In a couple of short, autobiographical sketches written before her death, Christina McCall explains life at U of T , the "need to distance myself from my classmates, all
those good girls with shiny hair and diamond engagement rings...", and the mesmerizing lectures by Northrop Frye in her senior honours year.

And we get a quick look at her first months at Maclean's, with Pierre Berton as a likeable managing editor (not).

She then went out to do battle in the openly sexist world of journalism. In the process, she wrote circles around most of them.

A good look at Canadian political history of the last half of the 20th Century, the articles include a Saturday Night piece (June, 1977) about the guy who wanted to build that Mackenzie pipeline as head of Canadian Arctic Gas, William Wilder.

And from Chatelaine, November, 1970, a great intro to Jane Jacobs: "She greeted me at her front door, wearing the Churchillian boiler suit she'd been writing in all day, gave me a glass of sherry, and led the way out to her pocket-size back garden, where we sat under a crabapple tree while she treated me to one of the most stimulating discussions I've had in years."

That same year she wrote something titled :"In Ottawa, Women Are Either Babes or Blobs"(Chatelaine), and for Saturday Night, that same month, "How Mel Watkins Brought Socialism to the NDP".

All good, still topical stuff

Just discovered July 17) in reading the late Val Ross's Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic that Christina was not breaking ground for her sex at Maclean's, an impression left on reading her second autobiographical chapter - June Callwood did a piece, The Beard" about Davies that appeared March 15, 1952.

Christina said that at that time the "serious stuff" was left to the men. Perhaps she only meant the political commentary?

Now I'm wondering how Christina and June got along.

And even more important, how we'll get along without their perspectives?

[ 17 July 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

[ 17 July 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]