Letters from Canada: Andrew Glen’s Country Diary

By Iain Glen

Andrew Glen was born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada in 1912. Initially he worked as an engineer in Toronto, but in 1923 bought a small farm on the outskirts of Pickering. He continued to work on the land for the remainder of his active life and for a period in the 1930’s he contributed a regular column to the ‘Toronto Star’. He recorded his detailed observations of the changing seasons and farming activities related to the time of year. This book presents a selection of these rural essays, originally written between 1931 and 1938. As social history, these essays presented a vivid picture of a way of life unfamiliar to city dwellers at that time, and now provide a reminder of farming skills, implements such as ‘The Old Binder’, and procedures no longer witnessed by current country folk. His descriptive skills were extended to his animals and we meet amongst others ‘Trotsky the Pup’, The Crazy Cow’ and ‘Lazy Lou’, one of his horses.

Many of the articles contain a sprinkling of philosophy and politics. Andrew and his wife Dorothy had been staunch members of the Toronto Labour party and he became one of the founder members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932, precursor to the National Democratic Party of Canada. This amalgam of talents and interests resulted in his ability to link up the moods of nature with his own hopes and aspirations for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9781398462595

Iain Glen

Iain Glen was brought up on a farm on the Isle of Arran in Scotland looking across to the Mull of Kintyre. Iain attended Glasgow University where he studied veterinary medicine and graduated in 1963. He wished to continue in the academic environment and after a year with a Glasgow team in Kenya. He returned as a house-surgeon at Glasgow University Veterinary Hospital. Iain Glen was keen to remain in the University environment and took up a new position doing clinical work and research in veterinary anaesthesia. He was one of the first to obtain a recently established Diploma in Veterinary Anaesthesia. Over the next few years, as well as providing an anaesthetic service for surgical procedures conducted in the surgery department, he began to study the clinical utility in animals of new anaesthetic agents being evaluated or already used in human patients. This interest in potential new agents encouraged him to respond to an advertisement for a medical or veterinary anaesthetist to join a team of chemists at ICI Pharmaceuticals Division searching for new anaesthetic agents. He joined ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1972 and led a small team of biologists evaluating, in laboratory animals, compounds submitted by project team chemists. Compounds submitted for their tests were either new compounds synthesised by the chemists in their team or selected by them from compounds in ICI compound collections prepared for other possible uses. One of the latter compounds, 2,6-diethylphenol was found to have anaesthetic activity in mice and led to the synthesis and evaluation of related compounds. This led to the selection of 2,6-diisopropylphenol as a candidate for further development, and this agent, now called propofol, formulated in a lipid emulsion, has become a very successful agent, and is now widely used, particularly for day-case procedures, as it allows rapid and clear-headed recovery. In 2000, he retired from AstraZeneca (ICI Pharmaceuticals Division had been renamed Zeneca and merged with the Swedish company, Astra) and set up Glen Pharma, an independent consultancy providing advice on the development of potential anaesthetic drugs and equipment. At this time, he was closely involved in the development of a system (‘Diprifusor’ target-controlled infusion, TCI), for the administration of propofol by a microprocessor-controlled infusion pump. He retired in 2010 and in 2018 was pleased to be awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award for the discovery and development of propofol. In his spare time when young, he played rugby and in later life enjoyed hang-gliding and paragliding, but now restricts his energetic hobbies to golf.

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About the Author

Iain Glen was brought up on a farm on the Isle of Arran in Scotland looking across to the Mull of Kintyre. Iain attended Glasgow University where he studied veterinary medicine and graduated in 1963. He wished to continue in the academic environment and after a year with a Glasgow team in Kenya. He returned as a house-surgeon at Glasgow University Veterinary Hospital. Iain Glen was keen to remain in the University environment and took up a new position doing clinical work and research in veterinary anaesthesia. He was one of the first to obtain a recently established Diploma in Veterinary Anaesthesia. Over the next few years, as well as providing an anaesthetic service for surgical procedures conducted in the surgery department, he began to study the clinical utility in animals of new anaesthetic agents being evaluated or already used in human patients.

This interest in potential new agents encouraged him to respond to an advertisement for a medical or veterinary anaesthetist to join a team of chemists at ICI Pharmaceuticals Division searching for new anaesthetic agents. He joined ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1972 and led a small team of biologists evaluating, in laboratory animals, compounds submitted by project team chemists. Compounds submitted for their tests were either new compounds synthesised by the chemists in their team or selected by them from compounds in ICI compound collections prepared for other possible uses. One of the latter compounds, 2,6-diethylphenol was found to have anaesthetic activity in mice and led to the synthesis and evaluation of related compounds. This led to the selection of 2,6-diisopropylphenol as a candidate for further development, and this agent, now called propofol, formulated in a lipid emulsion, has become a very successful agent, and is now widely used, particularly for day-case procedures, as it allows rapid and clear-headed recovery.

In 2000, he retired from AstraZeneca (ICI Pharmaceuticals Division had been renamed Zeneca and merged with the Swedish company, Astra) and set up Glen Pharma, an independent consultancy providing advice on the development of potential anaesthetic drugs and equipment. At this time, he was closely involved in the development of a system (‘Diprifusor’ target-controlled infusion, TCI), for the administration of propofol by a microprocessor-controlled infusion pump.

He retired in 2010 and in 2018 was pleased to be awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award for the discovery and development of propofol.

In his spare time when young, he played rugby and in later life enjoyed hang-gliding and paragliding, but now restricts his energetic hobbies to golf.

Dedication

I dedicate this collection and presentation of Andrew Glen’s articles for ‘The Toronto Star’ to the memory of my uncle as an engineer, farmer and political activist and his wife, Dorothy Eddis, who assisted him on the farm and kept detailed records of their income and expenditure related to their farming activities.

Copyright Information ©

Iain Glen 2024

The right of Iain Glen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398462571 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398462588 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398462595 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2024

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Acknowledgement

I am grateful to my late father who, after a visit to see his brother, Andrew, in Canada, brought back a large collection of cuttings of his brother’s ‘Toronto Star’ articles. Where some parts of an article were missing or unclear, I was able to use the ‘Pages of the past’ feature of the ‘Toronto Star’ web site for clarification, and searches with this site also discovered some additional articles. I am grateful to Joanne MacDonald at the ‘Toronto Star’ who pointed out that as Andrew was a freelance writer, he therefore retained copyright of his articles. As Andrew, aged 101, died in 1988, I have contacted all the beneficiaries of Andrew’s will and have received their kind approval to proceed with republication of a selection of Andrew’s Toronto Star articles.

Introduction

My uncle, Andrew Glen, was born in Govan, Glasgow on 21 January 1887, the second child of my grandmother, Jane Jones, who was born and grew up in County Wexford in Ireland, and my Scottish, Ayrshire-born grandfather, John Glen, who was a property surveyor. My father, John, was the youngest in the family of eight, and was born in 1903. Although younger than my father, my mother Madge died in 1973 when only 59, and my father was very lost living on his own. He, now a retired farmer, decided that he would travel to visit relatives on his side of the family who had moved abroad. One of these visits that year was to Canada and the USA, where a number of his mother Jones’s siblings had emigrated to from Ireland. In Canada, he spent some time with his brother Andrew at his farm in Pickering, Ontario. When he returned, he brought with him a collection of cuttings of Andrew’s articles on his farming activities and observations on country life that had been published in The Toronto Star in the 1930s.

When I eventually got round to reading these articles after my father’s death in 1986, I felt they presented descriptions of farming activities and the hand of nature that are in many ways still relevant and entertaining to read today. I decided that when I retired, I would gather together a selection in the hope that they might be published as a collection: as a tribute to my late uncle.

Andrew went to a local school in Glasgow and at the age of 16, he started working in Lees Andersons, boilermakers and manufacturers of marine engines on the Clyde. In 1904, he moved to work with Alex Chaplin and Co., a manufacturer of steam cranes in Govan. Over this time, he also attended technical college three evenings a week, and completed his engineering apprenticeship towards the end of 1908.

He spent a few months with Alexander Jack and Co. in Motherwell, a manufacturer of all types of cranes and in 1909, he joined Babcock and Wilcox at their works in Renfrew. There again, cranes were one of the principal products of this company and they had an electric crane department. I suspect it was this extensive experience in engineering drawing and working with cranes which induced Andrew to respond to an advertisement seeking someone to take charge of the drawing office of John T Hepburn, Ltd., a manufacturer of cranes in Toronto. His application was successful and he said his farewells to Babcock and Wilcox on 27 April 1912.

He didn’t take long to pack his belongings as on 4 May 1912, he boarded in Glasgow SS Scandinavian, a ship with cabins for 400 second-class and 800 third-class passengers, calling at Liverpool, then Moville in Ireland, and landing at Quebec on 15 May 1912. Andrew found lodgings at 856 Dovercourt Road, and later at 22 Webb Avenue, Toronto, and took up his role as head of the drawing office at Hepburn’s on 18 May.

In his spare time, Andrew became a member of Toronto’s Thirteen Club, a Society formed by young men to encourage the development of literary and musical tastes, and to educate and groom its members for public speaking and debate on scientific advancements and current events. In 1917, Andrew was vice president and gave a talk on World Food Famine. By this time, he had developed a keen interest in politics, possibly influenced by the likes of John Maclean who was a socialist and pacifist in the region of Glasgow where Andrew had lived and worked. In 1918, he joined the local Theosophical Society and was made secretary of the Society’s Social Reconstruction Group. In the same year, he joined the Independent Labour Party of Toronto, becoming president in 1921.

It was a mutual interest in the Labour Movement that led Andrew to meet Dorothy Wyndham Eddis at a Communist Party rally in High Park in 1918. Their relationship blossomed and they were married the following year. Dorothy had been born in Australia but came to Canada with her family when about nine years old. After school in Toronto, Dorothy studied at the Ontario college of Art and also spent time in New York City. After returning from New York, she gained a degree in social science at the University of Toronto, worked as a probation officer and taught art to children in Toronto’s slums.

By this time, Andrew had gained the position of chief engineer at John T Hepburn Ltd. Before World War 1, the engineering shop made only cranes, but then added engine lathes and shell-making lathes to their repertoire. A problem arose in the early 1920s when a strike broke out. Andrew sided with the striking workers and planned to leave the company. He must have been playing an important role in the business as Mr Hepburn sailed to Glasgow in an unsuccessful attempt to encourage Andrew’s mother to persuade him to remain at Hepburn.

In October 1923, Andrew and Dorothy left Toronto and bought a small 50-acre farm, which they called ‘Glenbrook,’ in Pickering. The land at the farm was divided into three main fields. A creek meandered through a central field with a cedar swamp and some pine trees near one end. The pasture on both sides of the creek sloped steeply up to the fence. The fields on either side were level and tillable at the far end, and rolling but still tillable nearer the yard. Looking to the north, the house, barn and yard were close to the 5th concession line and at the base of the field on the right. There was an extensive orchard on both sides of the house, a water pump in the yard, a large wooden clad barn and a smaller tool shed. The house had been built by Thomas Hubbard, one of the early pioneers in Pickering. It was without electricity until the 1950s and had no indoor plumbing until the 1970s.

Andrew and Dorothy kept detailed records of their expenditure on the farm and their house and the income they obtained from sales of poultry (eggs and broilers), dairy (butter and cream), livestock, vegetables, fruit, and from miscellaneous sources. They also bought a Ford ½ Ton light delivery truck as they planned to sell and deliver some of their produce from the farm to customers in Toronto. In the 1920s, their annual income increased from $932 to $1782 between 1925 and 1929. Sales from poultry and livestock provided the greatest contribution, initially, with fruit from the orchard, mainly apples and pears, also important. Total sales dipped in the early 1930s, as the effects of the Depression were encountered, and writing 40 articles for the Toronto Star that year contributed a much-needed supplement of $430 to achieve a total income of $1160 in 1932.

Throughout this time, Andrew maintained his interest in politics, and in August 1925, Andrew and Dorothy, as former leaders in the Toronto Labour Movement, hosted the annual picnic of the Toronto branches of the Canadian Labour Party at their farm. Several lorries and private cars carried the 500 members to the farm and a baseball game was staged between two local branches of the party.

Andrew was a prolific letter writer, corresponding regularly with his mother and siblings back in Scotland, but also with Canadian academics and politicians including JS Woodsworth who was elected to parliament on an Independent Labour ticket in 1921. In June 1932, when the impact of the Depression brought together representatives of labour, farming, socialist and intellectual groups, a meeting was held at Andrew’s farm at Locust Hill, Ontario.

A decision was made to call on JS Woodsworth to launch a Canadian Socialist Party. This was achieved with the formation of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) which was formally established at a national meeting in Calgary in 1932, with JS Woodsworth as president. In its first election in 1935, seven CCF members were elected to the House of Commons. With the outbreak of World War II, the party was divided as Woodworth was an uncompromising pacifist and this upset many supporters of the Canadian war effort. Woodsworth died in 1942 and under a new leader in the 1945 election, 28 CCF MPs were elected, and the party won 15.6% of the votes. In 1961, the CCF. entered into coalition with the Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party.

In a provincial election of June 1934, Andrew was nominated as the CCF candidate in South Ontario. Victory went to WEN Sinclair, a former Liberal House leader with the conservative candidate in second place. Andrew felt that there had been some collaboration between the Liberals and Conservatives to keep the CCF out, but later that year, Andrew was elected president of the Oshawa CCF with Dorothy as another executive member.

In her spare time, Dorothy continued her artistic activities and in 1970, was invited by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa to hold a retrospective exhibition of her lifetime’s work as an amateur artist. Some of her work, including an oil on canvas portrait of a woman and three sketches, are held at Pickering Museum Village in Greenwood.

In many ways it is remarkable that Andrew and Dorothy, an engineer and an artist, became proficient in the large range of skills required to run a mixed farm with poultry, three or four milking cows with their offspring to be reared, a few sows with piglets to be reared, and a couple of horses to pull the plough, cart, binder or other farm equipment. By the early 1960s, their records of sales suggested that the hens and milking cows were gone and the pasture was rented for cattle or ponies to graze. Some income continued from the sale of fruit and vegetables and by this time, both Andrew and Dorothy would have been in their seventies and eligible for a pension. Both Andrew and Dorothy had encountered some medical issues requiring hospital treatment from time to time in the 60s. Dorothy moved to Fairview Lodge in Whitby for full time care in 1973 and died at the age of 91 in 1977.

For the time being, Andrew continued to live on his own at the farm and that summer, he was visited by his sister Florence (‘Florrie’) and her granddaughter Moira Jowitt.

In 1979, he made his only return visit to the UK since leaving in 1912 when he was invited to stay with the Jowitt family in Devon as Florrie was now living with them there. My father and I were invited to join them over one weekend and this was the only time I had the opportunity to meet my Uncle Andrew. He appeared fit and well and his mind was still sharp. Unfortunately, at that time I had not read the cuttings my father had brought back with him after his visit in 1973, and not being aware of Andrew’s political interests, I did not take the opportunity to glean more details from discussion with him. I was still a bachelor at this time but got married to Wendy in 1986. Our daughter Fiona was born on 21 January 1987, one hundred years to the day that Uncle Andrew was born; and I wrote to tell him of this happy coincidence. By this time, Andrew had sold the farm and was living at Rosebank Villa in Pickering where he remained active and was a member of the Newsletter Committee. A tribute to Andrew published in the Toronto Star on his hundredth birthday acknowledged his political interests but said that, no longer a socialist, he admired US President Ronald Regan, and belonged to the National Citizen’s Coalition, a conservative lobby group. Andrew died after a long and productive life, aged 101, in Ajax-Pickering Hospital on 15 April 1988.

In September 2004, I was visiting Toronto and hoped there might be an opportunity to search for Uncle Andrew’s farm. I knew it had been in the region of Pickering, not far from Toronto, but the relatives I contacted were not even sure if the buildings were still there. I had given an early morning lecture at Sunnybrook Hospital, and after a hearty Canadian breakfast with Beverley Orser and her anaesthesia research students, I had the rest of the day for my quest. The previous evening, after much ringing around, I had managed to track down one of my uncle’s nieces who offered to drive me to the site the next day.

Back in my hotel, I called to confirm arrangements, but her plans had changed and she was not able to help me now. On to plan B. I had a telephone number for Pickering Museum Village, so I called and told Dave Marlowe there what I was looking for. Fifteen minutes later, Dave rang back to say that the farmhouse was still standing and if I could bring a map to the museum, he would pinpoint its location for me. Luckily, I had bought a map of Pickering the previous day; so off I went by bus to Union Station. From there I caught the Lakeshore east go-train which whisked me along the shore of Lake Ontario to Pickering.

The museum was some distance from the town centre but fortunately, a taxi was waiting at the station and we were able to find Dave in Greenford, about 10 km away through built-up residential areas and open spaces. There, while my taxi waited, Dave gave me a couple of pages of photocopied information about my uncle and his house. Its location was no more than 3 km away on the corner of Brock Road and Whitevale. My driver set off again and found the spot. As soon as I saw the house through the trees, I recognised it from the photographs I had seen. I asked the taxi to return in an hour while I set off to explore.

The house with white painted wooden cladding looked smaller from the front than I had expected, but was in good repair. There was a barbecue under cover on the front porch, but no car in the drive and no response to my knock on the door. It was a lovely warm and sunny autumn day with clear blue sky and I walked up past the house and water pump to where I expected the old barn to be. There it was, almost hidden by trees now, and in a garden behind, two old timers, George Willson and Crawford Coakwell, were filling compost into a wheelbarrow.

George was a neighbour and both had known my uncle when he lived there. George’s speech was difficult to understand, but he and Crawford showed me around the barn, a sturdy structure with pole rafters and thick supporting beams jointed together. At one end with a separate entry from the outside, were the byre and the stable where Old Tom and Lou would have been housed, and in the lower part of the other side was the piggery. A little mouldy hay was still present in the main part of the barn and the exterior was closed with wooden slats.

I then set off to explore the fields, over some rough ground initially with bright yellow Golden Rod in bloom at this time of year. Further on, I came to some cultivated fields and was pleased to see that the ground was still being farmed. I came back down by the creek and found a gate into the orchard, which had provided an important part of my uncle’s income. It was now overgrown with weeds and untended, but the garden around the house and some sheds at the back were being kept tidy by George for the new owner of the house. George was sitting at the back door of the house when I returned and his speech seemed to have improved—he had put his teeth back in!

I