Mr. Clayton started wearing glasses when he was four years old and when he started school, due to his sight, he was not able to attend school in the Prestons. Back then in order to learn you had to be able to see the board and he couldn’t see the board. He was able to attend the School for the Blind and that is where he got his formal education. In 1967 he took an adult education course in upholstery with the Department of Education in Cape Breton. He graduated with honours and the certificate that he earned gave him Red Seal certification which enabled him to teach upholstery for the Department of Education. He was an instructor in the upholstery program for approximately seven years with the Department of Education and was employed with the Bedford/Sackville School Board where he taught in Eastern Passage, Musquodoboit and other communities. He taught upholstery to adults in the evening adult programs.

While he was teaching he started and ran his own business, Clayton’s Upholstery, which was located in the Burnside Industrial Park. He successfully ran his upholstery business for 27 years and was a partner, for four years, in another upholstery business located on the corner of Almon and Agricola Streets in Halifax. After he closed his business at the Burnside Industrial Park he worked for Johnson’s upholstery for approximately twenty years, starting out as manager of the fabric shop. Even though Mr. Clayton is now retired he still has connections with Johnson’s Upholstery and provides his upholstery expertise when needed.

In 1995 Mr. Clayton was diagnosed with kidney disease and started kidney dialysis about twenty years later. When he was told that he needed to have dialysis he had just completed one year of study at the Acadia Divinity School. When he was called to come in to start dialysis he was shocked because he felt so well. He never returned to his studies at Acadia because based on what he was told about his health situation he didn’t expect to make it through the next year. It was a two year program and he felt that it didn’t make sense to go back to his studies. He didn’t know that by following what the doctors told him to do that he would live and not die. That he would be able to have a life. He has been on dialysis for the past seven years.