Long life
Eight of the best
Nigel Nicolson
Iam entitled to three club ties, all of them beautiful, but none of which I dare wear. The Guards tie should only be worn, and then rarely, by people who have served the Brigade longer and more gallantly than I did. The Old Etonian tie was unracked by me after I sat opposite a man in a train who was also wearing it and who leant for- ward to say, 'Floreat Eton, what, what?' His 'What, what', and Eton for Etona, revealed him for what he undoubtedly was, a fraud, probably an Harrovian. My third tie is the most distinguished and beautiful
of the three, the Leander. It is mono- chrome, salmon-pink.
This being Henley week, I suppose I might risk wearing it once more, but not at Henley, where it would be observed with suspicion as I no longer look the type. But the joy of earning it (by coming head of the river at Oxford) and the pleasures of row- ing are ineffaceable. There is nothing like it for rhythm and continuity except dancing. The apparatus is beautiful — the long, slender shell of an eight, the subtle curve of the oar's blade. The scenery is beautiful, not the tideway from Putney to Mortlake which is too wide, agitated and strewn with revolting flotsam, but long reaches of the upper Thames. The motion is beautiful, the seat that runs on tiny wheels telescoping and rapidly straightening the body with the flexibility of a praying mantis, and the oval described by one's rotating hands. And the company is beautiful, all eight striving in unison towards the same end. It could also be terrifying. I have never experienced such tension as at the start of a Henley race, knowing that utter relaxation must be replaced in a split second by maximum and unrelieved exertion, and the fear of catch- ing a crab.
I never did catch a crab in a race, but I once suffered a far greater humiliation. As a very junior boy who was not even allowed the privilege of a sliding seat to my sculling boat, I was idly turning it in mid-river in preparation for returning to Rafts. There was a lot of shouting, but I paid no atten- tion, as there always was. Then suddenly I caught a flash of blue oars not 20 feet. away as they dug violently into the water. It was the school's eight, halted by me at the cul- minating moment of their trial course. I feared an eight-tanning, an ordeal described to me with relish by an earlier victim. He was summoned to the holy-of- holies, known as the Eights Room, where the crew was assembled, every one a hero, and each of them in turn, from bow to stroke, delivered on his bent bottom a stinging swipe of the cane. He counted the blows . .. six, seven, eight, and then got up. `Get down again!', shouted the Captain of Boats. He had forgotten the cox. At last able to compete in virility with his crew, he hit hardest, hurt most, said my friend. I was spared this, and I'm sure that at the more humane Eton of today it couldn't possibly happen. Although it is the incident that I remember most vividly in my rowing career (`career' is laughable for one who never made it further than the second round of the Ladies Plate at Henley), I do feel gratitude for the opportunities that rowing gave me. Those long summer days on the river, alone or in a crew, the excite- ment of winning, the testing of one's physi- cal endurance, and the companionship of the disembarked eight, were all experiences that I gained from no other sport. I shall not go to Henley this week, but in the obscurity of the woods I will wear my Lean- der tie, strolling along, whistling.
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