Here's Gerry's grade 9 class, div. 1, of Oak Bay Junior High School.
[Click here to savour the audio flavour of 1960 while you read!]
It's 1960! Look upon your grandpa and grandma, children. You can't imagine how long ago this was. The microcircuit didn't exist. Most installed major electronic equipment had been hand wired. Strouger and crossbar switched telephone calls in the city. If you wanted to make a long distance call, you still dialled "O" or "0" and talked to an operator who was sitting in front of a patch board's jack field. If she didn't cut you off while she did that, you could listen to her talk to one operator after another across the continent as she had each set up a patched connection to establish the circuit to the number that you had asked for. Such a call going across the Atlantic travelled by undersea cable and through more than a thousand submarine repeaters along its length, each one a triumph of both analogue design and reliability.
The generation now still in its thirties had been forged in the Hard Times and then gone off to war. It was disconnected from these layabouts you see here who had grown up in the post war prosperity.
When we hit university, the times began to change.
Left to right, back to front:
Richard Cuzner, Peter Semenchuk, Brian Smith, Gerry Hagberg, Brian Unwin, Bob Hall, Richard Robarts, Eric Gelling, George Dufour
Pat John, Brenda McCann, Veronica Harrison, Joan Oswald, Sue Stoddart, Jane Hassen, Diane Sinclair, Donna Bishop, Caroline Oliver, Lucille Lamb, Betty Taylor, Shirley Naylor
Carol Holdridge, Elaine Richmond, Kate Brimblecombe, Hilary Ford, Barb Doell, Diane Boughey, Judy Campbell, Kathy Curran, Kathleen Pattle, Sharon Henderson, Julie Lawrance
Don Panton, Pat Smith, Roger Pinfield, Glen Smith, Bob Moysey, Brooke George, Len McNeely
1960. Libby of U.C.L.A. is awarded the chemistry Nobel for his carbon 14 dating technique.
The U-2 is shot down and the Paris talks are shot down with it. Was Lee Oswald a part of the reason?
Music: El Paso, Teen Angel and The Theme from A Summer Place. For those with higher brows: Alley-Oop and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!
Films: Ben Hur, Psycho, On The Beach and The Apartment.
Books: Advise and Consent, Hawaii, The Chapman Report, Trustee from The Tool Room and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Tube: Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, The Real McCoys, Candid Camera and The Untouchables.
