Open History - Living Up To A Legend: My Adventures with Billy Bishop’s Ghost

Our Open History series continues with Living Up To A Legend: My Adventures with Billy Bishop’s Ghost by Diana Bishop, published by Dundurn.

Read on after the following description for a Q & A with the author.

Living Up To A Legend: My Adventures with Billy Bishop’s Ghost (from Dundurn):

Diana Bishop recounts growing up in the shadow of her famous grandfather, Canadian First World War flying ace Billy Bishop.

As a child, Diana Bishop showed up one day at school with a brown paper bag. Inside was a large breastplate of some of the most precious war medals on the planet, including the Victoria Cross. They belonged to Canada’s most celebrated First World War pilot, Billy Bishop, and until her family donated them to the Canadian War Museum, they had been kept in her father’s underwear drawer. That day at school was the first time Diana realized she was not growing up in an ordinary family.

Now, after more than two decades in Canadian media, Diana Bishop looks back on her grandfather’s legacy and its profound influence over her life, and also her father’s — the only son of Billy Bishop, who had so much to live up to. Living Up to a Legend is a unique memoir that covers Billy Bishop’s legacy through the eyes of one of the people who it affected the most.

Tell us a bit about your book and how it came to be.

“My memoir is called Living Up To A Legend, My Adventures with Billy Bishop’s Ghost!

Billy Bishop is Canada’s legendary flying ace who shot down 72 German planes, which was the highest score of any pilot from the Commonwealth countries in World War One (Germany’s Manfred Von Richthofen also known as the Red Baron had the highest score with 80 victories). 

Billy was my grandfather, but sadly he died when I was only 3 years old at age 62 so I never got to know him. However, I can honestly say no one has more of an influence on my life that my grandpa Billy. That’s because Billy has lived on in our family with all stories they told me about him, along with his enduring brand that has launched books, documentaries, a highly acclaimed musical, Billy Bishop Goes To War, as well as streets, bars, cafes, buildings, stamps, games, a museum, two airports and even a mountain in the Rockies named after him. 

In this way, I feel I grew up with a ghost - a friendly ghost but one that always seemed to be for me there in spirit, guiding and shaping my life in ways I didn’t expect and might not have happened otherwise.

A few years ago when my father began to slip into dementia, I panicked and thought I better start writing down what Dad told knew about my grandfather that wasn’t already in the history books, and about his impact on our family before these stories were lost forever. I started by writing a few short anecdotes about growing up with Billy’s ghost and the next thing I knew it had turned into a memoir.”

What drew you to write about this important historical figure? 

“I believe my grandfather made an enormous contribution to his country, not just in the wars, but in helping to create and build the Royal Canadian Air Force.  Billy Bishop is still an inspiration to the men and women who serve in our military. And while there has been much written and portrayed about him already, I wanted to add his family’s voice into the story.” 

What were the challenges in capturing your subject through this medium?

“I know from my years of experience as a journalist that people relate best to the personal narrative. I think this is especially true when learning about history. I am always thrilled to hear from public and high school students doing their history project on my grandfather. They already know the facts about his life, but they contact me to find out what I know about Billy Bishop the person. That is why I decided to write a memoir and tell what I knew and had learned about the man behind the war hero.”

Why do you think it is important for contemporary readers to remember and reflect on Canadian history?

“My father, Billy Bishop’s son and a fighter pilot in the Second World War, wrote eleven books about Canada’s military history and he always said to me “History comes alive only when we find ways to tell stories that people can relate to and therefore remember.”

What impact did the Billy Bishop have on current Canadian culture? 

“As in my answer to Question #1, my grandfather is an enduring brand who also seems to pop back into the news every so often as some people in the past 30 years have questioned the veracity of his military record.  Whether you believe the controversy about him or not, and I had to come to my own conclusions about this in my memoir, Billy Bishop’s legacy is to challenge Canadians about what is hero? What role should heroes play in our lives?  And why we do need them? I think this is healthy discussion and one my grandfather would have wholeheartedly embraced.”

Diana Bishop has spent twenty years as a TV news correspondent and independent film producer for CBC, CTV, Global Television, and NBC News, telling stories of some of the biggest newsmakers of the day. In 2002, she co-produced a documentary about her famous grandfather, First World War flying ace Billy Bishop, entitled A Hero to Me. Diana now runs a communications and personal branding business called The Success Story Program.

Open History is an initiative to explore Ontario's past, one book at a time, sponsored by the Ontario Book Publishers Organization, Canada Council for the Arts, and The Ontario Arts Council. For older Open History posts, catalogued on our Open Book Explorer site, please click this link.