Ex-CBC Radio host known for his funny side
Salt Spring Island resident chronicled his final days with unique brand of wit
Longtime CBC Radio personality, humorist and award-winning author Arthur Black has died on Salt Spring Island.
He was 74.
Black, diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer on Jan. 2, died at Lady Minto Hospital on Wednesday. Black’s family posted a statement on his website saying that he died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.
“The family is grateful for the overwhelming messages of support and good wishes received during his struggle with pancreatic cancer,” the statement says.
“It will come as no surprise to those who have been fans of Arthur’s work that he faced it all with his own unique combination of defiance and good humour.”
Black got his start with the CBC in Thunder Bay, Ont., in 1972, and hosted the Saturday morning radio show called Basic Black, one of the CBC’s most popular programs with 600,000 listeners a week, for 19 years, according to the CBC.
He retired from Basic Black in 2002, but still worked on various programs for the CBC including All Points West with a segment called Planet Salt Spring.
He also penned 19 books and won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times.
Black won the 2006 medal for his book Pitch Black, took the prize in 2000 for Black Tie and Tales, and won in 1997 for Black in the Saddle Again.
Other popular books include Looking Blackward, Back to Black, and Black by Popular Demand.
In the days leading up to his death, Black blogged about his cancer with humour. He wrote that getting a terminal diagnosis from your doctor is “like getting smacked by a giant nerf bat, initially. It rocks you back on your heels yet it doesn’t hurt. Not yet.”
He called pancreatic cancer “the Mike Tyson of cancers.”
He joked that he wanted to call his cancer posts “Dead Man Blogging,” but that it “sounded a little dark. And prejudicial.”
“After all I could be cranking out this blog twenty years from now,” he wrote.
His friend and neighbour suggested he call the title “Last Writes,” and he loved the idea.
He also wrote witty dialogue about his pain. “I feel like my gastro-intestinal system has been re-designated as Ground Zero in a paint-ball war. The pain is ... not intense, but it’s wearying. I feel like an old fortress on a hill besieged by desultory cannon fire from the valley below. But it’s not technicolour yet. A couple of Advil will probably take care of it.”
He and his partner Lynne Raymond moved to Salt Spring Island in 1995, according to local newspaper the Gulf Islands Driftwood.
He was very active in the Salt Spring community, and contributed time to many fundraisers on the island.
Tributes from his colleagues and friends heaped praise on the broadcaster and writer.
The CBC’s Shelagh Rogers wrote: “woke up to the sad news that Arthur Black passed away last night. We called him Art, as in ‘work of.’ Adored him as a colleague and as a friend. He, and his singular brand of humour, will be deeply missed.”
It will come as no surprise to those who have been fans of Arthur’s work that he faced it all with ... (a) combination of defiance and good humour.