PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, JULY 28,1982, WHITBY FREE PRESS whitby Voice of the County Town The onlv Whitbv np.vaap inda»nimé LPub Michael Ian Burgess, Publîsher - Mana"ging EditorL ymieisawyaepaper ependen operaedyWhtbyresidents [or Whitby residents. ,lshed every Wednesday q by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-6111 The Free Press Building, 131 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. Registration No. 5351 MICHAEL J. KNELL Community Editor ELIZABETH NOZDRYN Advertising Manager Second Class Mail Registration No. 5351 Why is there so little support for Peter Perry? It takes a special person to win the Peter Perry Award. The award is usually conferred- upon someone whose efforts have made life better for everyone in the conymunity. If they had not been around, the community would have been the greatest and saddest loser. Last week, the Whitby Chamber of Commerce bestowed the 22nd Peter Perry Award to Marion Irwin, who would not accept the award for herseif alone and chose lnstead to share it with Joyce Cox and Mandy Crawford, the other two finalists for the 1981 award. The contributions these ladies have made can- not be repaid soiely by this honor. Our debt to them can never be repaid in full. However, this newspaper was distressed to see that only about 60 people declded to take part in these festivities. It causes us to wonder whether or not we fully appreciate and acknowledge the roles paid by our Peter Perrys. It is interesting to note that members of the Chamber of Commerce, former Peter Perry Award winners, representatives of the Fourth Estate and the Whitby Town Council made up the majority of those present. For an occasion such as this, one would think (or hope, as the case may be) that ail community Anyone who suggests that class and privilege have disappeared from the United Kingdom should be heard with scepticism. 've come back from a U.K. holiday this time closer to republicanism than I've ever been. I'm a Canadian, of course, and i suppose that great inherited wealth and the class system are easier to view from a distance. Those things exist in Canada, of course, but the wealthy old families in this country (and the wealthy new ones as well) are taught to be diffident about their money and station,.if not actually ashamed of it. We stayed one night in a bed and breakfast north of Glasgow, in the an- cient stone cottage of the groundskeeper for a wealthy Lord. i won't mention places and names, because the arm of privilege is long. The groundskeeper, our host of the bed and breakfast, was being turfed out. After 14 years in the Lord's employ, he had suddenly been declared redundant. In the years he'd lived in the cottage,'he'd put in central heating and had built on a room. Now, it seem- ed, that expense and labour had been for nothing. The Lord of the place, like many of his confreres, lives in Lon- don, and visits the estate only occasionally. He came up for a couple of weeks this Spring, for his only visit of the year, and ignored local ordinances, to net salmon every day of his stay. (The law in those parts allows netting only twice a year.) Then he packed the salmon into some vehi- cle or other and drove back to London, to fill his iah-di- dah friends with prime loch salmon and regale them with tales of the quaint folk who look after his Scottish in- terests. There may well be another side to the story. Our informant was being turfed out, after ail, and we had on- ly his word for it that it was without a cause. But he didn't appear to be a bitter man, and he had no axe to grind with Canadian visitors. As a Canadian, I've always been tolerant of that sort of thing, from a distance. But this time, I remembered why my people left the Yorkshire Dales two hundred years ago. Their landlord needed money to build mock ruins in his park-like estate. And so he raised the rent again, one time too many. That's not news, but that too is reality. organizations would be represented. One would also think that enough Individùals would have enough community spirit to be present also. But, sadly, this was not the case last Thursday night. In his remarks to the audience, Mayor Bob At- tersley spoke at great length about the positive things Whitby has to offer. More importantly' he noted that it is the people that make up the com- munity and it is those people who give it charac- ter, vitality, a sense of purpose and a future to fulfill. Là st year's winner, Benny LaHaye, said that it was difficult for him to relinquish possession of the award, because it has given him a new love of this community. He recalled returning to Whitby recently and noticing the signs along our borders proclaiming our population at 37,000. , His com- ment, "Wowl" The people who have won this award - named for the man who founded this community - have ail different backgrounds, outiooks, beliefs and professions, but ail have one thing in common: their love for this community. This love is so great that they devote many hours of their spare time to making it a better place. Yet, those turning out to honor them are few. In this rather difficuit period in our nation's economic life, we recognîze that many individuals may not be able to afford the $20 a ticket charged by the Chamber of Commerce to attend the din- ner, but this is no excuse for the various commu- nity organizations. Since most pèople belong to a local gropp of some kind, be it a ratepayers' association, a parent-teacher group or a service club, surely they are able to find two of their mem- bers willing to represent them at thjs dinner; and even help pay for the tickets. Let's face it, the winners are normally members of one of these groups and their involvement has almost always given thelr group a higher profile in the community. To the best of our knowledge, Whitby ls the only member of the Reglon of Durham that has a spe- clal award for its outstanding citizen of the year. To be sure, there are awards for the police officer of the year, the businessrnan of the year, the cor- porate citizen of the year, etc., etc. But this is the only award for the outstanding citizen o.f the year. It should aiso be pointed out that presenting the award was discontinued for a few years during the 1960's because of lack of interest (or so we have been told). It is this newspaper's fervent hope that this doesn't happen again. The Peter Perry Award is a part of the Town of Whitby. During its history, it has become one of, if not the social highlight of the year. Let us hope that when next- year's dinner rolls around more of us will turn out to honor the per- son who has made our lives a1littie better by taking the time to make a meaningful contribution to the Town of Whitby. Letters most welcome Mail to: The Editor Whitby Free Press P.O. Box 206 Whitby, Ontario LIN 5S1