ChCh Matters (small) #15f 13/5/05 10:15 am Page 1 Chri Church Matters TRINITY TERM 2005 ISSUE 15 Editorial cannot resist, in introducing this Trinity 2005 edition only possible due to the generous support from a number of Christ Church Matters, congratulating the Oxford of generous benefactors. The acquisition is described by IVIII who rowed magnificently to victory on the the Assistant Curator of the Picture Gallery. Thames last weekend. As you will read in ‘Cardinal Sins’ they were captained by Robin Bourne-Taylor, a member of Enclosed with this Christ Church Matters you will discover Christ Church, who also rowed in the mens’ eight at the information about the new publication, 'Christ Church, Olympics in Athens in 2004. On the subject of rowing, Oxford: A Portrait of the House'. We are very excited that, ‘Three Housemen in A Boat’ splendidly describes a at last, Christ Church will have an illustrated hardback canoeing feat of rowing from Folly Bridge to Westminster book about our unique institution. The book will only be Pier (some 112 miles) in June 1956. published, however, if many of our old members and friends subscribe and send in interesting reminiscences and The Trinity edition of Christ Church Matters each year memorabilia of the House. I hope you decide to do so. gratefully lists those who have chosen to make a gift to Christ Church. We are enormously fortunate to have such I would like to thanks all contributors who have provided generous support from old members and friends - it makes the interesting range and breadth of material for this a significant difference to the House. Earlier this year, an edition. Read on and enjoy! 18th century drawing by Neapolitan artist Corrado Giaquinto was purchased by the Picture Gallery. This was SUE CUNNINGHAM, Development Director and Co-Editor Three Housemen in a Boat HEN I PRESENTED myself at Peckwater. Together with my congenial the porter’s lodge at Tom Gate in neighbour from Manchester Grammar School, W October 1955, I received Michael Eaton, we hatched a plan to travel by directions to my rooms in Meadow Building. canoe down the river to London without any After wending my unfamiliar way across Tom break. Although none of us had ever come Quad, through the grand entryway to the Hall, close to white-water canoeing, we were keen to around the cloisters, and then down some steps, improve on Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in I discovered the huge and ungainly pile of a Boat by paddling the 112 miles to Ruskinian Gothic known as Meadow Building, Westminster. So far as we knew, this would be where I would be spending the next two years. a first. Several friends at LMH allowed us to Blissfully ignorant of the social geography of “borrow” their college’s prized canoe called the House, I did not realize that I had been Pocahontas snugly berthed on the Cherwell. relegated to the furthest outpost of the college Several friends at LMH allowed With scientific acumen Edward calculated our demesne. One step more and I would have us to “borrow” their college’s speed and the tides on the lower Thames so been pitching a tent in the Master’s garden or that we would not have to fight the strong the meadows. From the lofty vantage point of prized canoe called Pocahontas currents after Richmond. Michael and I laid in the Old Etonians and Old Harrovians who a supply of hard-boiled eggs, bread, coffee, lived in Peckwater and Canterbury I might just snugly berthed on the Cherwell and brandy to nourish us during the trip, as well have been relegated to Siberia. My while Edward tipped off a Fleet Street sitting room lay on the top floor of the last plovers eggs and Cointreau to any lunch journalist about our expedition. We also entry in Meadow Building. Facing east, the guests. From the balcony of the sitting-room arranged a reception party at Westminster Pier window overlooked part of the Master’s garden Anthony Blanche, that splendid post-Wildean complete with several lovely ladies, balloons, and Merton. At least the room was large rogue, had recited through a megaphone and bottles of bubbly. enough to accommodate merry guests attired in Tiresias’s lament from The Wasteland with all sheets for a pseudo-Roman toga party and then its homoerotic implications as a group of virile In order to catch the ebb tide at the end of our a pajama party co-hosted by my Rhodes rowers strolled below on their way to the trip we left just after daybreak on Sunday, June Scholar friend from Malta, Edward de Bono. boathouse. 3, 1956. Because all the gates were still locked, Despite the social stigma and damp cold that this early departure forced us to climb over a In my second year I moved next door into the permeated Meadow Building, I owe the most wall on the Meadow side of college with room made famous by Evelyn Waugh in memorable event of my time there to that paddles and gear in hand. Unfortunately a Brideshead Revisited. This was the suite domicile. The inspiration for an extramural groundskeeper spotted our scrambling and occupied by Lord Sebastian Flyte “high in adventure on the Thames came from the ever reported this transgression to higher authority Meadow Buildings.” However, I never offered inventive Edward de Bono, who lived in unbeknownst to us. With mounting excitement ...continued over the page page 1 ChCh Matters (small) #15f 13/5/05 10:15 am Page 2 we made our way down to Folly Bridge where we wandered about and took in a film. Then just this blaze of publicity featured the name of the we had moored the canoe overnight. before the appointed hour we returned to the college, which did not go down at all well canoe and made our way across the river to with the hierarchs back at the House. Shortly To make a long story short we paddled steadily Westminster pier where we were greeted by a after our triumphal return we received a downstream for over thirty hours including dozen reporters and our companions from the sobering summons from the Senior Censor, portages around thirty-three locks. Our shifts at Ruskin School of Art and LMH. The warmth of the formidable English historian, J. Steven the bow and stern lasted four hours and the man our reception and the effects of champagne Watson. Wearing our gowns, we stood in the middle doled out modest amounts of food rapidly wiped away any residual fatigue. The apprehensively outside his rooms at the and drink and kept our tea or coffee warm on a somewhat bemused pier-master at Westminster designated time wondering what heinous mountain stove. Distance of time has blurred my took this event in such good stride that he joined crime we had committed. Seated behind his memory of the arduous haul. But I well recall a in the champagne toasts. One tabloid reporter large desk, the Censor displayed great concern mid-river interview by an enterprising journalist ran true to form by showing more interest in about the good name of the college and asked who had hired a small boat near Henley and where and with whom we were spending the us bluntly how much money we had made followed us downstream for half a mile pestering night than in our riverine feat. To his queries I from selling our story to the press. This us with questions. Portaging the heavy canoe ventured the somewhat fatuous reply that ours question took us completely by surprise but around all those locks at night and in was an “experiment in international living” and we had no trouble in assuring him that ours intermittent rain resulted in some nasty bruises a “protest against professionalism in pranks.” had been a non-profit venture. Once he and scrapes. We passed by Eton College on the realized that Fleet Street had paid us nothing, morning of the glorious fourth before the The warmth of our reception his tone lightened. Nevertheless, with all the festivities had begun. As the river gradually gravitas of an 18th century magistrate he broadened below Putney, we felt small and and the effects of champagne levied a fine of £15 apiece for having climbed vulnerable whenever tugs and steamboats made rapidly wiped away any out of college. As we rose to leave, he looked large waves that rocked our frail vessel. at us with a sly wink of the eye and said with a residual fatigue. hearty chortle: “I could have beaten your time.” Moving more rapidly than expected, we passed under Westminster Bridge almost four hours Evidently word had spread fast along Fleet Come to think of it, life in Meadow Building ahead of our forty-hour schedule. Since we had Street because the press coverage ranged from was not so bad after all. arranged our reception party for 10 pm, we had the Oxford Mail to the Daily Mail, Daily to kill time. Disembarking near Waterloo station, Herald, and Illustrated London News. Of course L. PERRY CURTIS, JR. (1955) Cardinal Sins NOTES FROM THE ARCHIVES ACK IN 1896, a young Catholic man Christ Church has not produced large numbers from Dublin, one of seven children of of Olympic sportsmen, but one probably less Bthe biggest baker in Ireland, who had just known is Hugh Edwards who came up to the graduated with a 4th class BA in Jurisprudence House from Westminster in 1925. Just after from Christ Church, travelled to Athens with his he graduated in 1931, Edwards rowed in the friend Constantine Mano (Balliol 1894).