Burma Star Association - B.C. Chapter
This year, August 2005, we combined our annual commemorative services at the Duncan Cross of Remembrance and Arakan Park with a pre-arranged invitational reception at Government House in Victoria.
This is the official residence of the Lt. Governor of the Province of British Columbia, the Honorable Iona Campagnolo. It was a very pleasurable interlude. Several speakers, including our own Branch President, Percy Smith, gave stirring speeches about the horrors of the Burma War and its aftermath. This was followed by a general mingling of those attending, while sipping tea and indulging in an enjoyable assortment of ‘finger foods’. The weather for the day was absolutely perfect.
To encourage members to attend these functions the Branch hired a coach to take us to and from the mainland to all these events and also to our pre-assigned motels for an overnight stay in Duncan. It seemed as though nothing could possibly be easier. What could go amiss? But it did ... several times!
In the first place, some members had chosen their own motel and neither our coach driver nor our President knew exactly where they were staying. By chance they were finally located and picked up, but we lost a lot of time in the process. Next, we had to search for a suitable restaurant that culd handle breakfast for a coach-load of people. The random choice proved disastrous.
The restaurant we chose was ill prepared. The staff proceeded to assemble tables into two long islands in a swelteringly hot side room. This took almost a half hour to arrange! Only then did they take orders and prepare assorted breakfasts! The wait was interminable, yet time was of the essence since we had to meet with the Victoria Branch at a pre-determined time to assemble a convoy of cars to lead us to Stolz Pool in Arakan Park for the first ceremony. Consequently we arrived late at the assembly point and the convoy had already left.
The route to Stolz Pool, situated as it is in virgin bush land, is unmarked and almost impossible to find except perhaps with the help of tracking dogs and the use of GPS satellite systems. Our driver and our President asked for directions and thought we were on the right track most of the way. But we got hopelessly lost and ended back in the city of Duncan, missing the ceremony completely.
Even in Duncan gremlins continued to plague us. The ceremony was almost an hour late in starting; Mayor Coleman was out of town and supplied a deputy instead, the RCL organizers had failed to provide chairs for spectators and also forgot to set up a loud-speaker system. Most of the time passing traffic made speeches, prayers and commands entirely inaudible and at one point even a freight train rumbled through within a few feet of the gathering.
A leisurely lunch had been planned for for about 1:00pm so that we could enjoy it before taking our coach back to the ferry for our confirmed 5:00pm reservation. Instead we did not have our lunch until almost 2:30pm. We hurriedly ate what we could manage from the buffet then quickly boarded the coach at 3:00pm for a rather rapid dash for the ferry where it is mandatory to check in at least half an hour before sailing time.
For some of us the troubles did not end there. As it happened, on our return to the mainland, our driver missed the turn from the highway into Park and Sail" parking lot where many of us had left our cars for two days. So now we had to disembark and cross this busy highway dragging our luggage to the parking lot situated about half a mile away.
However it was still a great outing even though #$% mishaps sometimes happen.
Joe Arblaster, webmaster