I grew up in Newfoundland but, to be honest, had not thought much about our time as an independent dominion and our effort to contribute to wars fought in Europe. The tall green war memorial in our capital city of St John’s is handy as a skateboard park. A Canadian writer, Norman Levine, who had dropped bombs on Leipzig during the Second World War, inspected the memorial with me one afternoon, and he approved of the skateboarders. Youth should make a game out of a memorial. But a publisher approached me about a book and it was the sort of story and material that I had never attempted before. I felt an attraction. So much could go wrong with a book like this that I immediately signed on for the duration. There was money involved but there was also a chance to begin something new. I have a wife and child. Yes, I’ll write to you, I said. I would mail to them the first postcards I’d ever sent to my own family. Take care of each other. And as I left for the airport to begin my solitary parade, I was cheered off at my own door on my way to fly over the roof of this encouraging family and head to England.
