Editorially speaking...
An interesting WANTED ad in last week’s Citizen caught my eye:
“In the 1950s float planes replaced the steamships as the preferred mode of travel on the West Coast.
The B.C. Aviation Museum is looking to tell the story of BC coastal aviation both civilian and military. To do this we need donations to display. If you have stories-pictures-artifacts including
Pilot maintenance log books, records of anything else, that would contribute to telling the story of this historic times, please contact...”
Four contacts are given but for the benefit of any Chronicles readers who might have something of possible interest that they’d be willing to contribute to the BCAM, I’ll give just one:
Doug Rollins – Tel: 250-655-3300 – or dougrollins@bcam.net
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Another year-end news item, this one in the Times Colonist, reported that “B.C. aims to boost safety for young workers”.
Among the new rules, effective January 1st, is a minimum age of 18 to work as a logger or in smelters, oil drilling “or anywhere there is a risk of exposure to certain harmful materials”.
To be employed in construction, fish processing and “some animal processing work,” workers must be at least 16.
These new rules reminded me that my maternal grandfather went down into the coal mines of Country Durham, Eng., at the age of 10!
Here, in B.C. it wasn’t until into the 20th century that the minimum age for coal mining was set at 17. Yet if you look at many photos of coal mine operations on Vancouver Island, for example, you’ll note the young faces. Some of them are obviously much younger than 17.
How could this be, you ask?
Because there were exemptions to the 17-year-old requirement. Say, for example, you’re just 14 but your father and/or older brothers have been killed in the mines. Guess what? You’re now the family breadwinner—so down in the “deeps” you go!
How many boys in their early teens have been killed logging, fishing or mining over the years, do you suppose?
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It’s been announced that there’s to be a three-year-long public consultation process to plot the Royal BC Museum’s future.
What a farce this has been!
First, gutting the third floor by destroying the Old Town exhibit, one of the museum’s most popular attractions, apparently in the supposed name of Truth and Reconciliation, resulted in tanked attendance numbers. Then plans to create a bomb crater in Victoria’s busiest core for seven years while a new Museum/Archives is built went over like the proverbial lead balloon and had to be cancelled.
Now, we’re to take three years to talk about how to salvage this mess.
Sounds like another winner to me.
But if you’d would like to participate and want more information go to royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/community-engagement.