Inaugural Cherwell Day

It is sometimes said that, apart from in a scattered handful of vestigial colonial outposts (including Christchurch in New Zealand, Pune in India and Blantyre in Malawi), nowhere but in Oxford and Cambridge do people still partake in the recondite pleasure of punting. This is probably true; but it also true that punting's place in Cambridge life is much more overt than is its place in Oxford's. The mere mention of Cambridge is enough to conjure into most people's minds visions of The Backs, all Panama hats and picnics, clogged with punt-bound tourists clamouring for a snap of the famous colleges behind. The Cam cuts through the very heart of the city, and its passengers are commensurately visible. Punt poles, paddles, hampers and boaters are as much a part of the city centre's fabric as are pinnacles, porters and people on bicycles.

The situation is different in Oxford. The Isis is too deep for good punting (and it bypasses the city centre anyway), while the Cherwell is too well-hidden a sliver of meadow-edged water skirting down Oxford's eastern flank, safe from the iPhones and selfie sticks of all but the most intrepid day-trippers. Punting in Oxford is, as a result, a little more recherché. While Radcliffe Square and Broad Street absorb the worst of the superficial fawning, the pleasures of the river are reserved for those who seek them out. One might go an entire year in Oxford without seeing the water; even longer, if one is especially obtuse, without hearing the characteristic clang of misjudged punt poles ringing off it, followed by splashes or laughter.

Though punt culture may be more muted in Oxford than it is in Cambridge, there are exceptions to the rule: the most obvious, of course, is at Wolfson College. While our friends at other colleges must traipse halfway across the city to reach their dilapidated and expensively-leased punts from private boathouses, Wolfsonians need only look out of their bedroom windows to see theirs, framed by the glittering river beyond. Its Cherwell-side location is critical to Wolfson's identity, and it would take someone rather churlish to deny that the fleet of punts tethered calmly in the harbour, as familiar as family are one of her more pleasing features. 

Punting isn't, of course, the only thing that well-informed Oxonians do on long evenings. Once exams finish the city erupts in a hive of bacchanalia: garden parties, concerts, balls, cricket matches there is even a circus that comes down from somewhere in the Cotswolds every July and pitches in the University Parks. Perhaps the surest certificate of summer, though, is croquet. For a few months of the year, quads and gardens are hooped up, furnished with balls and mallets, and transformed into stadia for that most languid of sporting contests. Fewer sights are more likely to cause the observant tourist — glancing through an iron gate or peeping over an ivied wall to swoon than that of a group of students lounging around a croquet match, Pimms in hand and hats on head. Oxford's passion for croquet is low-key, sometimes twee, possibly confected, but at most only half ironic. And that passion infects Wolfson as much as it does everywhere else. It is often the case that, more so even than the Common Room or the Bar, the croquet lawn is THE place to be on a summer's evening in College.

It was with all these thoughts in mind that the inaugural annual Cherwell Day was held on Wednesday 24 June. The premise was simple: to mark the special quality of summer at Wolfson with a punt regatta, a croquet tournament, and celebratory drinks and dinner. The regatta consisted of a series of races; and although it and the tournament were spiced with some first-class athleticism and some very stiff competition, the main virtue of the day was the spirit of fun and college fealty that it engendered. The regatta was won in style by a team from Kellogg College, while the croquet title was clinched by a team led by Wolfson's Jasper Barth.

In spite of some amusing contretemps during the day (the involuntary entry of one unduly hubristic punter into the river springs to mind), the highlight was the Cherwell Dinner. Beginning with goose egg omelettes (history doesn't record whether the eggs were from our own pesky geese), the meal meandered via fine wine and good conversation to an address given after dinner by the appointed Deipnosophist. (The word ‘deipnosophist' is derived from the Greek, and is an archaic reference to anyone ‘skilled in the art of making dinner-table conversation'). This year's Deipnosophist was the Rev Dr William Beaver, a former student and fellow of Wolfson College who has, in the meantime, also been a soldier, a priest, and a bigwig in the City. The Deipnosophist's talk was described afterwards as being ‘irreverently reverent', and someone said too that the story he so brilliantly told of the young Wolfson College's potholed road to achieving respect within the university made them unabashedly proud to be a Wolfsonian. The Deipnosophist's speech was both moving and inspiring, even if it's more immediate effect was to make make everyone laugh.

Cherwell Day was marketed as one of Wolfson College's ‘finest traditions', but some thought that this was rather confusing.  After all, was 2015 not its inauguration? Indeed it was, but Cherwell Day can, it is hoped, be considered a tradition in broader sense, without the optimism that that implies being entirely misplaced. As the apocryphal Housemaster (who told his charges that they would traditionally wear house-coloured socks, starting on the following Monday) so well observed, a practice needn't be time-worn in order to tap into a group or institution's identity. Cherwell Day distilled into one event the full spectrum of the Wolfson community students and fellows, children, friends and alumni and, for an evening, it turned the usually-serene River Quad into a chattering swirl of Pimms and gowns, boaters and bow ties. All the virtues of this wonderful college were on display that day, backlit by the evening sun. Long may the tradition continue!

Many thanks to all the guests; to the Rev Dr Beaver; and in particular to the hardworking staff who helped make Cherwell Day happen.