December 1946: A season of hope
Seventy-five years ago, the lights of Christmas 1946 twinkled and danced across Canada and throughout the Western world as they had for no other Yuletide celebration in what must have seemed, to many, an eternity.
Loved ones, families and friends had a lot to celebrate. The war was over, with any luck the boys were home, and 8.2 million babies had already started arriving in what would become known as the postwar baby boom. It lasted two decades.
Some servicemen were meeting their children for the first time after long years overseas. It could be an awkward process, getting to know the dad whose life was so altered by such extraordinary circumstances. They didn’t tend to talk about it much and the getting-to-know-you part would be, for some, a lifelong pursuit.
The consequences of...
