Henley Royal Regatta, 30th June - 4th July
The Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup (2-)
Andrew Triggs Hodge (M.04) racing with Peter Reed
Thu	Calvo-Ortiz & Dominguez-Lorenzo, Spain	2¾ L	8.28
Fri	beat Takahashi & Nagasaki, Japan	Easily	7.34
S/F	beat Tsilis & Tzaninis, Greece	3½ L	7.25
Final	lost to Murray & Bond, NZ	Easily	7.55
The Ladies' Challenge Plate (Intermediate 8)
Martin Walsh(M.07) rowing for Oxf. Brookes Univ/Oxford Univ.
Fri	beat Molesey BC	1¾ L	6.40
S/F	beat Imperial College, London & Berliner Ruderclub, Germany,	¾ L	6.21
Final	lost to Harvard University, USA	1/3 L	6.50

Rowing World Cup I, Bled, 28-30th May
Andy Triggs Hodge (M.04)	GBR 2-	2nd

Rowing World Cup II, Munich, 18-20th June
Andy Triggs Hodge (M.04)	GBR 2-	2nd

Rowing World Cup III, Lucerne, 8-11th July
Andy Triggs Hodge (M.04)	GBR 2-	2nd

World Championships, Karapiro, 31 Oct - 1 Nov
Andy Triggs Hodge (M.04)	GBR 2-	2nd

For Triggs Hodge it has in fact been another 'silver' season, being beaten on every occasion by the New Zealand pair, most recently in the early hours of this morning at the World Championships in New Zealand. Much the same as last year, in fact. Having now lost to the New Zealanders on twelve consecutive occasions, perhaps it's time to consider putting them into another boat with a better chance of gold. On the other hand, no one else has been able to beat them. And this morning they were only beaten by a couple of feet $\ldots$

The Boat Club had an interesting and not unsuccessful year. In the Christ Church Regatta, held during Michaelmas Term, and which seems to have become a useful fixture for the not-so-prominent rowing colleges, St Catherine's won the Shell Eights from St Edmund Hall by two-thirds of a length. In the reconstructed Torpids [footnote: This was the first year of the 'multilane' Torpids experiment], which proved successful despite forebodings of chaos and confusion, the First Eight rowed over each day. In Eights the first boat was bumped by Wadham on the third day, but the second distinguished itself by rising four places in one afternoon - we overbumped Magdalen III and then, as sandwich boat in the next race, caught Keble III; the crew thus gained their oars in one day. At Henley, St Catherine's were beaten by Vesta in the eliminating races for the Thames Cup.

Robert Blofeld, Captain of Boats 1960-61

In 1960, St Catherine's was still the Society. Our catchment area for rowing was pretty broad for both oarsmen and coaching (e.g., St Stephen's Hall, Campion Hall, Mansfield). However, the actual numbers of active oarsmen was not large. We just had two VIIIs in Torpids and three in Eights. I was one of the very few who had done any rowing - at St Edward's School - before coming up to Oxford. But we few had plenty of enthusiasm and some talent. One of our number, Frank Gignac, a large and genial American who was studying to be a Jesuit priest at Campion, did well in the University trials [footnote: A triallist in 1959 and 1960, he rowed in the Isis crew in 1961 which, at that time, 'competed' against Goldie in the annual Tideway Head of the River Race, one week before the Boat Race. The 'Isis-Goldie' races proper began in 1965.] Another oarsman, John Linklater, had left the army to read medicine at what then seemed to us the incredibly advanced age of around 40. He proved a stalwart member of the club, too. Overall, though, we could not approach the heights of the senior rowing colleges.

On the rowing front we had mixed success. In Torpids we went up four places and earned a Bump Supper. That event is somewhat lost in an alcoholic haze but the whole Society was present in hall with Alan Bullock in the chair. We also burnt an otherwise useless old boat in the front of the Society.

Unfortunately the summer brought us down to earth. Despite some training pre-term, and some theoretical strengthening of the crew, results in Eights Week were equally moving --- but in the other direction.

In those days we were still based on one of the remaining barges. In the summer of 1961 we undertook the task of redecorating it ourselves. It did not take us long to discover how much woodwork there was in those boats!

Boats were stored at Salter's boat house. The club seemed to be going through an A. A. Milne phase; boats had names such as Piglet and Winnie the Pooh[footnote: A 'phase' still continuing in the names of some of our current fleet].

Socially a good time was had by all. The Bird and Baby (Eagle and Child in St Giles) was 'our' pub - in those days unmodernized and beer at 1s 4d. There was also a tradition (although that may suggest more years than reality!) of Christmas Pudding races. This was a knockout competition for pairs in the heavy teaching tubs with a cox. Winners received Christmas Puddings made for us by friends of the club.

The exhibition of Thames Rowing Club's one hundred and fifty years of rowing opened in the Spring and will remain in the Schwarzenbach International Rowing Gallery at the River and Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames until the end of April 2011.

Three Catz '49ers - Ben Sylvester Jr., Don Barton and Graham Kaye - rowed on the Tideway in Thames RC crews in the Head of the River Races; two very senior members of Thames - Karl 'The Bean' Vernon and J.H. 'Freddie' Page - coached Catz crews when they came up to Oxford; Don Elliott, the stroke of the TRC Grand VIII which represented England in the VIth Commonwealth Games in Wales, was the father of Graham Elliott, Catz Boat Club Captain in 1983 (and now master i/c Rowing at Bryanston School).

Sufficient connections for SCCBC (and the Rowing Society) to pay a visit? The exhibition's central feature is the Fairbairn Head of the River trophy (eight feet high) plus a host of Henley, Women's Henley, Olympic, Commonwealth and European Regatta memorabilia and much else.

The River and Rowing Museum is a spectacular modernist Chipperfield-designed building with free parking, very good eating,and has something which has a world-wide audience: a continuously running diorama of Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows'.

Not to be missed.

At first sight, it looks fairly random, but, to my eye, it seems that the top left and bottom right quadrants are rather better populated than the other two, suggesting that there are two 'divisions' of colleges: one division which does well in both Finals and Bumps, and one which doesn't. It is noticeable that the latter group contains most of the less well-endowed Colleges, e.g., the former women's colleges. Pembroke and S.E.H., whose Boat Clubs seem to be in better financial shape than the Colleges, are notable occupants of the top right quarter, while Corpus and Merton feature in the bottom left quadrant - good academically (and financially) but poor at rowing, presumably due to their small size.

Apart from the general correlation resulting in two divisions, I'd also go so far as to suggest that within each division there is something of an anti-correlation: colleges are either good academically or good at rowing. Catz seems to occupy that dangerous territory in the middle of the Norrington table where we are at the better-rowing end of the top division but could so easily be in the worse-rowing end of the bottom division.

Position on the river v. Norrington table for Men's Torpids (light blue), Men's Eights (dark blue), Women's Torpids (orange) and Women's Eights (red). The dashed line shows St Catherine's.

I'd like to request any reminiscences of Cats barges - on any topic. I have been researching into the fishermen and watermen of Fisher Row and have come across the occasional reference to Cats barges. I have decided to try to collect all information about the use of the barge and any thoughts about when a barge was bought/hired.

Any takers, please email or write to me about any information no matter how trivial it may seem to be.

To get in touch about London drinks, please contact Darren Chadwick on 07916 127085 or darren.chadwick@brite-green.co.uk

Anu Dudhia (email: dudhia@atm.ox.ac.uk )