Canadian journalism lost two of its leading lights this year.
Christie Blatchford left us long before her time this February. Allan Fotheringham, who passed away this week, was more than 20 years older than Christie and might not be as well known to most contemporary readers, journalists and politicos as she was. But Allan, like Christie, was a major figure in journalism for many decades.
You could not find two who had more different temperaments than Blatch and Dr. Foth, as they liked to be referred to. Christie could be foul-mouthed, revelled in working the trenches, did not care much about fashion and even less about comportment.
Allan, meanwhile, was urbane, the ultimate gadfly fond of living well beyond his means and a dandy in snazzy dress and in bearing.
COMMENTARY: (Feb. 12, 2020) Christie Blatchford’s passing is a great loss for journalism
Other than similarly humble upbringings in northwestern Quebec and rural Saskatchewan, what the two reporters and columnists shared was a rare ability to produce a stream of trenchant one-liners that brilliantly summed up complicated people or situations. Each of them had many admirers, made many enemies and sometimes had topsy-turvy relationships with their desk editors.
I was lucky enough to know both of them well over many decades. I considered them to be good though not really close friends. In very different ways, it was always a pleasure to listen to them and get an understanding of how their minds worked as they zeroed in on hypocrisy, humbug and chicanery, pricked bubbles and spun yarns.
Allan was a bon vivant who captured the Zeitgeist, chatter, gossip and inside wheeling and dealing of the moment. He was transfixed by the personalities of those in public life, not so much their policies. He trivialized politics but at the same time popularized them.
Christie did a lot of her work in courtrooms, where she was unbeatable, or by going directly to where the action was to speak with the common folk and especially to men wearing any kind of uniform, from Zamboni drivers to firemen.
READ MORE: Journalist Allan Fotheringham dies at age 87
Allan did most of his work at the bar or in a posh dining room and almost always on someone else’s dime. During the last half of his life, his idea of travel was to observe the world from a porch in the Gulf Islands, to race across Tuscany or along the Amalfi Coast in a hot rod, or to take a five-star cruise to Antarctica where he could marvel at the glaciers, the whales and the penguins from a comfy window seat.
One of the few places where their working lives crossed was at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Allan was predictably interested in how the lords and ladies of the Olympic movement were living it up. To do that, he had to put on his tuxedo and bow tie every day in Australia and venture forth.
For Christie, being Christie, her favourite moment at the 2000 Summer Games was being out on a ferry in Sydney Harbour with fellow scribe Roy MacGregor, watching the Olympic regatta when the captain of a small patrol boat who was watching an epic swimming battle between two Australian swimmers on television came by shouting “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie,” to which those on the boat shouted back “Oi, Oi, Oi.”
WATCH BELOW: Allan Fotheringham appears on Jack Webster’s TV show on Oct. 13, 1982
Each of these very different approaches to covering the same mega-event found an appreciative audience.
For Allan, one of his many cherished triumphs in journalism was the time he finagled his way into a party for Chinese billionaires in Hong Kong where they were celebrating the handover of Hong Kong from British rule. To see how fearlessly and smoothly Allan navigated the back entrance to the gathering was a thing of poetry and ballet. If for some reason Christie had wanted to attend such an event, she would have bulldozed her way through the front door, ordering people to get out of her way as she stomped in.
I last saw Christie over lunch not long before she got her tough medical diagnosis last fall. Not for the first time, she was obsessing over her diet and a brutal exercise regime she had imposed on herself.
Still, she was full of ideas about what she intended to write next and why and was almost done with laying the groundwork for her life after daily journalism. She feared newspapers were in death spirals because of the digital age.
I saw Allan in April 2019 at the home he shared with his wife, Anne, on a quiet lane a few minutes’ walk from Toronto’s Yonge Street subway line. At that point, it was a lot harder to engage with Allan than it was with Christie. He had been unwell for several years and sadly, was reeling from issues related to dementia.
Anne, always Allan’s most loyal fan and a national treasure in her own right, tried her best to draw him into the conversation. But Allan could only do so for brief moments at a time. Nevertheless, as always, he was immaculately turned out, in high spirits and could still muster a few piercing one-line zingers.
As I bid the Fotheringhams farewell, Allan toasted me with a jaunty smile and a flute of sparkling wine that was, undoubtedly, of the highest quality.
That is how I will always remember him.
Matthew Fisher is an international affairs columnist and foreign correspondent who has worked abroad for 35 years. You can follow him on Twitter at @mfisheroverseas
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