{"id":17386,"date":"2017-05-24T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17386"},"modified":"2017-05-24T16:34:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T20:34:00","slug":"brocks-banter-victorias-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-victorias-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Victoria’s Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever you call it, it\u2019s come and gone.
\nSome of you might call it \u201cthe May Long Weekend.\u201d Others, looking forward to cracking open a few cold ones might feel more comfortable with \u201cMay 2-4.\u201d Others still call it \u201cthe official start of summer,\u201d using the word \u201cofficial\u201d in its absolute loosest way. In other words, incorrectly.
\nIndeed, the \u201cweekend that was\u201d certainly was a long weekend, and chances are if you were determined to open up those 2-4s chilling in your garage, there was nothing stopping you. But, the start of summer?
\nThat would take a significant stretch of the imagination \u2013 official or not.
\nWhat was once a weekend to pick up flowers, plant a garden, open a pool, or open a cottage involved a Saturday of intermittent sun, a grey and rainy Saturday and, for the holiday itself, it was a mixed bag.
\nThere was no chance to get in a decent tan and, if you stuck to the principle of \u201csun\u2019s out, guns out,\u201d your guns were likely dotted with goosebumps as jackets were very much the order of the day.
\nWell, better luck next time.
\nI write this on Holiday Monday.
\nYet, on this Holiday Monday I am sitting in my office. There is work to be done.
\nToday, however, I have somebody looking over my shoulder, a set of patrician, beady eyes keeping close watch to make sure I do my work quickly and efficiently.
\nYou see, just last week, I had a surprise visitor. Her name is Julia Jones and throughout my career as a student at Newmarket High School she was following her own career path as a teacher.
\nRemembering my interest in the Royal Family, she unexpectedly popped in laden down with a package.
\nStanding at the door, she turned her bundle towards me and there she was. Bordered in an intricate Victorian picture frame was a portrait of the woman who lent her name to the Age.
\nIt was a thoughtful gesture and one which I greatly appreciated but today \u2013 and, again, I reiterate I\u2019m writing this from our office \u2013 I realise I am being supervised by the birthday girl herself.
\nSwathed from head to toe in heavy black bombazine, punctuated by a lacy white headdress, she is surrounded by her son, the future Edward VII, her grandson, the future George V, and a toddler \u2013 the future Edward VIII, the monarch who ultimately turned out to be the dud.
\nAs my fingers dart back and forth across the keyboard \u2013 and, truth be told, if the portrait were a more exacting depiction of our second-longest reigning monarch \u2013 I\u2019m sure her eyes would be following them back and forth. But, as it is, she\u2019s giving me a stony glance.
\nIs she pleased that I am here doing my duty on her birthday? Unamused that I am not out doing something more celebratory?
\nThe stony expression reveals nothing, clearly prompting my imagination to wander.
\nSo, I present to you this: Let\u2019s put the Victoria back in Victoria Day.
\nAs the years go on, I am finding the \u201cMay Long Weekend,\u201d originally set out to be a celebration of all things Vicky \u2013 and, as time went on, a celebration for Bertie, the Eddies, the Georges, and now Liz \u2013 is becoming increasingly Victoria-less. In fact, I can\u2019t remember the last time I heard the holiday referred to as Victoria Day in passing conversation, unless it was a \u201cspecial\u201d hustle in a TV commercial or a pitch to buy a fire cracker to blow up a few chunks of your back yard or neighbourhood park.
\n(No, that is not an endorsement of setting off a firecracker in a neighbourhood park. Or a community park, for that matter. That\u2019s a thorny issue in Aurora, so I\u2019ll just say \u201c\u2026or your local park.\u201d Actually, forget I even said it.)
\nEach and every year, we receive emails and letters, see lawn signs (snow bank signs), billboards, and many other forms of communication reminding us that we should \u201cKeep the Christ in Christmas.\u201d The fact that these same people don\u2019t call for a rabbit cull every Easter to keep people on the straight and narrow doesn\u2019t seem to be part of this conversation, but they are nevertheless vehement in their message.
\nPerhaps it is time to be as vehement for poor, neglected Victoria.
\nSure, Victoria is well-remembered today.
\nVictoria Hall, for instance, continues to be part of our great municipal conversation these days as Council members consider options for tacking an addition onto its rear end as part of the redevelopment of Library Square which happens, fittingly, to be on Victoria Street. And neither one of these landmarks were named after Misses Beckham or Principal.
\nJust a stone\u2019s throw away, we have the Church Street School, another subject for extension, designed in a style reflective of the Birthday Girl becoming Empress of India and then, a further short jog to the south, is Connaught Avenue, named after her son Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, later Governor General of Canada.
\nShe is the subject of a hit \u2013 yet surprisingly dull \u2013 hit ITV-PBS that shares her name and a community gathering was held just off John West Way at Diamond Jubilee Park to mark the day her great-great granddaughter, Elizabeth II, made her eat dust on her way to the top spot of longest-reigning monarch.
\nBut, with Elizabeth II sitting comfortably in top position, and some seeing Victoria Hall as a quaint relic of our historical past, Connaught (now Connacht) simply a province of the Republic of Ireland and the architecture of the Church Street School building a possible relic of Britain\u2019s colonial past that is best not discussed in polite company.
\nAnd where go these legacies so too seems Victoria. And that, I think, is a shame.
\nShe still has name recognition, her very name has become a byword for many things, and her image, whether head-on in portrait, a profile in coin, or a silhouette in clip art, is instantly recognizable. Those, in themselves, is more than can be said for Lt. Gov. John Graves Simcoe and his namesake Simcoe Day. Simcoe, despite so many locations here in Aurora and across the Province bearing his name, not to mention being a key character on the AMC TV series Turn: Washington\u2019s Spies, has been cast aside for the antiseptic and decidedly less catchy \u201cCivic Holiday\u201d in August.
\nFor nearly 64 years, Victoria was a rock of stability around these parts and, if you happened to have needed a jacket or hat this past weekend, it is certainly more than can be said for Mother Nature and your \u201c2-4 Weekend.\u201d
\nLet the girl have her moment again. <\/p>\n

(Editor\u2019s Note: In a first for The Auroran, the editor is writing an editor\u2019s note to the editor\u2019s piece. He is well aware that Victoria Day is the monarch\u2019s Official Birthday in Canada)<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Whatever you call it, it\u2019s come and gone. Some of you might call it \u201cthe May Long Weekend.\u201d Others, looking forward to cracking open a few cold ones might feel more comfortable with \u201cMay 2-4.\u201d Others still call it \u201cthe official start of summer,\u201d using the word \u201cofficial\u201d in its absolute loosest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4wq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 06:43:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}