George and Winnett Brand interview, Part 02

[Judith Windle interviewing George Brand and Winnett Brand in 1978]

00:00 George Brand: We [...] you come in absolutely green. You'd been away from elementary schools for some
years. I had been away for five or six years 'cause I worked. And [...] then you come in and so and so. I
remember hearing about Fred [McLellan?], who was a classmate of mine at [...] in high school and my brother
told me, oh I heard Fred [McLellan?] was teaching the other day in the North Ward school, I thought gee, how do
you do that, you know? What would you do? You had no conception as to how things went. I didn't know even
how periods changed. I remember high school a bell went but I didn't know how you did it in elementary school.
And all this, you see, you got.

Judith Windle: Did you have to go back and further your education to teach at the Normal School or was just
your experience enough to carry you through?

GB: Well, there were certain requirements as far as, sort of unofficial, but [...] as I say, you were expected to
have twelve, roughly, they preferred twelve years, although not even our time all had it but that's what they
hoped for.

Winnet Brand: [inaudible]

GB: You had to have a successful teaching experience and be particularly competent in some particular
language was required at the Normal School.

WB: And you were invited. You didn't apply to teach. If you did, I never heard of anybody getting in who did
[inaudible].

GB: No, you didn't [...] No, you didn't apply. The principal came and asked you if you were interested.

WB: Or they just [inaudible] education.

GB: They knew about you. Somebody knew about you, an inspector would say, well  so and so would be a good
fellow to get here but there was no application. I didn't write any application.

JW: Yes, Mrs. [Christie?] told me about [...] it was Mr. English that came and asked [inaudible]

GB: Yes. I always [...] English came and

WB: [inaudible] [Campbell?] asked me [inaudible] English came and asked me [inaudible]

GB: He came and asked me. Of course, I knew English pretty well because we both taught in Victoria High, you
see.

JW: Was it a surprise when you were approached?

WB: It was. Yes, I was at Shawnigan Lake with [...] my mother and family there and [...] somebody came.
[inaudible] Mr. English and his wife was there and my two nephews were playing on the shore and he said, I
phoned your brother. My brother was in the B.C. government and he said, to find out how to get here and it
wasn't easy to get to Shawnigan in those days.

GB: No, no.

WB: And here came Mr. English and he said, I want to invite you to teach in the Normal School and I said, can I
think it over? And he said, yes but I must know by oh tomorrow night or something. So, he didn't drink tea, he
wouldn't have tea but his wife had tea and they talked with the little boys on the shore and away they went and I
talked it over with my mother and my father had gone by this time and I said, well I might as well try. But I had to,
I was so sorry I said that what time would I be through in the afternoon and that was because I often had tea with
my mother and sisters at home. Now I wouldn't care when they had tea if I wanted to go somewhere. And, yes
and I asked certain questions and I decided [inaudible].

GB: This was long after the [...] time when you were permitted to resign from your school. It was the end of



August.

WB: Yes, it was the end of August and the inspector Mr. [inaudible]

GB: [inaudible] English.

WB: [inaudible] English. And [...] I had to get permission and I had to agree to stay, I was teaching Kindergarten
[inaudible] and would I stay until they got someone else. Then I saw the note that he'd handed to Miss Jane. He
said I suppose we'll have to let her go.

GB: Well, they had to.

WB: Yes [inaudible].

GB: I was in the same boat. English came down to see me and [...] I had sort of indicated to Harry that I wouldn't
mind it but he said, you'll have to let me know within 24 hours so I said I'll let you know. And I thought carefully
about it because I was head of the science department in the high school and liked my work at the high school
[...] and had some ambitions, however. And then another thing is I was going to have to take a bit of a cut in
salary.

WB: I didn't know that at all. I didn't [inaudible]

GB: Yeah. I took a cut.

WB: That was one of the things [inaudible] my salary instead of [ten?] [inaudible]

GB: But then on the other hand, you see, in the high school I was at my maximum, whereas in the normal school
I'd begin at the minimum, so I knew I could eventually go higher [...] and then [...] he said, well I'll make right with
the department. He had to go and ask the department to tell the school board to let me go. Of course, there was
no question that they had to because the department insists of them. So I put in the first week at Victoria High for
no money.

WB: Well I had, there was a fuss wasn't there, about who would pay us for that week, whether the government
would or whether the school board would.

05:03 GB: I guess we, the government paid us probably, don't you think?

WB: [inaudible] probably paid, yeah.

GB: Yes, because we went from the beginning of the month.

WB: And you talked to Dr. and Mrs. Guy Waddington? They were there together the same year we were. He
went on to become quite the renowned scientist. They're living here now. They've retired, from [...] [Washington,
D.C?].

GB: Yes. 'Course I doubt if they could give any more

WB: Except they were students when we were and then he taught at Sooke and [Linda?] taught up at [Jaffrey?].
[inaudible] and corroborate ours.

GB: They were students [...] He taught at Sooke [...] Oh yes, yes, yes. Yes, it would pair, a lot would parallel and
then they weren't the instructors either.

JW: When you went in '47 [1947] to be instructors, they didn't have the model schools there any longer, did
they?

GB: Yes.

WB: No.



GB: Did

WB: No.

GB: Oh no, sorry.

WB: No, no. 'Cause I taught in that room for a bit.

GB: No, no sorry. No, no, they needed the space.

JW: That was the first year they didn't have the model schools, wasn't it? Do you

GB: No, no, the model, the model school disappeared when the [..]

WB: Hospital came.

GB: When the hospital came.

JW: Yeah. 

GB: And emptied

WB: [inaudible] James taught but she taught in a room down in Banks Street.

GB: [UVic?].

WB: Yes.

GB: They emptied the building, you see. And the Normal School was just about folded, nearly folded up but they
went down to the memorial hall, John [Gough?] could tell you about that and [...] carried on down there for

WB: Just a few students, the interior people wouldn't sent their children to the coast, you see.

GB: Yeah.

WB: The Japanese [inaudible].

GB: Until 1946, when they were able to repossess the building.

WB: Yes.

JW: Was there a summer school for the Normal School or was that to do with something else?

GB: That was, that was part, all teachers.

WB: All teachers, yeah.

GB: All teachers.

WB: They had it in the high school and then they had it in the Normal School and '56 [1956] was in the Normal
School building. That was the last summer I taught.

GB: Landsdowne, Landsdowne Junior, yes. Well, that was a department of education summer school.

WB: But they owned the building.

GB: And there was no university credit for it. They gave departmental credits for it. And [...] incidentally, one
thing I don't know whether it has been mentioned to you but at the time we were students at the Normal School,



anyone with two years of high school [...] could go out at Christmas on a, what they called a third class
certificate.

WB: Imagine. And they were upgrading.

GB: And [...] were they still doing it for two years? I know they were when I was in high school because they
came around asking if any of us wanted to go. I think so. At any rate, you went out on a third class certificate,
you were allowed to teach for three years, then you came back at Christmas and finished.

WB: Then gradually after you would have to get some university.

GB: Then, then, then within certain, within a certain time you had to get a second and then eventually a first.

JW: Well, when you finished normal school, you went through the whole year, what certificate were you given
[inaudible]

GB: It depended on the amount of high school work you'd had.

WB: And, because all of us had been to Victoria College after the [inaudible]

GB: If you had high school graduation, you got a second class. If you had one year university, you got a first
class. And then there was an older certificate at the time, if you had two years of university, they gave you what
was called an academic. You know, Miss [McKillican?] had an academic but she didn't [inaudible]

JW: Well, did those certificates enable you to teach higher levels?

GB: Not really.

WB: No.

GB: No, no. No, no [...] with a second or first class certificate, you were not eligible to teach in high school. No,
the only [...] the only time you did was if you were way out in the country and there was nobody else to do it.
Now, for instance, when I arrived at Ganges, I went up on the old Island Princess, actually I had only a second
class certificate because I'd had to go to work after I finished high school [...] and I was principal of a little two-
room school. [...] I learned from one of the other teachers, there were seven schools on Salt Spring in those days
[...] and there were several of on the boat going up. I learned from one of them that I had to teach high school
work, I said, well nobody ever told me. But sure enough, I had to teach grade nine. And [...] that was the
beginning of high school work on Salt Spring Island, so I began it in 1923\. And all my students got through
incidentally.

WB: They wrote an exam. They had to write an exam [inaudible]

GB: Yes, they had to write a government exam, yes, oh yes.

WB: None of this recommendation stuff.

GB: Yes. Miss [McGillican?] came up from Victoria and supervised the exams. They all had to write. Latin and
French and [...] drawing and Canadian history we had [...] both mathematics and English literature.

WB: A friend of mine went to normal school a year before we did. Straight out of high school, you see [inaudible]
They were teaching [inaudible] before that.

09:54 GB: Yes. But frequently, another, another type of school that was in vogue in those day was what was
called a superior school. Now superior school was a school that had up the Grade ten, two years of high school.
And [...] frequently somebody with a first class certificate was principal there because they couldn't get anybody
with a degree. You see, the University of British Columbia was fairly young then in those days. It began in 1915
on a sort of a shoe-string. So the first graduates were hardly appearing. Not 'til about 1921 or so was there much
in the way of graduates. And [...] oh yes, one rather other interesting thing is, we had, when we were students,
one or two [...] graduates with their B.A. degrees. So they came to us in September, went through all the falderal



of the primary work and cooking and [...] Canadian history and geography and so on.

WB: That was '23 [1923].

GB: 1922\. This would be 1922\.

WB: No. No. They were students too.

GB: They were students. And then at Christmas, they were given a certificate and went into the high school to
teach mathematics.

WB: [inaudible] Well, a similar situation after the war in '47 [1947]. We had a lot of veterans.

JW: Was there a special program for the veterans?

WB: No, not really.

GB: No.

WB: We worked hard with them and we were lenient with some of them because of their circumstances. And
some of them we had to let go because they weren't ready.

GB: Yes, some of them [...] they were no use.

WB: But we had women veterans.

GB: You had women veterans.

WB: And some of them came in at Christmas and it was awfully hard, you see, after we got started [inaudible]

GB: Of course, that was only, that was only because the principal allowed them to. He didn't have, he didn't have
to.

WB: No, he felt sympathy. He felt badly for them.

GB: He felt sympathy for them but [...]. No, on the whole the veterans we had [...] were not a howling success,
you know.

JW: Did classes swell with their coming to the school? No?

WB: No. Not that many, no.

GB: No, no. You remember Maisie and Holder and McKinnon.

WB: Two women. There was Swift and

GB: Swift and somebody else.

WB: [Compton?]

GB: You see, they all dropped by the wayside.

WB: Anyone who came at Christmas was [inaudible] at risk because they hadn't made up [inaudible] you see?

GB: Another thing is, you may remember [...] I don't know whether you remember, we'd remember very well, you
see, we always had to register. We had to line up, go to our rooms at 1 o'clock when the bell went and then we
took turns called the register. Everybody had to keep a register.

WB: Yeah [inaudible] whole class.



GB: Everybody or anybody. And we took turns. And you had to remember to call your own name so that the
others would know. And you had to remember to say 'Present.' So I used to say 'Brand, Present." If you didn't
say present, the others would mark you absent, they didn't know [inaudible]. Well, we went in at 1 o'clock,
MacLaurin wasn't there. So we called the register, waited, waited, waited, waited. This was near Christmas.
Finally, he came, I think, about 20 minutes late. Well, they'd had a little luncheon for those who were graduating,
you see.

WB: Oh.

GB: With [Eton?] and [Meek?] from our group and Miss Gillis from your [...] girl, and somebody else. There were
about four or five of them only. But as I say, they went through the primary stuff and then went out and taught
high school.

WB: [inaudible]

GB: [Meek?] went to McGee in Vancouver. Taught mathematics.

JW: When [...] in the '50s, Mr. [Roth?] told me that [...] the students had to [...] do oath of allegiance or pledge to
the [flag?] or something?

GB: Oh yes, yes.

JW: [...] did

[inaudible crosstalk]

GB: Well, two or three of us were [...] what, what were we given? We were given [...] commissioner to take
oaths. I used to have to do it. And you had these students come into your office and they would swear allegiance
to the queen, hand on the Bible. And then you signed their little document [...] certifying that they were

WB: So, Mr. [Luff?] didn't come there 'till when? '56? After English was dead?

GB: '54 [1954].

WB: Oh he was [inaudible]

GB: Wait a minute. He died, he, he was coming the year that English would have [...] but he came in '54\.

WB: '56\.

GB: No, no. He was two years with [Harry?].

WB: Oh.

GB: Yeah. '54 [...]. The Roman Catholic students would always bring their own Bible. They brought the
[Douai?]version. Then we had one or two others who belonged to special religious groups who took the
interpretation of the scriptures 'swear not by God or by anybody else' so they wouldn't swear, so we had them
read a special sort of oath that they were willing to have, so.

WB: I don't know why that went by the board. Why would it?

GB: Oh once it came to Victoria College they said, the department didn't [inaudible]. But [...] I had my document
indicating that I was a commissioner to take oaths but I had to surrender it after a certain [inaudible]

15:00 JW: You had it for maybe two weeks [inaudible]?

GB: Yes, yes. Just for the period, you see. I did, oh about three years I think. No, just the two years after English.



WB: [inaudible]

GB: Because English did it himself always. I remember that I had to take an oath for something or other, I've
forgotten what [...] English...

WB: Of course we all had to have a medical.

GB: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

JW: Well, did this oath [...] make sure that you were [...]

WB: British subjects [inaudible]

JW: British subjects. Did you have any American students [inaudible]?

GB: Yes, we had some. And [...] they daren't take the oath because they would lose their citizenship, you see.
So [inaudible]

JW: Yeah, were they still given a certificate?

GB: Yes, they were given the certificate. That proved the [...] fact that it was unnecessary, I think. I've forgotten
what we did with them. There was some special deal. But they, they didn't have to take an oath. They'd promise,
they had to promise not to raise a revolution or something [...] We didn't have many, but we had a few. We had a
few. I don't think any, many of them stayed either, you know, they went.

WB: There were always drop-outs who found they weren't suited and that was fine.

GB: Packard. Packard went back to New York.

WB: Yeah.

GB: Have you heard of a Peggy Packard? She's a singer, artist, sculptor. Well, her husband was an American.
We had him for one year.

WB: [inaudible]

GB: He qualified but he, I don't think he taught.

WB: He didn't get a certificate. He didn't pick up his certificate.

GB: He went back to New York.

JW: Did you encourage the students to specialize after they'd finished normal school?

WB: No, no, no.

GB: No, not really. Not really. However, if anybody came to you asking your opinion about [...] future education,
you would always give it.

WB: [Inaudible]

GB: On the basis of your own experience, but [...] no, we didn't encourage a high degree of specialization.
Certainly not in your, not during the regular program.

WB: If they had art ability, they'd, we'd encourage them to go on with it.

GB: Sure. To go on, yes.

WB: Or music, yes. A lot of them wanted to be musical teachers.



GB: Well that [inaudible] a little different, yes. But [...]

JW: I'm going way back to [...] I keep switching back to your year as students. Who was your music instructor?

WB: Miss Riddell was mine.

GB: Miss Riddell, well she was the only one for the whole group.

WB: She did the whole [inaudible]. She put on a big Spring concert, all singing and what not.

GB: Oh sure.

JW: I've heard some other stories about her. She was very forceful yet very gentle.

WB: Yes. She was a little [Scot wasn't she?]?

GB: Yes.

WB: And she'd been a primary teacher in Esquimalt and her sister taught French in Victoria High. To my sister.

GB: Yes. They were very clever women.

WB: Very clever. They were Scottish.

GB: But she, she wasn't a howling success with us as men.

WB: No, she was more used to being with younger children and the, we all liked her.

GB: Yes, well, we liked her.

WB: I liked her. I wrote her notes and that. I even ran into her in California later with her sister. They had a little
money of their [...] of their own.

GB: Yeah. Did they. Huh. Well she [...]

WB: She didn't last very long. I don't know who came after. [Marilyn James?] came then.

GB: No, no she didn't last. She didn't fit in particularly well for that type of work.

WB: I don't think anyone

GB: I remember her, about the very first day she started to teach us the Jolly Wagoner. She sat down at the
piano and played. Well, we couldn't sing. And then she used to [...] give us little tests. She would boom, boom,
boom on the piano and we had to write down what it was. Well [...]

WB: [inaudble] not musical.

GB: George Green, who played the cornet, and John Gough, who played the trumpet, they could get it every, oh
and Iver Parfitt, who played the piano, they could all do it, you see. They would call it out and we'd just shut up.

WB: I'd never see that in my class in there. I mean the class I was in was A because of the initials. Each of us
had to sing a little solo. This wasn't at the very beginning. So, you know, my turn came and she was playing
away and I did my little piece. All she said was 'unusual voice.' So I [inaudible]

GB: And she also taught the primary work, you see. We did the primary but she wasn't very successful with us,
anyhow. We didn't learn anything much about primary there. I was glad I didn't have to teach reading, I have to
say. Not the instruction that they got afterwards, no.



JW: Well, later as you were instructors, there was a music teacher there as well, wasn't there?

WB: Yes.

GB: Oh, yes.

JW: Who was it then?

GB: [Boyce?] Geddis. He's still, he lives on Vic [...]

WB: His, his twin brother is the psychology man at UVic, or was. [inaudible]

GB: He was in Victoria Avenue.

WB: Yes. He came from the service right into [...] [American?].

GB: Yes. He was one who hadn't the twelve years experience. He had some but not a great deal.

JW: Music still played an important part in [inaudible crosstalk]

WB: Oh yes.

GB: Oh, everybody had to take it. Everybody. And, furthermore, if a student were assigned a music lesson, that
student had to teach the music lesson. No holds barred. I mean you could

WB: Yes. You couldn't wiggle out of 'cause

GB: No wiggling out of it. You just had to teach it.

WB: You did the best you could and they were always very kind and fair.

20:00 GB: Yes but you did it. And furthermore, the, I must say the youngsters in the schools just never played
up, they would go along and accept what the teacher, the student did for them.

JW: Um-hum.

GB: I remember I had to teach music once. In [...] Etta Wallace's room, I remember. You know, you had a tuning
fork. You said, as soon as you put the fork down, they'll sound the note for you. So that was it and then away
you go [...] I remember one rather funny thing, again it was in Etta Wallace's room at Oaklands, I must have
been there twice I think because

WB: You took her into dinner too so

GB: Well of course I knew her. I knew her.

WB: You knew her. You still do.

GB: [...] I had to teach a lesson on the red-shafted flicker [...] the bird. I knew a bit about the bird, you see. So I, I
looked up the stuff and I learned that it laid five eggs, so a fellow hunter, who was one of these who had been
out teaching and came back to finish his [...] finish his year, older chap [...] said to me, well why don't you ask
them what would happen if it laid six? So I said, well what will I say? Say the bird made a mistake, so sure
enough I said [...] I asked, you know, after having gone through the lesson, I said now what would happen if the
bird laid six eggs? Two roosters and four hens [...]

WB: That's pretty smart.

GB: Yeah, I thought that was pretty good. We all just roared, you know [...] Two roosters and four hens or four
hens and two roosters, that was the order in which the answer came, oh yeah.



WB: Remember that little kid too who was the son of one of the [...] professors with you, and we were having a
demonstration class in the Normal School at the time that I was teaching and one of the little devices I used
when they were standing, I said, now you can sit down, all the blue eyes can sit down. And they looked around
and they sat down. Then the brown eyes and the grey eyes.

GB: You mean [inaudible]?

WB: Yeah. And black eyes and whatnot. And one kid still kept standing. And I said what colour eyes, I wonder?
Orange? No. Purple? No. He said, hazel [...] But I [inaudible]

GB: Not bad. That's what I always put down in my survey, you know, my passport. Hazel eyes.

WB: The audience, you know all the kids watching were just standing on sides going why [inaudible crosstalk] it
was cute.

JW: Did you miss teaching, well you still had the contact with the children.

WB: Um, yes. Oh yes. I was just teaching older people.

JW: Did you miss teaching the younger children when you went into normal school?

GB: No, I was, I came from high school, you see, and furthermore I had just been back at the high school a very
short while because I was in the Air Force. And instructing there was a little different from instructing high school
students.

WB: It was different for me coming from the Kindergarten [inaudible]

GB: [inaudible] No it, it didn't fit. My difficulty was trying to prepare a course in the matter of [...] a week because I
really didn't know what to do and I had to depend on Mr. English, who had been doing the work before and the
way he did it isn't the way that I cared for a great deal but [...] after getting through the first year we managed
somehow. And you could always give the appropriate lesson help, that was the important thing when it came to
a specific lesson, you see.

JW: Did you find that the principal [...] helped or restricted you in any way in your lessons?

WB: The normal school principal? Oh no no.

GB: Well, he did me to some extent because I was teaching the subjects that he, that he had taught, you see
and [...]

WB: Same subject.

GB: In which he had specialized and we both had taught at the high school. So [...] he did a bit, you see, he
wanted me to use certain notes, that he had prepared and he had mimeographed and so I, I used them in a
perfunctory sort of way.

JW: Mrs. Brand, you were given [your own?]

[inaudible crosstalk]

GB: Oh well, you see, the thing, the thing is nobody else knew anything about what she was doing. Same with
music, you see, he couldn't interfere with music or with art.

WB: No.

GB: Or with most of the other things. Science was the one thing that he knew more.

WB: [inaudible]



GB: But I mean he [...]

WB: He was a nice man.

GB: Oh, very nice. We got on very well.

WB: A very decent man.

GB: Oh he exercised a sort of a [jurisdictionary?].

WB: He was paternalistic.

GB: Always interested in what you were doing, of course.

JW: Mr. Gilliland was the principal.

WB: He followed him.

GB: Yeah, he was principal for two

JW: Did, did he have a different influence on the school at all?

GB: Yes, I think so because he was a different type of person. On the other hand, he didn't make, there was no
sudden break because, I mean, he was loyal enough to the sort of institution.

25:00 WB: He'd grown up under the same [inaudible]

GB: And he'd grown up as a student there as well as an instructor there.

WB: He was a very early student there.

GB: Oh yes, one of the very early ones. 1920 or so. 1919 perhaps when there only about three men, I think.

WB: Um-hum.

GB: [...] No, there was no [...] great change in style or anything, or emphasis.

WB: Yes [inaudible]

GB: Other than that different people did different things.

WB: Um-hum.

JW: During the years when I've been looking at the history, I see where Dr. MacLaurin was very, leaned heavy
towards academics and Dr. Denton went more towards sports and it just seemed to go back and forth. I was
wondering if it was noticeable when you were there?

WB: No, [inaudible] leaning was to turn out good teachers.

GB: I, I wouldn't have [...] noticed that difference between the two. Denton, of course, was interested in sports
but so was MacLaurin. I remember when we were playing rugby, here was MacLaurin on the side 'Come on
Normal, come on Normal, shouting away, as Denton was, you see.

JW: Uh-huh.

GB: The only thing is Denton would kick about a [...] bad decision, 'Oh you, hush, hush.' That was it. There were
different types, oh yes, different types. Yeah, well.

JW: There was one more questions I wanted to ask you for the record is, at one point there was a Mr. Watson,



who placed

WB: Oh the registrars.

GB: The registrar.

JW: He placed the students when they graduated from normal school.

WB: Yes, he had a little wee office in the building.

GB: Well, he, he didn't place them.

JW: Well, he knew where the vacancies were.

WB: He placed me.

GB: Oh yeah. He was a walk, sitting encyclopedic, 'cause he never walked, he always sat. He it was who
suggested that I go to Ganges rather than up to Kitsumkalum. Then [...] you know, when I point to this one he
says, well there you'll have to board with so-and-so and it's a mile and a half to walk. He knew the whole
problem.

WB: Oh, he was marvelous. 'Course, well he did the same with me. I didn't go up 'til Christmas, so they were all
gone. But he knew that somebody was going to be replaced, vacant in Grand Forks, out of Grand Forks, the little
Doukhobor school. And he knew another on the Arrow Lakes, so I applied for both and the other one came
through first. And, you know, the trustee, the board of trustees, the chairman, would write the letters and this was
a very fine old gentlemen, and he wrote this letter and his spelling was this, he said I'll meet you, M-E-A-T at the
station, and I was showing at the tea, the girls, all of us who were going out [inaudible], 'oh'  so this girl said, 'he'll
make you into mincemeat.' So, that was what Mr. Watson knew. He knew all this stuff.

GB: Yes, now when you're talking about placing, he, he, he would place to this extent that if you had said you
would take a certain job which was then open, he would write the letter for you. I didn't write applying to Ganges,
it was understood that I was going there. Salary and all.

WB: Yes. You went downhill and paid five dollars for your certificate.

GB: Ten, ten-eighty. That was my first years salary.

WB: Um-hum.

GB: And I was the nabob of the whole lot on the island [...] 'Course times were different.

WB: But you had to pay your fare to get places, you know [inaudible]. No. And he was a wonderful old man
[inaudible]

GB: Yes, yes, anyways I didn't have that much. You had to pay your board. And you got [...] you got ten cheques
only.

JW: I was wondering how long his job went on because you said later on that the schools wrote to the normal
school for

WB: I guess he, oh, he retired, I guess, in due course.

GB: He retired and [...] a fellow who was an inspector, what was his name? He came from [...] Robson. Robson.

WB: We had a registrar who did it. That's right.

GB: Robson did it for a while then Tom [Hull?] did it. Who was principal at George Jay, you remember. He did it.

WB: He became, he was an inspector. Sometimes they brought in inspectors who helped or failed or something.



GB: Yeah, who didn't want to roam around. Roaming around the province in the early days, Judy, was no easy
job, you know. The roads were muddy.

WB: No buses, you know.

GB: Let me tell you, the first year, the first year I went up-country from the Normal School was the spring of [...]
1948 and Mr. Gilliland and I went together and I had my car. And we started, we were to start at [...] Kamloops,
so we did Kamloops, and then we were to go along and the Okanagan, away up as far as Fernie. And
sometimes he would go ahead by train and I would, I would catch him up, that was the way. Now I got stuck on
the highway between Kamloops and Chase. Mud, just got stuck in the mud, had to get pulled out. So that shows
you.

WB: The roads and the cars were not what they are today.

GB: The roads, the roads were terrible.

WB: And the hotels were few and far between and real country hotels.

GB: Few. When you went to Salmon Arm you had two hotels at which you stay. So you would make your
reservation before you left Victoria and I knew every hotel to which I was going, and the [...] both on which I was
coming back because you had to make space for your car.

30:00 WB: Mrs. Holly, have you had contact with Mrs. Holly? Yes, she'd know the office end of it. She ran that
thing all by herself practically.

GB: Yes, she wrote all the letters asking, making the reservations for us.

WB: She was wonderful. She went the year we did in '47 [1947].

GB: She went in '47, that's right.

WB: Yes.

JW: Did you go out to observe your students to [...] criticize them?

GB: Yes.

WB: Oh yes.

JW: How often did you have to go out?

GB: Every time they were out, which was three times a year.

WB: See, 'round Victoria was alright but

GB: We went out

JW: You had to go

WB: Far [inaudible]

GB: No they only went far after Easter.

WB: The last practicum.

GB: You see, they went home for their Easter holidays and then they stayed in their own district and taught in
their own district. See, somebody from Traill would go home and spend the ten days in Traill and then teach in
the school. And we wouldn't generally appear until the third day, about the Wednesday was the best. In those



days, we saw them only once. Later on, we arranged it so that two different people saw them, one nearer the
beginning and the other. That's what I had used to have to do latterly.

JW: Then they'd all have to come back to the school after that?

WB: Did they have to come back?

GB: They used to come back.

WB: They kept the public school year nearly, except the other week, that, that changed after.

GB: Yeah, pretty well all of about a week or something, yes. We had a big banquet down there at the Empress
Hotel, there.

WB: Each time, yeah.

GB: Yes, speeches and everything else.

WB: Um-hum.

GB: You know, formal dress? 

[break in tape]

GB: You know, once we got out of the Normal School it became the College of Education [...] Then they finish up
their exams and went out did their final practicum and stayed home.

JW: When [...] they, you had your big dos and everything else, I was wondering [...] was the Crystal Garden a
popular gathering place for everybody? Did you have dances down there?

WB: Well, I don't know. They may have gone on, no, we didn't have. Ours were always at the hotel. We had [...]
always, I mean, at the end of every year, you know.

GB: We went to the Empress Hotel room.

WB: But we had dances, well, every week almost, the social [...] oh that's right, I was convenor of the committee,
the Social Committee. We had Friday night dances.

GB: Dances, dances in the auditorium.

WB: In the auditorium. And two people would attend, the Social committee would attend to refreshments, which
we would phone Smalls Bakery at the time and had cupcakes. Chocolate and pink icing. And big, big trays would
be brought up and they'd sell cold drinks. And I remember one chap, it was the first year I was there, he, oh he
was so worried, he thought we had to make money on the deal. We didn't, we had to break even, you see. And I
met him a few years later. He was on his way to a conference in [...] England. He was Member of Parliament for
the interior.

GB: That was Johnson.

WB: Howard Johnson.

GB: Howard Johnson, yes.

WB: He is now, but that was all

GB: I think he's still an MP.

WB: He's an MP but he's for, for Cranbrook area and he's a conservative now.



GB: Yes, a conservative. He was a, he ran as a Social Credit. He was elected as a Social Credit the first time.

WB: [inaudible] a seventeen year old.

GB: He married a Japanese.

WB: He married a Japanese girl.

GB: Yes. Nice boy.

WB: But those were regular events and they were lots of fun. They had a little orchestra. [You?] often played the
saxophone.

JW: The orchestra was within the Normal School, was it?

WB: Oh, oh yes.

GB: Or they'd import a boyfriend sometimes.

WB: You know, someone who was in [inaudible]

GB: Some, someone they knew.

WB: I don't think we ever had a professional orchestra?

GB: No, I don't think so.

WB: So the class of '50 [1950] was to my mind the most outstanding year.

GB: Except for the final affair at the Empress, when [...] incidentally [...] we didn't have to pay for that. That came
out of [...] well, the students had to pay a social fee of 5 dollars of something but then we made money from
various enterprises during the year. The concert made money for instance.

JW: But you invited the public to the concert, didn't you?

GB: No, no. No, no. No.

WB: Well, we gave free tickets to practice teachers. And friends.

GB: And then the rest paid.

WB: Not much.

GB: We made a little bit of money. And then out these notes that [...] English insisted I sell to the students, we
made money out of that. And then we made money out something else, I've forgotten what. But at any rate, we
didn't

WB: Had a little kitty.

GB: A little, we didn't pay for this banquet at all. And we didn't pay for the refreshments at the picnics. We had
two picnics, one in the Fall and one in the, one in the Spring and [...]

JW: Where were your picnics?

WB: Willows Beach.

GB: Willows Beach [...] down the Willows [inaudible]

WB: See the first one was a get-together and people became friends and they had sing-songs around the



bonfire and helped with the refreshments. The building was just filled with the smell of frying onions. You know,
ready for the hot dogs.

GB: Yes. And Mrs. Brand always looked after cooking the hot dogs and I was always the fireman, getting the
logs and keeping the fire going.

WB: It became quite a family arrangement, you know.

GB: Oh, we did.

WB: We were self-contained.

GB: Everybody knew everybody and [...] There was never any trouble at all.

WB: No.

JW: And you'd have a picnic at the end of the year too?

WB: Yes.

GB: Well, not at the end. A little before the end.

WB: When the weather was decent, you know.

GB: Yes. Usually it was after, it was after Easter of course.

WB: Worst one came [...] Oh it would have to be, yes.

35:00 GB: In normal school days. And then once [...] we finished normal school that, that finished. No more. No
more morning assemblies, no more lit. society, no more picnics [...] no.

JW: It became very impersonal, didn't it?

GB: Yeah.

WB: Yeah they were part of the college. A lot of people married, you know, I mean they got married at different
parts of the year but they married students, married students who were near at that time, you know, that same
year. Friendship.

JW: I found this, that in the '30s and '40s and '50s, the students who'd met each other either married soon after
or a little later. But during the '20s, that didn't happen very often.

GB: A lot of people didn't marry as early then.

WB: You had to be established before you married.

GB: You had to be establish. And furthermore

WB: And one could work so.

GB: One couldn't work as soon as you married the [...]

WB: Wife.

GB: The wife had to stay at home.

JW: Do you know when that sort of unwritten law was finally abolished?

GB: Well, I



WB: I think during the war. The men went off you see.

GB: Not really until the war. The war really [...] changed things. Now World War I resulted in girls going into
factories and driving laundry trucks but as soon as the men came back they went out. Where it didn't make the
change probably was in the banks, I think, women went into the banks first of all. But World War II the women
took all sorts of jobs and just stayed on.

WB: There wouldn't have been enough teachers if the women hadn't [...]

GB: Well.

JW: Teachers were hard to come by in the '50, weren't they?

WB: I think there [inaudible]

GB: Well, you had so much, you had so many [...] hurried marriages with fellow going overseas and then the
girls would stay on teaching, you see. And [...] well they just stayed on. Sometimes their husbands were killed
[...] even when they came back they were still gone. Things changed radically after the war.

JW: Mr. Lough told me that [...] during the last few years of the normal school, when teachers were in demand
again, they'd gone back to how it was in the '20s when sometimes a student wasn't quite up to par but they
needed a teacher so badly, they'd be sent out.

GB: Oh well [...] we, we were embarrassed because of the fact that [...] teachers whom [...] I mean, students
whom we really would rather not have passed were walking around with two telegrams, sometimes three
telegrams, offering them jobs. You see, the, from their hometown or some other town or something.

WB: They were often offered them before they'd had their [...] passed or anything else.

GB: Yes, long before, long before they'd passed. And [...] no, no. no. We were glad when that [...] that didn't last
for too long, but that, that's after we became a university. That was in the [...] even in the early '60\. What was
the name of that one that Kathleen kept on about. The girl [...] she had a sort of a French name and she went
teaching Social Studies in high school way up North. I can recall the girl yet but here was a girl who shouldn't
have passed and she was teaching Grade 11 Social Studies.

WB: And the inspectors would always blame us, you see [inaudible]

GB: Then furthermore [...] well did Mr. Lough tell you about the [...] Trustees' Day? Oh well.

WB: That was fun.

GB: Later on when [...] conditions became bad as far as getting teacher go, this was in the late '50s and the
early '60, the trustees would all appear [...] together with the district superintendent, off and on a given day or a
given day, given days they would go UBC one day, come to us another day. And they would set up little booths
in the great big gymnasium that we had. Queen Charlotte Islands. Powell River. So-and-so. Come and teach
here and they would have pictures and little [...]

WB: We shopped around.

GB: A little slide, a little slide showing all the possibilities for hunting, fishing and picnicking and so one and a
picture of their school.

WB: They'd sign them all up before they'd even passed.

GB: Begging, begging people to come.

WB: That was fun. It was like a fair.



GB: Even Vancouver, even Vancouver, the place that [...] we used to think was the hardest into which to get,
they were, they'd would take some of our terrible students. We said to you, we said to some of them, 'Good
heavens. Why don't you ask us before you sign these people up. We could tell you whether they're any good or
not.' But away they go to Vancouver. Away they go elsewhere. But Queen Charlotte had a rough time.
Kitsamkalum had a rough time. The [Peace?] was a little better. I was never up at the [Peace?] but you know
they had a sort of a tradition of [..] stability up there. And another place in the very early days that used to be well
sought after was Trail.

WB: All the engineers were there so the girls wanted to go there.

40:00 GB: Yes. The girls wanted to go there because they could find a husband but the fellas liked to go there
because they paid well. You see, there was a great variation in [...] there was no BCTS that amounted to
anything in those days. There was one but it was voluntary organization. Another place that was good was
Ocean Falls. They'd paid very good money and anybody who went going to Ocean Falls could soon get a
principal-ship and [...] the turnover was pretty big but you made big money. And that enabled you to save up
enough to go to university to finish your degree if you didn't have one, you see [...] it was good. The place that
was no good was Saanich. Nobody would

WB: They didn't have much money.

GB: They, they paid about the lowest in the province.

JW: The only advantage would be staying in Victoria.

GB: Yeah.

WB: Yeah. And they normally didn't usually in those days take people unless they'd been out.

GB: Saanich would, of course. But [...]

WB: Saanich was separate in those days.

GB: Yes. Saanich was, Saanish was, and Oak Bay was separate. Esquimalt was separate. They were all
separate.

WB: Separate too. They weren't amalgamated then.

GB: All separate schoolboards and school districts. But those [...] trustees' days or what did they call it? It wasn't
trustee [...] something like that.

WB: I don't know.

GB: It was a big affair. A real humdinger.

WB:[They used to do?] a banquet or something for the students, didn't they? There was some

GB: Oh that was the B, the BCT

WB: Oh the BCTF. Yeah, yeah.

GB: The BCTF would, that evening, yes, the BCF would entertain all the students to dinner.

WB: Meals didn't cost as much then as they do now.

GB: You know the Tallyho or someplace like that.

WB: Yeah. yeah. Oh I [inaudible]

GB: That was normal school. Not anything else.



JW: Where, where was the [...] event held? You said they set up things?

WB: In, in the auditorium of the

GB: [inaudible] the gymnasium.

WB: Well that was once we were in university though when they had the gymnasium.

GB: Oh well they didn't come in the auditorium days, in the normal school days.

WB: No, didn't they? No.

GB: No, no. It was when the shortage began, a shortage of teachers began to appear. After the growth.

WB: [inaudible] the old gym out there [inaudible].

GB: Well, the old gym.

WB: The old gym.

GB: The single one, well the only gym we had. But it was just covered with booths all the way around. I used to
walk round just to see who were there. Of course, some of the people I knew. Sometimes, you see [...] they
would send [...] one of their principals, a supervising principals, who was sometimes a former student of ours we
knew.

JW: You'd often run into former students?

GB: Oh all over the place.

WB: Every [inaudible] province you're known.

GB: That, that's one thing you feel after retirement, you're not making any new group as formerly you made. Now
when I taught in Victoria High, I used to feel that I knew most of the young people in Victoria because there was
only the one high school through they came. And then when they were in the Normal School, we, and later the
university of course, we had all the teacher people coming through our hands so we knew so many. Now, you
see, it's not added to anymore, we don't

WB: We were in the London, it would be '62 [1962] I guess, we were getting of a bus in a very crowded part of
London and a voice came, 'Oh, Mr. Brand and Miss Copeland' [...] and two, one of them was our student.

GB: [Deedee?], [Deedee?] somebody.

WB: Yes, from Slocane.

GB: Slocane.

WB: And she was teaching in the, one of the army schools in Germany and was over on holiday. I almost though
we [were doing?], that she was calling me by my maiden name, this little voice [inaudible]. We do run into them
all over.

GB: Yes, yes. All over.

JW: You mentioned earlier about the ping-pong tournaments. Did you have the marble tournament as well when
you were there?

WB: No, we didn't have marbles.

JW: Maybe that was later on.



WB: I don't remember that at all.

GB: No, we had only [...] ping pong which wasn't a great affair. We had a ping pong table.

WB: Than we had tennis too when the weather [...]

GB: Oh we had very good tennis tournaments.

JW: Those sort of things would be the only time that the boys and girls got together though, when you were
students.

GB: Well, in a way. I mean, there was no prohibition [...] against talking to a girl at all. And [...]

WB: You could speak.

GB: In the plays, you had to put your arm around her neck or something like that occasionally. I remember [...]

WB: The dances were not permitted [...]

GB: Having it demonstrated how I was to do it but [...] but there was no, no, no, no, but I mean there wasn't the
camaraderie that there was later. And of course there wasn't [inaudible] society, I mean it was a different world.

WB: [inaudible] changing [inaudible] yes. Especially after the war.

GB: He, he, he was only reproducing in the normal school the situations that existed in schools.

WB: Yes. yes.

GB: No principal in those days would have called [...] a girl or a woman by her Christian name.

WB: In high school we were 'Miss' and I was only thirteen.

45:00 GB: Yes. As soon as you went to high school, you were a Miss. And all the time in [...] all the time I've
taught in the elementary school, it was always Miss so-and-so or Mrs., there were one or two Mrs. [...] and Mr.
so-and-so, I never got anything [inaudible]

WB: But the teachers now, it's 'call me Bill or [inaudible] in the classroom.

GB: Yeah. Or Ted or, the [...] the pupils are, call the principal Ted.

WB: Well, I went to [Girl's Central?] and we had a very rigid principal and Miss Williams called Debbie and we
were walking up Moss Street hill [...] no it wasn't [...] we were walking up Moss Street hill with a neighbour and
her brother and the girl's school was here and the boy's school was on that side, and she hopped off her bike
and they made him go on the other side of the street.

GB: That's pushing things to the limit.

WB: It was absolutely terrible [inaudible]

GB: Although I, I recall [inaudible] Woodward riding [...] riding from where she lived in Gorge Road [...] along
Gorge Road with Dirk [Van Maanen?] and somebody complaining about, to high school that was, you see that
was the 1930s.

WB: Yes. Oh yes.

GB: But as I say, MacLaurin only reproduced in the normal school the situation that existed.

WB: In the outside world.



GB: And in those days, Judy, you must realize that a teacher was supposed to be somebody different. I can
recall the [...] principal of Oaklands School at the time I was a boy there, Bob [McGuinness?], of whom you may
have heard [...] who smoked. We all knew he smoked. You could tell by [...] but he would go up to the end of the
Hillside streetcar, that's Hillside and [...] Cedar Hill Road and he would sit on the fence there and as soon as he
saw us appear, if we came up, the cigarette was hidden. Nobody saw a teacher smoking.

WB: A woman wouldn't [inaudible] I guess not many did.

GB: And of course a woman smoking would, I guess she would have been fired, I don't know. Probably she
would have been. But if he, that was the situation that existed.

WB: Another time.

GB: Well, normal school was no hardship to anybody and you didn't think it funny, you accepted it [inaudible]

WB: Yep, we never rebelled.

GB: And you knew that if you were going to be a teacher, you had to be something of an example so you didn't
say 'Damn', you didn't say 'Hell,' you didn't smoke.

WB: You didn't say 'ain't.'

GB: And if you drank, you hid it.

WB: Nobody knew about it.

GB: Nobody, nobody dare know about it otherwise something would be said or done. And [...] it's too

WB: [inaudible]

GB: It's too bad that some of the ethics have gone out of things. I still feel the teacher, he's on a pedestal, he
should be something different. That's the same as a minister [of the gospel?] is. And as a politician should be
and isn't.

WB: [inaudible]

GB: Well.

JW: Was the [...] junior high school, Landsdowne Junior High, was that an airfield when you

WB: Yes, yes. I took my first flight [inaudible]. Somebody had a little open two-seater. Hindus had gardens there
for years.

GB: Chinese.

WB: Chinese. And then Hindus lived there and there were no gardens. And [...] they had the houses along
because the local car dealer took my sister and me up in this little open thing. My it was crazy.

GB: Yeah

WB: We flew all around Elk Lake, you know?

GB: Now, now that whole area from Landsdowne down to what was then Sixth Avenue, and from [...] Mount
Tolmie, now called Richmond, down to Shelbourne Street, that whole area was [...] a big Chinese vegetable
garden when I first lived on Shelbourne Street, right opposite. We used to go and buy vegetables..

WB: Even when we went to normal school it was just a



GB: It was just a field.

WB: With no sidewalk on this side.

GB: And then the Chinese for some reason or other gave it up. I suppose they lost their lease or something of
the sort. And then it was used as an airfield. And even a commercial airfield because [...] one of the earliest
routes, well the earliest route out of Victoria was to Seattle, and they had a Ford trimotor plane. It's written up
occasionally in the [Islander?].

WB: That was 1930 and I hadn't [inaudible]

GB: Yeah, well this was before that, do you remember? The plane went down.

WB: Um-hum.

GB: Everybody lost. And Dr. [Holden?] from the city went down and [...] but that was a commercial venture. A
trimotor Ford.

WB: And there was nothing below the normal school except fields and grass in our day, when we went as
students. Now it's all new houses.

GB: Oh none, none of those houses

WB: Well the city just grew.

GB: Yeah, the city grew. I used to [...] in the mornings when I would go up, when I wanted to I used to stop on
Richmond there at, remember there's a big ditch on the left-hand side going up and I would clip all the
specimens of wild roses that I wanted for my lessons. Yep.

50:00 WB: Oh we had no eating place. You see, there was that Mrs. Morris at the old army nurses homes or
something and that's were we got our morning coffee and

GB: And the [Sheck's?], the [Sheck's?].

WB: [inaudible] little right behind the auditorium there. I don't know whether it's still there or not.

JW: Yes it is.

WB: Is it? Oh. Mrs. Morris is still there?

GB: [inaudible]

WB: She was [inaudible]

GB: We, we, we had a lounge where we could eat our lunch. When did you, I never took

WB: Boys come in the room and the girls [inaudible]

GB: What, what, yeah but what did the teachers, the faculty do? You ate your lunch in your office didn't you?

WB: Oh we? Yeah, no we had a, that room along the hall we shared with the college

GB: Up, up, up, upstairs.

WB: [inaudible] in my office.

GB: And where did you get your tea or coffee?

WB: We had, there was a little narrow room there where we



GB: Or somebody made it.

WB: Yeah.

GB: I remember you used to keep a teapot in your office all the time.

WB: When electric kettles came along now we could make it.

GB: Yeah we could make it.

JW: When you were students, was there a lunchroom down in the basement?

GB: No there was no lunchroom.

WB: No, it,  you used to eat your lunch in

GB: House.

WB: At house. A suite, across from there, you could eat in there.

GB: I've forgotten where we ate, we used to eat downstairs somewhere but it wasn't

WB: In was the men's common there wasn't it?

GB: Yeah, we used to eat in the men's common, that was it, the men's common.

WB: It was opposite my lower office [inaudible]

GB: It wasn't a, it wasn't a proper [...] and then the [...] we played ping pong in the room opposite that. But I can't
recall. But there was no proper lunchroom per se, no.

WB: Not that we'd stick to no.

GB: No.

WB: Because when you had the whole building to yourself, you had more space but when you share with a
college or a staff

GB: Oh we had loads of space, we had empty rooms. It was a delight. I remember Donal used to have two
rooms he'd have. But oh yes, when we did ours, you see, 65 couldn't work on board so he'd use two rooms. He
used to go between the two.

WB: I saw his daughter the other day. She was with us at normal school. I saw in the paper that one of my
classmates died the other day so we're beginning to fall.

GB: Well, that's easy.

52:08