Montreal 1
Brandy Ho’s in San Fran was a significant step up from our
previous Chinese dinner and we were in good shape to get the plane to Montreal
on Saturday afternoon. Air Canada got
off to an indifferent start by charging us $C45 to carry our one bag
each to Montreal, the thin excuse being that everyone else did it. We were at
least warned that they charge for food so we teetered onto the plane carrying a
substantial picnic.
And it was a very new Airbus 319 with inflight entertainment
etc for the five hour flight, a mere hop after the Pacific. My third cousin
Henry Yates was there to meet us on landing and took us off to his family house
in TMR, The Mount Royal, which as a former resident of Melbourne (in the 1960s)
he compared to South Yarra. That’s versus the very grand Westmount’s Toorak,
which we saw with Henry on Sunday morning.
Tootling around in Henry’s 2010 Lincoln was a bit of a
change from San Fran’s hurly burly public transport, and very relaxing. We went
to lunch at Henry’s tennis club, the Hillside Club, in some style and it was
the club manager who told us that ”Mr Yates was chairman of the club’’. Henry
was born in 1935 with his identical twin Ted, whom we also know, and whom he
regularly impersonates at social functions, to much hilarity.
Henry’s like that…low key but fun. He regaled us with how,
as a young chemical engineer in the 1960s, he decided to try his luck for 18
months in Australia, nailing a job early with ICI after deciding that Newcastle
with BHP, another job offered, might not be such fun. He lived a champagne and chips existence
where one minute he was being introduced to Robert Menzies on election day (for
a 20 minute chat, which tells you how confident Menzies was), and the next he
and a mate were driving a 1962 VW beetle from Melbourne to Darwin on some
seriously unimproved roads. Henry said the recommended practice if you got
stuck was to sit by the car and set fire to your spare tyre if you saw a plane
passing.
He’s old Montreal, entirely and cheerfully Anglo, but his
wife Melodie has some French Canadian and Irish ancestry. (She was away at
their house in the country at Magog, where they spend more than half the year.)
They’re entirely cool about the strong and reportedly
growing French culture in Quebec and say separatism is on the wane after hitting 49.4 per cent in a
referendum, thanks to a lot of trivial linguistic folly such as changing the
word STOP to ARRET on road signs when the word STOP is universally understood.
He speaks Churchillian (engineer’s) French himself.
We “did’’ old Montreal on Saturday afternoon and very lively
and charming it was too. A good small museum at Chateau Ramezy, circa 1705
marked out the history, which tilted Anglowards in 1757 with General Wolfe’s
capture of Quebec. There were various revolts and lurches in the early 1800s
and for a while the Catholic church preached an early form of ”back to the farm’’ Petainism. Henry told us that well into the
20th century there was a slavish adherence in some rural communities
to what the priest said, right down to leaving rows of stones in the fields so
they could warm the crops on sunny days.
But he pointed out that the French settlers had always
brought intellectual traditions with them, unlike the Boers in South Africa,
and what struck us was how there was a kind of intellectual and artistic
competition between the French and the British for two centuries, with
considerable artistic and architectural legacy to prove it.
We had a brief look at McGill University, well situated in
Centre Ville thanks to Mr McGill having donated his farm in the mid 1800s when
Montreal was a tiny town that had just outgrown its defensive city walls.
Tuesday: Off to
Ottawa with Henry to see the sights and
meet his and Melodie’s daughter Brenda, who was a total poppet. Unlike
Canberra, Ottawa had long been a commercial town before being declared the
capital, with Henry noting that it was quite a place with loggers and fast
ladies and riotous times. A bit quieter now.
We had lunch in the very splendid Chateau Laurier Hotel, a
Gothic revival pile built in 1912 that characterised the rival Canadian Railway
Companies’ habit of building big hotels
near the railway and hoping they would come, And they did.
Karsh of Ottawa, the famous Syrian born photographer had a
studio in the hotel in took wonderful
photographs of people like Churchill, Einstein and author Stephen Leacock,
displayed on the walls.
Wednesday: Change of author now…We drove down to Magog
today, a beautiful lake about two hours’ east of Montreal, where old Canadian
families have traditionally spent the summer months. Henry and Melodie’s home is
in a to-die-for location right on the shores of the lake and is a gracious
1920’s house surrounded by trees of the same vintage in an estate of similar
houses. It is also part of a club with lovely restaurant, golf course and
tennis courts.
Thursday: Today we met Cindy, Melodie’s niece, who is Anni
Rowland Campbell’s great friend. Given Andrew’s distant family connection with
Henry, I think that makes us practically related! We are hoping to “do drinks”
with Cindy before we leave Canada. Andrew and Henry swore they saw a rare red
squirrel near her house…Cindy can you vouch for this????
Henry, Melodie, Andrew and I went for lunch in a very cute
town called Hatley, further along the lake. Most perfect summer’s day. Had the
best fudge I have ever tasted with walnuts and maple syrup. We then went back to Magog to take the brand
new cruise boat out on the lake to spy on all the other lovely lakeside houses.
Henry drives us down to Burlington Vermont on Friday to continue our travels
towards Boston…stay tuned.
