GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.

28. My serious freelancing begins

THE JUNIOR STAFF OF THE CHALLENGE revealed awesome creativity during the two-hour sessions we spent together each month, on two Saturday afternoons. I felt blessed to work with them!

We spent the first session each month discussing issues being talked about, and things happening, in schools. We identified common topics, decided who would write about which, and how long the articles would be. Two weeks later writers brought them in with a carbon for me. As they read them aloud the group suggested edits which I marked on the carbons. (They were learning the key difference between editing and rewriting: The former improves an article while protecting a writer's style, the latter overwhelms it.) Then we wrote headlines, positioned photographs if we had any, and someone sketched a layout. At home I prepared everything for processing at The Gazette.

I'd met Peter Desbarats of The Montreal Star at the 1961 Couchiching Conference and we kept in touch. As a favour, he spent a Saturday session with us. The February 1964 TEEN SCENE contained this piece by a 16-year-old.

"Busy Reporter Relates Experiences For Staff

"By JOHN R. FITZGERALD

"Peter Desbarats, prominent reporter for The Montreal Star, was present at the January meeting of The Challenge Junior Staff. He told about the development of his career as a writer, and answered questions put to him during an hour-long session. Mr. Desbarats worked for The Gazette, then for Canadian Press in England and in Winnipeg before he joined The Star in 1960. He has travelled widely and visited Germany and Poland last year.

"Besides his work for The Star he does freelance writing for The National Observer in Washington, D.C., and is the Montreal correspondent for the Thomas chain of newspapers in England.

"When asked if a journalism course was necessary for work on a newspaper, he stated that it was not. However, Mr. Desbarats emphasized that if one wished to enter the newspaper business, it would be advisable to take as many courses as possible in different fields. Practice is the best way to learn writing, he said, and told about many of his own experiences and his methods of working.

"In conclusion Mr. Desbarats said that a man who is looking for a position in the newspaper field will find it more easily than a woman would.*"

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The same issue carried the TEEN SCENE's first, very long, editorial, abridged here.

"Votes For Teenagers

"You may not believe it, but you or the person sitting next to you in school may hold the vote which could swing the next federal election. The first step toward a vote for young adults was recently taken by the Commons Election Committee, which gave unanimous support to lowering the voting age. Present legislation requires the voter to be a Canadian citizen and at least 21 years of age. The Election Committee proposes lowering the voting age to 18.... Are today's teens ready to accept the right and the responsibility of voting?

"A noted historian once said that we obtain government only as good as we deserve. If people are ignorant of political issues, if they are sufficiently stupid to vote on the basis of prejudice or inherited party allegiance, they deserve a second-rate government which they are sure to get. If, on the other hand, people are in rapport with current political issues and are aware of the latest international and national trends and have a knowledge of the guiding principles behind each political party, then they deserve a first-rate government -- they deserve a democratic society.... [I]t is not the voter's age which is important -- it is the voter's maturity.

"By the time a person has reached 18, the government admits his maturity by allowing him to enlist in the armed forces, to drive a motor vehicle, to pay taxes if he maintains a steady job. Why should such a person not have a say [about] the government which dictates to him?...