Today is my birthday. My 75th. I’m not telling you this to garner birthday greetings, but rather to reflect on the fact that Jim Higgins was 75 when he died. He’d been frail and failing for several years by then, and writing what is mostly the first draft of his memoir during that time was all he could handle.

He put everything he had into what there is, but just didn’t have what it took to do the rewrites that he knew it needed.  (As a point of interest, many authors do a dozen or so rewrites with help from their editors. He was such a good writer in my opinion that, with the help of an editor, he would have needed, at most, three.  He knew just the right amount to put in, and what to leave out.  That’s a gift.)

I was led to these thoughts when my sister, Susan, sent me a birthday message which included these words, “The years sure haven’t slowed you down, as you work on the biggest project of your life! Good thing you have kept yourself healthy in body, mind and spirit to be able to tackle it and see it through.”

Dad wasn’t able to see it through. His memoir, that is. Oh, he wanted to. I now know that he was encouraged by journalists and others covering the “tall soldier” story, after they learned he’d written his own memoir.

He knew he needed an editor, but he was a man of modest means and didn’t have the money to hire one.  He said so on his tapes and I’ve seen further evidence in his papers. He even applied for a Canada Council grant, but was turned down. All this I’ve only learned in the past two years as I work towards completion of the “biggest project of my life”.

Oh, that Jim Higgins had been able to work with an editor, someone who could probe and ask all the right questions, someone who could have helped him shape the manuscript into a coherent narrative.

I say this because, even now, as I’ve done my best to shape the narrative through the way the chapters are organized, and tried to get dozens of questions answered in any way I can, I have come to see that his is a memoir of lasting import.

Not only has the manuscript been met with enthusiasm by its beta readers but, through Facebook, the news of its upcoming publication has been met with keen interest, especially from people in North America, Britain and Spain.

This is partly because of the rise of fascism today which has lead to heightened interest in the international volunteers who fought in Spain for their anti-fascist ideals, but also because the young people of Spain are forcing their country to come to terms with a suppressed and agonized past. They want to know. Jim Higgins’ story is a piece of that.

I am so sorry my father was never to know his book would be published, but I am grateful for my own good health and the opportunity to make his memoir happen, forty or so years after he wrote it.

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NOW PUBLISHED: Fighting for Democracy: The True Story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982), A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War (2020) is available worldwide from Independent Bookstores, Chapters-Indigo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Kindle version on Amazon. Orders of three or more: Friesen Press

I encourage you to obtain it from your local Indie bookseller or library. And if you can leave a review or “star” it somewhere, like Amazon or Goodreads, that would be much appreciated!

Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins is the latest book about the Mac-Paps, Canadians in the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion, which was part of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Other books about Canadians in the Spanish Civil War include Not For King or Country by Tyler Wentzell , Mac-Pap by Ronald Liversedge with David Yorke and Renegades by Michael Petrou.