Remembrance Day Address
November 11, 2010

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the most solemn event in the Hillfield Strathallan College calendar, our annual Remembrance Day Service.  As we come together to honour Canada’s war dead, we remember the Fallen—the 47 HSC alumni who lost their lives in the two World Wars. We are indebted to them and to all who served in defense of our country and in defiance of tyranny. We also remember the many Canadian men and women currently serving overseas, particularly our troops in Afghanistan, where over one hundred Canadians have died since our efforts began.

We are honoured, this morning, to be joined by a number of Old Boys and Old Girls, who are our direct connection to the era where Canada defined itself as a country whose courage would come to be recognized worldwide. Their presence also reminds us that the HSC community consists, not only of its current students, faculty and staff, but also of everyone who has contributed to making the College what it is today and helped shape the ideals on which we base our future.

Many of these alumni also have a direct relation to those Fallen that we remember today. They have their pictures in albums at home and have grown up hearing the stories of heroism and sacrifice. To them, they are not just names emblazoned in gold on wooden plaques, but real people who are still missed to this day.

For a great deal of our alumni, it was common practice to stay at HSC until the completion of Grade 8 and then pack up a steamer trunk and head off to boarding school at Ridley, Upper Canada College or Trinity College School for “finishing”. In fact, if you look at an old “Boar” yearbook from Hillfield School you will actually see advertisements from those schools in there.

I was a boarding housemaster in one of those old residences at TCS for a number of years, where the first floor was lined with pictures of the “Bigside” football and hockey teams dating back to the 1800s. Given what I now know about some of the history of HSC, many of those boys would have been Highfield and Hillfield graduates (TCS was all boys until the early 1990s).

I used to spend time looking at the faces of those boys particularly from the years when the wars were going on overseas. A few things always stood out to me. First, they always looked too old to be high school students. I’m not sure if it was the hair that was slicked back with Pomade and definitively parted, but it was always hard to imagine that these boys were the same age as the boys who inhabited the residence then. The second thing that I noticed was the very serious looks on their faces. I was never quite sure if this was a product of the times (boarding schools could be strict and rather harsh places back then) or if they somehow were influenced by the gravity of the times.

Did they have in the back of their minds that some of their classmates were off at war or at RMC training to be officers? Were they worried about the challenges that they would be asked to face or the sacrifices that they would be asked to make?

One such boy was named Calder Cleland. Calder came to Hillfield as a very small boy in 1929 and stayed until 1935. From Hillfield, he went on to TCS, where he distinguished himself on the boxing team. After leaving TCS, he went  into business for a while, but when his brother Douglas joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at the outbreak of the war, Calder soon followed and earned his wings as well.

Once overseas, Calder was assigned to Britain’s Royal Air Force during the North African campaign and took part in the long pursuit of Rommel’s army, and in the Tunisian fighting. It was while in action over Sicily that his plane was shot down.

At the time of the printing of the December, 1943 Issue of The Boar, P/O Calder Cleland was listed as Missing in Action. I can only imagine what that time would have been like for the friends, family, and most specifically the parents of Mr. Cleland. You would wake every morning praying for news that your son was alive. . In the days of telegraphs and telegrams, the news would have been agonizingly slow.

The 1944-1945 school year at Hillfield School brought news that the likes of Bud McKay, George Robinson, John Currie, all Hillfield boys, were captured by the enemy but still safe, but sadly that Calder Cleland was one of the young men who would not be returning from the war, having made the ultimate sacrifice.

It makes me think of the reaction of his parents to the news. Certainly there would have been an overwhelming grief and feeling of loss. Certainly there would have been some anger. Certainly, over time, there would have been a feeling of pride that they raised a son so selfless that he could lay his life on the line for the freedom of others including all of us in this room today.

Winston Churchill famously said “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”. Today we remember all of our men and women who have died in combat including the 47 Fallen who once called the College home and offer our firm commitment that they will never be forgotten.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all of our guests who contributed to today’s ceremony, including our student performers and readers; their faculty advisors and conductors, all of the staff and faculty members who have worked so hard behind the scenes, the Alumni Association and all of our alumni participants, the members of the Parents’ Guild, and of course, Mr. Steele, who for more than five decades, has helped us to remember by reading aloud the names of the Fallen.