The 1920's

Extract from Chapter V of A History of St Catherine's Rowing 1875-1999

[Material for this chapter mostly comes from the Society Magazine]

St Catherine's Magazine, Hilary, 1925

When Virgil `came up' in the Michaelmas term, presumably in the year of the Great Frost, he was so struck by the spirit of abandon with which Oxford throws itself into the chief business of the first term of the year that he wrote:

Natos ad flumina primum deferimus,
saevoque gelu duramus et undis*

We still keep up this tradition. As three out of five `Eights' men were suffering from Schools we could not hold the sliding seat pair races which are occasional. So we gave those newly born to Oxford life our undivided attention. Two old Togger men were happily available to help us. At first the freshers were rather disappointing. Those who did not fail to turn up seemed oversensitive about disturbing the water. This was aggravated by our inadvertently dropping two men in the river and so completely upsetting their `aqua'-librium.

*`We send our children to the river, and temper them with ice and waves' (Virgil, Aeneid, ix.603)

Photo: The 1926 St Catherine's Torpid. From left to right, back row: W. Kristianson (2), C. L. Goss (4), R. W. Bonham (3), W. J. Pienaar (bow); middle: B. P. Foss (6), D. B. Durand (str), [unidentified coach], C. L. Blom (7), R. I. Redfern (5); front: S. G. Timms (cox).