IN JUNE OF 1958 TORONTO'S THREE DAILIES began warming up their readers for the 18-hour visit by Princess Margaret on July 30-31. They lowered the volume between Police Chief John Chisholm's death and funeral in the first week of July, but then amped it up even higher. Senior reporters were already in B.C. filing copy about her 80 pieces of luggage, her pink and cream wardrobe, her thank-you speeches, her waist (18 inches), her week off at a cottage on a small lake, the island she was given.
By the time she reached Toronto on the evening of Wednesday, July 30, thousands had ordered souvenir booklets of her tour, which all the dailies were producing, and memorabilia of all sorts were being sold in every store.
On that wild Thursday, while my afternoon was going from bad to worse, a pink Tely appeared on the streets.
In the upper right corner of its front page is a box with a simplified version of Princess Margaret's ornate "M" monogram below a coronet, five large black stars, and "souvenir edition" in even larger caps. The nine-column layout has headlines ranging from seven to single columns with stories containing boldface and italics sprinkled hither and yon, a large photo showing Margaret accepting a bouquet of hybrid roses named for her from Mayor Nathan Phillips' granddaughter, and a small one supposedly of her in the back of a limousine during a late-night tour of the town....
It's the funniest, worst page layout I've ever seen. The gushy verbosity in the nine stories is a perfect match. There are errors galore.
Mine is the only byline on the page, above a one-column story running down the left margin below not just one head but three:
Royal Wink For Toothless Boy
TWO SKIP 'SICK KIDS' TO SEE THE PRINCESS
Freedom For Only One Block
By WandaS Telegram Staff Reporter
Two children recuperating from operations forgot they were sick today and ran away from the Hospital for Sick Children to chase after Princess Margaret. The boys only got about a block up University ave. before nurses caught them. They were in street clothes, and passersby didn't realize they had given authorities the slip to chase Margaret's car. And at city hall, a 6-year-old boy, begrimed and missing four teeth, got something that was denied to the dignitaries -- a Royal wink.
Emanuel Reid, who has been visiting city hall for the past week to watch the decorations going up, was determined to get a close look at the Princess today. So he left his King st. w. home, shouldered his way through the legs of bigger people and eventually found himself behind two elegantly clad soldiers.
RED CARPET
Just about that time, Princess Margaret was walking down the steps of the City Hall on a red carpet to the door of her limousine.
And when Emmanuel poked his head out from between the legs of one of the soldiers standing stiff as a poker at attention, it was too much to ask even a Princess to retain her composure.
The Princess looked as though she were about to laugh, and was having a difficult time suppressing it.
Then, without even turning her head, she winked broadly at young Emmanuel.
The Hospital for Sick Children never had more healthy youngsters than today.
Almost no child was too sick to see the Princess go by.
Small groups of children were taken out to the front steps, while others sat on beds that were pushed up to every available window.
One tot insisted on putting on a clean shirt before he went outside --"I'll look more decent if I do."
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GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.
Non-FictionDuring the first 30 years of my journalistic career in the second half of the 20th century, good jobs of all kinds were available all over Canada. Those of us born in the 1930s and early '40s were in great demand because our generation was very smal...
