The 1960s

The Golden Era

SEHBC dominated college rowing during the 1960s, with the 1st VIII finishing Head of the River in Summer Eights in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1964, and 1965. This success was matched throughout the club, placing St Edmund Hall top of the overall University Summer Eights standings through 1959 - 1961 and 1963 - 1969. The Hall also won Torpids in 1962, 1964, 1965 and 1966.

Notably in 1965 and 1966 both our 1st and 2nd VIIIs took positions in the 1st Division. In 1965 the 1st VIII finished Head of the River with the 2nd VIII rising seven places (an overbump and four bumps) to win promotion to the 1st Division. This is the only time in the post-World War II era that a college simultaneously had both its 1st and 2nd VIIIs in the 1st Division. In 1967 Teddy Hall also broke another record by boating nine men’s crews, an unbroken record only matched by Oriel in 1990. Duncan Clegg was elected President of OUBC in 1966.

The Boat Club also enjoyed success elsewhere. In 1959 it won the Stewards' Challenge Cup at Henley; in 1960 two Aularians (Richard Bate and Richard Fishlock) rowed for Great Britain in the Tokyo Olympics; in 1965 the Boat Club supplied no fewer than five (winning) Blues, and three members of the Isis boat which inaugurated (and won) the first of the Isis v. Goldie races; at Henley in the same year the Hall won the Ladies' Plate and Visitors' Challenge Cup, and participated in the winning crews in the Thames Challenge Cup (Isis) and the Prince Philip Challenge Cup (Leander).

Crew Memories

Darrell Barnes (1963)

In Michaelmas Term 1963 I came up from The King’s School, Canterbury, ostensibly to read Modern Languages but, to the despair of my tutors, spending much of my time “messing about in boats”.  That first term I rowed for the Hall in the University Fours which we won, and then in Torpids (ditto) in Hilary Term 1964 and Summer Eights in Trinity Term. 

We started in third place in the First Division behind Christ Church and Keble whom we bumped to regain the title of Head of the River which the Hall had first won in 1959.  Much like the roar of the crowd in the Stewards’ Enclosure which I was to experience the following year, the applause of the other crews drumming on their saxboards as we turned round and made our progress back to the boathouse is an experience I shall never forget: it was deeply moving.

We retained the Headship in 1965 but were bumped down in 1966: like the Grand Old Duke of York’s army, I have been up to the top of the hill and down again.

Teddy Hall ordered a first eight for the 1964 season which raised eyebrows and much mirth among rivals: instead of a shining, polished shell, this boat had a matt surface which needed to be waxed.  This was to create a “laminar flow” which sounded impressive and probably was in that we became Head of the River.  The 1965 Hall first boat we nicknamed “The Barge”: it was a monster, designed to accommodate a couple of giant Americans.

Boathouses in those days smelled of all the perfumes of Arabia: cedar for our boats, ash and spruce for our oars which had leather and brass buttons, and grease for our slides.  By contrast, today’s boathouses smell of nothing - apart from those steaming singlets (or “onesies” as I think they are known in Vogue magazine).  It is all very much more efficient, I’m sure - but a bit tasteless and colourless, too?

1965 was an annus mirabilis for Teddy Hall rowing: we had five winning Blues, and three members of the victorious Isis crew which participated in the first Isis v. Goldie race.  At Henley, the Hall won both the Ladies’ Plate and Visitors’, the crew for the latter being the stern four of the Ladies’ Plate VIII (by some macabre twist of fate, the bow four of that Ladies’ Plate VIII all died young).  The Hall also provided two members of the Leander crew which won the Prince Philip.

I was in the Isis boat which entered for the Thames Cup which we won.  It was a year in which stream and wind combined to see a number of course records fall: we lowered the time by one second on the Wednesday (from 6.37 to 6.36) and by another second in our semi-final heat on the Saturday.  This race was against Eliot House, a Harvard crew, who led all the way until the mile post or thereabouts when they simply ran out of steam - “blew up” is the more brutal way of putting it.  This meant that we rowed them down in front of the Stewards’ Enclosure which rose in a roar to cheer us on to the finish (a photograph reveals that the indicator boards were still showing Eliot House in the lead).  To this day it has been my only experience of being carried along on a wave of emotional support which was almost tangible: we could all have stopped rowing there and then and we would have been borne through to the finish line.

By Hilary Term 1966 it was pointed out to me that I would be taking my Finals in Trinity Term: was it wise to waste my substance on riotous living on the river (though the question was not posed in such diplomatic terms)?  By that time I had lost my edge which I had enjoyed the previous year; and I was also occasionally rowing at bow in the trial eights, an enormously difficult position in which to row since the water seemed to pass by so much more swiftly. 

So I decided to return purely to college rowing, a college which, when all was said and done, had given me the opportunity to row at University level in the first place and to which I considered I owed my first loyalty.  I still do.

The Friends

In 2005 I found myself back in the world of rowing, but a very different world from the one I used to inhabit; and not rowing, but mentoring (which I suppose is the best description).  In that year a reunion was held at Henley to mark the fortieth anniversary of our various successes; from that arose an invitation to become involved with the Friends of St Edmund Hall Boat Club, where I was a Trustee and for a number of years Hon. Treasurer.

One of the Friends’ more notable achievements was to organise the celebrations to mark the 150th Anniversary of the formation of St Edmund Hall Boat Club in 1861.  For this I compiled Off With The Gun (the title taken from a cartoon published in 1904 in which Hall rowers were depicted making off with the starter’s gun), a miscellany of Hall rowing stories gleaned from magnificent Captains’ Books, grand ledgers with marbled end papers (a revised second edition was published in 2016).

We managed to obtain the loan for the evening of the Henley trophies which Hall crews or crews containing Hall rowers had won: Stewards’, Ladies’ Plate, Prince Philip, Visitors’ and Thames, and also University trophies.  These were carried into the dining hall by members of current Hall crews who were cheered in by the assembled guests - an experience as moving for them as my triumphs had been for me.

From rowing I have had enjoyment (and pain too) greater than I could have ever anticipated.  My debt to Teddy Hall and its Boat Club is immeasurable.

Darrell Barnes (1963)