4 -~ Friday, March 26, 1993 - North Shore News

lecting on the sad passing of two eras

ERAS ARE born to end. So
why get sentimental about
them?

Not really a serious question,
But, if treated seriously, the an-
swer is simple: because we are
mortal.

Change is more praised in
after-dinner speeches by the
mighty than appreciated in the
trenches of life by the common
run of mankind.

When an era ends, something in
each of us dies. Not the most
comforting reminder,

Even the death of an enemy -
diministics us, Alas, one less per-
son to hate. It is a not incon-
siderable loss.

As for friends ... well, in one of
the most touching poems in the
language, Charles Lamb used like
the repetitious tolling of a bell the
poignant line: “All, all are gone,
the old familiar faces.*’

Well, this is a cheery little piece,
isn't it? Have | spoiled your
weekend yet? Pooped on your
party?

Sorry, but a shadow or two
passed over my usually cheerful
and uncomplaining countenance
when (1) Don Cromie died and (2)
Woodward's, an inanimate object
but as close as a friend to a tot of
British Columbians, also died.

It seems — it was — a long
time azo that Don Cromie was
publisher, an honest-to-God,
I'm-the-boss-here publisher, of
the Vancouver Sun.

Tmean, he owned the jaint. He
was the last independent publisher
of a Vancouver daily paper, one
of the last in the big-city press
the country.

Today, such publishers are
hired hands —~ little different
from the rest of the help, and
often with less job security.

In contrast, Cromie ruled his
paper like a Louis XIV.

He could compete with the
Sunshine King in extravagance,
Nair, wilfulness, eccentricity,
restlessness, and absolute authori-
ty — answerable only to his own
whim and whatever advice he took
from a few family members. .

The Sun King.

He could have slightly amended
Louis: "Le soleil; c'est moi.”’

His style as publisher resembled
that of the great newspaper
barons like Beaverbrook,

_ Northcliffe, the Asiors,
Rothermere, Kemsley, Hearst —
all, all are gone (the old familiar
typefaces?),

Frances Bula beautifully caught
the spirit and some of the details
of the Cromie era in an obituary
last week in the Sun.

Young though | am, and
bashful too (see photo), | caught
the last few years of the Cromie
age.

When I first came to town |
was struck by the proud motto
emblazoned over the editorial
page, which, if memory serves,
was: ‘The Only Vancouver Daily
Paper Owned and Operated by
Vancouver People.’’

This was one in the eye for the
Southams, whose Province shared
production facilities with the Sun
in a most uneasy, clumsy, and |
suspect sometimes bitterly quar-
telsome alliance.

They were like two vipers —
vicious competitors for circulation
and advertising — who struck a
deal for begrudging mutual sur-
vival rather than sting each other
to death.

The lingering zaniness of Van-
couver’s newspaper business was
still in the air when { arrived, as
recently as 1963,

The tales were both tall and
truc. Don Cromie’s favor and
disfaver were applied and
withdrawn with equal speed and
vigor.

Len Norris, the great cartoonist
{and, alas, former West Van-
couver resident), used to tell of
Cromie’s assignment of Len and
the legendary columnist Jack Scott
to travel more or Jess aimlessly

through the province for several
weeks — Len sketching, Scott
writing.

It was a bizarre escapade, com-
plicated by the fuct that Scout was
known to take a cocktail before
dinner.

A cloud occasionally passed
over Scott’s confidence, too, mak-
ing the actual writing of his col-
umn sometimes unsteady.

Earl Smith, still alive and kick-
ing in North Vancouver, and a
longtime assistant managing edi-
tor, used to talk about a brash
young Sun reporter who once
boasted that he would write pieces
of such compelling interest that
they would be the fine story — the
top story on page one — every
day for a full week.

He did.

Chap by the name of Pierre
Berton.

I believe } fell under Cromie’s
gaze only once.

Some eight months after arrival,
I was clevated to the task of edi-

Trevor
Laulens

GARDEN OF BIASES

tor of Page Five — today, several
renamings later, called the Opi-
nion Page, opposite the editorial
rage.

Page Five was a particularly
favored Cromie idea. He demand-

ed that it be as wildly hostile to
the San’s own editorial opinions
as possible, and as maverick,
crazed, impudent and outrageous
us its editor could make it.

Iwas, having been selected for
this task, summoned to The
Presence.

Cromice looked down at me
suspiciously,

“Aren't you a lithe young for
this job?”’ he demanded.

“Well, gee whiz, I’m only 28,
sir, gosh, but no, | don’t think
I'm actually too young,’’ | bravely
replied. Or words to that effect.

Cromic looked unconvinced.
But he evidently deferred to the
judgment of my new boss, the
associate editor,

Who, to this day, is well known
to readers of the North Shore
News. Name of Paul St. Pierre.

When a western chain called FP
Publications bought the Sun — by
then moved from the fantastic
Sun Tower on Beatty Street to an
infinitely more solemn building at

Sixth and Granville, shared wiih
the Province — Cromie lingered
for a while as publisher.

But his free hand was gone. He
left. He went on to developing
Bowen Island real estate.

His death last week was indeed
the end of an era, the newspa-
perman’s old ‘'30"' at the end of a
story.

As was the demise of the Jong-
suffering Woodward's. Drowned
in The Bay.

its relics will endure for years,
and by the thousands.

Mine include a couple of $1.49
Day cast-iron frying pans.
Seriously.

Icherish these beloved artifacts
of the kitchen, the intimacy they
humbly create between mankind
and its stomach.

All, all are gone, the old famil-
iar faces. Happily, the legacy re-
mains: the morning papers over
bacon and eggs.

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