Clayton B. Ashley

In the early 1970s at McClelland & Stewart the editors and designers had several different ways of keeping the cobwebs cleared out. One method was the semi-regular cheese and wine party. Now in these days we had a couple of ancient Underwood typewriters in the design department for memo writing. But at our parties these became grist for free form poetry creation and we needed a name to credit this madness to … thus was Clayton B. Ashley birthed. There is some question as to what the B. stood for … some say Beresford (possible as that was the name of one of my art college teachers) while others say Bermondsey after the roadway which lead to M&S's Hollinger Road. Whatever. Ashley was very prolific (the cheap Hungarian wine and fine cheeses helped). He was credited with writing a couple of non existent books … The Leather Community in Canada and Plaza Paintings of East York … and many poems and memos. He was even a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He has been written about by V. John Lee in his recent memoir The Cardboard Jungle. But Ashley was lacking a face … until that benevolent day when a Leonard Grove phoned M&S and asked who that guy was that we kept using on his father's books (his father being famous canadian author Frederick Philip Grove. So we rectified the M&S photo archives (thanks to photographs supplied by the author's son) and now had a photograph of the Unknown Author … which immediately became the Only Official Portrait of Clayton B. Ashley (see attached image). End of story? Not quite. I retired Ashley once I ascended to the post of Art Director … the department had been cut back and there wasn't time for such tomfoolery. But one day Canada Post were doing a commemorative stamp of Frederick Philip Grove and they made the fatal mistake of using one of the old M&S Grove books as reference … thus was made flesh the Clayton B. Ashley first day Canada Post issue. Here is a sample of Ashley's poetry:

Wumbletime on the Farm

See the joyous chickadee
See the wondrous chicken flea
They all dance 'round the Wumble tree
It's Wumbletime on the Farm!

Art director Don Fernley was so taken by this verse that he named his farm in Pickering after it … Wumble Farm. Gone but not forgotten.

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