Whatever Happened to Michelle Bell?

(Although I stopped posting to this blog every Sunday in order to concentrate on writing fiction, apparently I cannot stop myself from posting from time to time.)

I’ve told this to lots of people over the past four decades, so I should include it in my blog too.

A woman I worked with named Martha Bell told me in 1972 that she was Paul McCartney’s mother’s sister. Her daughter Michelle Bell was about 8 years old. They lived in Essex County somewhere near Maidstone, Ontario.

That would make Martha Paul McCartney’s aunt and her daughter, Michelle, Paul McCartney’s cousin.

I was especially sceptical. Actually, I did not believe her, until the next week when she brought a few black and white Brownie snapshots to work that showed her and her older children with Paul, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They were all relaxing around a living room with her family.

There was no doubt. It was the three Beatles circa 1964 in those little square photographs with the perforated edges.

Now you think I am making this up. But I am not. In the words of my good friend Jennifer: “I swear to God!”

Let me set the scene. This happened at the office of The Essex Times, a weekly tabloid newspaper owned and operated by a man named Woody Nicholson. The office was on the north side of Talbot Road right next to the railway tracks. It’s not there anymore. It blew up in 1980. I was living near Ottawa by then.

http://www3.gendisasters.com/ontario/13619/essex-on-gas-explosion-feb-1980

My job for The Essex Times was to cover and write local news; take, develop and print photographs; write heads and layout the pages; shoot the line shots on the graphics camera; size and shoot my photographs to make half tones; take the stripped line shots to the printer; and deliver the printed tabloids to local stores. The venerable Evelyn Walker was the editor. A high school kid and a young woman who typed my stories into a typesetting machine were the rest of the staff.

Martha was the classifieds person working with Woody on the ads. Michelle came into the office with her mom from time to time. After seeing the photos, I remember thinking, “Michelle Bell, those are words that go together well.”

“Martha my dear, don’t forget me,” popped into my head too.

Martha said that the photos were taken when the three Beatles stopped to see her when they first played in Toronto. Michelle was a baby. I recall one of the pictures showed one of the Beatles holding baby Michelle. Martha’s other kids were teenagers. Where in Toronto I do not know, but I had the impression it was an attached home in the older part of the city.

Michelle would be about 50 years old now. I wonder sometimes what happened to her and whether she ever connected with her cousin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifobQSP-b7E

Hairy Days of My Youth

This is the 24^th post of memories from years long past. I posted a story each Sunday and they’ve had more than 500 views. At this point, I’m setting the memory-blog writing aside to concentrate on writing fiction. However, I have not run out of ideas, so I’ll be firing out more memories again sometime.

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Bill Hicks gave me white walls for the first time when I was in Grade 8.

He rubbed hot lather around my ears, sharpened his straight razor on a long leather strap, then shaved the smooth ring from my sideburns up over my ears. That was a milestone.

My boss at the little neighbourhood store where I worked in high school called it, “getting your ears lowered.”

He and I both went to Bill Hicks, whose barber shop was in that red brick cluster of stores on the north side of Erie Street West at Victoria Ave.

Until around Grade 10, for me a haircut was a haircut was a haircut. There were just two choices: sticking up in a brush cut like my Dad had, or slicked down with a part. The latter was easier. The brush cut would mean keeping a flat platform on top of my head, which meant keeping it full of Brylcreem and carrying a comb.

A lot of guys had what we called a rat-tail comb so the point stuck out of their back pocket like a dangerous weapon. I tried it. It caught on the couch cushion and stuck out when I rode my bike. It looked cool but it was a nuisance.

It was sometime in Grade 10, I’d be about 15. John Bradac and Joe Rispoli, who lived on Dougall in our neighbourhood, were the first to have long hair. Not just early-Beatles long, their hair was Rolling Stones long, right down to their necks. I told Bill Hicks, “I’d like to leave it longer on the sides.” Bill told me he knew how I should have my hair and gave me the same old short on the sides with white walls. I never went back.

By Grade 11, I had a big wave in front that went up on the sides and down over my forehead in the middle. Extra Brylcreem held it in place.

By college, my hair was longer. I cut it myself, shaped like Prince Valiant’s. This was a period when I had a pair of bright red corduroy bell bottom hip hugger pants which I wore with a multicolored shirt with a South Asian style pattern. I also had an orange shirt with bell shaped sleeves. 

Remembering this helps me when I see young people today with tattoos on their neck. I too was reckless in my youth.

After college, I went to what was called a unisex hair salon, so it was long but not too long. These were the days when I had a tweed and a salmon leisure suit, and a bright yellow suit, which had extra wide lapels and pant legs and two-inch cuffs. I wore the bright yellow suit when I photographed weddings. I wore it with a silk black shirt that had bright green vines sprouting blossoms of every bright colour. Around my neck was a choker of red wood beads held by a black shoelace.

Still in my 20s and working as a reporter, Joan and I went to see my friend John Bortolin who was living in Vancouver. John took me to a hairdresser who put a perm-wave in my hair. This looked good for a couple of months. Back in Chatham I went to a hairdresser near the office of The Windsor Star bureau to get the wave put back. It came out like an Afro. So, I had an Afro for a couple of months until it flopped and I looked like I was a close relation of Bozo the Clown. I got it cut off short then kept it just long enough to cover part of my ears.

When I was working at Queen’s Park in my late 30s, a woman, who had a spider drawn on her cheek, gave me a spiked style. It wasn’t ultra punk, just sort of like a high brush cut, but instead of flat top, it was a set of random pointed clusters. I liked it for a while, but that was the end of the experiments. With kids, a career and a variety of other interests, a haircut was a haircut was a haircut.