4 - Wednesday, January 13, 1993 - North Shore News |

arjorie Nichols lived under the volcano

STRICTLY PERSONAL

EDIDN’T get around to
reading Marjorie Nichols’
memoirs until 1 happened to
‘be recovering from an
operation.

The book is called Afark My
Words. It's an excellent but
troubling footnote to history, for:
the glimpse it offers a jot of us of
ourselves,

Being in a hospital set me up ¢
perfectly for empathizing with
Marjorie’s final days. Also, it was
overcast outside, Winter had set
in. Darkness fell early.

Ina way, that sums up Mar-
jorie’s story, at least the way it is
presented.

From birth, according to her
co-author, Jane O'Hara, Marjorie
was ‘‘an infant tyrant who -
demanded attentiua, defied
authority and fought with anyone
who got in her way.’

Her own brother i ~uoted as

- saying: “She was a wiid kid, tere

ribly, absolutely nuts. My parents
just couldn't handle her. She and
Dad were always at, war. Everyone
in our. family was pretty well
‘scared of her."

As with her family (she was the
‘oldest of five kids), so it was with
the legislature in’ Victoria and —
Parliament Hill itself.

Marjorie was one of those types
that are always somehow tying
themselves up,in.an awful Nietz-.
schean knot, the day not having
~ been worth living unless they * |
“denied themselves something, or
triumphed over themselves in
some way. The worst part is, all

this can be quite unconscious.

Driven, these kind of people put
themselves through an awful lot
of unnecessary grief.

Poor Marjorie, | knew her in
the early “70s, when she was
covering the legislature for the
Sun,

Our paths didn’t cross all that
much. She was away a lot in Vic-
toria. | was out on my farm in
Richmond, writing books, drop-
ping columns off only when I had
to.

Besides, we didn’ " really speak
ihe same language. | was into the
U Ching, throwing, yarrow sticks,
while she was going through the
results of political polls with a
steely pen.

-As a good journalist, she was
pitiless and ruthless. And because
her whole life was her work —
something she bragged about —
she was probably a little more
willing than most to carve up
other people’s carcers,

To have power you've really goi -

to use it. Otherwise it's like the
tree falling in the forest with no
one hearing. Marj had it.

She used it,

Mostly we met at the Press
Club on Granville. She never,
struck me then as an alcoholic any
more so than the rest of us. [t was
a heavy-drinking milieu, with a
lot of boisterousness, people
slamming inoney down on the
bar, card games, darts, and nearly
everyone, smoking cigarettes.

Majorie could trade verbal shots
with anybody in the joint, and
always get the last jab in.

She was enormously admired

- for this. Her voice was husky,

even then, from all the cigarettes.
‘ She had most of the males fair-

ly intimidated. You didn’t cross
Marj.

1 was lucky. 1 think she liked
me. In any event, she didn’t ver-
bally beat me up too much in
public, the way she did some
other guys.

Having probably done more to
ruin Dave Barrett’s life than any
other single person, she was off
triumphantly by the mid-’70s
back to Ottawa, where she con-
sidered the action to be.

After { had quit the Sun and
gone to work full-time for
Greenpeace, Marj generously
made her place in Ottawa avail-
able whenever | needed a place to
crash while in the capital harass-
ing bureaucrats and politicians.

She was generous, a terrific
hostess.

It’s a rather strange sensation
reading a book by a person you
know who has died.

Marj’s book was done in the

teeth of her imminent death, And

as | read it, | can hear her voice.

J had no idea that she was in
fact a bona fide alcoholic.

The only novel she could relate
to was Malcolm Lowry's Under
The Volcano,

She did most of her newspaper
work, slie admits in her book,
while drinking.

She did most of her reporting
between nips at a bottle, She did

everything, aftera while, while.

drunk.

Marjorie was a gung ho jour.
nalist, a consumate political
junkie, and, of course as it turns

out, a nicotine and alcohol junkie.

Her book makes ‘no botes
about any of this. I’m nat quite

sure what it says about the rest of
us who were hanging out in more ,’

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or less that same circle that we
didn’t notice. Or didn’t see any-
thing wrong.

When Marjorie died hist year of

-fung cancer, she was only 49.

She was killed, of course, by
the tobacco industry, the legal
death merchants.

My only criticism of Marjorie's
last-minute reporting job on her
own life — writing, as she always
had, against a deadline, in this
case a literal one.— is that she
was much too harsh on herself.

She did, after all, beat the
booze, just as she eventually got
off the weed, although, of course,
so far as her lungs were concern-

ed, It was too bloody late. ;

While we are offered glimpses
of Marjorie'’s toughness, her uri-
willingness to compromise, her
bullying techniques, her sometimes
awesome indifference to the ef-
fects of her hard-hitting columns, |
and yes, we get a taste of her raw:
intelligence, we do not once see
the Marjorie | remember, who ;
(drunk or sober, never mind) had:
a fabulous, rip-roariny, sense of | |
humor.

She could make you laugh until *
your guts split. Let’s not forget ..'
she was a funny, funny lady. A
jewel of wit. Snuffed by nicotine. ©:

Hii. CLOTHING © co.

j
: “Laid off” ane | thought that ‘was something that « nagpened tor:
“ other people. At first I was devastated. Then I got it together and
went into my Canada Employment Centre. I figured they could
_ find mea job. ;
me But J was wrong. They don't find jobs aiiy more - * they help
people | find jobs for themselves. I worked with a counsellor, one- :
.., oM-one, , and in group sessions with people who were as surprised
‘as ] was to find themselves in this situation. °
Turns out my interests, and aptitudes; were ina totally
c ‘different line of work. With the right training and temporary
financial assistance, 1 found the best job I've ever had.
I walked into my Canada Employment Centre to find a
; job. Whar | really found was myself:

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