In 2017 Billygoat Ken Drake asked John Adams some questions about the colour of FCBC/FHBC blades and other oar related matters:
Dear John
I know you thought you had retired but I thought you might be able to help me with the following questions:
Many thanks
Ken
Boat Club Queries
- When did Fitzwilliam Boat Club first use grey blades instead of the maroon (actually bright post office red) with a broad grey stripe? We were frequently confused with Corpus who had a broad white stripe so I can understand the change.
- When did the rowing fraternity stop winning “oars” for going up four or more places without being bumped and start winning “blades”? This may have been about the time of the introduction of cleaver type oars but when was it?
- When did the tradition of awarding “spoons” to those crews which went down four or more places begin. It was not in use in the 1950s. I presume it is based on the award of a very elaborately decorated spoon to the lowest qualifying wrangler in the mathematics tripos in earlier times or is there another reason for it being so called?
Dear Ken,
Answers to your three queries are in “The Bumps” by John Durack, George Gilbert and John Marks. If you don’t have the book, you should get hold of a copy, not only for these answers but for its comprehensive picture of Cambridge University bumps.
A little of my personal knowledge will amplify what the book records.
- In October 1958 when I went up, all Fitzwilliam oars had blades of a light maroon with a light grey stripe. We rowed with those colours until December 1959. (I remember the “bright post office red” you describe as there were a few oars (including those used in the bank tub) which must not have been repainted in the intervening period.)
Sometime between the 1959 Fairbairn (above) and the 1960 Lents (below), the blades were painted a darker maroon without a stripe, which was replaced with three grey “flashes” at the tip of the blade (see the below picture with Osier Holt (and Green End) looking very different from nowadays).
I can be precise about the date as my photographs show the 1959 1st Fairbairn VIII with the stripe and the 1960 1st Lent VIII with the flashes. I recall John Wilson (Captain at the time) saying that the change had been made as the Master of Corpus had been confused and had shouted encouragement to one of our boats in error. It would be good to discover if there had been some “official” instruction or request for us to change but even a very wide ranging search of minutes, letters and records might not discover the truth.
A disadvantage of the flashes was that they got worn off when/if blades rubbed on the concrete when boats came in. When a boatman was non-existent or delinquent and the repainting was not done then the flashes began to disappear. They were not very distinctive and I recall frequent thinking about another change so the difference from Cat’s and Downing blades could be more easily spotted from a distance and “behind”.
- The Admiralty and traditional oar manufacturers still refer to “oars” – which consist of a handle, a loom and a blade.
But if you Google the words as I have done, you will find that British Rowing now refers to the oar as a “blade” and the blade as a “spoon”. The old ARA used to refer to the complete item as an oar.
To determine when the terminology changed would require a wide ranging document search
Could it be that the increase in the number of females taking up the sport made the use of the term “oar” less frequent and acceptable? Shouting about oars to a crew of women could easily provoke the more juvenile in society to make ribald comment.
- The words “wooden spoon” have long been in use in the world outside Cambridge synonymous with “booby prize”. That term did as you surmise derive from the prize for the bottom place in the maths tripos. For once the classicists have not had a major effect on the language – their “wooden wedge” for the bottom place in the classical tripos has not had the same extended life.
It is easy to imagine that when oars had become blades and blades had become spoons, some bright spark somewhere in Cambridge decided that since a crew that had made four bumps would now win their blades, a crew that had been on the receiving end of four bumps could be awarded “spoons”. I would be quite pleased if it had been me!
All the best
John
I can add that in the 80s most blades were plain grey, sometimes with a Billygoat painted on them. – DG