My bad. In last week’s column, I completely forgot to tout the return of the Dunvegan Recreation Association’s ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’ event after years of being shuttered by Covid’s shadow. So you, most likely, missed this month’s film. It was a really good one. Albeit not a title I had heard of.
Channelling the late Elwy Yost, DRA volunteers Laurie Maus and Bob Garner found a real winner: The Hundred Foot Journey. Set in France, it told the tale of an immigrant family whosettle in a quaint French village and open an Indian restaurant. If you’d like to watch it (and you still own a DVD player), the disc is in the Alexandria library’s collection.
In this age of streaming, you might ask yourself: why leave the comfort of your couch?Because… as I realized on Saturday… sharing the movie experience with others is almost enjoyable. And, at the DRA’s pop-up ‘movie theatre,’ the popcorn is free. I believe the next film is on October 15th. This time I’ll alert you before the fact.
Big music, wee place
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, ‘live music’ is back in Dunvegan. The popular Ontario Festival of Small Halls returns on Friday, October 7th with a concert that features Inn Echofrom PEI. The Festival’s organizers avow that the group’s “mastery of their instruments is the talk in the national and international folk music scene.” You’re invited to judge for yourself when you visit the Ontario Small Halls web site — OntarioSmallHalls.com — and click on the Dunvegan link. There’s a short video at the foot of the page that shows the band in action.
Tickets are available online for $25 per person (tax in) though the link on the Dunvegan concert page. The doors open at 7:00 pm, and the show gets underway at 7:30 pm. If youhave never been to the DRA Hall, please note that the venue is accessible for those with mobility limitations.
Having the Gaelic?
Last week, a reader asked if I would look into why one refers to someone who speaks Gaelic as “having the Gaelic”, while with other languages one simply says they speak them. Of course, there isn’t a hope in heck I could field the question. But I knew someone who could: Chelsey MacPherson. She took Celtic Studies at St. Francis Xavier University in the program.
“Gaelic uses an idiom to express the ability of speaking a language,” Chelsey told me. “The idiom is formed with the preposition aig (lit. ‘at’) that, when paired with a personal pronoun/noun/proper name, denotes possession.” Chelsey went on to say that, to ask if someone can speak Gaelic, you’d say ‘A bheil Gàidhlig agad?’ In English, the literal translation would be ‘Is Gaelic at you?’ “Having the Gaelic,” Chelsey wrote, “is probably just the Gaelic phrase being directly translated into English.”
Spider and the Queen
As I mentioned last week, former Dunvegan resident Steve ‘Spider’ Merritt contacted me with an account of his three close encounters with Her Majesty. The first time was at 1973 craft fair held in Ottawa. Steve was selling the distinctive woollen ‘Anne of Dunvegan’ creations his wife produced on her loom. I just so happened the Queen was in town and, on one of her trademark ‘meet and greet’ encounters, was escorted through the fair. Steve said that Her Majesty didn’t stop at his booth. However, the work of the lucky sod right beside him, a glassblower, did catch her eye.
The second time was in 1987 when Queen Elizabeth attended to Commonwealth Conference in Ottawa. Steve, who I believe was late for a gig, took a little known shortcut up a back-alley flight of steps between two streets… only to discover he was in a no-go security zone, just as the Queen and her RCMP escort were passing by. As fate would have it, Steve was wearing a Royal Stewart plaid shirt, which he told me earned him a wry smile from Her Majesty.
Ten years later, Steve was in Ottawa hurrying to a hootenanny. He once again took a shortcut. As one of the city’s top busker, he knew downtown Ottawa like the back of his hands. This time he landed him outside the celebrity entrance to the National Arts Centre where… he bumped into his friend Harry Shott from Baltics Corners. As Harry explained he was part of the Queen’s security detail, Her Majesty’s limousine pulled up and she alighted. Although this was Steve’s third brush with Her Royal Highness, he admits that she probably didn’t recognize him.
Last Royal recollection
In the early 1980s, while posted in Winnipeg, former Dunveganite Jim Fletcher was given responsibility for the military’s communication support during Her Majesty’s visit to Manitoba.Naturally, safety is the number one priority during a Royal Visit. “The Queen’s plane was met on the secure, military side of the Winnipeg International Airport,” Jim wrote me in an email. Jim admits that while getting the Queen’s entourage safely on its way was a wonderful experience, it was also a nerve-wracking one.
At the end of the tour, the Queen returned to the Winnipeg air base to make a speech to the throngs of people waiting say goodbye. Jim and his squadron mates had installed a sound system with 100 speakers covering three hangers and a public area. “It was shear agony as I waited for her to start speaking,” Jim recalls. Much to his relief her words rang out loud and clear. “It was a high point in both my life… and my wife’s,” Jim admitted. “She was seated close to the podium and Her Majesty.”
-30-