3, 1994 - North Shore News

I NEVER started out to be a
publisher.

By Peter Speck
News Publisher

I remember some parts of the
journey better than others, and |
can’t remember some parts very
well at all, but it has been 25 years
since I bought the first order book
from McGill Stationery on.
Edgemont Boulevard and began, in
the words of the Citizen newspaper,
the dominant publication in North
Vancouver at that time, a “nomadic
life of hustled ads.”

- ‘That description i is not far off the
mark.

I launched Speckulations in the
newspaper’s formative years.

It had a good run, but I ran out
of steam in the late ‘70s: ;

It was too much to do: sell ads,

A 25 YEAR

write ads, hustle.

I was the newspaper's publisher,
editor and janitor in those days.

For the North Shore News’
25th anniversary milestone, howev-
er, News managing editor Timothy
Renshaw has asked me to bring the
column back in a special Silver
Speckulations edition so that I
might provide readers with some
background into how the North
Shore News began and how it has
survived and prospered.

The telling, I hope, will amuse
and entertain. It certainly enter-
tained me in the writing of it.

{t will appear in the News on the
second Sunday of each month
throughout this 25th anniversary
year.

Thope you will-find it enjoyable
and informative.

So first a little personal history:

There are a few people fiving on
the North Shore who were born
here. However, I’m not one of
them. .

I was born in Montreal in 1939,
of an English father and a French
mother.

I lived for those first few years,
in the main, with my French-
Canadian grandparents, on °
Durocher Street, where Pierre
Trudeau grew up.

Trudeau, however, was 10 years
ahead of me and also lived on a
much better part of Durocher Street.

And there ends any possible
comparison between the former
prime minister of Canada and the
publisher of the North Shore News
— except that both English and
French were spoken in our house-
hold as well. But my French is long
gone, except for a few rudimentary
fragments.

if you,re looking for a peak deal, look in your own cosets.

We moved to West Vancouver,
where my father grew up and where
his English-born parents and family
still lived, in 1944 or '45.

I've been a North Shore person
ever since.

l attended Pauline Johnson and
Capilano elementary schools,
Sutherland and North Van high
schools. :

My father was a pharmacy
ownez, with a small drugstore in the
Vancouver Block, on Granville

“Street in Vancouver.

When { was a youngster, in the
late 1940s and early 1950s, I ran
errands for my dad after school.

_ . While attending North Van
High, where Mickey McDougall
reigned as principal, I worked at the
Cunningham drug store at 15th and
Lonsdale after school and on week-
ends... *;

Bored beyond belief most of the
time, I missed much of what was.
taught, and of course-at exam time. 2
would shine at the things‘! was} :
interested i in and. flunk the hard

Mi fiy French language backgrouri
withered and died from disuse. and
lack of interest.

When J left high school my dad
"had hopes that f would follow | him;
‘into the family pharmacy:

i

“cist.

I was not cut out to be a pharma: 5

Thad an interest in things
mechanical, drove a jalopy, pumped
gas and greased cars to pay for it..

After high school f worked as a
warehouse laborer.

Feeling i increasing panic as my
jack of career options became dis-
tressingly obvious, | became an’
apprentice auto-radiator repairman,
‘under the tutelage of Nor-Est" _
Radiator owner Carey Lockwood.

My father died when I was 19.

It was a very hard time for'me,
my mother and my sister.

Married for the first time-at 21, i
started my own radiator business in
1961, when I was 22,

Neither the marriage nor the
business was successful. (Well, in’:
hindsight, I have two strapping sons
by that marriage who I am very » >
proud of. J guess nothing is really.
wasted in life... -- r

IT went broke-and got divorced i in
" 1966, Iwas both the end and the.

‘people swept himaeys. dug’ ditch- :
/ 08, did odd jobs for Bob Borie,”

Most Fey yo u'll find clothes, books, sporting equipment, cameras
“and other hidden treasures just waiting to be discovered

"and turned into cash through a classified ad!
——_ ‘sponsored by

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Congratulations to the
North Shore News.

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