Editorially speaking...
We’re already mid-month January and the ‘new’ year is beginning to look more and more like a replay of 2020—more pandemic, more tragedy, more hardship, more inconvenience. Even with vaccines on the way it’s obviously going to be a long haul.
What did the British use to say in hard times, “Keep a stiff upper lip”?
As we, ever so unwillingly, go on struggling through these historic trials we can at least take advantage of our ‘down time’ (thanks to what amounts to self-imposed house arrest) by reading about and enjoying—maybe even learning from—history.
What interesting times we live in!
If you’re not impressed with COVID-19 just look below the border for almost unbelievable and history-making political drama. This isn’t Hollywood—who would dream up this stuff?—but real history as it’s happening and we all, instead of viewing it through the remote lens of the present-to-the-ancient-past are, thanks to the wonders of communication, virtual front-row spectators.
There was a time, not so long ago, when your only source of current information was a newspaper. Usually, by the time you read a story it already was ‘old news’—done and gone. Even more so for residents of the Cowichan Valley who had to rely upon Victoria or Nanaimo newspapers, always days even weeks after the fact, for news of events that also were, for the most part, far away.
It wasn’t until the turn of the last century that Duncan had its own weekly newspaper with local news. Always, obviously, a week after the fact. But even that was a marked improvement in local communications.
When momentous events occurred, such as the outbreak of the First World War, locals relied upon the latest telegraphic dispatches which were posted in prominent downtown locations such as the post office, the Cowichan Leader and at the railway station. It wasn’t until the coming of radio that anyone had “instant” information on anything of national if not local consequence. Then television and...so on. Hardly anyone goes around without their phone these days; you simply can’t be more “connected” than that if you so choose.
But back to history. Just as every new day brings news of world events, some small and everyday, some momentous and worse, we can always take a deep breath and dig into the past to be entertained and, hopefully, to be informed.
Such is the intent of the Chronicles—to both entertain you and to inform you. Please stay tuned!
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