Clarissa et al.

I have just finished hanging the washing out.

It is the Swallow Group of Parishes annual fete this afternoon.

What are the odds on it raining?

Watch this space.

Later

Well, I'm back, and it didn't rain! I bought several cakes, loads of plants and books, and a couple of brooches.

Here they are at Nettleton's new village hall.

Today Joe and I went to Markenfield Hall not far from Ripon. From the start of the day the stars in their courses were fighting against my from oversleeping, through phone calls and unexpected visitors, but we did eventually manage to set off with a picnic and a full tank of petrol.

It is a smallish house and the intention was to combine the visit with a picnic at either Fountains Abbey or Brimham Rocks. Not only did we start late, but it rained solidly from the moment we crossed the border into Yorkshire, so in the end it was our sole destination and the picnic was eaten in the car.

Now, I am making it sound as if the day was a bit of a disaster, but it wasn't - the house was absolutely lovely. It opens for just a few weeks each year as an obligation in return for English Heritage grants, but there is nothing half-hearted in the way that it is opened. There are baskets with a stack of A4 sheets in 14 point print describing each room as well as very friendly and knowledgeable volunteer stewards in each room.

It is an early fourteenth century house, and you enter across the bridge and through the gatehouse - something of a dash in our case through pouring rain under a shared umbrella - neither of us comfortable or very well protected with a foot difference in our heights making effective sharing somewhat difficult!

and walk across the courtyard to the undercroft which was modernised into a kitchen in the Tudor period. Today, although it is now used as an entrance hall cum living room, the fact that the nineteeth century range had been lighted was a welcome sight, and it was very pleasant to sit down in front of it to read the imformation sheet before going over to the sideboard to look at the photographs.

Upstairs is a great hall decorated exactly as I would decorate my great hall if I happened to have one with massive bookcases, a huge fireplace and comfy seats. The bookcaases are brand, spanking new, as is the fireplace which was rebuilt in the style of the one which could be seen in outline on the wall, but which was destroyed centuries ago and now houses the woodburning stove. In here are even more photographs of the house and its restoration.

Next is the chapel which is RC, but where Catholic and Anglican services alternate on a regular basis. In here is the only major rebuild in the house's recent history as one internal wall had become dangerous and needed complete reconstruction - the financing of which rebuild is the reason that the house has to be open to the public. The original family lost everything due to their support of the Rising of the North in the reign of Elizabeth I, so there was no money to do anything fashionable with it though it was maintained as a farm house until late in the twentieth century when the family - descendants of the original family - decided to move back in after the family who farmed the property for them moved out into a smaller, more manageable and modernised part of the buildings.

Finally there is a very pretty bedroom opening off the chapel (via a small lobby with more lovely bookcases) which is where brides go to titivate when marrying in the chapel.

Markenfield Hall is one of very few mediaeval houses still completely surrounded by its moat, and by the time we had viewed the house the rain had temporarily ceased and I decided to do the moat walk. Joe opted for sitting in the car while I did this.

I ought just to mention that I forgot to take my camera, so these photographs are borrowed from a variety of websites including Markenfield's own, which is well worth reading. http://www.markenfield.com

I spent a day which was much more tiring that its contents would seem to suggest. All Sharon and I had to do was teach the new Our Secret Garden workshop with 35 KS1 children producing 4 wall hangings based on leaf and flower shapes from the walled garden. It's a new workshop and there are still some kinks to iron out, but it works pretty well, and there were thirty-four happy children at the end of it, plus one little girl who had scowled ferociously from start to finish and alone did not put up her hand for either enjoying the day or liking the end product. (I got the impression that the class teacher was keeping a special eye on her and that there was probably something seriously wrong in her world.)

At 7.30 there was a meeting for the churchwardens of the Swallow Group of Parishes. There should have been 18 of us there - 14 churchwrdens, 1 group secretary, 1 group treasurer and 2 priests: however Ian, the Rural Dean, couldn't make it, so John, the other parish priest, took the chair, and it was attended by the secretary and 5 churchwardens from 4 of the seven parishes (only Swallow producing its full quota of two).

Admittedly Stuart, the group treasurer may have been a touch preoccupied as a lorry carrying hay bales had had an altercation with a powerline just next to his house and exploded and burst into flames. Two of the churchwardens had had to park in Beelsby Road and walk from there, and those who had to come by Cuxwold Road may well have turned back when they found the road closed. Fortunately the driver escaped with minor burns, but Stuart's neighbour is reported to have lost both hedge and garage and the fire brigade had to work really hard to stop the flames spreading to the four nearest houses - including Stuart's.

I went into the village today to thank Kath for leaving out the refreshments and explain that we hadn't used them as the meeting was too short to bother with a tea break. I got to Kath's all right, but the road to Cuxwold was still closed at noon - seventeen hours after the incident began.

Sunday (6 days later)

The road is now repaired and open. I saw no sign of the reported burned garage, but the two last houses in the village have lost their front hedges, and the tree opposite has taken a hammering. But the Browns (Stuart afore mentioned) and the Chungs seem to have escaped unscathed.

I don't think that contemplation is my strongest suit. Today in church we were asked to sit in complete silence for just one minute and listen to God speaking to us; we were also told to keep a count on our fingers of the number of ordinary thoughts, worries, distractions etc. which wandered across our minds during that minute.

Leaving aside the persistant bleep of a reversing farm vehicle which must surely have intruded on everyone's contemplation, my score was nil. Sadly it was also nil on success in listening, because my mind went straight into lambs and kittens mode and stayed there: all very pink and fluffy, but not I think the voice of God.

This picture is borrowed from someone else - thanks.

On Friday night I found that I was awake at about three o'clock so I thought that I would photograph the dawn of the summer solstice. It was a beautiful dawn, but the battery on my camera was flat. I set the battery to charge and promised myself that I would at least photograph the sunset - it was a nasty, cold, grey day and there was no sunset to photograph.

I happened to look at my blog statistics today and I just thought you might be interested to know that while on average my blog gets 100 to 200 page views per day, on the day I posted Uncle Peter's obituary it got 3413. If you google the words Peter Huston that blog comes in at number 6 behind five for some American using the same name, and 66 places ahead of his official newspaper obituary.

No make-up, hair loose, bread baking and nothing concrete on the schedule until this evening, unless you count watching the final of the current series of Countdown at 3.25.

It's been a busy week, and for the last couple of days I have been teaching Trug to Table to year 1 children.

Trug to Table is a workshop based on the walled kitchen garden, and has more variants than any other workshop we do as it covers the full primary school age range and history, maths, science and geography elements of the curriculem. The teachers are sent a choice of more than a dozen worksheets to select from and duplicate to use with this workshop, and we don't know until the school arrives what sort of slant is required.

On Wednesday I drove to work through pouring rain busily devising strategies to bring large parts of the workshop indoors, but as I drove into Normanby the rain stopped and the sun hesitantly sneaked out from behind the clouds and more-or-less remained out until the schools packed up and went home. Just as well as the other workshop the children were doing was Pond Dipping and Linda was much relieved not to have to do this in the rain.

If you flick on to Liz's blog www.trickymum.blog.co.uk for April 23rd you will see how her cat Sid responded to large numbers of nursery school children. In the walled garden Victoria and Ginger responded with equal stoicism to children a couple of years older who were far more interested in the cats than they were in what I had to say. At one point I had to start licking my paws and washing behind my ears to grab back the children's attention! (At home Albert had been disturbed in the night by the strong wind which blew over the garden furniture and took a branch off one of the chestnut trees: he took his worries out by going for a nocturnal perambulation every half hour or so - I can sleep through most things, but not a cat walking across my face.)

I was very impressed with two children: in the morning Alice is clearly both a budding historian and gardener. She answered all the questions nobody else could, and identified a great many flowers, vegetables and fruits. In the afternoon, we were doing our tour of the sheds and we reached the tool shed. I sent the class in to take a look at the bothy and one little boy awaiting his turn started to talk to me about the display of historic lawnmowers. I told him to wait and tell his classmates, which he did. When the time came his talk was really impressive - brief, delivered in a loud clear voice, with all the salient points made in a cogent order in properly constructed sentences. There are many adults who could learn a great deal from this five year old - both about lawnmowers and about how to give a talk.

Yesterday's group which was combining Trug to Table with a self guide rather than a second workshop (often a good idea with such little children), had a little workbook (16 pages made from two double folded, cut and stapled A4 sheets) which I felt was much more manageable than our A4 worksheets and - at least for this age-group - a big improvement.

So, two pretty good days with much better weather than we had been told to expect. However, yesterday's group made me feel a bit old - the teachers in charge looked like children - like the policeman I saw directing traffic one day and I couldn't help wondering what his mother thought she was doing letting her baby do something so dangerous! Were these two little girls really old enough to have charge over fifty children or should they still be playing with their dolls?

We have had some lovely schools recently - well mannered, well prepared children all ready to enjoy themselves without wanting to be silly. Today's school was no exception, although it was a busy day and there were two other schools in the farm museum at the same time as we were doing History Detectives. These particular children were only year four (9 years old), but they tackled some quite difficult concepts and worked very sensibly. Everything was going beautifully, and then, right at the end, the final group got up to speak about what they had discovered about their character, and the only girl in the group (in this particular class the girls were outnumbered more than two to one by the boys) introduced their character. A boy took up the story explaining about one of the artefacts they had found, and suddenly the girl was in tears - she had wet herself in front of all her classmates! One of the adults took her out and we edged forward from the damp patch on the floor - the boys' eyes kept straying towards it, but I was determined that we would all ignore what had happened and finish the workshop - which we did.

When it was all over and the children were making their way to the bus, I went outside where the little girl was sitting on a bench with the adult who had taken her out. I told her that it happened to adults to and told her that in my time I had, when I had a nasty cough, found myself teaching a whole lesson with damp knickers not daring to sit down in case it seeped through onto my skirt and became obvious to the children. Fortunately this made her laugh. The class teacher reminded her that they were a nice class and probably wouldn't say a thing, but if they did she would pick them up by their hair and throw them out of the window like Miss Trunchball. This also made the child laugh. Poor little girl, though: a few years younger and nobody would think anything about it, a few years older and she would be able to act nonchalant, but at nine you have so few defences against embarrassment and the possible ridicule of others.

So, that incident aside, I have been having a very pleasant term so far as workshops are concerned. Tomorrow however I begin a series of garden workshops – two days of Trug to Table this week, and then the new art workshop Our Secret Garden next week – and the weather forecast for tomorrow isn’t good.

There are other things at work that aren't so good, but it is a shared problem and therefore not mine to tell for the time being.

Teenagers it seems will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being teased.

Let me tell you the story of four children who belong to three families - all friends with each other. I shall call the children Susan Smith (14), Jane Jones (14), John Brown (13) and Fred Brown (11). All four attend - or will from September when Fred joins the others - the same school.

We start with Jane and John who are friends from infancy: they enjoy the same sports and have generally similar tastes and interests. As you will have noticed one is a girl and the other is a boy. When John started going to the same school as Jane, in order to avoid teasing about being boy and girl friend they casually let it be known that they were half brother and sister. (They aren't.)

In the meantime Susan, who shares the same sporting interests as the others, lives next door to Jane, and whose father many years before either was married was briefly Mrs. Brown's boyfriend and is also Jane's brother's (the real one) godfather, has for John's sake became cousin to both Jane and John although she and Jane could simply have been friends without comment. However, Fred has complicated the issue by telling some people that he and Susan are half brother and sister.

I do hope that Social Services never get hold of this story, especially if - as seems quite likely - the boyfriend/girlfriend scenario does eventually overtake the 'simply friends' situation with John and Jane, or possibly John and Susan.

Back on Planet Grown-Up the assorted parents are wondering just who had an affair with whom to produce all these tangled relationships.

As I was driving home from work today (a very nice day with thirty lovely year sixes) I saw a heron wading in Limber pond, so I stopped to watch.

He walked slowly round about a third of the pond's circumference, then stopped, watched and suddenly thrust his beak into the water and brought up a small fish with which he flew away south east over the church tower. He was so totally unaware that he was being watched, so utterly absorbed in his task - it was fascinating.

While he was doing his fishing, a moorhen was dabbling nearby and several swallows dipped into the water and flew on.

I hadn't got my camera with me, so here is a picture of some different birds on the pond a few years ago.

Did any girl from Cleethorpes Girls' Grammar School not become a teacher or school bursar/secretary?

There was another one today - Bernardette - whom I remember better from my days as a festival competitor than as a schoolfellow as she must be four or five years my junior. Apparently she was one of my little woodland elves when I was Oberon in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (possibly something better forgotten). Anyway, nowadays she is teaching at St. Mary's RC School in Grimsby and came on a pre-visit for a school trip next week. Hilary is actually teaching that group, and may well have taught Bernardette when Hilary was a brand new teacher at Lindsey Comprehensive which succeeded the grammar school.

It's a tiny little world!

I have spent today being two not very nice ladies - the first was the very strict Mrs. Harding, housekeeper at the Hall in 1891. The real Mrs. Harding may have been an absolute sweetie, but ours is a tartar.

Then in the afternoon I was Miss Jones, the schoolteacher in 1897. She is not based on a real person, and each of us takes a different name - they started off as Miss Black, Mr. White, Miss Brown etc., but we would have been reduced to Miss Scarlet or Mrs. Peacock by the time I joined the team. I suppose in choosing the name Miss Jones I may have been nodding in the direction of my grandmother and her sisters, all of whom, I believe, were teachers for a time though only Auntie Ethel remained Miss Jones throughout her life and made a lifetime career of teaching. However, Nan held the view that lessons learned in laughter will stick much longer than those taught by fear, wheareas when I introduce my Miss Jones to the children I tell them that "She doesn't like children who fidget, she doesn't like children who chatter, she doesn't like children who giggle and, in short, she does not like children."

Now, this scary lady is generally kept for children in KS2 (junior) schooling. Today's were year two - six and seven years old - and they took it like veterans. I wrote about these same lovely children a couple of months back when I visited their school as Florence Nightingale, and nothing has changed my opinion - they remain lovely, and their teachers had perfectly organised the day.

For the rest of the week we have older children from a school which brings us three full days of workshops each summer and is always excellent.

I get a bit irritated by people who blog for the sake of blogging and regurgitate stuff from other sources, and equally by those who worry about the purpose of blogging, the number of hits they get etc. It seems to me that all these people are making a chore out of a pleasure.

My blog is first and foremost for me: it is simply what it says a web log (an online diary) in which I record my thoughts on the day's events - the events in my day, not the news day - which I share with my friends and a small number of other people who flick onto my blog and stay long enough to read. Occasionally I may write in the heat of the moment when something has particularly irritated me, and there is the chance that - despite my careful avoidance of full names - someone may occasionally read something they do not like (possibly even something about themselves).

And herein to me is the beauty of the blog: it is wholly democratic and anyone can post a response or, if they prefer, they can send a private message to the writer. No one need ever harbour a simmering resentment about a lightly written remark or hastily made judgement.

More than two months ago I expressed an honestly held opinion. Today I learn that somebody found that expressed opinion offensive. I do not wish to offend and have now made that particular entry private, but why wait so long? Why not just comment "Lissa, you've gone too far this time - tone it down"? Why allow a lightly made comment to fester until it seems so much greater than it ever was and turn the whole thing into an issue?

Lincolnshire Library Service has gone mad! We used to have a mobile library visit us for fifteen minutes every other Friday which was very useful when it came to collecting light reading. Nobody has ever pretended that these buses could carry sufficient stock for serious (or even frivilous) research, but for an armful of light reads they are excellent. Moreover, the staff, knowing the limited user time, would renew books automatically when one didn't turn up.

Now all has changed: the mobile (note that word 'mobile') library is now parked in the centre of Caistor or Keelby for hours on end within yards of the permanent library, the hours of which have been reduced so that the people who use it on a regular basis for internet access, research etc. are being deprived, and much to the annoyance of shoppers who find their parking spaces occupied by a ruddy great bus!

Nobody is happy, and the librarians themselves are up in arms about it.

I like a nice bit of light fiction. I took our Swallow Bookworms' selection, Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd on holiday with me, but, after starting it three times, gave up on it as too irritating to bother with. I was not alone - only Sue Watson managed to finish it, and that with a struggle to retain interest to the end.

I also took one of my Christmas books which I had been saving for when I had some time for light reading not in bed or on the loo, because light reading this particular book ain't! Don't make any mistake, I am really enjoying the letters between the Mitford sisters, but physically it is a very heavy book which needs to be read at a table.

I also have a 'manuscript' of a friend's book to read, but am only managing it in dribs and drabs on the computer screen. Maybe I should print it off to read more comfortably, and maybe even ask permission to pass it round the bookworms.

So, I have just reread two Brother Cadfaels and am now rereading Busman's Honeymoon - all paperbacks, all at bedtime.

After my holiday and then half-term, I am back at work and have spent the week variously as a Victorian schoolmarm, a history detective, an archaeologist, an Egyptian priest and Florence Nightingale - never say that my life lacks variety! (Fortunately for me only the first and last are full costume role play.)

Tuesday it was siling down with rain (does the rest of the country use the verb 'to sile' or does it prefer 'to pour'?) and my Grimsby school arrived rather late. Mind you, that day they were the lucky ones - Dianne and Sharon had outdoor workshps with their poor, drenched babes (almost literally babies in Dianne's case as they were a nursery class) - at least mine were indoors. On the other hand the two workshops are very verbal, and St. Mary's is an RC school and in this class 25% of the pupils were Polish - one of them brand new to this country. Calling the register in the Victorian classroom was fun with the combination of 8 point print and all those Polish names! Life was made more difficult by the fact that the teacher had not been on a pre-visit and had only just been given the teacher's pack by the school office and thus had not done the preparation required. Fortunately the children were both good and resourceful and the teacher sensible so we managed very well.

Dianne's babies were also from a catholic school with a high proportion of Polish children new to the English language and not yet familiar with the works of Beatrix Potter. She says that she made the whole thing as visual as she could, but with rain and language diffculties it can't have been easy for her doing the workshop on her own for the first time.

Wednesday - Egyptians - and to a school where the headmaster used to be head where Jess and Josh were at primary school. On hearing that I was going to see Mr. Travis, Jess told me that I had to tell him that she now weighed 20 stone, had cropped her hair, dyed it purple, had 17 facial piercings and a tatoo, and had been expelled from school. This I duly relayed. "Not changed then?" said Alan Travis, "Still got her sense of humour." He clearly knows our Jess pretty well. The children suggested that I should mummify Mr. Travis instead of Vic-Ramses, but he had to get off to a rugby match so we decided against it. They were a lovely lot - very interested, very lively (which is not a euphamism for naughty in this case).

Today I was at Our Lady of Lincoln school. It is so pleasant to have a class of children who all have the terms of reference for the idea of 'called by God', plus immediate recognition of the rosary handed to the dying soldier and understanding what a nun is when they ask where all the nurses who went to the Crimea came from - it must save the best part of five minutes of explanation and give place for some quality discussion - and believe me, children of 6 and 7 can quality discuss with the best of us. These particular children were so good that I slightly upped the level of vocabulary and content for them, and they coped brilliantly. You should have met 'Sister' Princess (yes, really!) who ordered about the orderlies so convincingly and 'Trooper' Wilson who died of his wounds rather more dramatically than is usual, and when the role play ended came back to life with equal drama!

Having lost my source of my favourite breakfast cereal 'Force' from Proudfoot's in Barton which has sold out to Tesco, I called in at Waitrose in Lincoln on my way home and collected three packets, plus the rest of my weekend grocery shopping which gives me a full day to catch up on housework tomorrow (or lounge about in the sun if that is how the mood takes me).

Just a few more notes on a wonderful uncle.

The Obituary from the Gabriola Sounder

Dr. Peter (A. F.) Huston
1920-2008
Monday, May 26 2008

Peter (Arthur Francis) Huston, beloved husband and father, physician and poet, died peacefully at home on Gabriola with his family on May 16, 2008.

Born October 18, 1920 to Phyllis and Arthur Huston in Great Yarmouth, England, Peter at three years old fell ill with tuberculosis of the bones, and was hospitalized for several years, in an era when his parents were allowed to visit him only once a week. He returned home at age nine, walking on crutches until his mid teens. This experience left him with a fused hip and a life-long dedication to handicapped children.

Peter had a passion for the great outdoors. At age twelve, he built his first wood and canvas kayak to paddle in the North Sea. One of only two young men in his high school graduating class to survive World War Two*, he attended medical school, and married Barbara Taunt, whom he met at King’s College Hospital, in 1946.

With their family of five children, he and Barbara emigrated to Canada in 1959, where he worked as a doctor in Regina, Saskatchewan, specializing in paediatrics and rehabilitation, as medical director of Regina Rehabilitation Centre (Wascana Hospital). He supported the beginning of Medicare in Saskatchewan, where his principled refusal to join the doctors’ strike in 1962 earned him some vilification from opponents and the high regard of those who knew him. His work in rehabilitation was honoured when a fifty unit independent living apartment complex in Regina for disabled adults was named Huston Heights.

Peter ran a children’s hospital, a Canadian foreign aid project, in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, for two years during the war. Through offering medical care to the local Buddhist orphanage, he and Barbara met a little black/asian toddler, Paul, whom they adopted after strenuous efforts and a more than two-year wait. Two years later they adopted their son Philip from Cambodia. Peter undertook a research project on the causes of crippling in the third world, which took him and Barbara and the two little boys to several countries. While resident in an orphanage in Bangladesh, they adopted their profoundly deaf daughter Lili, to complete their family of eight. In the mid-1980’s, Peter continued his work for the people of the third world during two periods of living in Mogadishu, Somalia.

After his wife Barbara was ordained to ministry in the Anglican Church, Peter supported her in her career as devotedly as she had supported him in his. After his retirement, they moved to BC, settling on Gabriola Island in 1990, where Barbara has served St. Martin of Tours Anglican parish, and where several of their adult children have moved to be near them.

During his life in Canada, Peter’s poetry appeared in over a dozen poetry journals. A collection of his poems, “Visions and Voices”, was published in 1996, with a reading held at Raspberry’s Books.

Predeceased by his sister Mary, Peter is survived by his beloved wife of 62 years Barbara, his children Shelagh (David Soy), Jackie, Richard (Claire), Patsy (Don Thomson), Robbie (Mary Wilson), Paul (Tammy), Philip, and Lili (Garry Martin), his 13 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren, and many more well-loved family members by birth, marriage and choice.

You are invited to a memorial and reception to be held on Wednesday, May 28th, at 4 pm, at the Gabriola Island Community Hall downstairs. The family wishes to extend heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all who have supported us with thoughts, prayers, and kindness.

*NB Not that it's really important, but it does contain a factual error in para 3 - I checked the school photograph, the speechday programme for 1938, and most especially with Pa and I can now say of a certainty that of that sixth form at Clee S. H. Beckett, G. F. Cockerill, B. F. Edge, W. D. Garner, J.E. Goldthorpe, McCracken, and J. K. Ross all survived the war – most going on to distinguish themselves. – although two of Peter's three closest friends Geoff and Stan Harrison were among those killed. Cousin John Turner who was in that form but I think left before taking Higher School Certificate also lived to a reasonably old age.

From Mary Wilson
I'm wondering if what Peter meant was that all his close friends but one died? Of course I don't know any of the people involved except for John Goldthorpe (I assume that's JE Goldthorpe) who was a great friend of Peter's -- just seems like "all but one of my close friends" could well have been shortened to "all but one" over the years.

My Reply
That sounds very likely. Yes, J. E. Goldthorpe is the John Goldthorpe we all knew - Helen got to know him quite well when she nursed his hundred year old mother through her last illness. I think Bill (W. E.) Garner was another good friend. I looked him up on the Fantastic Fiction website and it appears that he is still alive, although there don't seem to have been any new books since 1990. Nearly all the others mentioned lived within two roads of us for some part of my childhood, as did Bill Garner's mother.

I was rearranging the fridge magnets today and came across one I bought Daddy last year which reads "Anyone can be a father; it takes someone special to be a dad." - I suspect that there are eight people in Canada who would agree with that sentiment.

From Deborah Harrison

Speaking as a long time friend of Peter's (though not much older than you in years), I want to express my condolences on your loss, and my appreciation for your lovingly put-together tributes to a truly wonderful and unique human being. It was a special delight to see the photos. I was sad to gather that John Goldthorpe has died as well. I met him when he visited Canada in 1983 (or perhaps 1984), and have very happy memories of this single encounter. Anyway, my heartfelt thanks to you again, and best wishes.

Having received this last as a comment, I thought that I would add these which I found on the net:

Huston was a pioneer of rehabilitation clinics
Kerry Benjoe, Leader-Post
Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A local doctor remembers the impact Dr. Peter Huston made in Regina and the province.

Huston, who died May 16 at the age of 87 was described in his obituary as a "beloved husband father, physician and poet" but Dr. Borden Bachynski remembers him as a hard-working and dedicated doctor.

"He was a good man and a very honest man," said Bachynski on Tuesday.

Bachynski was a young doctor when he first met Huston back when Tommy Douglas was still the premier of Saskatchewan. The pair worked together for about 10 years.

"He was a hard-working man. He organized a lot of clinics," recalled Bachynski. "He organized crippled children's clinics in Yorkton and down in Estevan. We used to go down there with him."

He remembered that Huston walked with a noticeable limp but couldn't recall what caused the limp.

"I was quite surprised that a man with a bit of a disability was very, very dedicated to his work," said Bachynski. "He worked on a salary, he got paid by the government and that's it. He liked it and he did that work."

What sticks out in Bachynski's mind is how dedicated Huston was to improving the lives of children.

"He did a lot of work getting kids into rehabilitation," he said, adding things were very different back then.

The doctors would go out and set up a clinic at the local public health office where the nurses were stationed.

"We would see 20, 30 or 40 people a day or more, probably 50," said Bachynski. "He would see them all, bring them all in, review them and give them rehabilitation and put them on programs."

Bachynski said this was after the polio epidemic and most of the patients the doctors saw were older children who hadn't received any rehabilitation or treatment.

"He was the man who instigated the clinics, the going out and seeing these people and he's the one who got it going at the Wascana (Hospital). He was probably the founder of those clinics," said Bachynski.

In the 1950s the Wascana Hospital was established and later renamed the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre.

and these

May 31, 2008
I was a patient of Dr. Huston's at the rehab center in Regina from the age of 3 until his retirement some 30 years later. I know that I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him and I will dearly miss his kindness and humor. He will never be forgotten. God bless Dr. H. and his family.
Deborah Janz (Regina, SK)

May 25, 2008
Our expressions of sympathy go out to Jackie and all of the Huston family. We remember your father with great fondness. Your family always extended their welcome to many of your friends and extended their kindness to many people all over the world. He was a great role model. Gail and Des
Gail Silver (Regina, SK)