The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn On Remembering

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Some truly wonderful and sometimes emotional letters from you, listeners to The Bridge, about what Remembrance Day means to you.  Even the Random Ranter gets in on the act with his thoughts.  It's a special show.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's a Your Turn Thursday, and your turn is on remembering. And the Rantum Rander is remembering too. And hello again. A couple of days ago, I suggested that if you had some thoughts on Remembrance Day, seeing as we've been remembering all this week, that you might want to send them in. And we turned your turn this week, at least partially, into a remembrance session with some of your thoughts.

Well, I don't know, it must have hit a nerve because I've been swamped by letters, emails from many of you over these last couple of days. And as a result, there have been so many with wonderful notes, wonderful emails, added with pictures of relatives past, of fathers and grandfathers, artwork done by mothers and grandmothers during the war,

pictures of medals, pictures of cenotaphs, pictures of cemeteries. It's been very moving. Now, I will not have time to read them all, but I've done my normal kind of selection of parts of many of the emails that have come in this week. And I will try to give them the time they deserve. As a result,

there were many other emails on other topics as well this week, but I think I'm going to leave those aside for this week and just focus on the Remembrance Day related letters. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. By the time the bridge goes on the air tomorrow with Good Talk,

it will be past the hour, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. And we will, as a result, move on. But we've had all this week to think about the power of remembering and the importance of Remembrance Day, and this kind of will sum it up with your thoughts. But as you know, we had a chance to talk to authors Tim Cook, his latest book that deals with parts of the story of the First World War, and Ted Barris with his latest book that deals with parts of the Second World War.

We've had thoughts and commentaries on Canada's participation in the Korean War, in Bosnia, in Afghanistan, in peacekeeping missions around the world. So we've tried to cover all the bases. But what we haven't heard is from you, and that's what today is all about, as well as the random ranter weighing in as well with his thoughts on remembrance. But let's get started with your letters, because as I mentioned, there are a lot of them. Doug Moore writes from Nanus Bay in British Columbia. He writes about his father.

As a 21-year-old, he was aboard Skeena when she was taken off convoy patrol and assigned to the English Channel to sweep for U-boats during the Normandy invasion. He was also aboard on the 24th of October 1944. While seeking refuge in the darkness from a North Atlantic storm, Skeena dragged her anchor out of Reykjavik in Iceland and found herself aground on the rocks off Viddy Island. The call to abandon ship amid the chaos resulted in the loss of 15 lives.

My father wrote a letter to the parents of one of his shipmates who had perished, and I'd like to share a bit of it with you. She piled full strength on the rocks and both screws were busted off. When that happened, she was out of control and pounding badly. Then the captain gave the order to abandon ship as he thought she was sure to go over on her side and sink. After most of the crew were in the water, he ordered those who were handy enough to the ship to hear the order to get back on board, as he thought they would never make land, which was so close. But five of the floats were too far away to come back. Gordon was in one of them, and I was in one myself.

It was impossible to do anything with the floats. They were like corks being bounced around. The closest land was Viddy Island, so we made for that. The float that I was on was the only one that was washed up on it within a half an hour. The others missed the point and were carried out into open water. Most of our boys were lost, trying to reach land on the other side of the island. A few did manage to make it and were sent to hospital.

One of them was on the float with Gordon. He was a petty officer by the name of Orton. He told me that Gordon wasn't afraid, but knew that he couldn't hang on much longer. They sang hymns and said prayers for him that went on for a little while and finally he asked Orton to say a prayer especially for him. But before he was finished, he slid off the float and wasn't found until the next day by rescue parties. Doug Moore writes, every time that I read this letter, I close my eyes and envision a howling

North Atlantic gale with all these young men bobbing in darkness, in the freezing Atlantic water, and the horror that they must have endured. Doug, thank you for sharing your father's words. Powerful images. Harry Van Harten writes, I'm a Canadian because after serving four unrecognized years in the Dutch underground, when he was 24 to 28 years old, my father decided to immigrate to Canada. Remembrance Day was the holiest day of the year in our home.

Silence and the CBC on our black and white television playing World War II film. I came home from my first year of university as a long-haired know-it-all about the sin of nuclear weapons. Dad never talked about his war experiences with me after that. But I will go to a gathering on November 11th, again this year, at the Field of Crosses on Memorial Drive here in Calgary. It'll be cold and the tears will freeze in my eyes. I hope to take a grandson with me so that he and his siblings will never forget. Mike Thornton writes from Paris, Ontario. To me, Remembrance Day means stewardship to protect and preserve the memory of those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. I do this by being a

member and volunteer at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. The museum maintains an airworthy fleet of mostly World War II era aircraft as well as several static displays. Being a part of the restoration, preservation and operation of these aircraft and the stories that go along with them is how we honor the men and women who flew them, built them, and served on them. I'm in my early 30s, and I believe it's important for millennials and Gen Z to step into active roles of keeping these stories alive as baby boomers who have long been the stewards of these memories get older. I enjoy my freedom today because of millions who gave their lives. The least I can do is play a small part to keep their memorial and stories going. Every Canadian can be a part of this.

Wear a poppy, donate to a museum, or the Royal Canadian Legion. Volunteer, tell their stories, be involved. Thanks, Mike. Glad to hear you're at the Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Warplane Heritage Museum. I've been there many times. I've been up in the Lancaster. So has my son, Will, who works on this program, as you know.

And my father flew Lancasters. He was a navigator, bomb aimer during the Second World War for the RAF, did over 50 missions, was a hero, certainly was my hero. And I took him out there during the restoration period in Hamilton. And we like to say of our family that we're the only family, perhaps in the world, where three generations of Mansbridges have flown in a Lancaster. We're pretty proud of that.

I'm sure there are others, but we like to think we're the only ones. Stephen McGaughy from Trenton, Ontario. When I was working in Germany during the 1980s, plus a bit, I traveled around Europe on my newly purchased BMW motorcycle. I did not visit the big name memorials, however.

I guess he's talking about like Vimy, Dieppe, Normandy. However, I discovered some small sites of commemoration. One of the sites in France was a monument to earlier wars. It was destroyed during World War I. It had been rebuilt, but destroyed again during World War II. It was not rebuilt at that time. I thought that that was very ironic.

John Patterson writes from Parry Sound, Ontario. What I will think about on Remembrance Day are the tens of thousands of veterans who for over a hundred years have stood in front of these cenotaphs in every community across Canada. While honoring the names etched in granite, the fallen, these men and women will disappear with grace and little fanfare. So I will be thinking of those who returned

and put their pain aside for duty and country. Gary Westall from Picton, Ontario. Holy smokes, you scored an ace today in your interview with Ted Barris, in which you two opened our minds to his latest book, Battle of the Atlantic, Gauntlet to Victory. It is apparent that Mr. Barris' historical knowledge of the Battle of the Atlantic runs deep, and the tidbits covered in your interview make his story of this 2074 day-long battle sound captivating. It is this type of interview regarding Mr. Barris' story that makes me feel proud to be Canadian.

Kudos to you for doing this in the lead up to Remembrance Day. Now I've got to get the book. Thanks, Gary. Derek Moran in Toronto. Our family's patriarch, Henry Foster, who at 97 is still going strong in my hometown of Paris, Ontario, was a merchant marine. I know he was proud to get the opportunity to do his part during the war.

My ears perk up at any mention of the Battle of the Atlantic, mostly for the love of that man and his stories of crossing the ocean as a teenager in wartime. While all merchant ships usually carried munitions, sometimes they were risking their lives transporting, of all things, a boatload of lifesaver candy. Imagine. That's right, they had to get candy to the British Isles as well. For the kids, for the soldiers. And boatloads of lifesavers were among the shipments.

The ships were often named after Canadian parks, writes Derek. Henry, the 97-year-old still going strong, he served on the Riverdale Park at one time. So for me, any anger at myself playing beer league softball poorly on a Wednesday night in Toronto in Riverdale is mitigated by the fact that granddad's numerous cross-Atlantic trips made it possible for me to be standing on that diamond in the first place. Or at least I'd like to think so. Nice letter, nice images. It's a wonderful thing about so many of these letters, is the images that are in them of past times and some present.

Ian Hebblethwaite, Moncton, New Brunswick. What does November 11th mean to me? It's a chance to think of the young men and women who have, in the name of all Canadians, fought and often died to make my life better and safer. I also think of my great-uncle, Jim, who I never knew, but who was killed in France in World War II, and whom my grandmother always talked of so fondly. Alex Fitzgerald Black. You may have heard of Alex's name before.

He's the executive director of the Juno Beach Centre Association, and that's been in the news quite a bit in the last years. They fought to preserve the Juno Beach Centre from a condo development that was going up. That's all been resolved. I'm glad it has. But Alex writes a pretty long letter, but I'm just going to highlight one small paragraph

because it talks about that meaning of remembrance. Remembrance, writes Alex, is incredibly important for the healthy future of our society. We need to understand our past and the impacts of war on our society to better understand our present. Veterans and how we treat them are also important cornerstones of our society. We ask them to make sacrifices for our security, our values, and sometimes our freedom, or that of others. They are owed our gratitude and support. Here, here.

Alex Teg says, Alex Teg says, Alex Tegses, I'm sorry, Alex, if I've got that wrong, T-E-G-Z-E-S. My name is Alex Tegses. I'm 37 years old, and I'm writing to you from Fraser Heights, Surrey, British Columbia. Remembrance Day is a day that reminds me of what wars do to innocent people's lives. I'm a refugee from a formerly known country of Yugoslavia. I still call it that because the countries that are there in its place now are not what it used to be. Wars tear families apart. They kill innocent people. My parents barely escaped the siege of Sarajevo a few months after my sister and I escaped with

our grandmother on the last plane that left the airport runway. I'm a proud Canadian. Canada has been a wonderful home for me and my family. I will never forget what happened to us in Yugoslavia, but I thought 30 years was enough time for the emotional scar tissue to be gone. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I was surprised by how moved I was after watching what is happening in Ukraine. Ukrainian people are of Slavic origin, like the Yugos, so they look just like me and my family. Every piece of video footage makes me think of my parents off-roading and escaping the siege city of Sarajevo through the mountains in their 1985 Yugo 45, a really terrible and unreliable car when compared with cars made anywhere else.

It's a miracle they made it out alive. Many didn't. Thanks, Alex, for reminding us of what it's like to be caught in the middle of a war and the impact that can have for generations. Susan Perry writes, you asked what we thought about on Remembrance Day.

I think about my husband's father and the other 20 Canadian Air Force pilots who, after serving Canada during World War II, were killed in a tragic plane crash in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1946. The pilots had been returning planes to Fargo, North Dakota. These planes had been used for pilot training during the war. With all planes delivered, the 20 pilots and one aircraft mechanic boarded a plane for the return flight. Due to an error, the plane crashed on landing in Estevan. No one survived. Few know of this tragedy, as it was not during the official wartime, though these pilots had fought in World War II. Never knowing my father-in-law, I do think of him at Remembrance Day.

Thanks, Susan. I'd never heard that story either. And part of my career was spent in Saskatchewan, and I'd been to Estevan a number of times. But I never knew that story. And I feel richer for you having shared it with us. There's so much happened in those months and early years after the end of the war about, you know, we had, we talked about it the other day. We had the fourth largest Navy in the world.

We had a huge air force and a lot of canada was used as kind of one giant airport for training pilots and a lot of it was in western canada and you can still see at least you could a few years ago because i i used to do it myself when i was traveling by car across the prairies, especially between Winnipeg and Regina, sometimes between Regina and Calgary. But you could sometimes see at that time, I'm interested to know if they're still around, the old airports that were built in the middle of literally nowhere

that were used for pilot training in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. And some of those planes were obviously bored from the U.S. So that was a mission that ended in disaster in Estevan, but it was a mission that was returning planes back to the U.S. All right, we're going to take a break. But first, first, we're going to hear from you-know-who. We're going to hear from the random renter.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, the day we stop what we're doing to remember and to honor all those that made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our country lest we forget lest we forget i don't want to make light of those hallow words but when i pause at 11 tomorrow and here lest we forget i'm going to be reflecting on how largely we've forgotten. I'm not talking about as Canadians per se. I'm talking about the world. It's gut-wrenching to think about what's going on. Ukraine is being devastated in the unthinkable. A modern European war.

Cities are being leveled. People are being slaughtered, tortured, indiscriminately bombed. And when I say people, I'm thinking most about the children. A whole generation of children experiencing the trauma of death and destruction. It's criminal. Yet for us, it's simply something we can watch on TV. And I say can, because it's not even the lead story anymore. It hasn't been for months. But it's not just war I'll be thinking

about, because authoritarianism is on the rise across Europe, across the United States, and sadly, even to some extent here. And look, I'm not one of those people that think history simply repeats itself, but I do believe that history resonates. And I'm hearing echoes of the 30s. The voices of division, the voices of hate, the voices of isolation. They're growing louder. They're growing stronger. And we seem incapable of pushing back. So the question that will come to mind for me tomorrow is, if push came to shove, could we rise to the occasion if we needed to? Could we endure the hardships? Would we be willing to pay the ultimate price?

I don't know the answer and I hope the question never gets asked. But the generations that we will be pausing to remember tomorrow, they all answered yes. And for that, we owe them an eternal debt of gratitude. So I'll end on this. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

The Random Ranter for this week, as he reflects on Remembrance Day, which of course is tomorrow. More of your mail on your turn, right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Your Turn Thursday edition, right here on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Back to your mail, your turn on the Remembrance Day issue. T.C. Shang from Vancouver.

Just one excerpt once again, just taking portions out of these letters. TC writes, as much as Canada remembers Vimy and Normandy, battles it won, equal attention should also be given to Dieppe and Hong Kong, battles it lost. No disagreement there, although I will say that,

you know, remembrance is given to Dieppe, perhaps not as much as Hong Kong because of its positioning, but it was a disastrous defeat for Canadian troops trying to hold on to Hong Kong against a rapidly moving Japanese force in the first Christmas of that, well, I guess it was the second Christmas of that war in 1941. Well, I guess in some ways it was probably the third. There was Christmas 39, Christmas 40, Christmas 41.

Timothy Horn writes, and Timothy grew up in Guelph, not a remembrance day goes by without my remembering my grandfather. I remember visiting his home in Birkenhead, England and leafing through the photo albums containing black and white photos of him, his brother, and a few other men behind the walls of Dartmoor Prison.

They were there because of their religious convictions that obligated them to risk being branded as cowards. They refused to take another person's life. So I think of my grandfather and my father, who worked in the fields of England during the Second World War for the same reason. I'm proud of them, standing up for their convictions under the intense pressure they must have felt as Englishmen. Tim Horn, living now in Cambridge, Ontario. Corey McQueen writes this.

Like it is for many others, Remembrance Day is extremely important to me. I mark Remembrance Day each year by attending a remembrance ceremony at Hamilton Cenotaph and then the Warplane Heritage Museum. I first attended with my dad in 2001 when I was five and have been going ever since. The day means a lot to us due to our family ties to both world wars. My great-grandfather William served in World War I and was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for courage after rescuing a comrade in no man's land, Givenchy. My grandfather Donald served in the Navy on the minesweeper HMCS Gas Bay in World War II.

Ernest Warnelius. I had a father in World War II and a grandfather in World War I. My grandfather signed up at the age of 15 and was a sniper in the Canadian Army. Interestingly, a sniper with open iron sights on a Lee Enfield 303. I asked people to imagine what they were doing as a 15-year-old. My father also fibbed about his age and joined the Regina Rifles at age 16. He was the big Swede, so got to carry the radio. Take a look at a World War II radio and you will see why the big guy got the task. He was hit badly with a bazooka shrapnel, some of which he carried for the rest of his life. They were both fortunate enough to

survive the wars. I think of them on Remembrance Day along with all those who served on both sides of the war. My spouse is German and doesn't let me forget how the average German suffered greatly. But on Remembrance Day, I'm partly disappointed. There is an element of hypocrisy. We've now been remembering visiting cenotaphs wearing the poppies for over 100 years. One of the central things Canadians fought and died for was freedom from fascism. I think this point is lost and needs greater emphasis, particularly in a world where many seem drawn to populism, fascism for beginners, and where autocratic dictators are demanding an end to Western hegemony and a new multipolar world order.

The suggestion being that autocracies aren't getting fair representation. Let us not forget what the sacrifice was actually for. Lois Perrault writes from Perth, Ontario. On the subject of remembering our veterans, my dad was a World War II veteran. Dad joined the Canadian Army in 1939, was shipped overseas in 1940, the year my brother was born.

Didn't return until 1945. Like many vets, he didn't talk much about the war and his experiences. My mom, also a hero in my eyes, did talk about the hardships and his experiences. My mom, also a hero in my eyes, did talk about the hardships and loneliness endured at home. Dad helped defend England during the Battle of Britain, landed on Juneau Beach on D-Day, second wave. He helped liberate Holland before returning home after victory in Europe was declared. A few years ago, my husband and I had the great pleasure to visit the Canadian Museum at Juneau Beach.

My brother and I had purchased a plaque commemorating Dad's war experience on one of the cairns outside the museum. I was overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude when I saw the wide-open beach those young soldiers had to cross, and the cemetery marking many of their graves at Béni-sur-Mer. I, like many Canadians, joined the recent letter-writing campaign to preserve the area around Juneau Beach, the museum. I bought one of those plaques, too, in memory of my dad. Didn't fight for the Canadian forces, but fought alongside them as he was in the RAF.

Tyler Waterman writes from Peterborough, Ontario. Of all the experiences I've heard, the one that sticks with me the most is from my old barber. He was born in Germany before World War II and grew up in Nazi Germany as a young child. He was a stoic man and rarely showed emotion. One early morning while getting my hair cut before our annual Remembrance Day parade, he told me a story from his childhood that I've never forgotten. He recalled playing with his cousin at the age of 10 and overhead British bombers were flying over. After a loud explosion, he looked over at his cousin

and saw her body torn apart. The tears flowing from his eyes, although not surprising, showed me how traumatic war can be. I think of this story every Remembrance Day, and it always reminds me that both sides of any conflict suffer loss and trauma, and the casualties of war go far beyond the battlefield. Sandy McCabe writes from London, Ontario. The impact of why we need to remember the bravery shown by our Canadian Armed Forces came to me loudly and clearly when I was in Arnhem, Holland, nine years ago at a service beside the 1,764 graves of Commonwealth soldiers. I stood by a tree, totally overwhelmed and wept. The impact of the Dutch love for Canadians hit my heart deeply.

I will never forget. The Dutch never forget. The Dutch never forget. We shouldn't either. Brendan Newgard. It means a, what does Remembrance Day mean? It means a cold morning at the Cenotaph, followed by a hot turkey lunch and a whole lot of free hot rums

down at my local Legion branch, 495. It means the whole town spending the day together, laughing, listening, and learning. It means a hangover proudly bore the next day at work. In short, it means the one day a year I will not miss. No matter what I need to take care of, that

day is sacred and on my calendar without fail. Katharina Haig in Winnipeg. I'm an Austrian living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and I've lived in Canada on and off for over 20 years. I just listened to Monday's episode of The Bridge, and it made me reflect on how differently Austria and Canada celebrate Remembrance Day. Well, first off, we don't have it, because, you know, we lost the war.

We lost both wars. So Austrians and Germans celebrate the beginning of Carnival season on November 11th. Go figure. We have tombs of the unknown soldier and write the names of lost young men on stone, usually near a church, but that's as far as we go. Moving here, however, made me confront my own history in a way that I hadn't before. My grandparents were card-holding Nazis, and my mom spent two years of her childhood in bomb shelters. So when my first Canadian remembrance came, I felt a little ambivalent for about two seconds

because I quickly realized that the sacrifices of the Canadian and Allied soldiers meant that I didn't have to grow up under Nazi rule, which wouldn't have been a good fit to my character and political leanings. So I would like to give a great heartfelt thank you to all the soldiers past and present who fought for freedom and democracy.

You literally mean the world to me. Thanks, Katerina. Muriel Sainer from Waterloo, Ontario. I've attached a photo of a piece of artwork from a previous era when November 11th was Armistice Day. The artist, my late mother, was nine years old. In 1926, she had very little idea of what meaning the day would hold in the decades to follow. As a young woman, she would wait for her beau of many years to return home in 1945 from serving in World War II before marrying. The importance of November 11th from that point on only grew over the years culminating with the passing of the World War II veteran, my dear dad,

on November 11th, 2013. We certainly do remember all military personnel from all combats past and present. Don Robertson in Edmonton. Every Remembrance Day, I not only reflect on the general significance of the day, but I also have a special thought for my dad, who was in the Canadian Army and saw action first in Italy and then in northern France, Belgium, Holland, and a bit of Germany. He passed away in 2014 at the age of 96, but there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't think of his experience during

the war. I was fortunate enough to write down some of his story and to get him to write something, too. I also rented a car and drove to most of the places where he was during that time. He also had three uncles who served in the First World War. One was wounded at Vimy, another at Passchendaele. I feel lucky to write down some of their stories and drive around those places as well. I'd highly recommend to anybody who feels the urge to travel to Europe to put a few Canadian World War I and II locations on their itinerary as well. I agree with you there, Don. Lots of us go to Europe on holidays and work assignments and

various other things. And if you could just spend maybe one day or even a few hours visiting some of these places, you'll feel better for it, and you'll understand even more about what it means to be a Canadian. Terry Giles from Gull Lake, Alberta. I'm wondering if you've read the book by Jerry Carleen called Duncan's War. It's the wartime letters, 1916 to 1919, of Duncan Monroe from Tagasky, Saskatchewan, and the story of the 44th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force. It gives a firsthand account of a soldier's daily experience. I've felt from the first time I read it that it should be included in the social studies curriculum for all Canadian students.

I have not read it. I will look for it. And whether it's on a curriculum or not, to me it's all about reading about the experiences of other Canadians at a different time and what it had been like for them. Okay, here's the last letter. This one's going to take a few minutes. It's from Melissa Hillman. Today I want to share with you a snippet of the war from my grandmother's perspective.

She was 13 when war between Britain and Germany broke out and spent her entire adolescence engulfed in the stories of war. As the years progressed, she, like so many other teenage girls during that time, was quick to fall in love with a young soldier, a boy she knew from her school days living on Alexander Street in Winnipeg. They corresponded throughout the war. She kept those letters, neatly bundled with a blue ribbon and packed away along with all her special things in her cedar chest. When she died, my mother gave the letters to me, along with a collection of photographs.

It took me a long time to gather the courage to read the letters. I felt like I was stealing glances into a hidden diary. It's an amazing thing to experience someone you knew and loved so well through a stranger's eyes. I've transcribed one of the letters below, if you'd like to share it. I know this email is long, but I think it's worth it. I've also included some photos, memories of a short love in the time of war. In memory of Florence Kirby Gale

and Ernie Boyer. Melissa, it's absolutely worth the length of time because I am going to read some of this letter. And this letter is from Ernie to Florence. And he's obviously in Europe at the time. So let me read this. My darling and sweetheart,

no, I haven't forgotten you, not by a long shot, but from my address, you can guess what happened. Well, dear, I'm somewhere in Holland now, and just where I wanted to be, in action. All my army hopes have become reality.

Now all I must wait for is for my personal hopes to materialize, and that includes you. As a matter of fact, they are you. I hope you've been all right since I last heard from you, dearest. Please take care of yourself. I've seen Belgium too, so I do get around, don't I? The country over here must have been beautiful at one time, but now it looks like hell let loose. One place in particular, there wasn't one house standing. I thank God you are safe in Canada. If you were here, I'd go crazy worrying.

This is one time I can't say, I wish you were near me, because that's the last thing I want while I'm in this place under these circumstances. I'll take all of you back in Canada where I know you won't have to look at this death and destruction. I hope the next generation doesn't have to go through this and it's up to us, the young people, to see that they don't. I don't want my boy to go through rain, mud, and hell just because some fanatic wants to rule the world. Sorry dear, I let myself go that time. I'll drop it. It will take your mail a bit of time to catch up to me, dearest, but please write long

letters and make it often. I myself may not be able to write every day, but you know I'll be thinking of you anyway. A big hello to mom, dad, and Fred, and a bigger kiss for the sweetest, loveliest girl God ever presented to a fellow. You. Good night, lovely one. Yours, Ernie. Here's the postscript. Ernie Boyer served in the No. 1 Corps Signals, running and servicing the communications lines between the front and the rear lines.

He and my grandmother eventually drifted apart as the war ended, and young men started to return home. War and the end of adolescence had changed them both, and they each found new loves to share their separate lives with. Wow. Thanks for sharing, Melissa. Many of you shared many things. Thanks for sharing, Melissa. Many of you shared many things this week with me,

and I feel honored to have seen them. Letters like that, lots of photographs. Photographs of Florence and Ernie. What a couple they made for a time. And they kept each other, you know, comfortable during some really difficult, difficult times. But as I said, many, many letters and many photographs and images of different things that you've shared with me this week, and I feel honored to have had the opportunity to see them. Well, tomorrow is Remembrance Day. We'll be moving on in the bridge because we'll be on after

the official ceremonies take place. But these past four days this week and the opportunity to talk about remembrance, the power of remembering, the importance of remembering, have been close to my heart and I know have been close to many of yours. So you'll choose in whatever fashion you do to mark Remembrance Day tomorrow, whether it's watching television, watching the ceremonies live from the National War Memorial in Ottawa, or going down to your local cenotaph. I've always thought that was incredibly important.

Every little town and city and village in and country has a cenotaph. Because young men especially at that time, and in some cases young women, served their country and still do today.

And we remember them all for that fact. That's going to wrap it up for this day. Back tomorrow with Good Talks, Shantelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson. And tomorrow's podcast, keep in mind, is also available on our YouTube channel.

Just go to my bio on Twitter or Instagram and it directly connects you to it. Subscribe, costs nothing. And you can get the video, a copy of the podcast, with all its rough edges. So enjoy that. All right. Do you think I spit my name out? I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. do you think I spit my name out? I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.