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SAFETY FIRST ?
By PHILIP EVANS
The writer is a Newfoundlander, aged 27, with a public-school education.
SAFETY first seems to be the motto of many of my contemporaries, yet I find on talking to them they are generally dissatisfied with their lot. They feel their lives are monotonous. They loathe catching the same train every morning, sitting in the same office, meeting the same people. They say I am lucky. Why ? Because I have travelled in many countries. They. ring me up quite often and ask me out to dinner or to a party, I usually have to refuse as I haven't the money. They say " Well, let's have a glass of beer at a pub." That is meant to imply the evening won't cost much. It costs something though, so still I have to refuse. Oddly enough I don't regret my state, because once I played the game of Safety First. Let me tell you my story.
When millions of people lost their jobs in the financial crash of 1929 I was one of them. I joined the huge army of jobless who drifted from place to place in search of some- thing to do, as long as it kept the wolf from the door. But jobs were at a premium. I migrated to Canada, where I headed for Toronto, as it was the largest English speaking centre in Canada After months of weary plodding from place to place I at last secured a job with a chain grocery store. There I remained for two months. I might have been angry with Fate, but I thought my plight quite humorous. In time I looked around for a better position and got one. This time as a clerk in a department-store, selling dress-lengths to the women of Toronto. The pay was better, but I still looked round to improve my lot. Some months later I entered an insurance company. Not selling, but in the office.
None of these jobs satisfied me by any means. They were merely a temporary halt. Something simmered in the back of my mind. I. began to study public speaking .and joined the University night-class as well as two debating societies. I hired a typewriter and practised on it.
I was preparing for a plunge into the unknown. This may Amin strange when I had only recently gained security. But the computing of interest on life insurance loans appealed to me little. Admittedly there was a pension at. sixty, but even that inducement failed to attract me. Forty years on an office stool is too much to pay for security. I had other ambitions. I wanted to enter the writing and lecturing game. Precarious, no doubt, but what man or woman ever achieved their little ambitions without a struggle ? To express myself as an individual I had to lead an indi- vidualistic existence.
At last one day, when I hinted I might leave the company and told my fellow employees of my plans, they repeated like a well-drilled chorus : " Write ? Lecture ? What on ? " Certainly I must have something to say and to write about. But then I was preparing for that, too. First of all I was reading as widely as my limited time would allow. I was also studying maps. First a map of Russia. Russia was very much in the public eye during this slump period. People talked of a Utopia beyond the seas. Lecturers lectured and writers wrote, and the mass drank in every word and waited for a Moses to lead them to a promised land.
Besides Russia I glanced at the world in general and set my eye on,a line to the East via Persia to Japan. It attracted me. There was news there. I gathered together Lroo-- not much perhaps for such an ambitious project, but enough to start my journey. I sent in my notice. The General Manager looked shocked. The staff were half-stunned and could hardly credit a fellow employee taking such an odd step. " Leave a safe job and go out with nothing more than a few ambitions ? He must be queer." Perhaps I was ; that's not for me to judge ; but I felt I could hold my own when I did get out. I could develop as an indi- vidual, lo I believed.
Anyway I had my eye set on a distant horizon. God alone knows how distant it was. And I determined to reach it eventually. Not swiftly. I knew °LT/ too well after years of depression that swiftness was the exception, not the rule. The Do° which I possessed was certainly little enough to start out on with the prospect of extended travel ahead. I myself was uncertain how far it might get me. Travel doesn't mean touring. No, touring is usually for those who play safe and for those who retire at sixty—it's a means of filling in leisure. To me travel meant work, if I was to gain my background for writing and lecturing. Physical and mental work. The one to help me along as I went from place to place, the other so that I might be prepared when I returned.
It wasn't very long before my Doc) was gone. Russia took most of that. I took what work I could get. Some- times as a dish-washer, woodcutter, an English teacher, a seaman, a coal-trimmer, a lecturer. When work wasn't forthcoming I became a vagrant. And I tasted every side of life. But whatever I did I made many contacts, and the more people I spoke with, the more certain I was my horizon was drawing closer. People began to ask questions about those countries I had just left, and listened attentively to whatever I had to say. I must confess I was a trifle embarrassed at first when asked for an opinion on this and that, and hearing my own remarks quoted by elderly people to back up their statements.
Time went by. And one day I arrived in Bangkok almost penniless. I lived in a shanty on the banks of the Me Nam river and ate at the Chinese street-stands. The Siamese police had given me the usual tourist visa—thirty days. Twenty-eight had already gone by and I had received orders from the Chief of Police to leave the country or pay an extra premium.
They asked £zo. I couldn't pay and tried to sign on a ship going to Singapore, but had no luck. What could I do ? Write ? Lecture ? Perhaps. There was no longer any question : " What on ? " But now I must find a market. The English papers were few and in no need of material. The English people were few and not interested in lectures. How about the schools ?
I approached several headmasters. At last one agreed, then a second and a third. I applied to the Police for a week's extension of my visa and got it. I gave my lectures during that week and made enough to leave the country. That was a success. But the greatest success of all was the fact that I realised suddenly I could lecture. In time I gained more experience and made my way hither and thither on the proceeds. Later when I returned to the West it stood me in good stead.
I haven't made a great success of writing yet. I am striving. One day I will. But all in all I am glad I took the plunge out of security. I have an idea now. I can see the road I must travel and I am happy.
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