Surprise, that’s my father!

We had a clear frontrunner for last month’s Caption This photo is from Marilyn Hayes.

This photo, labelled as “Editor-in-Chief Annual ’32,” is from our McGill Archival collection. It is in fact a photo of Saul Hayes, then Editor in Chief for the McGill Yearbook. You can see his editorial handiwork in the digitized McGill yearbook from 1932.

Did you notice the repetition? Hayes and Hayes? Marilyn Hayes is in fact Saul’s daughter, and her caption, “Surprise, that’s my father!” takes the headline over the many clever and deductive captions the community submitted this month. Thanks to all who participated, do check back for more of Saul’s story before and after this moment in time later this month.

In addition to his role in 1932 as Editor-in-Chief, pictured here, Saul Hayes also served on the Old McGill Advisory Board in 1933, and the editorial piece from that year gives comical insight into the behind-the-scenes realities of putting together the Annual:

But we have forgotten something. We have forgotten the engraver and printer, the photographer, the Students’ Council, the students, the . . . The engraver says “You can’t do that”; the printer echoes his words; the photographers says ” I wouldn’t do that”; the holder of the money-bags says ” You Mustn’t do that”; the students say ” You shall not produe the Annual at all.” And so by March, when the book is ready for the press, it has been so refined by compromise that it reaches the undergraduate as the Perfect, Perfect Annual. But the Editors do not recognize it.

Old McGill 1933, page 227.

You can search the digitized yearbooks from 1898 through 2000 on our website: https://yearbooks.mcgill.ca/

For Runners up for this month’s captions, check our Instagram or Twitter.