This is the full-length version of a letter I wrote to the Victoria News on January 27, 2006, in response to a piece about The Blethering Place Tea Room, wherein the reporter enthused about its venerable history (all of 30 years) and royal regalia. I was not amused....

Dear Editor:

Re.: "Tea Room Turns 30," by Erin Kelley-Gedischk, January 27, p.B1:
It's wonderful that Ken Agate has succeeded in creating a thriving business in the heart of Oak Bay, but couldn't your reporter have found a less trite frame for her piece than the tired old myth of "jolly olde England is alive and well in Victoria"? Thirty years does not a history make, yet a naive or lazy journalist panders to addled sensibilities by writing nonsense like, "History has served it well. The vestige of old Oak Bay commemorates its 30th anniversary this year." Come again? Thirty years, and a vestige? So, I graduated from Oak Bay Senior Secondary over 30 years ago (in '74): what does that make me? A living fossil?

That's just the beginning of the article. From here on in it gets worse as our intrepid journalist tries to convince us that this "vestige" is successful because of its ability to reinforce an imperialist nostalgia for a kinder, gentler colonial past that never was. When she writes that the Blethering Place restaurant boasts a photograph of the Queen "laughing hysterically," we know we've entered the Twilight Zone: I imagine the Queen might laugh "heartily," but "hysterically"?

Every silly cliché about Victoria's unique, ineffable ("It's hard to put in words"), and timelessly "olde England" atmosphere is trotted out, regardless of how ridiculous it looks next to the truth. Equally lazy ethnic stereotypes fill the cracks of a strained imagination: "To combat the perception of bland British fare, Agate hired two brothers of Italian heritage to add some flair to their food." Good grief, it doesn't get much worse than this, eh? I can see their mustachioed faces and hear them break out into jolly light opera now!

I don't really want to bash Ms. Kelley-Gedischk; what I'm actually asking is why the local media would want to reinforce this "olde England" stereotype, and why a young reporter (using the word "hysterically" was a dead give-away: no one seasoned by age would commit such a gaffe) would buy into this essentially destructive myth dished up for tourists and prematurely senile consumers who don't need to worry about economic productivity.

Why destructive? Demographic indexes suggest that within 10 or 15 years, less than 10% of Victoria's population will be under the age of 19. If young people cannot or do not want to stay in Victoria, who can blame them if all it offers is a wax-museum culture stuck in a nostalgic timewarp? Your younger readers (in case there are any) would more likely have appreciated an in-depth look at how Mr. Agate managed to build and consolidate his business, and how other potential entrepreneurs could learn from his example. Instead, we got another serving of stereotype.

Sincerely,

Yule Heibel