GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.

45. Countless events in late summer, 1969

copyright © 2015 WandaS All rights reserved.

WHEN CHARLIE GAVE HIS NOTICE TO CFCF-TV'S News Director, Bert Cannings, "The Boss" grinned and said he had recommended him after CTV asked who'd be the best man for the job. In Canada's "small pond" of broadcast news, Bert was a very big fish. He was glad Charlie accepted. My husband didn't seem to recognize how big a compliment that was.

I tried over the years to find out why he was incapable of being proud of himself. He impressed people by performing exceptionally, by being a really good, nice gentleman, but he never believed such judgments. When I once told him my parents and their friends were fond of him and impressed by his grasp of world affairs, he replied "Either they're fools or you're lying".

In early August of 1969 we spent a day driving on the slow old highways along Lake Ontario to Toronto, to find a new home. Although "rent in Montreal, buy in Toronto" was a national watchword, we would rent for a year and spend it finding a real "keeper" of a house, a home for life, as our parents had. 

CTV's newsroom and studios were in eastern Toronto in a sprawling new building purpose-built at the end of the 1950s for CFTO-TV. About 7 km almost directly south of it was a 20-storey apartment building with a vast lawn near the edge of the Scarborough Bluffs, overlooking the lake. It was three years old but more than half empty, and had only a tiny "for rent" sign by the front door.

The superintendent, a thin mild-mannered man of about 50 named Ken, showed us a corner unit on the 14th floor. Both bedrooms had picture windows looking over the lawn and the lake. The living/dining area's view was west, toward downtown although that was hidden from view by a treed ridge 2km away. Guildwood Village was the name of the sprawling development of homes in which the building stood, and it was called "The Bournemouth".

We wondered why it wasn't fully occupied. As we stood on the balcony of #1405 enjoying breezes from the lake -- on an August day that was unbearably hot and muggy everywhere except there -- Ken said a shortage of rental space in Toronto a few years earlier had led the provincial government to encourage construction by promising to pay the rents of completed empty units until they were occupied. A lot of buildings went up very fast, all over the city, but owners didn't advertise, simply collected money from the government.

The Bournemouth's tenants had owned homes nearby and, when grown children moved out, welcomed it because they knew the neighbourhood well enough to appreciate the fresh air, silence, views and extensive parkland along the lake. However, it was far from where people worked and shopped and played, and public transit was almost non-existent so second cars were essential. While a lot of people had no idea it existed, others felt it was too far from everything else.

Ken said the houses we saw below were the last ones built, that no more could be built because the bluffs eroded a little every year and a strip of woodland between them and the edge of the bluffs was too narrow for house lots. We gladly handed over a cheque to cover first and last months' rents at $225 each, exchanged telephone numbers, and left. 

We paused at my parents' house long enough to help Dad put finishing touches on plans for Cardinal Wojtyla's incredibly tight and busy itinerary beginning on the 28th. Then we drove home to wrap up our Montreal life. After a week in Bermuda we were rested and ready to meet the movers ordered by CTV. Five men would pack one day, load a van the next with three specialists handling my baby grand piano.

While Charlie cleared out his desk at CFCF-TV and was taken to lunch by Bert and others, I called friends to say Goodbye, and made the rounds of favourite stores. The A&P's manager, cashiers and delivery boys had helped me far beyond their job descriptions when the sciatica caused trouble. I went there determined to repeat a particular question: Why had Peter, the manager of the meat department, suddenly vanished a few days before Christmas of 1968?