Editorially speaking...
Heads up! those of you who aren’t CBC Radio listeners:
What must be one of the finest 20-minute Christmas radio documentaries ever, is again upon us.
We’re coming up to the annual (they’ve repeated it now for 40 years!) Christmas Eve highlight of As It Happens.
I’m referring to the Frederick Forsyth classic, The Shepherd. It’s about the pilot of a Royal Air Force fighter pilot who’s flying home from Germany on Christmas Eve, 1957. His Meteor jet is well over the North Sea when all his navigational and radio equipment fail and, once he runs out of fuel, he’s doomed to a watery grave.
But wait! What’s that? Yes, it’s another plane flying above him in the darkness. Of all things, a Second World War propeller-driven Mosquito! The pilot signals him to follow him...
I promise you you won’t be disappointed. The late ‘Fireside’ Alan Maitland, storyteller par excellence, brings it so to life that you’ll feel you’re in the cockpit with the lost airman.
If As It Happens runs true to form this year they’ll play The Shepherd, with an interview with the late author Frederick Forsyth, Friday, Christmas Eve, at the start of the show. To be sure check the listings on CBC Radio 1.
You can also listen at any time online at https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-2-as-it-happens/clip/15815949-the-shepherd.
I promise you, even if you’ve heard it before, it’s worth listening to again and again; Jennifer and I make a point of doing so every year.
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Some quickies today as we all have other things to do and on our mind at this time of year.
A letter in this week’s Cowichan Valley Citizen reminded me that, 20 years or so ago, there was a New Age movement to rescind ‘Merry Christmas’ in favour of ‘Festive Season’ or ‘Happy Yuletide’ or other such watered-down, politically correct drivel. According to the writer to the Citizen, he still sees examples of this in Duncan stores.
Well, for any would-be revisionists out there, ‘Merry Christmas’ is alive and well—and certainly so here at the Chronicles. There really are some things that are sacred in this battered world of ours—and Merry Christmas is one of them!
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On another positive note, it appears that the fight by heritage preservationists to save the historic 1916 CNR station house from demolition has been successful. At last report Hope Council has “agreed to a letter of intent to partner with Tashme Historical Society”. If funding works out, it will mean the handsome landmark’s salvation. It’s said to be in sound structural condition and, by the photos, looks good—a community as well as a heritage/historical asset.
Here’s hoping!
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Also speaking of heritage, here’s a fascinating one.
The Mount Sicker Hotel in its glory. It died with the Lenora Mine.—Author’s collection
As it looked in the 1920s before ransacking, salvage and vandalism began in earnest. —Author’s collection
John Fowler, Maple Bay, emailed to say that the flooring of the Mount Sicker Hotel was saved years ago—by him. He’s incorporated it into his amazingly impressive geodesic dome house, having bought it from the man who rescued the timbers from the derelict hotel (see photo). I assume that the flooring is top-grade, first-growth fir as would be the likely case at that time and with Henry Croft’s grandiose palate.
John attached a seven-minute-long video of his home which, towards the end, shows the re-stained flooring that still shows the marks of boot nails and scuffing from the days when, ever so briefly, the hotel was a hive of activity.
If only those floors could speak!
(Come to think of it, maybe they do; I didn’t think to ask John if he and wife Linda have heard bumps in the night from his den...)
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In response to my post on lost treasure, Tom Parkin also referred to my mild rant on the selling of family heirlooms at flea markets and garage sales, etc., and how I sometimes feel compelled to rescue them.
“I feel similarly about seeing relinquished photos offered for sale [and] horrors of horrors, if you check Facebook’s ‘Marketplace,’ where people buy and sell with speed and convenience, you will find somebody in the Cowichan Valley offering a framed photo of three men in WW1 uniforms. Attached is a considerable amount of documentation to go with the prints, who could well have been once known widely.
“Yet the seller chooses to flip this treasure rather than ensure its preservation within the family or local archives. This is tantamount to an insult to those who served in the Great War.”
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