INTRODUCTORY NOTE
I MUST EXPRESS MY ENTHUSIASTIC THANKS to Eric Wickberg, a close friend and son-in-law, for contributing much to, and putting me on track for developing the following material on family background. He is a true expert in the Genealogy field (not to mention many others) and I am grateful for his help. I also offer thanks to a variety of Internet sources, including newspapers of that day, for verification of some of the facts reported here.
If there is any infringement of copyright included below it is unintended and I write in the spirit of freedom of information and speech, and act as a commentator and journalist, giving my own view, in my own words, in all that follows. I will, of course, make any acknowledgements that may be legally required. Now, I say to those who may happen upon this effort: Read on, and I hope you enjoy this bit of history.
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HEREWITH, I OFFER AN
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
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NOW PICTURE THIS: The year is 1886, a grand day, the afternoon of September 25, a Saturday.
The location of our story of happiness and tragedy is Loch Fyne, not far from Glasgow, Scotland -- at the Crarae Qarries, just a few miles below Inverary. By all accounts, it was a glorious day for a celebration, and a celebration there was.
Scores of people turned out, many of them civic dignitaries from Glasgow and environs. Why, they even put on a ceremonial explosion -- seven tons of honest-to-god gunpowder, inserted into the wall of an 80-foot cliff, and set off by an electric charge for a sort of showtime, dramatic event to celebrate the great success of this deposit of granite, much-used for road and other construction, in Glasgow and surrounding municipalities. Celebrations like it were held every now and again. The blast this day will dislodge between 60,000 and 70,000 tons of granite.
It was a deposit that was predicted to provide a steady output -- it was that large -- more or less forever. But the location today, I understand, is a quiet little tourist spot, where they sell postcards and flowers. The quarry is mined out. (So take note, all you environmentalists, and voracious environment-destroying capitalists out there: oh, yes, if we don't do things the right way, well, things are just going to run out the same way.)
I AM WRITING ABOUT IT NOW because it happens that, quite recently, I became aware -- through the amazing efforts of my family's "genetic crusader" Eric Wickberg -- of some of the fascinating details of my Young-family history that had not survived in any more than oral form. The names of things tended to lose precision as time lengthened between events and the days of their telling.
For example, my father, Ralph McGill Young, and his sister, my Aunt Mary Mitchell Young, were orphaned at relatively early ages; thus, the names of Grandfather Christopher Craigie Young's newspaper workplaces were only vaguely remembered. I do remember, though, hearing from Aunt Mary that her father knew shorthand. And -- again, more influence on me from my grandfather, long after his 1911 death -- I took a commercial course in high school, and learned shorthand myself. So that I, too, could perhaps be a reporter. (Unfortunately, I believe there's no photo of him among any our few family souvenirs, although I'm pretty sure that he had red hair and was of relatively short stature. I had red hair, too, but was a tall-ish even six feet in my teens, twenties, thirties, but seemed to shrink a trifle in my 40s and beyond. I am now 85, having been born in November, 1929.)
ONE OF THE PAPERS CHRISTOPHER CRAIGIE YOUNG was supposed to have worked for (according to family lore) was "The Glasgow Evening News." I tried in recent years to trace it for evidence of Grandfather's news background, but found that his newspaper employer was actually The Scottish News, and it was the paper he worked for at the time of the Loch Fyne disaster. In fact, he was there that day to cover what was supposed to be, and was planned so, as an excursion up the Loch.
I had the impression early in life from my father and aunt that Christopher had been a sort of free-lancer as a reporter and had obtained somewhat off-and-on employment with newspapers -- but this was not quite so. He was certainly on regular staff. Perhaps a reporter's pay at the time was not what it should have been, or the call-in to work assignments wasn't as frequent as it could have been; thus, my father and aunt may often have experienced near-poverty living conditions. My point is that he was a serious, usually full-time journalist.
IN ANY EVENT, my grandfather, Christopher Craigie Young, reporter for the Scottish News -- came close to losing his life on that fateful day in 1886. Seven people died of what was (and is) called "choke-damp" fumes from the ceremony. and seven people were gravely overcome, including Grandfather Young, whose life later was said to have been shortened (he died in 1911 of TB) by the damage done to his lungs that day.
Scores of other people also were felled, but only temporarily, from the fumes -- that sulphurous backdamp, or "choke-damp" from gunpowder vapor.
The seven who were overcome, and alive but motionless, were stashed, along with seven corpses, in a makeshift infirmary near the scene. News reports of the day say there were something upwards of 1,000 people attending that excursion, which required an early-morning boat ride, starting out in the dark, to the site of the big blast.
Permit me to emphasize the obvious fact that if my grandfather hadn't made it back to life that day, well then, I, ahem, would of course not be doing what I'm doing right here and now because I, uhh . . . wouldn't be here. Such, no doubt, is fate. But thank goodness for Eric Wickberg's sleuthing, and for the Internet -- and naturally for the modern computer, which enables us to turn back the clock to the day when there was not a great deal of electric light, no radio or TV and immensely less opportunity to dig into all such wonderful history.
MY GRANDFATHER, BY THE WAY, would have been 26 at the "Time of the Quarry Disaster," and was not yet married to my grandmother, Grace McGill of Stirling, Scotland. (Her last name is my middle name, giving me "Alexander McGill Young.")
I really do have to conclude that my choice of professions had a major genetic source, and here's more evidence: As a boy, when I first heard of my grandfather's profession, I thought, my-my, that sounds like a pretty interesting way to earn a living, never giving a thought, really, to what kind of financial return there might be, large or small; it was just something that sounded fascinating, I was pretty good at English . . . and so it came to pass . . . yes, I'd say it definitely was, and is, in my genetic arrangement.
So, bottom line -- and I speak seriously now: Newspapering . . . truly is in my "gene memory," if in fact genes have memory. I think perhaps they do -- because when I view on The Web sketches and knitted souvenirs for tourists containing scenes people have made of That Day At The Quarry, I experience strange, deep, uncanny feelings that lead me to exclaim, seriously -- and I say, still in wondering and serious mood, no exclamation points, and with measured slowness: "Great Scot -- I was there."
I therefore declare now that here we have the reason I became a newspaperman.
I can truly say: I had no choice. It was, and is, in my genes. Case closed.
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SOME VITAL PERSONAL STATS -- To provide background perspective, I must report that my father, Ralph McGill Young, Christopher's son, was born in Glasgow in 1899. As an orphan at the age of 11, he lived for several years in an orphanage known as Bridge O' Weir, not far from Glasgow, where he received education, in large part in the agricultural field. (He became a very good home gardener.) His eight-years-older sister, Mary, worked in a children's hospital called Stuart Hall, I believe on an island near the mouth of the Clyde.
My father in his 18th year (1917) found himself in the British Army, and did serve in the latter years of the 1914-18 Great War. He survived the war, and he also was stricken by, but lived through, the great 'flu epidemic that occurred around the end of the war.
Post-war, he made his way to a new life in Canada, and so did his sister, my Aunt Mary. Father had the help of veterans' colonial-settlement benefits. He wound up in Vancouver's Grandview district, where he met and married a young lady named Edith Orr, whose father also had been in The Great War.
MY PARENTS FIRST PRODUCED my terrific brother, Ralph, Jr.; I was next and then came my highly intelligent and most charming sister Grace (now Mrs. James Andrew). Grace has had quite a career and life herself. Why, she practically ran Vancouver City Hall, when she worked for years in the City Clerk's office.
I don't know how the city council could have got along without her. She also, later, worked in the office of the provincial Crown Prosecutor, keeping track in a major way of all the big cases. Now, that takes some ability, let me tell you. Am I proud of my sister?-- You'd better believe it!
We lost Ralph a number of years ago and miss him very much. He became, by the way, a seafaring man during the latter stages of World War II, and, as a First Class Seaman on a Canadian oil tanker called the Moose Mountain Park, sailed up and down the east coast of the North American Atlantic, between Portland, Maine, and Venezuela.
That coast was known as the graveyard of tankers, because of constant Nazi U-boat attacks on shipping. Ralph and his shipmates slept in their life jackets. He was lucky in that not one of his trips was interfered with by enemy torpedoes.
Post-war, Ralph stayed at sea, working on freighters, sailing the oceans of our world. Eventually, he got to New Zealand, where he fell in love, both with a lovely lady named Shirley, and with the country. He said goodbye to the sea, and settled down. He and Shirley raised a fine family, most of whose members I have met on their visits to Canada -- hi, Viv, hi, Janet, hi, Carol! Hi, all in N.Z.
Ralph eventually did return to Vancouver, and we had many affectionate fraternal get-togethers.
I was born in Vancouver and have lived the Vancouver area for most of my life, except for a total of nearly 13 years. During those 13 years, I lived in Victoria (1954-59 and 1966-69), covering the B.C. Legislature and provincial politics in general. I also had the great pleasure of living for five years in Ottawa, serving in the Ottawa Press Gallery, covering national politics.
MY ALMA MATER NEWSPAPER was The Vancouver Sun, where I began working in 1947 as an office boy (copy boy), which led to my apprenticing (yes, they did do apprenticing back then, but, alas, no longer). I managed to rise in the ranks and became a senior reporter, covering all manner of news, but finally settling into political coverage, for which I seemed to have some aptitude and for which I did develop a great enthusiasm.
Details of my many experiences and first-hand "viewing of history" and "newspaper days" can be expected from time to time in future blogs. Other newspapers I came to work for included The Province, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Calgary Albertan, Lethbridge Herald (the latter three part of a chain, which I serviced from Ottawa).
I also had a go at radio, having spent three years reporting and broadcasting for Vancouver stations, at separate times, of course, CHQM and CJOR (private radio, I found, was a wild and crazy business, with a lot of nutty people, it's all about advertising, and not my style, to put it mildly). I also had a few occasions when I contributed commentaries to CBC Radio, and even a few CBC-TV commentaries.
ONE NOTE I MUST INCLUDE is with reference to my early exposure to newspapers. It came when I was about eight years old. We lived on East Twenty Sixth in Vancouver, and it was in the middle of The Great Depression. We were poor, no doubt about it. But life was still good. We dined modestly, but with Aunt Mary, bless her soul, helping out, living with us, and taking care of us, including father in his widowerhood from 1933, we hardly even realized we were among the world's poor.
When it came to newspapers, there were Mr. and Mrs. Bindley next door. They were retired and lived quite well with Mr. Bindley's pension. I don't know what he had done for a living, but he was a good neighbor and let us have the previous day's Vancouver Sun, knowing that we didn't have enough money to afford a subscription.
He knew we liked to read what then was called "the funnies." This, I must emphasize, was before I had any idea of my Grandfather Christopher Young's newspaper work in Scotland, or that I had any particular writing tendencies.
It's interesting to me that, even then, I was a pretty fair hand at learning to read and write; I seemed to have an expressive and grammatical ability and relished working at school with words, as well as with what we knew as "social studies," which encompassed history. (One thing that struck me, as I searched for each day's funnies, was the editorial page: not the editorials, but the "letters to the editor." I found them most enlightening, and they played a role in raising my interest in politics and public affairs.)
WHEN I DID GO TO SCHOOL, my first elementary school in Vancouver had the name, Sir Richard McBride, at 29th and Culloden, near Knight Road. I attended there for seven years, Grades Two to Eight. I have to explain here that I received Grade I education, before McBride, while living for a year in a place in northeast Vancouver called The Preventorium.
It was an institution surrounded by a high fence, and it was for children with TB, which I had contracted from my mother. She had died of TB when I was not quite four years old, and it was a great tragedy for me early in life.
It was a time before "wonder drugs" like sulfa and penicillin arrived on the medical scene, and many people became victims of TB. I was lucky to survive.
(With the disappearance, virtually, of TB, The Preventorum was turned into a place for special-needs children and became known as Sunnyhill.
AFTER McBRIDE SCHOOL GRADUATION, I entered Grade Nine at a great school, which had -- and still has -- the name, John Oliver.
Both names were of previous B.C. Premiers. Mildly odd, given the fact that in my professional life I came to specialize in political news, which involved much coverage of B.C. Premiers -- W.A.C. Bennett, Dave Barrett -- and national Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson (whose names are on plenty of schools), in my Ottawa Press Gallery days.
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NOW, GETTING BACK TO THE MATTER OF GENES: Here's a note to all gene enthusiasts: Any comments you may have on any of the foregoing will be welcomed. Just Google: Young's Soapbox & Journal. Call it up on your computer and add your thoughts under "Comments". Many thanks for your attention. And thanks again, Eric Wickberg. You are a gift.
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Sunday, April 26, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
NOW HEAR THIS, AFGHAN VETS: THE TORY BOTTOM-LINE TRUMPS YOUR INTERESTS
YOU MAY REMEMBER, back in the day, a helmeted, flak-jacketed Stephen Harper on your TV screen, visiting "Canada's brave men and women in uniform" in Afghanistan, and praising their service in the pursuit of freedom and democracy, etc. etc., for that benighted part of the world.
What he was doing was, of course, quite normal for a Canadian prime minister in such circumstances. A political leader's duty includes showing his or her commitment to the nation's military, members of which are where they are to "defend" Canada, and to pursue her international policies and objectives.
I don't recall any serving military people coming right out and saying so, but I would have to assume our soldiers were dedicating themselves to the principle of my-country-right-or-wrong, as they answered "the call to the colors" and went into combat (described by realistic observers as "the butchery of war"). Perhaps some of our soldiers may not have used such graphic words to describe what they were doing, but, formally and officially, they had said what amounts to the same thing by taking the military oath of loyalty upon signing up.
They were putting their lives on the line for Queen and country. And, in the end, some 160 Canadians did lose their lives serving in Afghanistan (depending on whose statistics you accept), and thousands more suffered physical and psychological wounds and injuries they likely will have to live with for years to come.
MY PURPOSE IN THE FOREGOING is to draw a contrast between then and now.
The "then" part can be summarized by saying that those who served did so willingly and patriotically, and, I must emphasize, were highly praised for doing so by the powers-that-be in our nation's capital and elsewhere.
But the "now" is, at best, not pretty, and, at worst, shameful -- shame on the Government of Canada. It is as if our soldiers were considered wonderful and heroic by the politicians when they were going through the stresses and strains and agonies of war, but when the survivors came home our government was looking elsewhere, preoccupied with other more important matters (such as catering to the wealthy -- primarily, that is, to the benefactors of the Conservative Party).
FOR VETERANS, THE NEWS IS RATHER RAW: It's about the Harper government telling our veterans to more or less get lost, when it comes to honoring the government's obligation in the matter of veteran disability benefits, for wounds and traumas suffered in the Afghanistan war.
The deal is this: No more lifetime disability payments for Afghan veterans, just a single lump-sum "buyout." This, the veterans feel, amounts to their being short-changed, and has brought about a legal battle over just what the rights of veterans are, and over unilateral changes made by the government in the Veterans Charter. Furthermore, as if that were not enough, the government also has spent, or is spending, serious money in battling the veterans -- reportedly close to $700,000 in legal expenses.
BUT THIS ISN'T THE WHOLE STORY -- the government also has expressed support for a charity that would raise funds in aid of veterans, an outfit that covers itself in a patriotic label, borrowing the term "The True North" from our national anthem, so that the government can shirk its own responsibilities for veterans.
This "True North" thing seems to be modeled on an American organization named "The Wounded Warrior Project," again designed to transfer government responsibility for veterans to the shifting sands of private charity.
Yes, friends, the American obsession with charity-promotion as opposed to necessary government action and support is quickly filtering into the Canadian political culture. But, then, it's what Canadians probably should expect from a prime minister whose economic background and seasoning is heavily American. (I have heard cynics actually call Mr. Harper "an American agent.")
THE PECULIAR, EVEN AMAZING THING about the veteran-charity concept is that the government seems to have no shame about it at all. Making veterans (who, I repeat, put their lives on the line) dependent upon charity to any degree in the aftermath of their military service is, to my mind, about as shameful as it can get.
This is even more grating for those who believe, as I do, that the Stephen Harpers of this world are not the kind of people one might expect to flock to the colors and risk their necks in military service. No, sir. My take on their mind-set is that they believe themselves to be of a special species, and far above all that "common man" stuff. They are of the political boss class, and they, folks, are the ones who decide whether our nation will or won't go to war.
But they are rarely, if ever, going to sign up for action and don any military uniform, or do any of the things, especially risk their lives, that our brave men and women must do.
WELL, I SAY THIS CAN AND SHOULD CHANGE, AND HERE'S HOW:
In future, any time Canada decides it would be a good thing to send our military forces into action, certain conditions must be met by Parliament. And the conditions I propose are the following.
1st -- The prime minister must make regular visits to the war front, at least monthly, in order to see first hand the consequences of his power to engage Canada in war.
2nd -- Five members of the federal cabinet must be given leave of absence, without pay, and sworn-in to the military forces (army, navy, air force, it's their choice) and accept assignment, at the rank of private, to regions of conflict at military pay rates.
3rd -- Thirty members of the House of Commons, chosen by lot, are to be given leave of absence from the Commons, without pay, in order to serve in the military at military pay rates, at the equivalent of a private's pay rate.
4th -- Thirty members of the Senate are also to be given leave and must serve in the Canadian forces under the same conditions of rank and pay as the aforementioned for MPs.
I THINK SUCH MEASURES would go far in ensuring that any future military actions taken in foreign wars by Canada forces really are just and necessary.
It also would give our elected leaders a chance to provide true leadership, and to demonstrate the genuine commitment they demand of our military and of our citizenry. Perhaps some would be on the front line shouting, "Follow me, men!" Say, now we're talking leadership, right?
WITH THE WAR CLOUDS THAT ARE GATHERING, as a matter of fact, I'm guessing that Canada is going to need larger fighting forces, considerably more than the estimated 60,000 that we now have under arms.
"War clouds?" you may well ask. Sure -- for a start just think about Ukraine-Russia, U.S.-Russia, and the Middle East-Canada and U.S.
If the past is any indicator, our current government in Ottawa (an undemocratically elected government, by the way, and I'll deal with that in another blog soon) is bound to put us into any such conflicts. And, so, I'm confident that my suggestions and conclusions are timely, and worthy of serious consideration by both the Canadian political classes and our citizenry in general.
The way it looks to me, we can expect to have many future veterans of military service. And they're going to need much more support than what appears to be the case under the present chintzy Conservative Canadian government.
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Sunday, January 11, 2015
THE REAL THING, ACCORDING TO THE KORAN
I HAVE, IN THE 'WORLD RELIGIONS SECTION' of my personal library, the "bible" of Muslims, the Koran.
It is a translation from Arabic into English, and was produced by the classics division of the great British publishing house, Penguin Books.
This book informs me that "the Koran" means "the recital," and refers to wisdom recited to the illiterate Mohammed by the angel Gabriel while Mohammed meditated in a cave. Mohammed is said to have in turn recited Gabriel's wisdom to scribes, Gabriel having been required to do by Allah.
To the best of my knowledge the Penguin Koran is a true and highly reliable version of the Koran. It was translated by the Iraq-born Islamic scholar, N.J. Dawood. The Penguin book was originally published in 1956.
My copy is of the Fourth Revised printed in 1975, and I have had it in my personal library for some 30-odd years. I have had occasion over the years to refer to it now and then (usually as a result of some news event involving Islam) in order to clarify my understanding and evaluation of that religious movement.
MY REASON FOR DISCUSSING Islam at this particular time springs from recent events in France involving what are described as "Islamic radicals" who on Jan. 7, 2015, murdered staff-members (10 of them), of the Paris-based humor magazine Charlie Hebdo (plus a couple of police officers) for the sole reason that the attacking "Islamists" did not like the satirical treatment of Islam by that magazine.
The important thing to realize here -- and it isn't something the news outlets of the world seem conscious of -- is that religions of the world do not have a very well developed sense of humor. I think I can say without much chance of contradiction that they take themselves terribly seriously.
This is perhaps understandable, to a mild degree, since adherents of religions tend to spend most of their thought and their time delving into prospects of an afterlife for humans, as well as framing precise, heavily moralistic rules for the ways in which people should, or usually MUST, live. One might say there's a heavy love-of-power-and-authority aspect to religious leadership. God, we are told to believe, is the author of it all.
If the followers of religions don't observe those rules, well, they are to be punished in this life through such things as, on the mild side, expulsion from the church (or synagogue or mosque of choice), or, in Islam, through traditional desert-tribe beheadings, on the exceptionally evil side.
ALSO, PERDITION AND HELL-FIRE in a supposed afterlife await sinners in religions of various stripes, including Christianity, but more especially those who were once members of a given religion but decided at some point they could no longer continue as believers, as in some Islamist branches.
It will have been detected by readers of this essay that I am personally at odds with religions in general. At this moment, however, my attention has been drawn to Islam by events in the news and I admit that my examination of Islam here is not extensive. It is, however, what I consider to be fair comment, in a free society, arising from the horror in Paris.
ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF MORE than beliefs. It is a prescription and a guide -- containing many decrees -- regarding certain types of living and behavior in the name of Mohammed. I have to say that for its approach to women alone it loses any chance that I could become part of it, or even support it.
Here, for example, is one relevant excerpt from the Koran's section on women:
"Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the others, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those with whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Allah is high, supreme." (My italics.)
THE KORAN IS QUITE DIRECT on sexual matters. It says, for example:
" . . . If any of your women commit fornication, call in four witnesses from among yourselves against them; if they testify to their guilt confine them to their houses till death overtakes them or till Allah finds another way for them.
"If two men among you commit indecency punish them both. If they repent and mend their ways, let them be. Allah is forgiving and merciful."
In a few lines preceding the above quoted sexual advice, the text says:
"Such are the bounds set by Allah. He that obeys Allah and His apostle shall dwell for ever in gardens watered by running streams. That is the supreme triumph. But he that defies Allah and His apostle and transgresses his bounds, shall be cast into Hell-fire and shall abide in it for ever. A shameful punishment awaits him."
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THUS ENDETH our Soapbox & Journal commentary on one of the more fascinating and cruel world events of recent years, an event rooted in religious belief that may foreshadow more dire events to come. This space will follow up with examination of the continuing story.
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