Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 387
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[Page 387]
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of the placards displayed. Ever after, with one exception, the processions were confined to the University grounds. About thirty or forty horse-drawn flat-top waggonettes each carried a small group of students with a painstakingly prepared tableau that was usually a humorous or satirical skit on a topical event in society, art, sport, politics etc. During one morning of "Commem" week, the students crowded into the Town Hall to sing rumbustiously from a booklet, specially printed every year, that contained the traditional university anthems and many clever parodies of well-known, or currently popular, songs. Up in the University grounds there was the usual annual "battle" between the butchers (medicals) in long white coats and the greasers (engineers) in boiler suits, using paper bags of flour or soot, respectively, for ammunition.
In December, just before Christmas, we sat for our end-of-year written examinations in the Great Hall, together with a crowd of students sitting for examinations in the other faculties. Strict supervision was exercised by the Clerk of Examinations, Dale, and half a dozen assistants, popularly known as "bulldogs". It was said that to prevent dummying, Dale was supposed to know every candidate by name and sight; if he did it was certainly a remarkable feat of memory. The usual time for a paper was two and a half hours, but "Sandy" Britton would go in half an hour late and come out half an hour early with a smug grin on his face, having done a perfect paper. The fine art of the ordeal was to quickly run through all the questions on the printed sheet laid on your numbered little table, and then answer them in order of easiness - from your point of view of course.
When pondering the harder questions one could spare a few moments to admire the lovely carved-cedar hammer-beams in the roof and the beautiful stained glass windows of this fine hall, which is almost an exact copy of the hoary old historic Westminster Hall, adjoining the Houses of Parliament in London, but only about two-thirds the size.
Sometimes a female candidate would faint on a first reading of her paper, and for this emergency a very large bottle of