My Vic High Experiences Shaped My Life

By Linda (Chan) Shioya, VHS 1958

Victoria High School was my home away from home. Mum worked long days in her gift shop on View Street and my stepdad ran a sawmill in Lytton, BC, so home life was negligible. I found my family in friends and teachers at school, and joined all kinds of clubs so my social circle was wide.

The school environment encouraged learning and participation in a plethora of extracurricular activities within a structure of high expectations. This could be attributed to the excellent teachers, to name a few:

Colin Glover, who encouraged me to earn a big V by joining inter-house sports and to audition for cheerleading,

Beatrice Sutton, whose stern demeanour demanded a “secretarial/professional” attitude from us, yet on one of my last days at school, she snuck three of us out of class for ice cream. Many years later, I ran into her at a Business Educator conference and she greeted me with, “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”,

Cary Goulson, who let you retake a test if you thought you could get a better mark, and who always addressed us as “people”,

Courageous Miss Cox, a former member of the French Resistance, who imbued in me the love of speaking French as she supervised the library. She came into our gift shop a few years later and told me she had married a commercial fisherman,

Doug Smith, who let us put our heads down after lunch during English Lit while he read Chaucer and other heavy tomes, but somehow got analytical essays out of us,

Charlie Trotter, who handed me a leaflet from Victoria College and encouraged me to become a Business Education teacher like him. He got me a summer job at General Business School on Broughton Street and every day I would phone him saying: “I can’t do this.” But somehow he convinced me to persevere.

I remember shivering in the early morning Physical Education (PE) class as Roberta West and I (always the first), jogged around the 1/4-mile cinder track, sometimes waving to the “Tech boys” who loitered across the way. Few of us had spike track shoes so it was difficult to gain traction as we huffed and puffed along with the effort and cold, blowing puffs of breath clouds. My one triumphant remembrance was running in the girls’ relay with Carol Cranston, our school track star, as the last runner, making us first in the Inter-house track meet.

Every lunch hour, I ate with my Chinese girl friends, stopping at the washroom to refresh our lipsticks. The mirrors were so high, I could never use them and to this day, I can apply lipstick without looking. Just before the bell rang for afternoon class, we would walk by the smokers (usually boys) lined up in the main hallway. They had been “captured” smoking at the nearby convenience store by the Vice Principal, Victor Thompson, whose commanding voice could be heard saying “Pay attention!”. He later became Superintendent of Schools and hired me to teach alongside my former Grade Five teacher, Alan Jones, in the Business Department of Mount Douglas Secondary in 1968.

I joined Y-Teens and took my first trip away from home on my own to New Westminster with my sidekick, Jean Barker, and other members. Under the guidance of Mr. Hunter, my inspiring Math teacher, and my Shorthand teacher, Mr. Glover, we ran the Students’ Council. During our graduation year of 1957/58, an intellectual student, Howard Lim, was voted in as president, (a successful campaign launched by his cohorts, Gordon Eekman, Winston Roberts and Martin Bergbusch), winning over the athlete, David Skillings. I became Secretary by acclamation and Walter Creed was treasurer, which foretold his future as an Accountant. Later, one of my secretarial students did her work experience in his company in 1969. Wendy Love, Ed Pomeroy, Harold Ridgeway, Skip McBratney, Gudrun Marquardt and Bruce Atkinson were also on Council.

As a cheerleader, in Grade 12, I attended all the Totem basketball games. Larry Ballard would lift me up high and I’d land in the splits. The half-time entertainment were the majorettes in their black sweaters and white pleated skirts. Were we ever proud the next year, when the Totems, coached by “Porky” Andrews, won the 1959 BC High School Basketball Championship. I rode my bike from my Vancouver Street home down to the wharf on Government Street to welcome them home from Vancouver.

The only gang activity I recollect is when five of us who belonged to the Girls’ Auxiliary to Christ Church Cathedral, decided we needed a ride home in Gerald Quan’s light blue Studebaker. There were no seatbelt laws in those days and we all bundled in. I was dropped off at my Mum’s gift shop and asked that “everyone come in and buy something,” which was just wishful thinking. Most of the others lived in the Rockland area and it was many miles and hours before Gerald got back to his home in Lansdowne.

I had taken dance classes since I was five, and Norma Douglas, the Vic High music teacher, acknowledged my talent by giving me opportunities to perform at school functions. I danced a tap number to an Irish Jig on St. Patrick’s Day, and performed a toe tap on stairs at the School Fair many, many times. My accompanist, Peter Wilkinson, told me he was VERY tired of playing “Louise” so many of those times.

Those who could afford it, dressed in the latest styles: zoot suit pants, white poplin jackets, white suede shoes known as “Boone boots” (after Pat Boone), saddle oxfords, and the chemise (a loose-fitting dress). Off-the-rack clothes were too large for me and children’s clothes did not replicate adult styles, so I was out of luck. However, chemises I could easily whip up, mainly just two seams on the sewing machine.

Graduation followed tradition and Grade 11 students decorated the gym. One could join the Grad choir and sing the Joe & Noel Sherman song popularized by the Four Freshman, “Graduation Day”. One could join the Grad Dance team, which twice as many girls as boys joined. Henry Pluym and Bea Sutton planned two dances and one group of girls would sit on upholstered stools in a circle waiting their turn.

Names were drawn by the Commercial girls on the third floor for escort and banquet seating in the cafeteria on the hard wooden benches. Someone thought it would be amusing to pair the shortest boy, King Lee, with the tallest girl, Barbara Keung. They were good sports. On grad day, I attended a breakfast party at Bev Fletcher’s. We all got dropped off at school afterwards and had excitedly streamed across the front lawn. Once inside, we were beckoned into the office by Mr. Dee, the principal, and chastised for “inappropriate, rowdy” behaviour. After the grad dance, (having fallen off my first spike heels twirling in a jive, flat on my tush), I attended a party by the beach hosted by Pat Horne. I was not welcome in any Chinese households as my Grandfather had passed away in May and there was a cultural belief that I would bring his “ghost” into their homes.

During those formative high school years, I learned to take leadership roles, pursue anything that interested me and “rose to my potential” as educators are prone to say. It was a protective environment and at that time, I was oblivious of any kind of discrimination – my race, my size, my gender or economic background. It was only when I went into “real” society did these discriminations become apparent, which motivated me to work for the Program Against Racism for the BC Teachers Federation (BCTF) and to represent Surrey teachers on the District Multicultural Committee.

From these humble beginnings, I became a Business Educator modelling after my former teachers, served on the Program Against Racism for the BCTF, and pursuing my passion. I spent a year in Japan as a ballerina, and volunteered on the Board of the Auxiliary to Children’s Hospital. In my retirement, I live in Greater Vancouver, run a dance school in my home, perform in community musical theatre, (learning to sing at 62), and occasionally work as a commercial actor.