A year and a half later, my sister was born, and later that year, we moved to the big city of Sydney. My parents, James and Phyllis (Fong) Seto, were originally from China. My father having been in Canada since the '30s. He had a wife and children (a boy and a girl) in China, but she never came to Canada. She died and in 1953, he married Phyllis Fong in Hong Kong. He brought her back to Canada, to New Waterford where he was living at the time.

In 1957, my brother William was born. We were living on Charlotte St. at the time. Two years later we moved into our home for the next 15 years. This was 152 Bentinck St. We grew up happy as kids. We had a number of cats and kittens for pets. I think we had up to 4 cats at once. Later we also had a series of dogs, never more than one at a time. Queenie, a German Shepherd, was the first of them. Sydney was a great place for raising kids.

Dad was one of the owners of the Tea Gardens Restaurant on Charlotte Street. He mainly worked the late shift there. So did my uncle Johnny Fong. In the mid-sixties, I assume around 1965, the name was changed to the Maple Leaf Restaurant, which it retains to this day.

In 1959, I started Primary/Kindergarten at Central Elementary School, on George St. with Mrs. Elizabeth Morrison. In the spring, then Governor Georges P. Vanier came to Sydney to open the James McConnell Memorial Library on June 1, 1960. I even got to speak to him. In the fall, Grade One was with Mrs. Livingston, and Grade Two and Three we had Mrs. Gene Hennessey taking charge of us.

The library has been an important part of my life. As I learned to read and enjoyed it, I was at the library every day it was open. My friends were the librarians who worked there. Eileen Kingsbury, Children's Librarian, helped to foster and encourage my love of reading. Others there were Marg Muggah, Miss Fraser, the head-librarian, and Joy Walsh, the young one as well as Gloria who was a student who went on to library school.

At the library I learned about Sprockets and his little brother Rivets, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein & Mycroft Holmes, Andre Norton, Alan E Nourse, Danny Dunn as well as Miss Pickerell. I also read fantasy besides the named above science fiction authors and characters. I met Aslan from the world of Narnia, The Mushroom Planet books from Eleanor Cameron and Edward Eager's books about magic.

Not sure, but this summer, 1964 might have been the year we went on a family vacation to New York and the Worlds Fair, visiting Boston just before going to New York, and Toronto and Ottawa after.

At around this time, we joined the congregation at St. Andrew's United Church just down the street on Bentinck St. The minister at the time was Rev. Allan Beveridge who left a year or two later for St. Matthews in Halifax. Rev E.P. Thompson and Rev. Wayne MacArthur came around 1966 or early 1967. Ted Thompson had kids my age.

There's another literary influence came into my life in the mid-sixties, Trixie Belden, and her friends, the Bob-Whites of the Glen.

Grade Four we had Mrs. Isabel MacVicar. Next year, we had a young teacher, Miss MacPherson. This was the year we changed from the older building, a former Sydney Academy building, to a new modern building. This is now the home of the School Board. In Grade Six some teachers changed around and we had Mrs. MacVicar again. I think this was the year that gave us a new principal, Sheldon MacDonald of Glace Bay who took over from ____.

1967 was the year, and we took a family vacation to Montreal. We stayed roughly 4-5 weeks and the whole family was there visiting with my mother's aunt. This was Expo 67, the World's Fair in Canada for the first time, and we took in the sights at this wonderful site, Canada's shining moment on the world stage.

That September, Grade Seven was a pivotal one. We had Mrs. Louise MacAulay of the Northside for most subjects, and Sheldon MacDonald for others. For the first time we had more than one teacher. I learned the meaning of the word "paraphrenalia" this year.

Three weeks into the next school year, just before my thirteenth birthday on September 29th, 1967, my father was killed in a restaurant robbery.

Grade Eight was the same, Central Elementary, with the same teachers as with Grade Seven. This was the last year that all of us were in the same classroom together. This included Sidney and Alec Que, Valerie Duguid, Margaret Galbraith, Robert Nordman, David Horne, Grant Webber, Donna Nodge, Danny Keough and Virginia Wong. We had all been in class together for most of our lives at this stage.

Then I had my Ninth Grade for a year in Woodill Jr High. There were six teachers. Nigel Glabay for Science, Mrs Hodgins for Latin. The other teachers Miss Ross, Bob Henderson, Cameron Long with Bob Mills as Home Room, I don't recall the specific subjects they taught.

In September of 1969, we started at Sydney Academy. Because we were the largest incoming class, they split us into 2 shifts, 7:30AM to 12:30PM, and 12:30PM to 5:30PM. The classes would shift every six school days. VERY confusing.