13 Jul 2011
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts,Family,Photos
10 Jul 2011
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts
…Fickle Fame
Funny thing about that 15 minutes of fame, it seems that you don’t get much say regarding when that 15 minutes is!
Peter Mansbridge did show up at the Aero Space Museum on Thursday, but first thing his crew told Brenda was that they were cutting her from the interview. At least they were still able to interview the WWII veteran, Les Greig, who had come out from Vancouver in hopes of having a chance to meet the Duchess of Cambridge. Les had been a flying instructor at #37 SFTS during the time the Duchess’s grandfather, Peter Middleton, was a flight commander at the training school. They worked together for a significant period of time. Les’s interview was broadcast on the National on 7 July. Les flew to Calgary on Wednesday, hoping to be able to meet the Duchess and give her a few old photos of her grandfather.
Les (and many others) had hoped that the Duke and Duchess might make a short visit to the Aero Space Museum as part of the private itinerary just to see where Kate’s grandfather had served for a good portion of WWII. As it turned out, no such stop occurred – which was a bit of a shame for Les. Even so, there were a few of us around who had a great opportunity to hear some of the stories and recollections that Les shared about his time in Calgary during the war, as well as his operational time in Lancaster bombers as a Pathfinder. In fact, on Friday at lunchtime as the royal motorcade went driving right past the museum, Brenda and I and the kids were having lunch with Les and another veteran. That was an historical occasion – maybe not with the same flashiness as meeting royalty, but one which is plenty rare enough 66 years after the end of WWII.
Brenda joked that it isn’t just the white hats that make Will and Kate ‘official’ Calgarians, but they too, like most Calgarians, have “driven by the Aero Space Museum, but just never took the time to stop in”!
06 Jul 2011
Fame
Well, not a lot of fame, but some! Brenda has been on the news several times in the past 5 or 6 weeks as the press speculates about whether the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will make an appearance at the Aero Space Museum of Calgary. The speculation is all fueled by the fact that Kate’s grandfather was an instructor at #37 SFTS, one of the BCATP flight training schools during WWII. The museum building was the #37 SFTS drill hall during the war.
Brenda has been interviewed for print and television about a half-dozen times and has been on local, regional and national TV newscasts. Even the UK press have talked with her! She is quickly using up her 15 minutes of fame. Brenda is due to be interviewed by Peter Mansbridge for the CBC National news on Thursday evening (7 July 2011).
I’ve even managed to get on the news, too. On Monday I was helping to take the masking off of the just-repainted Lancaster bomber, when the news crew came through. Unfortunately, I appear to have squandered my few seconds of fame by getting my backside on TV.
If you’d like to see the full segment, Global TV Calgary has the video on-line. You’ll need to select “News Hour” from the list on the left hand side of the page. The show you need to watch is the “News Hour” broadcast from 4 July 2011. Brenda’s segment begins about 4:45 into the video (at about 6:05 local time in the top right of the video clip). They seem to keep the files up for about 3 months so if you wait til after mid-October, you’ll miss it!
