Peter Hall in England has posted a TSF comment on the life and times of Ernie Miller, the late London Free Press sports writer who died in 2007.
He writes:
"Sad, sad, sad. But the memories make up for it.
"Ernie was a pal of mine in 1958 on the Chatham Daily News, where he was sports editor under Ray Munro, Peter Gzowski, Joe Emmott and Dave Shepherd (anyone know what happened to Dave?)
"Ernie and I, an 18-year-old cub reporter sharing a flat at the time with Air Farce's John Morgan, were virtually forced by Ray Munro into some ridiculous journalistic ideas.
"One of them, in which Ernie was cajoled by Munro into promoting and structuring the story of a flying saucer landing in a Chatham field, prompted Morgan to quit after refusing to "cover" such a story, complete with matchsticks around a burned grass circle that had been engineered, allegedly.
"Another time, Munro had Ernie and I stretch a 50-foot long rope pulling a kid's wagon to have the picture run over the top of two pages. Why?
"But we were young and naive and those were the days my friend.
"God bless Ernie.
"And me? I went on to the Brantford Expositor, then Fleet Street where I travelled with the Beatles for a while, and eventually published an English newspaper in Haiti of all places, where few spoke English, and 95% of the population couldn't read anyway.
"I must have been infected with the Munro bug, because it all turned out well in the end, despite Papa Doc's henchmen, 14 invasions, getting thrown out of the communist PM, getting invited back by Baby Doc, and being rescued from house arrest by the Canadian Charge d'Affair . . . and so on.
"There is a book there somewhere. Ernie would have loved those stories."
Thank you for your posting, Peter.
He writes:
"Sad, sad, sad. But the memories make up for it.
"Ernie was a pal of mine in 1958 on the Chatham Daily News, where he was sports editor under Ray Munro, Peter Gzowski, Joe Emmott and Dave Shepherd (anyone know what happened to Dave?)
"Ernie and I, an 18-year-old cub reporter sharing a flat at the time with Air Farce's John Morgan, were virtually forced by Ray Munro into some ridiculous journalistic ideas.
"One of them, in which Ernie was cajoled by Munro into promoting and structuring the story of a flying saucer landing in a Chatham field, prompted Morgan to quit after refusing to "cover" such a story, complete with matchsticks around a burned grass circle that had been engineered, allegedly.
"Another time, Munro had Ernie and I stretch a 50-foot long rope pulling a kid's wagon to have the picture run over the top of two pages. Why?
"But we were young and naive and those were the days my friend.
"God bless Ernie.
"And me? I went on to the Brantford Expositor, then Fleet Street where I travelled with the Beatles for a while, and eventually published an English newspaper in Haiti of all places, where few spoke English, and 95% of the population couldn't read anyway.
"I must have been infected with the Munro bug, because it all turned out well in the end, despite Papa Doc's henchmen, 14 invasions, getting thrown out of the communist PM, getting invited back by Baby Doc, and being rescued from house arrest by the Canadian Charge d'Affair . . . and so on.
"There is a book there somewhere. Ernie would have loved those stories."
Thank you for your posting, Peter.
Do you have Peter Hall's email? I'd like to contact him about Ray Munro. I've read Ray Munro's fascinating book about his adventures in B.C. etc.
ReplyDeleteI also talked to Ernie Miller a few months before he died when I saw him and his wife at a London Majors' baseball game at historic Labatt Park.
Thanks, Butch McLarty, http://www.altlondon.org, London, Ontario