Terry Platt is a New Democrat – and she’s still one of my very, very favourite people.
And I suspect with her co-workers. West Vancouverite Platt, a tenacious, five-time NDP candidate in politically unfriendly ridings (like Ralph Sultan’s – mere politics aside, the two are fine and friendly people), is a BC Ferries employee. As April 1 approached, she wrote me concerned about the coming no-smoking rule, including in vehicles, for ferry crew.
While personally happy with this decision – “smokers made my life very uncomfortable for at least 30 years and both parents had lung cancer” – the lack of a crew smoking room on board troubles Platt.
“We work 480 to 540 minutes a day and that is a long time for some of them to forgo their habit,” she says. “As a crewmate said to me, ‘I want to quit on my own terms.’ ”
Platt has never smoked. Her husband doesn’t smoke. So her deep compassion for smokers is rare in this atmosphere of cold judgmentalism. “Sometimes I am the only non-smoker who speaks out on behalf of these crazy, addicted people!”
She isn’t running in the May 9 election. Too bad – we could use a saint or two in the legislature.
On Easter weekend she was released from Lions Gate Hospital, praising the care and the food as “terrific.” She writes light-heartedly: “I am home. My blind and deaf doggie is happy I’m back, as is Zillah the Weather Cat. If she comes in damp, it is raining. If really wet, it is really raining.
“I have a form of cancer where the ‘fibroids’ have decided to go in two paths. One around my aorta (seems it’s quite important) and the other around my right kidney (another important organ). Why should I be life’s exception?”
She’s on chemo. “I know that, barring being hit by the 257 Express, I shall live a long and happy life. With all my hair!”
It’s confusing to try to put together the stereotypes of the socialist, long-time union activist, and Terry’s closing words: “Have a Happy Easter. I know I don’t have to remind you that it’s about more than chocolate bunnies and eggie hunts. He is Risen!”
• • •
With pipelines and oil tankers as provincial election issues, the 40th anniversary of the publication of Vancouver political scientist, editor and writer Ian Slater’s smash novel Firespill is as timely as its original appearance. A storybook tale itself.
It was tentatively accepted by a major American publisher. But, a year in, it was rejected, Slater writes me, “because my plot, involving two supertankers colliding in heavy fog, resulting in a catastrophic fire at sea, had been deemed an impossibility by an ‘expert’ they had consulted.”
A joint Canadian-U.S. company grabbed it, “and on the morning of publication in September, 1977 I received a call before daybreak from a Toronto station asking me if I’d seen the news. ‘What news?’ I asked.”
Well, nothing less than that two supertankers had collided off South Africa: “The resulting massive oil spill was now ablaze at sea” – fortunately not off B.C.’s coast, where Slater had set his novel.
And a week later storage tanks in Nanaimo ruptured, causing another fire in the water. Maclean’s magazine called Firespill the “right book in the right place at the right time.” So sensationally true. It sold 500,000 copies in six languages worldwide.
We do not know where the “expert’s” body lies.
• • •
Theatre West Van opens The 39 Steps tomorrow night at the Kay Meek, based on the Alfred Hitchcock film and the classic thriller by John Buchan. Few know or care he was Canada’s Governor General (1935-40) and originator of the Governor General’s Awards. Sarah Arnold directs Patrick Barlow’s multiple award-winning interpretation, which, advertised as “a zany comedy,” raises one eyebrow. We’ll see, raised eyebrow or not. Break a femur!
• • •
I always thought field hockey was “just” a girls’ game. Then I saw a bit of it. I was right. It’s a girls’ game. Could be too tough for most males of any age – no physical contact, but requiring amazing agility, skill, and bending double and passing on the run. As for the sticks with their odd little blades, if those are the right terms, interesting to see how well a Sidney Crosby could adjust to them.
After a few minutes of watching women’s World League play this month at West Vancouver’s Rutledge Field, and an awe-generating tick-tack-toe practice by the India team, I was convinced it’s a gripping spectator sport and deserves more popularization in Canada. TV coverage would help. The games here offered beer in a tent too – there’s a beginning.
Former Vancouver Sun columnist Trevor Lautens writes every second Friday on politics and life with a West Vancouver bias. [email protected]
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