Not Bad for a Sergeant: The Memoirs of Barney Danson

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

By all accounts the best Minister of National Defence in the last
quarter-century, Barney Danson (b. 1921) was also a lieutenant-colonel
in The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada—in short, a highly respected
soldier, politician, and public figure. He served in World War II, where
he lost an eye in Normandy, and four of his closest friends.

Danson’s engaging style is long on anecdotes and well spiced with
humor. He promises readers at the start: “First, a story.” And
continues as he began. After a paragraph on his wedding in England
during World War II, Danson skips jauntily ahead by 32 years. A family
barbecue is interrupted by a telephone call from the Prime Minister,
asking if Danson would join the Cabinet as Minister of State for Urban
Affairs: “Rather than keep him on tenterhooks for any length of time,
I accepted immediately and ran back to the barbecue where the steak was
beginning to burn. Isobel called out once more, ‘How are you doing?’
Smugly, I replied, ‘Not bad for a sergeant.’”

Danson looks forward to ideal readers in granddaughters and grandsons
as they grow older. Other readers will find in this captivating memoir a
personal and intimate history of some 60 years of Canadian history and
politics. Well lived, and well written.