This is School House, where I had the great misfortune to live for a year. I am having trouble figuring a date for this picture, but I am assuming it's pre-World War One, which killed about half of the school's graduates, and indeed one of its founders, Captain Harvey. I believe there is a Union Jack flying above the steps, which sums it up. I have no idea what's going on with the roof.

These are, I presume, Junior School kids, judging by the short pants on buzzcut-boy. A couple of points: there were no girls at the Junior School, or the Middle School for that matter, when I was a student. I did not attend the Junior School, and don't believe I've ever even seen the place, which seems impossible, because Victoria ain't that big, and I lived and loved all over it. The look on the boy's face is priceless--if I'm the girl's dad, I'm getting a prospective restraining order yesterday.

Yup... it actually has a cricket pitch. You know what's great about cricket, other than the fact that it is yet another sport invented by white people at which they are now not exactly global leaders? The "tea interval," which is a British expression that means getting snockered in the middle of the interminable game.

A wider shot of campus, with Tolmie's aforementioned hill, in all its ruggedness, on the right side of the pic. I lived partway up the hill in Grade 12 (or twelfth grade, as the Americans say) and once "drove" to school without ever starting the car. I did have to blow through the stop sign on Richmond Road, but Richmond Road isn't exactly Yonge Street.
Back to the name thing: Victoria had a University School for about fifty years before it had an actual, you know, university. I can't swear to the complete veracity of the following, but believe that Victoria was promised the BC university and may have even gotten it, a few blocks down Richmond from University School, at what is now Camosun College. In the time-honoured tradition of sleazy BC politics, UBC ended up in the 'Couv, where it remains and where it has a nude beach (you got one of those, Harvard?). There's a McGill angle to all this:

PS: I have no idea what's going on with the fonts and spacing in this post. Sometimes, blogger tires my ass out.
2 comments:
The McGill connection is as follows: Victoria College (on the site of what is now Camosun College) originally granted degrees under the 'supervision' of McGill. The martlets in the SMU crest(and the marlets in the UVic crest) remember this moment in the history of collegiate imperialism.
Good words.
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