Those of us whose biggest job-related risk to life and limb is a paper cut can only view with some measure of awe the experiences of men and women whose work puts them in danger on a daily basis.

One such is Brayden McCleary, the son of our Higher Education Division’s national sales manager, Tim McCleary. Brayden is a member of the Hamilton-based Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and one of about 50 Argylls currently in Afghanistan, where he serves as part of a provincial reconstruction team. This is the biggest deployment overseas that the unit has seen since World War II.

Tim writes:

“My great uncle was an officer with the Argylls in the Second World War. Brayden has had two dreams — one to be a firefighter, and the other to serve his country with the Canadian military. He joined the Argylls as a reservist — (1) because he wanted to be with an infantry unit, (2) the family connection, and (3) because it is a Scottish regiment, and Brayden is extremely proud of his Scots heritage. Brayden completed his firefighting certification through Conestoga College shortly before beginning training for Afghanistan. His family and friends are extremely proud of him.”

As, indeed, are many other people, including those of us at OUP who hear about how Brayden is doing from his dad, and the citizens of Guelph, the McClearys’ home town. As you can see from the photo, Guelph mayor Karen Farbridge arranged to have the city flag sent to Brayden in Afghanistan, where it’s become customary for soldiers to hoist the flags of their home communities. And at Christmas, OUP staff put together a “care package” for Brayden and his comrades. We wish him the best during his remaining time overseas and, like his dad, look forward to his safe return.

  The quarter-century stretching from 1950 to 1975 marked for many the Golden Age of magazine journalism in Canada. Magazines such as Maclean’s, Saturday Night, and Chatelaine reached the zenith of their influence. Equally important, but almost forgotten today, were the lithographed “Saturday supplements,” Weekend Magazine and The Canadian, that were distributed with Saturday newspapers throughout the country and reached millions of readers each week.

I well remember those magazines, and I was delighted when the opportunity arose to preserve some of the best material from Weekend in more permanent form. Ernest Hillen was among the finest magazine journalists of the era, and his pieces for Weekend still evoke a poignant sense of what this country and its inhabitants were about in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

One of Hillen’s assignments was to travel the country from coast-to-coast, profiling interesting people and places, many of them well off the beaten track. In the pages of A Weekend Memoir, you’ll meet rodeo riders, small-town newspapermen, southwestern Ontario farming families, and a variety of other unforgettable characters. It’s a series of snapshots of times and places now lost beyond recall, but still alive in memory … and in the pages of this book. I recommend it.