15 October 2020
By Adrian Stokes
HTBS is excited to present the next installment in our series of show-and-tell. Adrian Stokes, Oxford Blue in 1951 and 1952, writes about a tankard that he received as a birthday present shortly after winning the 1949 Torpids.
Back in 1948, I extricated myself from the Army just in time to take up my scholarship at New College, Oxford. Having rowed at school, I immediately joined the College Boat Club, and soon found myself at stroke in the college Torpids, training in the traditional clinker-built eight which gave the name to the boat and the winter bumping races on the Thames.
So, in February 1949, we started in second place behind Christ Church, but just failed to catch them on the first day. But on the second day, there came a strange synchronistic episode. In a Greek tragedy I was studying that morning there jumped out of the page a line which read:
Επου μαραινε, δευτεροισ διωγμασιν – which means “Wear them down! Go after them again!”
And this is exactly what happened: we bumped Christ Church on the second day and rowed safely over at the Head position for the remaining races. This success started the lead-up to New College’s glory year of 1950, going Head of the River and winning the Ladies’ Plate at Henley, and set me personally on the way to being President of the winning Oxford crew of 1952.
Shortly after those Torpids races came my 21st birthday, and the best surprise present was a tankard. The crew had clubbed together and had it engraved with the original Greek quotation on one side and all their signatures on the other. A treasured reminder of happy days on the river…
