Village Squire, 1975-02, Page 16Village only a week or so earlier, so excited
found it hard to sleep at night. Who would
expect to find a good facility like this in a
small village?
But between that night and the
performance by the little theatre group this
month, the theatre has been used only twice.
Actually, I guess that's about the average
amount it has been used in the last few years.
When I began asking people around town
about the building, I found a lot who had
almost forgotten the theatre existed. The
downstairs dance hall and meeting rooms
had been well used over the years but for
about 20 years all the upstairs was used for
was the annual Remembrance Day service by
the local branch of the Royal Canadian
Legion.
Little by little I began to learn about the
history of the building. It was built in the
early 1920's at a time when all the towns and
cities were building memorials to their war
dead. While most towns settled for a statue
oi monument of some sort, the farsighted
people of the Blyth community decided on a
living memorial, one that would be in use
year-round, not just on Remembrance Day.
So the people of the village and the
surrounding townships of Morris, East
Wawanosh and Hullett banded together and
raised S25,000 and gave a lot of volunteer
labour to build the structure.
At a time when touring vaudeville shows
and such were very much a part of the local
entertainment scene, it was a gem: the finest
facility of its kind for miles. In those days
before even radio was common, the Memorial
Hall drew crowds from as far as people could
expect to travel in the day of horse and buggy
transportation for most of the populace, and
primitive cars for the few.
Later, in the thirties' and forties when cars
became more common and trustworthy,
people from other towns began to appear at
events in the Hall.
But just as the small town movie theatre
was hit hard by television, so the live
entertainment productions that played the
Hall dwindled. Throughout the late fifties,
the sixties, and the early seventies few events
were held in the theatre and the emphasis in
the building swung to the downstairs area
where community clubs met, dances, bingos,
card parties and banquets were held.
But interest in the theatre portion of the
building began to revive. In the summer of
1972 under the initiative of Helen Cowing,
dress shoppe operator and president of the
local Board of Trade (and later the first
female councillor in the Village's history), a
volunteer group began to work on putting the
building back into shape.
The next two and a half years would make
the material for an excellent play: hillarious at
times, sad and frustrating at others. If that
group of volunteers, (made up mostly of
volunteers from the board of trade and the
local recreation committee, but also of people
from all walks of life from teachers to farmers
to carpenters,) had known what lay ahead,
they no doubt would have chucked their paint
buckets in the nearest garbage can and gone
home to watch summer reruns on television.
But they started valliantly, thinking only a
few hundred hours work lay between them
and the day when the building would again be.
open to the public. They tore out the dusty old
sets and swept and vacuumed the floors and
14, VILLAGE SQUIRE/FEBRUARY 1975
began to splash paint on the dull walls (after,
of course, the usual lengthy discussions on
what colour should be used.) With paint
provided by do,. ttions of money from
residents and former residents who wanted to
see the theatre brought back into use, they
worked away several nights a week for weeks.
It was the kind of old-style community project
that had helped build this part of the country
and to build. the kind of community
togetherness and co-operation which made it
a good place to live. Finally, two coats of paint
were applied to the thirsty walls, the floors
and seats were scrubbed. And everything
looked ready to go.
The first public performance planned was a
fashion show and variety night sponsored by
the Board of Trade as its contribution to the
1972 Blyth Fall Fair. The event drew a
good-sized and enthusiastic audience.
But when the performance was over fire
officials made it known it would be the last
performance held until fire regulations were
adhered to. For the many years when the hall
had been used only once or twice a year the
quality of fire protection had never been
noticed. The attention that the volunteer work
parties got in sprucing up the building,
Fire officials
became interested
however, drew the interest of the fire officials
who didn't need much of look to decide that
the precautions considered. adequate in 1920
would not meet the needs of the 1970's. The
hall was condemned until a new, larger,
metal fire escape was provided.
The volunteers were in over their heads.
They'd collected a couple of hundred dollars
to pay for paint, but the thousand dollars or so
that the fire escape was going to cost was too
much for them. So the provision of the fire
escape had to be up to the recreation
committee which had authority over the hall
and which in turn required the authorization
of the village council before it could
undertake a large expenditure not in its
budget.
Meanwhile, another active lady was busy
organizing. Gail Falconer had been interested
in theatre for years and had done some work
with the Goderich Little Theatre. Recognizing
the small corps of local people who had had
experience either with the GLT or with large
musical productions at Central Huron
Secondary School in Clinton, she felt there
was a nucleus for a Little Theatre in Blyth,
particularly with such a fine building to use.
The small but enthusiastic band of
interested peole began making brave plans
for its first theatrical season. It's inspiration
was the theatre building but it soon began to
realize that if it was going to put on any kind
of show in its first season, it would have to be
elsewhere.
The round -about discussions between
supporters of putting the building back in
use, the recreation committee and the village
council consume a great deal of time.
Supporters first began to hear the question
they would often hear in the next two years:
but is it worth spending all that money on a
building that may never be used?
When the recreation committee and the
council both agreed that it was worth it, there
was still the problem of getting 'a properly
designed fire escape, getting it built, getting
it installed and getting it approved.
The progress moved slowly but it was
moving at least. Fall dragged in to winter and
winter began to approach spring before it
seemed the Hall would soon go back into use.
Then, just as things looked bright, someone
questioned the adequacy and safety of the
wiring in the building. Installation of the fire
escape was immediately delayed pending an
Then came
the wiring
investigation of the wiring. Again the
question: if wiring was judged faulty, was it
worth fixing the building? Would it ever be
used enough? After all, it had sat virtually
unused for a quarter century.
But the wiring inspector passed the wiring
and that hurdle over, it began to look hopeful.
Meanwhile, the Little Theatre resigned to the
fact it would have use of the Hall for that
season anyway, prepared its first production
at the gym -corium of the public school where
they could practice at night but couldn't leave
props on the stage because a kindergarten
class used the stage for a classroom during
the day time.
The first production took place in May of
1973 with the first members of the audience
entering the building in time to hear
hammering as the props men finished the
sets for the play. The play may not have been
an artistic success, but to the local group after
a year of struggle and disappointment, it was
a moral (or perhaps morale) victory.
The wiring inspector gave the go ahead
that the wiring was old, but adequate. One
more hurdle was leaped. But, like the perils
of Pauline, the on -again, off -again tragedy
was not over.
The fire escapes still weren't installed
when members of village council began to
question the safety of the roof. One member
of council who as r building contractor had
had a lot of experience with construction, had
been watching a sag in the roof line of the
building develop for some years. He
questioned putting more money into the
building until council knew for sure the
building would be safe for public audiences.
So, with the public's safety first, the council
called in an engineer to carry out strength
tests on the building. He confirmed what they
feared. In a report that commissioned in the
spring but not delivered until September, he
said the strength of the roof could not meet
building code standards. The weight of the
snowbelt snow loads made it dangerous to
continue to use the hall until alterations were
made.
He recommended the whole roof be
removed and replaced with one of a new
design, since the fault was in the original
design of the building.
So during the winter of 1973-74 the debate
went on. The cost of the fire escape and the
wiring seemed suddenly small. Once again
the question was "is it worth it".
The supporters of the hall, of course, felt it
was. Others didn't. It was one of the
frustrating things about the long hassle for
the supporters of the project was that they