From My Autobiography : 1965 : Age 18

MARCH
I appear as 'Dr Emett' in the S.V.H.S. production of The Curious Savage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further inspired by H Rider Haggard’s ‘Ayesha’ series, I write a novel called The Hidden City of A-Ten.

From what I remember, I believe it was a story about brother-and-sister twins who travel to South America where they discover a hidden Mayan city and  somehow become its rulers.


1 – 2 MAY
Saturday – Sunday
With a friend of hers [whose name we can’t recall], my sister and I sing for a variety show—High Flying Follies—at the Bagotville base.

 

 

Two of the songs were Singing the Blues and Cool Water. My sister believes we also did a Beatles number, but we don’t recall which one it was.


 

 

 

 

 

 Cast of High Flying Follies

 

 

 

JUNE
I pass Grade 10 at Saguenay Valley High School.

Though, not without some confusion. Whoever scored the final marks somehow managed to give me a failing 50 in Latin, a subject I never took at S.V.H.S. After a few phone calls and letters from Dad, by  August they finally had it straightened out and I could enter Grade 11.


In my yearbook, classmate John Geffken writes—“You have to rate as one of the most interesting fellows that I’ve ever met. Nobody could have a mind[?] like yours.”

 

SUMMER
At a bookstore in Chicoutimi, I buy a book called The Perfumed Garden translated by Sir Richard Burton. Its descriptive sexual passages further fill my fantasies.

At the same store, I pick up a magazine about female impersonators—Female Mimics—and look through it. After reading an article about Craig Russell, I begin to wonder if that's what I am or should be doing. Increasingly, I begin to believe I should have been born as a female. At the same time, I realize I don’t like men sexually, so would that make me a lesbian if I did change my sex? This further confuses me regarding my gender identity.

 
I write Return to A-Ten, another novella featuring the brother-and-sister twins.

I no longer remember the plot of this novel.

I really wish I had saved a lot of that old material so I could see how my writing evolved over the years. However, such is not the case. One of the main reasons why? I will reveal that in January 1974.


My sister and I visit, and work, on a farm somewhere in Ontario.

A Note from my sister:
“That was Lloyd Ackert's farm ... Dad met him at the Jamboree, and he invited us to go visit for a week, I think. Just you and I went on the bus, and they picked us up at the bus station, but I don't remember where.”


 

 

 

While there, I go to a local radio station to have a recording made of some of my songs.

Another Note from my sister:
“I don't know about the recording studio. You helped out on the farm, and I helped in the house. I don't remember exactly  how long—a week or maybe two.”

And I don’t remember whether a tape recording was ever made. However, I do still have other reel-to-reel tapes from the mid- to late-1960s that I recorded and it may be among them. But, currently, I have no machine on which to play, edit, or digitize them. For home use, such machines are difficult to find these days [nor are they at an affordable price].


SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 11 at Saguenay Valley High School.


18 NOVEMBER
Thursday
I receive Canadian citizenship.

Since I didn't personally apply for it, I must assume that Dad sent in an application for all of us. Not unlike much of our family life, my parents discussed little with my sister and me. Mum and Dad made all the decisions; sis and I had no choice but to go along.

There Have Been Times

MY GOD CAN SUPPLY

From My Autobiography : 1964 : Age 17

JANUARY
While babysitting at a neighbour’s apartment one night, I hear the Beatles' newly released song, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, played on the 2 Wing base radio. It inspires me so much that I begin to write lyrics, but I'm unable to write the music that I hear in my head for them. However, I make little dots above the words to help me remember the melodies.

 In the same way that I devoured Marvel Comics in 1961, over the next few years, I eagerly looked forward to the next releases not only from the Beatles, but also many of the other groups during the musical ‘British Invasion’ — Herman’s Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas, the Dave Clark Five, Donovan, and countless others. All of them at the time, in some way, inspired my song writing and composing.

Along with the rest of my Grade 11 class, I travel by bus to the Strasbourg Opera House to watch a production of Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen. The experience enthralls me, and I become more interested in acting and theatre, particularly the behind-the-scenes areas.

A few of our 2 Wing friends throw a going-away party for my sister and me.

4 FEBRUARY
Tuesday
The time has come to leave 2 Wing. We drive to Marville, then fly in a CC-106 Yukon to Trenton, Ontario, from whence we travel to R.C.A.F. Station Bagotville in the province of Quebec.

We find a home in the Murdoch Apartments, roughly fifteen kilometers equi-distant from the air force base and the school I will attend.

Residence:
Talbot Blvd
Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada

MARCH
I enter Grade 10 at Saguenay Valley High School. 

 

S.V.H.S., also once known as the Arvida High School, is now known as Riverside Regional High School.

Dad buys me a Harmony Stella Flattop Acoustic Parlour Guitar and I begin to teach myself chords. I start to set the lyrics I've already written to chords and melodies, and I also learn my favorite hit parade songs.

I join the Bagotville Protestant choir

JUNE
I fail Grade 10 at Saguenay Valley High School.

The constant travelling to different R.C.A.F. bases, and switching schools, often caused havoc for many military kids [a.k.a. B.R.A.T.—British Regiment Attached Traveler, a term held over from the 1920s]. In my case, coming into S.V.H.S. halfway through the year, and to a different education system, made it extremely difficult for me to be able to catch up or learn new material. Hence my failure this year. Later, when we moved to Calgary in 1966, that would again cause difficulties (as you will read). Consequently, I failed once, graduated twice, and never left school until I was 20 years old.

Some might also say I didn’t work hard enough to bring up my averages by June. [Or, more than likely, I couldn’t be bothered]. I must admit, I was lazy back then.


SUMMER
Two movies I see at the Bagotville base cinema have an effect on me—Hercules, starring Steve Reeves; and Jason & the Argonauts, starring Todd Armstrong. Both ignite a passion for the sword ’n’ sandal and sword ’n’ sorcery heroic fantasy genres that I will enjoy for the rest of my life.

I re-read Haggard's Ayesha: The Return of She and design a poster of the movie I would like to make from the book.

Although I have this photo of the poster, I wish I still had the original. However, somewhere on my later travels, I must have lost it.

There was a girl named Carol Wilson at 2 Wing who apparently was interested in going around with me, but I didn’t find out about that until I returned to Canada, and we began to correspond with each other. Consequently, I drew a pencil portrait of her, and listed her as a ‘main lead’ on my ‘Ayesha’ poster.


SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 10 [again] at Saguenay Valley High School.

I read Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series, and it inspires me to write my first short novel entitled Zorab.

From what I recall, this novella pretty much mirrored the plot of Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, but I used different characters and settings.

I continue to practice my singing and guitar chords by myself, and occasionally with my sister as we practice for an up-coming performance next year.

WINTER
Dad shovels snow that’s about two feet high.

I know what some of my readers might think—why didn’t I shovel the walk? Quite frankly, I was either lazy, as I indicated earlier, or I probably didn’t do a good enough job for Dad!

PSALM 37

From My Autobiography : 1963 : 11th Boy Scout World Jamboree

 

2 Wing contingent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian armed forces bases' contingent waiting to leave

 

 

 

 

 

 

At a Tripolita cafe

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jamboree gateway

 

 

 

 

Standing beside a 'refrigeration unit'

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian contingent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A face in the crowd

 

A wide game

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Jamboree Souvenir Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Souvenir ash tray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epathlon Daphnis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Souvenir stamps

 

 

 

 

 

Lord, You Give Me All That I Need

LORD, YOU GIVE ME ALL THAT I NEED
Written & Composed by Michael Woodhead
Copyright © 1976, 2021 by Michael Woodhead

[Music only; vocals to come]

 

From My Autobiography : 1963 : Age 16

21 APRIL
Sunday
I work as a stagehand for Vive La Vie!, a musical variety review presented by the Boy Scouts.


3 MAY
Friday
Dad and I attend a Father & Son Scout Banquet during which I become a Queen's Scout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUNE
I appear as ‘Archibald Fraser’ in a one-act play called Archibald in the Lorraine High School Variety Show.

I don’t remember anything about this production [or the previous Viva La Vie!, for that matter] except the punch line to a skit called The Zenith and Nadir of Richard Shaw III. After they got through the rest of the skit, the final punchline was a renaming of the skit title—The Rise and Fall of the Third Rick.


14 JUNE
Friday
Along with another new girlfriend and dance partner, I graduate from the 2 Wing Twirlers square dancing course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27 JUNE
Thursday
I pass Grade 10 [apparently, by a ‘narrow margin’ according to my teacher].

It’s around this time that I begin to pray at night before going to sleep: “Dear God—please let me become one of the world’s greatest actors, writers, singers, producers, and directors”.

Although I managed to become all those things in some capacity over the years, I was certainly far from being ‘one of the world’s greatest’.

1 - 11 AUGUST
Thursday - Sunday
With the rest of the European Canadian contingent, dad and I travel with the 2 Wing Scouts to the 11th Boy Scout World Jamboree in Marathon, Greece.

Oddly enough, on the trip down there via the Orient Express, at the northern Jugoslavian border, we all had to disembark because there was a ‘hot box’. Then, on the way back at the southern Jugoslavian border, we had to do the same thing. I found that to be so strange. Perhaps some sort of a security thing at the time.

While at the Jamboree, I am asked to pose for a picture as a scout shaving his beard for an upcoming Gillette® promotional ad.

 This, even though I wouldn’t start shaving until I was in my mid-20s. I don’t know if they ever published it.

On a day trip to Athens, we visit the National Archaeological Museum. I start to take pictures with my camera when I’m suddenly approached by a security guard who jabbers something to me in Greek. Dad comes over and learns through an interpreter that I’m not allowed to take pictures and, apparently, the fellow wants to take my camera away from me. Panicked, and fearing they might arrest me, I lie(!) and tell them I don’t have any film in the camera; I was just pretending and practising composition for when I do take photos. I silently feel relieved when, after peering at me suspiciously, they let me go. Later, dad admonishes me to ‘smarten up’.

I go to a Greek cinema where a horror movie is playing. It’s about a scientist who turns into some charcoal-looking creature. I get so frightened watching it that I leave three-quarters of the way through.

I searched for years trying to find out what movie that was, and finally discovered its title: Hand of Death. Pretty tame by today’s standards of horror films. And, come to think of it, the creature looked a lot like the Fantastic Four’s, ‘The Thing’

During the time Dad and I are in Greece, mum and my sister fly to England to visit my aunt,, uncle, and cousin.


SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 11x at Lorraine Senior High School.

What is strange and confusing to me, now, is that I remember virtually nothing about the five months I spent in Grade 11 except a trip to the opera in January next year.

I do remember Dad took me with him to the base hospital occasionally, and I used to look at the varied equipment they used.


31 OCTOBER
Thursday
I create a monologue from a MAD Magazine pocketbook and perform it at a Hallowe’en party at the elementary school opposite our apartment.

I'm dismayed once more as I learn we're going to move yet again to another air force base somewhere in Canada early next year.


DECEMBER
I'm invested as a Rover Scout.

From My Autobiography : 1962 : Age 15

I join the Publications Committee at school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read H Rider Haggard's She and Ayesha: The Return of She and become interested in romantic adventure stories.


JUNE
I pass Grade 9 at Lorraine Senior High School.

A note from my teacher, Mr Pinch, says: “Michael will have to work very hard in Science next year”.

To be honest, I always found science, physics, chemistry, algebra, mathematics, history, and geography hard classes. I just didn’t find them interesting. The subjects that did interest me, for some reason I wasn’t, or couldn’t be, enrolled in those classes, particularly art and music. A couple of years later, however, I would at least find some outlet for my creativity in Drama classes and other extracurricular programs.


The scout troop goes on a weekend trip to Kandersteg, Switzerland. I find the country to be a beautiful, clean, and serene place. Icicles hang off the edges of the tents in the early morning. Later, we enjoy a meal of miniature French Fries [possibly a forerunner of today’s shoestring fries].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I come home from school one day to announce I have a girlfriend—Elaine. Dad takes me aside after supper and asks if I know where babies come from. I tell him, of course I do. Then I must make a solemn vow to him ‘never to get a girl in trouble’.

Making this vow shook me up so much [probably because I knew I might not be able to keep it] that I broke up with Elaine and shied away from girls altogether for a very short while for fear that just touching a girl would get her into trouble [even though I so badly wanted to be with them, or even change my sex to be one of them]. I wished I could wear beautiful clothes like women did, and not the usual shirt-pants-tie or casual ensembles that men normally wore. Consequently, I retreated more into my music, art, and reading interests. And my sexual fantasies, of course, now fueled by the occasional Playboy magazine that I found while babysitting for the neighbours. Until  a very short time later, when the rebellious side of me ignored my vow to Dad and I yielded to my desire to be with a girl.


FALL
Elaine and I get back together, and we go to a Saturday afternoon matinée. Following the movie, I take her back to her family’s apartment and, as we stand chatting quietly outside the door, she lets me put my hands up in her sweater and feel her breasts through her brassiere. Just as she’s about to stroke my penis, we hear someone coming up the apartment complex stairwell. I quickly remove my hands, and then say goodbye, passing the newcomer on the way down the stairs, and feeling frustrated because I didn’t get to feel Elaine’s hand on my penis. A short time later, we break up again.


SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 10x at Lorraine Senior High School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One teacher in Grade 10 triggers an interest in languages in me—my Latin teacher, David Stanley-Porter.

Somehow a story got around that he made every girl in the class cry at least once, but that sounds a little far-fetched to me. But he was quite strict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Apple Day (3rd Saturday in September) with dad and the scouts (I'm not in this picture)

 

20 - 21 OCTOBER
Saturday - Sunday
We attend a Boy Scout Jamboree-On-the-Air display by short-wave radio aficionados.


 

31 OCTOBER
Wednesday
For Hallowe’en, I dress up as ‘The Mummy’ wrapped with numerous bandages that dad brings home from the hospital where he works.

I Feel the Spirit Flow

 

I FEEL THE SPIRIT FLOW
Written, Composed, & Arranged
by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1976, 2021

[Music only; vocals to be added]

 

From My Autobiography : 1961 : Age 14

Everybody seems to make a point of noting this is the year when they can read ‘1961’ right side up and upside-down.


SPRING
I participate in a first aid exhibition at a Boy Scout and Girl Guide Rally on the base.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUNE
I pass Grade 8 at Lorraine Senior High School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUMMER
At the base cinema, I watch Parent Trap starring Hayley Mills, and I develop a schoolboy crush on her.

SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 9 at Lorraine Senior High School. Glen Pinch is my home room teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sundays, my parents make me attend Sunday School at a Department of National Defence elementary school opposite our ‘cage’. The teacher is Mrs MacDonald, who is also a friend of the family.


At the base PX , I discover Marvel Comics for the first time, and, over the next few years, I will lose myself in the worlds of The Amazing Spider-Man, The Mighty Thor, Fantastic Four, Dr Strange, Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos and other Stan Lee / Jack Kirby / Steve Ditko creations.

Honestly, it’s hard to describe the thirst I had for the next issues of many of Marvel’s comics in those days. I found the stories and art so compelling that, even though I received a small allowance, I managed to get a job selling women’s magazines from door-to-door in A Block so I could buy the comics I wanted. I soon started what would become an extensive comic book collection. Later, in 1973, you’ll learn what eventually happened to that collection.


31 OCTOBER
Tuesday
Influenced by the comics I’ve read, I dress up as a somewhat emaciated ‘Thor’ for Hallowe’en.

 

 

 

View from I-78

with the village 

of St Avold 

in the 

background

I Was There

 

I WAS THERE
Written, Composed, and Arranged
by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1980, 2021

[music only; vocals coming]

From My Autobiography : 1960 : Age 13

29 FEBRUARY - 6 MARCH
Monday – Sunday
We sail to England on board the Cunard Lines' R.M.S. Carinthia


2 MARCH
Wednesday
We attend a gala dinner on board the ship.

After we arrive in England, we stay with my aunt and uncle until a place becomes available for us at the base in France.

Residence:
Tunstead Road
Bacup, Lancashire, England

My uncle was a truck driver at the time, and he took me on one of his day trips making deliveries. I thought it was a lot of fun.

I develop a crush on Jenny, a schoolgirl who lives next door to my cousin. Nothing comes of it. I’m too shy  to ask her for a date.

And probably too young, anyways...


MARCH
I enter Year 8(?) at Fearns Community High School.

I write a one-act play called The Mummy, which the drama class at school produces.

I wrote this play obviously influenced by the films of Boris Karloff and others.

I surprise the boys at school by throwing a cricket ball like a baseball the whole length of the playing field. Apparently, they've never seen anyone throw a ball like that.

At the local candy shop, after they hear me order something, several schoolgirls come up to me and ask, “Would yer tawk Canajun for uz?”

Since I lost my English accent just over a year after moving to Canada in 1953, I thought it rather funny that I should have a 'Canadian' accent.

My aunt is furious one day after she catches me throwing sugar on the flames in the fireplace.

I had seen them do that at school during science class and wanted to perform my own experiment.
 
My aunt scolds me and tells me not to do that again. “You’re not the one who buys the food around here!” However, I don’t tell her that I can hardly wait until I’m alone again so I can throw salt, or even flour, on the fire to see if that does anything.

My sister and I pass an examination in the preliminary course of First Aid to the Injured with the St John Ambulance Association.

MAY
While drying my genitals off after a bath, I suddenly experience the most explosive and ecstatic sensation I've ever felt. Trembling, I gradually realize that I've had my first orgasm.

This experience began what turned out to be a daily ritual of masturbation that lasted for at least eleven years — every morning before leaving for school, and then returning to it repeatedly during times of stress, sickness, and depression. This habit would eventually affect me physically later in life by the time I turned forty-six [1993].

The first piece of literature I happened to come upon following this first orgasm was a book in my uncle’s library that gave a rather lurid account of experiments performed on captive women in concentration camps during the Second World War. (For a long time, I thought the title of the book was ‘The Doll House’, but current searches disclose this not to be the case) For several weeks its explicit descriptions fueled my sexual fantasies until I gradually moved to illustrations and photos of naked Greek and Roman statues in Encyclopedia Britannica; mythological paintings that featured nude women; and then, the lingerie sections in various Eaton’s and Simpsons-Sears catalogues. All these because I certainly didn't have access to [or know anything about, for that matter] any sort of erotic or pornographic material.

JUNE
I leave Fearns Community High School.

We take a short holiday to the Blackpool beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 JUNE
Sunday
Via the Channel Tunnel, we take the train from England to Marville, France, and then from there we drive to R.C.A.F. Station 2(F)[ighter] Wing, Grostenquin. However, the P.M.Q.s are located about nineteen kilometers away near to a village called St Avold. There, we live in an apartment block, but we come to call the buildings ‘cages’.

Residence:
#78, I Block
Grostenquin P.M.Q.s
St Avold, France

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we’re in France, I feel both relieved and yet secretly disappointed—I don't see any of those ‘naked women’  some of the kids sang about.


SUMMER
At the base’s Astra Theatre to catch the Saturday afternoon cartoon, newsreel, serial chapter, and main feature, I watch a trailer for Mademoiselle Striptease [original title: En Effeuillant La Marguerite, or Stripping the Leaves of the Marguerite, a.k.a. Stripping the Daisy, and a.k.a. Plucking the Daisy] starring Brigitte Bardot. I realize, then, that Brigitte is one of those mysterious ‘naked women’ about which I’d heard and fantasized. Just watching the trailer arouses me so much that I go home and, when I'm alone, I dress up in Mum's clothes and perform a striptease in front of a mirror to fire my sexual fantasies once again. The cross-dressing also feels good to me, and I start to believe I should have been born a woman instead of a man.

I also develop a schoolboy crush on Brigitte that will last for years.

After viewing the trailer and complete movie as an adult, I realized there was no actual nudity presented. Apparently, just the expectation of it was enough to get me excited as a young teenager. As well, this confusion about my gender would continue for many years.


SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 8 at Lorraine Senior High School. My home room teacher is Norma Herrington.