“Many of my readers will be aghast to learn that the west Edmonton home of Ted Byfield, the legendary columnist and publisher, has been destroyed in a fire. The best account is in this morning’s Ottawa Citizen and adds several layers of awfulness to the news; some members of the old Byfield circle will be learning for the first time that Ted’s daughter Philippa, who has long served the family enterprises as a world-weary but witty and fun-loving supernumerary, is battling terminal illness.
“The Byfields are all safe and the house was insured, and Ted’s current project was found intact in the ruins on a memory stick, but many personal papers and rare books and much irreplaceable correspondence will have been lost…”
