Oct 1951

HOUSE NOTES THE GROVE Under N. M. Hodd, our new Head of House, and with a new House Monitor, J. Whittaker, the House ended a most successful year by winning the Oxford Cup outright for the first time. This crowned a year of outstanding achievement in all House activities.

Turning first to work, we must congratulate P. J. Blincoe on passing the exam. for entry into Sandhurst. In the Work Cup competition we held a comfortable lead until the end of the term, but our lack of many exam, successes prevented us from retaining the cup, and we finally finished fourth. Also, in the first week of term many members of the House contributed in the preparation of the Science Exhibition and later in explaining the "wonders of science" to large numbers of mystified spectators.

Returning to games, we can be proud of the complete success gained by both the junior and senior House cricket teams. Our junior side, after beating an inexperienced Manor team in the semi-final, gained their revenge over School House for last year's defeat. The senior team beat Temple in the semi-final, whilst in the final the School House batting unexpectedly collapsed, leaving us with very few runs to score for victory, which were obtained without very great difficulty.

Thanks largely to the excellent play of our first string pair, N. M. Hodd and M. J. Wood, who did not lose a set in any of their matches, we managed to win the Tennis Cup for the second year in succession by beating Rise and School House, although both matches were very close.

In contrast to these successes we did not do as well as usual in the shooting and fencing. We lost the House aggregate Shooting Cup to Temple and the Fencing Cup to School House. We also lost the cup for the best recruit squad, but we were more than compensated for this by the winning of the Fernie Cup. In this competition we must thank H. Murray, P. J. Blincoe, and H. H. Hunter for their fine leadership, and the whole squad for their hard work.

We once again entered for the swimming sports without much hope of winning, and in this our fears proved well founded, for, despite some good individual performances, most of our competitors were left floundering in the wakes of the Manor and School House "cracks".

In the House Music Competition we occupied the unprecedented high position of second, and we would like to congratulate our singers on their efforts, although Temple's fine performance left us without much hope of victory.

We were again well represented in the School teams. N. M. Hodd captained the XI and won the Fielding Cup, G. B. Pullan headed the 25