So we moved in the dead of winter - January the first (1968), Bill’s choice so he would remember the date—leaving Winnipeg in well below zero weather and arriving in Stratford, where it was 10 above (Fahrenheit). We went to get the keys to our new home and our real estate agent apologized for the cold weather and we all laughed. To us it was balmy. But we had to stay in a hotel for several nights until our mattresses, having travelled the northern route along Lake Superior, warmed up enough to lay our bodies on. And if the movers had attempted to unwrap a mirror or a picture, the glass would have pinged and shattered. So we enjoyed a lovely experience that we made a tradition until Bill died and all traditions ended.
New Year’ s Day Dinner at the Queen’s Hotel in Stratford—a family affair. We were strangers that year but by the following year we knew everyone. Red velvet bows, all lovingly made by Mrs. Pinkney, adorned everything that was adornable, and she garnished every dinner plate with her own preserved crab apples. Memorable! It didn’t last long after that for her either. The Pinkneys lived in the hotel that they owned. She always talked about having a real house with a front and back door and a basement and a garden—all that. Her husband died around the same time that Bill did, and Muriel Pinkney didn’t wait long enough. She sold the hotel and bought a suburban house, what used to be called a ranch house, with a big back yard and a swimming pool. She spent six months renovating and shopping and settling, and then, I guess, she looked around and said “What have I done?” She missed the hotel. I only heard all this. I was not intimate with her. But she told people that she had made the biggest mistake of her life. I think of her every year when I go to Stratford and pass what used to be the Queen’s Hotel (new name now). Lo, how the world changes.
Anyway, we moved in, and our complete dinner, including dessert, was brought to us that first evening, not by Meals on Wheels or DishDash (it didn’t exist in those days) but by Dama Bell, bless her.
Then we all had to face living in a new place. Town and Gown, that’s the distinction drawn in a university town. I don’t know that there’s a similar phrase for the discrepancy (gulf!) between theatre people and civilians, but it certainly exists. We were mugwumps, with one foot in the kitchen and one foot backstage. I was more split than Bill was. He was a businessman, that’s why they hired him, a rare choice in those days. Most managers were stage managers manqués, working their way back off the stage to an office in front. Bill had a bus.ad. degree, very rare in the theatre at that time, and his business career to date fitted him ideally for the job he was given to undertake. He had done fund-raising, publicity and promotion and of course accounting. His bussiness manager told me that Bill said numbers danced for him. (Wow.) Besides being a wife and mother, I was a writer, in fact, an aspiring playwright, with a couple of plays (at MTC) to my credit. I said, when Bill was hired by the Festival, “At last! -someone I can sleep with to further my career!” Actually, it didn’t work that way. If anything, it became an obstacle and a discredit. I didn’t know that then.
I’m sorry. This is still about me. Too much. But Stratford influenced my life enormously and still does. So, of course, does Shakespeare.
I’m getting there.