Work 113

in the city was located in a number of places Like the Israelites of old, just as we were getting nicely settled in a place we received word from on high to move on from there. Our first office was a fairly cramped space in the basement of the old court house. In 1953 we moved to the third floor of the Riley Building on Queen Street which though rather shabby had abundance of room space. Later that year we had to leave there since the old building was to be demolished to make way for the new federal (post office) building which was surely the talk of the town back then. Having no place at hand, we took up quarters for a time smack in the legislative chamber of Province House using the reporters’ desks at the north end while the chairman and two secretaries occupied the rooms immediately behind the Speaker’s chair. From there we were dispatched to a second- floor apartment on Kent Street near Queen. After a couple of years we were on‘the move again, this time to the abandoned old Guardian building on the corner of Grafton and Prince, to the same second-floor area and same long table I had used while proof reading there. In later years when I worked many sum- mers with the Board after university closed, our office was on the third floor of the old post office which was soon demolished to make way for Confederation Centre and finally we were quartered in the abandoned West Kent School. Thus we were in many ways like rats finding shelter in abandoned buildings, only having to flee from there moments before the destroyer’s hammer.

Our employment as assessors was for the most part a very pleasant one, a good mix of office and field work. We got to know the Island as few could, working in every region of the province and down most of its roads. The people we met were exceedingly kind and co-operative which for me was a bit of a surprise and remains a precious memory. We stayed overnight in interesting places and encountered school secretaries of varying degrees of efficiency and neatness. Most of their district lists, papers and other paraphernalia were housed in some crevice in the kitchen with not a few having come in contact with either mustard pickles or molasses or both. Of particular memory is one school secretary who had her official papers stored in a Quaker Oats bag which she kept stuffed behind the flour barrel. In Souris and Montague the town officials asked us to provide them with a lot map. Thus in those two places we measured every lot and did our best to plot these on maps which though far from official were not bad looking and very useful.