A Halifax Time-Travelling Tune

Whether as part of a scolding or in a moment of reminiscing, everyone has heard a ‘when I was your age’ story. A piano tune and a grandmother’s wish just before bedtime are all that’s needed to send her grandchild back in time.

Woken by a tune and led by a marching-band baton, the child is transported to 1950’s Halifax, a place that feels both familiar and strange. Well-known locations, including the Public Gardens, Citadel Hill and Pier 21, are easily recognized, and questions about unfamiliar sights, like the ‘funny boats’ in the Public Gardens and the procession for Princess Elizabeth, are explained by the time-travelling tune.

Whether they live in Halifax or elsewhere, when the time-travelling tune is finished and the child’s asleep in their bed, children will be full of questions about what their home was like ‘back in the old days’.

Young and not-so-young alike, readers will enjoy this trip back in time. Whether it’s how small the trees were in the Public Gardens, how different cars looked, or how the harbour looked before the easily identifiable MacDonald Bridge connecting Halifax and Dartmouth was built, beautiful, full-colour illustrations throughout make it easy for anyone familiar with Halifax to identify locations while also showing how Halifax has changed. Readers encountering Halifax for the first time will be inspired to find out what their own home towns were like when their parents, grandparents, and other relatives were their age.

Narrated by a child who is not referred to by a name or pronoun and not clearly gendered in the illustrations, the common restriction of adventures being for boys only is avoided. All readers will be better able to imagine themselves in the slippers of the time-traveler. With numerous opportunities to join in, including quacking with the ducks and melodic clickity-clacking of the trolley down Barrington Street and trot-trot-clippity-clopping with the ponies on Sable Island, readers and listeners become part of the time-travelling tune.

Teachers and adults will enjoy and appreciate the ‘inspirational images’ with short descriptions at the back of A Halifax Time-Travelling Tune. These images connect the illustrations with history, and the captions will help adults from Halifax and beyond answer questions, perhaps inspiring some to bring out their photo albums and share some new ‘when I was your age’ stories that otherwise would have gone untold at home that could be shared in the classroom. Everyone has a story to tell.