“But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places….” (Jeremiah 13:17)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 27, 2024 – Yesterday was the first time I’d been to his library, and the last thing I expected to see when I walked through the door was a teapot. It was part of a display of fine porcelain that I didn’t bother to investigate any further, it seemed so out of place and yet so apropos for the man who had given birth to the library all those years ago. In fact, a teapot was one of the main things I remember about him – how he would hold a tall silver one aloft while parading a procession of young men to his rooms after lectures, like a pied piper in flowing academic robes. 

They would always trail behind him, those chosen few, at what you might call a respectful distance. And it was always young men, never young women. From my third-storey perch in the empty lecture hall, looking down, I could see him pontificating on one point or another and the young men listening in silence, as if afraid to interject or respond. So many were afraid of him for no reason. A big personality is no reason to fear someone.

I liked Hankey. I didn’t know him on a personal level, but our few interchanges as student and professor, reader and librarian, examiner and examinee, were cordial and professional. I also felt that he was kind to me during our brief conversations. I respected his rank and role, and knowing he didn’t like women in “that way”, I kept my feminine wiles to myself when I was around him. Being female, I don’t think I made much of an impression on him one way or another. I doubt that he even knew my name.

He was a local boy who’d “made good” through membership in the old boys’ club. That aspect of him I didn’t know about until after I was reborn, long after I’d finished university. The few times I attended mass at St. Mary’s Basilica in Halifax as a new Christian, I would see him sitting up at the front with others in the club who attended mass as an agreed-upon condition of their club benefits. Once or twice our eyes met, but he showed no flicker of recognition. I remember wondering why he was even at a Catholic mass, as I was sure he was an Anglican minister. Only later, when the scandal went mainstream just before he died, did I learn that he’d been defrocked by the Anglicans and quietly embraced by the Catholics.

The silence that met his untimely (or some may call it very opportunistically well-timed) death lingers to this day. Even after two and a half years, there’s been no university memorial service, no public occasion of mourning. The usual outpouring of accolades for a man who’d held near-celebrity status on campus for decades has been entirely absent. The reported cause of death has also been vague, though there is some speculation it had something to do with his heart. His body had grown as large as his personality in his later years, so even the offhand mention of “heart” by someone in the media was sufficient for most to nod a silent “oh” and question no further, thinking it must indeed have been his heart that had done him in.

I can only imagine all the sleeping dogs that heaved a huge sigh of relief at the news of his death, the dirt piles under their rug safe once more from public scrutiny.

This is what I remember about Wayne Hankey – a booming voice that preached God to me as a wide-eyed undergrad atheist; an ornate silver teapot held high and steaming; long flowing academic robes fluttering in the breeze; one library lorded over and another given birth to; and a gaggle of young men perpetually trailing behind him. From this you can see that I didn’t really know him, not personally and not academically, but someone has to say something. Someone has to say: He lived. He made his mark. He imprinted on people. He was and still is part of our lives. And as such, he deserves a kind word on parting, regardless of his alleged crimes.

Even Satan got a mention in the Gospels.

The official silence around Wayne Hankey’s death is not right. I know that those in the club have been silenced and are afraid to say anything, but I have no such muzzle and I don’t share their fear.

And so, being free, I shout from the rooftops:

THANK GOD FOR THE GOOD THAT WAYNE HANKEY DID IN HIS LIFETIME!

THANK GOD FOR HIS MANY KINDNESSES!

HE WAS LARGER THAN LIFE AND TRULY ONE-OF-KIND!

I LIKED HIM.

HE WILL BE MISSED.

Charlotte Creamer (FYP 1983-84)