Doug Collins

@ get this straight ®

ONE DAWN about 15 years ago | found myself in a
remote Ontario field, about to go up in a hot-air balloon.
Such daftness wasn’t my idea, but the producer of the
television program for which | toiled used a bit of bottle-
persuasion, and when the great morning came [ didn't have

the courage to say no.

The captain of the balloon was
Ray Munro, the most spectacular
character 1 have ever met. So t
couldn't bring myself to walk
away from his infernal, fragile,
four-storey high and evilly-hissing
machine claiming | had a slight
headache.

If you are of a certain age you
will know that in the days before
newspaper reporting became a
pansy nine-to-five job dominated
by girls, Ray was the greatest
reporter on the West Coast or any
other coast. He was a Gene Kini-
ski of the ink, so to speak. Big
news followed him like a faithful

A dog.

His exploits are legendary.

When the Vancouver Daitv Pro-

| vince didn’t have the balls to print
his stuff about the corrupt Van-
couver police force of that day —
top cops were taking payoffs from
the gambling syndicates — he
quit his job, joined Flash
Magazine, the sex-and-crime jour-
nal, and got the material to the
public that way.

A commission of inquiry w -.
set up, one policeman blew his
brains out, another tried to and
Police Chief Walter Mulligan fled
to the United States. Munro was
vindicated in every way, and Jack
Webster made his name by giving
daily verbatim reports on radio of
the hearings.

The star of the show had been a
Spitfire pilot during the war, and
as a pilot-reporter for the Pro-
vince Was something out of Ben
Hecht’s The Front Page. He once
took the role of reporter Hilby
Johnson in a Vancouver produc-
tion of that play, but didn’t have
to do much acting.

One of his great scoops was the
Stanley Park Caper. There had
been a number of more-than-
usually disgusting gang rapes in
the park, and for some reason

‘Mulligan was keeping quiet about
them.

Munro got wind of what was
going on, and he and Don
Maclean, another gutsy reporter,
spent night after night in a parked
car pretending to be a loving cou-
ple. MacLean was ‘dressed in
women’s clothes complete with a
pair of magnificent falsies, and
eventually the gang of rapists took
the bait. The reporters jumped
them (Munro had a gun) justice
was done, and another great story
hit the streets.

Lite in Vancouver became too
Juil for Ray. Or it may have been
that he was too hot for the papers
to handle. He went East, took a
job as a managing editor, gave
that up in disgust, and turned into
a kind of soldier of fortune.

He rescued downed flyers in the
Arctic. He also became an expert
parachutist and the first in the

world to doa drop in the area of
the North Pole. biis eyelids fraze
logether on the way down and he
had to guess when to open the
“chute and halt his free-fall, it not
being possible to Coat down the
whole way without turning
himself into a block of ice. He
also made the front pages in the
U.K. when he became the first
baloonist to conquer the Irish
Sea, a feat that nearly did him in.

When | met him for the balloon
flight, he had not long arrived in
Ontario from Quebec, where he
had been running an aerial survey
firm, Even in those pre-Levesque
times he couldn't get the Quebec
government io communicate with
him in English. So he fired his
staff, wound up his company,
took off for white man's country,
and settled in the first village he
came to over the Qubec-Ontario
border. Ray was a strictly pre-
Wimpland Canadian, you
understand.

I mention all this now because a
couple of weeks ago a friend gave
me a book that I didn’t know
about. It was The Sky’s No Limit,
the autobiography of Raymond
Z. Munro, published in 1985. It's
a fascinating read.

The balloon ride? We ascended
to 5,000 feet, drifted along lonely
as a cloud for an hour, and hit
terra firma firmly without break-
ing our necks. Captain Ray then
broke out the champagne and we
toasted the good guys.

There was no need to worry
about crashing, because as so-
meone said later, with Munro and
me in the same bag, there would
never be a shortage of hot air.

9 ~ Friday, September 12, 1986 - North Shore News

MARINE CARGO CONTAINER ©
OWNERSHIP FOR LEASING YIELDS 14%

Ownership of registered Marine Cargo Containers provides
private individuals with the opportunity to earn lease income
in $US., paid quarterly. An annual fixed rate of return of 14%, plus
tax advantages. Minimum ownership, 2 containers.

To put your money to work today, call or write:

ic S international Container Sales Ltd.

TORONTO: Ste 1110-70 University Avenue © VANCOUVER: #501 - 221 W Esplanade, North
Toronty, Gataria M5J 264 {416} 591-7895 — Vancouver B.C. 7M 3J3 (604) 980-6524

Canada’s Leader in Marine Cargo Container Sales
Name

Address

Local businesses mingle

From Page 8
estimated 80 per cent fail, Strachan
attributes his company’s success to
competitive service and a small
profit margin.

Entrepreneur Markus Marx,
North Shore franchiser for Omni
Guard Alarms Ltd., said he made
some good connections at the net-
working event and plans to display
his service at the next meeting set
for early November.

Marx says his alarm system puts
an end to false alarms. ‘‘Eighty per
cent of alarms are false because of
stone age technology. Police are
reluctant to respond because of
false alarms. Our system eliminates
the problem.”

Harry Porter, printing consul-
tant with Northside Print Service
Ltd. in North Vancouver, said it
was his company’s third time out
with a display. His company’s
printing contracts include work for
North Vancouver City and
District.

WATCH
YOUR DIET

For information
on how the
YMCAcan
improve your
lifestyle call;
681-0223

“The Best You Can Do For You"”

“We've had great response. The
last time we made 100 orders easily
from people who met us at our
display table,’’ said Porter.

Business After Business orga-
nizer Fyfe Brown says the event
has broadened its scope this time
around.

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WIST VANCOUVER

SUNDAY + WEONESOAY + FRIDAY

In 1969 you received the first’

issue of the

North Shore’

Shopper. Since then the name
__ has changed but the goal is the
same: to bring the finest quality
“suburban newspaper to the
people of the North Shore.
Were proud to be part of this
community and committed to
bring you the best!

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

City

Phone - Bus.:

oyetZy vec:

v7

1139 LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER

985-2131