T he phone rang. When I picked up, my ninety-year-old mother, without any preamble, insisted that I should go and turn on my TV. I asked for details. What channel? What program? I should mention that it was Remembrance Day. Trying to clarify, or so I thought, I asked her if this was a program about Vimy Ridge, the battle in which my grandfather had been wounded. I have to admit that I thought Mum was losing it; nevertheless, my curiosity was aroused. Mum had been watching a documentary titled Vimy Underground on the History Channel.
Mum, bless her heart, was rightβmy grandfather was indeed featured. Vimy Underground describes the souterrain βa network of caves and tunnels dug into the hard chalk forty to sixty feet under the fields leading to Vimy Ridge. These caves, some of which date from medieval times, were used as a base and staging area for Canadian soldiers. While waiting and resting there in the days and hours before battle, many soldiers had carved graffiti into the cave and tunnel walls: names and dates, images of people at home, images of pets and farm animals, hearts Bill loves Mary as well as quite detailed and complex bas-relief carvings such as battalion crests.
Age From Manchester. Survived the war. J ohn Cameron was born on March 24, in Aberdeen, Scotland. For reasons long lost, he and a sister were sent as children to Manchester and brought up by an aunt. He became a moulder, married Florence Stansfield, and had two children. In , they immigrated to Canada and eventually settled in Brandon, Manitoba, where he worked for the local machine works.
When he returned from the war, his job had disappeared and he spent over a year unemployed until he found a job as an electric-meter reader for the Manitoba Power Commission now Manitoba Hydro βa job at which he worked until he retired. He and Florence had two more children, one of whom is my mother, Jean. What do I remember of him? I liked him. I remember him with affection. He would take time to read and play with me and my younger sister and brother.
He was funny. He taught me a sleight of hand magic trick that even now I use with my own grandchildren. And, to my surprise, he used tooth powder instead of toothpaste, the smell of which I can still conjure up. I liked tinned bully beef, a cheap and easy meal on our table. I was puzzled by his dislike of it and only now realize how much bully beef must have reminded him of his life in the trenches during the war.
