My home room teacher at John McGregor Secondary School was Stewart White.

He helped me obtain my first job, a training program position at the Chatham Daily News, which I eagerly sought.

The pay was not much, about $45 per week, and during the previous summer, I had made that much cleaning boats and selling gasoline at Bass Haven; this would be on the Rankin cut, at Mitchell’s Bay.

It was, however, a career start and I was eager to tackle it.

I well remember the time when Mr. White said to me, “You have some ability with the English language but I really think you should learn how to spell words with more than one syllable.”

That hurt, but I did not forget it.

Eventually, I completed my training program and was given an account list of business entities to call on. One of them was the Frances Crookes Style Shop, a ladies clothing retail outlet that operated out of the former Algonquin Hotel, at 214 King St. W.

This would be on the south side........

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