The School

“The last time I saw the school in 25 years was in 1971. When I visited Victoria in 1996, I was surprised to find out that the school had moved! What I had known as Mt. Douglas High School was now Cedar Hill Junior High. Mt Douglas High School was now what I had known as Gordon Head Junior High.”

“I attended school in both buildings – Junior High (grades 7 – 9) at Gordon Head and then High School (grades 10 – 12) at Mt Doug. It was a pretty new building when I started Grade 7 so it was great to have the newer classrooms and equipment. I think our principal’s name was Mr. Monk at that time and he took great pride in keeping the school spic and span. Anyone who put black marks on the gym floor was in big trouble. I remember the day I was riding my bike to school up Feltham Road and found out that we had had an earthquake that morning. The road was so bumpy I hadn’t noticed the quake.”

“Mt. Doug was one of the smaller High Schools in the city but in a number of sports we were very competitive. Although I wasn’t on the team, I remember the year our Mt Doug ‘Mountainmen’ won the provincial Rugby Championship. We did pretty well in Track & Field – going up against much larger schools like Victoria High. I remember one of the Grade 12 girls my last year ran the 440 yds (we still ran yards instead of metres back then….) in 56 sec which was I believe a Canadian record for her age group.”

The Teachers

“Even back then, the building wasn’t that new but the students and teachers were what really made the difference. I remember some of my teachers – like Mr. Urqhart for Geography and Mrs. Porter for French. Apparently, Mrs. Porter worked as a translator for the Allies in the War – but we weren’t quite sure which War… (we think it was WWII and not WWI). Mike remembers running to and from the portable classrooms in the parking lot in the rain for his math class.” I was so glad I did well enough in my term marks that I didn’t have to write my final exam in calculus. I remember enjoying some of my elective classes like Woodworking and Metalworking that were a welcome break from Math, Science and English.”