The Last Canadian Knight

by Gordon Pitts

  Ann Creighton was swept off her feet. The young man possessed a decisiveness she had rarely encountered in the boys she knew. Did she know what she was signing on to? Probably not. She thought she was going to be the wife of a small-town lawyer, not the high-profile spouse of a transatlantic business figure. Even so, she knew there was something different about this earnest young fellow who had pursued her so vigorously and had won her heart.

  Love trumps planning. Day was no doubt enchanted with this young but elegant woman, and it turned out he had found the perfect helpmate. Ann would be a witty companion, wise beyond her years, who could handle herself in any circumstance, who was willing to suppress her own ambitions to support his great adventures, but who exacted a high price: they had to have fun in whatever they did, wherever they lived, and she would have to come home to Nova Scotia eventually. And he repaid that bargain.

  Ann quickly learned a central paradox in her husband’s life. He revelled in planning ahead—he would never be happier than when he knew what was happening on a precise day in two years. Yet a lot of his major life decisions came in an instant. “To someone on the outside, these things happen very quickly, and yet he goes through everything in depth before he jumps,” Ann says.

  The whirlwind courtship and subsequent marriage were the highlights of Day’s life as a young lawyer in the Annapolis burg of Windsor—along with, of course, the births of three children in quick order: Deborah in 1959, Donna in 1960, and Michael in 1962. And for eight years in Windsor, from 1956 to 1964, he grew as a lawyer. It was steady work, with the rural municipality of West Hants his biggest client. It was a time of school consolidation, as little red schoolhouses gave way to regional schools, and there were contracts to build new ones. The municipality had only two employees, so Graham picked up a lot of the work. He found at times that he was running the procurement function for supplies for new schools out of his office, with Ann testing reconditioned pianos and sewing machines.

  Occasionally, a case would come along that would get his blood flowing. He remembers one early incident when a provincial Supreme Court judge, on his circuit through the province, arrived in town the night before court was in session. Whoever was low on the totem pole of lawyers got the pro bono cases dished out that night. And the judge said to Day, “I have a case tomorrow of attempted murder. And it is yours.” He had never done this work before. His short legal career mainly involved dealing with trivial matters in magistrate’s court.

  The case before him involved a man, small in stature, who provided for his family by working in the woods, stripping trees as they fell. He had a double-bitted axe with a long handle. Food would arrive at the camp by truck, driven by a rather large woman who could handle herself in a man’s world. The little woodsman was always one week behind in paying her, so she in effect was giving him credit every week. On this one occasion, he paid her for the previous week, but she then prepared to shut up the truck without giving him food for the following week. He began waving his axe and got the money back from the woman. No blood was spilled, but he was charged with attempted murder.

  On court day, Day put the fellow on the stand to explain the financial arrangement. Then the woman painted a picture of being terrified of this man, despite her superior size. Day asked the judge to refer, in his charge to jurors, to the lesser charge of theft. The Crown was adamant that the relevant charge was attempted murder. He either attempted to kill her or he didn’t. After some clarification, the jury went away. It then emerged to announce that the accused was not guilty of attempted murder, but guilty of theft instead. The relative sizes of two disputants no doubt affected the verdict. “Oh, God, I died ten thousand deaths in that case,” Day recalls, “but then there was the sense of relief.”

  Other work was less dramatic but more influential in defining the thread of his career. He made connections that would last a lifetime. Atlantic Canada, then as now, was dominated by business families: the Sobeys in the north around Stellarton and New Glasgow, the Irvings and McCains in New Brunswick, the Olands in Halifax and Saint John, and the emerging Bragg lumber and blueberry businesses around Oxford. All would play a big role in his life, and none more so than the Jodreys, whose home base was the Annapolis Valley.

  R. A. (Roy) Jodrey was an entrepreneurial giant. He had started off as a teenaged apple salesman and had parlayed that into pulp and paper mills, varied industrial holdings, a stock market portfolio, and one of the biggest personal fortunes in the Atlantic region. Based in the former shipbuilding centre of Hantsport, the Jodreys—led by Roy, his son John, and son-in-law Lovett Bishop—liked the young lawyer in nearby Windsor, and would give him bits and pieces of work. It was valuable work for a young attorney just getting started. “I look back now and know absolutely they were being kind,” Day says. The Jodreys probably didn’t need another lawyer. They already had a close relationship with the Halifax law firm of Stewart, Smith, McKeen, Covert, with brilliant business fixer Frank Manning Covert as its point man—a firm that would evolve into the modern-day Stewart McKelvey.

  Day got to know Roy Jodrey, a fascinating blend of the sacred and profane, who could sing Baptist revival hymns at full throat while dreaming of business deals past and present. His teenage grandson George Bishop used to drive him around the Valley and remembers Roy’s breaking into song with a stirring rendition of “Jesus Loves Me,” then suddenly stopping in mid-verse at the memory of some exasperating business issue to thunder, “Hell and God damn.” “It wouldn’t take him a second to switch. It just broke me up,” says George, who later became a key player in the Jodrey businesses.

  Roy Jodrey was equally distinguished for his parsimony. He would rather give money away than spend it foolishly. On one occasion, Graham Day was in Jodrey’s Hantsport office, reporting on a title search for a warehouse the businessman was buying for $25,000. They were preparing to close the deal. It was a time when, if you cut a cheque in one town and it was being presented in another, there was a hefty service charge. The cheque was to be drawn on the Bank of Nova Scotia in Hantsport but paid over in Windsor. Being a director of the bank, the tycoon phoned A. S. McKenzie, the manager of the branch in Windsor and said, “A. S., how much are you going to charge me to cash a cheque for $25,000?” Day couldn’t hear the response, but Roy blurted: “You’re not!” He paused, put his hand over the phone, and said to Day: “Are you prepared to take $25,000 cash and put it in your account?” Day nodded, and Jodrey roared, “To hell with you, A. S.,” and hung up.

  Day transported the cheque the full seven miles to Windsor to deposit it in his trust account. He drew a cheque on that account to pay Jodrey’s bill at no charge—a saving of probably $100. It was his first insight into the world of Nova Scotia family enterprise. That little ride in the Beetle would be repaid over and over.

  In Windsor, he was always open to new experiences that would enrich his life. He and his law partner became proud owners of a downtown bowling alley. Sadly, the investment was a dud, and he lost $15,000 in an era when that was a lot of money. As the West Hants solicitor, he got an education in financing capital spending through bond issues. He was instrumental in developing a new home for the fire department and town office, including rental office space. He moved in as the first tenant.

  But just as important, he began an association with the Canadian military that continued through his life. When he launched his law practice in late 1956, one of his early clients was the local hardware merchant. The store owner was also a Second World War veteran, and the officer commanding the local reserve army unit, the 88th Battery, 14th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery. Four years later, Day joined and was commissioned in September 1961. He was awarded the Oland Cup for the “best lieutenant qualifier.” In the mid-1960s, he taught military law to reserve officers.

  The closest whiff of active duty came during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when, as the threat of nuclear war loomed between the Soviet Union and the West, Day w
as seconded as a legal officer to the headquarters of the forces’ local target area in Windsor. The assumption was that, if the army had to seize foodstuffs in the town, it would need a judicial officer on call. He was part of the judge advocate general (JAG) branch for a few days, until it became clear that, as the war threat subsided, his services were not needed. Following this experience, Day thought of joining the JAG branch and wrote to inquire. The answer was that recruitment was then limited to young, recent graduates. At age thirty, he was too old.

  According to his son Michael, those experiences were formative. “That is what he cherishes. This is service before self, which he’s all about. This is about something bigger than who you are. This is queen and country, and he is a monarchist at heart. He’s all about giving back to the country.”

  Day was a conservative by instinct and practice. As Progressive Conservative premier Robert Stanfield prepared to contest a provincial election, Day was approached about seeking the Tory seat for West Hants. The sitting member was retiring, and three party contenders emerged: Day, then solicitor for the county; Norman Spence, a successful local farmer; and Stanton Sanford, a former country warden. Day finished “a pretty good second.” Jake Creighton, his father-in-law, who had tried a number of times for a Tory seat in Dartmouth, asked Day, “Who was your guy at the vote count?” Day didn’t have one. He was told, “Graham, it wasn’t your turn.” The fix was clearly in. Norman Spence became the member and, to Day’s mind, he was a very good one. Day has often thought since about how fortunate he was to lose.

  Whether teaching music to the girls at Edgehill or losing his shirt on a bad bowling alley investment, Day learned a lot in Windsor. Some colleagues believe he took on so many varied jobs in his small practice that he became well equipped to manage a complex company or troubleshoot a cascade of business problems. Bud Kimball, his Windsor law partner, later said the law gave Day a cool detachment that served him well in the business world. In the world of law, he told the BBC, lawyers would lock themselves into the adversarial process, but when they walked out of the courtroom, most lawyers would drop that attitude. Kimball said Day was the exception: he could apply that rational, analytical thinking outside the courts.

  As a young family, the Days liked their time in Windsor, and they were attached to the community. After supper, Graham and Ann would often give the kids their baths and get them into pajamas, then the family would spend the evening sitting along the banks of the Avon River in Hantsport. They thought about building a house on the Avon and spending their later days in the pretty town, with its frame houses, quiet streets, and the mills of Roy Jodrey.

  But Ann Day began to realize some things about her husband. He had huge energy and vast ambition, and he could get bored and twitchy if life became a grind. Ann could understand the frustrations of small-town law. Graham experienced a rare medical crisis in this period, an ulcer that caused him to be hospitalized. He clearly needed a release of some kind. And, she says now, “Singalong Jubilee was the saving grace.” Indeed, music bailed him out again.

  Chapter 4

  The Singalong Redemption

  Graham Day never met Pete Seeger, but the American left-wing protest singer played a pivotal role in the life of the future Thatcherite privatization kingpin. In 1960, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation decided to produce a national television show out of Halifax hosted by Seeger, whose career was rising in the folk music revival then sweeping North America. It would be a thirteen-episode summer replacement for the legendary Don Messer’s Jubilee, the showpiece of Down East fiddle music and old-time singing and dancing. Seeger even came up to Halifax for rehearsals with the producer—a CBC contract employee named Manny Pittson—and he was ready to go.

  But Seeger was a former communist and, in a country still haunted by the McCarthy witch hunt, the US government had made it difficult for him to travel. No Seeger, no TV show. So the CBC told Manny Pittson to come up with something else. In the late spring of 1961, Pittson called his former Dalhousie musical cohort Graham Day, now practising law in Windsor. The message was that Pittson had to put on a show, and there were only five weeks to get ready. “Manny had hired a couple of people and would I help to put a chorus together?” Days says. “That became Singalong Jubilee.” Day and his law partner, Bud Kimball, became members of the original chorus. For the first two seasons, he sang in the chorus and in a male quartet before stepping up to musical director.

  Singalong Jubilee was remarkable for more than the entertainment: it made stars out of talented young people. These artists laid the foundation for East Coast music as more than a regional phenomenon but as an identifiable brand across Canada: the merger of traditional Maritime music, kept alive by people such as ethnologist Helen Creighton, and the folk revival wave that produced Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Gordon Lightfoot. The Singalong cast—people such as Jim Bennet, Bill Langstroth, Shirley Eikhard, Gene MacLellan, Fred McKenna, Catherine McKinnon, and, above all, Anne Murray—developed their own followings.

  And there was Graham Day, who someday would be the biggest performer of all, but on a different kind of stage. Singalong made him comfortable with presentation. It underlined the value of being able to put on a show—of improvisation, dramatic ease, and communication. As he advanced in law and business, Day would never be shy before an audience. Business is performance, as well as strategy and people management. Running a musical production involves many of the same skills as herding a bunch of sensitive, talented managers.

  At Singalong, Day was reunited with Jim Bennet, whom he had known as a teenager. They both loved Gilbert and Sullivan, and Bennet in particular embraced the folk revival with the Kingston Trio, Seeger, and the rest. For a while, Bennet had sung in a local country music group with Robert MacNeil, who would later become a television news reporter and for many years co-host of the US public broadcaster’s MacNeil/Lehrer Report. Day always measured his musical talent beside Bennet’s, and concluded that Bennet was by far the better singer. But Bennet observes that Day was strong in other areas: “He was a good singer, but he was a better director.”

  Singalong Jubilee would be Day’s first management job, in the sense that he directed the marshalling of talent and resources to create something the market would value. It was purely an avocation, not a career choice, probably because of what his father had said to him: “Look closely at your abilities and where they can take you.” But he was passionate about it.

  The show put him in contact with handsome, charismatic Bill Langstroth, a Montreal boy who had attended Mount Allison University in New Brunswick and become a fixture of the burgeoning East Coast scene. He was a party guy, not in the debauched sense, but he could get a party moving like nobody else, Bennet recalls. He was the catalyst who would organize hootenannies at people’s houses and had worked with Don Messer on TV. So when the Seeger deal fell through, Langstroth came on board, too. Bennet recalls that “the idea was for me to be the announcer and do occasional singing, but it came down to Bill and me sharing the host duties.” He marvelled at how Langstroth would get up in front of the mic and just wing it. He was a superb improviser. “Graham was more disciplined,” Bennet says, and Manny Pittson was not a musician—he played a little trombone—but he was a production genius.

  Day remembers Langstroth as a good host, but not a student of music. The defining moment came early in Season Three, when the chorus was rehearsing to sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” To this point, there had not been a musical director. The rehearsal was not going well. Pittson asked Day what was wrong. “I replied that Bill was endeavouring to lead the chorus in two-quarter time when the piece was written in four-quarter time. For the balance of that season and the next, I was the musical director.” Langstroth would go on to a sparkling career, and received considerable credit as Singalong’s creative force, an acclaim that Day insists should have gone instead to Manny Pittson. Pittson was a true television innovator. One of his ideas was
filming his singers separately on location, with backdrops of beaches, forests, or city streets, where they would lip-sync the songs. Over these visuals, Pittson would play their studio-recorded voices. In Day’s eyes, Pittson created the medium that became known as the music video.

  The show could best be seen as a rare medley of talents: Pittson as producer, Langstroth and Bennet as announcers/performers, and, at least for a while, Day as the source of musical discipline. You can see him in the photos, a thin pole of a guy—six-two and 170 at his heaviest—clean-shaven in those days, sometimes serious, but with a confident near-smile, as if he was the one who got the joke.

  While Singalong Jubilee was occupying his time—along with the law—Day got diverted into a local production of a beloved Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, a charity production for which he had assembled a number of local CBC types and some Toronto imports. Bennet recalls that Day threw himself into it. “His reputation is he could be a pretty hard guy when it came to business, but he was very collegial as a director. He was not a mean-spirited man, but, my God, when he had his mind made up to something, it got done.”

  The Singalong experience meant recruiting people, and Day got his first taste of what would become a foundation of his managerial repertoire. The auditions were coveted by young musicians across the Maritimes. At one point, the Singlong brass auditioned a second-year phys ed student at the University of New Brunswick named Anne Murray, a native of the coal-mining town of Springhill, Nova Scotia. Murray, in her biography All of Me (co-authored with Michael Posner), recounts flying from Fredericton to Halifax with two girlfriends and competing for a job against about eighty-five hopefuls. She sang alto in a workshop, then returned for a solo audition, where she sang “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep,” a black spiritual she remembered Pete Seeger singing. She thought she had done well, but on returning to Fredericton, she received a letter from Manny Pittson saying they had enough altos that year and her services were not needed. “The word devastated does not do justice to how I felt,” she wrote. Later, she learned that the show’s decision makers, including Graham Day, had agreed in advance not to replace an experienced known singer with someone essentially untried. Since no one was leaving the show that year, the entire audition exercise seemed to be a terrible waste of time to Murray.