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Letter to the Editor Dear Roy Forrester: Early last December I wrote to you about major development plans north and west of Carscadden Road - which were a threat to the wellbeing wellbeing of the Ganaraska River system and perhaps to our future generations. In that same week, Durham's Planning Department published an application for an amendment to the Official Plan, to allow the building of 14 estate residential houses located at the N/W corner of Carscadden Road and Region Road 9. Most people had no way of knowing that this relatively small acreage belonging to applicants Bill Reid and James Reynaert was right next to the 1000 some acres of private developer lands. Nor could they know that neighboring property property owners had been simultaneously approached to sell their, lands, by agents representing both the private developer and the applicants. It was rumored that a sports, recreation, condominium and estate residential complex had been privately brewing over the past twelve months or so for the approximate approximate 1000 acres mentioned above. And furthermore - farmlands east, north and south of this complex have been bought up in recent months, months, beginning with the Manning tobacco farm at Kendal, presumably to ride on the coat-tails of this development or to cash in on rapidly inflating land values in this area. Or both. It is part of a larger rurual ubanizing sickness which is moving eastward and north throughout our Town of Newcastle - a kind of community version of some infectious disease. It is a serious enough matter that the acquisition of all the above cited lands are in some fashion connected. connected. But much more critical is the fact that their development is being planned close to and on the fragile headwaters of the western branches of the Ganaraska river. This writer does not believe that these south-sloping lands outside the boundaries of the Ganaraska Authority are at all suitable for housing developments or dense human use of any kind. Better information is needed about the impact of growth on future conservation and environmental environmental issues, if not for the entire Ganaraska watershed, then for our own local part of the river system. We also need to know more about preserving the rich wildlife areas of our upland Ganaraska river valleys. In view of the rampant land assemblies going on here and on similar kinds of sensitive lands east of Kendal, it would seem that a much better informed public dialogue is in order, preferably with the help or intervention of the Ministry of the Environment, before any land use changes are made for these areas. There are no two ways about it. If a precedent like the present application's application's request is set, others, like night and day, will surely follow. Because it is physically linked to the larger developer lands northward, the Reid/Reynaert property could become the first potential carrier of a sickness which would do its worst damage within these vulnerable Ganaraska territories. For this reason alone their application for an amendment should not be allowed. allowed. I'd like to qualify some of these notions the next time around. Best wishes Julian Rowan Bramah and his Ontario The village of Elora is one of the most picturesque places in Ontario. With its magnificent Grand River Gorge, tumbling rapids, the restored 19th century shops right out of a Charles Dickens novel and the country luxury of the Elora Mill Inn, the village is a showplace that attracts thousands of tourists annually. annually. But there's something else which has nothing to do with the spectacular spectacular gorge or the beauty of the village that most people seem to miss. It's a little church that holds a key which opens your heart to a romantic love story 1 akin to that of Romeo and Juliet. The church, St. John's Anglican, is just a stone's throw from Mill Street where, especially in the summer, summer, tourists bustle in and out of the shops, boutiques and galleries. The day I first entered it, some ten years ago, the church was deserted. 1 walked up to the altar. On the wall to the right of the altar was a faded mural. It showed a woman dressed in what appeared to be a nurse's uniform of yesteryear. Her arms were outstretched and her eyes looked upward. Directly below, enshrined in a glass case were two silver challices and a patten used for the bread in communion services. Dated 1852, the Latin on the patten says the set was a gift to "a friend most dear." It was intriguing and mysterious. Then I picked up one of the small pamphlets placed on a, table beside the glass case. It unfolded a fascinating love story:'_ The woman in the faded mural was Florence Nightingale, the famed famed "Lady of the Lamp", who achieved world-wide recognition for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War. The "friend most dear" was one of the early ministers of the church, Rev. John Smithhurst. The pair had met in Derbyshire, England where Florence Nightingale's father owned estates. Smithhurst was her first cousin. They fell in love, but in Victorian Happenings . . . . CONCLUSION OF HITCHCOCK FILM! THIS WEEK Our Hitchcock Film Festival concludes this week with the Classic film "Jamaica Inn". So join us at the Bowman- ville Branch of the Newcastle Public Library at 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, or 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, January 26. Admission Admission is free and everyone is welcome. ORONO TOWN HALL EUCHRE RESULTS The euchre results for the Orono Town Hall, January 18th are as follow: high scorers for thé evening were Vi Hayward with 86; Carol Tamblyn with 85; Lawrence Bright with 83; Roy Hayward with 82 and Dora MacDonald with 75. Low score for the evening was Gracie Coatham. Winners of the lucky draw were: Roy Winter; Jack Goodman; Charlie Campbell and Reg Elliott. Euchre every Wednesday evening at 8:00 p.m. Ladies please'bring lunch. England marriage between cousins was considered scandalous. They realized they must separate. But before they said goodbye, they made a pact. He would dedicate himself to missionary work in the Canadian west, while she would learn all she could about nursing as it existed at that time. John became a highly respected chaplain in the Red River settlement. settlement. Florence, although she had received several offers of marriage, continued with her nursing career. Twelve years later Smithhurst returned to England where the two loves had arranged to meet again. The subsequent events are vague. •It's believed they agreed to remain in their chosen paths. John was offered a post at the Elora church. The silver communion communion challices were sent by Florence shortly after his arrival. John died in 1867 and is buried in the graveyard beside the church. When I revisited St. John's recently the mural had been erased - likely too faded to be restored. But it remains in my memory as does the story of the love that was not to be. Yet our lives are woven in strange dramatic patterns. If the couple had married and lived happily ever after, the world would never have known "The Lady of the Lamp." In our travels around the province province we generally get up to Northern Northern Ontario at least a couple of times a year. Usually we spend a week or so in Kirkland Lake, move on and stay another week in Timmins Timmins and sometimes drive back to see what's going in Kapuskasing or Cochrane. We make a lot of friends along- the way. One of them is Yves "Moose" St. Jacques. Yves is a captain with the Timmins Fire Department, but he's also sort of a free-lance Chamber of Commerce. He's into everything. He and his wife, Shirley run the Miss Northern Ontario Contest. He's one of the promoters of the Santa Claus Train and a number of other things. Years ago he was an underground miner and keeps us posted on mining developments in the City of Gold. It was through Yves that we met Roly Tremblay about five years ago and went to see his one-man mine. Roly was Fire Chief at the time. He'd been working the mine in his spare time for years. When I first saw it, the mine was just a hole-in-the ground. As I recall, it was about eight feet deep. I climbed down on a ladder and Roly showed me some small samples of rock he'd taken. He said he had hopeful expectations. He reeled off a lot of statistics and talked about the potential of the property. I admired his enthusiasm, enthusiasm, but I'd been around the goldfield'long enough to know that every mining man is sure he has a winner "this time". Roly let me use his jack hammer which shook the béjeebers out of me, and I settled for an old fashioned fashioned pick and chopped away at some rock not knowing the difference between a slope and a slope. But it gave Terry a chance to take a few pictures of me looking busy and knowledgable. ■ I had forgotten about Roly's mine until Yves called me last fall. "Roly wants you to come up and do another story about his mine," said Yves. "He says he's got a real surprise for you." Yves said he didn't have any details about it, but I had a feeling he knew a lot more than he was telling telling me. A few weeks later we were rumbling rumbling along in a jeep over the rough terrain leading to Roly's property. Nobody had told me what to expect. expect. Roly just chuckled when tasked tasked what the trip -was all about. "You'll see," he smiled. Finally we came upon a clearing. ."Here we are again," said Roly. 1 Orono Weekly I imes, Wednesday, January 25, 1989-7 Kendal News (Continued from page 2) ment in a new and challenging area of life. Even if they had not succeeded, succeeded, they would still have had the satisfaction that they had tried hard! Silent Casualties, by William and Jeanette Raynsford. Billy R's Story (continued from last week) After Mr. Sparks left I became a changed person. Though I continued continued to work very hard, I also demanded respect, and in the fall I started going to evening services at the United Church in the village and I was asked to sing in the choir. I would take the canoe that the Jamiesons kept for trapping muskrat and go fishing on Lake Scugog. The fishing was very good as there were few cottages on the lake and few motor boats. However, there were many loons, ducks, mud hens, sandpipers and hell divers for company as I fished. Paddling silently along the shore, I could see plenty of wild life, redwinged redwinged black birds, and snakes and mud turtles, Wood turtles and enormous enormous frogs. There were no wolves and very few foxes, but lots of deer, a few bears and some lynx and wild cats. On the farm we raised turkeys and geese which range fed all summer. summer. There were hawks and owls and the odd' eagle, yet ye lost few to predators. A lot of trapping was done in the Depression, as wild furs brought a good price. Even skunks and weasels were not safe. The next year when I was sixteen I began attending house parties and square dances. The dances were held throughout the countryside, , from Fenelon Falls south to Burketon and from Woodville east to Fowlers' Corners: One method of getting to the dances was that those of us that did not have cars would give 50 cents (o the driver and another ten cents to pay for the stared in amazement! Roly's hole- in-the ground had expanded into a hiVe of activity. Bulldozers were at work. A big diamond drill was in operation. It turned out that Roly's high hopes over the years were not in vain. A big mining company became interested and bought his property. They were in the process of developing it. Roly retired last year. Instead of fighting fires, he's blazing trails looking for another "winner." An appropriate hobby'in his Golden Years. music. Refreshments were always brought by the girls and women. Life was very_ simple in those days, and most of us had little money for recreation. In the fall the annual fall fair in town and the church fowl suppers were the big events. Also it was time for fall ploughing. A new plow was bought, a gang plow, with two mould boards, which was pulled by three horses. With it I was able to get about three acres a day ploughed ploughed so I finished the ploughing in November, then had time to remove stone piles and clear additional land before the snow came. After that it was my job to deliver wagon loads of potatoes and firewood in the town. I had certainly increased the income on the farm, as when I arrived arrived there were twenty-seven head of cattle, of which only seven were being milked. Now I was milking eleven by hand and there were fifty head of cattle, thirty pigs and several hundred fowl. Yet with this prosperity they never suggested giving giving me wages, and Mr. Sparks never spoke to me about any form of renumeration. I brought the question question up myself as I wanted to know what the score was. I was told that 1 would own some of the livestock and was given a young sow and told to choose a calf. I chose* *a young red Dual Purpose Shorthorn and bred her to a purebred Durham bull. 1 set a few traps myself that fall and caught a number of animals; skunks which I sold for 75', racoons racoons for $2.50 and weasels for 25 cents. They brought, me a total of $22.00 which I spent the following year on a package of Italian honey bees and bee equipment. In a short time I had nine hjves as the neighbours would call me whenever ttffey saw a swarm. Congratulations to Mrs, Alva Berry, who celebrated her 90th Birthday Birthday on Saturday, with several of I her many friends. Shortcuts at ÀNN'S BEAUTY SALON FEBRUARY SPECIAL 10% OFF PERMS Tues. & Wednes. 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