Hugh Townsend, Author at The Pictou Advocate

A quality person like his mom and dad

September 23, 2020September 23, 2020Hugh Townsend

If you were to ask me about Dallas Stars interim head coach Rick Bowness, the first pronouncement I’d make is that he’s a quality person just like his mom and dad before him. In my mind, they’ve been a sports-loving family I’ve admired for a very long time. They don’t come much finer. And it’s...

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Steve Goodwin is an Advocate asset

September 16, 2020September 15, 2020Hugh Townsend

I never forget the details of how the middle part of October unfolded in 2014. My column was about Steve Goodwin, the long-time Advocate reporter who was being inducted into the media section of the Pictou County Sports Heritage Hall of Fame that weekend. It was my intention to attend the ceremonies in Westville that...

Together, two of us in media 132 years

August 27, 2020August 27, 2020Hugh Townsend

This is the tale of two kids born in New Glasgow in 1938 who began school during the last days of the Second World War. They weren’t in the same neighbourhood but they were linked in many ways. Their lives — later their careers — parallelled one another, move by move, like combatants in a...

The ‘mystery man’ was Frank Cameron

August 26, 2020August 25, 2020Hugh Townsend

I was doing my usual summer evening thing last Wednesday — relaxing in my La-Z-Boy, enjoying the Toronto Blue Jays. Just then I noticed a new email in my inbox. It appeared to be from an Advocate reader so I opened it post-haste. It was from a reader, Nancy Montgomery. “You always write very interesting...

Persistence does pay off in this life

August 5, 2020August 4, 2020Hugh Townsend

It was 61 years ago that I was hired by The Chronicle Herald. I had been writing sports for the Evening News in New Glasgow during my six years in high school and university. The provincial paper was on the verge of opening a news bureau in Pictou County and I was tagged for the...

Face masks, fantasy and a homeless team

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020Hugh Townsend

The thermometer beside my desk was telling me the outdoor temperature was far too high and the indoor conditions were just as bad. The humidity, outside and inside, was beyond unbearable. My neighbours, still scared to death because of COVID-19, were doing what they’ve been doing for over four months — staying out of sight....

Remembering those Thorburn moments

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020Hugh Townsend

If you were a total stranger to this part of the world, you might be asking, where and what is Thorburn? Wikipedia, the much-used online information site that bills itself as “the free encyclopedia,” gives us a brief undated explanation of the Pictou County community. “The small rural Nova Scotia town,” it says, “has a...

Another good guy has left the field

July 15, 2020July 15, 2020Hugh Townsend

There’s an old saying that first impressions are lasting impressions, particularly in situations like meeting someone for the first time. I wasn’t very old — probably early in elementary school — the first time my mother gave that valuable advice about living in this world. Whatever the timing, I’ve carried her useful lesson with me...

He’s New Glasgow’s ‘man about town’

July 6, 2020July 6, 2020Hugh Townsend

One day last week, Facebook alerted me that it was Bill MacCulloch’s birthday. Oh yes, he had another one. Actually, the message said it was William MacCulloch’s big day. But to anybody in New Glasgow — better make that Pictou County — he’s simply Bill. If you don’t know who I mean, you haven’t been...

None could cut it as well as the barber

July 6, 2020July 9, 2020Hugh Townsend

For an understandable reason, I doubt there’s anyone in Pictou County who remembers the day Harry Trainor arrived in New Glasgow with razors and clippers in his luggage. It was 100 years ago. He had lived in the town previously, coming from Charlottetown with his family at the age of five. After attending St. John’s...

Author: Hugh Townsend