The Rural Voice, 1988-09, Page 110him to Sri Lanka where he was the
principal advisor on an agricultural
development project funded by the
Canadian International Development
Agency.
Henderson's first attempt at telling
the story of Canada's agricultural
achievers, Under Whose Shade, is
a partly fictionalized biography of his
father, Nelson Henderson, and the
changes experienced by the family
from the twenties through to the high-
tech farming of today.
"It was ordinary farm families who
made the agricultural revolution hap-
pen in this country," Henderson says.
"Their quality of life and their com-
mitment to the land is what developed
Canada. I want the modern generation
to know how it happened, because that
is the heritage we have to pass on to
our children. It is also the basis of
what we have to offer in development
assistance to the poorer Third World
countries."
The Blacksmith and the Beekeeper
is also set in the Swan River valley. It
tells the story of the jovial jack of all
trades whose blacksmith shop helped
farmers make the leap from horse-
drawn plows and mowers to modern
tractor -powered equipment.
The story is told by the black-
smith's wife, a son, and some friends,
and it is sometimes hard to tell who is
the narrator at any given time. But the
yam sparkles with interesting snap-
shots of how people lived, worked,
amused themselves, and cared for
their neighbours in hard times.
Henderson is now editing the
memoirs of farm broadcaster Jack
McPherson, who grew up on a farm at
Plenty, Saskatchewan. McPherson
was instrumental in the Farm Forum
radio programs that played such an
important role in developing agricul-
ture in Canada.
By the time of his death a few
years ago, McPherson had written a
massive tome of reminiscences.
Henderson's challenge is to edit the
material down to a manageable size
and pull it together into a cohesive
story that maintains McPherson's
lively imagination while adequately
reporting his contribution to farm
broadcasting. It will probably be
pubished late this year under the tide
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111
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