{"id":2341,"date":"2011-07-23T10:30:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-23T10:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=2341"},"modified":"2015-04-21T10:46:02","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T10:46:02","slug":"a-good-man-down-brian-vallee-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=2341","title":{"rendered":"A good man down: Brian Vall\u00e9e dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2342\" style=\"width: 609px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/basevalleebennett.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2342\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2342\" title=\"basevalleebennett\" src=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/basevalleebennett.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"599\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/basevalleebennett.jpg 599w, https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/basevalleebennett-300x134.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2342\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Ron Base, Brian Vall\u00e9e and Ray Bennett in Toronto September 2010<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n<p>My good mate Brian Vall\u00e9e died Saturday in a Toronto hospital after a fight with cancer. He was 70. That&#8217;s him in the centre of the photo with me and another great chum Ron Base on the left in a Toronto restaurant last September.<\/p>\n<p>Brian and I became fast friends when he walked into the newsroom at the Windsor Star in the early 1970s. We stayed pals for nearly 40 years. He and Ron and I always got together on my many trips back to Canada over the years and it was always illuminating, boisterous and rude, and great fun.<\/p>\n<p>He was a hell of a reporter and had great success on CBC-TV&#8217;s current affairs show &#8220;the fifth estate&#8221;. He wrote several well-received books about real life crime and social problems.<\/p>\n<p>In the peripatetic newspaper trade you tend to lose folk along the way so our longtime friendship along with Windsor Star colleagues and pals such as Ron, Jim Bruce and Gord Henderson was something to be treasured. It is still.<\/p>\n<p>Read more about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianvallee.ca\/\">Brian Vall\u00e9e<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ray Bennett My good mate Brian Vall\u00e9e died Saturday in a Toronto hospital after a fight with cancer. He was 70. That&#8217;s him in the centre of the photo with me and another great chum Ron Base on the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=2341\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1270,1271,697,1037,1160],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-brian-vallee","tag-gord-henderson","tag-jim-bruce","tag-ron-base","tag-the-windsor-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2341"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7356,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions\/7356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}