(Stock Photo) Many RSM’s marched out of the military and into the police service in the decades following World War II and the Korean War. 

Go to Different Strokes for Part 1

How might you handle a bully, especially a bully with gold braid surrounding his epaulets? Well, you could challenge him directly, but there were inherent dangers with using that approach. Perhaps it would be wise to take a more circuitous route. The challenge I made in this story would only be the first of many times I stepped over the line when feeling chaffed by the actions of a senior officer. Over my thirty years of service, I managed to turn the art of challenge into a science, but there was a cost.

As mentioned in the previous story, our Chief Constable back in the late 1960s, was a notoriously dictatorial fellow. At 6’4 inches, 260 pounds, in excellent shape and with a deep baritone voice, he was a formidable sight, especially to a lowly, Junior Constable.

That he brought to the Police Department his full military bearing as an ex-Regimental Sergeant Major (minus the swagger stick), left him a bit out of touch with the rapidly changing world of policing.  Given his personality, one only challenged the Chief’s authority at their peril. 

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S/Sgt (later Inspector) Charlie Bates (front row, second from right)
(Served with the Oak Bay Police, 1946 – 1976)

Go to Different Strokes for Part 1
Part 4 Link to Tickets, Tickets, Tickets

Once again, better judgment failed to penetrate my clouded brain as I picked up the phone and called a taxi. While it seemed funny at the moment, after hanging up the phone, I wondered whether the Inspector would appreciate the little joke.

Throughout these stories, I will intersperse a number of anecdotes such as this. Each has more to do with explaining the camaraderie that exists within a small department that might not be tollerated in a larger organization. Yet, in every department, whether large or small, men and women must learn to work closely in order the gain the trust needed to accomplish the job in an effective manner. At times this involved black humour that outsiders might find offensive, at other times practical jokes carried the day (or night) and very often, spending time together in social situations where families came to understand the broad support system that existed within and across police forces in the CRD¹.

With a few exceptions, senior ranks were not immune to being the brunt of a practical joke and in this case it involved the 2 I/C of our Department, Inspector Charlie Bates.²  Charlie was one of the most knowledgeable, honest and straightforward men of senior rank I had the pleasure to work with over my early career.  He certainly provided much needed balance to the dictatorial, ex-Regimental Sergeant Major who was then our Chief Constable.  Inspector Bates, however, subscribed to the old school motto: “rank hath its privilege”.

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Domestic Disputes: These disputes can be among the most difficult and dangerous calls to attend.

Note: This is Part 2 of the series.  Go to Different Strokes for Part 1

Introduction

The Saanich PD Constable stood in the living room of a Cadboro Bay residence facing down two angry people. It was evident by his words and actions that this meeting was not likely to have a happy ending. Meanwhile, his Sergeant was sitting, watching and waiting as chaos slowly enveloped the scene.

There was obviously more to the Sergeant’s inaction than I could at first discern. As I had just arrived on the scene as a back-up, it would take a few minutes to understand why the Sergeant was waiting and watching. We struck up a conversation and both watched through the picture window facing the street.

The reason I was here, is that with three borders (Oak Bay, Saanich, and Victoria) we always covered for each other on such calls as we all knew officers could end up at the scene alone. As our radio systems were on the same channel, we always knew what was going on in each others territory.

The Call

When I arrived, two Saanich police cars were parked on the street with the Saanich Sergeant quietly sitting in his unit. The engine was off and he was having a cigarette as I walked to the driver’s door. I didn’t even have to ask if they needed help as that was obvious. Through the picture window of a house across the street, we could see the another Saanich officer, (he had arrived before the Sergeant) who was standing in the living room facing down a man and woman who were in the midst of a heated argument.

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Photo: Oak Bay Police, 1966, from the book An Historical Perspective of the Members of the Oak Bay Police Department 1906 – 2006
by Sergeant Dan McLean

The four parts of this section, based on the patrol experience of the author, discuss the effects attitude can have on a police officer. This first part explores some of the generalities as well as a study conducted by Constable Terry Toone (Victoria PD) and myself in 1973 while attending the University of Victoria. 

Part 2 looks at the challenges faced by one officer as he attends a family dispute in the Cadboro Bay area of Saanich.

Parts 3 and 4, look at my own shortcomings that, on the one hand, served me well on the street, but on the other, did not please my supervisors. In later stories, you will better understand why my career was better suited to that of a front line investigator rather than a back-office administrator.

Link to Part 2/4 Attitude, Attitude, Attitude

1. Working the Street

More than a few police officers work their entire career and never learn some basic skills that would have made their lives so much easier. I was one of those officers, but my challenges were oriented more toward the political than the practical. For that reason, I was destined to spend my career on the street rather than as a Senior Administrator.

Years of street experience taught me that using different approaches could work wonders in reaching a positive outcome, something that was known and practiced by a great many police officers I met over my career. For others there was an adage which went something like this: “Ah, John didn’t have 20 years experience, he had one year of experience, twenty times.”

The use of language, including body language, humour, anger, surprise, sarcasm, deference, curiosity, excitement, awe, confusion, sympathy, empathy, etc., when introduced at the right moment, could help to defuse a situation or reach a positive outcome with suspects, witnesses, youngsters, seniors and any number of others. Skilled interrogators become acutely aware of the importance of using a number of different approaches. If one particular approach did not work, another might.

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 More Tim Horton’s Timbits

To receive regular notifcations of new posts, link to the
McNeill Life Stories Facebook page and click Like.
LINK HERE

Dear Reader,

Many Canadians consider a Tim Horton’s morning coffee to be one the five main food groups.  Yours truly is one of those individuals. I am now at the age where I feel slightly anxious whenever someone, even inadvertently, has the nerve to sit at my favourite table where I usually enjoy my morning cuppa and paper read if none of the other regulars happen to show up.

Each week I will add a few short posts about articles of local, national and international interest, as well as other miscellaneous items that have piqued my interest.  It seems there is never a shortage of items upon which I might wish to pass judgment.

Warning: The contents of this post do not reflect the views of my good wife, who sometimes jerks my chain just in time to modify a post she thinks might offend.  Since Lynn has engrossed herself full time with her travel consulting work, I am now running without the luxury of an Editor and Copy Reader. Any spelling errors and rough grammatical structure you encounter will most certainly be the product of my own hand.

I try to proof and correct but that is never easy when looking at ones own writing which is considered to be without fault and universally interesting. Bear with me, I am trying to overcome my shortcomings but the list is so long it will take years. If you wish to jerk my chain (occasionally!), that is fine.

Harold McNeill
Victoria, British Columbia

Travels from the end of March through April have taken me away from writing posts in this section. Hopefully, by the end of May, things will be back to normal.

June: It seems that other stories and spring/summer commitments will keep me busy until next fall.  Perhaps at that time I will return to regular posts in this section.

September 2012

September 30, 2012  Privacy on Facebook

In recent weeks, there have been many posts on Facebook and other social media sites about privacy. By definition, these sites are public. People post notes and pictures about themselves that lets everyone take a peek into their personal and private lives. What they had for breakfast, how they slept last night (sometimes even with whom), trouble going to the bathroom, a nasty little sore in a tender area, are just a few of the intimate details that periodically appear.

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Just give Lynn a call and whether she be in Prague (as above – taking a call) or in the outer reaches of the Wadi Rum, she will attend to your travel needs.

 About Travelynn

Over the past several years, Lynn has attended to our travel planning needs as we set out to explore a small part of the world. Many of the stories, first posted on Facebook, are now being transitioned to this blog section.

Now as an Independent Travel Consultant with the Expedia CruiseShipCenters, working from home and the Bevan Street office located in Sidney, British Columbia, Lynn is providing the same excellent service to others that she has long provided to our family, friends and business associates.

Working with one of the leading travel offices on Vancouver Island, Lynn continues to expand her knowledge of the travel industry and everyone who knows her, will agree she always gives 100% to the task at hand and, for those who don’t know her, that fact will soon become apparent.

Photo (2012): Lynn working at her Cruise Desk in the Sidney Office.

For background on Lynn link to a short biography at: Life Long Learner

If you need help with your travel plans, be they by land, sea or air, just give Lynn a call at:

Work: 250-656-5441, Toll Free: 1-800-561-2350

Expedia email: lynnmcneill@cruiseshipcenters.com,

Or visit her on the web at:  www.cruiseshipcenters.ca/LynnMcNeill

Harold McNeill
March, 2012

Index and Thumbnails follow

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‘Miracle’ the Killer Whale Performs at Sealand of the Pacific in Oak Bay, B.C.   The internationally popular whale died in an incident that was blamed on Greenpeace activists.

January 6, 2017: Tilikum, the most infamous of the captured killer whales, died at SeaWorld in Orland, Florida.  Skip to Section 2, then 5, for background on Tilikum and the other killer whales who thrilled audiences around the world.

This post was written by Det./Sgt. Harold David McNeill (retired) who investigated several incidents at Sealand of the Pacific, and the Oak Bay Marina, including the death of Miracle, the Killer Whale.

Background

In 1991, a young woman from Victoria, an Environmental Studies student at the University of Victoria, Keltie Byrne, tragically died in the whale pool at Sealand of the Pacific in Oak Bay, British Columbia.  The three whales in the pool at the time were Tilikum, Nootka II, and Haida II. They were directly involved in the death, not as killers, but as friends, whose game lead to tragic consequences. Keltie’s death was the culmination of three decades of events that lead the owner of the Oak Bay Marine Group and Sealand of the Pacific, Robert (Bob) Wright, to finally close the display in 1992.

The death of Keltie and the exploitation of killer whales was a tipping point in the much larger story about the development of protest movements around the world, particularly that of Greenpeace, whose origins can be traced to Victoria, B.C. in the 1960s.

During their history, the organization was vilified, supporters killed, their ships rammed and one sunk by French Government agents within the confines of the peaceful Auckland Harbour, in New Zealand. Two French secret service agents were arrested while trying to leave the country and charged with murder. They later walked away as free men who were celebrated as heroes in their own country and one man was even promoted to the senior ranks of the French Military.

In an Oak Bay case, Greenpeace supporters were held out as prime suspects in the tragic death of another internationally famous killer whale, Miracle, whose battered body was found tangled in the nets at Sealand. As well as the intrigue surrounding the deaths of Keltie and Miracle, the story delves into the history of Protest Movements in British Columbia and around the world.

It was through the efforts of thousands of activists, including those at Greenpeace, that many important changes in government and industrial practices were brought about over the past sixty years. The world would be much worse off had it not been for organizations such as Greenpeace who constantly agitated for change in our environmental practices. It is easy to visualize the environmental challenges faced by China today, is nearly the same as was the case in many cities across North America and Europe decades earlier.

Greenpeace and Sealand Photographs

Update June 25, 2015: The MV Farley Mowat, once the flagship of Greenpeace has made a temporary move to the bottom of Shelburne Harbour in Nova Scotia after being scuttled.  The Coast Guard seized the vessel in 2008 during a confrontation with seal hunters in the Northern Atlantic.  More on the history of the ship in the following story.

Link to Media Post 

Video of Sealand, the Early Days

March 9, 2016 (8575)  January 1, 2017 (9464)
January 1, 2018 (10,455) May 27, 2018 (10,744)
May 4, 2019 (11,299)

March 9, 2016 (Times Colonist Report on Tilikum)

January 8, 2017  (Tilikum Dies at Seaworld)

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Above Cartoon:  In Lacombe, Alberta, Betty speaks to Don about her environmental concerns.
Don comes up with an immediate and helpful response. 

Victoria, BC. The “Going Green” comments, posted below, were picked up from an article posted on Facebook by my dear cousin, Elizabeth Dewan-Curtis-Munroe.  It struck a cord as it clearly puts the push to “Go Green” in a historical context. It sometimes seems the current day “Go Green” effort has more to do with marketing, business and special interest groups than with actual environmental concerns. 

As an example, on the one hand plastic bags are ‘poo-pooed” and people are made to feel guilty when using a plastic bag (as is the gist of the FB post), yet bottled water and trillions of other plastic containers have become the norm. Just think, in a country that holds the lions share of the cleanest drinking water in the world, the citizens consume something in the order of two billion litres of bottle water per year.¹

Betty’s Facebook re-post, again re-posted below, puts these matters in historical perspective.

Cartoon (Victoria, BC, 2011): An inveterate ‘we need to go green’ decorator, Harold is spoken to by Lynn about his intent to recycle last year’s Christmas Tree.

(1) In Canada, per capita bottled water consumption grew 40% from 1999 to 2004. In 1999, each Canadian consumed approximately 24.4 litres of bottled water. By 2005, it had increased to about 60 litres per person, with sales worth $652.7 million.

Going Green: A Recycled Idea
Author(s) Unknown

Checking out at the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.” She was right about one thing — our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then…?

After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day here’s what I remembered we did have…. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Please pass along this link to others. Perhaps you may have some thoughts of your own.  If you do, please pass them along by posting below or by email or facebook. If you wish, your comments will be added to the list on this post (credited).  If you happen to find any good cartoons or clips, please pass along and they will be added. I find this fun, as it brings back many memories of my growing up in the 1940s a time when we didn’t do the ‘green thing”.

Additions to the Article

Cousin Betty in Lacombe, Alberta: “Because we had to make many items for home use from ‘recycled’ articles, my Mom would make panties from flour sacks. Ouch! I can tell you, a large number of the gentler sex gave thanks when someone came along with cotton. But, then again, we did not have the green thing back them.”

Cousin Helen in Glaslyn, Saskatchewan:  “As kids were were always so happy when Christmas rolled around and Santa dropped off a box of those tissue wrapped Japanese Oranges. That meant for a few weeks we did not have to ‘ruffle up’ a piece of glossy paper from the Sears or Eatons catelogue when we when to the outdoor bathroom in thirty below weather.  I guess we just weren’t green back them.”

Friend Maggie in Edmonton, Alberta: “How about Christmas morning. The kids had two or three gifts (often home made) and the stocking had basic stuff like a new pair of socks (that we really appreciated!) and some candy…and not filled with dollar store junk “made in China”. But, then again, we were’t green back then. Then, young people had fewer c…lothes and not a bathroom filled with bottles of creams, lotions and potions…oh yes, we ate vegetables instead of buying fancy bottles of veggie juices at the supermarket…you know, all the extra energy required for processing the juices and for the packaging and display. Then again, we weren’t green back then.”
 

Industry Going Green

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