Scott Young (writer) - Moves To Toronto

Moves To Toronto

Unable to get a raise at the Free Press, Young moved to Toronto in 1941, covering news and sports for the Canadian Press news agency. His first son, Bob Young, was born in 1942 and five months later, Young was sent to England to help cover World War II for CP. He came back a year later and joined the Royal Canadian Navy, where he served until his release from the service when the war ended in 1945. Young returned to CP and soon joined Maclean's magazine as an assistant editor. His second son, Neil Young, was born in Toronto in November 1945.

Young began to sell fiction to publications in Canada and the United States including the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. He quit his job at Maclean's in 1948 to write short stories full-time.

In 1949, Young bought a house in Omemee, Ontario, near Peterborough. The family's finances would vary with Young's success in selling his stories and he began taking assignments from Sports Illustrated. His first novel The Flood was published in 1956. Young moved to Pickering, Ontario and spent a year working in public relations for a jet engine company before joining The Globe and Mail as a daily columnist in 1957 and moving back to Toronto. In 1959, Young met Astrid Mead while on assignment in British Columbia and, soon after, he and his wife separated. Following Young's divorce in 1961, he and Mead were married. They had a daughter, Astrid Young, in 1962.

He was also a host on Hockey Night in Canada until getting on the wrong side of Toronto Maple Leafs co-owner John Bassett. The Leafs threatened HNIC's sponsor and advertising agency until they agreed to fire Young.