In largely unplanned and unforeseen ways, I found myself spending some of my earlier years in the newspaper business in the 1980s and 1990s, working in the shadow of Canadian journalism greatness at two of what had been the Davies' family flagship Ontario daily newspapers.
It was an odd place to be situated historically, as both papers were during my stays with them one corporate owner removed from their Davies' days, and to some degree still basking - deservedly or not - in some residual reflected glory from that earlier era, an era now sadly long dissipated many more corporate owners removed from either my time or the Davies' time with them.
From 1992 to 1996, I worked part-time, mainly on weekends, as a reporter and copy editor at The Kingston Whig-Standard while I worked on a master's degree in 20th century United States history at Queen's University. Queen's, founded in 1841 by Royal Charter issued by Queen Victoria, declaring the new school would both train students as Presbyterian ministers and instruct youth "in the various branches in Science and Literature," remained 150 or so years later one of Canada's Crown jewels of higher learning.
The Kingston Whig-Standard, Canada's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, for a time had been a gem of its own as Canada's best medium-size daily newspaper. The illustrious ownership of the British Whig had included Edward John Barker, and later his grandson, Edward John Barker Pense (both no relation to me), and then the Davies family - first Rupert, and later his sons, Robertson (yes, the iconic Canadian writer) and Arthur. Rupert Davies had purchased the British Whig in Kingston in 1925 and merged it the following year with the Kingston Daily Standard.
By 1942, Robertson Davies was editing another Davies' family-owned daily newspaper, the Peterborough Examiner, where he remained as editor until 1955. I also worked at the Peterborough Examiner - twice - the first time from 1985 to 1989 - and again from 1997 to 1999. It was while editing the Peterborough Examiner, that Robertson Davies, considered by townspeople as an eccentric bearded figure in the small-town world of Peterborough in the 1940s, would establish himself as one of Canada's most important 20th century literary figures with the creation and development of his Samuel Marchbanks character, mining his daily newspaper experiences in the Queen of the Kawarthas for many of the characters and situations, which would appear in his novels and plays.
Meanwhile, back in the Limestone City, from 1978 to 1990, under Arthur's son, Michael Davies, The Kingston Whig-Standard won eight National Newspaper Awards, four National Magazine Awards, three Nathan Cohen Awards for dramatic criticism and two Michener Awards for public service journalism.
While I loved being immersed in the Davies' family newspaper history as a young reporter, spending hours reading dusty old microfilm in the Peterborough Examiner "morgue" anytime I find myself in danger of waxing too nostalgically, I recall the date of Dec. 3, 1995. That was the day after Robertson Davies died at the age of 82. It was a Sunday night and I was ending my weekend reporting shift at the Whig.
I had written what I thought was a pretty fine obituary piece on Canadian fiction writer and legend Robertson Davies for the next morning's front page but I still had to call Arthur Llewellyn Davies, who had been publisher of The Kingston Whig-Standard until 1969, and at the age of 92, was 10 years older than his more famous older literary icon brother, Robertson, and still lived in Kingston.
I wish I could say Arthur Davies gave his old newspaper, The Kingston Whig-Standard, a quote for posterity on the life and times of his more famous younger brother. He did give us a quote. But not one that could be printed. And then he hung up.
