College Plays and Performances

In her letter from 24^th March it is nearing the end of the spring term and Alice refers to end of term activities such as teaching her last lesson, receiving grades, sitting an anatomy test and fundraising for a conference trip by having a bob-a-job week. 

Among the things she mentions is a College Play ‘Christopher Columbus’ which was an adaptation of a play for radio by Louis MacNeice, first broadcast on the BBC in 1942. Alice was not in the play herself but these were clearly important occasions in the College calendar as Alice talks about inviting an external visitor along and waiting for critiques to appear in the local press. Tickets for this production were charged at 2s 6d and 1s 6d, which would be approx. £2.80 and £1.60 today. By Alice’s time at the College, posters and programmes for these performances were printed (as below) but in the earlier days they were all hand produced. The Archive holds some beautiful handwritten and illustrated programmes from earlier years, including some believed to have been illustrated by Cicely Read who was a student at the College from 1909-1911 and went on to become Principal for a short time before her sudden death in 1949.

Programme for the production 'Christopher Columbus'

Dancing and Ice skating

It is February 1956 and very cold, with snow and freezing conditions.  Alice mentions a Varsity Fives match being played between Oxford and Cambridge in Bedford.  This was a Rugby Fives* match which was won 238-228 by Cambridge.  The Varsity Fives matches were played from1925 to the present day with the matches from 1949 to 1956 being held at Bedford Modern, so Alice met players from the final contest here in Bedford.

*Rugby Fives is a handball game similar to squash played in an enclosed court between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles), the aim being to hit the ball above a ‘bar’ across the front wall in such a way that the opposition cannot return it before a second bounce.  The ball is slightly larger than a golf ball, leather-coated and hard.  Players wear leather padded gloves on both hands, with which they hit the ball.

The cold conditions mean that Alice experiences some different sporting activities in her week at college, with ice skating taking place instead of hockey.  Alice and other students often skated on the boating lake for fun, although it is unlikely that actual lessons took place there as students described having to jump onto the safe part of the ice!  We know that in the 1920s, ice skating took place on flooded fields in Goldington village.

Alice had the excitement of a first year dance to help warm up and in her previous letters, she describes decorating the gym with enormous back cloths made of pasted together newspapers with wall paper strips on top of them.  The theme of the dance was air travel and Alice sent the following request home for items to wear to the dance:-

 

 

Skating on flooded fields in Goldington, c.1920s