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One day while I was visiting Windsor Castle the Prince of Fortara brought a curious incident to my attention. He had been leafing through a genealogy newsletter and happened upon a letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten concerning an article I had published in Weekend Magazine. The article, as I recall, was entitled Royally Wronged, and dealt with the case of one James Stewart of Blacks Harbour, NB, who claimed to be the rightful heir to the throne of England, Ireland, Scotland and France.

Lord Mountbatten mentioned showing my story to Queen Elizabeth II, and remarked that "the Queen was amused." Whether she said, "We are amused," can only be surmised, but I would hope she did. Since her ancestor, Queen Victoria, is best remembered for her statement, "We are not amused," the present queen might find a similarly memorable place in history for her own pithy comment.

Most people reading the above would not have a clue what I'm talking about, but it's a true story.

A man's home is his castle, and there are Windsor Castles and Windsor Castles. One is in England, which readers of the British tabloids are quite familiar with. Another is situated on Windsor Street, in Fredericton, and was for some years the residence of the Prince of Fortara, otherwise known as Alden Nowlan.

***

Alden wasn't born a prince, any more than I was born the Duke of Northumberland. We both came from humble beginnings and had to go out into the world and acquire our titles.

Although my friendship with Alden covered twenty-two years, from 1961 to his death in 1983, what I know of his childhood I've learned mostly from his writings, and from dipping into some later (and not always reliable) biographies. Alden talked a good deal about his father, a rough hard-drinking man, but never once mentioned his mother, who abandoned him and his sister when they were quite young. It wasn't until many years after we met that I learned he had a sister. I still to this day couldn't tell you exactly where in Nova Scotia he came from. He called the place Desolation Creek - later Ketapasa Creek - and would say it in all seriousness, and that was as much as you could get out of him, drunk or sober.

***

I began corresponding with Alden in 1961, but didn't meet him until a year later when another young writer, LeRoy Johnson, and I visited him in Hartland. I was sober on that occasion, and again on my last visits to Windsor Street in 1982 and 1983; but never during the intervening years. For all the nights I spent at his place I can't for the life of me remember what bed or couch I slept on. Claudine was always there, of course, brimming with life and good humour; and son Johnny at times, when he wasn't off to sea as a merchant mariner.

I'm not really sure what I can say about Alden in a few words (which is what I've allowed myself, so I won't put this off forever). His work speaks for itself and has only to be read to be appreciated. When I first wrote him back in 1961 - having seen his poetry in Fred Cogswell's Fiddlehead - I was twenty and living in my home town of Chatham. By this time I was several years into my own writing and drinking careers. Alden replied and our correspondence eventually ran to 160 or so letters each.

We got together on a good many occasions over the years. As a veteran boozer from the Miramichi once observed, a man's got ten good years of drinking in him, and from then on it's all down hill. I'd say my ten good ones coincided with Alden's, from roughly the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.

We had wonderfully lively parties in those days at Windsor Castle. Like one of his heroes, Samuel Johnson, Alden with a libation in hand was a brilliant conversationalist and story teller. It was unfortunate for the public he never found fame enough in his lifetime to become a feature personality on things like TV talk shows. It was also unfortunate he didn't have a sober Boswell around to record his monologues. The drinking nights were fun, but they had a way of dimming if not entirely erasing the memory.

It wasn't all one-sided at his house. There was frequently a spirited crowd around him, people who could keep the show going, a lot of give and take and flights of fancy. Alden's inseparable friend, the philosopher Leo Ferrari, was probably his most frequent guest, but visitors were always coming through the door, young poets and writers like Al Pittman, Louis Cormier, Bernell MacDonald, Jim Stewart, Eddie Clinton, Lindsay Buck, David Richards, Terry Crawford and Dave Butler. Also some older, long-time friends like Fred Cogswell and Bob Gibbs. And an assortment of army officers, politicians, newspaper editors, painters, musicians and what have you.

It was on one of these gatherings, in 1970, that the Flat Earth Society of Canada was formed. There were four of us in the living room that night, Alden, Leo, Sharon - my good wife of those days - and myself. I remember Alden and I playing with the concept of planoterrestrialism, and discovering (as might have been expected from two such radically progressive thinkers) that we were both sympathetic to the idea.

The philosophy of planoterrestrialism is too deep and extensive to go into here, so I'll merely say that after finding ourselves in accord, Alden turned to Leo Ferrari and said, "Leo, do you believe the earth is flat?" And without a second thought, Leo - who was discussing something with Sharon - turned and said, "Of course it's flat. Any fool can see that!"

Apparently it was an idea whose time had come, because before too many months had passed we were issuing tracts, had an irregular newsletter, and could boast a world-wide membership of close to two hundred. Alden wrote a story about the society for Weekend Magazine, and Leo - by now the FES President - became a much sought after speaker on the banquet circuit. My position was Chairman of the Board of Directors, while Alden - having his choice in the matter - adopted the title of Symposiarch.

***

As fast as we were ascending in the world, we were to go even higher, when Alden discovered that the young poet, Jim Stewart, was most surely a descendant of the House of Stewart, the criminally deposed and rightful rulers of England, Ireland, Scotland and France.

We gathered a few hundred adherents there as well. With King James in a position to reward the faithful, the world quickly acquired a new aristocracy, with titles flying about left right and centre. Alden became Prince of Fortara, Leo the Archbishop of Canterbury, and myself the Duke of Northumberland and First Lord of the Admiralty. Everyone we knew and many we didn't were transformed overnight into Lords and Ladies of the realm.

And, as mentioned, when the usurper, Queen Elizabeth II, read my story about our movement, she affected to be amused. Not a word about her head's uneasy nights on the pillow.

There were bright times like the day Alden and Claudine and King James and Queen Jane came over to the Miramichi to inspect the Royal Navy. Before setting out to sea Alden christened the navy - my converted lobster boat, Spanish Jack - with a pint of Schooner beer, the champagne of the new nobility. It was no great decision deciding against the destruction of a good quart of wine.

***

As everyone knows, a great many writers have been drinkers. Someone mentioned the other night that of the seven Americans who've won the Nobel Prize, six were alcoholics. The condition is not a disgrace, it's an affliction. In 1982 I reached the end of my own particular rope and began going to meetings, which got me off the stuff and so far has kept me that way.

Alden mentioned the subject in a number of his letters to me, and it was something we talked about from time to time. If nothing else, in his case, he had diabetes, and it's not a good idea for a diabetic to touch alcohol. He was aware of the problem but averse to the solution. When I brought him some pamphlets on the subject, he said I reminded him of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and asked me not to do it again for fear Claudine would see them. He couldn't imagine himself giving up the bottle entirely, he said, pointing out that if it weren't for alcohol he'd never have had the nerve to ask Claudine out, and so wouldn't be married to her now. As if he owned some kind of loyalty to the stuff.

The worst effect my drinking had on me was the loneliness I came to experience. People seem to disappear from your life, and if there are any still around they often don't want to have much to do with you - for good reasons - and you begin to think there is no one else like you in all the world. You can be in the midst of a hundred people and know that feeling. It's like an emptiness of the spirit, a lost and desperate feeling, a sense of total abandonment. It's what leads a great many drinkers to suicide, if something else doesn't get them first.

After I got sober Alden called me up a few times. Once he said he was out of gin and asked me to get him a bottle. I did, and found him in quite wretched shape when I got there, a condition I'd seen myself in often enough. He wasn't out of gin; he had half a dozen bottles in the cupboard; he just needed company. Another time it was for cigarettes, which he already had.

In one way and another, what I've mentioned can be found in his poetry, fiction, essays and letters. When I first wrote him, back in 1961, it was a fan letter. I was always in search of heroes, and saw one in him; then inevitably he proved a fellow mortal, and became something of real value, a friend.

He revealed a lot about himself in his writings, more than in person, and it's what I like most about his work. We get to know him there, and feel a kinship, see ourselves. It's the highest purpose of writing, in my opinion, linking one human spirit with another.

I was in Paris when Sharon wrote and told me Alden had died. I was still some years away from being able to cry but I got a tightness in the chest and a lump in the throat. I took a walk along the Seine thinking about him. I knew what I missed already, and it was to come to me at different times after that. Alden was one of the rare people who understood. When something strikes you, and you think, Alden will know what I mean, and you look forward to telling him, knowing you're not going to get a blank look ... And then you realize, well, I can't do that now. It's like losing a part of yourself.