The exigency of having to play our games immediately after noon dinner
had naturally taught the boys at the head of athletic affairs that it
was not wise to eat too much. Dinner was the one solid meal which the
college provided, and most of us wanted it badly enough when it came
along, especially the suet puddings which went by the name of
"bollies" and were particularly satisfying. But whenever any game of
importance was scheduled, a remorseless card used to be passed round
the table just after the meat stage, bearing the ominous legend "No
bolly to-day." To make sure that there were no truants, all hands were
forced to "Hooverize." Oddly enough, beer in large blue china jugs was
freely served at every dinner. We called it "swipes," and boys,
however small, helped themselves to as much as they liked. Moreover,
as soon as the game was over, all who had their house colours might
come in and get "swipes" served to them freely through the buttery
window. Both practices, I believe, have long since fortunately fallen
into desuetude.
To encourage the budding athlete there was an excellent custom of
classifying not only the players who attained the first team; but
beyond them there were "the Forty" who wore velvet caps with tassels,
"the Sixty" who wore velvet caps with silver braid, "the Eighty," and
even "the Hundred"--all of whom were posted from time to time, and so
stimulated their members to try for the next grade.
Like every other school there were bounds beyond which one might not
go, and therefore beyond which one always wanted to go. Compulsory
games limited the temptation in that direction very considerably; and
my own breaches were practically always to get an extra swim. We had
an excellent open-air swimming pool, made out of a branch of the river
Kenneth, and were allowed one bathe a day, besides the dip before
morning chapel, which only the few took, and which did not count as a
bathe. The punishment for breaking the rule was severe, involving a
week off for a first offence. But one was not easily caught, for even
a sixth-former found hundreds of naked boys very much alike in the
water, and the fact of any one having transgressed the limit was very
hard to detect. Nor were we bound to incriminate ourselves by replying
to leading questions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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