By Bill Hutchins
with photography by Ian MacAlpine
As a long-time Kingston teacher, Ian Malcolm knew how to get the best out of his students, and much of it started on a stage. But his journey as a boy growing up in Winnipeg to becoming a beloved instructor of English and drama for over two decades at the now-closed Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI) wasn’t exactly a direct route.
Ian was born in 1948 as the oldest of five siblings to parents, Robert and Prydwen. His father, who was also born in Winnipeg, served as a flight navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force and met his war-bride wife from Wales at a dance at a Royal Air Force base in England toward the end of the Second World War.
The family lived in the Manitoba capital not far from Louis Riel’s farmhouse. “I wasn’t a very focused person growing up. I was interested in a batch of things, but not somebody who knew how to pursue them,” he recalls.
But all that changed as a teenager when he happened to see a play in the high school gymnasium that was put on by the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. “For this first time, I was exposed to really good theatre, . . .
