Vancouver is a city with a poor memory for its past. I constantly hear people say, “Do you remember when…?”  The usual answer is, “No.”

My opinion of the Vancouver Archives is not a good one. I see many photographs inserted in publications with no photo credit. It would seem that not only documents and photographs die at the Archives, but photographers, too.

In that last century when former Georgia Straight editor Charles Campbell moved to the editorial department of the Vancouver Sun he created Rear Window just for me (so he told me). It appeared on the weekend magazine. I have placed here the one on former Vancouver Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau.

I can state unequivocally that this old man remembers lots of stuff. Why? I remember because I have written about it and or photographed the people.

I have extensive files (really huge) of all the folks I have photographed since I arrived in Vancouver in 1975.

Not too long ago I asked a former head of the Vancouver Writers Festival if she/he knew who the first Canadian Poet Laureate was. The answer was negative. George Bowering is going to be 90 in December and I can attest that his marbles are intact as we talk on the phone once a week.

 Does anybody know that Belfast-born George McWhirter was the first Vancouver Poet Laureate.  He taught many soon-to-be journalists and writers at UBC.

Who was and is Brad Cran?

That other Belfast-born Patrick Reid was one of the two people involved in the designing of our Maple Leaf Flag. When I would see him walking on 41st Avenue in Kerrisdale I would always greet him. For me it was a thrill to chat with a living flag designer. And because we were friends I knew he had been the tallest tank commander in the WWII African theatre. He would bump his head with hatches when he climed out of the tanks. Once his unit moved to Sicily, on off days, he played polo on the German horses.

I could go on at length.

Vancouver a city with no memory of its past.