Nine Lies of B.G. Davies

Confederation Avenue

In memory of Stuart McLean

Everyone regards Allen Elliott as a national treasure. There is no voice more recognizable, no intonation and inflection more distinct, no phrasing more personal than that of Allen Elliott. Canada's storyteller, they call him. The voice of the nation.



While his story is well-known among the last few generations of Canadians, my story wouldn't be complete without a passing mention of the history of the man behind the voice. 

You see, Allen Elliott got his start as an announcer on the local radio station in Hamilton, Ontario, long before my time. Every Christmas Eve he would read from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", and families would pour themselves some eggnog, gather round the radio and listen to him recite the Christmas classic, or so my parents told me. There was something about the way his voice—a little more nasal than it is now—would string together the phrases. It was as though (and here he would pause)—hanging a piece of tinsel on the tree; (another pause, but shorter) he would pull an arm's length at a time,(pause) reach up (a slight upward inflection here) and leaning into the tree, (pause) gently let the tinsel fall onto the boughs, (pause) careful not to disturb the decorations already in place. (Then, after a long decrescendo, he would pause even longer, leaving the listener staring at the floor, imagining flecks of silver at their feet.)

It is this phrasing, the rhythm, which gives Allen Elliott his distinct voice and ultimately, brought him to a national audience. But it wasn't as an announcer that Elliott made his way into the car radios, portable transistor radios, and our parents' bedside clock radios. It was as Allen Elliott, the storyteller. We all know, the magic is in his voice.



Let's not discount his writing, though. His stories are like a Norman Rockwell painting, but Canadian. Stories of a simpler time, but of the present. Of rural simplicity, but in the city. Lake Wobegon, but in Toronto. His characters, every one of them, have in them the Universal Goodness. They are loveable, yet blundering: that's where the drama comes from. Like the time when Michael wanted to celebrate their anniversary by cooking Margo a nice dinner (Margo even left a book of matches from their wedding reception on the kitchen table as a reminder) but, still, somehow, Michael managed to get stuck behind Mr. Clumpkie's furnace, trying to find Clumpkie's lucky golf ball and, well, if he didn't get to Ralph's Meats until after it closed, so, Michael thought he would make it up to Margo by getting one of Gretta's homemade pies. But, wouldn't you know, he thought that it was already cooked!

Imagine, a story like this—and there were so many others—being read out loud by Elliott, the writer, in his unmistakable voice, just after the News at Noon. No matter what war or grief or hardship was going on in the world of the News at Noon, Allan Elliott would lift us away from all that, away from our fear and anxiety, and place us gently in the middle of the street, in his world, on Confederation Avenue.

I came to understand the true magic of Allen Elliott the day I had to take a bus to Sudbury for my uncle's funeral. I remember staring in the window of a small bookstore in Barrie, Ontario, looking for something to keep me entertained during the four-hour trip. On display was the book, Stories from Confederation Avenue by Allen Elliott. Confederation Avenue was the name of Allen Elliot's radio show on our Canadian public broadcaster and this book was the first in a series of published versions of Elliotts' stories. The cover art, a folksy painting of an old neighbourhood street scene, was enlarged on the display panel. Above was a picture of the author. It was the first time I ever saw a photograph of Mr. Elliott. In fact, I had never even given any thought to how he might look. To me, Allen Elliott looked like the black speaker grille on my grandparent's cottage radio and had the decal 'Philips" above him, or like the wood-grain facade of my dad's station wagon dashboard, where the radio dial was permanently fixed on the local C.B.C. affiliate. So to see a physical representation of the voice was, well, a little disturbing. Almost sacrilegious. Allen Elliott looked like a man, a normal guy in a crinkled shirt with glasses and a smile. The kind of guy who would own a used bookstore, like Michael did on Confederation Avenue.