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.
Family in the swim of things – but none could manage a stroke
Flappers of the Roaring Twenties, the women of our family were in the swim, although not one of them could paddle a single stroke. In our family album are faded photographs of my mother in her swimsuit and bathing cap, posing with her young brother, Bobbie. There are also snapshots of Aunt Margaret, at play […]
East End Grocery’s customers were well known to Johnny Cavanaugh
In the summer of 1960, Johnny Cavanaugh, owner of the corner store on The Commons, hired me for my first summer job. East End Grocery was a long-established business. In fact, my mother remembered it being in operation when she and her family moved from Chuckery Hill to Picton, in the spring of 1919. The […]
Love on The Commons
Courtship on The Commons (Hill Street), in my parents’ day, sometimes featured more drama than a modern soap opera. My mother often told the story of her older sister Mary’s doomed attempt to bring love into the lives of two lonely singles who lived in the neighbourhood. Aunt Mary, who had a devilish sense of […]
Kara, Queen of Samoyedena, a best friend at The Commons
In my youth, our family owned a series of “Heinz 57’s”, with one notable exception, my older sister Mary’s purebred Samoyed dog, Kara. Mary’s spur of the moment decision to buy a dog came on the heels of a break-up with one of her beaux. Disillusioned by the fickleness of the suitor in question, impulsively, […]
Perfect Mother’s Day gifts last a lifetime
Overcrowding in Picton’s old Mary Street School, in the early1950s, prompted a creative solution for pupils in the grade three classes of Mrs. Coral Gardiner and Miss Eileen McAlpine. We were told that our classrooms would be moved to Benson Park Hall. The initial disappointment we might have felt, following the announcement that we were […]
50s dentistry definitely not painless
Shortly before I reached my fifth birthday, my mother told me the time had come for me to meet someone who would play an important, ongoing role in my life – our family dentist. Dr. Carman Slack’s office was located above the old Bank of Nova Scotia, which would later be demolished to make way […]
Furby McFluff debuts in leading dog magazine
Mr. McFluff has led an interesting life. I went to the Quinte Humane Society to adopt what I thought was a Chow cross. When I realized that Furby was definitely an un-Chow, I decided to rescue him anyway. Since coming to live with us four years ago, he has received Canadian Kennel Club Canine Good […]
Time to clean less, and live more
Each spring, soon after the arrival of the first robin, my mother was seized by an overwhelming compulsion to tidy the family nest. Spring cleaning was a ritual that had been closely observed by three generations of her family. From the time when her great grandmother, Mary Johnson Cross, industriously swept the dirt floor of […]
Gone are the days of house calls
In my childhood days, the family physician was a trusted friend who made house calls. The late Dr. J.H. Walmsley was to become the first person I would meet, following my delivery at the old Picton Hospital on Hill Street, on a fall day in the 1940’s. While I took away no memories from our […]
Older sister had a passion for fashion
When I was a small child, my older sister, Mary, seemed like a fairytale princess to me. When I was a youngster of seven, she was a sophisticated young woman of 19, employed in the Picton business office of Bell Canada. She left for work each morning, smartly attired and impeccably groomed. Born to shop, […]
