Chapter Ten Art McDonald Coins The Friendly Voice" One of the first announcing jobs Les Peppin had was to announce the stock market. Nobody else liked to do it, and besides Les knew something about it. Les 's father was involved in buying stocks and he and Les used to go and watch the board at the stock¬ broker's next door to the studio. On the day of the crash, Les saw that the market was edgy; it had been going up and down erratically all day. While he was on the air, all stocks dropped suddenly. The market went into a tailspin until it hit rock bottom, and millions of people went into shock. I try to remember what the depression years were like and how our family was affected. I know the dreadful events which happened then with heads of large corporations jumping out of windows, armies of unemployed men riding freight trains from one end of the country to the other looking for work, the soup kitchens and the chronic despair— all these were things that were happening somewhere else. The Island with its compact family farms, and its deep cultural sense of community tended to provide a buffer against the more debilitating effects of the depression experienced elsewhere. Living so far from the centre of things provided its own form of protection; because we were so used to it, people grouped together to help one another. The Island reverted back to a more primitive form of economics—the barter system. Dad called it "horse trading." Half a load of turnips was accepted for parts of a radio set; potatoes were given in exchange for announcements on the radio. Our world was one 79