This month Alice spends a lot of time writing to her
parents despite being very busy with taking exams and preparing for and performing
in multiple demonstrations. Alice is in good spirits as she is excited for the
annual College Camp in July and subsequently returning home. In this letter, Alice
has written only to her mother who is camping in Wiltshire and was unable to
come to her gymnastics demonstration.
Alice talks of the gymnastics demonstration attended by her
father and aunt saying she has left instructions for her father to explain the
programme to her mother once she returns home. During the demonstrations (she
participated in two) the temperature is reportedly over 80°F; gymnastics at
that temperature must have been unbearable for them!
Pictured below is the Gymnastics programme from the Archive.
It shows that shape and pattern are the pre-eminent factors for this year as
with the three thematic approaches of body shape, rope work, and pushing and
pulling with asymmetry and symmetry.
The swimming demonstration took place on 29 June and
Alice believes the performance was one of the most successful in recent years.
However, she admits a slight faux par on her part - during a pairs diving
sequence she misjudged her footing and went crashing into the water – “with a
rather large splash”. Although accidental she was fearful of what the staff may
think but looking up she was pleased to see they had found the funny side of
the mishap.
Demonstrations aside, Alice must wait for her Biology and
English exam results, commenting that the Biology exam was extremely hard and so
believes she will not get a distinction.
Alice closes her
letter wondering what she could do for work over the summer, hoping to attend a
friend’s birthday party on the way to camp, and asks her mother to send on a
few camp essentials.
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| BPEA OSA 5/6 Programmme for Demonstration Day 1957 |
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