Filling The Gap—W. Paterson Ferns

It has been sixty-one years since Pat Ferns was at Glenlyon as a GAP student.

It was both a surprise and pleasure to meet him at the recent Celebration of Life for Hamish Simpson. His name was well-known to me, thanks to an archival photograph of “The Beatles” which sits in the hallway cabinets at the Junior School campus and appeared in a previous Gryphon Gallery about Conkers. This photograph was taken at the Parent Auxiliary “Hootenanny” in February 1964. In it Pat, far left, is giving a wonderful rendition of Paul McCartney and says that he was the only one not wearing a wig!

W. Paterson Ferns was born in 1945 in Winnipeg. In 1949 his family moved to England, where he was educated. After successfully completing his compulsory education, he returned to Canada as a GAP student and a position at Glenlyon School for the 1963-64 school year. He and Don Greenlees, alias fellow Beatle John Lennon, were to be the original musical driving force behind future staff musical renditions at Parent Auxiliary events, usually billed as the “Bowker Creek Ramblers”.

During his time at Glenlyon he boarded with two other teachers in lodgings at the top of the Coach House and taught Grade 3, 4, and senior French and Social Studies as well as Games to all ages. The senior students were a bit of a challenge as “… some of the boys were only three years younger than me and many were taller. My approach to teaching was to educate and entertain, hoping to achieve the former through judicious use of the latter. I always believed in the old adage Make them laugh and they will learn.”

In June 1964, Pat Ferns returned to England to read Economics at Pembroke College, Cambridge followed by an MSc. in Sociology, reading Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University. However, it was during that year at Glenlyon when he fell in love with his country of birth and vowed to return after completing his studies. Hence he arrived in Toronto in June of 1968 to join the CBC and the start of a lifetime career in broadcasting and production.

It has been a career of outstanding accomplishments and many prestigious awards, one being the investiture as a Member of the Order of Canada on October 6, 2006 with the citation stating: “For decades, Pat Ferns has helped to ensure that a vibrant independent production community is present in the Canadian film and television industry. Beginning his career in 1968 with the CBC as Director of Research for The Public Eye, he went on to write, direct, and produce a number of highly rated shows. In 1981, he founded Primedia Productions Limited and produced a host of successful programs including Billy Bishop Goes to War, Waiting for the Parade and Glory Enough for All. While President of the Association of Canadian Film and Television Producers and Chair of the Banff Television Festival, he raised the calibre and visibility of Canadian content on the global scene.”

Notwithstanding his successful and storied career Pat always kept in contact with Hamish Simpson since their first meeting back in September 1963. On one occasion he was able to help a subsequent graduate of Glenlyon, Atom Egoyan. He recalls: “Hamish had told him to contact me when he reached Toronto. He came to my office with a rucksack full of his home movies. I was entranced and wrote a letter of recommendation to the Canada Council to secure his first grant. When I wrote congratulating him on winning the Jury Prize in Cannes for Exotica, he generously wrote back saying, ‘You were the first.’”

Pat Ferns now lives in Shirley, B.C. outside of Sooke. Coincidentally, Shirley is named after a district in Southampton where Pat first landed after his family left Canada in 1949. He divides his time between consultation, leadership training, event management and volunteering responsibilities and has recently completed a professional memoir and history of the independent television production industry in Canada,The Big Picture, of which he kindly donated a signed copy to GNS’ Archives.

And that has now briefly filled the gap between one of the school’s first Gappers and the present day.