Blast from the Editorial Past
Look outside. Isn’t the weather lovely? No? Doesn’t the lake look inviting? No? Couldn’t you just dive straight in? No, because you are a sensible student, and don’t want to end up stuck face-down in three feet of thirty-five year old tetanus-ridden goose excrement. But back in the seventies, when the university was new, the waters of the biggest duck-pond in Europe ran as clear as Evian. It was a common sight to see students engaging in a bracing dip before breakfast without needing instant medical detoxification!Such a body of clean water safe to swim in was a fantastic leisure resource for students.
In 1974, on March the 6th, Andy Mathieson of Goodricke College organised an inter-collegiate naval battle. Crews of boats, ranging from the floating Goodricke landing stage, set free from it’s mooring and crewed by “at least half the college,” to “a one-man Derwent craft consisting of a zinc bath with an oil drum either side.” The battle plans being “almost non-existent,” the Wentworth boat, floating as it did “three inches beneath the water surface,” was surrounded by Langwith vessels, and quickly overcome.
Meanwhile, over by the Goodricke-Vanbrugh bridge, Nouse reports that “the heavier Langwith vessel, the ‘Good Ship Dinky-Doo,’ was boarded by two unlikely-looking pirates who just had time to say ‘Hello…’ before being deposited in the lake.” The situation, predictably, soon descended into chaos, “with everyone bombing everyone else with flour, dirt and paint-bombs.”
The battle seems to have been, at times, quite intense. A special heroic mention is made of one Chris Walker, resident of Langwith college, who single-handedly fought three Alcuin sailors to win possession of the Goodricke landing-stage craft.
The final quote in the newspaper is telling. It is from a mournful, shell-shocked student, who simply says: “It was hell out there. Hell, I tell you!” Health and safety would agree with him, and, I suspect, would veto any such plan today; but surely some baby of fun has been thrown out with the bathwater of danger.
Then again, the lake is pretty disgusting. If the same thing were to happen nowadays, everyone would get extremely ill afterwards, and someone would probably get impaled on a submerged bicycle frame. Cool idea, though.
