Village Squire, 1979-11, Page 39complain about the punishment though, he
says. because it was just part of his life.
At 14 his mother told him he'd have to
leave school and go out to work so he went
to the steel works. He'd always dreamed of
following his father's steps into the air
force but here he was working in a filthy
steel works and still suffering his vocal
impediment. To get into the air force he
had to get more schooling to at least the
equivalent of the school certificate (about
grade 12 here). After work he'd go to the
public library. borrow books and bring
them home. If there was enough money for
the gas meter he'd study by gaslight, if not
he'd make do with a candle. He managed
to pass the air force examination when he
was 16 and life started to improve from
then on. His own struggle, he says makes it
hard for him to understand today's youth
and their attitudes toward work and
education.
He worked his way up from the bottom in
the air force and was a flyer in the early
part of the Second World War until he was
shot down. It was during this stage of his
life that he started to make use of the
artistic talents he'd had for some time. "1
always had this bent. I was doing
something dramatically or was singing or
plays. 1 always liked to write." During
these years he wrote about 250 poems. "It
never occured to me that was really what I
should be doing."
After the war he stayed in the air force
until 1951 and then worked as an
aeronautical engineer. He worked on the
Canberra bomber jet aircraft and on the
first Sapphire engine. But he was
disappointed in coming back from his
military life to find that England was still
burdened by class distinctions and other
hindrances to upward mobility. He decided
to follow the invitation some of the
Canadians he had met during the war had
given him to try their new country.
In Canada he worked on the infamous
Avro Arrow project in Toronto, the aircraft
that was to be the most advanced jet
fighter in the world. But one Friday he
came to work to find the whole place had
been closed down. The closure had been
caused by the cancellation of the contract
for the fighters by the Canadian
government at the insistence of Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker. Like many
others who worked on the project and then
scattered across the continent at its
demise, the Arrow concellation brought a
new crisis to the life of Don Campbell and
his family. He had to look for a new line of
work.
Part of his job had involved writing
technical manuals and with that and his
earlier interests in writing. he had a feeling
he could write and so to support his wife
and eight children he decided to get a job
writing. He marched into Maclean -Hunter
publications ("I've always been big headed
you know") and told them he wanted a job
writing and editing. He was handed the
challenge of writing a story on the seaway
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November 1979, Village Squire 37