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Local reporter shares stories from lengthy career in latest book

Bob Burtt has interviewed high profile people and covered some of the biggest issues across Ontario
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Bob Burtt has detailed his life as a reporter in his new book.

In a field where listening is critical, one of the best decisions former reporter Bob Burtt ever made was doing just the opposite.

When the wide-eyed Grade 8 student shared with his principal that he wanted to be a writer and work for a newspaper, he was advised against it.

Decades later, not only does he have a successful career to look back on, but he's sharing his experiences with others in his latest of four books.

Life In The Trenches; Tales From The Golden Age of Journalism is a personal memoir that dives into the stories of his time as a reporter which included stops in Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Edmonton, Milton and Ottawa.

"Sometimes your mind starts taking you back to stuff that happened 50 years ago," Burtt said.

"Different things along the way, I thought that could be interesting. It took me a long time to decide to do it. I'm an ordinary guy who's been through extraordinary times and met some extraordinary people."

Burtt will never forget his first day on the job at The Canadian Champion in Milton.

He took an overnight train from Ottawa, where he was studying journalism, to Milton and arrived around 7 a.m. It gave him just enough time to grab breakfast before he was assigned to cover a story that gripped the nation.

Marianne Schuett, a 10-year-old girl, had been abducted just 400 metres from where she lived in Kilbride.

Nearly 60 years later, she's still never been found.

"Even today, it's still an open case," Burtt said.

"Crazy."

Aside from the Schuett case, three stories come to Burtt's mind as the most memorable.

Following the evolution of climate change, well water contamination in Elmira and a condominium development in Kitchener built on the site of a former landfill that caused problems for residents were all issues that significantly impacted the communities he covered. These stories weren't singular in nature but ones he followed, sometimes for decades.

Burtt has interviewed the likes of Prime Ministers Joe Clark and Pierre Trudeau, hockey players Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe, and environmental activist David Suzuki.

But again, one stands out above the rest. He once had the opportunity to speak with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in Milton.

"It was more him just telling stories," Burtt recalls.

"One story after another. I used to skip school in Ottawa to go into question period to just sit and wait for Diefenbaker to talk. It was like thunder through the room."

When someone decides to pick up his book and give it a read, Burtt hopes it serves as a trip back in time.

"I hope they enjoy the humour in it," he said.

"I hope they get a feel of what it was like to be in the industry the way I knew it when I came into it."

Life In The Trenches; Tales From The Golden Age of Journalism can be found at Rookery Books in Cambridge.