The program came on at 10:00 on Friday nights.
I got off work from my waitressing job at 9:00. If I hurried, there’d be enough time for a quick shower and a change into pyjamas before it started. As it was the middle of Friday evening, I’d usually have the house to myself. I’d sit, alone, in my father’s chair and watch this remarkable program. Everything about this program was riveting. The images, the interviews, the music – powerful. The narration was by Laurence Olivier. That his reading of the script was uninflected made the material resonate that much more. The story didn’t require hyperbole or histrionics. The facts were enough. I would sit, adopting the timeless expression of shock and disbelief, my hand clasped over my mouth as the one hour show unspooled. Perhaps you, too, watched this show? It was the BBC’s The World at War. Olivier concluded the 26 part series with just one word.
Remember.
The World at War is considered to be the most expensive factual documentary ever produced. Its focus is World War II but, in a departure from previous explorations on the subject of war, it plumbs the harrowing experience of global conflict by soldiers, prisoners and civilians.
The story didn’t require hyperbole or histrionics.
I remember a particular episode. I sit now, my fingers poised over the keyboard, reluctant to relate this story to you, but here goes. On June 10th, 1944, four days after D-Day, the German Waffen SS arrived in the French town of Oradour-sur-Glane. The male residents were herded into barns. The women and children were corralled into a church. The women and children listened as their menfolk were gunned down. The women and children were then slaughtered. These were non-combatants. Six hundred and forty three of them. The entire town, except for five people who, miraculously, survived – all gone. Oradour-sur-Glane stands as it was that day as a memorial.
Because of the World at War documentary, I started attending services at the cenotaph each year. Cenotaph, by the way, is the name for a memorial for those killed in war but buried elsewhere. It’s Greek for ‘empty tomb’. As a teen, I felt maudlin and ridiculous standing amongst the veterans, people who had seen combat, known unimaginable deprivation, experienced catastrophic loss. But I was there. I was there in tribute to their suffering. I was there in hope that I, nor anyone my age, would ever lay claim to their experience.
… people who’d seen combat,
known unimaginable deprivations, experienced catastrophic loss.
I’ve kept up my observance of Remembrance Day wherever I’ve lived in the world. Even now, I can summon the eerie calm of Bény-sur-Mer, the Canadian War Cemetery Normandy, France. The visual impact of all those white headstones disappearing into a vanishing point is unsettling, still. My kids were dragged to services when they were young. Over the years, we’ve mixed it up, with attendance at school observances, services at Canadian Memorial church, or other cenotaphs. What I’ve seen, and am gratified by, is that, although attendance had waned, it seems to be climbing in recent years. I now see fresh-faced girls bundled into their puffer jackets; bearded young men in their Blundstone boots; newly minted families, one parent hoisting a toddler for a better view, the other rocking a sleeping infant back and forth in a stroller. All of them, these young people, reverently paying homage to those who lost their lives long before they, themselves, set foot on the planet.
This gives me hope.
Dr. Eric Yoshida is a reader of this column. He wrote to me about Remembrance Day hoping I might throw a little light on this day that ought to be anything but a holiday. He worries about the world given how swiftly conflicts conflagrate into wars. He sees the poppy as an important emblem. Last Saturday, he gave his local donut shop some cash asking that they include a poppy with every purchase.
And maybe this year, we should leave our poppies on.
Given the troubles plaguing the world at the moment, I hope everyone buys a poppy.
And maybe this year we should leave our poppies on.
It’s only a word, but it speaks volumes:
Remember.
This week’s question for readers:
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT REMEMBRANCE DAY? ARE YOU PARTICULARLY FEARFUL AT PRESENT?
Leave your Comments below!
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Submissions to last week’s question:
DID THINGS TASTE BETTER WHEN YOU WERE A KID? HAVE YOU NOTICED A CHANGE IN APPLES OR OTHER PRODUCE?
I loved your column on apples. I thought I was the only living person who knew of the Northern Spy apple. It was my father’s favourite and, at one time, there was a tree here in the back garden.
Sandra Kelly
We have three backyard apple trees that were wonderful for years. For the past five years we’ve had a problem with Apple Maggot Fly that causes apples to be wormy. We’ve had suggestions from Brian Minter and Cedar Rim Nursery for sprays that are non toxic but nothing has worked.
Maybe your readers have a suggestion? I’m ready to cut down our wonderful apple trees.
Jane Adler
I think a lot of things did taste better when they were grown on family farms and not industrial-style orchards. Having said that, there are some new varietals that are really very good. I especially like a new apple developed in the Okanagan region called Salish. It has been available in limited quantities from selected produce markets (I know Kin’s has had them each year since just before COVID) but this year it is in a few other retailers. It’s replaced the Spartan as my new favourite apple – very crisp and juicy with a clean, not overly sweet flavour. I know they hold their crispiness for three or four days on the counter.
Bill Lawrie
I remember my mother making remarks about flavourless tomatoes, apples and (especially) chicken when I was growing up in the ‘60s. At the time I didn’t really get what she was talking about but, in the last 20 years I have definitely noticed the same thing. Recently, I have discovered there is a term for it, coined by Canadian food writer Mark Schatzker, author of the book The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor (American spelling per the book title). In a nutshell, it’s about the decline of flavour in our food, the way it has affected what we crave and eat and how this is at least partly responsible for the rise in obesity, diabetes and other nutrition-related diseases in North America in the 20th and 21st century.
Sandi Bezanson-Chan
As a child growing up in Toronto in the late 1940’s/50’s, my favourite apples were McIntosh, always purchased in a one quart basket with a handle on top. They were so delicious and crispy, just like the crisp autumn weather and leaves in which to crunch. Now, here in Vancouver, the McIntosh apples are too soft and not as flavourful, but they do work well for Apple Crisp.
Jean Lawrence
Your love of this apple caught my eye because of a wonderful novel by Irish writer Flynn Berry called Northern Spy. Great apple … and also a fantastic read about the IRA!
John Pringle
As a child on a Saskatchewan farm in the 1940s and 50s, I LOVED apples but was only allowed one a day due to austerity measures. I don’t know when I lost that love for the apple, but because of being limited to only eating food produced on the farm, I find there are many items that we have to eat today that are tasteless in comparison. I long for the taste of the chicken that my mother used to behead, defeather, eviscerate, clean, and then drive into town to sell door-to-door for one dollar a piece, just for pin money.
Lynda Mundstock
Rather than making a lot of work for yourself with the 60 lbs of apples, why not give some of them to your local food bank? Just sayin’ ….
June Pearson
My sister-in-law has a tree in Victoria and grows fantastic apples for pies – apples never to be seen in stores. She gives away the excess fruit and vegetables from her garden to a local food collective. They come and harvest them themselves. Deer are a real problem so she has a high deer fence around her patch near Oak bay.
I had the same issue as you did of drowning fruit trees in Lynn Valley back in the day.
Margaret Dutilloy
I seem to be the only person who recalls that back in the 1970s and early 1980s green grapes had a wonderfully sweet taste – it was as if they were full of natural sugar. They had a luminous green colour and looked smaller than grapes today. Today’s grapes are bland, soggy, sour and taste nothing like the old days. What happened?
Mark Phillips