Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs
A War Guest in Canada
- Publisher
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2023
- Category
- Personal Memoirs, World War II, Post-Confederation (1867-)
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781771123709
- Publish Date
- Sep 2023
- List Price
- $12.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781771123686
- Publish Date
- Sep 2023
- List Price
- $24.99
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
During the Second World War, hundreds of children were sent from the UK to stay with family and friends in Canada as “war guests.” This book collects the letters of one such war guest, young W.A.B (Alec) Douglas, who wrote from his wartime home in Toronto to his mother back home in London.
Alec wrote home every week, although sometimes he forgot to post his letters, and they were delayed, and some letters did not get through. Occasionally his godmother and host, Mavis Fry, would add comments and write her own more detailed letters. Also included are letters from Lillian Kingston, who brought Alec to North America in 1940.
This is a story of exposure, at an impressionable age, to ocean passage in wartime, the sights and sounds of New York, the totally new and unfamiliar world of Canada, the wonderful excitement of passage home in a Woolworth Aircraft Carrier as a "Guest of the Admiralty," and his eventful return to a world he had left behind three years before.
A War Guest in Canada includes a foreword by Cynthia Comacchio and an introduction by Roger Sarty.
About the authors
W. A. B. (Alec) Douglas was born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and spent his early childhood years in England. From 1940-43 he lived in Canada as a “war guest,” and he later returned to attend the University of Toronto. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1951 to 1973 when he was appointed director of the Directorate of History, National Defence Headquarters. He is the author of numerous books, including official histories of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. He lives in Ottawa.
Roger Sarty, history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, was in previous careers senior historian at the Department of National Defence and deputy director at the Canadian War Museum. His other books on the Canadian Army in the Maritimes include Saint John Fortifications (2003, with Doug Knight) and Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney Cape Breton and the Atlantic Wars (2012, with Brian Tennyson)./p>
Cynthia Comacchio's research focuses on the history of children/childhood and youth in Canada, late 19th to 21st centuries. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of a Modern Canada, 1920-50 (WLU Press, 2008) and Ring Around the Maple: Settler Children in Canada, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (WLU Press, 2024).
Other titles by
Other titles by
Catastrophe
Stories and Lessons from the Halifax Explosion
Loyal Gunners
3rd Field Artillery Regiment (The Loyal Company) and the History of New Brunswick's Artillery, 1893-2012
The History of Canada Series: War in the St. Lawrence
The Forgotten U-boat Battles On Canada's Shores
Saint John Fortifications, 1630-1956
Guardian of the Gulf
Sydney, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic Wars
Guardian of the Gulf
Sydney, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic Wars
Tin-Pots and Pirate Ships
Canadian Naval Forces and German Sea Raiders 1880-1918
Other titles by
Ring Around the Maple
A Sociocultural History of Children and Childhoods in Canada, 19th and 20th Centuries
The Dominion of Youth
Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada, 1920 to 1950
Children in English-Canadian Society
Framing the Twentieth-Century Consensus
The Infinite Bonds of Family
Domesticity in Canada, 1850-1940
Nations are Built of Babies
Saving Ontario's Mothers and Children, 1900-1940