The Best Little Movie House in Vancouver

NOSTALGIC VANCOUVER Fall 1930. A letter arrived for Arthur from the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto saying they did have a class for junior bands, but that they were surprised to hear that there was a band of such high caliber on the west coast that would be interested in competing in their festival. It continued, “If you want to come the test piece is Haute Monde.” Arthur was so upset by the tone of the letter that he immediately rushed down to Ward Music on Hastings Street and put in an order for Haute Monde. He said to the clerk, “And put a rush on it. We’re going to make them eat their hats!”

Before Arthur and his boys left for Toronto, there was some unfinished business that they had to take care of in Victoria. Arthur loaded his boys onto the Princess Alice steamship one evening for the overnight trip to the 1931 Pacific Northwest Music Festival. When it was all over, his boys were on top, winning the festival over their closest rival, the Victoria Boys’ Band, (the score: 84 to 81) to bring home the United Commercial Traveler’s Trophy. William Hoskin Sara’s National Juvenile Band had not entered that year. Now, back in Vancouver, when they left the CPR Terminal on Cordova Street for Toronto, they departed as Provincial Champions.

The following advertisement could be seen in Vancouver papers regarding a concert the boys performed at the Strand Theatre in conjunction with the feature film “Men of the Sky,” before their departure in special train cars for Toronto. “A real band of real boys, the Kitsilano High School Boys’ Band of 48, winners of Shield, Victoria Music Festival and Brass Quartet, Pacific Northwest Music Festival, on their way to Toronto to participate in competition at the Canadian National Exposition,” read the headlines. -excerpts from The Life & Times of the Legendary Mr. D.