Like most of the other men on the island, Fred's father was a fisherman. Most of the families were related. There were plenty of children to play with. When Fred was about five years old he began to realize there was something different about him. The other children played games like "Farmer in the Dell," "Ring Around the Rosie" and "Hopscotch." But Fred could not play these games. Fred Williams had been born blind.

In 1959 Fred moved to Main Brook, another community on the Great Northern Peninsula. That year Fred first went to Halifax to attend the School for the Blind. It took a long time to get to Halifax from Main Brook. Fred travelled from Main Brook to Corner Brook by steamer. Then he took the train (the "Newfie Bullet") from Corner Brook to Port aux Basques. From there he went by ferry from Port aux Basques to North Sydney. Finally, he took the train from North Sydney to Halifax. It was a long trip for a five year old blind boy. Over the next 12 years he would make this trip many times.

Halifax was very strange and exciting for Fred. It was much bigger than Current Island or Main Brook. There was hot and cold running water in the school; Fred had never experienced this before. At the School for the Blind, Fred learned to read and write using braille. He also learned to feed and dress himself and other every day skills. But the most important thing he learned was that he was not alone. "It helped to know that I wasn't the only one with this disability," he says.

In Fred's second year at the School for the Blind a strange thing happened. The school had a large floor-model radio. One evening Fred and another blind boy got curious about the radio. They started playing with the wires and took some of them out. The teachers were upset. Fred was expelled for the whole school year of 1960-61. This was not a pleasant experience. He cried when he was told that he could not go back. But most of Fred's memories of the school are good ones. It was there that he took his first music lessons. He always loved music. Fred learned to play the recorder. When he was nine he got a plastic harmonica in a Cracker Jack box. He played it for a year until he got a real harmonica. He also started to play the concertina. In 1966 his mother bought him a double row accordion from Sears for $25. When he was 18 or 19 he got his first guitar and taught himself to play. Fred always liked listening to records and the radio. He liked singers like Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Hank Snow and Wilf Doyle. Fred started to write his own songs. Here is an early song he wrote. It is about his second home, Current Island.

Current Island

When I was just a lad, I used to feel so sad,
Because I couldn't play the games that others played;
My one and only joy, was playing with my toys,
Though I never had many of them.