A country boy’s memoir becomes a bestseller

Author Doug Lester received the first copies of his memoir With A Little Bit of Luck in December 2024. (Robin Krafft Photo)

Robin Krafft, Post Contributor

Doug Lester hadn't initially planned to write a book, but his memoir With A Little Bit of Luck has become a bestseller.

It all began with an ancestry project during the pandemic, when Lester was researching his family history. Having a better understanding of where he came from, he began to write about his formative years for family and friends. He dipped back into humorous stories that he had written as a columnist for his wife Cheryl's Bayham area newspaper.

He described how his life was transformed in 1951 when his mother gave him a good scrubbing and they visited a white stucco house on Roger Hawkins' chicken farm. His father was hired as the flock manager and they lived on the property with the farmer and his family, occupying the back part of the house. On that first visit, he found a kindred spirit in Roger's son Hugh.

"I basked in the glow of that first friendship, we were inseparable," Lester said. "I would have gone to a rural school, but Roger paid my fee so that I could attend the town school with Hugh and that transformed my life. In the summer of my Grade 3 year, Hugh died in a car accident. I had just been swimming with him that morning. He inspired me, and that is part of what I share in the book, the devastation. I was a lost boy after his death."

The first 174 pages of the book describe the first 20 years of Lester's life, including three dozen vintage photographs from his collection.

"I contacted David Stover at Rock's Mills Press and sent him some material," Lester said. "He felt it had potential and encouraged me. I wanted an epilogue, a few pages, but it had a life of its own, and took two years to finish. It was published last December, and did well. It was the number one memoir on Amazon for a time."

It took five years in total to write the book, but Lester knows all about endurance. The mile-and-a-half walk to school every day as a child, overcoming the loss of his friend, long work days in the tobacco fields, and years of running.

"In 2024, I completed my second lap of the equator," Lester said. "I've logged 49,804 miles and competed in marathons. When I was teaching and I realized that the kids could outrun me, I started running. I wasn't a great athlete in high school but I had endurance. I wasn't fast, but I was steady."

Lester was a teacher and principal before getting into education-directed counselling and coaching. In 2016, he published his first book: 12 Steps of Self-Leadership: The Difference Maker's Guide to Living and Leading on Purpose.

"I got into teaching because I wanted to make a difference," Lester said. "I have faith in human beings and the universe. I'm working on another short book now (Circles of Trust: The Willie Jordan Story) to support people, to give hope, to show people that change is possible."

Lester described his childhood environment as a pretty small world, in some ways, and his preference for practical over theoretical may be attributed to his rural upbringing.

"My memoir, With A Little Bit of Luck, is as much a tribute to my hometown of Tillsonburg as it is about me," Lester said. "The post-war mix of immigrants and long-time residents provided a rich environment for a country boy like me. Farming and industry has been part of Tillsonburg from the start. As I was growing up just after WWII, the quality of the schools, service clubs and churches set our little town apart."

Editor’s note: Watch the Jan. 8 edition of the Post for an excerpt from Doug Lester’s book.