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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Why parents lie awake at night
The photos of the burning house on the website of The Peterborough Examiner are terrifying.
My daughter's house.
She's OK, she wasn't there at the time, and the smoke alarms alerted the couple of housemates who were home, and they got out in time without injury.
But the damage to the house and the contents were devastating, a nice old three-storey house with hardwood throughout, and a big wooden porch that was aflame, and in the main hallway, incongruously were it not student housing, a suit of armour.
I was talking to a school division superintendent who told me you can drive yourself crazy with what-ifs.......child the younger is safe, and by coincidence, mom was in Upper Canada and could get there in a couple of hours.
All of this happened in the middle of exams, five young women all deeply impacted....but it appears that the profs at Trent are being wonderfully accommodating, our insurance company is all over it, and all her year's school work on the laptop's hard drive is being recovered by computer wizards.
I won't dwell on it.
But if your kids are away at university, or they're going away, do what we'll be doing when our kids go to their student housing in Peterborough and Victoria at the end of the summer, don't just rely on the security system in their houses, send along extra smoke detectors with fresh batteries that they can put in their bedrooms.
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About Nick Martin
Nick Martin is the old bearded guy at the back of the newsroom, the most experienced reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press, having started his career in Ontario in 1971.
He’s been covering education for the Free Press since the spring of 1997, after decades primarily covering municipal politics, including a four-year stint at the Ontario legislature for the London Free Press.
Nick moved to Manitoba in 1988 with his Winnipeg-born wife, who is a professor at the University of Manitoba. They have two kids, both of whom graduated from Grant Park High School: son Chris and daughter Gillian.
Nick has won a national journalism award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, two Manitoba Human Rights Journalism awards, and the Ontario Reporters Association investigative award.
Nick is a long-distance runner, having finished and survived 18 marathons and 15 half-marathons and 30-kilometre races, and having (barely) survived 10 years as an outdoor and indoor soccer coach.
Nick became a soccer referee in 2007, delighting in his 60s in outrunning 16-year-olds and keeping his distance from obstreperous coaches and parents.
Nick and his wife have discovered a mutual love for kayaking at their Whiteshell cottage, and are both regulars at the Reh-Fit Centre. They hold season tickets to both the Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Warehouse, and as empty nesters, have rediscovered the joys of an active winter vacation.
A native of Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, Nick is a member of the Toon Army as a Newcastle United supporter, and a proud citizen of Leafs Nation.
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