” (more…)
Leslie M. Miller, lieutenant in the Canadian Corps.
The padre stepped up to the lectern this past Sunday morning in Shedden, Ont. The audience at the community centre for the Remembrance service settled into silence. The clergyman unfolded his papers, that I thought would contain a prayer, a piece of scripture or perhaps the words of a hymn. But, no, he looked out at the assembly of cadets, veterans and the public in the audience and introduced his Nov. 11 thoughts this way.
“From simple actions, come astonishing results,” he said. (more…)
