Victoria Day has a
variety of names. May 24th weekend. May two-four. The two-four
weekend – as if it had been named for the number of beer bottles in the case.
My first trip to
Europe was in May 1982 – the year of the Falklands War. I had booked my coach
tour of the United Kingdom in January. The war started in April. Of course I
didn’t have travel insurance. I couldn’t afford it.
Not that I would
have cancelled anyway. I was finally going to see some of the places – and some
of the things – I had studied in school. I had saved for a long time. Well, it
seemed like a long time to me at the age of 25. Nothing was going to prevent me
from going to Europe.
I arrived in London
in mid-May and took off to see the country. May 24 was a Monday that year and,
that day, I passed by a bank. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, and the
doors were propped open. I peered inside and it looked just like one of the
sets from Mary Poppins. Feeling a
trifle bemused, I wandered in. No customers were in line and the pleasant
teller asked if she could help me.
“You’re open,” I
said, gazing around at the most beautiful bank I’d ever seen.
“Yes,” she replied,
appearing a trifle puzzled but smiling.
“But it’s Queen
Victoria’s birthday!” I blurted.
“Is it really?” she
asked. Another teller joined her, also smiling.
I closed my eyes
when the realisation struck me. How stupid could I be? Of course Britons
wouldn’t celebrate the birthdays of dead monarchs. They would end up with over
40 holidays a year – and that’s just since 1066! That’s when I realised why
Canada celebrates Victoria Day. Queen Victoria was the monarch on the throne
during all the years of negotiations leading up to when we actually became a
country.
The differences
between, say, Canada and the United States? I was already accustomed to those.
I lived an hour’s drive from a bridge to the U.S., after all. They made sense
to me. But I guess that, being part of the Commonwealth, it hadn’t occurred to
me that Victoria Day wasn’t celebrated in other areas. Duh!
Just call me a stupid colonial. (I’m smarter
now.)
2 comments:
I never thought of our beloved May holiday that way. I guess I always assumed it was just force of habit that we still celebrated the birthday of a queen who's been dead for more than a century, plus the need to have a holiday somewhere approximately equidistant between Easter and Canada Day. Thanks for the insight on Victoria's on-going role in the making of this country. While most schoolchildren know she was the one who chose Ottawa as Canada's national capital, there was obviously a lot more to the rather messy negotiations that led to the transformation of her former colony into an independent country and she was deeply involved in those.
Interestingly, I didn't realize that Victoria Day is also Canada's official celebration of the current queen's birthday. Most of the rest of the Commonwealth celebrates Queen Elizabeth's birthday in June, but Canada marches to the beat of that different drummer and celebrates the birthdays of both queens on the third Monday in May (usually closest to May 24th which, in 1819, was Victoria's birthday). Reference: http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/queens-birthday
Also interesting is the fact that Britain itself does not have a statutory holiday to celebrate the monarch's birthday. There's a Spring Bank Holiday which usually falls in late May, but it's simply a day off work and a chance to enjoy the better weather. There's no connection with the Queen's official birthday in June, celebrated in Britain with the Trooping of the Colours and as a stat holiday in most Commonwealth countries.
I hadn't realised that it was also our celebration for our current monarch. Thanks!
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