Cover
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT ALLAN FOTHERINGHAM
“Allan Fotheringham is a gifted and incisive writer. He wrote with penetrating insight and satire — often mischievous, almost never cruel. In private, Allan was caring and conscientious — sensitive to the feelings and problems of others, especially toward those who struggle with misfortune. The young and shy enjoyed his company because he was self-effacing, encouraging, and supportive toward those who were tentative and unsure in conversation in whatever context.”
— The Right Honourable Edward Schreyer,
Canada’s Twenty-Second Governor General
“It is a little-known fact of Canadian journalism that I drew the illustrations and wrote the columns while Allan took frequent sabbaticals at the Betty Ford Clinic.”
— Roy Peterson,
Cartoonist
“Dr. Foth, for decades, has surgically eviscerated his deserving political and other defenceless victims. What an accomplished life — showing what a fearless columnist/writer should be!”
— Michael Harcourt,
Former Premier of British Columbia
“Allan was our mother’s favourite child. That’s true. After his long, serious, and nearly fatal illness, I received a letter from Allan. In the envelope was one folded sheet of paper. In a recognizable scrawl were the words ‘I’m back.’ Following our frequent Saskatchewan family reunions, we lived in dread and fear of reading about ourselves and our outrageously exaggerated antics in the back page of Maclean’s. Allan’s long-time friend and cartoonist Roy Peterson always picked up the spirit of the occasion. Together they created Canadiana.”
— Irene McEown,
Allan Fotheringham’s Sister
“Fotheringham’s public reputation — the irreverent balloon-popper of the nation’s gaseous elite — overshadowed his real gift. When he wanted to be, when he turned his eye to life outside the halls of power, he was the best pure writer columnizing in North America. It was that persona of Fotheringham I admired — not the ironist but the writer who found the heart of things. A poet lurked underneath that smirk, and I sometimes think that, to our loss, his ambition overtook his talent.”
— Pete McMartin,
Vancouver Sun Columnist
“Allan Fotheringham is a deliciously subversive humour monger, a satirist with a mildly left-of-centre sensibility that he aims at pricking the bubbled-up egos of self-styled important people, usually politicians. In an inordinately polite and respectful country, his kind of wit is entertaining, refreshing, and absolutely essential, and he is one of Canada’s best writers to boot.”
— John Laxton,
Vancouver Lawyer and Developer
“My brother, Allan, and I shared a bedroom for almost the first twenty years of our lives, he on the top bunk and me below. We shared the same clothes, played on the same athletic teams, and competed every day — one trying to outdo the other. But how in hell that tight relationship allowed him to share my earned doctorate, I will never know!”
— The Real Dr. John (“Jack”) Fotheringham
“Allan Fotheringham is one of this country’s superb journalists — honoured by his peers, feared by the powerful, respected by all who made it a habit to read his vivid observations, criticisms, and inspired opinions about the state of Canada and the lives of Canadians.”
— Anna Porter,
Author of The Ghosts of Europe
Boy from Nowhere
A Life in Ninety-One Countries
ALLAN FOTHERINGHAM
To my grandchildren,
Quinn, Lauren, Lachlan, Hunter, and Angus,
and their fun Uncle Brady.
ALSO BY ALLAN FOTHERINGHAM
Collected and Bound (1972)
The World According to Roy Peterson: With the Gospel According to Allan Fotheringham (1979)
Malice in Blunderland — Or How the Grits Stole Christmas (1982)
Look, Ma, No Hands: An Affectionate Look at Our Wonderful Tories (1983)
Capitol Offences: Dr. Foth Meets Uncle Sam (1986)
Birds of a Feather: The Press and the Politicians (1989)
Last Page First (1999)
Fotheringham’s Fictionary of Facts & Follies (2001)
Preface
I have often thought that you write an autobiography when your career is over. However, writers never really retire. At least I haven’t. I am seventy-nine years old and have recently written for The Roughneck, a magazine out of Calgary; have blogged for Zoomer magazine (yes, I blog and twitter); occasionally write for the Globe and Mail and the National Post; and submit columns to Maclean’s.
I am not bored. I play tennis three times a week at 9:00 a.m. with what I fondly call the “Geezer Group” at my tennis club and am still on the speakers’ circuit. I have three great children and five wonderful grandchildren who keep me coming to Vancouver to see them and, in the process, many of my long-standing friends. My lovely wife, Anne, and I travel on a regular basis and know many people around the world.
I have journeyed to some ninety-one countries in the course of my career and am planning to add to that number. I have received two honorary degrees and numerous awards. And I am proud to say I have been fired by every major newspaper and news agency in Canada. I have met Joe Louis, Zhou Enlai, Robert F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Nikita Khrushchev, Bill Clinton, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, Mickey Mantle, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Pope John Paul II, Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II (thrice), Prince Charles, Prince Philip, Muhammad Ali, Shimon Peres, Louis Armstrong, Bob Hunter, and The Beatles, to name a few.
So why now? Because in 2007 I got a wake-up call. I went in for a routine colonoscopy, and due to medical error, did not come out of the hospital for four months. I almost died more than once, had the last rites performed, and am here only due to the efforts of my wife, who spent one hundred and forty-five days in the hospital for ten hours a day wearing a hospital gown, a face mask, and gloves while helping me and monitoring what was occurring. I was in rehab for a year, and after another operation to replace a knee and another year of rehab, I am healthy and here to tell the tale.
When something like this happens, you realize how fragile life is and how easily it can be taken away from you. And until now I haven’t sat down to write about my life so that my grandchildren, Quinn, Lauren, Lachlan, Hunter, and Angus, will know about their “Oompah.” Sure, they can look up my old columns. My readers know that over the years I have written about where I was or what I have been doing among other things. My readers know more about me than my grandchildren do. So this is for them. In the process I hope you, the reader, obtain more insight into me and my life, as well.
The head table at the Bob Edwards Award 25th anniversary luncheon in Calgary in 1999. Left to right: myself, June Callwood, David Suzuki, and Margaret Atwood. I received the award in 1990.
A Special Note from the Author
During the editing of this book, my number one son, Brady, died in Seoul, South Korea, where he had been living for eight years. He had a massive heart attack and died instantly. At only forty-seven.
Brady was an adventurer until the day he