[caption id="attachment_5918" align="alignnone" width="497"]
If you can't read the bottom two lines it's because you haven't had enough to drink yet.[/caption]
The Anza Club has been operating in Vancouver since 1935, but has been best known as a fixture in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood since the 1960s when they purchased their present club house at 8th Avenue, and Ontario Street. This is just one street "up" (South) from the Go Green bottle depot, so I see it a lot. In the 1990s and early 2000s, I attended events there with friends. Once upon a time -- perhaps still -- Mensa International's Vancouver chapter met there, and I attended a few meetings with a Mensan friend. Whether, or not I qualified for Mensa, I've never been a club-joiner. Just like Groucho Marx, I refuse to join any club which will have me as a member -- I have my standards.
[caption id="attachment_5923" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Home of the Anza Club since about 1963.[/caption]
Anza is short for Australia New Zealand Association. In 1935, when the club began staging functions in Stanley Park, no one, in what was then the Dominion of Canada, had to be told what Anza stood for; the events of the ill-fated Battle of Gallipoli (April 1915-January 1916) were still fresh in the memory of the entire British Commonwealth. The soldiers of the ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp.) paid the ultimate price for the bad planning and generalship of their British leadership.
Today, both Australia and New Zealand observe Anzac Day every April 25, to commemorate the ANZAC soldiers who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) during World War I, as well as all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations."
A personal aside: I'm a big fan of Winston Churchill's biographical history of World War I, The World Crisis (1923), a masterful effort by the chief architect of the Dardanelles/Gallipoli Campaign to rehabilitate his reputation by bending and rewriting history.
[caption id="attachment_5924" align="alignnone" width="497"]
In defense of sobriety -- they did have to get someone sober to at least make the sign. Notice the obligatory kangaroo.[/caption]
Anyway, the Anza Club has persevered for over 75 year -- through a lot of historic, and demographic change. The Club hasn't been seen as a meeting place for ex-pats from "down under" for years. It's gone wholly native, becoming a treasured Mount Pleasant neighbourhood hangout.
[caption id="attachment_5921" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Those bricks look familiar ...[/caption]
The bricked, and planted strip on the Ontario Street side of the Anza Club, speaks less to the age of the building as to the fact that area handyman Chris, still had some chimney bricks left over after doing the walkway behind his house. Click the images to enlarge them.
If you can't read the bottom two lines it's because you haven't had enough to drink yet.[/caption]The Anza Club has been operating in Vancouver since 1935, but has been best known as a fixture in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood since the 1960s when they purchased their present club house at 8th Avenue, and Ontario Street. This is just one street "up" (South) from the Go Green bottle depot, so I see it a lot. In the 1990s and early 2000s, I attended events there with friends. Once upon a time -- perhaps still -- Mensa International's Vancouver chapter met there, and I attended a few meetings with a Mensan friend. Whether, or not I qualified for Mensa, I've never been a club-joiner. Just like Groucho Marx, I refuse to join any club which will have me as a member -- I have my standards.
[caption id="attachment_5923" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Home of the Anza Club since about 1963.[/caption]Anza is short for Australia New Zealand Association. In 1935, when the club began staging functions in Stanley Park, no one, in what was then the Dominion of Canada, had to be told what Anza stood for; the events of the ill-fated Battle of Gallipoli (April 1915-January 1916) were still fresh in the memory of the entire British Commonwealth. The soldiers of the ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp.) paid the ultimate price for the bad planning and generalship of their British leadership.
Today, both Australia and New Zealand observe Anzac Day every April 25, to commemorate the ANZAC soldiers who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) during World War I, as well as all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations."
History isn't always written by the victors
A personal aside: I'm a big fan of Winston Churchill's biographical history of World War I, The World Crisis (1923), a masterful effort by the chief architect of the Dardanelles/Gallipoli Campaign to rehabilitate his reputation by bending and rewriting history.
[caption id="attachment_5924" align="alignnone" width="497"]
In defense of sobriety -- they did have to get someone sober to at least make the sign. Notice the obligatory kangaroo.[/caption]Anyway, the Anza Club has persevered for over 75 year -- through a lot of historic, and demographic change. The Club hasn't been seen as a meeting place for ex-pats from "down under" for years. It's gone wholly native, becoming a treasured Mount Pleasant neighbourhood hangout.
[caption id="attachment_5921" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Those bricks look familiar ...[/caption]The bricked, and planted strip on the Ontario Street side of the Anza Club, speaks less to the age of the building as to the fact that area handyman Chris, still had some chimney bricks left over after doing the walkway behind his house. Click the images to enlarge them.
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Interesting post. ANZAC Day is one of the few public holidays I take seriously - and it's not just me. We've lost our veterans to time and age but there seem to be steadily more Australians and NZers turning out each year for Dawn Parades.
My Web searches are not the finding "Anza" clubs I expected would be all over the Commonwealth. Perhaps Vancouver's has outlived them. I should have mentioned Peter Weir's 1981 film Gallipoli. It made the events shockingly real for me. Makes me want to watch it again, then Breaker Morant, then Picnic at Hanging Rock...
Well - there's the Returned Services Leaugue in Australia and the Returned Services Association here. They serve the same purpose. And yes - Gallipoli was sad and frightening. "Chunuk Bair" is a NZ focussed one about how the NZ Wellington Battalion lost most of its number taking a useless hill and were finally completely knocked out by friendly artillery. I have no love whatsoever for war but I do have a great deal of respect for the poor well meaning bastards who got killed as a result.
"Breaker Morant" is a favourite of mine too.
"...Shoot straight you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!..."
One the things I find horribly fascinating about the Great War is the way, in battle after battle, flummoxed generals threw men at entrenched machine guns, and the way the soldiers allowed themselves to be thrown, knowing full well they would die.