Gerry Burnie

Some people say--correctly, I think--that I have a short span of interest. Certainly my curriculum vitae would suggest this.

I started my career as a bank teller in Sutton, Ontario, and then, at the age of 15 years (1952), I emigrated to Toronto where I landed a job as a layout artist at Simpson-Sears. The fact that I had absolutely no formal art training whatsoever didn't seem to phase me or my employer, for I functioned quite well in that position until a more 'practical' (my mother's assessment of it) job presented itself.

So, using my experience as a layout artist--which included spray painting the bulges out of men's underwear--I sought a job as a draftsman at Ontario Hydro. I mean, if one could draw pictures it seemed only logical that one could draw straight lines and do a bit of lettering. Apparently Ontario Hydro shared my thinking, for I held that job for three years until the glamour of the theatre beckoned.

We here in Canada call it a "theatre," and so did Odeon Theatres of England, but it is more commonly termed a "cinema." Nonetheless, being a theatah manager held very little of the glamour I spoke of (except going to work in a tuxedo), and so--using my said experience as a layout artist and now as a drawer of straight lines as well--I secured a position as Creative Services Manager with Columbia Records (Canada).

At the same time, I took a part-time job as a dance instructor with Latin American Dance Studios (which was owned by a Jewish gentleman with two left feet), and using this 'experience' I then landed several gigs in actual theatre productions. "Camelot" being one of them, with Robert Goulet (who lived upstairs in the same apartment building as me and my 'benefactor') and Richard Burton.

Meanwhile I was getting older. Already, I was in my mid twenties without a secure career to speak of, and so--like Sheldon Cartwright in "Nor All Thy Tears"--I decided a university degree might help. With this in mind I enrolled at York University in political science, and for more practical experience I managed to get myself elected to the local municipal council.

By the time I graduated I was broke, and so after a brief stint as a property assessor I secured a teaching position at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto. It was a position I held for twenty-five years, but for the last ten years of it I also occupied a position as a Justice of the Peace.

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So what does one do with all these various experiences? Well, for me it seemed to point to writing--something that I had dabbled with throughout of my many careers. Therefore, at the age of seventy-two I started out on my latest endeavour with the publication of "Two Irish Lads," and the rest if history.

Whether it will be the last of my careers is difficult to say, but if there is a moral to my story it is this: Go where your heart directs you.