A Writer's Life

June M. Blurton is a retired speech pathologist.

Scott Young started writing professionally when he was hired as a
copy-boy by the Winnipeg Free Press in 1936. He was with the Canadian
Press in London in 1943, and watched the invasion of southern France and
the action against the Germans in the Adriatic in 1944. Since then he
has written for some of Canada’s largest newspapers and North
America’s most influential magazines, covering sports and sporting
events, the Ontario legislature, royal tours, and the Canadian North. He
has also written numerous short stories and some mystery novels, and
helped some well-known sports personalities with their autobiographies.

In spite of the enormous variety of experiences he writes about in A
Writer’s Life, the most interesting part of Young’s memoir is his
description of living in Canada during the early decades of this
century. His memories are of a well-ordered life in a small town in
Manitoba where his father had a drugstore; but this changed when his
father went bankrupt. With little or nothing in the way of a social
safety net, families hit with hard times had no option but to send

their children to stay with more or less willing relatives.

This memoir touches on 20th-century Canadian events, large and small,
is written by a person who not only was an eyewitness but also knew most
of the personalities involved. The events Young describes are
interesting, even exciting. However, his writing is curiously bland and
fails to engage the reader in his life.