Editorially speaking...
Last week’s editorial reference to a nickel candy bar prompted reader Bill Irvine to write, “As a kid living on Doncaster Drive [Victoria] I remember making and walking around with our ‘Boycott 7 Cent Chocolate Bars’ signs...”
When did you last buy a chocolate bar for five cents?
He’s referring to what became known as the Chocolate Bar War in the spring of 1947 when the federal government lifted wartime wages and price controls on most household commodities. The immediate result was a spike in the cost of sugar which food and candy manufacturers passed on to consumers.
Ergo, overnight, a wartime five-cent chocolate bar became a seven then an eight-cent chocolate bar.
Kids and teenagers rebelled by boycotting stores, waving placards and even protesting on the steps of the provincial Legislature. “Yes, there were some real militants in those days,” Bill chuckles three-quarters of a century later.
The “strike,” which initially had widespread public sympathy if not actual support, failed when the youngsters were accused of being, of all things, the tools of Communist agitators, the late 1940s being the start of the Cold War.
Coincidental to Bill’s email, Times Colonist Sunday columnist Monique Kernan wrote about that long ago time when “eight-cent chocolate bars left a sour taste in kids’ mouths”.
Today’s widespread price increases at the grocery store are blamed on inflation. Maybe it’s time to paint some placards and march on the Legislature?
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Taking the Mountain to Mohammed
The Maple Ridge Museum & Community Archives has come up with a novel twist to the traditional way of delivering history—taking it to the people with its History on the Move program.
Their venue is that community’s annual Home Show, a popular event in Duncan, too, but just passed for another year.
There’s a subliminal message in the off-site promotion, the Museum having wanted to expand for a long time. “The idea came about because we have such a small space at the museum, and we have been trying to expand for many years and it just hasn’t been happening,” said executive director Shea Henry.
Here’s hoping Maple Ridge Council gets the message...
Also on the museum front but much closer to home, the Shawnigan Lake Museum has been granted an astonishing $1 million-plus for its expansion project which will see the current museum, formerly the fire hall, triple in size.
According to the Cowichan Valley Citizen, Project Impact will “position the museum as the cultural hub of the community; it will grow tourism potential in the area, and it will provide space to invite the community and visitors in for events and workshops led by the storytellers of the community.”
Who says history is dull and boring?
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HMS Hood is best remembered for her fatal encounter with the German battleship. Bismarck. — www.hmshood.org.uk/history/empirecruise/index.htm
Somewhere in my naval museum is a small copper ashtray that some Victorian liberated from a wardroom of the famous British battle-cruiser, HMS Hood during her visit to the B.C. capital in June 1924. The ashtray, which I bought at a flea market, is one of the very few surviving artifacts of the Hood.
Quoting Wikipedia: “In May 1941, Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which were en route to the Atlantic, where they were to attack convoys.
“On 24 May 1941, early in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded, and sank within [three] minutes, with the loss of all but three of her crew of 1,418. Due to her publicly perceived invincibility, the loss affected British morale...”
I mention this today because, last week, the crew of the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales held a service of thanksgiving for the men of HMS Hood over the battle-cruiser’s grave in the Denmark Strait. HMS Prince of Wales’ predecessor, a then brand-new King George V Class battleship, was also damaged in the action but not before her guns had damaged the Bismarck.
The wounded German battleship turned about for home but was crippled three days later by RAF torpedo bombers then sunk by the Home Fleet, also with the loss of most of her crew.
Sink the Bismarck! sang Johnny Horton; I still have the record. — https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck
Proof of how times have changed, the news report noted that the wreath thrown over the side of the Prince of Wales was biodegradable.
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