In memory of Beaumont-Hamel, July 1, 1916

I've written a few pieces about our visits to the great battle-grounds of the First World War in France and Belgium: here, here, here. I've covered Vimy Ridge, other areas of the Somme, Ypres.

One of the most moving stops on our tour was at Beaumont-Hamel. It was there, on July 1, 1916, that more than 800 members of the First Newfoundland Regiment — later the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — were sent over-the-top straight into a storm of German machine guns. Only 68 were able to answer roll call the next morning. It was one of the deadliest days in the history of modern warfare.

The day we visited the battle site, it had been raining off and on and the grass and path-ways were wet. Our tour guide is a historian and author and he makes a point of knowing where the people on his tour are from. He tailors his tour accordingly. Because we're Atlantic Canadians, he gave us a detailed tour of Beaumont-Hamel and spent a lot of time explaining the battle and the advantages that the Germans had arranged for themselves.

The land where the battle took place was bought by the Government of Newfoundland in 1921. It's had some restoration work done and it's now maintained by the Veterans' Affairs Department of the Government of Canada.

It wasn't an easy walk, through the wet ground, up and down trench slopes, into and out of shell holes — but it wasn't bad enough to even come close to what it must have been like then. It's hard to picture and it's hard to think about.

At the end of every war, it becomes a challenge to be able to justify it and explain why people gave their lives. It rarely changes much from some variation on, "They gave their lives to preserve our freedom/our values/our way of life." The further we get from the First World War, the easier it is for the historians to acknowledge that it was an ignoble war and there was nothing much to be gained by it.

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was more than 38 million: there were over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. The total number of deaths includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians.

Beaumont-Hamel affected much of the population in Newfoundland and it is still felt as a raw wound. The dead will be memorialized at the battle-site in France and also back home in Newfoundland and in Ottawa.

Brian McKenna's documentary, Newfoundland at Armageddon, aired on CBC-TV on the eve of the 100th anniversary. It's definitely worth seeing and in this day and age, it will be possible to find it sometime later and watch it. I recommend it.

July 1, as always, is a sad day for Newfoundland. The early part of the day is always spent remembering Beaumont-Hamel and mourning the dead. Later in the day, for those who are so inclined, there's Canada Day to be celebrated.

It's very much a day of mixed feelings, all round.

Help wanted: nice legs an asset but no guarantee

I saw the job advertised in the daily newspaper. It was in a field that I knew well, it required skills that I had a-plenty, it was part-time to be done out of my home. (It was called part-time which means it would be part-time pay but would quite likely demand full-time hours. Apart from that, it was perfect.) The person who got the position would report to a board of directors.

I needed that job really badly. I was on unemployment insurance which was going to run out. It was the middle of a recession and there were few jobs available.

I can't remember the building where the interview was held although I remember that when I went in, there was a pleasant waiting area, with couches and easy chairs and bookcases. I was the only one there.

Within a few minutes, another applicant arrived. He was a young man, pleasant-looking, nicely dressed. We chatted a bit and made a little joke about both being there for the same job. He had recently moved to town. This was his first job interview. His wife — they hadn't been married long — had just found out she was pregnant.

I was called in first. A few chairs had been set up around a low table. There were two women sitting waiting and they stood and invited me to join them. I sat down. The third interviewer — a man — was getting a cup of coffee over at a side table. When he came over to the circle of chairs, he made a point of stopping, looking directly at my legs, and choosing a chair across from me.

"I'm going to sit right here," he announced, "where I get the best view."

I was wearing a knee-length skirt and basic pumps. I was not dressed provocatively, in case you're wondering.

I was good at job interviews and this was no exception. I was well-prepared and although the man made me uncomfortable, the two women were really nice and I rose above him. They all thanked me warmly when I left and I felt good. I told the young man in the waiting area that I hoped everything went well with the pregnancy and I wished him all the best.

A few days later, I got a note in the mail thanking me for taking the time to meet with them and telling me that the job had been offered to another applicant. They wished me well.

I was terribly disappointed and I was even a little surprised. I couldn't believe that young man had done a better interview than I had.

The interview was in the early fall and I was back on the job-hunting trail.

In early December, I got a Christmas card in the mail. I didn't recognize the name but it included a note and the sender identified herself in the first sentence as one of the interviewers for the job a few months earlier. She said she felt very bad about what had happened and as she was no longer associated with the organization, she wanted to tell me what had happened. She said that all three of the interviewers believed that I should have been offered the job: I was better qualified, more knowledgeable, more articulate and much more familiar with the city and the people the organization dealt with. She said the young man was very nice but he was most definitely second to me in appropriateness for the position.

She said they had given him the job because they felt he needed it more than I did, what with being new in town and having a baby on the way.

She hoped that things were going well for me and that I'd found a job. She wished me a Merry Christmas.

It wasn't the first time I'd faced discrimination in the workplace and it wouldn't be the last. It wasn't the first time — nor the last — that I faced sexual harassment (as in the job interview) ranging from mildly annoying to menacing. It's something women who go to work deal with every day. The incident I've just described took place in the 1980s, not the 1950s. Variations on it could happen today although things have changed enough that most men know it's wrong and women don't take that kind of behaviour for granted.

Second-wave feminism was still in its youth in the early '80s and women had not reached the point where much could be done in a case like this. Not that I would have anyway. I've never been good at confrontation.

When I watched the incomparable television show Mad Men, my initial reaction was like so many others: "Why would I watch this? I was there and I lived these experiences. I don't have to put myself through this."

But Mad Men had the clear advantage of knowing how things were going to turn out. It was not like looking in the mirror and that's why it was groundbreaking. It didn't just depict an era; it drew the lines and connected the dots from there and then to here and now.

I'll come back and tell you more specifically some of the things I liked about Mad Men.

Leaving our lives behind while the chaos continues

We had left the old house in Black River Bridge long before it was torched and burned to the ground. We had moved to town — Chatham — as our fates unfolded and eventually, moved away from the Miramichi. Life had become chaotic and if we ever thought of going back to clear the house out, I have no memory of that.

I'm pretty sure it had been thoroughly vandalized and stripped of anything interesting long before it burned so perhaps on some level, we were simply avoiding the pain of returning.

The house was anything but secure all the time we lived there. If anyone had been inclined, they could have walked in and taken whatever they fancied but as long as we were there, people respected the laws around private property and everything remained intact.

It was many years later that I began to remember some of the things that had been left behind and were now gone forever.

We had a radio very much like this one which had come from my parents' home. (I borrowed this photo from the Internet.) It's the radio I described here when I reminisced about many of the classic radio shows of my childhood and youth. I regret the loss of the radio although, to be honest, how can you drag something like that around with you through decades of moving? And if I had it today, what would I be doing with it except wondering what was going to become of it when we want to empty our house and downsize?

It's probably worth a lot of money to someone today though so I guess I could sell it.

One thing that I think of every now and then is a lovely little Japanese cruet set. I don't have a photo of it but it was exactly like this, slightly different colours:

It was for oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, and mustard. You may remember how much I like mustard so imagine how happy I was to have a little pot with a tiny china spoon whose only function was to hold the mustard.

I lost several things that were of sentimental value from my nursing days. All my textbooks were there in the house.

(generic photo)

I can't imagine that I'd ever use them again and I don't know what I would have done with them but they meant a lot to me. They were, for textbooks, quite gorgeous books with hard covers, coloured photos, glossy pages. Maybe I could have sold them too!

The other mementos from the Montreal General Hospital that I lost were my pins:

bar pin

graduation pin

back pin

The pins were in a little jewelry box along with my name-tag pin. I would have had them with me as they would have been easy to carry around as I moved from place to place but years later, I was the victim of an armed robbery in my home and all my jewelry — including Mum's engagement and wedding rings and other pieces that had great sentimental value — disappeared. My nursing pins would certainly have met the same fate.

(I wrote about the life-changing experience of that robbery in a five-part series: Part one; Part two; Part three; Part four; Part five.)

Another small thing that I think of are the little trophies I won for my acting performances at Chatham High School.

I had acted in the drama festival plays in both grade 11 and grade 12. The grade 11 play was directed by a teacher who was only there one or two years. Her name might have been Mrs. Watling although I'm not sure. My co-star was my dear late friend, Walter Brown. The play was Rise and Shine by Elda Cadogan.

Years later, when David Cadogan came to town and hired me to work at the Miramichi Press, it was a connection we didn't know we had. Elda was his Mom and her play was — and remains — the most-produced one-act-play in our country. I played Hephzibah Mercy Jones. It's a sweet play and one of my favourite parts was when Walter sang to me, If You Were the Only Girl in the World. It was quite romantic.

The following year, the play was much different. It was a tragedy — dramatic and shocking. Still Stands the House was written by Canadian Gwen Pharis Ringwood and it was directed by Mrs. Ernestine MacKnight.

This photo is from my high school yearbook. I'm standing, in the centre. Joan Crawford is seated on the left, Richard Brieze on the right. I wanted Joan's part — it seemed a much meatier role to me — but Mrs. MacKnight rightly told me that I wasn't right for the part. Hester was tall and dark and angular, not my physical type at all. Joan was wonderful in the part and the adjudicator liked both of us but I guess it was my year.

People are often asked, what would you grab and take with you if you had to evacuate your house suddenly in the event of a fire or a flood or some other catastrophe? I look around me today and I have no idea. It's a good thing I have no idea because there's nothing in my house that's easily grabbed and carried off. It's a very different time, isn't it? We live so differently. Most people don't have to worry about photos and letters — as long as you have your passwords, you'll find them.

Losing those things in the fire didn't make a difference to my life. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about them. I have enjoyed remembering them today and telling you about them. Maybe that's the best we can expect from all the little possessions of our lives.

Playing to the stereotypes: comedy that pushes to the edge

We made it to three productions of Eastern Front Theatres Stages Festival. The first two were Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel and She said/He said.

The third was Yours Truly, Cape Breton starring Bette MacDonald and Maynard Morrison with Joe Waye Jr. and special guest Jordan Musycsyn.

This show was in the Schooner Room at Casino Nova Scotia — where I've never been! We did go downstairs after the show because we took a wrong turn and I said to Dan, “Stop here so I can look around.” And Dan said, “Here we are, in the belly of the beast.” We were definitely in Slot Machine City. I asked later if there were other forms of gambling – blackjack, baccarat, roulette – and Dan said there may be a little but there’s not much demand. There were a handful of people playing the slots but it wasn't crowded.

Bette MacDonald is a well-known Nova Scotia/Cape Breton actress, comic, singer. Her character, Mary Morrison – "How are ya, dear?" – is as loved as anyone who ever came out of Cape Breton.

Mary, who talks about her husband Gordie and her sister-in-law Tookie, is not Bette's only character but I think of her as Bette's alter-ego.

Comedy is a funny thing. (Ha ha.) It goes without saying that we often use humour to express things that can't be easily expressed otherwise. And I'm – surprisingly enough – one of the people who believes that maybe we take offence at too many things a little too easily.

But I think it's fair to say that by any measurement, if someone other than Bette MacDonald were doing her material, she'd be seen to be, to put it mildly, politically incorrect.

Mary Morrison – and Bette's other characters – make fun of aging and of being old, of being fat, of being ignorant. They – the characters – do all this with the absolute joy of being Cape Bretoners, laughing about being unemployed, about being on welfare, about being in court for one thing or another.

I ask myself a few questions whenever I see her: does the fact that she comes from Cape Breton make her comedy acceptable to Cape Bretoners? Would she be able to get away with it if she were from away? And do the people in her audience identify with her characters or do they just have the vague feeling that they might know someone like that? The audience that we saw the show with was made up of lots of Cape Bretoners – she asked – and they cracked up and roared with laughter at her jokes many of which I suspect they'd heard before.

There are other comics in Atlantic Canada who play to the stereotypes in the same way Bette does: Mary Walsh, Andy Jones, Cathy Jones and other Codco and This Hour Has 22 Minutes veterans have pushed the stereotypes of Newfoundlanders right to the edge; The Trailer Park Boys have often pushed their stereotypes over. They're all capable of making us feel uncomfortable, cringe a bit. Is that an important function of comedy?

Back to Bette's show: Maynard Morrison – her husband and often producer/director – is also a performer and he's really funny too.

They play together very well on stage and it's fun to imagine what it's like at their home! They both sing and they were joined in this show with musical performances by Joe Waye Jr. and Jordan Musycsyn.

Joe Waye Jr.

Jordan Musycsyn

They're both really talented musicians and added a lot to our evening.

Besides being a funny Cape Bretoner, Bette MacDonald is a lovable character in her own right. That may be another reason she can get away with some material that a less lovable person might not manage.

Looking at love and conflict inside our relationships

I wonder if I can make some interesting connection between Father's Day and our trip to the theatre to see She said/He said. Probably not so I won't even try.

The play is our second in the Stages Festival of Eastern Front Theatre. Last week, I told you about Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel. They are two very different experiences.

She said/He said is the creation of Anne-Marie Woods, an award winning multi-disciplinary artist — an arts educator, producer, director and creative consultant. With roots in London, England and Trinidad, her life and career have had no regional boundaries. I think of her as a poet and a spoken word performer but I also remember her beautiful singing voice from when she was part of the a cappella group, Four the Moment.

SHE is a Black woman asking real questions about life. HE is a Black man searching for meaning and understanding. Together, they fight to make their relationship last in a world where “the rules” are always changing.

A fusion of personal experiences and fiction… playwright Anne-Marie Woods conveys in this new work the vulnerability felt in romantic relationships and the importance of communication.

Through compelling monologues, poetry and song, the female/male rapport is laid bare in this tragicomic battle of wits. She Said/He Said is a fresh and nuanced look at relationships through a script that cleverly meanders through the present and past experiences of its two main characters. Where time is subjective, the fourth wall is intermittently torn down… and location though specific is universal. Woods has taken a non-conventional approach to telling a modern day love story.

HE is played by Neville Coke.

Neville is a Toronto born actor and singer of Jamaican and Barbados heritage.

The play is a mixture of dialogue and individual reflection as each of the characters play out the conflicts they feel within the relationship. Some of the emotion they express is common to many relationships; some are related to family and culture that are specific to this couple. A lot about love is universal and it's very easy to get drawn into the lives of others with all their similarities and differences. It's just the kind of thing I enjoy.

Because we were going out, I had announced earlier in the day that we wouldn't have a fancy dinner for Father's Day. But after thinking it over, I changed my mind. We're Spaniards at heart and usually eat dinner around 9:00 p.m. but I thought it would be nice to eat early — a late lunch, let's say — around 4:00 p.m. And because it was a nice day, we had our first meal of the season on the deck.

Usually if we have steak, we have a rather modest piece of meat which we slice diagonally, put on a platter, and share. But every now and then, Dan likes a nice steak all his own. If not on Father's Day, when?

William may look relaxed but he's always on guard when he's outside, on the watch for flying creatures. He doesn't like bees. Or wasps. Or anything that could be a bee or a wasp.

It wasn't really a fancy dinner/lunch but I did make some molten brownies. I even whipped the cream to put on top.

Those brownies are so easy, I can't really take much credit.

A father's life: seeing where he came from and who he was

William Johnston — Willy in his youth, Bill when he got older — was my father. He was born on a farm in Barney's River, Nova Scotia, the youngest child and he helped the family on the farm and went to school until he was a young teen. Then he was off to work in the coal mines, across northern Nova Scotia and into Cape Breton.

Years later, when we used to go on road trips, he would always point to the signs of the towns where he'd lived over the years that he worked in the mines: River Hebert, Debert, Joggins (which he always called The Joggins), Springhill, Stellarton, Thorburn, Merigomish.

I think in those days, young men stayed in boarding houses. In some cases, he was fortunate enough to have relatives — close or distant — whom he could board with. I remember him pointing out a big house in Thorburn where a cousin lived and where he had stayed for awhile.

In those coal-mining days, he played baseball in a senior league in Nova Scotia. I believe he was very good. They called him Wee Willy — he was a short-stop. He was small but he was smart and fast. He was handsome too, as you can see in this team picture. He and his brother Fred are second and third from the right in the front row.

Dad used to speak of the African Nova Scotians (no, that isn't what he called them) on his ball teams. After all those years, he remained shocked and somewhat ashamed that his black team-mates could not go into the restaurants with the white team members. They had to go around back to the kitchen door where they would be handed a sandwich. Dad said he often went round with them — he said he'd just as soon have a sandwich anyway but I'd like to think he went round back to offer support and show solidarity.

I've often wondered if the reason there are no black team members in this photo is simply because of the segregated lives they led.

The coal mines in Nova Scotia are among the deepest mines in the world, some of them two to three miles deep. Dad hated coal mining. I don't know that any miners really liked it although, as with anything one does long enough, some people got to feel they belonged there. Dad never did. He once said he was afraid every single time he went down a mine shaft.

It must have been an easy decision for him then when his older brother, J.J. Johnston — my Uncle Jack — who held a management position at the Avon Coal Co. at Grand Lake, New Brunswick, offered him a job. The coal was not deep in New Brunswick and they did strip mining — a great eyesore but for Dad, a dream come true. Coal mining and you didn't have to go underground!

This isn't Grand Lake but it looked something like this. I actually remember the strip mines and the drag-lines.

Dad met my mother after he moved to New Brunswick. Mum's sister lived in Newcastle Creek on Grand Lake and Mum was a single girl, teaching school. I don't know too much about their courtship although I know she used to go to all his ballgames — yes, he still played ball — and they used to go fishing together. We have a photo of them, in their fishing gear, looking very flirtatious.

This was the depression-era and at some point during these years, Dad went to Pittsburgh to work in the factories. I think maybe they were engaged by then and maybe he wanted a nest-egg to prepare for marriage. When he came back, he began to work for the New Brunswick Power Commission at the big thermal generating plant in Newcastle Creek. That's where he worked when I was born in one of the plant houses, just a stone's throw from the plant. My sister was born four years earlier; she was more sophisticated than I was, having been born in the Saint John General Hospital.

Dad suffered a terrible electric shock at the plant when he somehow touched a live wire of some sort. He was knocked unconscious and I believe it was a very scary incident for everyone. He survived — he had three very large scars on his back where the electricity had exited his body. When he regained consciousness, his hands were in a clenched position and there was some worry that he'd never be able to use them in the same way. Apparently, people who watched him over the next several months were amazed at his bravery and his determination as he worked his hands to force them open and regain their former strength.

When I was five, our family moved to Chatham, NB. It didn't take very long for both Mum and Dad to begin to think of Chatham as their true home and they knew they would never leave. Dad worked at the power plant, Mum taught school. They were both active in the United Church, Dad was a Mason, they enjoyed friends and neighbours.

Dad was a funny guy. He really did always have a twinkle in his eye and he enjoyed being a bit of a tease. The women at the church all loved it — and loved him. He was one of the very dependable fellows — for driving people, for running errands, for coming through with solutions. The women at the church were all, "Isn't Marion lucky to have you?" and I'm sure he enjoyed that.

Mum didn't find him that funny. Marilyn and I always thought she was a little hard on him but in retrospect we can see that maybe his humour played better in places that weren't so close to home. This is probably not uncommon.

He was a good father. From the time we were little, he took us to games — mostly baseball which we love, to this day — and he tried as patiently as he could to help me learn to skate. Which I hated. He took us to hockey games and always made sure we understood the game. Every long May 24th weekend, he took us upriver to the Dungarvon — a beautiful tributary of the Miramichi — and taught us how to fish trout, including baiting the hook and removing the poor little fish. We all loved the delicious pan-fried trout and we'd have them for breakfast.

His gentle temperament did not extend to teaching me to drive. He had to turn that job over to Marilyn, my sister, who accomplished it patiently and kindly and never yelled at me once. He always let me drive his cars though, including that red one, a Mercury, I think.

He retired from NBEPC when he was 65 but he didn't stay retired long. He couldn't. He went to work at Burchill's Mill up in Nelson and enjoyed a few more years of gainful employment.

When he wasn't working, he was a putterer. He did have the legendary workbench in the basement with all the tools, and he always had a garden. He loved being a grandfather and his tiny grandchildren couldn't have had a sweeter Grampy — or Bampi, as Lisa (below) named him.

He wasn't a man of high culture — he probably had gone to the equivalent of grade seven or eight — but he knew a lot of things that mattered. He did like to read "western" paperbacks or Ellery Queen or Mickey Spillane. He was sentimental enough to enjoy listening to the record of The Mills Brothers singing Daddy's Little Girl. Possibly because it annoyed my mother, he liked to sing Little Brown Jug — "She loved gin and I loved rum. . ." This didn't amuse a teetotalling Methodist.

Maybe to make up for it, every now and then, he'd sit down at the piano and pick out with one finger the old hymn Shall We Gather At The River. It was a favourite of his mother's and he knew all the words.

I'm sure he'd enjoy Burl Ives' rendition.

James Joyce, Sigmund Freud: a Sistine Chapel encounter

It's interesting when you go to the theatre and when you're walking up the street on your way home, you talk about what you've read by James Joyce, you reminisce about your visit to the Sistine Chapel, you share what you know about the progress of the development of Artificial Intelligence, you tell a corny Freud joke — all subjects directly inspired by the play you've just seen.

The play was the world premiere of Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel, produced and performed by the 2b theatre, part of Eastern Front Theatre's Stages Festival.

The play was held in the theatre-like space in our brilliant library which gives me a chance to show it to you in case you haven't seen it:

The play is imaginative and original. It recreates the Sistine Chapel with the use of projectors and beams the unmistakable Michelangelo masterpieces on to the ceiling and walls of the stage area.

[It] tells a story about buried urges, artificial intelligence, and an unlikely encounter between Minna Bernays and Nora Barnacle, accompanied by their respective partners: Sigmund Freud and James Joyce. A parallel contemporary story features a young academic and a brilliant entrepreneur who clash over how to fill in gaps in the historical record, what makes history come alive, and who should be able to tell these stories.

Funny, smart, and sexy, the play imagines a collision between two of the great revolutionary thinkers of the modern period, and introduces us to the women who inspired them, challenged them, and were ultimately eclipsed by them.

You can see why our conversation on the way home took the turns it did.

When we visited the real Sistine Chapel, we did so in the company of several hundred other people. We all remember the stentorian tones of the security fellow who stood up on the altar and bellowed SILENZIO! every few minutes. It didn't work and the cacophony in there was not surprising, with all of us packed in like sardines. As well as calling for quiet, he was warning "No photos! No videos!" which we dutifully obeyed although we were the only ones. Most people around us were clicking and whirring as though the man was talking to everyone else but not to them. It's quite rude when you think about it.

I've been reading for years that the vast numbers who visit the chapel can't help but have a negative effect on the art. There are often more than 20,000 visitors in a single day and art experts say that the breath, sweat, dust and pollution brought in by such crowds are doing permanent damage. It seems hard to know what the solution is to this problem.

Everyone would like to see the chapel looking like this:

And this:

For most people though, it's like this:

Meanwhile, back in Halifax, Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel runs until June 26 and if you're anywhere near, I definitely recommend it.