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Vol. 8
No. 7
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL NEWSPAPER - LANARK, NORTH LEEDS & GRENVILLE
JULY 2021
More songs to come from Ellis Craig Perth - Sally Smith editorial@pdgmedia.ca If he’d known at 14 his second career was going to be as a songwriter, he might not have stopped writing. But sometimes fate is fickle, and as fate would have it for Ellis Pringle Craig, his writing career began seven decades later. He turned 85 in January, and is a bit of a star on the internet and YouTube. As he’s finding out, all the events he stored in his memory over the years are at his fingertips now when he needs them — John McCrae’s poppies, Lord Stanley’s Cup and Terry Fox on the run. Craig wrote We Are Canadian!, an internet phenomenon attracting over 138,300 hits so far with more each hour. His wish, desire, hope is that it be performed on Parliament Hill on Canada Day — maybe not this one… but one soon. “Dream big, or go home,” he grins. “I’m waiting for that magic phone call from some wellknown singer.”
His creativity is a bit of a puzzle to him. “I never knew I had a creative side. I regret not recognizing this back at 14. If I’d known then, and continued, I might have been another Leonard Cohen, or even Canada’s poet laureate!” Over the years he admits he’s written a bit of poetry. June, his wife of 57 years, remembers he wrote verses to her when they were going together but won’t tell him where she’s kept them all these decades. And he got paid for his first poetry attempts, writing for The Canadian Boy, a United Church magazine. For first prize they paid $1 and Craig says he remembers cashing four or five one dollar cheques — “big money in those days!” His goal today is not to get paid, however, but to leave a legacy — “something other than 35 years in the RCMP.” Alongside We Are Canadian! he’s written two other songs — Known Just to God and Me, and The Ever Dwindling Few, as well as a truly Canadian version of his first hit —
We Are Canadian, eh! And, he adds, with a glint in his blue eyes and a chuckle, he knows of a band of “four elderly gentlemen” who have it on their back burner to play it as soon as Covid restrictions are lessened — the Grateful We’re Not Dead band. He says it’s a “humorous” version. So what makes him write? He's not sure but says straight-faced there’s a little voice, who, one day out of the blue, asked why he didn’t write a song about Canada, similar to the I Am Australian song. “I said…Little voice, there’s one problem here. I’ve never written a song in my life!” He says he doesn’t often hear the voice, in fact, has only heard it once. But the voice continued: “If you don’t do it, will somebody else?” “I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and, on a whim, started writing lyrics. Over two or three evenings I put the words together and then took them to June. She thought they were ‘pretty good!’” That was the begin-
ning. Craig wrote it, Carey Blackwell composed the music and sang the original; eventually Alan Sandeman came on board, sang the current version as well as Craig’s later two songs. Craig says he’s got some more songs he’s thinking about, but these are “hurtin’ songs,” more in the Gordon Lightfoot style. Diversity is important to Craig. He wrote about it in his Canada song — “We all live on this blessed soil that to death we will defend. Diversified yet unified — we are Canadian!” He adds there are three themes — diversity, unity and individual pride in being Canadian. “Diversity makes us stronger, not weaker,” he says, adding people who immigrate to Canada bring talent and contribute immensely. The one thing Craig says he really needs right now is a webmaster who could work with him and keep the site up and going. He or she could be “an old, retired computer person
Ellis Craig sits out back at his daughter’s home reminiscing about writing We Are Canadian! Photo credit: Sally Smith
or a young, college level student who might do it for a course credit. “I need someone able to get copyright permission so I can stay out of jail,” he
says, another grin. Canada Day is this month. Go to https://canadiansatarms.ca/we-are-canadian/ to hear and sing along to Craig’s song.
Canada @Olympics!! So proud of you Bails!!” This will be the second Olympic games for Henderson, who represented Canada at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in Brazil 2016. In March of 2020, Canada announced they were withdrawing their teams from participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This was a crushing blow to many who had trained and devoted themselves to preparing for the apex of world competition. Swimmer Andison described her disappointment: “fighting for a spot on the Canadian Olympic team is something
I have been dreaming about since I was a little girl. The difficulty of watching that chance quickly be taken away is indescribable.” At the same time, however, she felt that it was the right decision. “Though I am sad about Canada’s decision to withdraw from the 2020 Olympic Games I understand and stand with this choice as this has become about much more than sports. As a Canadian, I feel proud that my country is on the forefront of this movement and hope that this urges other countries to do the same.” It did. Continues on page 2
Two Smiths Falls women heading to Tokyo Olympics Smiths Falls - Janelle Labelle editorial@pdgmedia.ca
Henderson (left) and Andison (right) in front of Chimo Elementary School more than ten years ago. Photo credit: Chimo Elementary Facebook page
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Smiths Falls' own Bailey Andison and Brooke Henderson are heading to the Tokyo Olympics. The two local women have been friends since their childhood days when they were both students at Chimo Elementary School. Golfer Brooke Henderson recently posted two old photos of the girls together on Instagram celebrating Andison’s success at the Olympic trials, writing “Super excited that my childhood bestie and I both have qualified to represent Team
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