"An early start"

I started with the CNR on the CNR as a Call Boy in Sept. 1953, when I was still 15 years old.

The Chief Clerk asked me if I knew where the Y.M.C.A. was, and I said of course, as I went by it on the Street Car in New Toronto every day, at which time he tells me to go there and call a crew.

Off I go to the "Y" ,and when I get there I ask for the guys I am supposed to call and tell them the jobs they are called for, and the guy I am talking to looks at me in stunned belief, wondering what the hell I'm talking about, I'm beginning to wonder myself, and as I got no satisfaction, I head back to the office.

When I get back and relate my problems Jimmy W., the Chief Clerk says where the hell did you go, and when I tell him he starts to laugh, and tell me that the CNR in Mimico has their own "Y" which was near the round house, about 2 blocks away instead of the two miles I had just walked there and back.

A short time later I bid in and got the job of Car Checker and thought my career is on a roll, and that was a good boost in pay.

My very first job out of school was that of a Delivery Boy for Posen and Furrie Dental Labs. delivering false teeth all over Toronto, for twenty five dollars a week, where they made promises of a future, but being a little impatient and after a couple months, I quit and got another Delivery Boy job with the University Of Toronto press where they also made promises and paid twenty five dollars a week and, where they were supposed to teach me the printing trade, which never seemed to be happening, and so I started looking again.

My mother says why don't you try the CPR your great Uncle John Fayle works for them at Parkdale, so off to Union Station I go to apply, and when I'm told there are no vacancies, I leave but notice the CNR employment office across the hall so go there, and apply at which time they tell me about the Call Boy Job, which paid thirty two dollars a week and that I would need a bicycle, which I had, but when told where I had to go had no intention of riding my bike there every day, Thirty two dollars, thirty two dollars, it just rang in my ears, that's for me I think.

I decided to go on the Street Car and play dumb, but they never cared about me having no bicycle and everything went along fine.

After a while, maybe a couple months, I got the Car Checker job and my eyes started opening or maybe I was maturing, and saw a job I would really like, and that was the job of Midway Car Checker, which I eventually got.

I was working with Art S. and Art's claim to fame was that he had come to Canada as an infant on the Titanic, he was one of the fortunate ones, and also he was somewhat of a mechanical genius, it seems he could fix almost anything.

Although I never knew him real well Art's relief was Laurie R. and when Laurie came to work on the midnight shift, particularly in the fall, he would bring out a brick from behind the pot belly stove and put it on top of the stove, and then take a whisky bottle out of his bag and put it on the brick, then he would pick up the kerosene can and begin to pour oil on the coals, the fire would begin to roar and the pipes turn red, and I thought this place will burn down some day which it eventually did.

The shack was about six feet wide and eight ft deep.

As Midway Car Checker you had to check the tail ends of trains, as they added cars to them and phone the changes in, which I managed to do, with enthusiasm, and diligence.

From time to time it got a little slow, so it was always good to have a magazine, or reading material with you, and on one occasion I had moused a Life Magazine from somewhere, and was carrying it around in my back pocket, when up comes Gord P. and grabs it from my pocket.

Now Gord was about six foot two, and I am five foot five, and when I tried to get the magazine back his long arms, and size kept me away so I couldn't reach it a grab it back.

I did the only thing I could under the circumstances, I swung my kerosene hand lamp, in a wide arc, and when it came down on his head, Gord dropped the magazine, and kind of stumbled a little, I picked it up, and Gord wandered off somewhere.

Later that night when we were cutting out the General Yardmaster Roy R. called us into his office and said that we had been reported for fighting, and asked us about it, and to his credit Gord said, no we were just scuffling, and that was the end of that, but is where my reputation, whatever it was got started.

Allan