State of the Union, Milk and Water

A tram in Montreal 1910.

Well, the US news media is all abuzz (to use a cliche) about Obama’s State of the Union Address where he called for income equality. This right after the release of beleaguered Republican candidate Romney’s income tax status, where he paid under 15 percent last year.

I’m having a serious case of the Deja Vu Blues right now, as I edit Milk and Water my eplay about Montreal in 1927, the era of US Prohibition.

In Milk and Water, my grandfather, a top Civic Servant in the Montreal Administration and my husband’s grandfather, Thomas Wells, a Westmount businessman, have a talk in front of a dance club/speakeasy , while awaiting the possible arrival of David, the Prince of Wales.

Now, my grandfather got his job as Director of the City in September 1921. In August of 1921, the Financial Post out of Toronto (Mclean) ran a profile of ‘fiancier and advocate” Herbert Ames, the author using a pseudonym.

Eerie, because the point of view of the Financial Post echoes what many Republicans feel, or at least what they have been told to feel, what is ‘good’ for them: that the rich are special and deserve more power than the poor. On the News I’ve heard the Rich like Romney called ‘the job creators.’ (Which is kind of funny, as the 1% earns its bonuses often on the basis of jobs cut.)

I’m quoting directly from the teaser of this 1921 Financial Post..

“The sketch of Herbert Ames in this issue, not only gives an insight into the character of this outstanding financier, and public worker, but in enlarging about his efforts to introduce reforms of Civic Government in Montreal reveals many of the issues of the Municipal problem of that city.

Montreal is ruled, in a business way, by a relatively small faction of financiers and businessmen who live in another city, Westmount, and is controlled by the French majority who vote a solid French ticket for City Hall.

Thus the people who pay the biggest taxes have little say in the spending of them. (Dumb democracy. Doh!)

It has been with efforts to bring about something better that Sir Herbert Ames has been identified for many years.”

Yikes! No wonder there is no street names for Herbert Ames in Montreal!

There is a street names for my grandfather, Jules Crepeau (in Ahunsic) and a long street on MOunt Royal and a Look Out named for Camillien Houde, the Mayor who ousted my grandfather.

I find this a bit strange, as it was the Anglos who hated my grandfather, Edward Beck the crusading journalist (who I suspect wrote that 1921 article) and Lord Atholstan, Hugh Graham of the Montreal Star.

They hated my grandfather, and McConnell.

I suspect this had something to do with my grandfather’s connnections, with Rodolphe Forget the Industrialist who controlled the Montreal Transportation System. With McConnell and others.

All very confusing. Why would Mayor Houde, populist French Mayor, want to oust him too?

Well, he felt he was allied with the previous City Hall Administration..

Strange bedfellows, Houde and Lord Atholstan. Did an anglo help get legendary French Canadian Mayor Camillien Houde elected? I suspect so.

Children and Media:La Plus ca Change

The Crepeaus, 1927.

I’m watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the TV – and it occurred to me that I saw it in the theatre. I looked up the date –1968. That’s right. They changed the motion picture law in Quebec.  I had seen a movie before that: Blow Up in 67. Probably 14 and over, but I was tall at 12.

My husband says The Impossible Years was one of the first movies he saw in a theatre. Also 1968. He was 12.

Anyway, I found an article about the Boyer Inquiry, into the Laurier Theatre Fire.

Apparently, a group representing Big Labour testified and was in favour of a ban of children in cinemas on Sunday, but not on other days for children accompanied by an adult.. The  Labour rep said that working people did not want to go to movies on Sunday.

Not quite true: The article says that the day before theatre owner after theatre owner testified that Sundays were their best day for attendance. Only makes sense, if you give people the day off they need something to do, something fun and cheap.

Big Labour and Big Religion were against Sunday showing for different reasons, of course. Labour didn’t want anyone working on Sunday, theatre ushers included.

Well, Boyer went on to recommend that a law be drawn up forbidding children under 16 to go to the motion pictures.  In his decision, he said that he had consulted with the working class.  A bill was passed to this effect but a few months later.

Well, anyway, other testimony that day came from educators and what they had to say ran the gamut and was EXACTLY what educators ALWAYS seem to say about new media.  Some educators said movies influenced children for the bad, some said movies influenced them for the good as in “the movies make kids curious about subjects, so they go read books.” Some educators said that SOME children are influenced for the bad by movies, but only a small number. Some educators claimed they hadn’t looked into the question.

Talk about La Plus ca Change.

Milk, Water and Fire … Girls Imitating Women

Some Nickelodeon era motion picture houses in Montreal..

With the movie The Artist coming out to rave reviews (it’s a silent film,  a French romance directed by Michel Hazanvicius and starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo and some well known US actors) there’s likely to be renewed interest in the Silent Film Era.

I’ve written a great deal about nickelodeons in Montreal on this blog, as I wrote Threshold Girl, www.tighsolas.ca/page10. pdf.pdf

But you know, in my story Milk and Water, about Montreal in 1927, motion pictures figure more strongly.

In 1927, there was a fire in a Ste. Catherine E cinema (the Laurier Palace where 70 children died). My grandfather as Director of Services was somewhat implicated.

Because of that fire Montreal became the only jurisdiction in North America not to allow children in cinemas, until 1967.

Children had been attending motion pictures, attended and unattended, since the beginning of the era. I assume many parents felt these places safer than the streets, although the moral reformers did not.

From what I have read, in the Prohibition Era, children under 20 made up the largest proportion of movie patrons. And although there was a law against under 17′s watching unattended, plenty did.

Mostly boys as is it happens, and it is mostly boys who died in the Ste Catherine Street E Laurier Palace Theatre Fire in January 1927.

In Quebec, drive-ins were also banned, so I had to wait for our summer vacation in Maine to see a drive in movie.

Oddly, I also thought it was children under ten who couldn’t attend movies in Quebec.. and I was sort of right. There were special viewings for children over 10, family viewings. I vividly recall watching the MUSIC MAN in a church basement, ST. Malachy’s church on Clanranald. Probably around 1964, when I was 10.

I remember, because it was a HUGE EVENT, I guess.  I recall sitting on the cold concrete floor watching.

Anyway, there were killer fires in theatres in the US too (These places were firetraps in general) but no such laws were enacted.

This must have truly hurt the revenues of the theatre owners in Quebec.

(My late mother in law, born 1917, said it was common for girls to put on makeup to look older to go to the movie houses. They also had to behave older. She says she went to a movie in Ontario and was shocked at the bad behavior of the kids, yelling, eating popcorn. Hmm. This seems to be a case of the law of unintended consequences.  The social reformers didn’t want young people, especially women, being corrupted – so they pretended to be older…which made them even more attractive to men. There was no ‘teenager’ in those days.. I recently found a picture of her, dated 1929, and she was 12 but did indeed look grown up. Hey, as I write this my husband turns to Turner Classic Movies and Guess what movie is starting: The Music Man! It’s  a sign Hey, it looks like it takes place in the nickelodeon era.. Another sign “We got trouble right here in River City.” My gosh, how ironic! I wonder if any adults in that church basement say the irony in that song…

My grandfather’s brother, as it happens, was the VP of American Theatre Amusements…(Can’t recall exact name of company.) That company often fought in court with the Provincial Government over the Lord’s Day Act, even before 1927.

Conventional Theatres that showed plays with live actors had to close on Sunday, Movie Houses were exempt.

Anyway, my grandfather is accused by someone testifying in the US at Senate Prohibition Era hearings, of pulling the strings of the police chief, and of allowing theatres to stay open, even ones that let in children unattended. This is a few months before the fire.

Cops were given free tickets for their children to aid in this. I read that one Constable lost three children in the fire and that underscores the point.

Who went to movie houses. The kids of the middle class.

I will have Jules Crepeau and Thomas Wells discuss this in my play Milk and Water… Thomas Wells will say his older sons seldom went to movie houses as they were too busy with their school teams. They attended wealthy Lower Canada College.

And his younger children have been a few times, but always with their nanny.

I heard a Brit reminisce about early movie houses on BBC Radio Four. It seems that in many cases, kids were the only ones who could read, so their parents and grandparents wanted them there with them.

As is well know, 1927 saw the first Talkie, the Jazz Singer.

Today, Quebec has very lax laws. I don’t know if kids go alone..well, they do but in groups at the Cineplex.

I saw the movie Paul last year and I was astounded, because it was full of swearing, and a bunch of children sat in front of me and my husband.

Anyway, the Artist may have a trajectory similar to the King’s Speech. It starts out sort of Art House and builds to great popularity. Yesterday, as it happens, I watched this 1988 movie THE WOMAN HE LOVED, with Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews about David, Edward VIII. On YouTube.

It was a very sympathetic view of the couple, no S and M, no Nazis. No George VI  at all. How could it not be a kind portrayal with those particular actors? Anthony Andrews played Baldwin in the King’s Speech.

Well, the King’s Speech made Prince David look like a Sadist, or at least a mean older brother.

I learned that he only met Wallace Simpson after 1928. So great. David, Edward VIII figures large in my story Milk and Water. It is because of him that my grandfather and my husband’s grandfather meet to discuss life, business, politics and ethics. He’s visiting Montreal, at the end of a long official visit. He is on his own time and I read he liked to party with Mayor Mederic Martin.

When the Prince of Wales Visited Montreal

Here’s me in front of H. Dandurand’s car, the one that is supposed to be the first in Montreal (around 1900, I guess..it’s more like a carriage, isn’t it?)

This car is on show at the Chateau de Ramezay museum across the street from City Hall, where the picture below was taken in 1927, with the visits of the Prince of Wales (Prince de Galle) and Prince George and the Baldwins. A big crowd was on hand, which according the the Gazette included street urchins taking in the pomp and ceremony  from vendor’s wagons in Bonsecours Market. Street urchins, what a cute name. They don’t call them that anymore.

That event  happened about 40 years  (one week off) from the day Charles de Gaulle, a guy with a lot of gall, proclaimed VIVE LE QUEBEC Libre from a window at City Hall.

I wrote a play about 1967 in Montreal, Looking for Mrs. Peel, www.tighsolas.ca/page3.pdf.pdf

I’m writing a play, I think a play, about Montreal in 1927, when the Princes Visit and my grandfather has a fight with a prominent English citizen over the basic right to clean fresh water.

H. Dandurand was among the list of mourners at my grandfather’s funeral in 1938. My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, was fired by the city adminstration (well, by Camillien Houde) over the Montreal Power and Water scandal, (I have a quote in a newspaper with Houde saying he wants the clear ‘the clique’ from City Hall…and then later in 1937 he was  run over by a Montreal Constable  while he was collecting a HUGE life pension. Hmm. He died a year later from accident related disease, bone cancer. No more pension for my grandmother and her kids.

Camillien Houde has a huge street on the Mountain named after him: Mederic Martin a little bridge, Dandurand a street in Rosemont and my grandfather a street and park in Ahunsic (north of TMR). Small thing.

In the early 80′s, while my husband and I were searching for our FIRST computer, and the ONLY place selling them was located in an area we didn’t know well, despite the fact we lived in an apartment in TMR. Anyway, LOST (No cells of GPS’s back then) I looked up to see where we were and we were at JULES-CREPEAU street! A street named after my grandfather! What a coincidence.

Looking for Mrs. Peel Part 2

I was tall at twelve, which is a theme of this play: My grandmother was tiny. You can find the play at www.tighsolas.ca/page745.html

LOOKING FOR MRS.PEEL: a Play for Radio with new information on the Double Tenth Incident at Changi Prison (Civilian Internment Camp) during WWll. Based on a true story. Dialogue by people is recreated by me, generated from my -or my grandmother’s -point of view and is speculative and not intended to cast anyone in a bad light.Based on a true story, as they say, or a ‘re-imagining of a mostly true story with some fictional elements based on historical memory and record, personal memory and family myth.’All Rights Reserved Copyright Dorothy Nixon 2008. Students and Teachers may download and reproduce any part for educational purposes (not for profit). “The keynote of this whole case can be epitomized in two words: Unspeakable horror. Horror, stark and naked permeates every corner and angle of this case from beginning to end….Opening speech for the prosecution. Double Tenth Trial as reported in Malaya Straits Times.”Click for Looking for Mrs. Peel blog with audio visual links

“Cross my hand with silver pretty lady, if you’d see, What the future holds in store for you and how soon you will be free,

Cross my hand with silver (if you have none don’t be shy)I’ll take it out in food or booze (or Gordon’s Special dry)

Just cross my hand with silver or call at Cell FifteenWith any simple offering, (be sure you are not seen)

No cumshaw ever comes amiss but if you have it handyThe fates show true benevolence if first well laced with brandy,

The lines engraved upon your palm are clear as mud to me,There’s fame and food and fortune and a journey on the sea

But a lurking danger threatens and a white-haired lady frowns, (It isn’t Eve or Nella and it isn’t Mrs. Chowns.)

Fate draws a veil across the name, but one thing’s plain to see, The danger is averted if you put your shirt on me.

“Scene One: Nixon Living Room Montreal November 1967

SOUND: Television, (Murdersville episode of The Avengers TV Series from November 1967) someone being dunked in water and crunch of eating

Voice on TV: (sx water) You could spare yourself this Mrs. Peel. (sx splash)You know what we want (sx Splash) Who knows you are here?

Martha: Dorothy , depeches-toi,come say goodbye to your grandmother. This is your last chance to see her. She’s leaving for the airport very early tomorrow morning

Dorothy : (sx crinkling of cellophane bag,crunch of junk food being chewed)

Martha: And, adjust the rabbit ears on the TV for Heaven’s sake,
All that interference. Mrs. Peel’s face is covered in snow!

MUSIC: Red Rubber Ball. The Cyrkle 1966

Scene Two: 2008 kitchen near Montreal Canada

SOUND: food sizzling on stove, radio din, cell with Ode to Billy Joe ringtone.

Dorothy: Blair. Get my cell, would you?

Blair: (distant)grunt

Dorothy: Aghh. Geez. (sx clunk of pan) Hello?

Denise: Dorothy. It’s your Aunt Denise.

Dorothy: Hi. I know. I was just thinking of you, actually. I’m listening to a BBC Documentary – about My Lai. On my laptop. 40th anniversary of the year 1968.Big year in the US. Of course, 1967 was our big year -here in Canada.

Denise: Radio Four, I presume. We never miss The Archers. I’ve rung to say that I received Mother’s war memoir in the post today. I want to thank you for returning it so promptly.

Dorothy: Wow. That’s fast. I just scanned the pages and saved them to CD. I still have a tonne of research to do before I can make any sense of it. Especially the spy business. Did you see that snippet I sent you from the 1963 Malaysia Who’s Who?

Denise: Yes, I did.

Dorothy: But did you notice the twenty year gap? It says Dorothy Forster Nixon: Born 1895 County Durham; Quaker Co-educational School; land girl in forestry WWI. Then it jumps to librarian, Kuala Lumpur Book Club 1935-present with mention of internment at Changi. Nothing about her domestic life as a rubber worker’s wife.

Denise: No I didn’t. Odd. Well, I can’t thank you enough for all you are doing for my mother.

Dorothy: Well, Granny didn’t get the recognition in the UK. No OBE or flattering obit at her death like the others involved, But she’ll have this, my humble family tribute. I’ll dedicate it to everyone written out of history.

Denise: Yes, to think that the grandchild with whom she had the least rapport is doing the most to keep her memory alive. Must ring off. Short of breath these days. Give my love to your mother.

Dorothy: I will. Bye now. Hmm. The grandchild with whom she had the least rapport. That’s one way of putting it, I guess.(sx plunk of fan, frying sound turns into applause)

Scene Three: Clanranald Elementary Auditorium,Montreal 1967

SOUND: Applause

Teacher (sx mike): Good work Mark Luxenberg and Rebecca Birenbaum. The top students at Clanranald Elementary for 1966/67 . Assembly dismissed. Have a great Expo summer. And please don’t lose your report cards on the way home. Here’s Bobby Gimby to trumpet you home (sx scratch of record CA NA DA Song on cheap record player over PA system)

(sx vague sound of birds, children and car radios fade in and out as Ingrid and Dorothy walk by.”C’etait Bits and Pieces par le Dave Clark Five. A Suivre Light MyFire, Les Doors… US President Lyndon Johnson meets today with Russian Premiere Alexsei Kosygin in New Jersey at what is being dubbed the The Glassboro Summit….

(sunny ID-jingle) CFCF 600 Montreal…

Silky Woman’s Voice:There’s a new look in telephones. The new look is the princess phone. It’s little, it’s lovely, it’s light. It’s so slender it can fit anywhere.)

Dorothy (VO): 6th grade down. One more year of elementary school to go. I walk the two blocks home to my family’s untidy upper duplex apartment on Lemon Creek Road in the dingy Snowdon district of Montreal (with its row upon row of unadorned brick buildings and only two landmarks worthy of the designation: the glamorous bejewelled Art Deco Snowdon Theatre and the glaring globoid Orange Julep Drive-in Restaurant)in the company of classmate and neighbour Ingrid Singh. Bombay born, Ealing raised, one of the many exotic new Canadians coming to live in my neighborhood.

Dorothy: Let me see your report card Ing.

Ingrid: Let me see yours first.

Dorothy: Nothing to see. Very good in every subject. Not one teacher comment.

Ingrid: Well, I got five excellents.

Dorothy: And a page and a half of teacher comments, I bet.”Ingrid talks back in class and teaches the little ones how to say words like douchebag. Please wash her mouth out with soap.”

Ingrid: H! Ha!. So, what do you want to do when we get home. Go up to Queen Mary Road and play Monkey See Monkey Do?.

Dorothy: Nah, too hot.

Ingrid: Wanna go see if that one-legged hobo is still living in the backseat of the blue Firebird in the used car lot?

Dorothy: Not allowed. And he’s not a hobo. He’s a war veteran.

INgrid: Spy vs. spy then?

Dorothy: Ok. But I wanna be Emma Peel this time.

Ingrid: No. I get to play Emma. I’m from England. You can be Agent 99 or Honey West.

Dorothy: I wanna be Emma. You’re from India. I’m the one who’s REALLY English. I’m a tall Yorkshire girl, just like Diana Rigg. My dad says.

Ingrid: You said you were born here in Canada. And your father in K-u-a-la Lum-pooor.

Dorothy: Makes no difference. My grandparents are from Yorkshire.

Ingrid: Is you grandmother tall like you and your dad?

Dorothy: I dunno.

Ingrid: Well,I’m much much MUCH prettier than you, so I still get to play Mrs. Peel.

Dorothy vo: Right, then. So Ingrid,with her shimmering swell of jet black hair, flawless mocha skin and blossoming Swedish curves, gets to be Emma Peel, as usual. That’s because Emma Peel is really Diana Rigg, an English lady who is undeniably the most beautiful – and possibly the best TV actress on either side of the pond. At least according to critic Cleveland Amory in the April 28, 1967 issue of TV Guide Magazine, the very same issue I have tucked away as a keepsake because April 28, 1967 was also the opening day of Expo67 Montreal’s wonderful World’s Fair.

Ingrid: So, Emma goes undercover at the British Pavilion at Expo where she hides out with the Mary Quant mannequins. She’s watching out for Russian spies who want to kidnap…ah…Queen Elizabeth when she visits in two weeks.And Honey is a double agent working in the Russian Pavilion.

Dorothy: I’ve been to the Russian Pavilion. All it has inside is machines. Why can’t Honey hide out in Thailand? Their pavilion is shaped like a golden dragon boat.

Ingrid: Don’t be daft. Nothing happens in Thailand. So, my flat is the British Pavilion and your flat is the Russian Pavilion and our bedrooms are where we send our top secret transmissions. On pink princess phones.

Dorothy: I don’t have a princess phone.

Ingrid : It’s pretend!

Dorothy: Next week I won’t even have a bedroom.

Ingrid: Why?

Dorothy: Because my Yorkshire, well, Malaya, grandmother is finally coming for a visit and she gets my brother’s bedroom and he gets mine.

Ingrid: Is she coming for Expo? Is she coming to see the Queen?

Dorothy: I guess.

Ingrid: Where are you going to sleep?

Dorothy: On a cot in the dining room.

Ingrid: So, then. You’ll finally find out if she’s really tall or small.