26 JUNE 1976, Page 19

Stick and bulger Sir: Can any Spectator readers help me?

What is a bulger? I'm collecting up the old songs of girls' schools and women's colleges before co-education means they vanish.

I have come across this verse from Westfield College hockey song: 0 give me my stick and my bulger, 0 give me my short hockey skirt, And give me ten merry companions Who don't mind the mud and the dirt !

Could it be some form of protective undergarment, I wonder? Or a girdle to hold up the short skirt ?

The other problem that faces me is why did so many girls' schools adopt the Harrow 'Forty Years On' verses as their own. The psychology of this eludes me.

Celia Haddon 9maunsel Street, London SW1