Georgia Straight
for January 1994, Article 2

When I was a law student at UBC (a year or two ago) a classmate, named Macaulay incidentally, shocked me with the statement that although I have impeccable Scottish Highland forbears, they were not members of a clan, something one could only be born to. My grandmother being a Macdonald of Skye was of no help - "Mair" wasn't a clan nor a sept of a clan and that was that. A Scot, yes. A Highlander, yes. A true Scots Highlander, no. The shame of it!

So be it, I say, with Vancouverites. One must be born here to be one. Even Chuck Davis, Vancouver's eminent chronicler, doesn't qualify. Certainly the Premier, to the relief of many I can tell you, is no Vancouverite nor was Bill Vander Zalm or Rita Johnston, though Dave Barrett was. Our greatest mayor, Gerry McGeer wasn't, though his eminent nephew, the cerebral Patrick is. So is Philip Owen. Libby Davies is not.

Now the City of Vancouver is more than just the plain city boundaries. It certainly includes the North Shore, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond and Delta, except for White Rock, which has always been different, as has Crescent Beach. That's because when you were a kid, going to the Palladium or the Flame Supper Club was going "someplace else".

New Westminster (Royal City folk will be glad to learn) is not Vancouver, nor vice versa. Port Moody was always different - my grandad on my mother's side always went into "Moody" from his little farm in Burnaby but "downtown" when he went to Vancouver. I'm not too sure about Coquitlam and the north side of the river - probably not.

Some places became Vancouver fairly recently, as these things go. North Vancouver and West Vancouver still have "non-Vancouverite" areas but when they became part of the City's bedroom community, which is to say after 1939 when the Lion's Gate Bridge was open, the carpetbaggers and scalawags outnumbered the "locals". But it is recent - my grandad (same one) had a summer home at Caulfeild within my memory. In fact, during World War I (not within my memory!) his summer place was at Jericho Beach and it wasn't until 1927 that Point Grey and South Vancouver joined up.

Since the 50s, the City has been as I have described it, but there is a sense that some things are getting closer and some further away. Richmond, just farms, jackpines and an illconnected airport when I was a tadpole, is now very Vancouver has been since the Oak Street Bridge opened it up as a bedroom community about 1957. Surrey, once known as North Surrey (the whereabouts of South Surrey in those days was, thank God, a mystery) is probably leaving Vancouver, and good riddance too, I say.

If a real Londoner is one born within the sound of Bow Bells, for my generation, to be completely certain of true Vancouver citizenship you ought to have been born at Grace Hospital. This is not an absolute - but back when we called them "unmarried mothers", "foundlings" were born there, as were the children of parents who wished in that way to show financial support for the Salvation Army. I was born there. So was Grace McCarthy. In what capacity I'll let you guess.

There were lots of schools you could have gone to, but in my era it was mainly Britannia, Tech, or J.O. on the east side; King George for downtown; King Ed for barely west side; Magee and PW for Kerrisdale and Shaugnessy; Byng and Kits for Point Grey, unless your old man taught at UBC and you went to University School.

You drank at the Georgia Beer parlour where your faked deep voice never fooled Barney and Cec the waiters, or after the strike, at the Cecil. Later on, places like the Fraser Arms and the Blue Boy became fashionable (if fashionable is an appropriate term to describe such places) while, in the 60s, the hookers and stockbrokers moved into the Ritz.

Back then there were nightclubs - the Palomar before the Burrard Building went up, the Cave and Isy's. Awful dives but great shows! Before cocktail lounges were allowed, there were "clubs" with bars. The late great wit, Barry Mather once opined that the Pacific Athletic Club was no more known for athletes than the Arctic Club was for Eskimos!

Many of outside birth (an absolute bar to full citizenship) recall these and newer watering holes with the sentimentality worthy of a native. Alas, it just cannot be.

For unless you say KitsilAYEno, CapilAYEno and Van"g"couver - and pronounce Tsawwassen as you would Tsetse fly, you're out.

For while I cannot claim membership in a clan - I can claim a more distinct honour - I am a true, blue, utterly parochial Van"g"couverite and mighty proud of it.