Hello, I'm Tony Parsons, and welcome to The Tony Parsons Show. As a news broadcaster

and journalist for the past 50 years, I've reported on the major news events that

have shaped our nation. I've interviewed prime ministers, premiers, thought leaders,

and other people of distinction from around the world. My goal with this interview

series is to help you, my audience, discover the person behind the credentials,

while at the same time I'll invite them to share their professional insights,

experiences, and aspirations.

Hello, I'm Wayne Cox, and today we're playing musical chairs in the studio at the

Tony Parsons show. I'm going to put Tony in the guest chair. After all,

we know that many of you as loyal fans would like to know more about the man we

all watched on the six o 'clock news for some 35 years and curious about his life

since retirement in 2013. For my part, I was proud to work with Tony at BCTV and

Global News in my role as the weatherman. So let me begin with an Introduction to

my friend a distinguished guest and the regular host of this show I think it's

pretty safe to say that if you grew up in BC any time over the past 40 years You

know who Tony Parsons is is three and a half decades as the anchor at news hour

on BC TV global Made him the debonair man with their resonating voice that we all

came to know love and get our nightly news from After all the day just wasn't

complete unless we came home to Tony and the six o 'clock news each day. Tony, I

want to thank you for having me on your podcast.

It's a delight to have you here. You know, I miss seeing you on a daily basis as

we did when we were both working in the same place. So it's great to see you.

You're looking good. Well, so are you. Yeah. Time marches on though. Yeah,

quickly. I think we're both sporting glasses and as, as people know, you've seen

your ads and we both have hearing aids, so time marches on. Let's start from the

very beginning. If you don't mind, some people know, some people don't know. You

were born in England. I was born in a place called Gosport, England. My father was

in the, the arms services with the RAF and that was one of the stations he was

at. And I had, there was myself, my two elder sisters and my elder brother,

and then along later came a younger sister, and eventually when we came to Canada,

we acquired another sister, so we were a large family. Wow. And your mother,

she was of Italian heritage, wasn't she? My mother's maiden name was Capace, and

Fortunately, in the Blitz in London, she lost a few members of her family, and that

was a sad occasion. And then when we came to Canada, I'll just tell you this, she

moved from London to a little place in Ontario that absolutely frightened her because

it was so small. She cried for two weeks long. She just cried,

cried, cried because she wanted to be back home, but she And we all got along.

Yeah. How long then did you live in England? You came over as a youngster.

I was nine years old when we came over on, um, yeah, in October, when you're 1948.

Now, let's see you. So your, your, your dad, he was in the RAF,

but he had other jobs too, didn't he? You know, my dad was, uh, unlike me,

very handy with his hands. He could, he was a great painter. He was a great,

he was an artist with wallpaper, which is one of his specialties. And he was a

woodworker too. Me, I don't know why, but I can't nail two boards together, but he

was quite good at what he did. I can, I can relate to that. I, you know,

you either have the aptitude, I guess, or you don't. And yeah, Yeah, I'm the same

as you as I was blessed with I don't know now Why why wasn't that your family

moved from England? That's a lot of people to to pick up and move away Yeah, it

was post -war and my father who was looking for work and couldn't find it at the

time for some reason No, he couldn't find what he wanted to do I guess what it

was But my mother had some friends in Canada who she had talked to and they said,

you know, there are plenty of jobs here. Why don't you guys come over and we'll

put you up for a while until you get settled. And Jack, which was my dad's name,

Jack will find work in no time at all. And that's exactly what happened. As you

mentioned, your mother wasn't very happy once the move was made. But I did read

that she turned into a Toronto Maple Maple Leaf fan. This is true.

My mother didn't know a hockey stick from a pogo stick when we came to Canada. But

for some reason, she latched on to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the game of hockey.

And her favorite star was Turk Broida. I don't know whether you remember the name.

Turk was the goalie for the Maple Leafs. And my mother just thought he was a saint

and she followed him wherever he went. And my brother turned out to be the same

way. He was a great Toronto Maple Leaf fan. Those were, those are the days of the,

well, the six team league. So, did she ever get to go down the road and see the

Leafs in action live? No, she never did see a live hockey game,

but she watched it religiously on television. What little there was at the time,

because as you say, there were only six teams in the league at the time. She would

listen on radio, she would watch the television and she would cheer for the Leafs

and you dare not walk in on a game when she was watching because she shooed you

out. You can't watch, you can't be here. Well, if you're living in Ontario and

you're a youngster, you probably got the skates on and played a little hockey

yourself, did you? I did. I played rather badly, but I played and, you know, in

that little town, we would go to the village pond in the wintertime. It would be,

of course, frozen over. And we'd do pickup games and just skate if we wanted to

and do what we could with a puck. And it was great fun when you were, you know,

10, 12 years old as I was then. And every kid in the town played hockey at some

level. And we just had a fun time. And I remember,

my dad was from Winnipeg and I remember him saying that they would go down to the,

I guess, a vacant lot that somebody would create an ice rink for.

And as you mentioned, you spend days there in winter, in the wintertime. Maybe we

can fast forward a bit to secondary education and after that,

and you went to Ryerson, I understand. - I did, I went to Ryerson because it was

the only place at that time where you can get some backgrounding in broadcasting,

and that's why I went there. I only went there for a year before I got my first

job, but it was a good foundation for what I set out to do. - Now, how did you

choose broadcasting? Well, I have to say it sort of chose me in the in those days

in school We had what was called then an occupational guidance teacher and in my

case. It was my Geography class teacher who also specialized in giving advice to

people looking for a career He said to me one day after getting me up to read and

out loud in class He said, you know a personage, which was my real name personage

You've got a good voice. You might think

W

I don't know now, you know, now that I've seen other lawyers at work through my

life. I don't think it would have been a lot of fun, which is what broadcasting

for me was a lot of fun. And no, I'm not sorry that I didn't become a lawyer and

that I did become what I became.

I'm thinking you probably started out the way a lot of radio and TV announcer

broadcasters did starting off in like a small town. I know I did.

It was one station market, that kind of thing. And you hopefully will get into

bigger cities and bigger markets. Is that how you started? That's really how I

started. I started in Stratford, Ontario at a station called CJCS,

I had heard through the grapevine that they were looking for people and looking in

particular for a DJ, so I thought, "Why not try it?" So I called the station and

I talked to the general manager, sales manager, his name was Stan Tapley,

and he and his wife, Gwen, more or less ran the station. They sold the time and

they arranged the schedules and they did everything for, I believe, a man called

Frank Squires who owned the station. So anyway, I went up there, took a bus from

Sarnia, Ontario to Stratford on the Greyhound, got off on the bus and said to

myself, "I don't think this is going to work. I don't want to do this. If I get

turned down, I'll be embarrassed." And then I said to myself, "You come this way.

You might as well go all the way." And I went in and I talked to Stan and I

said, "You know, I'm starting out, I'm looking for something." So he said, "Have you

ever thought of being a DJ?" And I said, "No, I was more like, you know, more

like a news reader or a reporter." He said, "We don't have reporters here."

Everybody reached and he was, "You know, if you're a DJ, you play records, you read

the news. That's what it's like." He said, "If you don't want to do that, and I

guess you have to look somewhere else. So I thought to myself, why not try it? So

I said, okay, Mr. Tapley, I'm your guy. Tell me what you want me to do. So

eventually I ended up being in the morning, DJ playing country music. And I did

that for a couple of years in Stratford with a bunch of really nice guys. And you

know this, it was what we call then Announce -Op Where you did the announcing and

you did the record playing and you and you read the news and you did Commercials

and you did everything in one shift on one program. It was challenging when you're

starting out Wasn't that the the best of times though, you know,

the the small market you get to do everything as you mentioned you do the news you

do DJ you you know, rip and read off the teletype machine.

Rip and read. I haven't heard that in a long time. There you go. And I remember

with my first station, I would, I would actually, I started out in the evening

show. And when the evening show was over, I would actually play God Save the Queen

and then pull the plug out of the wall, the transmitter. And the guy who came in

in the morning, he would plug it back in, right, to start the day.

But wasn't that a fun time, though, when you got to do everything? It was a fun

time, and you learned a lot. You say rip and read, and I love that phrase, "Rip

and read." I learned to read news by ripping and reading, and it stood me in good

stead. But you're right. We did everything. We played music. We did commercials.

We, you know, we did everything but sing. The, I remember even,

you know, you talk about the operating the board and running records and things. I

remember even doing that for, and it was an Italian fellow who would come in and

he do a half hour Italian show, all in Italian. He would, And I would have to try

and anticipate when to start the record, because I don't speak Italian.

Well, I don't either, you know, in any good terms. But when I was with CHML and

Hamilton, I was charged with being the British or English announcer on the foreign

language programs. And I did the same thing on an Italian program, I would always

say one Jordan, no. And then, you know, and then he would take over. And that's

the extent of my Italian, am I right?

Well, DJing, thankfully, I guess, in your mind, it didn't last very long.

You made the switch over, over to news. When did that all happen? That happened in,

in Hamilton at the aforementioned station, C .H .M .L. I was a DJ,

you know, I got to say I wasn't a very good DJ, but I was a DJ. And so I

thought it's time to change this, it's time to do something that I might be able

to do something with. So I went to the news director, his name was Don Johnson,

and I said, Don, look, I'm tired of being a DJ or trying to be DJ. Is there

anywhere in the newsroom I could fit, that I could learn your game. And he said,

you know what, Tony, this is the first time in my career that I've ever had a DJ

come to me and asked to do a job in news. He said, I'm going to take you on.

And he did. And he taught me how to do it. No more rip and read. You had to

make up your own, you know, to type your own use casts. And it was the beginning.

Wow. In those days too. I don't know if it happened at your station there.

I can remember time after time, announcers would try and crack the other announcer

up while he was on the air.

Pulling pranks. You know, I remember, well, Fred Lattrimow, who was a DJ.

I think he tells the story of Bill Goode. I lit his script on fire while he

was... - I was just gonna say that's the story I remember, yeah. - Yeah, but things

like that used to happen all the time, which made it fun, but it was terrifying at

some times. - Yeah, well, you know, the script fire, it happened twice to me.

- Oh. - And the script is literally in flames. But The thing is,

you have to make noise, beating it out and trying to explain to the listeners

what's going on because you're trying to get this fire out. And I say, "Oh, I've

had an accident, but I'm fixing it now," and I put it out. That was a favorite of

most people who wanted a bullet joke. And people, I'm sure listeners are saying,

"Well, how did that script catch on fire? Was he sitting too close to the fire?

No. The other guy would creep into the studio very quietly and strike a match and

set fire and then run. Go. Yeah. And you were left with it. Yeah. Oh, it was

something. I remember in the station in Quinnell, where I started out,

the station manager would always come in and read the 10 o 'clock news. That was

his thing. He just loved to do that. And he did it one night while the Christmas

party was on in the rest of the station. And the sales manager, while he was,

well, the manager was reading the news, the sales manager came in with a pitcher of

beer and poured it over the manager's head while he was reading.

And he didn't, he didn't miss a beat. Like he was one of those old pros. And it

was kind of a badge of courage, I think, if you survived one of those things.

Yeah, we used to have in Hamilton a sportscaster and his first name was Norm,

and I can't remember his last name, but he used to smoke a cigar in the studio

when he was doing his sports cast and guys used to love to go in and butter the

cigar while he was talking and just throw it on the floor and then leave. And

Norm, Norm Marshall was, and he used to get so angry that would come across on the

air that someone had just done something to him and he was upset. And it was, it

was laughable. Wasn't funny, but it was laughable.

You know, the years, uh, back in the years we're talking about as, as your, uh,

career was going on, you, you met up up with some guys that went on to anchor the

news nationally.

Maybe that is because you were working in eastern Canada and that's kind of where

the talent was concentrated in those days. Well, Lloyd Robertson was always sort of

close at hand and a bunch of others. Of course, everyone knows that Peter,

our friend Peter, who went to ABC in the US. Peter Jennings. Peter Jennings was a

Canadian and so many others and I've watched them and I admired them and their

ambition to get down to what is for all of us sort of the shrine of newscasting

down in the States. And I often, I had an offer to go to CNN when it first

started and I turned it down because I didn't think I was ready. But a friend of

mine, Lyndon Soles, ended up with CNN. As far as I know, he's not there anymore.

But those things were happening to Canadians who had the talent to read a news

guest. - You made the switch from radio to television news,

but not as an anchor. You went into TV as a reporter, correct? - I did,

yes. And I thought to myself that I wanted to learn the trade from the outside in

kind of thing. And so I started out as a as a reporter and became not a bad

reporter. I was a good radio reporter and eventually a decent television reporter.

But you know, I had a lot of people along the way who who taught me many things

about the industry and about how to do it, and I'm forever thankful to them.

They just did a great job on me. - You were at CFTO, was it? - Correct, I was

CFTO, mm -hmm. - Yeah, and I did read where you were given the assignment at almost

like a Charles Corralt on the road kind of thing that took you right across Canada.

That must have been fascinating. - It was fascinating. It Um, like I started out on

the trip. I went to Nova Scotia and I started on my way back and stopping in

every province along the way. And, uh, it was a good lesson for me because I

learned to put together my own stories. And I had then a crew, uh,

so there were three of us, sound man, the filmer and myself. And we had,

we would go and dig up local stories that would be interesting to the rest of

Canada. And that's what we did from place to place across the width of Canada. Hmm.

The, um, uh, I was, I was thinking too, um, when you became the,

um, West Coast correspondent for CTV news, I think you, you worked your way into

the West Coast and got very comfortable here. Am I, am I, because you never, you

never left. No, No, I replaced a guy named Casey Baldwin, who at that time was

the, was the CTV, West Coast correspondent and wanted to do something else and so

quit. So I was sent out to replace him. I asked to be sent out to replace him.

And so I did. And what transpired is, BCTV gave me a desk in their newsroom from

which to operate. And I got to know everybody in the newsroom and it became friends

with them and eventually when there came an opening, I think they asked me if I'd

like to move up and do some news casting in BC. And I said, you know,

I'm not enjoying what I'm doing a whole lot. I'm reporting to people back in

Toronto and I don't think they realized what a tough job this can be. So, okay,

sure, I'll try it for a while. And that's when I started. I replaced Robert

Malcolm, who had been doing the newscast up until then, and Cameron Bell, who's a

dear friend and a mentor for me, who had done the newscast before Rob. So I became

the six o 'clock guy and sometimes the 11 o 'clock guy,

sometimes the noon guy. I did a lot and I learned a lot and We're ever thankful

for that. I was thinking back on those days and wasn't Mark Reigns one of the

early anchors? Yes, Mark was a, he was a late night anchor when I arrived and he

worked there a long time. Nice man, extremely intelligent and could put together a

story and nothing. It was just, he just had a knack for it. You know, he was a

great guy. And Robert Malcolm moved from six o 'clock, and then he took over the

11, well, it wasn't 11 o 'clock, it was 1135, was it? Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, he did that, yeah. And Robert then moved away after a while doing that,

moved away to, I believe Edmonton, and he passed away not long ago, is that to

say. Yeah. The, when you were anchoring with,

Well, in the beginning with the news hour, Ray Peters was a big influence in not

only your life, your career, but of BCTV.

He was the man, correct? He was the man, the e -man, and he ran that station like

clockwork. It was just one of the best stations, I think, in Canada. And he made

it that way. And he made us all feel proud of what we were doing and standing by

each other and making BCTV forced to be reckoned with. And Ray was a hands -off guy

as far as the news was concerned. He led us more or less under Cameron Bell's

leadership, do what we thought was best. And I think we proved that we'd have one

of the great shows on my bragging in Canada. It was great. And those were the days

of very healthy budgets. I wasn't there at the time, but from the outside looking

in, I thought, you know, it looks like they have carte blanche for whatever they

want to do, because you were very successful in every move you made. Pretty much

so. And we were given by by repeaters, we were given the go ahead to do whatever

we wanted and spend the money we had to spend to cover the stories. You know,

and I know we took that show on the road so many times in the last few years of

our careers. And it was an attraction for so many people, not just because of the

news, because of the personalities, people like you and Squire and Pamela Martin and

all those guys when we went on the road, we were, um, not quite a circus, but we

were, we were trying, we were traveling output and it was great for them. We were

allowed to do that and, uh, it made its mark on its own. It was good and rape,

it was approved and, uh, we had a great time. Yeah. No, those road trips were

really something. And I, I got a kick out of, because I, you know, I only had a

few minutes of the, of the show, I was able to stand back and, uh,

and watch the expression on people's faces, uh, as you sat there and read the news.

And it was like, they, they, their mouths were just hanging open because they,

here's the guy who's been in our living room for a year after year after year. And

we actually get to see him. And, uh, it was, it was good. It was like, you know,

rock Rockstar stuff, you know. - I suppose it was. Yeah, and it was a great

experience for us to be able to put in ourselves in touch with the audience and

get to know who they were and what they were like and what they liked and what

they didn't like. And they, and every time we went to his I recall, we were

greeted really well and treated really well and we just had a great

Yeah, we, you know, doing that show on the road was an experience for all of us.

And, and it paid off. Uh, yeah. The, um, you mentioned a few of the names while

we have, we've been mentioning names all along, but, uh, uh, let's throw a few

names out there and, and just see for years, um, the team of, of you and Bernie

Pascal and Norm Groman, uh, that went on year after year after year.

Tell us a little bit about Bernie. He did an awful lot in his career.

He did. I first met Bernie when I was working in Toronto, and he was already

making his mark there. And then he came to be CTV for whatever reason. But he made

it his own. He made that sports cast his own, and he's a great contributor in

terms of the entire show. His portion, was very, very well done. And he was just a

really nice guy with a great family. And his family were all on the border of

sports at one time or another. But he was the sports caster of note in those days.

And just as the Norman Groman was before Fred and before you,

Norman was there doing radio as well at the same time in the mornings. And he

established quite a nice record for weather forecasting. I think he was there quite

a while, but he was there before I was. And he was just great at what he did,

as you were. Yeah, well, Norm was, I think, certifiably insane, I think at some

time.

And I say

He had, he had such a, uh, a sense of humor and, uh, well,

all I can remember is him getting dressed up in hallow, every Halloween with some

crazy costume and sometimes even in a dress. I think, didn't he? Uh, he did drag.

You know, the other, uh, name I want to throw at you too is Pamela Martin. Oh

Pamela, she was a blessing. She was good at what she did. A fine anchor with a

great background, good writer, well met with everybody she ran across when she went

on those trips of us. She was the most popular, I think, of all the people on

that road. And she was just terrific and great to work with, pleasant.

And I was sorry to see her go. Sorry to see her go when she went elsewhere.

And she was a Trailblazer, too. I can remember when she first arrived on the scene

from, from, I was it Minnesota or Michigan or something like that?

- She was a former Miss America, as I recall. And I know she was from some

American state, but I'm not sure which one. - I remember she came through,

well, I was working at CK &W radio, and and she came through there. I think she

was there for about 15 seconds before BCTV snatched her up because,

I mean, she had it all. She had the education, she had the talent, she had great

looks for television. And yeah, she was out the door and off into the BCTV studios

before before we even got to Hello. Yeah. Yeah. She was poised.

She's always there. Yeah. She was one of the first women on the air,

either radio or TV. In those days, it was predominantly a male occupation.

Yeah. And women did women things like women's editor, travel notes or something like

that. They They were never into hard, they never brought into hard news the way

Pamela was. - Yeah. And, you know, we can't go any further when we're naming names,

we can't leave out Deb Hope.

- Blessed Deb. Yeah, that was the last time you and I met was at her Celebration

of Life event. And I miss her to this day. And I never had much contact with her

in her final years, but she was one of the great contributors to, as you say,

women in television. She did her own show, she directed it almost, wrote most of

it, and brought it on the air every day, and she would do anything to beat you to

a story, or beat any competitor to a story, and most often did just that. She

contributed so much. - And she worked so hard. I think she was the hardest working

person in that newsroom. I would wall sin there at some ungodly hour and she had

already been there for four or five hours before I would even get there. And as

you say, writing her own and she contributed a lot too to the SPCA was

Uh, that's right. Yeah. Order of the SPCA. I think she started, didn't she start

that adopt, uh, adopt a pet? Yeah. That was big for her. That was, uh,

an effort she gladly, uh, put into, and, uh, and she got good results. They were

happy with her. And, uh, I don't think there's anybody else doing it right now who

did it as well as she did, she loved animals and she, and she loved people. She

should love what you did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we miss her. Absolutely. Absolutely. You

know, we talk about BCTV's news hour and how successful it was. I do remember at

one point you could take the ratings of CBC and at that time CKVU and CTV put the

six o 'clock ratings, add those all together And still, PCTV in the news hour was

head and shoulders above that number. It was one of the most successful news

operations in all of North America at that certain time. It was, yes.

And it was because of contributions like yours and, again,

Deb's and so many other people. I think of John Daley, Brian Coxford, I think of

Harvey Overfeld, just so many people who, who made it a team,

made it work and worked hard for it to be successful, not for their own good,

but for the good of the show. And that, and that's how it turned out. Yeah. And

there was a time there, maybe it was after the, it was after the newspaper strike

that the news hour hired a Newspaper people that's correct.

Yes Harvey. Oh, it wasn't Harvey. Harvey was yeah, and I'm I think Jen I'm not

sure about this, but I think Jim Hart was and You're right so many other people

John Daley had worked in newspapers Um, yeah, and you know all that and there were

some there are still some people left there now Reporters that were there when I

was there when you were there and they're all doing so well and they're all

enjoying himself still. And I think it still comes from that, that you mentioned

earlier about you hire someone and then you stand back and let them do what they

know how to do. And no one, I don't think anyone ever interfered with what I was

doing. Did they interfere with what you were doing? No, not at all. I mean, it was

that kind of operation and somebody smartly decided that at the very beginning, that

let them go, let them do what they do, let them do what you hired them for. And

that was the, that was the credence. And that's how it worked. And Cameron Bell

will tell you that if you sat him down today over a beer and talked about it, he

would say, you know, Keith Bradbury and myself, we saw what we were creating,

but we were letting other people create it as well. So that's how it worked.

Cameron as the news director, I think he was responsible for the idea of reporters

writing to an image as opposed to doing it the other way around,

where images to the script kind of thing. The editor would put the story together

the way they saw it, and then the reporter would write the story to those pictures,

correct? That's right. And that's how it worked. And I learned that when I arrived

there that that's how they did it and it Accurred to me at the time. That's right.

Why why haven't we been doing it in the ctv all these you know You you do exactly

what you just said you get an editor to cut it and then you write to the cut No,

this is you know, if you're if you're out taking pictures like we did in those

days and you you and you get film when you get an event on film, it makes sense

to cut the film to transmit what you saw when you were out there.

And then you add a script. It seems so simple when you think about it. Yeah, yeah,

and it worked. It did, absolutely. The other thing too is the consistency and

reliability that the news hour offered to viewers in that,

I'll just throw out an example, a slide on the highway to Whistler,

you would hear about it on the radio, but when you got home, you would go to BCTV

because you knew they had the helicopter up in the sky, you get aerial views of

it, always on the story of the day. It was dependable. Yes,

that's a good word for it. People would tune in because of exactly what you said

they knew they would see what they'd been hearing about all day when they got home,

it was there for them and that's what they, that's what they went home for on a

lot of times. And nowadays, I mean, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. You know, you

can tune in 10 channels and they get the same thing. Yeah, it's different now.

There was, I just remembered a feature that the news are had on that I loved.

And it was, I guess, maybe he just got old, but it was that one where you had a

microphone, a camera, and I think there was a sign and it said, "You can say

anything you want." Do you remember that feature? I remember the feature. And I

thought at the time, "Boy, that's taking a chance." But it worked.

It attracted people and they liked to see themselves, you know, on the TV every

night or some night. And that's why it worked because people have, you know,

aspirations to be TV people, I guess, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we were

naming names and good grief. I got to smack myself up the side of the head. We

didn't, we didn't mention the name Squire Barnes. He's, he's just one of the best.

I'll tell you a funny story. And we could edit this out out if anyone disapproves

of the telling. I was working with a guy doing weekend producing,

and at the time, Squire had finished, I think, a radio stint, and he was looking

for work in television.

And I think he was looking around for something in television. But our station

manager at the time said to all of us, do not under any circumstances hire Squire

Barnes. He's just not good enough for us. He's just, you know, he doesn't know what

he's doing. He's not good enough. Well, apparently the weekend producer hadn't heard

this and guess who he hired. No, he hired Squire to do weekend sports.

Right. Okay. Two weeks later, station manager comes down and says, I don't know who

did that hiring of Squire Barnes. Best idea you've ever had. And Squires,

everyone knows, went on to be pretty sensational. And he's still going. Oh,

yeah. I remember it was kind of funny because I had just been hired to do the

Saturday morning show, the weather on the Saturday morning with Jennifer Mayther, now,

of course, now Jennifer Burke And Bernie Pascal, John McKeechi and Barry Hulhan,

they were doing the sports on the Saturday morning news and they would each take a

weekend, they'd revolve around it. And then all of a sudden,

Squire arrived on the scene. And it was kind of funny because I was only there one

day a week. Squire was only there one day a week and we had other, we had other

gigs that we put together a paycheck, you know, commercials and do other other

things. So I think, I'll have to talk to him about it, but I think we both went

there saying, well, well, if they don't like us, they'll fire us and it's all,

we're only losing one day work of work, right? So, so we did,

I think we did come in with a bit of a cavalier attitude and maybe I don't know,

sometimes the look on your face made me think, oh my God, what are these guys

doing? But anyway, we kind of kept it loose,

I think.

And Squire, you never know what he's going to say and what he's going to do, but

you're right. top notch. Yeah, absolutely. And Bernie was very proud of his sports

department. And they all did a good job. Hulahan was great. And Mckitchie was a

case, but he was always good at what he did.

And that's what it was all about, you know. Yeah. Mckitch had that little black

book that he had phone numbers, I think of every dressing room of every NHL team.

- That's right. - And if anything happened anywhere, McKeechie seemed to have the

phone number. - Great connection. He was a connection guy and he did a lot of that.

You know, it was fun, fun, fun. - I don't know if people ask you, but people ask

me and I can never think of them, but people say, oh, you know, got any favorite

bloopers or any gaffes, Uh, I could never really remember any because we were always

doing things live. And if it was the blooper, it came and it went and he didn't,

he didn't harp on it at all. But, uh, I remember Bill Good one time, uh, when he

was doing, uh, was it called Canada tonight? Wasn't it? Yes, it was. It was at

530, I believe. 530. Yeah. Uh, there was the early news and 530 Bill would come on

and then you would come on at six. But I remember we were sitting watching him in

the newsroom and he was doing this story about Abba. And as he was doing the

introduction to the story, he said, "And the Jewish group Abba." And we looked at

each other going, "The Jewish Yeah, we immediately went over to the computer and

looked at the script the script had the Swedish group now, of course, right? There's

Swedish, not Jewish.

Yeah. And afterwards he came off the set and we were still laughing and he was,

what's going on? He said, the Jewish group Abba? He says, what are you talking

about? He says, that's what you called them. No, I didn't. Well, no, Bill, you did.

No, I didn't. So we had to march him back into the back room and rewind

or whatever. But it was always a technical thing. And that's what I remember. But,

you know, a mic that failed or a camera that failed. And I was going through one

night, I recall this. And we had no end of problems. We started out with problems.

We had no end of problems. And the last thing that occurred to me was to say, as

we leave the air that night, this has not been our finest

And that's how I remember it. That's a great take on, on one of the slogans of

BCTV's finest hour. Exactly. Yeah. Um, gotta, gotta talk to you about this because,

uh, people, well, it's probably the most famous dog in all of British Columbia, uh,

Charlie the dog who would, would be, uh, under your desk every night.

And I remember, I think they were from Texas, some consultants came to town and

they had a meeting with the news director at the time and said, "He's got a dog

under the desk." And the news director, "Yeah, yeah, he's got a dog under the desk.

He can't have a dog under the desk." And the news director said, "Would you like

to see the ratings?" And I'll bet you, I'll veggie these consultants to the next

city they went to. They said, "What this newsroom means is a dog unto the dead."

That's true. Right. Well, Charlie was a bit of a freak in that sense. He was a

rescue dog, Cocker Spaniel, and I can't remember how it would occur to me to take

him on the set. He used to come to my office and sit with me most of the day.

And started to think, you know, I don't lock him in the office even for an hour.

So I said, why don't you come with me? And he patted along behind and it was

almost natural with him. He just got to the set, jumped up, laid down, went to

sleep. Seven o 'clock, I get up, he gets up, and we go home. And it lasted for a

long time. And Charlie was a fan favorite, as they say. Yeah, he was well They

never, who tried to make him bark? Oh, Mike McCartle, McCartle was playing a stunt.

We talked about stunts. McCartle was playing a stunt. He would sneak in, he did

sneak in at the end of the newscast and he tried to make Charlie bark and Charlie

was having none of it. He just turned his head and went the other way. But Mike

had a bone or something in his hand and he was waving it at the dog and hoping

the dog would bark and then he'd have a story to tell about the dog under the

desk. Didn't happen, didn't happen. Charlie said, "Hey, I'm here because I want to

be here." Now, was it Charlie or was it Jack,

your other dog, that would bark at the doorbell? That's right. Jack was Jack. Yeah,

that was the one thing that would disturb him, is the sound of a doorbell. And he

would bark and he would let His presence to be known and you stay away from here

because you're not allowed to come in here anyway and don't ring that bell because

it just disturbs things. And so he had that kind of attitude. Yeah. I remember too,

you know, we talked about taking the show on the road and there was a horrible

night in Vernon. Now, was that Charlie or Jack that went missing?

That was Charlie went missing, you know. Yes. And I, we were hunting all over town

looking for him. And I forget, whoever found him knew who he was and brought him

back to us. And I was so grateful because I didn't, you know, he didn't know

Vernon from Collingwood. You know, he could have gotten lost quite easily, but they

bought him back and they knew who he was. - Yeah. - Having watched him on the air.

- Yeah, no, I remember

My take on that one was someone left the door, just a little, a jar. I think we

were in a, um, like a theater, uh, school theater or something like that.

Yeah. Anyway, it was a theater and because there are cables running in and out, uh,

the door was left to jar a little bit and Charlie went for a little walk and, and

partway through his, where's Charlie? Where's Charlie? Where's Charlie? And then all

the panic stations and, uh, Because we didn't want Charlie out, as you say, he

didn't know Vernon and the RCMP were alerted and they were searching for him.

And I think we mentioned it on air and someone watching the news hour looked out

the window and who's walking by was, but oh, that looks like Charlie. That's right.

I remember. And brought him back, but it was a great relief to have him back in

the fold. Oh, know more than I was, boy. You know, he was my pal.

Boy, was he ever, you know, the BCTV global days were so good for you.

And, uh, and there came a time then you said, well, I guess that'll be about it.

And, uh, and, uh, you decided to hang it up there for about 30 seconds because

then then you, uh, you went to, was it CBC first or check first?

No, I went to check first and they had, um, just been sold, I think,

and, and bought by the employees and my career at BCV was just ending.

I had been retired and they came and, uh, they did the overture and I said,

and they said, uh, you know, you're not ready to retire yet. I was 75, why don't

you come and work for us. I mean, you know, you can be a part owner and you can,

we'll pay you this much and so on and so forth. So I said, okay, sure, why not?

That'll be fun. And what happened then was Johnny Michelle, who was the local CBC

chief of staff at the news operation, came into check and said to them,

we'd like to have Tony read our newscast with Gloria

Macarenco, glory Macarenco. Yeah. So, um, check came to me and said,

would you do that? And I said, yeah, sure. Yeah. I don't mind doing it.

Well, what they had to do was, you know, I would do a show in, in a check or

rather at CBC, then I would get on a plane and fly back to Victoria or the other

way around. I think it's the other way around. I went from Victoria to Vancouver to

do work for the CBC. Then I would get on a plane and I'd go back to Victoria

that night and do the late news on check. So I had these two jobs going with me

every day until I finally decided I would get an apartment in Vancouver for the

week and not be so hard on myself. And that's what happened. And I, you know,

I enjoyed all those experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed. - How long did that go on?

I can't remember. - Three years. - Three years? - Yep. - Well, how about we shift

into things that people may not know about Tony Parsons? Do you still play classical

guitar? - I still have them. I don't play them as much as I used to. I, you know,

and I really enjoyed what I did and how I did it. And, you it. I was self

-taught. I took maybe one listen to begin with, but I was self -taught and I loved

to just tinker and I did that a lot when I was living alone in Vancouver to do

the CBC show. But no, not much anymore. Golf is my passion right now or past time.

That's impression. Yeah. And it's, I don't know, I see it as such a wonderful

opportunity for you and your lovely wife Tammy and something the two of you can do

together and enjoy and and she's a very good golfer she is her dad was a very

good golfer his name was Dick Munn perhaps golf fans know about him and his

accomplishments and Tammy she doesn't play as much anymore but she can still play

and she played well you're Right. She was a very good player. Yeah. And life in

the Okanagan is good. Nothing better. I, uh, I always, you know, at the end of a

day or middle of the day, whatever it is, I look outside and see you all the,

uh, the things around me. And I think to myself, where would I rather be? No,

nowhere. I just love Kelowna and the people. Yeah. Yeah. The, um,

Yeah, I guess we could go into a couple other things that people might not know

about you. Do you still dabble a little bit in your toy soldier,

the lead soldier collection? I still have the lead soldier collection. It's not

prominently displayed, but I still have it and I still think about it. And it's

still a value to me. And it's one of those things I picked up when I was a child

in England.

Then in that generation, toy soldiers were the big deal. And so I picked up on

that, and that's how I got to do the collection I have now.

- And I think once you told me, people kept giving you teddy bears or something, or

what was that all about? - For the life of me, I still don't know. They would come

with a teddy bear and give me a teddy bear, and I would say, "Oh gee, thanks."

(laughing) - Oh gee, thanks. I always wanted a teddy bear, but I,

you know, like, I, I must have said something. I must have said something that

somebody misconstrued because I have a fairly sizeable collection of teddy bears.

Anytime you want a teddy bear, let me know.

And well, well, it's not a hobby. I don't know if you still are, but but for a

time you were part owner of a hockey team. - I was, I was part owner of a hockey

team with my friends, the-- - The Moscones. - The Moscones, yes, but they bought the

team and invited me to spend some money and become a backer as well, so I did.

And that led to us sharing ownership in a restaurant called the Poor Italian,

which still operates without me and without my input. But those are the two things

the Moscone's got me into. And we had a good time. They're good at what they do.

And they're good at that kind of thing. And the poor Italian has a great

reputation. Yeah. The Moscone's are quite the characters. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh,

boy.

Great Italians. Just great Italians. I remember being at your wedding at,

I because it was Sandy's house. Sandy's house. Sandy Moscone's house. Yeah. Yeah. And

that was quite an event. That was, that was lots of fun. Yeah. They did it up

really nice for us. It was great. Nice people. And I, you know, I don't think,

maybe you don't want to talk about it, but the Columbia connection. When you, didn't

you have a little foray into the motion picture business? And, um,

yeah, I did. Yeah. As an actor. How did that ever come about? How did that come

about? I was just asked. I was approached. I think the first job I did was in

Hamilton with somebody. And then with Sean Penn, it was asked to be in a movie

they were making in BC. So I was asked to be part of that. And there was one

other role, which is I played of all things, a the news reporter talk about

typecasting and I did that and I've done a few and they just walk -ons you know

mostly yeah yeah you know the back in the day we were talking about in the

introduction actually that people would come home at six o 'clock and they would turn

on the TV and they would get their news and most people got it from you and BCTV

and the news hour. That was, do they call that appointment TV where you actually

set time aside, Ed Sullivan would be on a certain time. The news hour would be on

a certain time. Now, it's so different. You can watch the news hour,

I think, any time of the day or night on the internet. And Where does that put

six o 'clock newscasts nowadays? Is that almost a thing of the past?

- I would think so. It's not as prominent as it used to be. I mean, there were so

many ways to get news these days that one program like our news hour wouldn't make

a whole lot of difference. And every major news outlet has a streaming service or

something going for it. You can go home at any time of the day and get and get

news up to date and you can watch it at, you know, MSNBC, CNN, Fox,

and so on and so on and so forth. So I, my estimation is that it is not the way

news used to be to most watchers. They had to set time, as you said, at six o

'clock, they would turn the set on and they would watch for an Now, you know, you

can go home any time of the day, as I say, and watch news if you want to. And

then the same with sports. You can do any kind of sports going on with all the

TSN channels and so on and so forth. So there's a lot out there to watch. And I

often think that with the supper hour sports, you know, you can see highlights all

day long. And so I think what Squire is doing these days is trying to keep it as

local as possible and even some feature stories on local sports happenings and maybe

that's the way it can survive is keep it local because you can get everything else,

you know, all day long. And I think you might be right. I think that's the way to

do it because, you know, if I want to watch a ball game, which I don't wear

often, I know where to go, I got it to your son or some other. And if I want

local news, like Squire does, then he's the only source I have. You know,

when I think back on your career, I often think back to your parents and even

think of my parents, sometimes my choice of occupation and were they happy

your choice of getting into radio and television and, or would they rather have seen

you, as you mentioned, maybe want to be a lawyer or a doctor or something else?

- Well, I'll tell you this. My father never understood what I did as a broadcaster.

I may, as far as I am, may have never seen me or never listened to me. My

mother, she sort of thought that, you know, kids are going his own way and he's

doing okay, so letting go. My dad was, I think, upset that I didn't achieve some

prominence in the law. Not that he was a lawyer in any sense, but he considered

that to be a stable occupation, but he didn't know what a broadcaster was.

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It was a different era for him. Hmm. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, there's no question that you, uh, you were our Walter Cronkite.

Thank you. Our most trusted man. Yeah. Oh, that's nice to say.

Well, thank you for bringing so many years of, uh, of enjoyment and, and information

and bringing us the news. And now you're onto a different form of communication with

your, uh, your podcast that's Tony Parsons show. And, um, uh,

and you're gonna be sharing stories with others for the next little while. And I

wish you all a success. And as I said at the very beginning, thank you very much

for having me on here and playing a little musical chairs where you get to answer

the questions, not to ask them. - Oh, it was fun for me, thank you. And it's so

good to see you. And anytime you want a place to do a podcast, give me a call

and we'll get together again. - You're on. You're on.

Thank you for tuning in to The Tony Parsons Show, recorded and produced by Mike

Peterson at 85 Audio in Kelowna, British Columbia. To learn more about today's guest,

please visit our website at www .thetonyparsonsshow .com. You can reach Tony directly

via email at info @thetonyparsonsshow .com. If you're enjoying the podcast,

We would greatly appreciate your support. Please consider leaving us a five -star

rating or review on your streaming platform of choice. Join us again next week for

a new episode featuring Peter Mansbridge.