lister sheddon sinclair, oc (january 9, 1921 - october 16, 2006) was a canadian broadcaster, playwright and polymath. ==early life== sinclair was born in bombay, india to scottish parents. his father, william sheddon sinclair, was a chemical engineer. he was sent to live with an aunt in london when he was 18 months old and did not see his parents again until he was seven. he taught himself to read at the age of five and began his formal education at colet court. though at the bottom of his class, he was gifted at mathematics and won a scholarship to st paul's school in london. in 1939, assured by a travel agency that there would be no war, he visited north america with his mother to attend the world's fair in new york city. he was visiting niagara falls, ontario when world war ii broke out. due to a back injury as a teenager, sinclair walked with a limp and used a cane until well into his twenties and was unfit for military service. he and his mother found themselves stranded on the continent and settled in vancouver where his mother had friends. he enrolled at the university of british columbia where he earned a bachelor of arts in math and physics and began a lifelong friendship with classmate pierre berton. he also joined the player's club on campus. in 1942 he moved to toronto to study towards a master of arts from the university of toronto supporting himself by lecturing in mathematics to undergraduates. ==career== needing to further supplement his income, sinclair found employment as an actor with the canadian broadcasting corporation playing a german in the 1942 pro-allied broadcast, nazi eyes on canada, which starred helen hayes. he was subsequently cast in the series fighting navy playing the captain of a german u-boat (source: ideas, thank you, mister sinclair, part 1, october 16, 2006) and performed in various other radio plays. he began writing radio plays for the network in 1944 and would go on to write more than 400 plays, many of them for the radio series stage (). in 1945, sinclair wrote a radio speech that ontario co-operative commonwealth federation leader ted jolliffe delivered during the 1945 provincial election campaign. the speech accused premier of ontario george drew of running a political gestapo unit out of the ontario provincial police. the accusations were denied by drew, and may have hurt the ccf's credibility with voters. however, the charge was proven true in the 1970s by archival documents uncovered by a researcher (). sincl
1921_births 2006_deaths 20th-century_Canadian_dramatists_and_playwrights British_emigrants_to_Canada CBC_Radio_hosts Canadian_male_voice_actors Canadian_people_of_Scottish_descent Deaths_from_pulmonary_embolism Officers_of_the_Order_of_Canada People_educated_at_St_Paul\'s_School,_London People_from_Mumbai People_from_Toronto Sandford_Fleming_Award_recipients University_of_Toronto_alumni