Q & A with Ron Pumphrey

1. What was your favourite book(s) when you were a child?

When I was a child I loved reading such comic books as Superman, Batman and Robin, Plastic Man, and, later when I could read better, such adventure books as Treasure Island.

2. What are you reading now?

I'm currently reading Life After Death by Deepak Chopra and am finding he can see through a brick wall as far as any of us can. I like to read two or three books at the same time, depending on my mood. In addition to Chopra, I am reading—usually in bed at night—some of Truman Capote's short stories and novelettes. I'm reading also the last book I wrote, titled Human Beans, which I am really very proud of. You see, I didn't know I was writing a very, very funny story. True humour truly springs from subject matter and not from somebody's jokes woven into it. I am soon going to buy the CBC's Fred Armstrong's new book, as I am most curious. You see, Fred is a master of the spoken word, and I wonder how this wonderful talent translates in the written.

3. When do you like to write (time of day, day of week)? Where do you do your writing (location)?

I write on a laptop on the kitchen table in our cottage in ye olde Quidi Vidi Village, a place I love and where I have found peace and contentment. Sometimes I write on my desktop in the wee basement foyer. One to three hours a day, three to four days a week. While writing I am so into it that when Marilyn speaks to me it's only when she feels she has to, for she knows how deeply I become engrossed. It's a true altered state of consciousness, oh yes, quite different from the kind one gets from drinking beer. (I'm not a hard liquor drinker; don't know how to handle the stuff. I do believe demon rum is a drink with a chemical demon.) Apropos of the subject, let me say I write lots of notes, indoors or outdoors, any time of day or night, about things I hear, or “somewhat truths” I encounter or discover.

4. What other jobs have you had besides being a writer?

As a young man before leaving Bell Island and Harbour Grace, I worked for a Montreal company, selling men's made-to-measure suits, door to door. I sold the very first television sets on Bell Island (for Simpson's), again, door to door. I worked gripping ore cars onto the cable taking them, full, to the piers. I worked in the holds of coal boats, loading the hoist tubs. I was no good at sports, but, later, during a short stint in the RCAF I was an amateur boxer and wrestler. I was a perpetual student, having attended certificate night courses at universities in Toronto, Halifax, and, later, St. John's. I took courses in journalism, advertising, human relations, and public relations from correspondence schools in the US. I was an auxiliary captain, full time, in the Salvation Army, for a short while. I was a radio open line host and became known nationally and written up in national news media including a spread in the Star Weekly. I was also a publisher of newspapers on Bell Island and in mainland Conception Bay. I wrote the private archives book The Crosbies and the Herring: A Study in Tenacity, and I wrote political speeches and planning political strategies. My first job outside Bell Island-Harbour Grace was as a cub reporter for the Western Star (before I went full time with the Herald), and my first job in Toronto was as a sprayer in a jewellery case factory, and after that I became a sock tucker with Eaton's department store in downtown Toronto, from which I promoted myself to become a financial reporter for Dun and Bradstreet, and then I went to the Toronto Stock Exchange as a go-between for the guys on the floor and headquarters in a nearby skyscraper. Once, when I was out of a job in Nova Scotia, I did night club and house-visiting stints as “Dr. Who,” doing personality readings and fortune telling. I had a lot of fun and kept body and soul together while living in a bit of style, too, like a great apartment and a newish car. Ha!

5. What was your first piece in print (book, review, or article, etc)?

My first pieces in print were populist news articles I wrote on a per-word basis for the Sunday Herald when I was living as a teenager on Bell Island. (The Sunday Herald, now the Newfoundland Herald magazine, was a tabloid at the time, with founder Geoff Stirling in command and with Don Jamieson as his chief reporter, editor, and advisor. I later went to work with those two great men, $40 a week, in St. John's.) Later, while I worked with the financial reporting house, Dun and Bradstreet, in Toronto, I wrote a novelette for Flash magazine, titled “Confessions of a Dying Prostitute,” by Seamie Bessimore. (Don't know how I came up with that nom de plume. Ha! It suited, I thought.)  Later, I wrote for the Kingston Daily Gleaner in Jamaica, where I went to live for awhile, and, later still, I wrote articles for various Newfoundland and mainland magazines and papers, and I was a stringer for a couple of continental newspapers including the New York Times. Much can be said, but that should do. I wrote about fourteen books, including the Who's Who books, which were a revolutionary change from the staid ole Who's Who books all over the world, since I included biography and family pictures, and the personalities in it weren't just the cream of society; the subjects were eclectic. In all, I wrote about 1,500 such mini-biographies. 

6. What is your favourite food?

My favourite food was shellfish, especially lobster. I miss it all greatly. Had to give it up when I developed a serious allergy to them, which on one occasion nearly killed me. I couldn't breathe. Fortunately a doctor was present. She administered two needles and warned “If these don't work in twenty minutes, we'll have to rush you to a hospital.”

Now my favourite foods are Jigg's Dinner, salt fish and brewis, pan-fried cod, poached salmon, and foreign dishes, some of which I “compose” myself. I like cooking.

7. What kind of music do you listen to?

My favourite music is that of the 1940s to the 1960s: romance music, nostalgic music, accompanied by singers whose words I can fully hear (and understand)—that kind of thing.

8. What is your favourite movie(s)?

My favourite movies are the non-formulaic ones; those which do not have easily predictable endings; those with surprises; those which touch my heart and have me shed a private tear. I love a good movie, one which has a respected director. I honour and admire great directors who know how not to hit you over the head to drive home a point; directors who have sublety and in practicing that, show respect for the intelligence of their audiences.

9. If you could live during any time period and in any place, when and where would you choose?

If I could, I would live during the lifetime of Jesus Christ and travel with him wherever he went, in order that I would come to fully know him and what he really stood for, and how this knowledge would concur with or deviate from the teachings of Paul and those of the old Church Fathers.

10. Make a question of your own and then answer it.

You want me to make up my own question and then answer it?! Well, let's see. Okay, the question is: What is reality?

The answer: I don't know. If our eyes were so designed that we could see the true makeup of that which we regard as solid matter, the world would be such a different place we just cannot imagine its depth and extent. THEN we'd get to have a better understanding of what reality is. I would take me “pages” to explain that concept.