With each passing Remembrance Day there are fewer Second World War veterans around to share their memories of courage, sacrifice and survival. A recent Star movie review suggested that “filmmakers may finally be running out of screen-worthy stories to tell from the conflict.” Last year the Fox held a special showing of The Great Escape […]
Tag: Second World War
Letters to the Editor for Nov. 17, 2015
Vet’s story triggers reader memories Re: Nine decades of life on Silver Birch (Nov. 3): It was with great interest that I read about Bob Fraser’s memories of the war, as my father’s memories of it were very similar. In fact, Bob Fraser might like to see the picture of my father Bill Houston, a […]
Malvern student made the ultimate sacrifice in Second World War air battle
Malvern Collegiate’s formidable rugby team of 1939 steamrolled its way to the city championships. Team members pledged to join the forces together to fight in the Second World War. Several didn’t return, but the memory of one lives on at Trenton Air Base. Born June 20, 1922, Kenneth Tutton grew up at 17 Firstbrook Rd., […]
Nine decades of life on Silver Birch
Bob Fraser has many remembrance days, some welcome, some not. At 91, Fraser is best known for his paintings – bright scenes of life in the Beach and along the boardwalk. But in the spring of 1944, Fraser was far from the Beach and his lifelong home on Silver Birch Avenue. He was a 20-year-old […]
Gould treasure rediscovered at Williamson
He had a budgie named Mozart. His goldfish were Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Haydn. As a boy growing up in the Beach, Glenn Gould left plenty of clues he might have a future in music. One was rediscovered this October, when a former classmate of his came to the centennial at Williamson Road Junior Public […]
Quest for history becomes documentary
On Tuesday, April 14, Beacher April Wilson-Lange celebrated her birthday, the 70th anniversary of her father’s liberation from a Second World War death march, and the launch of a fundraising campaign to fund a documentary about her search for her father’s past. The journey to this point began when Wilson-Lange started looking into her father’s […]
Danforth Tech celebrates 90 years
For most of us, just one real letter in the mail is a red-letter day. But a trio of Danforth Tech alumni (the school became Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute in the 1980s) get to read dozens of letters and postcards every Wednesday afternoon. Most are thank-you’s for things like socks, cigarettes or copies of […]
Remembering all our fallen
Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the First World War – the war that was to be the war to end all wars. That was not to be, however – since then another world war and many other terrible conflicts have taken tens of millions of lives. The Canadian contribution has been immense, […]
Malvern’s ‘Big Book’ remembers school’s vets
Malvern’s Second World War memorial isn’t a statue, it’s a pair of books. “Adams, D.” It’s the first name you encounter on opening the ‘Big Book’ and it’s just about the only thing you will learn about him, if you are lucky enough to see it in the archives of the Malvern Red & Black […]
Veterans’ stories mix tragedy, comedy and history
Going around the table in the Royal Canadian Legion on Dawes Road, five veterans of the Second World War and UN missions to the Middle East agree – children are the best talkers. “They can come up with some of the damndest questions you ever heard,” says Myer Goobie, 92, noting that five- to seven-year-olds […]
