LONG BEFORE I ACCEPTED A JOB with EDITAS, a public relations firm, I thought of going into that field. I thought "PR people" helped companies work in the best interests of their employees and customers. I'm not sure where I got that notion, nor why working for The Telegram (Chapter 3) hadn't cured me of it.
My first assignment at EDITAS actually seemed to confirm it.
The company's offices on the second floor of the Shell Building at the southeast corner of St. Catherine St. and University Ave. (now boul. Robert Bourassa), were not fancy. Mr. Knott and five or six full-time staff had small rooms with very ordinary broadloom, desks, credenzas and typewriters. About a dozen freelancers used a spare office equipped with a typewriter, telephone, desk and chair. I don't remember the terms; I signed some forms, but not a contract.
Getting full control of Montreal panorama de Montreal would take two or three months. All the people affected by shortened deadlines, to get it on a correct monthly schedule, liked the idea, but because the "faster" issues contained articles prepared by the previous editor I had little to do.
Mr. Knott asked me to handle a promotional booklet.
Across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, the very modest department store of J. L. Taylor &Sons was "the South Shore's official Boy Scout Association store". The Association was a pro bono account served by EDITAS, and a board member had arranged a meeting between the Taylors and Mr. Knott. He would produce a booklet for a discount if they designed it and drafted French text while he found someone to translate and edit. I could do both.
Today's marketing hotshots would learn a lot from the Taylor style.
On medium gray matte stock, the booklet has 20 'sides' and is bilingual: Hold the cover with English facing you and the text reads "Taylor's combines downtown quality with neighbourhood convenience". Flip the booklet end over end and you read "Taylor's apporte dans votre voisinage la qualité du 'coeur de la ville'." In the centerfold are the logos of all the world-famous brands Taylor's carried in 1964: Aquascutum, Harvey Woods, Stetson, Cameo, BVD, Kayser.... A few still exist but most are lost in the mists of time and takeovers.
Booklets had matching gray envelopes for mailing or handing out.
The Taylor siblings who ran the store in '64 -- President Charles, Vice-President Miss Dorothy, Treasurer Ernie -- and all department managers cooperated on the format, design, and French texts. An EDITAS artist did the graphics. When I drove across the River to fetch the texts I was welcomed by the three principals, given tea and cookies, shown slowly and proudly through the whole store by the president, and I shook hands with every manager. (Their ages ranged from 30ish to 60-something.) It felt like being welcomed by a family. Their vision and message were a pleasure to translate and guide through printing.
Dear Neighbor,
Since J. L. Taylor founded our store in St. Lambert in 1920, the South Shore has grown so much that we haven't had the pleasure of meeting all of you.
We're proud of the fact that we now sell clothes to grandchildren of people who were Dad's customers in those early years, and they enjoy the same kind of personal attention he gave his friends. Our customers tell us they appreciate the fact that we carry almost all of the best lines available in clothing for the whole family, so they don't have to make long trips across the River when looking for quality.
We know they tell their friends about us, and we're grateful, of course. But with so many new people moving into the neighborhood, we feel it's high time we extended our welcome directly.
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GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.
Non-FictionDuring the first 30 years of my journalistic career in the second half of the 20th century, good jobs of all kinds were available all over Canada. Those of us born in the 1930s and early '40s were in great demand because our generation was very smal...
