The World is a Stage
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This column, The World is a Stage, although new to Wednesday’s paper and some of you, is not so new for I have been writing in the Tillsonburg News about 33 years.
Those who followed the column in Friday’s edition know that for the past year I have tried to write one column a month on one of the Tillsonburg men who died in World War I.
I have failed the last few months, as the time to research was not there due to family needs.
This article embraces the men and women from town who served from Tillsonburg in two events that honour the 100th Anniversary of WW1. Both are part of Oxford Remembers Oxford’s Own, 100 events to honour the men and women who served over the five years of the War.
Today, we think little that women also serve in our forces, even at the front lines, but 100 years ago, to have women going to the war was shocking. The fact that women would work as nurses back then was difficult for many to handle, but to go to war, with all those men, in those disgusting conditions, was terrible.
Seven women from Tillsonburg - Marguerite Sinclair, Mildred Clark, Matilda Oatman, Winnifred Toogood, Josephine Glass, Evaline Oatman and Nellie Wilkins - went 'over there.' Some served in France and saw their friends, men from the 168C Oxford’s Own Battalion, go through the hospital evacuation chain - shot, blown apart, or in agony from the mustard gas attacks. Some served in the Mediterranean, in the horrendous conditions on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Canadian nurses were known as the Bluebirds, and they often sent home messages in their letters about the boys from town that they met over there. These letters or at least the parts pertaining to the war were often published in the Tillsonburg Observer, one of our newspapers back then (also the Tillsonburg Liberal, which merged into The Tillsonburg News after WWI ended).
You can learn more about Tillsonburg and area’s Nightingales in Nursing Sisters of WW1 on Friday, Nov. 13th at the Annandale National Historic Site, at one of their very popular Lunch and Learns. A catered lunch plus the PowerPoint by myself, for $20 plus HST. Call 519-842-2294 to reserve a place.
The second Oxford Remembers event is Theatre Tillsonburg’s spring show, “Keep The Home Fires Burning,” written and directed by Sandra (Beckett) Andrews, produced by Matthew Scholtz with Musical Director Janice Edmund.
If you thought the title sounded familiar, you would be very correct. It is one of the famous songs that have survived the last 100 years. This song appealed to the families whose sons had gone off to war, how proud they were that they left to serve and how they would keep, their home fires burning "til the boys come home.”
If you thought there would be no other songs from this era you would know, think again, for many of you will recognize: Mademoiselle From Armentières, A Long Way to Tipperary, Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag, If You Were the Only Girl In The World, and others that were resurrected to be sung again in WWII.
Sandra is one of our talented directors and has been very active in our group for many years. She very kindly wrote a synopsis for you: "If you think Keep The Home Fires Burning will be a boring history lesson about World War I, you are in for a pleasant surprise. It is actually a multi-media play within a musical. It tells the story of a Tillsonburg family whose son goes off to war. They receive news from overseas via newspapers and letters from their son. This is interspersed with the original songs from that era... some serious, some informative, and some slightly raunchy. (It is about men at war, after all.)
The cast consists of familiar faces such as Olwyn Couglin, Fred Dupon, Ross Hepburn, Rosemary Hopper, Lynda Nevins, Leslie Poole, Beth Sandor, Mark (The Original) Smith, and Melanie Watts.
New to our stage are Debbie Brady, Irene Fulton, Pat Linn, Eric Meyer, Ben Peever, Ryan Peever, Joey Sanders, and Andrew Veinot. As you can see, it’s a large cast divided into family, chorus, and soldiers. Pat Linn has been hard at work with props (while also being in the chorus) and Jane Brown is somewhere in the basement buried under a mountain of costumes.
The rest of the hard-working crew are Stacey Riley as stage manager, Richard Tillman on sound, Debbie Peever and Allyson Veinot as stage hands, Jeff Tripp and Bob Andrews on audio-visual, and Anne Corcoran on set.
Come out for an evening of music, dance, laughter, and a little bit of history.
The show runs from May 26-29 and June 2-5, with 8 p.m. performances, except for Sunday which are 2 p.m. matinees. For a musical, all tickets are $20 and can be reserved by calling the Box Office 519-688-3026 or going to our box office partners The Station Arts Centre.
Productions are at the Otter Valley Playhouse, 144789 Potters Rd. Don’t forget you can get a backstage tour on May 28th with Doors Open Tillsonburg!