Guest Blogger! 

Today we bring you a special post from Kate (Shaw) Gunn, one of this summer's reunion organizers as well as a 1970s summer interpreter. 

On the Road in Penetanguishene

In 1976-77 HNME staff led walking tours of Penetanguishene. We shared the stories of the origins of the town as we stopped at the Centennial Museum, St. Ann's Church, the ruins of Beck's Red Mill and Gordon's, the oldest (1825) house in Penetang on Water Street.  Other hot spots included the Brulé and Commodore Hotels and the town's well-known Angels (dedicated as "the Portals to Huronia" in 1921)!

Our tours began at the Town Dock Info centre and lasted about an hour. I remember we drew on the great information collected in The Prominent Families of Penetanguishene, a local document researched for the town's centennial by a team including HNME's very own Marie Beausoleil!

Wendy Buscombe, Interpretive Officer, was a key lead in starting these.  I worked on researching and guiding these tours with Rick Leroux and Scott Wilson for a couple of summers. Terri Brophy and Peter Macleod also contributed to the tours which ran Sunday mornings in August. About 70 people took part in the tours... and one group was over 40 people! Even the town's mayor, Vince Moreau, came along on one tour. In the fall of '77,  Mike Lindale and I also continued to offer walking tours for local school classes as part of the fall programming.

These photos and local newspaper articles illustrate how the HNME was endeavouring to be relevant to the local community and highlight the many intertwined story of the Establishments and the town of Penetanguishene!

Kate keeping her student tour group enthralled

Kate leading the way in the always fashionable
HNME trench coat

Interpreters Kate Shaw and Terri Brophy in the famous
trillium dresses

The Pride of Baltimore... and HNME


Some of the memorable times summer staff enjoyed were when doing outreach away from the Establishments. One such opportunity occurred when a tall ship, the Pride of Baltimore, came to Toronto during the summer of 1981. A crew of interpreters had a lot of fun and garnered some terrific promotion for the Establishments. 

Stephen Hartnell, willing to take a dive (or a jump) for the team,
as reported on in the Toronto Star

John Gilbert and Gary Abrams mock-battling in the pages of
the Globe and Mail

Musket drill was never like this. Bill Coburn and friend captured
by the Toronto Sun

As part of an earlier post, we featured a Toronto Sun cover photo also taken during the visit to the Pride of Baltimore. We mentioned at the time there was another Sun cover photo we didn't have. Thanks to Peter Mount, we can share it with you now: 

Yes, travelling on behalf of HNME. Fun times. ☺

The First Site Marriage? 

The first "site marriage" wasn't precisely that; just the bride, not the groom, was summer staff; nor did the marriage actually take place on the Establishments grounds... or even on the Bee! But the secomd summer of HNME's operation did see some wedding photos taken in the parking lot -- that counts, right? 

Beth (Truax) & Peter DesRochers with their (after) wedding party

Now those are bridesmaid dresses you'd wear again...

In the close to forty (!) years since then, there have been lots of summer romances and more than a few site marriages. Perhaps you have your own pictures to share with us! 
These photos have also been shared on our Facebook group page, but a comment left on an earlier blog post prompted us to show them off here, too. Reading the comments or adding your own is easy! Simply click below, where it says either "no comments" or "(# of) comments". There are a few options for leaving a comment; if you're not a regular blog reader, the easiest is to leave an anonymous comment then identify yourself in the comment itself. This offers another way to interact with fellow alumni, particularly for the Facebook-averse! 

News!

Our Facebook group is now up and running! A big thanks to Kate (Shaw) Gunn for organizing this. Find the HNME Reunion page here. This is another great resource to keep up on everything that's happening about the reunion. You may see some familiar faces and reconnect with some old (well, not OLD old) friends, too! 

And speaking of news, here are a couple of Toronto Sun front page newsmakers from the Establishments' past: 

Must be early days, you know, before colour...

What, no safety harness?

Do you recognize either of these Sunshine Boys? Can you pinpoint the year or the occasion? There is at least one other Toronto Sun front page out there, but this blogger doesn't have it. If you do, please share it with us! 

The Play's the Thing...

By the late 1970s, dramas had become a fun part of the interpretive package during the summers. Mrs. Roberts entertaining Mr. Chiles for tea or lemonade; Mr. Adams, the quarterman, dealing with a recalcitrant sailor in the dockyard; taking attendance in the muster. These short dramas provided some extra interest to the tours. And once in a while some entertainment to bored interpreters. Occasionally though, more complex plays were created, such as this one from the summer of 1981:

During rehearsal

Cast photo

The pictures and the following synopsis are both from former interpreter Andrew Wilson: 

The production, as you can tell by the cast photo, was a serious exploration of navy justice penned and directed by Frank Milligan with the assistance of Stephen Hartnell. The play starred Andrew Wilson, whose understated interpretation of navy prosecutor, Lieutenant Jackson, was brilliant. Also starring in the Warehouse theatre production were the two Davids, Hamilton and Moore: the former as the simple, misunderstood sailor, Pye and the latter as the ineffectual, though well-meaning, Captain Roberts. Mr. Chiles was well-played in all his dapper efficiency by Brad Davis. The supporting cast and crew included: two serious representatives of the soldier ranks, Gary Abrams and Dwayne Benjamin; renowned sailor, Eddy Tonus; saucy interpreters, Hilde Berends, Penny Bedal, Claudette Belcourt, Elizabeth Kerr, Janet LeCamp; and for musical accompaniment, a bare-footed troubadour [Jim McMillan].

Hmm, we seem to be missing something... the title of the play! We thought it would be fun to see who remembers what it was called. The legend lived on after it was produced, so you don't have to have been an interpreter in the summer of 1981 to have heard of it. If you think you remember, let us know in the comments below.

Going back a little farther, here we have not so much a play, as playing...

The HNME Rockettes?

Thanks again to Geraldine (St. Amant) Brewer for this photo of what looks like an especially fun staff training session! And aren't those tour guide dresses stylish? Do you recognize yourself or someone you worked with in this photo? Perhaps from the uniform, you can pinpoint the year. Again, leave your guesses in the comments section. 

In the meantime, we're working on another blog post with some news!