Craig Strickland, VHS 1966     Motorcycle – and Other – Memories

As for that motorcycle-riding, ‘urban legend’ myth in our story about Art Warren (click here), alumnus Craig Strickland, VHS 1966, was the first to share a Vic High motorcycle story, an email that prompted our discovery of Art and his yellow 80cc trailbike. Were they both remembering the same event? Or has there been more than one infamous motorcycle ride around the halls of Vic High?  Craig writes:

It was early June or late May in 1966. I was in Mr. Kay’s Math 91 class on the second floor beside the stairwell. It was a very warm afternoon, all of those big windows were open and class had only been in session for 15 or 20 minutes. We could plainly hear the distinctive sounds of a two-stroke, off-road motorcycle, very close. 

It was revved several times before it was clear that it was moving under load. Suddenly it was in the stairwell moving fast. The sound echoed wildly as it sprinted upward toward the fourth floor!  We could hear it still echoing as it raced towards the opposite stairwell and careened down to the second floor and then down and out the doors to sidewalk next to the stadium and out to the street and was gone.  Shortly, there was an angry voice over the PA system, a bit incoherent but something about seeing things or hearing noise or something.

 We kept our heads down while we tried to get glimpses of each other. Mr. Kay didn’t acknowledge anything. At the end of the period we gathered our things and looked for tire marks on the stairs. Outside there wasn’t a clue. We laughed and marvelled at the exciting prank.  

The math class I was in was all male. Most were on the Academic Technical Programme as I recall, and spent much of their time in the Fairey Tech building. They were prank masters, although I don’t think they were involved with the Moto moment that convulsed the school. Rather they would do things like come into math class chanting in unison, then cross the classroom and go out the window into the fir tree outside. Then there was the mickey-drinking contest in class with Mr. Kay in the room. If he smelled the strong aroma he never interrupted the equation at hand.

Craig sent us a very special 1966 Camosun

Here’s the note he sent with it, both will reside in the Vic High Archives and Museum.

At one point in the development of the 1966 version of the Camosun,  we were running low on pictures. I volunteered my dad Irving Strickland to shoot some pictures in addition to the ones he already had of the Champion Totems team.

As I remember them, he shot the exteriors of the school, the section cover pictures for Grads, Tech and Literary.

The Camosun staff executive came around to our home on Linden Ave to present (him) with his copy of the annual.

Camosun staff signed their photos to thank Irving: Seeth Miko, Robin Allan, Ron Tucker, Bill Polz, Sue Price, Dave Day, Drew Schroeder, Jill Wallace, Maurice Racine, Helen De Havilland, Bob Hammer, Linda Kolodinsky, Craig Strickland.

Dad worked for The Victoria Daily Times for 56 years. He was Victoria’s first full-time newspaper photographer.

Thanks so much for accepting this volume. I am very grateful.