The man holding Fighting for Democracy is Ben Pratt, a full time firefighter/paramedic in Augusta; Maine’s state capital.
So what is my father’s book doing in a fire station in Maine and why is it featured in this image.
Continue readingIt was September 1968, and I’d been away from Canada for exactly a year. That previous winter, I’d studied French in Paris at L’Alliance Francaise, while living with a family and working as their au pair, or nanny. Now, Paris was my base for exploring Europe on five dollars a day which meant hitchhiking, youth hostels and occasional meals consisting of the contents of cookie packets.
In the 1950s, he was Daddy, the quiet father who worked hard to provide for his family. At home in Peterborough, Ontario, he somehow found time to fix up our old two-storey clapboard house and tend a big vegetable garden for our family.
Continue readingI remember it well. It was a sunny day, thirty-eight years ago today, and much hotter than usual for late September. I was sweltering in my red wool sweater and pleated plaid skirt, and standing with my siblings and a few others in Peterborough’s Little Lake cemetery where my father, Jim Higgins, was to be buried beside our mother. There was one person I didn’t know—a young woman—and it’s only in recent years that I’ve come to know who she was and why she was there.
Continue ReadingIt first happened in January 2018. I was at a dinner party hosted by my friend, Katrina, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Katrina had steered the conversation towards my plans to publish my father’s memoir which is primarily about his experience of the depression of the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
I was telling the other guests a bit about him, when a fellow Canadian asked, “What was your father’s name?” I said, “Jim Higgins.” He replied, “I’m sure I just heard about him on the news.” I said, “Impossible!” and promptly forgot about it.
Continue readingI’m thrilled to have a feature article, A Mac-Pap Amongst the Lincolns, published in The Volunteer, the magazine of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in New York, Click on it, and learn why Jim Higgins ended up seeking refuge there during the winter of 1940/41.
Continue readingTens of thousands of international volunteers stood against the tyranny of fascism during the Spanish Civil War, Jim Higgins among them. Most volunteers had already acted against tyranny more than once. For Jim, the first time was at school in England when he was no older than thirteen.
Jim had been orphaned during the Great War, and around the age of eight, after a short stay on a country estate with caring staff in an orphanage for eight boys, he was taken to the Ardwick Industrial School in Manchester. He studied there for several years before going on to a small secondary school in Bristol.
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Jim Higgins defied Canadian law to fight for democracy in the Spanish Civil War. On return, he was branded a communist, hounded by the RCMP, and welcomed by Lincoln Battalion comrades when he sought refuge in New York.
Continue reading“I was riveted. There are few workers’ memoirs as excellent…engaging, informative, and very well written.” James L. Turk, Centre for Free Expression, Ryerson University and Author, Free Speech in Fearful Times
“The fact that (Jim) was involved in secret ops makes this book particularly memorable…a key read for historians looking for new details of the Battle of the Ebro.” Jason Webster, Author, Violencia: A New History of Spain
I received Jim Higgins’s RCMP file in Spring 2019 under a Freedom of Information request. Not only did the Royal Canadian Mounted Police file document many of his activities during the Great Depression, and after, it also held an intriguing glimpse into his romantic life, a couple of years before he met his wife, Reta Palliser.
Continue reading“Just the facts, ma’am.” That line came from Dragnet—a 1950s TV show with detective Joe Friday. I was reminded of it a few months ago when retired academic Ray Hoff, one of my invaluable fact-checkers, cautioned me against speculating about what Jim Higgins was up to in the Spanish Civil War, especially after the international brigades were withdrawn. I was advised to “forget the 007 stuff”. Good advice. Still……
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