King Meets Queen

On the street car home yesterday, I travelled with a fellow CBC.ca employee who lives near the intersection of King Street and Queen Street in Toronto’s east end.

There are several major condo developments going up at that corner, another sign that my part of town is going respectable.

The biggest, a “boutique community” (shudder) called Corktown District, uses the street names at that triangular intersection in their advertising.

Of course, this sort of lifestyle imagery - a community of young, handsome white folks looking to hook up - isn’t exactly in touch with downtown Toronto.

A more accurate “King Meets Queen” ad for this neighbourhood might look like the one at left.

Not sure if that’d sell as many lofts, though.

Anyhow, this brings to mind another, more famous “King Meets Queen” event that I came across in the CBC Archives.

In 1939, George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the beloved Queen Mum) launched a major royal tour of Canada. The story goes that when they were in Winnipeg, the King and Queen were greeted by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Winnipeg Mayor John Queen and his wife, Mrs. Queen. The poor announcer tries a play-by-play describing the King, Queen, Mr. King, Mr. Queen and Mrs. Queen, end ends up cursing in frustration.

We get e-mailed requests for this clip all the time. Problem is, it probably never happened. There are no records of it in CBC, or in the newspapers of the time - and every aspect of this visit was covered to death.

There are several re-enactments, and they are certainly amusing, if not exactly archival. Here’s a little piece of one:

Posted by: Paul Gorbould | 04-17-2007 | 09:04 PM
Posted in: CBC | Toronto