5 Feet of Fury

Tragedy strikes leading Canadian conservative

“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…”