Crew: George Banbury (bow); John Long (2); Graham Pye (3); Robert Herbertson (4); Phil Archer (5); Bill Simmons (6); Paul Marriott (7); Mark Gallop (stroke); Marcus Champ (Cox); Coach: Dennis Clarke.
The boat in this shot was, I’m fairly sure, the (then) very new, “Williamm Waynflete”, paid-for largely (or entirely?) by the MCS Parents’ Association, and launched by Mrs Deveson. I have a paper cutting relating to that very significant event.
This shot was taken, of course, years before the OUBC boathouse burned down. This shot was possibly taken from the OUBC raft itself (a massive raft alongside a little, very characteristic, hump-backed bridge over a tiny tributary of the Thames/Isis. OUBC was where the OU boat-club did a lot of its early-in-the-University-year selection processes. The William Waynflete was a beautiful new shell for us then. Made, I think I remember, by the (mainly) oar-builders Collars, from whom we also bought (of course) our oars. They were located on the Isis, a little way north of Folly Bridge. Quite close to where I did a holiday job in about 1956/7 with the local branch of the Coca-Coal Bottling Company. Quite close also to where the GWR placed its first Oxford station - alongside Folly Bridge, in about the 1850s or 1860s.