1939 by Angela Lambert

Author:Angela Lambert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter Seven

The Last Two Months of Peace: July

July started badly. It rained. For 3, 4 and 5 July, Evelyn Waugh’s diary recorded ‘Continuous rain’ and, on 6 July, ‘More rain.’1 This meant that the hundredth Henley Royal Regatta, which opened on 3 July, was a pretty miserable affair for all but the most dedicated rowing enthusiasts. One such was Tom Vickers, a young bachelor living in digs in Ebury Street and working at the Colonial Office. He attended many deb parties that summer – he was especially popular because he was a good dancer and delighted in waltzing. A great friend of Rosamund Neave and her family, he soon found other invitations coming in. His name began to crop up on other mothers’ lists, he enjoyed the dances, and found that the main disadvantage of the Season was the very large laundry bills incurred in washing and starching all those white shirts.

Rowing had been his passion, both at school and university, so Henley was a welcome break from a demanding London life:

I went to Henley in 1939 for two reasons. One is that the King’s College Boat Club were able to send a full eight to row at Henley that year, whereas the previous year [his final year at Cambridge] we could only send a four. The other reason was that my twin brother was still at Trinity, Oxford, and he was going to be rowing in the Trinity second eight. As far as I remember I went on my own, because I still regarded myself as more part of the rowing fraternity than the London Season. I wanted to be able to watch the rowing, to retire to the Angel – the pub just by Henley Bridge – with my King’s friends. I was more interested in doing that than in having girls and their mums tagging on. I think they would have been in the way.

Henley was then, and still is, dominated by the Stewards and Leander. It’s essentially a male event. The old boys like to come out if they’ve got an Oxford or a Cambridge Blue. Of course … you want to put on your Blue cap or you want to wear your Leander tie and your Leander socks – it’s not really a Society event. I mean, there are no top hats at Henley: the emphasis is quite different. So for Henley I would have worn my King’s first-boat blazer and a King’s tie and a King’s cap probably; I mean, I would have worn what was expected. You were only entitled to wear the blazer or the cap or the tie if you had actually got it. It showed you were a rowing man.

The tie of all ties during Henley week comes from membership of the Leander Club. To aspire to that, a man has to have rowed in a winning event at Henley, or rowed in a boat that went head of the river at Oxford or Cambridge. It is an honour granted

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