DID YOU KNOW First World War hero, Saskatchewan Roughriders legend Piffles Taylor was born in Collingwood area?
Neil (Piffles) Taylor led an extraordinary life.
He was a prisoner during the First World War, played quarterback with a glass eye and had the former home of the Saskatchewan Roughriders named in his honour.
And while he spent most of his life in Western Canada, his roots can be traced back to south Georgian Bay.
Taylor was born on a Singhampton farm in 1895 to Samuel and Mary Taylor. He lived on the farm for several years before his family moved to Yellow Grass, Sask., and eventually Regina.
According to his grandson Jack Milliken, after studying in the Canadian officer training course at the University of Toronto in 1915, Taylor joined the forces in early 1916 and arrived in London later that year.
He joined the Royal Flying Corps and was sent to France in August 1917.
On Sept. 19, 1917, Taylor was shot down and captured, as he described in a letter to his brother Sam dated three days later.
“I can write only a short note as I have been wounded in the right shoulder and the right cheek,” he wrote. “Mumford, my observer, got bullets in the leg and in the arm and could not fight. I did my best till the last and had to land when my eyes filled with blood, which I did without crashing. Write my C.O. (commanding officer) and tell him I was sorry to let him down.”
He sustained many injuries, including the loss of his eye.
In his letters, he spoke of how he was treated well by the enemy, but a letter to his mother in December 1918 told a different story.
“I suppose you would like to know how the Germans have treated the prisoners of war,” he wrote. “I have always tried to make my letters cheerful in order to prevent you from worrying, and for my own part, I have no wish to complain now, but when you receive these letters, speaking of the kindness of the enemy etc., it makes one fairly boil. Now that the war is over, the question naturally arises: has it been worthwhile? The sorrows, the sacrifices and the suffering? I know that no one seriously doubts it, but if anyone does, they should ask any prisoner of war.”
After returning to Saskatchewan, Taylor got involved in rugby and what became the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played quarterback with a glass eye and, after his playing days, he coached the Regina Boat Club Seniors in 1922.
In 1926, he started on the executive of the Regina Roughriders, and eventually became president.
The Roughriders’ former home was named Taylor Field in his honour and, up until 2004, the winner of the CFL’s West Division received the Piffles Taylor Trophy. In 2006, the street in front of Taylor Field was named Piffle Taylor Way. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1963.
He died in 1947.
How did he get the nickname Piffles?
“My cousin Sam was the authority on where the name came from, and I believe he said it meant somebody who was full of it, back in the day, and he picked it up at university and it stuck to him,” said Milliken, who lives in Wasaga Beach.
