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j Wednesday Jan 12 1963 press TELEPHONE Founded in 1875 Ken Bellamy Publisher Off avary Printing Ltd Acton Sufccnpixti Single eh 5 Canada 30 count ether Canada Pub LtfJ Trie the newspaper Newmarket The Bonon Brampton BmUigton Weekend Poll Advert Sun The Mi News MwaiuoJ Weekend The Ojliwte Omjvj Week The flHmond Mil ThomnJi Th- Sea Tim- The The and Don Ryder Director of Advertising a acceded on the tc of not paid for at the applicable Jit In the rung plica nni Hartley Coles Managing Editor he event that with Bui the balance the nil be typographical eric not be sold a merely in EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Con Murray Editor Helen Murray Sports Dan Nancy ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Bin Cook Retail Advertising Setoa Cteuinad Carolyn Debbie Mac BUSINESSACCOUNTING OFFICE Manager Jean Shewn Must secure siren We certainly hope the I clownfs who was responsible for the air raid siren watting away for over three hours on what should have been a nice quiet holiday night in Acton en joyed the joke nobody else did Actually Acton is quite lucky this little prank didn result in a community tragedy since there are high voltages up on the siren tower and the person responsible could easily have fned themselves fooling around with the control box For many in town the siren meant lost sleep and annoy For those living closest to the Eastern Ave siren it to be a major pain in the ear and elsewhere We havent heard of anyone who was worried Russian bombers were about to wipe Acton off the face of the earth but it did alarm many Some thought there had been some disaster such as a train derail of the vane ty or a huge fire etc Some wondered if the siren they weren used to hearing meant they should evacuate As if the siren wasn enough to people firefighters and hydro workers around town were pestered by callers wan ting to know what had happen ed and when the sirens would be turned off Considering the holiday season and the resultant diffi culty in reaching the proper officials for clearance to shut the power to the siren off when normal procedures failed the length of time the community was forced to endure the noise is understandable It is difficult though to under stand why such an important cog in our defence warning system can be tampered with so easily Its astounding to learn that anyone can climb up the tower simply remove a few bolts on a control panel and flip the switch The Department of National Defence is now looking at ways to secure the hatch to the siren platform so only authorized personnel will have access to the switch Its high time the military quit depending on luck to keep its sirens from being set off We imagine it wont be long before Actons sleep is again shattered by the sirens wail if that hatch isn locked From the editors desk This games no trivial matter i Our readers write i Reader raps Shepard over handicapped ramp The following letter wot filed with the Free Press for publication Dear Mr Tom I received Mr Townsley a letter December 198212 days after it was written There is one point would like to make with you I am physically disabled which does not automatic ally mean that I am mentally disabled I have troubje with my legs not my mind The letter I filially received from your department was very polite and signed by Mr If The only problem being that my original letter was not addressed to Mr Townsley nor was a copy sent to him 1 take it from this that Mr Is the only one In your department with enough integrity to answer my letter wonder If that means that the people of Hills and their opinions mean little to you I read with interest the article In tonights paper Free Press December Bonnette Carney say Need rink ramp soon First say a public thank you to the two counc illors named above for keeping this Issue alive and for their help past present and future Now Mr Shephard and Mrs Sheldon just because people do not keep knocking at your door do not think that everything you say Is taken at face value or entirely be lieved We all happen to know the steps the budget must go through be fore it is accepted putting some thing in the budget mean a thing The steps the budget must go through arc 1 The department draws up the budget The depart ment submits the budget to the Budget Committee The Budget Committee trims unnecessary items and often sends the budget back to the department which sub mitted it for more 4 The department resubmits the budget to the Budget Committee Hopefully It is accepted Frequently items are cut from the budget Soy the budget as you Mr Shep have set it up Is accepted with the ramp money contained therein and the tall falls off he Acton Ice machine and as my letter from your department dated December states Tliis late in the year we did not have sufficient monies in our budget As our wheelchair ramp and security lights had not been started the monies for them had be allocated to the new furnaces This go on and on Disabled people you have no rights sit In your wheelchairs at the bottom of the stairs in the dark To eturn to my original point- Why was the money for ramps not applied for and received during the Year of The Disabled when it was available Whose was this AnneDodds We vc discovered a new board game this holiday season and I can mend it highly Entitled Trivial Pursuit Helen and I have been playing it quite a bit lately si nee two couples we know both got the game You be surprised how much or in many ways somewhat useless information you don know But if you can remember the to the thousands and thousands of questions in the game you can also learn quite a bit We ve played the game several times with our friends even found a way to conveniently keep it for the weekend and Introduced it to another Couple wc know who also found it a lot of fun Here s how it works Trivial Pursuit is played on a board in the design of a wheel All the players start In the middle move down a spoke of the wheel and then move around the rim on the wheel Questions come in six categories geography entertainment history arts and literature science and nature and sports and leisure Using a die the players move around the board There are squares all around the rim as well on the spokes When a player lands on a square each square is for a different category the player must answer a question A correct answer earns another turn There also roll again squares As a player moves his playing piece around the wheel rim a player is aiming first land on one- of the six major squares one for each category Once you land on a major square you try to answer the trivia question from that square and then fill a spot on their playing piece with a color coded plastic chip Once alt the playing piece spots arc filled with a correct answer from the major square of each question cat egory the player tries to roll the die and reach the centre of the wheel You have lo roll the exact number of squares to reach the middle or keep trying Once your playing piece is dead centre your opponents get together and select what they consider to be your weakest trivia question category you have to try and answer a question from hat category You have to just keep trying to get to the centre and successfully answer the question from the category you have the most trouble with until someone wins The game can last quite a while as you struggle to land on the major squares and answer the questions cor Along the way you wind up being asked a lot of other trivia questions too You can play with several individuals or in teams Education or smarts doesn t seem to have a lot to do with success at this game I ve noticed The best educated of the players 1 encountered a gal working on her masters degree is far from the hot shot at Trivial Pursuit It does appear though especially for the entertainment category that if you seen a lot of old movies as well as television shows and remember who sang a lot of old music you II do better tn Tact I ve noticed the oldest player we ve tangled with a fella in his mid consistently wins Age seems to be a slight advantage Of course he owns a game and has more spare time than the rest of us so we suspect he may be sneaking looks at the question cards and is memorizing the answers He says he left the game with us for the weekend so I could finally win and also rib me about memorizing the answers too 1 told the game was developed by a couple of Canadians and besides the regular trivia questions they also have an extra set of questions and answers ready for when you have played so much you learn the questions and answers Tins extra set of cards has six question categories all based on the Silver Screen 1 imagine it won be long before extra sets or cards based on history geography sports literature etc arc developed By the way Helen and I are no great shakes at the game yet Anyway 1 picked out a few cards random and decided to share some Trivial Pursuit questions with you just in case you re Interested in buying a game I m told it costs about for a game a small investment considering the hours of family fun which It can reduce The answers appear at the attorn upside down so you 11 be more likely try and answer the questions honestly In what state is Mount McKlnley What was the shape of sunglasses in the film What phrase did the Nazis adopt in the 1920s lo label their new order What nationality was Aladdin 5 What arc love apples What s the most popular card game in the English speaking world What country is saddled with the coldest major cities What was Mae West last film Who took IS days to write the Declaration of Independence What feminist wrote Sexual Politics and Flying How many feet make a mile What two teams joined baseballs American League in 1977 Whats the largest city in China Who sang about Desmond and Molly Jones What does mean How does James Bond like his martinis What Roman god is January named for IB Wltose famed jaw did Ken Norton break pnuiuiBqBH it uajrmjs si pus 11 aitWUH01 uosjDjpr 9 iaAOs I TJ03 tnailH slaw The od stone school was once a beautiful home During the discussions to use a charitable word about the Tate of Acton old town hall some residents repeatedly brought up the presence of the old stone school as a building better preserved and worthwhile saving than our red brick town hall And It is a beautiful building which has been a school high school in adjunct to the Robert Little public school and St Joseph school in a span which over a century use The old stone school was originally a beautiful residence known si Place which Acton Early Days des cribes lhesUtd ancestral home of the Sidney Smith family It built by Sidney Smith about the year IKS and the old Hal too contains drawing of the home si It looked then by sweeping gardens orchard rockery lily pond and groves of gree and other trees on four seres of Eden ScoUithstooe cutters built the home cutting stone for the walls sills sad Ids for the home which rose tier after tier of stone blocks by the hands of those skilled These Scottish famous loroiigh- out this neck of the woods for their toe and as is what used to be township and around Eden Mills The cities or and Gait and small towns such as Preston and also contain many of the buildings these artisans constructed They look as strong now as they must have when they were first built The worst enemy of these buildings through the decades has been Tire Many of them have been gutted by roaring flames which consumed their dry wooden Interiors and left stone walls still standing like derelict Tort resses It was fire which also determined the fate of the old Sidney Smith home back in 1926 Flames broke out on the last day of March In that year where a grandson of the original owner and his mother lived It made the beautiful home one of the village virtually uninhabitable Acton Early Days that it was great blow to Mrs Smith and the home was never rebuilt in declining yean After a few years the property was acquhed by old Acton School Board and the fine old residence trans formed into a Co School For those of you who may not know what a continuation school it the equivalent of a high school without grade 13 or fifth form as it was known in those days It was a continuation of public elementary school When this scribbler first attended Second Form in the old stone school the principal was Malcolm Duff Lettch of many memories He had a staff of two teachers to help him teach the our grades Miss Sedgwick and Mrs Gould Later Pat Baker replaced Mrs Sedgwick There were others to It was during the war years and many of the male teachers had joined the army or air force and some of the younger female teachers had boy friends in the forces One teacher in particular had a sweetheart In the He was a flying instructor and he used to buzz the school in a Harvard trainers the principal plane used to train pilots He later married the teacher and went on to become one of Acton s smartest businessmen Guess who I not telling While old stone school was still the residence of the Smiths they had the first private waterworks ever installed in Acton Mr Smith had derabie business foresight and dated that one of the condition the stream known as the Mi Creek through his property wooldadowhlm to install a half inch pipe from the old dam that used to stand beside the building where The Free Press is located now and supply the hydraulic ram on his premises It was done and the Smith home bath conservatory and stables were supplied with water at practically no ex pence without interruption for over years Think of that when you get your water bill from the Region now And weep The creek which still flows without interruption through the property now was once deeper and the home for many speciments of piscatorial splendor ripe for anything It was also deep enough at the point where it crosses Main Street for a swimming hole Boys used to cool off there In nature free garb as Actons Early Days delicately describes swimming In the nude The reason for this exercise about the old stone school and some of Us history is the fact that Board of Educa tion has decided it once again Is redundant They hive offered it lo the Town of Halton Hills for sake The Town as you may have read on the front page of this Issue is interested in Its pur chase And it possible the people of Acton may achieve the best of what many have hoped for these many years the preservation of both the old town hall and the old school The windows of that old school are boarded now and Its desolation makes the grounds around the Robert deserted You can still see the shape of the terraces which used to lead up to the building when it was the home of the Smiths and a of the village The winding walk which threads its way up the school hill has been both a Joy and a long walk for thousands of students for over a hundred years is still picturesque as It winds through stately Sometimes If you sit there on the grass and have the faculty of remembering you can hear the voices of the thousands who have passed through these grounds then- cries at recess and envision their hesitant steps as they were towed there on the first dayofschool And you when school was let out at the end of June and the winding was full of rejoicing children looking ahead to two month of freedom from books and Back issues 10 years ago January 10 Buy a brick donations have been pouring In this week adding new names to the growing list for Actons Ccn Project Pierre Bertons latest book on rail roads In Canada The Great Railway Illustrated contains two pictures from he collection of an Acton man Ed McKnlght Acton Snowmobile Club president Ron and Mr and Mrs Roy Johnston officiated at the ribbon cut ceremony Sunday at its new head quarters on land owned by the John near Ihe Line Tom Watson of Acton was elected vicechairman or the Board of Mrs Anne J Mac Arthur was elected Warden of County last week Mayor Les received a wooden gavel made especially for him by Tom Wore who also produced used by Acton first Mayor Amos Mason Vera and Ernie Parker were honored at a surprise party attended by friends and relatives Saturday night on their Ih wedding anniversary 20 years ago January 10 1963 A spectacular blaze levelled the barn on the Twin Lakes Resort at early this morning claiming 10 horses and a show dog The Twelfth Night Yule tree burning ceremony staged by the Acton Chamber of Commerce Saturday was one fire enjoyed by the Acton fire fighters Paul Nielsen local clothing merchant was named 1963 president of the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday night during the inaugural meeting at the Dominion Hotel Music supervisor Glenn Banks Is home from hospital but still not back to Robert Little School Mrs Joseph Kentncr was visiting with her sister Mrs Harry Smith in Bowmanvjlle When Harry M P was in town Tuesday he was taken on a tour by Liberal Association president Roy Goodwin 50 years ago Januarys Mr and Mrs Wm Williams cele brated their Sixty third wedding an niversary their home on Lake Avenue on December At a meeting lost evening the Ac Ion Midget Hockey League was formed Mr Ben BaylissHvas chosen president and W D Talbot was made Secretary Treasurer Boys between ages of 12 and inclusive arc eligible Miss Frances Hurst returned to Metcalfe after spending the Christmas holidays at her home here Mr and Mrs G A Dills and family spent New Year with relatives in Toronto Miss Violet was home from Toronto for the holidays visiting friends 75 years ago Januarys I HI Root proprietor of Ihe unlicensed hotel Eden Mills was fined and costs for selling liquor on Christmas night Mr ft Sinclair has just moved Into his commodious cement block house on Willow Street He and his sister will be very comfortable In their new home Mr and Mrs Gamble enjoyed a call from Mr Wm McTavish of Midland during the holiday week Mr and Mrs J A Waldie and son of Milton and Miss Hawkins are the guests of Mr and Mrs Wm White Lake Avenue Miss Myrtle Watson lias been engaged to take a posltianon the staff of the Georgetown High School at a salary of 100 years ago January A number of very large pine logs have passed this office on the way to Mr C Moore shingle factory during the week Mr John Nelson has got comfortably settled In his new store in and business coming In faster than be Is able to attend to It Mr A Green has been appointed trustee for the creditors In the estate of Messrs Allen and glove manu facturers assigned Mr Thomas Moore intends erecting a twostory brick front to his residence on Main Street next summer A big sleigh load of young folks went to Georgetown on Friday evening to attend a skating carnival in that village Tfwysaytiiey time anniversary of opening of the Church Georgetown was held last Sunday it