The Yard-Long

The men in the Yard-Long photo are standing upright at attention, eyes straight ahead, looking into the Cirkut Panoramic camera.

There must be close to 500 of them decked out in military garb. Unlike similar photos of military personnel there are no young faces to be found.

This is the Hamilton Civil Guard Battalion photographed June 24, 1941 at the Hamilton Amateur Athletic Association (HAAA) Grounds on Charlton Street West.  

My grandfather is in the picture.  He is down to the right, a month shy of his fiftieth birthday, a veteran of the Great War, like many others in the picture.   As we all know that war resulted in millions of casualties, both military and civilian. That conflict featured new weapons - tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns and chemical weapons. 

During the Great War Hamilton had established the Hamilton Auxiliary Defence Force.  Its goal was to “watch for saboteurs, launch defensive operations against invading groups, and handle other malicious actors.”  Writing in Hamilton’s North End Breezes, Brian Roulston notes that the belief “that Canadian cities would become vulnerable to attacks if more of the larger Canadian regiments were to be called overseas.” 

In 1941 Hamilton was the first Canadian city to resurrect the Home Guards. The Home Defence Corps name would change again to the Hamilton Civil Guard. It seems the thinking was that a civil defence force similar to the one that existed in the Great War would provide an added a sense of security for residents.  The Guard drew big crowds while carrying out drills at the Armouries or parading through the streets of Canada’s fifth largest city. 

What was going on in the world that would require such defence? A few snapshots:

• In Europe the situation was critical. Germany had invaded the Soviet Union two days earlier deploying over 3 million troops along an 1,800-mile front.

• Earlier in June British forces along with Australian, Indian and Free French had launched the Syria Lebanon campaign necessary after Vichy France allowed German aircraft to use Syrian airfields for operations against British interests in Iraq.

• The entire Jewish population of Gorzhdy, Lithuania was exterminated the day this photo was taken.

Looking back over eighty years, these terrible events seem far away.   However, for Hamiltonians in 1941 that wasn’t the case.  

In September of 1939, for example, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church was filled to capacity, with thousands more gathered outside, for the public funeral of Margaret Hayworth.  The ten-year old was one of the first victims of WWII when the ship she was sailing on was hit west of the Hebrides by a German torpedo.  Politicians and dignitaries including the Lieutenant Governor and Premier George Drew attended as the Premier “used the occasion to transform the young victim into a martyr for the Allied cause,” according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

Then in February of 1941 RAF bombers dropped 10,000 advertising leaflets promoting  a war savings certificate drive. The leaflet’s headline THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN A BOMB surely got people’s attention.

Looking again at that photo, of course, it is not possible to discern the nationality or citizenship status of those pictured.  There were likely no Italians present.  From June 1940 onward seventy Hamilton residents with Italian ancestry were rounded up and interned without due process. 

Looking toward the top of the yard long towards the bleachers on the east side of the field there are three military vehicles parked.  One of them might have been a specially made armoured vehicle manufactured locally at International Harvester.  The manufacturer had repositioned its business turning ploughshares to swords, one could say.

Hamilton was a major production centre of over 155,000 at the beginning of the War. Did this make it more likely to be attacked?

Let’s go back to that yard long photo.  You’ll notice that not everyone in the picture is in military uniform.   In the top left corner past the scoreboard advertising Winchester Cigarettes are a dozen or so individuals attired in tennis whites on the grass courts of the Hamilton Tennis club.  Were they aware of the gathering on the field to the south?

My yard long epitomizes a civic commitment to the War with broad support among the citizens.  It wasn’t universal to be sure. But one wonders what, if anything, could bring people together like this today.

Author Seth Klein thinks that can happen. In A Good War the B.C. activist argues that by looking back at the Second World War we can take a “wartime approach” to climate change and mobilize in common cause across class, race and gender, and again entirely retool our economy in a few short years.

The location of this picture the HAAA Grounds is billed as the oldest “sports park” in the City of Hamilton. It was the home to the Hamilton Cricket Club from 1874 to 1910, the Hamilton Rugby (Football) Club played games there from 1872 to 1949 and it the location of seven Grey Cups championships. 

I played in the Sam Manson Cup soccer tournament at this site in 1963. I don’t remember much of the game other than we won and it rained.  For some forgotten reason I was staying with my grandparents that weekend.  When I returned from the game my grandfather was interested in the result but didn’t mention anything about the Civil Guard Battalion that day - or ever for that matter.

Are you Your Buttons?

A lot of inspiration for my stories these days comes from decluttering work I’m doing around the house.

Okay, I call it decluttering.  That is a bit of a nose stretcher. Let’s call it cleaning up messes.

You’ll have some pin back buttons that champion a cause, make a statement or support a candidate.  I have many campaign buttons.  At my house they are in drawers; they are in boxes; they are in bags.  Down in the basement I actually found a large button that read I’m Slow but Sure among other items scattered across the floor. I wish that was true!

About two years ago, according to some notes I have written, I started to organize these buttons (another embellishment) and then got sidetracked. I need some incentive so that I’ll finish the project.  Perhaps if I call my “collection” of campaign buttons a hobby, that will hurry me up.

Let’s see. Coin collecting has a name – numismatics. If you are a stamp collector you are a philatelist.  These hobbies have labels that give their devotees a certain cachet.

What is a collector of buttons called?  I looked it up.  She/he is called, it is sad to say, a button collector.  Sadly, my new putative hobby doesn’t have a fancy name with which I can impress friends and influence people.

Maybe the pursuit of button collecting is not the hobby for me.  After all, composting, my primary retirement hobby, leaves little time for anything else.  Do I really have time for buttons?  I wonder though if my so-called collection has anything to say about me - what I’ve done and where I’ve been?

Some History of Campaign Buttons

The first buttons go back to George Washington’s time.  The earliest one I can remember seeing is from 1968. I was in Buffalo and it was a Nixon’s the One button.  “The One” what, I wondered at the time?  Later we found out.

Canadian Campaign Buttons came a bit later. It seems the historic 1891 federal election might have been the starting point.  More recently, Elbows Up buttons are on sale at Ebay for $4.00.

A Few of My Buttons 

I have quite a few buttons representing election candidates, promoting products or speaking to social issues of the day.

For example, Toronto Works with Mayor John Sewell is a medium sized yellow button.  Sewell was a controversial mayor of Toronto from 1978-1980.  He was an environmentalist, who rode his bike to work.  He supported gay rights when not everyone did.  

I found that out after being chased by a homophobic east Toronto resident when I was canvassing for Sewell in the 1980 election where the one-term mayor was ousted from office.

Sewell has written a dozen or so books on policing, planning and politics. His book on Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, shows that 19th century Upper Canadian politics can teach us something about politics today.

I first heard Sewell at my place of employment. I was a youthful youth worker in 1978 at WoodGreen Community Centre (A Family Centre in the Centre of the Community.)  Sewell understood the issues but, as importantly, could explain them and his positions in a way that anyone could understand.

A colourful square button stating simply Dave Barrett stands out.  Barrett, the former Premier of British Columbia, held a fundraising dinner at Hamilton’s swanky Royal Connaught Hotel in 1989 that we attended.  

The fundraiser was in support of Barrett’s campaign for leadership of the federal NDP. The cost of $50 was a lot of money for us at the time even if you would get half back as a tax receipt.

Around the same time the Brundtland Report (Our Common Future c’est l’affaire de tous) was being much talked about. Brundtland popularized the concept of sustainable development - “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”   How are we doing on that front?  Not so well, I’d argue.  My Support Your Local Glacier button reminds us that glaciers like the Columbia Icefields are shrinking at an alarming rate – just one impact of Climate Change.

The Brundtland report also emphasized the goal of providing for the essential requirements of the world’s poor. Years after that report I became involved in a number of poverty reduction initiatives.  One such initiative was organized by The Stop Community Food Centre and the Campaign to Put Food in the Budget.  In order to promote understanding of poverty issues these groups created a web-based budget tool.  Do the Math asked a simple question aimed at decision makers with whom we met.  Did a single person on social assistance receive enough income to live with health and dignity?  The answer was no. Predictably some decision makers were surprised.  Not much has happened as a result. Fifteen years later things are much worse.

There are more buttons, maybe one hundred.

There are straight forward clarion calls like   Need not Greed and Homes not Bombs.

Some buttons have aged well. Shop Canadian. We all Win!

Other messages have been lost/forgotten. You Can – I can’t recall this one, can you? 

So, what has been learned from my faux decluttering endeavour?  Are you your buttons?  The answer will have to wait for another day.  I’ve just found more campaign buttons.