Vance's Story

Vance is 37 years old. He was 17 when he left school in 1974. He went to night school for a while a few years ago. He came back to school in 1993. Vance is married and has two children.

Vance talks about what school was like for him. "I wasn't doing that well," he says, "and I'd try sometimes. I was a little bit behind all the way. I started failing in Grade 2. I spent two years in Grade 6. They pushed me on to Grade 7 the following year and I quit before Christmas."

"I was proud in a way to get out of school, because I wasn't doing anything. There was a bit of work at that time. I got in the woods and got a bit of work, loading birch and stuff like that for the sawmill for creosote ties. I was 17 then when I quit school in Grade 7. A lot of people were finished school then. That didn't make me feel too good while I was in school."

Since leaving school, Vance says he's
been working everywhere. I went to the mainland, this and that. About two weeks after I left school I went to work in a sawmill, sawing birch for railroad ties. They used to send them out to Clarenville to get them creosoted. I was at that for one summer. The next summer I went up there again. Then I got a job with another company and I worked on the asphalt for seven or eight years. Then I went into carpentry. For about eight years I've been into carpentry with a small contractor. I bought my own house and rebuilt that.

Vance says that the year before last he got only 10 weeks work."I just scraped enough to qualify for unemployment, which is not very good," he says. "It's not enough money to do anything with. It's just living. Last year I couldn't even get my stamps, so I checked this place (Literacy Centre) out and got in here."
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