Lord Beaverbrook Comes to Town
opening excerpt
On October 12, 1954, RMS Queen Elizabeth, pride of the Cunard Line, docked at New York City. From the ship’s bridge, press baron Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, sent a telegram to the mayor of his hometown, Newcastle, New Brunswick, to announce his arrival at the end of the week. His visits were annual but nevertheless caused a flurry of excitement in the town. Newcastle always made an effort to look its best for its most generous benefactor. The pretty Town Square, a gift from Beaverbrook, with its cenotaph and artesian water fountain would be swept and tidied, the stately elm trees groomed to perfection.
We children heard all the talk of and watched with interest the preparations for the august visitor. We knew little about Lord Beaverbrook except for the library housed in the Manse, his childhood home. Presided over by a grey-haired lady in cardigan and pearls who wrote at her desk when not stamping library cards, and whose marmalade cat dozed at the end of the counter where one presented books. The librarian’s name, I knew, was Miss Louise Manny because I listened to her radio program, Songs of the Miramichi. The primitive recordings of traditional tunes had been made in kitchens and parlours as they were sung by the old fishermen and lumbermen of the region, their voices cracked and often off-key. In spite of the rough renderings, Miss Manny found significance in every song which had me mystified. From week to week the program hardly changed, the same voices singing the same songs, nevertheless from week to week, most Sunday afternoons, I listened. I would never have guessed that in another decade or so, those songs, and others collected by Helen Creighton of Nova Scotia, would be sung by artists such as Joan Baez and Judy Collins, and top the pop charts.
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