close your eyes and hope for the best

George Hunter 1937
(click image to enlarge)

One week when I wanted to see a street-corner circus with an elephant and trained fleas, I had to borrow 10c from my sisters. Mother said, “Don’t waste your money. You will see lots of flea circuses”. I have seen lots of elephants, but you know, I have never seen another flea circus.

It was Irving Penn, was it not, who proclaimed, “People don’t care where you’re at. They are more interested to know where you’re from”. Well, I’m from Saskatchewan, or as it is sometimes referred to, ‘Saskabush’. More precisely, I’m from good old Regina, Queen City of the Plains. I think of Regina as being in the centre of the Great Regina Plain, the country’s largest grain-growing area where farmers, unknowingly, create fascinating patterns that are best viewed from a low flying aircraft during harvesting operations. I never got tired of crisscrossing the prairies in search of these graphic scenes. Thinking back, I wish I had made lots more of them, especially with grain elevators included as these sentinels of the prairies have nearly all disappeared.

I’m from quite modest beginnings. My parents were from Ontario, my father being brought up on a farm near Peterborough and my mother being from Port Hope and a descendant of Roger Byam of Mutiny on the Bounty. Father, William Harold Hunter, was with Imperial Oil before I entered the scene but I knew him as a sales representative who travelled the length and breadth of Saskatchewan to visit dairies and bakeries for a waxed-paper company. With our comfortable cars and hard-surfaced highways, it is still a chore driving the province’s vast distances. In a Model T on gravel and dirt roads that turn to gumbo in rainy weather, it must have been arduous and treacherous. I only accompanied him on one or two short trips but it was enough to pique my interest in travelling. The Regina to Moose Jaw highway was my training ground when he taught me to drive. I was thirteen or fourteen years old.

George Hunter’s 1st image sold. Cambridge Ontario, 1937
(click image to enlarge)

We gave the gentleman a drugstore print of this horse picture. The company used it for years as their logo with the slogan, “We clothe naked horses”… I was rewarded with a small leather pouch that may have cost $5. Ten at the most.

Mother was very careful with the limited family funds, keeping notes on every penny spent. The cost of mailing a letter back then was 3c for a postage stamp. The allowance my two sisters and I received was 25c a week. It was 15c to take in a Saturday movie. One week when I wanted to see a street-corner circus with an elephant and trained fleas, I had to borrow 10c from my sisters. Mother said, “Don’t waste your money. You will see lots of flea circuses”. I have seen lots of elephants, but you know, I have never seen another flea circus. A lesson I learned; “Grab the opportunity. It may never return”.

During the dust bowl days of the mid 1930s, father was transferred to Winnipeg. He preceded the rest of the family and found a nice house in Norwood, a district in Winnipeg’s sister city of St. Boniface. When we arrived in town from Regina, Winnipeg’s size had a more profound effect on me than did New York on my first visit there. I loved the faster pace of the city as compared to the peace and quiet of Regina.

People often ask me, “How did you get into photography?” I tell them it is because my high school, Norwood Collegiate, sent me to London in 1937 to attend the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The next question is always, “How come they sent you to London”? It’s a long story.

One night at dinner my folks asked me the usual question, “What did you learn at school today”, and I gave them the usual answer, “Nuthin”, slumping down in my chair. “Surely you must have learned something today”, father asked. “Nah. Teacher said some lucky kid was going to be sent to London for the Coronation. On being questioned further, I muttered that the qualifications I remembered were only that the kid had to have high enough marks not to have to write exams in June and that the parents had to be able to afford the cost. I knew there wasn’t a chance in the world my parents could come up with the money so I didn’t even give it a thought. After a lot more questions, they asked if I heard what the costs would be and I said I thought it was $500. That was an extremely large amount in those days.

Mother came up with the idea I could sell the Noranda stock I bought with earnings from my paper route and father thought he might be able to help a little. When asked how the lucky student would be selected, I told them it would be an election among the ones whose parents could afford the cost. Right away my father laid out a plan. He suggested that when I went to school in the morning I should select someone to help me with electioneering. This was completely foreign to me but I raced to school, selected James Dyke, the most popular fellow, also Jane Wyndels, the best looking girl. Two weeks later there was an election and I was stunned to find I was the lucky winner. A whole change of life was suddenly at hand. My parents were delighted and were so proud of me. I really have to thank them for their prompt decision in suggesting I apply for the trip and for their support in making it happen. Had they waited even a day to consider it, it may have been a different story.

I don’t think I needed a passport in those days to visit the U.K. but I did know that I should have a camera. One of the requirements for going on the trip was for me to give talks upon my return. It turned out that I not only had to speak to fellow students but also to a Provincial Teachers’ Convention in Winnipeg. I figured that if I showed pictures I wouldn’t have to talk as much. I have a fading snapshot of myself at a Radio Station CKY microphone so I must have had to do a radio broadcast as well. I set out to buy a camera. Mr. Duncan at Strains Optical Shop on Smith Street in Winnipeg sold me a folding camera. It was a Voigtlander Bessa that used No. 120 roll film. I can’t remember how many rolls I took, but I likely bought film over there as I went along.

The Greyhound bus trip from Winnipeg to Montreal, via Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit and Toronto was a geography lesson on Canada and the United States. The bus broke down going through Wisconsin and I made pictures up and down the highway in the picturesque area of Wisconsin Dells. It was my first adventure in nature photography.

There was something like a hundred and fifty boys from schools across Canada on the C.P. Steamship, Dutchess of Bedford. The group of a similar number of girls crossed on another ship, which I guess was just to keep us separated. My only recollection on the week-long crossing was that we all got tired of the dinner rolls as they kept getting staler and staler. Some bright fellow opened a porthole in the dinning hall and there was a deluge of buns flying across the room from every angle. Oh yes, another recollection of shipboard was that we were all measured up for red wool blazers. I refused, saying I didn’t have the money to pay for one but there was one waiting for me upon arrival in London. I believe the tour directors wanted us Canadians to stand out from the crowd at functions and ceremonies we were to attend.

Coronation Day was May 12, 1937, the day after my sixteenth birthday. It rained like mad. It rained and rained and even rained heavier when the Royal Procession returned to Buckingham Palace from Westminster Abbey. Our contingent of Canadian boys and girls was stationed high up in bleachers across from the Queen Victoria Memorial and I would estimate to be two hundred meters back from the Mall. The following incident is one that I did not include in any of the talks I gave upon my return.

Away back and up high in the bleachers we could hear the roar of the crowd in the distance as the Royal Procession proceeded along the Mall to the Palace. When the cheering got louder, indicating the procession would soon be coming into sight, our chaperones began screaming, “Everyone take off your trench coats! The King and Queen want to see us in our red jackets”. I thought, God, we will be drenched. We will be soaked to death.

With a single exception, everyone in the crowd of 150 Canadian boys and 150 Canadian girls dutifully removed their coats. The rain continued to pour, and pour. With the exception of the one contrary individual, everyone got ruined. They were a mess with red dye from their jackets running everywhere. I don’t know how they didn’t all get pneumonia. It was unbelievable! The one reprobate in the group thought, “Hell. The king and queen can’t see us up here anyway. It’s unlikely they can see anything through the rain and with their windows likely all steamed up. I got a few smirks, but no one said anything about me being nice and dry. I was the only one to have a nice red jacket to take back home.

Another story I didn’t tell during my talks was about how us kids learned all the bus routes around London and saved a few pence as well. We were billeted in the Stockwell area, not far from The Oval. We would take the double decker buses toward the City and ride several blocks before the conductor would come around. When he got closer, we would jump off and catch another bus. In a jigzag fashion, we would eventually reach our destination. Learning the geography of London has stood me good stead to this day. All our London travel wasn’t made in this unscrupulous fashion as we often took the Underground for which you buy tickets before descending to the depths.

Most of the kids returned home en masse and on schedule but I elected to stay over and visit Northern Ireland. I got hold of a bicycle somewhere and toured around the Bally areas visiting distant cousins; Ballyclare, Ballymena, Ballygolly, etc. I stopped to pass the time of day with the road workers who were delighted to lean on their shovels and talk with a stranger. Many were named ‘Hunter’ which is more common over there than Smith or Jones is here in Canada.

The whole venture, a month travelling abroad, was a wonderful experience. I believe that all youngsters should be able make a trip overseas. It would give them a wider perspective on the world than going to a gated beach resort somewhere. Had my parents not acted promptly in sizing up the situation, my life may have turned in an entirely different direction. I am so thankful it turned out the way it did.

Getting down to the accompanying photograph, or I should say, ’snapshot’, I made it on a rainy day near Cambridge, before I journeyed over to the Emerald Isle. Months after returning home my father took me to visit a friend. Mr. Thompson ran Birt Saddlery, a Winnipeg emporium that provides gear for horse lovers. We gave the gentleman a drugstore print of this horse picture. The company used it for years as their logo with the slogan, “We clothe naked horses”. At sixteen, I wasn’t anything of a businessman for I should have announced a considerable fee. One-time reproduction rights today for such usage would be in the thousands. I was rewarded with a small leather pouch that may have cost $5. Ten at the most. It was the first commercial use of one of my photographs. The photographers I have been reading about lately all claim to have started their careers at age ten or twelve. At sixteen, I was a late starter.

© George Hunter

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