Alastair Lawrie
Father, husband, newspaperman, musician. Born on March 16, 1926, in Blantyre, Scotland; died on May 5, 2016, in Toronto, of pneumonia, aged 90.
I met Alastair in 1951 when he arrived in my hometown of Sunderland, on the northeast coast of England. He was to be chief reporter on the local newspaper where I worked in rewrite. We dated and as new acquaintances do, told each other our stories.
He was born in Blantyre, Scotland, his parents' second son. His older brother, Hamish, would become a well-known Scottish painter. By the time Alastair was 7, the family moved to Aberdeen. Some years later he acquired a clarinet which had belonged to an uncle. Benny Goodman was popular at the time and thus, for Alastair there began a lifelong love affair with jazz clarinet.
With the Second World War came his "call up" notice; he went into the Royal Air Force and was posted to London at the time of the buzz bombs. He learned to build radios for the RAF and served abroad in India, Africa and Iraq.
After the war he decided he would like to get into the newspaper business. He bought a second-hand portable typewriter and taught himself shorthand. Eventually he found his way to Sunderland.
In 1953 we married, and within four years had two children, Ian and Sharon. In l957 Alastair sailed away to Canada and found a position with The Sudbury Star. I came later with the children, in time to celebrate our first Canadian Christmas. We lived in an apartment above the newspaper so Alastair didn't have much of a commute.
In 1959 he joined The Globe and Mail, covering education and later City Hall. Although we were happy in Toronto we were homesick and, like a lot of immigrants, took what was known then as the thousand-dollar cure and returned to the U.K. Alastair went to work on The Scotsman, in Edinburgh, where our second daughter, Carolyn, was born. Soon after, we began to yearn for Canada. He wrote to The Globe with a view to returning. Almost immediately a telegram arrived from then-editor Dic Doyle, saying, "Come on home."
It was l963 and a position awaited Alastair on the editorial board, where he gained a reputation as writer of short, humorous editorials. When introduced in that capacity to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Mr. Trudeau asked with a wry smile, "Who writes the long funny ones?"
Alastair re-established himself on the Toronto jazz scene and after welcoming a third daughter, Alison, into the family, he became a jazz reviewer for The Globe. He got to know, and occasionally played with, many of the top musicians of the day, including Duke Ellington and Buddy Tate. One highlight was interviewing and having dinner with his childhood hero, Benny Goodman. For three years, Alastair also played clarinet with Peter Appleyard every Saturday at the Chelsea Bun, with guest appearances from some of the well-known musicians he had interviewed.
He retired in 1991, after writing editorials for nearly 30 years. Golf became an important part of his life, along with jazz. He spent about 20 years with the Ragweed Dixieland Band, which performed at U.S. jazz festivals and released a half-dozen albums.
When Alastair was in his early 80s, Alzheimer's struck and his final three years were spent in long-term care. After losing the ability to play clarinet, he still enjoyed listening to jazz, round the clock. He passed away to the mellow sounds of one of his favourite tenor sax players, long-time friend Scott Hamilton.
Vivienne Lawrie is Alastair's wife.