Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Southpoint Sun - 7
Phil Collins’ rise to stardom began with The Beatles (sort of)
Shannon Wiper’s enlistment picture from 1989 as well as a quilt made for him by the charity “Quilts of Valor”. Founded in 2006 in Edmonton for hospitalized troops, volunteers make Canadian themed quilts to offer comfort to ill or injured, past or present Canadian Forces members. To date nearly 16,000 quilts have been made and donated across Canada. Each one is specially made and labelled for a specific service member.
Reminiscing about time in military By Greg Coulter LEAMINGTON — In 1989, the world as it is today was a never-ending whirlwind of political and economic change. After nine years of fighting, Russia pulled out of Afghanistan, the Berlin Wall came down, the Malta Summit declared an end to the Cold War, the Alaskan Exxon Valdez fiasco and the launch of Game Boy only touched the surface of many news events. Shannon Wiper, growing up in Leamington and fresh out of high school, had little idea of where his life would take him. A friend, who had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces, encouraged him to join. He was looking forward to spending the next 20 years of his life serving his country, but through no fault of his own, it was cut short to roughly seven years. Signing up with the army, he boarded a bus to Trenton, then a flight to CFB Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, for a 10-week gruelling basic training stint. Of the 180 recruits, 125 would graduate. Of those 125 recruits, 30 would move on to CFB Wainwright, Alberta, for four months of infantry training. The balance of them were off to other branches of the military. A knee injury sidelined Wiper for 10 weeks, but he was able to pick up where he left off. July 1990 saw a move to Calgary as a member of the Princess Patricia Light Infantry unit for specialty training. It was through these training periods where he would absolutely fall in love with parachuting. Using a rotation system through the armed forces and in coordination with
the UN special peacekeeping forces, his entire company of roughly 500 members would move to Cypress for a six-month deployment. With Canada being a well-respected world leader, the time in Cypress was peaceful and friendly. Duties were primarily assistance with day-to-day issues as well as a continuation of training. A return to New Brunswick to a new home base allowed him to further his military training and move rank from private to corporal. What he enjoyed the most was his parachute training. Throughout his career he would jump about 80 times — primarily in training — with a number of those around the world as part of Canada’s commitment to maintaining world peace and stability. Due to sensitivity and rights of privacy issues, the more dangerous missions are off limits for discussion by military personnel. Unfortunately, it was one of those missions that would start the chain of events leading to the end of his tenure with the forces. With 80 pounds of gear strapped on, his main chute failed to open, and he relied on his auxiliary back up. Landing hard, he suffered serious neck and back injuries which he still deals with to this day. No longer medically fit for active duty, Wiper was forced to make some changes to his plan. He transferred to the navy but didn’t find his duties there to be aligned with his career goals. He spent the balance of his seven-year career as a clerk before choosing to move to civilian ranks.
Returning home, he was fortunate to be set up by a mutual friend with his future wife Marla. Her bubbly personality helps him deal with some of his own struggles that many service people of combat face. Like many veterans, he deals with some of the horrors he has seen that the world presents to our troops in the military. He chooses to talk with great pride of the lifelong bonds and friendships he made during his years of service. “I can go years without seeing my former military friends,” he says. “We pick right up like we have never been apart.” He then proudly shows off a Princess Patricia coin that he always carries. “It was a great experience,” he adds. “There is no doubt in my mind I would have stayed in the service if it was not for my injuries.”
Part 1 of 2 Who could have ever imagined that a 13-yearold who got to star anonymously among hundreds of Beatles fans at the Scala Theatre in London during one of the final days of filming of “A Hard Day’s Night” (March 31, 1964) would go on to become one of the most successful pop music stars of all time? Such was the eventual outcome for Phil Collins, who recalled back then that he had no idea when his drama school asked him to go to the theatre that the Beatles would be performing there that day. However, being in a movie with hundreds of other kids, he never realized he was actually seen in the film until 30 years later when the movie’s producer, Walter Shenson, gave him a copy of the film. Collins saw himself just sitting there with his hands in his lap and listening to the music and refusing to jump up and down and scream like the rest of the kids. Born in January of 1951 and brought up in West London, Phil began playing drums at the age of five and also had professional drama school training as a teenager, once starring as the Artful Dodger in the musical ‘Oliver’. He even auditioned for the part of ‘Romeo’ in Romeo and Juliet in 1968, but lost out to heartthrob Leonard Whiting.
Although he had other small roles, he really wasn’t in- with terested in Chuck Reynolds acting and by 1969, he biggest hit yet, reaching was playing in Johnny #3 in England and #31 in Walker’s back-up band the US. on a European tour. That With changes in the group eventually called band coming, as Steve themselves Flaming Hackett left in 1977, sevYouth, and Collins went en months after ‘Wind & his own way in 1970 by Wuthering’ was released, joining the rock band Collins, along with longGenesis as their drum- time members Tony mer. Banks and Mike RutherFor the next five years, ford — who both started Phil played drums and in 1967 — decided to conpercussion and sang tinue Genesis as a threemostly back-up vocals some. on their albums and live The following year shows. However, in his they had their biggest hit first album with Gene- single yet called ‘Follow sis, on the song ‘Nursery you, Follow Me’, which Cryme’, written by Col- reached #23 on the Billlins and Steve Hackett, board Hot 100 Charts in Collins sang lead vocals. the summer of 1978. He also sang ‘More Fool And in the summer Me’ on their 1973 album, of 1980, their next sinSelling England by the gle, ‘Misunderstanding’, Pound. went all the way up to Phil’s big break, so to #14 on the U.S. Charts. speak, came in the sumPhil Collins may have mer of 1975 when lead been a good drummer, singer Peter Gabriel but it was his vocal talleft Genesis. The group ents that were beginning quickly placed an ad for to take Genesis to levels another lead vocalist and they had never reached after receiving hundreds before. And while the of replies, they started group would continue auditions where Collins with great success on the would sing backup vocals charts through the ’80s to those trying out for the and early ’90s, it would band. pale in comparison to The group quickly re- what Phil Collins would alized that Phil should do as a solo artist during be the lead vocalist and that same period of time. he took over that position Next time, we’ll take a when recording the al- look at his great success bum ‘A Trick of the Tail’. and the physical hardThat album became their ships he’s now suffering.
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