loved a good fight and had a grudging respect for those who fought her best. Bull was married, a devoted parent who wrote to his children weekly, and the same age as her father. If True felt any romantic attraction towards him, she was unlikely to have acknowledged it to herself—or to him. Additionally, whatever she may have felt for him, his style of life was very different from that which she had been raised to respect.
Descended from a prosperous pioneering family which had produced several clergymen and successful farmers, William Perkins Bull was born in 1870, the eldest son of Bartholomew Bull and Sarah Duncan Bull of Brampton. Lucy Booth Martyn says of them that they “owned the largest herd of Jersey cattle in the world—it was considered amusing for local residents to tell innocent outsiders that they got their milk from Bulls!”16
Bull was described as a “big man, with a distinctive curly beard at a time when beards were unusual.17 Another article wrote that “by the 1930s, he had grown to look remarkably like the former king, Edward VII. He was over 6 feet tall, heavily built, magnificently bewhiskered and often wore a black cutaway suit with a black satin waistcoat. He was, to say the least, a commanding figure.”18 He had enjoyed an adventurous career, engaging in Arctic explorations, trips with surveying parties in the western provinces and with inspectors of Indian reserves.19 It is stated that “from his earliest days as a student, Bull had vowed that one day he would be rich and famous and by the time he was 30 he was both. He had a brief and rather inauspicious career as a lawyer in Toronto. By 1910, through his unaccountable talent for making money and a somewhat flamboyant way of investing it, he had acquired a 25,000 acre plantation in Cuba and, shortly afterwards, launched a 50,000-acre development scheme in western Canada.”20 He also became founder and director of Ingram and Bell, founder and president of the Okanagan Lumber Company of British Columbia, founder, director and treasurer of Mississauga Lumber Company and president of Sterling Oil Company of Ohio.21
He owned three enormous homes: one in Cuba, another in Toronto at 3 Meredith Crescent in Rosedale and a third in London, England. During World War I he had financed and operated the Perkins Bull Hospital for Canadian soldiers in a large house across the street from his London home.22 He was famous for the liberality of his hospitality, entertaining the families of the wounded officers in his home on several occasions, and was known in the highest circles of London society during the war years. The newspapers even claimed that he had been a personal friend of King George V.23
Bull did the majority of his writing in the dining room of his Toronto house, Lorne Hall, while True worked in its library, which he called the “Book Room.” Martyn described the house as having “replicas of bulls... everywhere...The large mat outside the front door...had a bull pictured on it, while statuettes of bulls in china, glass and bronze stood on tables and mantels, and pictures of bulls hung on the walls....the platter in the dining room of Lorne Hall showed a magnificent bull. Even the blue end papers of the Peel County histories carried a large bull, as did William’s stationery... These numerous bulls were all well-endowed and provided much conversation, frequently ribald.”24
Bull had wanted fame as well as wealth and, if fame is measured in column-inches of newspaper copy, he achieved that goal too. During one of his many trips across the Atlantic to Britain, he met Colonel William Horlick, who had become a multimillionaire from the sales of his patented “Horlick’s Malted Milk.” Bull soon became a close friend of the Colonel’s daughter, Mabelle Horlick Sidley, and acted as her lawyer when she sought a divorce from her husband, Dr. John Streeter Sidley. This case was long and nasty. At one point Dr. Sidley sued Mr. Bull and his wife, alleging injury to health through shadowing and harassment from detectives. Then, the federal narcotics squad raided Mr. Bull’s and Mrs. Sidley’s apartments on suspicion that they were dealing in drugs or some other illegal activity. Nothing was found and both were given a formal apology. The police in tapping their telephones had misinterpreted the codes and signals they were using in connection with her divorce action. Bull was quoted at the time as saying, “They are great wire tappers down there, I am not losing any sleep over the matter.”25 Mrs. Sidley eventually obtained her divorce. Her husband died five years later.
Then, Bull was involved in a traffic accident near Quincy, Michigan, and although considered in serious condition, insisted upon being taken to Canada for treatment. This led to yet more pages of newspaper speculation, including suggestions that he had been in flight from Al Capone and his gang, a story which Bull always denied.
Bull had a talent for getting newspaper coverage, even when not involved in court cases. While True Davidson was in Regina, researching a book about Sitting Bull for him, the newspapers reported that Bull had told an audience “that the United States was founded by Communists and criminals.” The same article quoted True as admitting “that it was startling, but...Mr. Bull was known for his disturbing way of backing such statements by historical facts...”26 The historical basis later given for this statement was the fact that Britain had sent convicts to the United States before the prison colonies were established in Australia and that the Puritans were Communists because “they held property in common and shared the proceeds of their labour” during their first years of settlement.27 True also was to become famous for her use of effective “quotable quotes” when dealing with the media. Did she learn the art from Perkins Bull?
During her seven years with Bull, True continued to write and submit short stories and articles for magazines. She joined and became an active member of the C.C.F., working mainly in the educational branch, writing and assisting with courses. Among the material she wrote for them was an article, “Our Canadian Heritage,” a play, “Out of This Nettle” on which she wrote the note, “performed at various C.C.F. meetings throughout Toronto and elsewhere. Could be altered by susbstitution of socialist or reform for C.C.F.”28
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