Читать книгу That Wasn’t the Plan - Reg Sherren - Страница 6

Does anybody really have a plan? I don’t think most people do. I certainly didn’t. You can never really predict what life will throw at you. I didn’t even try—much.

But when you find yourself on a Canadian warship less than a hundred kilometres off the coast of Kuwait, and the Navy kid lying in the bunk next to you says, “Jeez, there’s twice as many Iraqi planes in the air today, and we don’t know where they’re coming from …”

Or you’re riding on the back of a humpback whale in a small rubber boat, through no fault of your own, and the beast nearly knocks you into the North Atlantic …

Or when you and your camera operator are stuck in the middle of several hundred angry, protesting crab plant workers, and one of them turns on you both and says, “Let’s throw these two in the harbour!”

At moments like those, you can’t help but find yourself thinking, “That wasn’t the plan!”

How did I go from a freckle-faced, red-headed kid growing up in small-town Western Labrador to a journalist travelling the world and telling stories for the CBC’s flagship news program, The National? That path certainly wasn’t part of any plan I was aware of. As the middle child, in my early years, the plan was simply survival. And with two older brothers and two younger sisters, I had to be quick on my feet, and I became something of an artful dodger. Acting out, pulling pranks, performing, goofing off—anything to get attention—yes, that became my strategy, every day.

But the truth about how I became a journalist—well, that’s another story altogether.

I am one of those increasingly rare journalists who began in the era of film, worked through the age of video, and then evolved into using the digital platforms that have become such a big part of our lives. Each offered its own challenges and opportunities.

These days, the brain sometimes creaks, just like my knees. But in the pages that follow, to the best of my memory, here are some of my most interesting stories from the road, and it is a great honour and pleasure to share them with you.

I was barely three when I got the inkling that a career in television might be in my future!