Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Remembrance Day

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

“There’s something about the ghosts who live in the house where you live. Some kind of an inexpressible pull between the people who have lived and loved under the same roof as you have.” Today, a Dave and Morley story that is seldom heard: a story about place, about history, and about remembering and sharing those histories with the next generation. Also, we play one of our (and your) favourite Story Exchanges: about the bagpiper at Vimy Ridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. As many of you know, Stuart used to read letters from listeners on the Vinyl Cafe. We called that segment the Story Exchange. We've received so many great letters over the years. Today on the podcast, we're going to share one of those stories. It's probably the most requested of all of them. The story about the bagpiper at Vimy Ridge.

That's coming up later. We're going to start with a Dave and Morley story. This is Remembrance Day. There's a photograph of a soldier hanging not far from the front door of Dave's house. It's not a large photo and it hangs where the light isn't good, so it's easy to miss if you don't know it's there. It's in a wooden frame, a brown wooden frame. The photo itself is also brown, sepia in the old style.

The soldier, a soldier from the First World War, is wearing the uniform of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He's standing in front of a chestnut tree and behind him, resting on the trunk of the tree, is a bicycle. Though he's staring at the camera, this soldier, it's difficult to read his expression. You might think you read pride on his face or perhaps resolve. He is standing erect and he isn't smiling, but that's what soldiers do. And you could just as easily read fear or, as Dave has sometimes thought, confusion. The face of a man puzzled to find himself by this tree in front of this camera. Whatever it is the soldier was feeling when the picture was taken, Dave has over the years seen all of these emotions in his face.

Pride, resolve, fear and confusion, all of these and others. The man in the picture has no connection to Dave in any conventional sense. It's not a photo of his father or of his grandfather. It's not his uncle standing in front of that chestnut tree, wherever that tree was. It's not any member of Dave's family. Yet Dave might tell you, if you ask, that no other photograph he owns has the power to move him the way this photograph does.

Sometimes he found himself staring at the photo, the way a man stares at his own image in a mirror. Sometimes he even talks to it. I won't be long, he might say quietly on his way out the door. The soldier in this picture is Corporal Eddie Ginger Matheson, 531-87, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The chain of circumstance that ended with Ginger Matheson's photo hanging in the hall at Dave's house began some 60 years ago. The first link of the chain was forged on an August afternoon in 1941

when Ginger Matheson's wife, his widow, dropped a postcard on the top of her bureau and ran downstairs to tell a coal man to be careful where he parked his wagon. The last time the coal man had come, his wagon wheels had run through her flower garden and laid waste to a row of pansies. The postcard that Georgia Matheson dropped as she ran downstairs was the last thing Georgia had received from Ginger before he left England to join the front. Georgia had kept that postcard in her dresser drawer since it arrived in the afternoon mail in the summer of 1915 from time to time over the 26 years since she received it Georgia would take the card out of her dresser and read the 44 words written on the back carefully to herself

although after 26 years she knew those words by heart and she didn't need the card anymore to wonder what her ginger might have been thinking when he wrote it and what he might have been doing during the moments before he wrote it and the moments after and whether he had put it in his pocket and carried it with him for a while or whether he had dropped it in a post box as soon as he had finished writing it. Georgia had wondered all this about the postcard and more. She had wondered about the stamp, for instance, a British Tupany stamp. Ginger's lips would have touched the stamp, and over the years, in a gesture of first pain and then wistful regret and finally habit, Georgia always put her lips to the stamp before returning the card to the drawer in her dresser where she kept it.

put her lips to the stamp before returning the card to the drawer in her dresser where she kept it. On this day, however, this August afternoon in 1941, Georgia did not put the card away when she ran downstairs to scold the coal man. In her hurry, she dropped it on her bureau. She dropped it without bringing the stamp to her lips, and she ran downstairs. As soon as she left the room, George's cupboard door swung cautiously open and George's five-year-old grandson, Gus, peered out. Gus had hidden in the clothes cupboard so his grandmother would not know he had been playing in her bedroom. He was not supposed to do that, but Gus was on a mission. He was after his grandmother's silver hand mirror, which fascinated him and which he had been told several times he was not to touch. But now she was gone, he crossed the room quickly, and it was while Gus, five years old, was

struggling to get onto the top of his grandmother's bureau so he could get at that silver hand mirror that he unknowingly knocked the last postcard his grandfather had written home before he went to the front, knocked it off the bureau, and as fate would have it, behind the baseboard on the bedroom wall so it was never seen again, not by his grandmother Georgia anyway, who didn't notice the postcard was missing for several weeks. And when Georgia realized the postcard had disappeared, she looked everywhere for

it. For weeks, she looked, not sure at all when she had last seen it. No one saw the postcard for 40 years, not until Georgia was long dead and gone. No one saw it until a Friday night in 1981. Morley was pregnant, and Dave was fixing up the smallest of the three bedrooms on the second floor of their new house, getting it ready for the daughter, who he believed at the time was going to be a son. Boy, they'd call Robert. On Monday morning, men were coming to sand the floors in this bedroom, so Dave was removing the baseboards on that Friday night

so the men could do the job properly. It was after 10 at night, and Dave was bent over and prying at a reluctant section of the baseboard when the postcard fell at his feet like a leaf in autumn. The postcard had a picture of a British country pub on one side, a British pub on a winding country road, the Fraser Arms. On the other side, in black ink, in a tight and controlled script, there were 44 words. My darling Georgia, it's a glorious day. Bill and I on weekend leave and here in Nottingham to visit Aunt Bea.

They say we'll be shipping off soon, finally getting our turn at the big show. Isn't it grand? Love, your Ginger. Dave took the card to Morley, who was downstairs watching Hill Street Blues. And when the commercials began, Dave showed her the card, and they read it together, and they wondered together about Georgia and Ginger, who they could see by the address had lived in their house at one time. And then Dave put the card on the coffee table and his hand on his pregnant wife's belly. When it was time for bed, Dave took the postcard upstairs with him and put it in his

bureau, in the cluttered drawer where he puts things that he doesn't want to throw out, small things that have no other place. There's something about the ghosts who live in the house where you live. There is some kind of an inexpressible pull between the people who have lived and loved under the same roof as you have. The older you get and the longer you live in a place, the more the ghosts who live with you will call your name and the more you will hear them. Ginger Matheson called to Dave again 12 years after the night Dave had pulled the baseboard off the bedroom wall. He called next on a rainy night in November, the wind gusting around the neighborhood, the rain pelting the window panes, and Dave sitting up late with Sam, his second child, who had an earache. Dave was sitting in that

same room holding a hot water bottle to his son's ear when for no apparent reason he remembered the card in his bureau drawer. They say we'll be shipping off soon, finally getting our turn at the big show. Isn't it grand? Dave dug the postcard out the next morning and took it with him to work. A few weeks later on an afternoon when he was alone in his store with nothing to do, he wrote a letter to the Department of National Defense and asked if they would send him a copy of the war records of one Ginger Matheson, who had written a postcard telling his beloved Georgia that he was off to the big show. Dave didn't know if the Department of Defense

would share a man's military records with anyone who asked, but he decided it was worth a try. What happened was the Department of Defense forwarded Dave's letter to the Archives of Canada, and four and a half months later, Dave received an official-looking envelope in the mail, and inside the envelope he found a photocopy of Corporal Ginger Matheson's attestation papers, the form Ginger had filled out when he had enlisted, which he had apparently done on the 14th of July in 1914. Ginger Matheson, 5 feet 10 inches, 156 pounds, brown eyes, auburn hair, Princess Patricia's Canadian light infantry.

Dave paper-clipped the two pages the Archives of Canada had sent him onto the back of Ginger's postcard and returned it to the drawer in his bureau. And he didn't think of Ginger Matheson again until an autumn afternoon four years later. Dave remembers it was an autumn afternoon because he was raking leaves when he noticed the man and the woman watching him from the far side of the street. They were maybe ten years older than him. The man, who was beginning to go bald, had his hands jammed in the pockets of his beige windbreaker.

The woman, who was wearing a bright red car coat, would occasionally point at his house. Dave thought she might be a real estate broker. When the man took his hands out of his pockets and pointed at Stephanie's bedroom, Dave crossed the street. May I help you, he asked, still holding his rake. Please excuse us, said the woman. My husband grew up here. Not grew up, said the woman. My husband grew up here. Not grew up, said the man.

That was his bedroom, said the woman, pointing to the room at the front of Dave's house. It used to be my grandmother's house, said the man. My mother and I lived here with her during the Second War. I was five years old. My father was overseas. We lived here for three and a half years. Four and a half, said the woman. That was my bedroom, said the man.

He was pointing to the front bedroom. What was your grandmother's name, asked Dave. Matheson, said the man. Georgia Matheson. It took a moment for Dave to make the connection. Georgia Matheson was your grandmother, he said. It was the final link in the chain. And then he said, I have something that you should see. Don't go away. I'll be right back. And Dave ran across the street and into his house, and when he returned, he handed Gus the postcard that he had found behind the baseboard the night

he was preparing Stephanie's room for the Sanders. Gus turned it over in his hand several times before he read the message. My grandfather sent this card, he said finally. He was examining it ever so carefully. I never met him. I've never seen his handwriting before. He handed the card to the woman in the red car coat who was standing beside him. And when she handed it back to her husband, Dave said, would you like to see the house? I was just going to fix some lunch. Thank you, but it's all right, said the man,

handing the postcard back. We'd love to, said the woman. my name is molly this is my husband gus and so they went in and they went upstairs and they looked at the top front bedroom where gus had lived for four and a half years i remember watching the moon through this window he said all i knew my my father was somewhere in Europe, and he was a soldier. I used to think as long as I could see the moon, he could too. And that meant he was okay. I hated cloudy nights. I hated it when it rained. I still don't like the rain. The lady next door was from Holland, I think.

May I open the cupboard, he asked. Sometimes I used to sit in the cupboard. They looked around some more, and then they went downstairs, Gus and Molly, and they sat at the kitchen table while Dave made a plate of sandwiches, and Morley, who joined them, made coffee. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence when they all sat down at the table, and then they began to talk, and because the only thing they had in common beside the house was the postcard that was now lying on the table between them, they began with ginger. He was born in 1882, said Gus, taking a cheese and tomato sandwich and placing it in the middle

of his plate carefully. He was born in Halifax. He was born the same year Hiram Maxim patented the machine gun. He was really too old to be there, said Gus, putting his sandwich down and reaching for the milk. And when he poured it into his coffee, it spidered into the cup like an oil pigment in paint. Ah, he said, real cream. He looked at his wife and smiled.

He was wounded on October the 23rd, 1917, said Gus, stirring his coffee carefully, which was his 35th birthday. He didn't have a clue what he was getting into. My grandmother told me a bunch of them signed up on the same night. They'd been playing poker. They'd had a few beers. And after the poker game, they just went down and signed up.

He'd never handled a gun in his life. We don't know much about what happened to him, said Gus. He's buried near Calais, said Dave. Near Calais. Oui, mais oui, said Gus. How did you know that? I sent for his record, said Dave. He was killed instantly.

That's what they always used to say, said Gus. No one wanted people back home to know how horrible it was. It was horrible beyond imagining. So that's what they used to write. He died instantly. Most of them didn't die instantly. Most of them died of slow, painful infection. The mud they were living in was full of disease. It was full of human excrement and rotting bodies and manure from the horses. If you got an open wound, you could die from a cut in your leg. Gus picked up a sandwich and looked at it, and then he put it down without taking a bite. My grandfather didn't die instantly.

He was taken to a hospital in Ouimereux. That's where he died. How do you know, asked Morley. After the war, men used to show up at the back door sometimes of this house. Men who had come back from the war and couldn't. They were, I guess they were broken. My grandmother would give them money or make them a sandwich. One day a man showed up who said he knew Ginger. He said he was there the night Ginger died. It was at Passchendaele. The British began the attack at the end of the summer.

The Canadians joined in October. They took the Passchendaele Ridge on November the 6th. Before the battle began, British headquarters decided there should be a bombardment to soften up the German position. It was one of the heaviest bombardments of the war. Everyone on the ground told the generals it was a bad idea because the land was so low it was like Holland. There was no drainage. But they launched the artillery anyway and the place was blasted to hell.

It was like a mud moonscape. All the trees were sharded and the mud was so thick that no one could move. So they put down duck boards like a wooden sidewalk, and if you wanted to go anywhere, you had to move along the duck boards. Everything was so slick from the rain and the mud, and they could only move at night because of the snipers. And men who slipped off the duck boards in the dark literally drowned in the mud. One man, said Molly, one man died for every

inch they gained. Over 16,000 Canadian casualties, said Gus. And then the British lost it about a month later. What about your grandfather, said Morley? He was hit by shrapnel, said Gus. His arm was blown off. He lay in the mud for a day. He hobbled back through the communication trenches to the advanced dressing station on the next night. It was in an old chateau about 400 yards back. Men who died there were buried out the back door but he didn't die there his wound got infected and he was taken to the hospital in Weemaroo or that's the story Gus shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich

they'd been talking for well over an hour but not one of them had an inclination to stop Sam came in and saw the sandwiches and tried to reach for one. You sit down if you're going to eat, said Morley. He sat beside his father intending to inhale a sandwich or two and then bolt, but he stayed too and listened. Then Molly said, have you ever been to Vimy? Dave and Morley both shook their heads. No. It's like a religious experience, said Molly. Gus looked directly at Sam. It's the most awe-inspiring place I have ever been in my life, he said. The monument's on the top of a ridge, which

is where the Germans were, said Molly. The British and the French had tried to take the ridge before and they had failed, and the task was given to the Canadian Corps in the spring of 1917. April, said Molly. April the 9th, said Gus. As you walk towards the monument, said Gus, you can imagine them shooting at you. And the closer you get, the monument, said Gus, you can imagine them shooting at you. And the closer you get, the monument seems to grow in size and detail until you come to the base of it and you can put your hand on it.

There are thousands of names on the monument, said Molly. Names of the dead who were never found, said Gus. You understand, said Gus, it's a monument in France just for Canadians the French gave the land to Canada to remember and honor the Canadian soldiers who died there they were fighting for for us said Morley we spent a whole afternoon up there said Molly and we barely talked to each other, said Gus. I read some of the names and I cried. I cried for all those young men. You just have no concept of the numbers. They were real people.

They were fathers and brothers. They were sons and boyfriends. And so many of them never came home. And standing there that afternoon, it just made it real to me. They were silent again. Dave was thinking, I am so glad that Sam can hear this. This time it was Gus who broke the silence. I remember during the war, he said he was remembering the second war now.

He was remembering his father's war now, not his grandfather's war. The two wars seemed to have merged in his mind. They seemed to have become the same war, one war. It didn't matter. I remember during the war, said Gus, I played cards with my grandmother in this kitchen. We played snap. Did you ever play snap, he asked, but he didn't wait for an answer. The cards we had were all military cards, he said. They had planes and guns and tanks.

All my coloring books were military too, said Gus, and the news on the radio was all war news. I remember thinking, after the war, there'll be no news. Gus and Molly stayed for supper. They never left the table all afternoon. At some point, they exchanged their mugs of coffee for glasses of wine, and Stephanie came, and the sandwiches were replaced with a chicken. The longer they talked, the more the wars got muddled. They talked about Korea, the war no one remembers,

and about a boyhood friend of Dave's from Glace Bay who joined the American Army and did a tour in Vietnam. Morley remembered a father from her neighborhood who had gone to the Suez. They were talking and the kids were listening, Sam and Stephanie. And maybe that was the most important thing. Maybe that was enough. Maybe that's all you can do. You pass on the stories

about the men and the women who crossed the ocean in uniforms because that's what you did. Or because you believed in something bigger than yourself. Or because you'd had a few beers after an afternoon poker game. And so many of them didn't come back. And those of us left here around our tables with our wine and our roast chickens, all we can do is stop every once in a while and hold them in our mind, lest we forget. Gus and Molly stayed until 8.30, and then Gus said, we really should go.

As they got up, Dave picked up the postcard that he had found behind the baseboard the night he had been preparing the room for the Sanders, and he handed it to Gus. You should take this, he said. It belongs to you. Gus took it and said, thank you, I'd like to have it. Gus sent Dave the photo of his grandfather, Corporal Ginger Matheson, three months later. The photo of him standing in front of the chestnut tree

with a bike leaning against it. It was already in the brown frame. Dave hung it in the hall by the front door the night he got it thank you that was the story we call Remembrance Day I love it when Sam and Stephanie join the family at the table so much of what I learned I learned through my parents' friends. I learned from being a fly on the wall. My parents had a lot of super interesting

characters in their lives. They led a very full, rich life with, I don't know how to put this, just interesting characters coming in and out of the house all of the time. People would just pop by. My parents had a lot of close friends and they had a lot of parties. As I've said before, I was a super social kid, so I loved that. I loved hanging out with the adults and I think my brother did too, which is good because we did not have a choice. It's just what our family did. That's how I learned about real stuff, by listening to what the grown-ups were talking about. I'm sure it's the same for many kids. My eldest daughter Eloise is like that.

All she ever wants to do is play with the big kids. And especially the biggest kids of all. The grown-ups. With kids her own age, she's super outgoing and super opinionated. But when she's around the grown-ups, she barely speaks at all. She's too busy taking it all in, absorbing, learning through osmosis. So I love that moment when Sam comes into the kitchen to wolf down a few sandwiches and Morley makes him sit.

into the kitchen to wolf down a few sandwiches and Morley makes him sit. Because it's the kind of thing that if Dave sat down and tried to tell Sam those stories, he wouldn't listen. I mean, he might hear them, but he wouldn't listen. He wouldn't feel them. You know what I mean? But when he overhears the adults talking about it, it makes it more interesting. This story also made me think of when I became aware of war and the gravity of it. It was at Vimy Ridge. I've told you before that I used to sing in a choir, the Hamilton Children's Choir, and how we used to tour. We toured France when I was, I don't know, 11 or 12 or something like that. And one of our stops was Vimy Ridge. The adults were excited about this. And I understood

that I was supposed to be excited about it too. They explained everything, just like Stuart did in that story. And they explained how meaningful this place was and what it represented. And they explained how meaningful this place was and what it represented. But, you know, I was like 11 or 12 and I was about to cross the ocean for the very first time. I got what they were saying, but I didn't get what they were saying. Not until we arrived. I remember getting off the bus that we were traveling around in and walking up to Vimy, to the monument. It was exactly like Stuart described it. Many of you have probably been there. You see it, and it almost feels like a mirage. Its beauty is almost, I don't know,

mythical or something. Part of that is you don't really know what you're looking at, or I didn't. But whether you know or not, the foremost feeling you get and the way it moves you is visceral, not intellectual. I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Most of us did. We were there on Canada Day, I think, and we stood at the base of the monument and sang the national anthem. For many years, I thought that's why we went. I thought we went to Vimy Ridge on Canada Day to sing O Canada. But as I started working on this podcast and checking my memory and my calendar and my photo albums, I don't think that's the case. I don't think we were asked there to sing on Canada Day. I can't say for certain, but I think we were just there like everybody else.

At first, I was disappointed to realize that, but maybe it's a better story. If we weren't asked to sing, were we moved to sing? Did the beauty, the artistic representation of sacrifice move us to song? Whatever the reason, in that moment I understood something I could never understand from reading textbooks or listening to teachers. I felt what it meant. I felt the weight of the place and of those who had stood there before us. before us. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with a story that many of you have said you'd like to hear again. Stick with me. Welcome back.

It's time for that true story I was telling you about. This was not a typical story exchange. This was a letter that was written to Stuart by his friend, Chris Irwin. Stuart was so taken by the letter that he asked Chris if he could read it on the radio. So here we go. I'm Stuart McLean and this is the Vinyl Cafe and today on the show we're talking about Remembrance Day or Veterans Day if you're listening in the United States. I told you at the beginning of the show that I have no memories of war. I've never been called to fight for my country so So I don't know much, if anything, about these matters. Although I'm sure of one thing, and that is, like all hard things, it's important to talk about it,

to share our stories and memories, our ideas and our thoughts. My friend Chris Irwin told me a story recently recently and I wanted to share it with you today I want to share it because I found it moving it's Chris's story not mine so I asked him to write it down here it is dear Stuart writes Chris thank you for asking me to share my story. It's not short. In fact, it's rather long, but it is true. So it's true to one of your two rules. It requires some background.

I'll hurry in the beginning and slow when it matters most. My father's health has not been good, and because of that, travel is something that has become rare and difficult at best. Last year, however, my parents went to a school in Exeter, Ontario, to hear a presentation given by students returning from a two-week trip to Europe. They had followed the history of Canada's war efforts from France through Belgium and up into Holland. It moved them. The man organizing it concluded the evening saying that he had had such a great response he would lead another tour for anyone who would like to take the same journey. Normandy, Juno Beach, Dieppe, Etat, Beaumont-Amel, Vimy, the Somme, Flanders, Ypres. Names that are not so much destinations as they are signposts of Canada's military history, not names at all.

Events. Having given up on travel to some degree and international travel completely, my parents did something unlikely. They signed up on the spot. My father had sadly accepted that he would never get to the place where his father fought and his uncle died. To be offered the chance in his 70s was too much to resist, even with his health. Desire replaced regret. And so my family heard of this bucket list pilgrimage and cautiously cheered.

My mother let it be known how much it would mean if our whole family could go with them, but time, responsibilities, money, and work prevented it. Only my sister signed on, in part to give her 12-year-old son a taste of history, and more specifically, to see to it that my parents had the help they would need to pull it off. In the weeks leading up to their departure, my brother and I admitted to each other how it bothered us to be sitting this one out. How could we? But how could we not? Somehow the questions were answered. We decided on a four-day plan that would see us join them en route and accompany them at least until Vimy. We'd make it a surprise,

why not? And that way, if it fell through, none would be the wiser. Okay, selfishly it was for us to follow that historic path, to pay respect, to be on those beaches with our father as he experienced them for the first time. But it was for our parents, too, to express our gratitude for raising us with an awareness of the past. They always insisted that we remember. We could let them know we'd not forget. They had, after all, signed us up to play in a pipe band when we were both young. Dad played. He had, I think, been hopeful we would meet history firsthand in the Ingersoll Pipe Band. There were many veterans in the IPB in those days, living proof, much loved. And somewhere in that place between appreciation and recollection, it came to me. If we went, if the pieces fell into place, I would take my pipes and play at Vimy for my parents, to honor them,

to let them see I understood their lessons in life, to honor the fallen as well. And so it was. Just days out, the plan took shape. My brother and I packed light and picked a flight. We left. Pieces of my uniform stuffed into my bag. My pipes jammed into the smallest case I could find to be sure the airline would let me and us carry on. The surprise went well. A reunion of emotion and tears. We let dad in on it late in the game for fear a shock was not what he needed most. He loved being in the know. It gave him pleasure to see the thing unfold. But the pipes remained my mystery. At one point near Dieppe, my sister said the words my grandmother had said each time I visited.

You didn't by chance bring your pipes, did you? When my grandmother asked, she always knew the answer, of course. But my sister did not. That is, did not until my paws gave me away. She spoke first, moms dying to ask, but knows you likely couldn't. For two days, nothing was said. We immersed ourselves in Canada's past. On the eve of our stop at Vimy, we came along the coast, south out of Etat, south to a cemetery that fell away from the road to the right, not visible to the channel, but away in that direction. It was another spectacular example of how the Commonwealth War Graves Commission continues to do such remarkable work.

We had made several such stops at similar cemeteries. So many there are. But this one hit me uniquely. The lateness of the day, perhaps. The shadows, long and perfect on the precisely cut lawns. The strong, solid marble monument you enter through, high on the hill, massive and still. Or the 11,000 headstones you look out and down upon as you come through the gate. 11,000. Something rose in me and said, right here, this is where you'll play. So quick, back to the car, uniform on, tune, up out by the road where the traffic will muffle the sound. The first I'll be heard is as I rise over the steps by the stone of remembrance.

I opened my pipe box. I took them out and stared into the now empty box lined with 50-year-old velvet. It should have had a small bottle containing two reeds. It didn't. I was angry, disbelieving, most of all embarrassed, standing there in a kilt in France at the side of the road without any way to play. Pipes need reeds. I put everything hastily away and took the long walk down through the row upon row of stones and shadows to where my sister and brother were looking at the names on some German headstones in the back left corner. The dead, of course, all made the same sacrifice. And in many cemeteries now, men from both sides of the line share the same soil.

That walk brought perspective. My disappointment felt selfish among the staggering number of names on the stones around me. And while shocked at forgetting my reeds, it was only a wish, not a life that was lost. I was humbled, not angry. I told my brother and sister, admitted it hurt, and left it at that. They said little save sorry. At supper that night in Arras, France, my mother could finally not keep her curiosity contained. She started the main course with a question. You didn't bring your pipes with you, did you? During the meal, I told Mom and Dad of my plan and my problem.

We tried to make light of it. We spent dessert wondering the ways one might find a reed overnight in Arras. It was a short conversation. We thought of none. We went to bed. The next morning, my mother came to breakfast with two ideas. The first, to call a local tourist bureau about an upcoming festival. She had a pamphlet.

Perhaps they have a pipe band coming. Who knows? Her second idea redefined long shot. So much so that my mother told only my sister, who, as a last resort, handed me a piece of paper. Carol McPherson, it said. Below the name was a number. My sister explained,

it's the only Scottish name in the Yara phone book. Call her. I didn't. For an hour. But when my sister asked again and then offered to call herself before we left the hotel to begin our day's tour of Beaumont-Amel and then Vimy, I said, no, I will. The voice that answered the phone was French, without the trace of a Gaelic brogue. Je suis Canadien, I said. Parlez-vous Anglais? With that, I was out of French. But apparently not luck.

The phone was passed to someone who asked me in English to whom he was speaking. My name is Chris, I said. I am Canadian. I play the bagpipes. I wanted to play today at Vimy, but I have no reed. I wondered if you know of any place I might be able to get a reed. I spoke slowly in case he was working in a second language. Fast or slow, I knew it sounded crazy. I expected him to hang up. He didn't. Do I have a bagpipe read, he said. Just the way he said it indicated he had said those words before. Most people would not so casually have said bagpipe read in context.

in context. I felt a glimmer of optimism, cautious optimism. Yes, I said, the chanter reed. For small pipes, he asked. No, I said, I play the highland pipes. So you need a cane reed, not plastic. Afraid to ask another question, I waited. I cannot help you he said but I know someone you should call his name is Pierre Pierre Alexis Cambiron he makes bagpipes he might be able to help you a bagpipe maker where does he live I asked fearing that timing might still be an obstacle. Our stop at Vimy was only hours away. He lives here in town. Try the number. See if you can find him.

I said thank you a few too many times. Just before hanging up, I thought to ask his name. He was Chris Craig of Aura, France. I don't know if he lived with, was married to, or even knew a Carol McPherson. I didn't think to ask. Right or wrong number, hope glimmered. I made my second phone call. Pierre Alexis Cambiron answered. He spoke English as well. The conversation began with much confusion, but eventually he said that he may have a reed that would work in my pipes, a cane reed at home. He was at work, a teacher. He could check at lunch. I should meet him at a school across from the pharmacy at the end of the long road you

were on once you walked through the train station tunnel. Go under the tracks through the main door. It's not to be missed. That was how he put it. I hung up the phone, not quite believing where this was heading. My brother Bill and I told no one. We said we were going to head into town at noon to see if any music stores existed. We said we would catch up with the tour as they left for Vimy. As our family walked the Regina Trench, we took a deep breath and walked away from our car, parked in the busy square in front of the train station. People in movies do this, my brother said, not people like us. It was just as Pierre had said it would be. We waited by the gates of a school, and within minutes we were following a perfect stranger up the steps of an empty school and

into an empty classroom. He held a small tackle box under his arm. I held a pipe box under mine. I only had to see the reed to know that it would do the trick. How it would sound was not the point. That it existed was enough. I played for him briefly. We smiled at each other. You don't know how much this means to me, I said. What can I do to repay you?

He shook his head. It was laughed that just helping another piper was reward enough. If you're ever in Canada and need something, I joked. But as I laughed with his reed, I realized that this might be a debt that would remain unpaid. We met the tour and made our way to Vimy. Only my brother and I knew how things had taken shape in the hours over lunch. I wasn't sure how to begin. In our brief conversation, Mr. Craig had warned that playing at the monument might be tough. That was his word, tough. It is an overwhelming sight, he said,

a very public place to play. So I began as pipers do. Bagpipes need to be tuned. One needs a private place to do that. Not wanting to warm up near the people at the statue itself, I drove down a side lane. There were two cemeteries down the road and a small looping path between them. It was removed, surrounded by grain fields to the south. It was discreet. There were three or four people walking among the white stones in the walled cemetery nearby, but no one else. Would playing intrude, I wondered. Cautiously, I began to tune, then to play. After 15 minutes, I turned around and any uncertainty I had of the effect fell away. The people in the cemetery were walking toward me together. I spoke first,

hoping to establish a tone. I'm sorry if I interrupted you, I said. I needed a place to warm up. I hope it didn't disturb you. The woman told me that her father used to play. Then, through tears, she said that she had not heard the pipes in a long time. The others were not with her, but followed her over to me, wanting, it seems, to thank me for playing and to ask my story. I told them briefly what I have written to this point. And with handshakes and smiles, we went on our way. They to their cars, me to the monument on Vimy Ridge. I didn't just walk up those great steps and begin. I went down the hill and started in the distance below,

slowly moving toward the base from the north, unsure, respectfully. I was met with smiles from those that passed by. moving toward the base from the north, unsure, respectfully. I was met with smiles from those that passed by. I was also met by my brother, who, when I asked if I was attracting the wrong kind of attention up at the monument, said he thought not. They would like you to come closer, he said. I think everyone up there would agree. I played for an hour or more

that afternoon. Slow airs, waltzes, laments. And when three wreaths were laid in commemoration by my parents' tour, I offered to play Flowers of the Forest, the lament you hear after the laying of wreaths almost everywhere you go on Remembrance Day. There were less than 50 people there to hear my pipes that day at Vimy Ridge, but among them were my parents. And because of that, I played for the entire world, entire world, my entire world, and for the lost lives for which that monument stands, the many, many lives. Bagpipes are nothing without a reed, and a piper is nothing without his pipes. That day, as moving as it was, would not have been the same. I can't say it would have been nothing. Anyone who has ever stood in the shadow of that proud monument will attest to that. But for me,

well, I will return and I will play again at the base of those towers of remembrance. But my parents will not be back there. I'm sure of that. My family will not drop everything to join them on a tour to remember the fallen in France. I know that too. And I believe I will never find a more fitting way to honor my parents and the love and support that is a lifetime's work. To play for them in that moment on that hill on that day was perfect. I will not forget that day and now I know what it is. It is a gift to me and to my children. I have a picture of my family united in a small cemetery. I have two stones, one from Dieppe, the other from Juneau Beach. My reminder that I stood with my father while he stood there with his, both feeling, though not saying much.

I have a real poppy, to return to Pierre Alexis Cambrian when I return to France with my children to teach them my parents' lessons and in turn give them their gift to let them see the rows of lives that lie there, lost, to let them touch with their own hands the stones that times made smooth, to let them hear bagpipes played upon the ridge, maybe even to play along. But most of all, to be sure they experience the sigh of silence that follows the pipe tune's end.

And when they do, I hope that my children will wonder in that most quiet moment what it must have been like. What it is that brings people across the world to walk respectfully among the names, for names are all that remains. What emotion it is that puts that look upon each face and brings so many to tears. That quiet is real. It is peace. And what we feel must be remembrance. That comes from Chris Irwin of Burlington, Ontario. And Chris is here today. And yes, to answer his grandmother's unspoken question,

he brought his pipes. That is him you hear now warming up. Chris is going to play for us, and he's going to play the lament he played that afternoon on Vimy Ridge. This is Chris Irwin playing The Flowers of the Forest. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon We've got to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. Stay with me. Thank you.

That's it for today. We'll be back here next week with this Davin Morley story. One Sunday morning, Albert, unshaven and exhausted, looked at her and said, It's either me or the dog. Dorothy felt a great sense of freedom wash over her. That's from the story Stanley the Snoring Dog.

You can hear the whole story next week on the podcast. In the meantime, if you want to find out more, you can go to our website, vinylcafe.com, or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network.

Greg Duclute is our recording engineer. Remember that. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.