Nicholsons host final Westmount salon

By Robert J. Galbraith
Wednesday Nights will no longer be the same
Do you know where you have been every Wednesday evening for the last 1,495 consecutive weeks?
David and Diana Nicholson do. The Nicholsons have been hosting thousands of guests at their Wednesday Night salon at their home at 33 Rosemount in Westmount.
But the evening held October 27 will be the last to be held at its Westmount location, as the couple are moving just east of Atwater.
The mission of the salon, which began in 1982, is to entertain, inform and comment on a wide range of subjects, ranging from the economy to local and international issues. Economists are mostly always in evidence, as are bankers, international investors, diplomats, corporate executives, politicians, professors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors, human rights activists, authors, environmentalists and members of the media.
At the last Westmount salon on October 27, guests included former Quebec politician John Ciaccia, Mayor Peter Trent, journalist and editor Beryl Wajsman, documentary filmmaker and former TV reporter John Curtin.
“Mayor Peter Trent has been one of our earliest guests and close friends and is still an active participant,” explained host David Nicholson. “Ideally, 15 to 20 guests are a good number to have, but we have had up to 75 people join us, such as when the market crashed in ’87.”
His wife Diana recounted “we lived in this house for 39 years and Wednesday Night has always been here. In the first days there would be around five to seven people sitting around the table. They were actually dinners. Then it began to expand.”
The salon will continue and become a little more refined, said David. “We are going to get more involved in specific subjects, rather than covering the entire world.”