Author Archive for Margaret Haylock-Capon
Maggie Haylock is a freelance writer and former newspaper reporter who has co-authored several books with her husband, Alan Capon.
Teenager in the era of the jukebox
Hit songs of the sixties provided the soundtrack for my teenage years. Lines from classic tunes including Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and The Battle of New Orleans still run through my head, on occasion. These were two of the catchy, sing-along songs that gently rocked my generation. In the summer of […]
Television was just a passing fad
Convinced that television was a passing fad, my father steadfastly refused to buy one of these newfangled inventions. When my school friends talked of watching Howdy Doody and Pinky Lee, I listened with envy, while fervently hoping that dad would change his mind. This seemed highly unlikely, but through unexpected circumstances, he finally agreed to […]
Freedom of summer fast becomes back-to-school
During my childhood summers on The Commons, August’s arrival always brought with it the knowledge that summer vacation was drawing to a close. Back-to-school advertisements began to appear in The Picton Gazette and The Times, as a reminder that I would soon be returning to classes. It was a bittersweet time. While I had enjoyed […]
Barn turned into a garage reminds of Old Stumblebum
The recent conversion of barn doors to garage doors at my late grandmother’s former home on The Commons, evoked long forgotten memories for me. A young widow when she moved to her new home on Hill Street, in 1919, granny had the barn built to stable one of her late husband’s favourite horses, a black […]
The drive to learn to drive
When growing up on The Commons, like most teenagers, I looked forward to the red-letter day when I would receive my driver’s licence. Unfortunately, my father did not anticipate this occasion with equal enthusiasm. Possibly, his negativity stemmed from my older sister Mary’s unfortunate experience as a new driver. As a teeanger, she had shown […]
Remember Summer of ’54 with a gap-toothed grin
As a child growing up on The Commons, I always looked forward to the summer visits of my father’s cousin, Fern Jones. A spinster employed as a secretary by the Goodman Manufacturing Company of Chicago, she had always maintained close ties with Picton, her late mother’s birthplace. At the mention of one of Fern’s impending […]
Granny had few worldly goods, but a wealth of goodness
Although she, frequently, described herself as ” a poor, lone woman”, in our family, my grandmother was better known as Amazing Grace. Long before Women’s Lib, the late Grace Jamieson was an independent woman, capable of meeting any challenge head-on. Her inner stength, coupled with an abiding faith in her Lord guided her through a […]
In “the summer of the Peeping Tom”
It was in “the summer of the Peeping Tom” that my older sister Mary became a neighbourhood heroine. The year was 1960 and she and her family had arrived from Manitoba to vacation with us on The Commons (Hill Street). To make room for our house guests, my mother had made a makeshift bed for […]
Grandma full of clever counterplots
Staunch members of the Pentecostal Church, my grandparents firmly believed that their only son was destined to become a man of the cloth. Born in 1912, at the family farmhouse, on Chuckery Hill, Robert Thomas Jamieson was the youngest of their three children. Their daughters, Mary and Violet (my mother) had been born just 15 […]
Remember that wonderful sense of freedom on the last Friday in June?
When I was a child, growing up on The Commons (Hill Street), I counted off my birthdays with mounting impatience. I longed to be like my older sister Mary who went off to work at the Picton business office of Bell Canada each day. She had an interesting job, a car of her own, fashionable […]
