Graduation Extract from The Guardian, Saturday July 4 1931
Graduation, 1950s
More fun with names was experienced by Brenda Owen (BSc Hons General Sciences 1946) who recalls her brother’s graduation in 1943. “My brother, Roger Everatt was graduating BSc Engineering and the graduands were all seated but the rest of the Academic Procession was running late and the students were getting restless,’ she remembers. “Suddenly they burst into song; "Why are we waiting, O why are we waiting etc." to the tune of O come all ye faithful. This was quite amusing for the rest of us and when they had finished, the rest of the ceremony went according to protocol until the last of the graduands was called to the platform. “This unfortunate man was named W K Waiting and before he got to his feet the graduates erupted
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into a repeat performance of their song! It was some time before the Dismissal could be called.” For some like David Hogg (BSc Hons Engineering 1952), the ceremony was really a bit of a bore. “Actually, the graduation ceremony in 1952 was a rather staid affair - in fact so staid I remember very little,”he says. “I suppose I got dressed up. My parents came, I was one of very few in the extended family who graduated, we went to lunch and that, really, was it.”
“A year later, going up to Manchester, undergraduates seemed rather silly people – but I could play hockey three times a week (never terribly well). Come graduation, the cap and gown ceremony appeared daft, and I refused to have my picture taken. A few months later, that seemed desperately ungrateful to my parents, so I hired a cap and gown and went to have my graduate portrait taken. Nicely posed, there was a great smell of burning – the gown was ablaze, sitting on a hot light bulb in the photographer's studio.”
And for Michael Walters (BA Hons Modern History with Economics and Politics 1962) it was a potentially dangerous experience.
For Adrian Williams (BA Hons Theology 1979, MA Economics 1984), the graduation ceremony of 1979 was a source of embarrassment that resonates still today, as he turned up to collect his degree in cowboy boots (well it was the 70s).
He takes up the story: “After three days working for a City insurance broker, the idea of going to university suddenly became a life-saver.
“Come graduation day my mother and father arrived and took me to get robed (ermine, no less!),”he recalls.