Wingfield's Hope: More Letters from Wingfield Farm

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Dan Needles is the creator of the popular Wingfield Farm stage comedies
that have delighted Canadian and American theatre patrons with over
3,000 performances since 1984. In 2003, Needles’s fictional history of
Persephone Township was awarded the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. In
short, Needles is a serious creator of comedies. He lives and farms near
Collingwood, Ontario. His lack of success in farming with horses opened
his eyes to a promising alternative. He could write stories based on
someone else struggling to farm with horses. With only a few samples,
the concept was quickly sold to the owner of the weekly newspaper. The
idea took off like fire in a barn, and led to a collection of plays,
books, and magazine articles.

Wingfield’s Hope is structured in three sections, each one much
shorter than a typical book yet much longer than a typical chapter. The
chatty, low-key style is based on the fictional Walt Wingfield’s life
as a small-town farmer and journalist married to Maggie, the girl next
door. He seems to know everyone in the town, and daily encounters with
neighbours result in frequent conversations as Walt goes about the
business of running the town’s weekly paper. In “On Ice,” the
second section, Maggie is expecting a baby. The local women compete with
one another for presents and treat the pregnancy as a community project.
The baby is called Hope, and the ground is cleared for a fresh start.
The third section is called “Inferno.” Walt has just received a
letter from an insurance company advising him of “the increased risk
factors associated with running a weekly newspaper” and thus the
necessity of increased insurance rates. The townsfolk consider this
nonsensical, but in short order the Orange Hall is on fire. Volunteers
turn out, but the Hall burns down. Uninsured. The next problem is a
skunk who likes eggs, especially those produced by Walt’s chickens.
Life is never dull for Walt and Maggie.

Wingfield’s Hope is a thoroughly delightful comedy “with a keen eye
for human foibles,” as the Times Colonist of Victoria cleverly summed
up another of Dan Needles’s books.