St Hugh's College, Oxford - Chronicle 1966-1967

There is no doubt that the Saturday evening dinner was the most gaudy part of the celebrations. As one after-dinner speaker commented, we were perhaps not the best dressed bunch of women she had encountered, but we had all made an effort. There we all were, ranged along alphabetically ordered tables, down to an F generation and beyond, with the overflow accommodated in the buttery—another new institution opposite the Bursar's office—which did a brisk trade after dinner and at other snack times, and deserves to be quite as busy during term.

Since dinner was the highlight of the occasion, that was the time of maximum concentration of senior members, a fact that was already quite evident from the noise generated; this also did not escape comment from the platform.

But in this St. Hugh's has no monopoly: a recent reunion at Sunset High School, Dallas, Texas, was summed up `It's the same gang, only louder'.

Our repleteness was settled nicely by a lively and varied succession of speeches from high table. Miss E. D. McLeod, describing herself as a 'been to', a phrase she adapted from an Indian whose proudest claim was that he had 'been to' Oxford (further inquiries not encouraged), showed us what giddy heights can be reached from this beginning if combined with other undocumented talents. Many another of us knows, in humbler spheres, the multifarious advantages of been-to-ness.

Miss M. L. Sims regaled us with glimpses of behind-the-scenes of 'Woman's Hour' and read some letters she and the programme received which had not otherwise been given an airing, besides producing the pertinent and endearing comments mentioned before.

From the recent past to the more distant past, which was conjured up by Miss F. M. Wyld with stories of Oxford life at the turn of the century, something which quite evidently set one up with enough mental liveliness to last well into the 196os.

The Principal in her speech dealt with the highlights of the year's successes, the plums which she had kept back from her report at the afternoon's meeting.

On Sunday a surprise item was arranged, apparently at short notice, in aid of the building fund. It is a pity that comparatively few of us had survived as long as Sunday afternoon to swell both the audience and the fund. A notice modestly displayed at the door of the Mordan Hall states that it is now licensed in pursuance of Act of Parliament for public music, singing, dancing, or other public entertainment of like kind. Our entertainment of like kind that afternoon was the unexpected pleasure of a poetry reading by Phyllis Hartnoll which ranged from John Donne to some of her own poems. This was balanced after tea by a short concert of flute and piano music: the programme, played both efficiently and musically by Pippa Burrow and Judith Rickett, was very aptly chosen and presented for such an occasion, no mean feat in itself.

There were also opportunities during the weekend to escape from the mêlée, to swelter in Oxford's summer sultriness and to wait for Oxford's non-existent Sunday buses. It seemed a chance to look up an old landlady, but only to be greeted by roses overblown, grass overgrown, and spiders' webs enhancing the air of neglect. No, said the young neighbours lazing next door with their transistor, they hadn't seen anyone in that house for months. Turning away it was good to reflect that landladies may go but St. Hugh's goes on and will welcome more generations of senior members to future gaudies.

ANON. 9