The bastard Henry Canning
The most wonderful man I know
My grandfather Henry Millikin was a bastard. His father was Henry Millikin as well, and he was raised not by his father and mother, but by his paternal grandparents. This he was unaware of until, one day, at age 19, he was making up his pack to go to his work on the Caledonian Railway: his putative father looked up from his newspaper and announced, almost nonchalantly, “By the way, we’re not your parents, we’re your grandparents.” At which the boy went out to work, to process the piece of news that had just shattered his world in two.
His father had just broken faith with him. Both of them.
His biological mother would later marry, to a man named John Canning, and Henry made arrangements to change his name. It is the only recorded time that Henry Canning, as he would be, broke faith with those who had broken faith with him.
The Canning he thereafter bore as his name, and which he passed to his wife and bequeathed to his daughter and sons, was adopted by me in 1983 in homage to a time-honoured Scottish tradition: the first-born takes as a middle name his paternal grandmother’s maiden name; the second-born, his maternal grandmother’s maiden name; the third-born takes the mother’s maiden name as his middle name. I was the third-born: Graham John Canning Vincent.
I was named John for my uncles, after my mother’s brother, and it was the second name of my father’s brother. My eldest brother was given Ronald as a middle name: my father’s. My other brother bears the two names of his grandfathers: William Henry.
Henry Canning and my grandmother Annie Dixon had three children: two sons as well as my mother: Henry and John. Son Henry’s own son was likewise named Henry and he had three sons. My brother, also named Henry as a middle name, also has three sons. John, like me, who was named after him, was childless. These are coincidences, but hardly in the category of odd.
Tradition is easily sneered at, as grasping onto nostalgic notions of the past, irrelevances. At the least, naming traditions make choosing a baby’s name that bit easier. But names carried on through generations are not fanciful in their source. They act as a homage to those who went before and that homage is offered in recognition of the material fact that the existence of one who went before is the predication of our very own existence. Not long ago, my great-nephew was baptised: Ronald Vincent. Daft, it brought a tear to my eye: my father’s name, if not my father, lives on.
A poster for the 1997 film Amistad, which tells the factual story of a court case that raged over a ship of slaves. It starred (top to bottom, left to right) Djimon Hounsou, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman and Matthew McConaughey. Amistad was the name of the ship.
Anyone who saw Spielberg’s film Amistad cannot be unaware of the ultimate tenet it presents to its audience, one that had been vaunted as far back as John Ruskin. That wisdom and strength are to be found in summoning the spirits of those who went before. If they did wrong, they will be cognisant in that afterlife. If they did right, their love can be a great resource to the living, who will one day themselves be a resource, to the living.
There is a beautiful story to be told of how my grandfather and grandmother met. My grandmother was born and raised in a dirt-floor cottage called Barrachan (whose stone floor would only be installed, with great ceremony, in 1920). Barrachan can just about be traced on very detailed maps of Wigtownshire. Not far from the “end of the line” on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway branch at Whithorn. That railway was a godsend to those girls of Galloway who saw their futures as lying furth of the farming community that prevailed there. Prevailed, because, besides it and fishing, there was nothing.
My gran was taken in service as a maid in a grand house up “on the hill” in Kelvinside, Glasgow, and to get there she needed to travel by early train. By whatever route she travelled, it involved changing at Bishopton, south of the River Clyde. In those early days (the 1900s), railway carriages could not be opened and closed by passengers: porters were equipped with a special key, with which they would do the operation on passengers’ behalf. So, at Bishopton, Annie Dixon would request the assistance of the porter to climb aboard the train to Glasgow. The porter was Henry Canning. They struck up an acquaintance, and then a friendship. A proposal of marriage followed, and it was accepted: the most perfect couple in the world ventured forth into the world; sometimes people ask me why I love trains so much. And sometimes I wonder that too.
I never knew my maternal grandfather. He died before I was born. But I was told much about him by my mother, and she greatly admired him. Spiritually, I feel he is someone who I am now closer to than anyone else who is living, although I never knew him in life. You need to be of a certain disposition to appreciate that.
Everyone, but everyone, got the benefit of Henry Canning’s doubt. No one was unworthy. But, once faith was broken with him, then he had no further regard for them. He bore no rancour, no grudge, and yet no prejudice. All were innocent, until they proved themselves guilty. At which point he served them the rod they had made for their own back.
He became a highly respected wharfinger for the Henderson Line on Glasgow’s docks, at Yorkhill Quay, where you need never look far for a shady character. He had the thorny task of managing a team of stevedores who were under his authority, in a trade where smuggling was commonplace and theft rife. He was respected by shipping magnates, by sea captains*, and by the great and the good of Glasgow’s Merchant City. He sought and thirsted for no respect: it came to him as respect should - because of who he was, and not because of what he was, still less what he pretended to be. He had no enemies, nobody had a bad word to say about Henry Canning. As a young boy sent by my gran to get messages in nearby Old Dumbarton Road, I would be greeted by shopkeepers like Jimmy Brown (or Broon), whom I had never met, as “Mrs Canning’s grandson.”
* My uncle, William Vincent (Bill) emigrated to Canada in 1953. He sailed for the Dominion from Glasgow and travelled to stay overnight with my newly-wed parents before embarking for the high seas. In her memoire, my mother notes that her father was acquainted with the ship’s captain and put in a good word for my uncle, asking the captain to make sure he was “treated well”. For nigh-on 70 years, neither did Bill know that this word had been put in for him, nor did anyone this side of the Atlantic have any knowledge of whether it had struck home and been taken up on.
In 2019, I went to Toronto to attend the funeral of Bill’s wife, Peggy. I did so in the most extreme of financial difficulties. I was advised strongly by my brother, whom I had asked for a loan to pay the costs, not to go. He said it was contrary to good reason, and he was, of course, right. In the end, however, I did go. I said I could stretch my credit card and, perhaps, if it were necessary, my brother could lend me the means to pay it off, if I later was unable to do so. He agreed, especially when I told him the driving reason why I needed to be at this farewell to the departed.
Unbeknown to my Canadian family, news of my coming had spread among neighbours and friends of the Toronto Vincents and, upon my arrival, I was astounded to be presented with an envelope contained $800 in cash: a whip-round to cover the costs of the impecunious nephew. Many strange and wondrous things occurred during that trip to Canada for a funeral at which I was honoured to give the eulogy. One of them was this: in a quiet moment, I related to the widower, my uncle, what I had read about the recommendation Henry Canning had made to the captain of the vessel that had carried him to Canada. Bill’s eyes alit: why, he’d been treated with the most royal of care during the voyage, he related. He had never realised why.
Henry Canning had not procured some special treatment for Bill, he’d simply asked a favour, and that unbeknown to the favoured party. It was a favour that was honoured, but whose honouring never became a thing of publicity. It can be that Henry never again saw the captain; he certainly never again saw Bill and the matter was lost to the mists of time, but for my by chance reading my mother’s memoire. The only party to benefit from revealing its truth was me. A circle was squared: glad that Bill had had such a pleasant voyage, I now had proof positive that Henry Canning was no bluffer.
Those who incurred my grandfather’s disdain were well aware of why they’d done so. He bore them no grudge, and they bore him none either. Characters like that are so rare these days, sometimes we need to reach back in time for them. But their example is indelible.
Henry Millikin may have been a bastard. But he is one of the most wonderful men I never met, and whom it has been the greatest of privileges to know.
In 2016, I auditioned for and was granted a part in a Shakespeare play: Henry IV, the title role (I talk about other aspects of that journey here). I enjoyed it, I put my all into it, I read every word of the text and could not rest until I’d divined what it was that Shakespeare had tried to tell the world about Henry IV. I immersed myself in the task and played with confidence. It was seemingly well received.
In the final scene, Henry rails at his son, Henry. He bemoans what will become of England in his son’s reign. He weeps, and, for him, I, too, wept. The catch in my voice was the catch in Henry’s voice. Stanislawski called it emotion memory. For me, it was emotion. I hope it was for the audience too.
I tended to keep my love life separate from my acting and, a month after we did Henry on stage, a friend came over, who had no knowledge of the play I’d just done. He’s a medium and indulges me with autowriting: in a trance, he communicates with the passed and, like a teleprinter, writes out their messages. He did so that day. He wrote, “Your grandfather and I are so proud of your portrayal of Henry.”
I stared in disbelief at the message. And, in that moment, disbelief was dispelled by belief. There could be no question but it was intended for me, and I knew from whom it had come. I was embarrassed as tears flooded my eyes; I ran to my study. My buddy followed me: “There’s more,” he said. I looked at the sheet again. “Please, do not cry.”
Make of that what you will. As do I.