Victoria Times. May 19, 1970

 Old-Timer Liked Post-Parade Party. 

 Jack Dirom has been watching Victoria Day parades since 1913.
 He still loves it, but misses yesterday's celebrating style. "After the 
 parade, everyone went to the Gorge for a party. 
 There were canoe races, boat races and rides at the old Japanese Tea 
 Gardens." 
 Victoria had streetcars then, and few people owned automobiles. Dirom 
 says everyone just jumped aboard and rode over to the Gorge. 
 One year the Point Ellice Bridge collapsed after the parade. 
 Now 77, Dirom remains sharp and active. Not quite as limber as the 
 20-year-old he was when he watched his first Victoria Day Parade. But 
 still quick. 
 Dirom moved to Victoria from Kirkcaldy, Scotland. He served with the 
 Queen's Own Rifles during the Second World War. 
 He's been judging bands and floats in the parade for the last 15 years. 
 This year he was also trophy chairman. 
 Dirom's nostalgia remembers Victoria Day as a major event. 
 "We've got to go back to those days," he says. "Indians from Washington 
 and the Mainland used to bring over their canoes. The merchants of the 
 city used to compete with each other for the best float."
 Other Victoria Day scenes always used to include the sight of Dirom's 
 friend Joe North, walking up and down the Parade route holding a blanket. 
 People would toss coins into it for local charities and hospitals. 
 Dirom says the parade was switched to Dominion Day about the time the 
 Crystal Gardens opened. Then, Nanaimo began holding parades on Victoria 
 Day
 This proved to be too much for the Queen's namesake city, says Dirom, so 
 the parade moved back to May 
 It was 2p.m. in the sun. Jack Dirom was sitting outside the Elks Club 
 Lodge waiting for the announcement of the winners. 
 "This used to be the biggest day for Victoria. Now the streets are empty.
 Almost empty. Street cleaners were brushing their way along Douglas.

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 'Jack of the Horseshoe'. Tries his Luck at Retirement - Victoria Times 
 October 4, 1966.

 By GLEN ALLEN

 For 42 years Jack was to busy selling papers to read them 
 Last week he rung up his last dime, went home, and ironically, for the 
 one-time emperor of news vendors ordered a subscription.
 Premiers, postmen, judges and their clerks knew Jack Dirom as "Jack of 
 the Horseshoe." 
 His Horseshoe News, he was told, sold more overseas newspapers than any 
 other news vendor in Canada. 
 "But I was always a hardware salesman at heart," said Jack this week, 
 settling into a new occupation - his Saanich rock garden. 
 "That was my training and I never forgot it."
 Apprenticed to a hardware store in Fifeshire, where he was born 73 years 
 ago, he admits that secretly he would, rather sell a screwdriver than the 
 London Times. 
 "I had everything in that store." 
 "A man came in one Sunday and asked for a sack of cement. 
 "I've got you this time, Jack," he said. 
 "No, I said, I think I can, handle it." 
 "And I did."
  
 SOLD OUT
  
 Jack Dirom sold the Horseshoe News about three years ago, and moved into 
 a gift shop he had bought nearby, although he helped out from time to 
 time. 
 "It was getting heavy. We had papers from everywhere. From little 
 villages in the north of Scotland to Tasmania 
 "It took two girls to do the sorting when the overseas mail came in. 
 "We didn't make money on the mail. But if someone came in to buy the 
 Killiemuir Clarion, he left, too with a Victoria daily and a packet of 
 cigarettes.
 "Ana maybe a screwdriver."

 TWO-WAR VETERAN

 Jack Dirom served in both wars, (stretcher-bearer and scout in the first, 
 and a musketry instructor in the second) and is a long-time member of the 
 local Chamber of Commerce and the Masons. 
 He tried to resign from the Masonic Lodge about five years ago when they 
 had him up in court for selling a "saucy" book.
 "I couldn't read everything I sold. But I guess you were supposed to tell 
 a book by its cover."
 "You have to sell people what, they want to read, anyway." 
 "If you came to me for a Russian paper I'd sell it." 
 For a long time he was the only distributor of the Racing Form.

 ALL THERE 

 "It was quite a sight Sunday mornings, the racing crowd would be in there 
 with Premier. Hart, ex-premier Pattullo, the chief of police, and the 
 superintendent of schools."
 We'd gab away - never politics. Or hardly ever. I was on everybody's 
 side, anyway 
 "You know what I liked about keeping a store? It was the people. Always 
 somebody in there. I would give a dollar to a man if he was the only man 
 in there."

 JUST READ 

 I didn't give many away anyway." 
 He says his best customer never spent a nickel. 
 I liked people to come in and just read." 
 "More would follow them to see what was happening." They would come in 
 and ask "What's the news, Jack?" 
 "I never knew."