The night I met Lloyd Robertson

I met Lloyd Robertson at the Atlantic Journalism Awards in 2002, a decade ago now.  The memories are a bit frayed around the edges but I’ll try to take you back in time.

I was a journalism student fresh from Holland College.  My learning managers (what Holland College called its instructors, as they apparently manage learning) submitted a body of my work for a student award at the Atlantic Journalism Awards.

The second photo of me with Lloyd Robertson.

Imagine my astonishment when I was selected, along with one of my classmates, for an award!

Recipients scored a free meal at the gala, held at the casino on the Halifax waterfront.  My parents bought tickets so they could watch me receive my award.  It wasn’t a cheap affair: tickets were $70 or $75 each.  This included an open bar.  I don’t drink.

Once my father discovered Lloyd Robertson was the keynote speaker, he made me promise to get a picture with Lloyd.

Lloyd’s calm baritone always filled our living room at 11, regardless of the tragic events of the day.  The world could be in upheaval, but Lloyd was always there at the anchor desk, reading the news with his quiet reserve, commenting where appropriate.  When the World Trade Centre buildings fell a year before, he offered his grandfatherly concern and solemn face.  Yet when something was funny, he wore a knowing smile.

Needless to say, I was excited to go to the gala.

At some point in the evening, I was stalking Lloyd, and found him at the bar in conversation with Steve Murphy.  When my father realized Steve was there too, he asked if I would get BOTH of them in the photo.

So here I am, a shy little journalism student, out of place in a crowd of hardened veterans and lipsticked TV reporters schmoozing and chatting like old friends.  I’m asking the national news anchor I’ve watched since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and my local news anchor, for a picture.  I think I burbled some tripe about being a journalism student, winning an award, wanting a photograph with the two of them.

To this day, I still have the picture of me between Lloyd and Steve.  I’m surprised they aren’t much taller than me.  They look taller on TV.

When I finally went up on stage for my reward (praying to God that I didn’t trip in front of the whole industry), I heard someone issuing a whistle and saying, “Here, here.”  I think it was Lloyd.  I’ll never know for sure.  I tell myself it was him.  It makes the story more interesting.

When my learning manager from Holland College discovered I had a picture with Lloyd Robertson, he expressed disappointment he didn’t have one.  (Remember this is the era before Facebook and Flickr.)

So here I am, a shy little journalism student, stalking Lloyd Robertson the second time.

“You again,” he said when I finally found him.  At this point, he was probably regretting our new relationship.

My learning manager got me to pose with Lloyd (I was a little embarrassed this second time around) and even thrust my award at me.  I’m holding it between us in the picture.  Lloyd was gracious and gentlemanly.

The gala made me giddy.  I never had a waiter pour my salad dressing for me before.  I’d never had food come in such small quantities, as true fancy food must.

The salad was a piece of artwork I didn’t want to undo.  The rolls were chewy and seedy.  Maybe fashionable people like seeds.

I was relieved when desert came, because desert was less intimidating than all the forks flanking my plate.

In the end, I haven’t worked in the industry formally, though I like to blog up a storm.  It’s a pity, since I’m pretty certain the national CTV anchor whistled at me.  I’m not sure where my career will end, but it is safe to say, I have a voice for newspapers and a face for radio.

And so, on Lloyd Robertson’s retirement, I’m reminded of the time I went to the AJs and had my brush with celebrity.

And had my first taste of a $75 a plate meal.  Let’s just say it was no KD.

Saying good-bye to Ashpan Annie, one of the last survivors of the Halifax Explosion

Like a tattered quilt, snow covered what remained of the north end of Halifax.

Debris poked up through the white like blackened knees.  Smoke curled up to the sky, even though the blizzard extinguished the most aggressive of the flames.

Campbell Road (now Barrington Street) looking north to the area which experienced the most dreadful devastation in the December 8, 1917 explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Such was the scene when a young soldier heard a baby crying.

Searching out the source of the noise, Benjamin Henneberry found a toddler tucked beneath the ashpan of a stove.  The young girl had minor injuries and burns, but had miraculously survived both the destruction of her home and the blizzard which hit the day after the explosion.

Though Private Henneberry was convinced the girl was his, while in the hospital, the toddler called out to a passing aunt.  That aunt identified her as Annie Liggins, and if not for that accidental meeting, she might have been raised as Olive Henneberry.

Unfortunately for Henneberry, none of his family survived the explosion and Annie was returned to her family.

In many ways, Annie was lucky.  She was the only person in her house to survive.  Both her mother and four-year-old brother were standing near a window watching the munitions ship Mont Blanc burn after colliding with a large relief ship, the Imo.  Sparks from the collision begat a fire, which enveloped the ship’s hazardous cargo of materials (TNT to name one.)

The miraculous part of the story: when the Mont Blanc exploded into a million pieces and her house collapsed, Annie was thrown into the nearby ashpan as her house fell down around her, killing her mother and brother.

Even more amazing, the leftover heat from the stove kept Annie from freezing during the blizzard.

Annie’s story made her a journalist’s darling.  Newspapers ran with it: Ashpan Annie, the miracle baby.  That she survived with only minor burns from the stove is best fitted to Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Ashpan Annie’s father was serving in France when the explosion occurred.  He eventually returned and remarried.

Annie grew up.  Married.  Had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

This weekend, at 95 years young, Ashpan Annie died, sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, an old lady warm in her bed.  In fact, she resided at the Berkeley, one of the finer residential homes for the senior set, the Cadillac of special care facilities.

Survivors of the Halifax explosion are passing on, given that it has been almost 93 years since the disaster, which killed nearly 2,000 people, literally in the blink of an eye.

Hearing stories of survival from those who experienced one of the world’s largest human-made disasters is a privilege that will soon be gone.  All that will be left are books and recordings of those willing to remember, like Janet Kitz’s extensive research or the University of Kings College’s slideshow of Ashpan Annie’s story.  Click here.

Rest in peace Annie Liggins Welsh, probably with her family once again for the first time in 93 years.