Thomas Raddall Selected Correspondence: An Electronic Edition


About the electronic version

Copyright 2000. Dalhousie University.

PRINT SOURCE: Thomas Raddall Fonds, Correspondence. From Thomas Raddall to Charles Clay, 14 August 1944. MS-2-202 38.15.

Subject Headings

Summary

T. H. Raddall regretfully writes Charles Clay, Secretary of the Canadian Authors Association (CAA), to inform him that he is unable to attend the annual meeting of CAA in Hamilton and receive in person his Governor General's Literary Award for his collection of short stories, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek. Raddall goes on to say John Buchan had been very supportive of his work, relates an amusing story about meeting Kenneth Leslie for the first time, and mentions who was the inspiration for his pied piper character.

August 14th, 1944.

Mr. Charles Clay,
124 Wellington Street,
Ottawa.


Dear Mr. Clay,
     I've delayed answering your very kind invitation because
I wasn't sure whether I could attend the Hamilton meeting1 or not.
Now I know I cannot, and I write to express my thanks and my regrets.

It would have been fine to meet my Canadian contemporaries and hear some
shop talk. I'm a sort of salt-water hermit (if there are married hermits)
and the only writers I meet are the occasional Americans who drop in to
see what sort of creature I am. And once Kenneth Leslie2 came, crying that
he'd expected to see "an old retired sailor with a long white beard."
Of course I retorted that I thought all poets had long hair, and we were
even.

And it would have been a peculiar pleasure to receive the Award3 in person.
However, that is not to be; the trip is out of the question this year, and
I must be content to read about the meeting in Author & Bookman.

The Award has a special significance for me in that John Buchan4 was one of
the first to see virtue in my work. He could always find time to write an
encouraging little note when he read something of mine that pleased him, and
the first of those notes came at a time when my prospects were deep indigo.
He lent a hand to more than me, and Canadian letters lost a stout friend
when he died.

I'm glad you like the Pied Piper. He was drawn from life.5 The gifted group
of Nova Scotia poets of the 1920's, who called themselves the Song Fishermen,6
upon a time invited the Piper to one of their annual frolics, and if you're
ever in Halifax don't fail to ask Andy Merkel to run off the movie film he
took on that auspicious occasion.
With all good wishes,

Sincerely,











Annotations

1. THR refers to the annual meeting of the Canadian Authors' Association.

2. Kenneth Leslie (1892-1974), poet and left-wing journalist, won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry in 1938 for By Stubborn Stars and other poems. See entry in the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997).

3. THR won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1943 for The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek.

4. John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, a prolific novelist and writer, was Governor-General of Canada from 1935 to 1940. The Governor-General's Literary Awards were instituted during his mandate. See entries in the Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998) and in the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997).

5. THR is referring to James D. Gillis, a member of the poets known as the Song Fishermen. In his memoir In My Time (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976) THR reminisces on Gillis' prowess as a piper and Gaelic singer.

6. The activities of this group are described in Gwen Davies' article "The Song Fishermen: A Regional Poetry Celebration" published in Studies in Maritime Literary History (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1991) 163-173. Members included Molly Beresford, Charles Bruce, Ethel Butler, Bliss Carman, James D. Gillis, Kenneth Leslie, J.D. Logan, Andrew Merkel, Stewart McCawley, Robert Norwood, Charles G.D. Roberts, and Evelyn Tufts, among others; the group would meet at Merkel's home at 50 South Park Street in Halifax.