Comings and Goings

Later Bill Brown and Loman would broadcast the hockey games from Truro, Moncton and other centres. Loman developed much exper- tise in play-by—play commentary travelling to Quebec City and to Detroit for special games. Loman’s “they bang it in!” was as widely recognized in the Maritimes as Foster Hewitt’s “He shoots, he scores!“

It was Bill Brown who was known far and wide in connection with the Race Track. Bill knew the horses and drivers well. having been taken to the track by his father'who was clerk of the course for fifty years. On Wednesdays Bill would always be doing a race commentary either from Charlottetown, Truro, Bridgewater or Pictou. He would describe the race and announce the winner while Loman would do the commem tary between heats. Bill got the job in a rather strange way. CFC Y had just signed a contract with the Halifax Chronicle to do the Old Home Week Races from Charlottetown and everyone thought that the late Senator Harold Connolly, then the sports editor of the paper. would be coming over to do them. He was surprised to find that he was supposed to do the races as he didn’t know any of the horses. Everyone ran to the late Col. Dan MacKinnon with the problem. Just then Bill Brown was coming across the centre field from the barns and Col. Dan looked up and said: “There’s your man there”. So Bill was asked if he’d whisper the names of the horses into Harold Connolly’s ear and they did that for the first few races, and then it got too complex and Bill did the rest of the heats and for many, many years after that, twenty-five to be exact. The MacDonald Tobacco Company presented him with a special plaque honoring his twenty-five years of broadcasting the races.

While Bill Brown Jr. was considered an expert on harness racing, many other voices are well remembered over the years. Art McDonald, Frank “Duck” Acorn, Loman McAulay and in later years. Ed Watters were some of these, all adding their own brand of excitement to the Old Home Week Celebrations from Prince Edward Island known as “The Kentucky of Canada”. Loman and Bill’s close association on the air' came to an end when Bill left to go into business for himself.

It was Loman McAulay who made the early recordings of Don Messer and his Orchestra in our studio in Charlottetown. The discs were cut every two weeks and sent to Decca to be pressed. When Lorne Finley was Chief Engineer, he and his assistant Gordon Tait installed new equipment for the studio and the two new control rooms. The console was a commercial one with many modern improvements. One

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