For fourteen years, the "St. Catharines Standard", a daily paper of the Niagara Peninsula area, carried, every Saturday during the navigation season, a detailed history and photograph of a Great Lakes ship under the heading "Ships that Ply the Lakes". The articles were written by Capt. Geoffrey Hawthorn of Niagara Falls, a veteran of many years service on lakers and as pilot on foreign vessels, and latterly an officer aboard many old lakers heading down the lakes on their last voyages en route overseas for scrap.

Unfortunately, Capt. Hawthorn, who was well known to many members of this Society, passed away in May of 1969 and, although he had prepared enough columns in advance to last through that season, it appeared that the series would not return this year.

It was then that our fellow member, Barry Gillham, formerly of Toronto and now of Vineland, stepped in and took over the chore of preparing these articles for publication. "Skip" is well qualified for the task as he is an ardent student of marine history and an excellent photographer, and even put in time serving aboard the canal tanker LUBROLAKE several years ago.

Your editor has had the chance to see several of Skip's efforts to date and they are very well done. We wish him all the best in his new venture and would suggest that any of our members who happen to be in St. Catharines on a Saturday, should stop and pick up a copy of the "Standard" so that they may see for themselves.

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