Quick take: Stratford upon Avon

 I have no ties at all, that I know of , to the famous town of the Bard, but as I mentioned in my last post my maternal grandfather was probably born in Stratford, Ontario. 

The town was founded in 1831 by William Sergeant and was originally called Little Thames. Some years  later the name changed to Stratford, and it was incorporated as a village in 1854. The river that flowed through it was called the Thames, but at some point the parts of the river flowing through the town was changed to the Avon. 

I remember having a nurse from Canada and told her where my grandfather was born, noting that my mother had a habit of calling the town Stratford on Avon. She gave me a funny look, and I hastened to explain that, of course, I knew that would be the down in England. I guess she didn't know anymore than I did at the time about the town's having messed with the name of the river. 

As would befit the town name, a Shakespeare festival began in 1953, with Sir Alec Guinness appearing in the first production. Since that time, the festival has grown to be quite famous and a central part of the tourist economy in the town. 

The festival inspired a Canadian TV show, Slings and Arrows, about the artistic and economics woes of a Shakespeare festival in the fictional town of New Burbage. One of the writers and actors in the show, Susan Coyne performed for several years at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

One last bit of trivia sort of related to this post: A professor from the University of Houston -- Clear Lake published an analysis of the themes in Slings and Arrows in the journal Early Modern Studies, published by the English department at the University of Texas Arlington. In it she discusses a link from the Stratford festival to the show.

Stratford is located about 80 miles east of Toronto.

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