This photo is so of its time; the rowing club blazers, the baggy trousers held up by braces (I bet Donald had his held up with a tie – he couldn’t bear belts or braces!) and the brilliantined hair. This is my dad Donald, somewhere in Cambridge, no doubt near the river; he is on the left and beside him is his great friend Eric King who I always thought was so handsome! I don’t know the other two behind them, and I don’t know where they are going, maybe to a bump supper.
The bumps are rowing races held on the River Cam each year; the eights (rowing eights) from all the different clubs or university colleges are organised into divisions to race against each other. Because the Cam is so narrow they line up one behind the other, and when the gun fires they set off with the aim of catching the boat in front and ‘bumping’ it with their prow. The two boats, bumper and bumped, pull over to the bank and the other boats carry on past them trying to catch the crew in front. If by some chance a boat behind two who have bumped rows well enough to catch the boat ahead of them it is called ‘rowing over’. When the race has finished the bumped crews and the bumpers row back to their boathouses, the victors with a sprig of willow tucked behind the cox. The following night, the boats line up again, in the same order, except the bumper and bumper swap places; if there is a crew who has rowed over, they move up two places! This goes over four nights, and at the end, the crew who is first out of all the divisions is ‘the Head of the River’. The following year the order of the divisions is what it wasat the end of the bumps of the previous year.
After the bumps there is a bump supper; each club has its own, and the idea is to toast the crews, eat lots and drink lots! Maybe this is where Donald is going with his friends. One year he was at a supper and was late coming home; his father Rue was upstairs in the pub, drawing the curtains before he and Maudie went to bed. He spotted a swaying figure across the other side of the junction of the roads. The figure was fumbling in his blazer pockets and then found his key. He pointed it like a lance and set off at a run, aiming it at the keyhole of the front door of the pub, arm extended. There was a mighty thump as Donald and door collided. Rue chuckled to himself, closed the curtains and went to bed.
Lois Elsden 