Mr. John Ellis. 

Creative non fiction

By Joan M. Baril

“Is it over?” I asked my father when he walked in the house after work. 

It wasApril 23, 1953 and I was 18 years old, teaching Grade 2 at Oliver Road School and living at home.

“Shh,” my mother whispered to me. “Be quiet. Of course, it’s over. It was on the radio.”

My father’s face was grey as he closed the front door. The first thing he did was remove the lead truncheon and the handcuffs from the pockets of his dark blue mackinaw, setting them, as usual, on the seat of the chair near the door. Next, he took off the mackinaw and carefully placed it over the back of the chair, and after unbuttoning his navy-blue police tunic, added it to the pile. His peaked hat usually topped the lot but after he set it in place, it slid to the floor. He didn’t seem to notice, so I picked it up, brushed the flat top, and put it in the usual spot.

I couldn’t silence my questions. “Did you meet him?” I asked. For some macabre reason, I was interested in this strange man whose real name was Camille

Branchard but who always used the pseudonym John Ellis when he came to town for a hanging.

My father took the cup of tea handed to him by my mother and settled into his favourite arm chair, placing the cup and saucer on the end table beside him. “Not really,” he said. “My job was just to stand by as witness, and afterwards, see poor dead Mr. Hlady bundled up and taken off to the cemetery. This cup of tea is the best thing that has happened to me all day. I hope to God I never have to go through that again.”

“Would you take a bit of dinner?” My mother said. “It’s fish and scalloped potatoes.”

My father shook his head as I knew he would. My mother had told me that after my father had witnessed a hanging a few years back, he couldn’t eat for two days. She went into the kitchen and I took the opportunity to ask some questions.

“Was it really horrible?”
“It was fast, Janet. John Ellis does a quick job that’s one thing. Ten seconds

and it’s over. He carries his own rope in a suitcase when he comes to town. Weighs the man so he can get the right length.”

“Why a certain length?”

“If it’s too long it takes too long and if it’s too short it can rip the head right off the fellow.”

A mental picture flashed through my mind and for the first time, I felt the reality, the ghastly reality, of what we were talking about.

My father was going on. “You know Janet, Mr. Ellis is proud of what he does, believes he’s doing the right thing, upholding the law and so on.” He sighed and shook his head, if he could not understand it.

“Does Mr. Ellis really wear a hood when he walks to the scaffold with the condemned man?

“Nay, Janet. That’s for the movies.”
“But the judge who sentenced him wore a black cap,” I said
“Since you’re of an age and so interested,” said my dad, “I’ll tell you that

judges in Canada do not wear black caps. The only person who wore a hood was poor Mr. Hlady himself, so no one could see his face as he stood on the trap. It’s as if he’s not a real person then, hooded like that, like some kind of animal.

“Did he have any last words?” I said undeterred.

“Not that I heard, but me and Sergeant McQueen were standing well back from the gallows.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question. I wanted to know what it was like afterwards when, as a witness, my father had to look at the unhooded face, but he held up his hand before I could speak. “I’ll only tell you this. It’s wrong, Janet. Wrong to kill a man no matter what he’s done. I hope to God this is the last

hanging in Port Arthur. You’re young and maybe you’ll see the law changed because, in the name of God, it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

After that I said nothing.