Across Canada by Story by Douglas Gibson

Author:Douglas Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781770412538
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2015-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Hugh MacLennan (1907–1990)

That office is well described in Silver Donald Cameron’s 1973 book, Conversations with Canadian Novelists. His chapter on Hugh MacLennan begins: “The Arts Building at McGill exudes that slightly dignified shabbiness characteristic of old Canadian halls of learning. The door off the staircase landing would seem to lead to a closet, but behind it is a room less like an office than a rather gracious study in a private home.”

A story about that office came my way in the fall of 2013. At the end of one of my shows a bright woman from the audience came to talk to me about her affectionate memories of Hugh MacLennan. She had been one of his students at McGill in the 1960s. In those innocent times university authorities were not alarmed that part of the course could involve female students (like her) going alone to the office of a male professor (like Hugh) for individual tutorials, where the student read an essay aloud and then they discussed it.

On this occasion, she told me, she had been ill, but felt well enough to go to Professor MacLennan’s office to read her essay. In mid-reading, however, the sickness came back. Hugh noticed it, and kindly interrupted.

“Look,” he said, “You’re obviously not well. I have a bed in my inner office, and you should come and lie down.” (Modern Deans would be pulling emergency switches at this point, setting alarm bells ringing.) She gladly agreed, and he ushered her into the inner room, saw her arranged comfortably on the little cot, and tiptoed out while she fell asleep.

About an hour later, he gently checked on her, and found that she was feeling a little better. So he helped her up, escorted her out of the office, an arm at her elbow, and ushered her down to Sherbrooke Street. There he hailed a cab, put her in it, gave the driver the money for the fare, and sent her home.

She was still grateful, all these years later, for his kindness, and she remembered the inner room, and the little bed. Keep it in your mind.

In my new role as an author I was delighted to come for the first time to Montreal to promote my book in the fall of 2011. This was at a very fine regular event, the brunch organized by Paragraphe Books on regular Sundays at the Sheraton Hotel on René Lévesque Boulevard. When my turn to speak came I was able to surprise the crowd with the news that Pierre Trudeau had come very close to killing me on the street right outside our hotel. Although he was then a retired man well into his seventies, he had insisted on crossing the six-lane boulevard in the middle of the block. When the lights changed we were stranded in mid-stream. He cheerfully barked “Run!” and I, fresh from a back operation, did my limping best to follow him through the screeching, honking traffic. I lived to tell the tale, and never

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