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Chapter 8 / Celebrations
CELEBRATIONS
W
e celebrate a great many major and minor
occasions at this School. Domestic occasions for
celebration include such events as the last night of
a play, the Presentations at the end of the year-long process of
the Extended Project (in 2013 taken by the whole of the Lower
Sixth), or the Christmas parties held in each House at the end of
the Autumn Term. However, there are also larger-scale events, the
biggest and best-known of the School’s more public celebrations
being the annual Gaudy, nowadays held on the last day of the
Summer term.The most important of such Gaudies were in
1913, 1933, the centenary year of 1963 and this year, 2013 –
the 150th anniversary of the School. It is with those particular
celebrations that this chapter is mainly concerned.
In the early days in Summertown, however, there were three
major festivals in the School’s year, each of which was referred
to as a ‘Gaudy’. The word comes from ‘Gaude’, the Latin for
‘Rejoice thou’. The first was on 20 February to celebrate the
birthday of Simeon, Headmaster and later Warden, and the
second was to commemorate the consecration of the School
Chapel (hence the name Commemoration, shortened to
‘Commem’, by which this particular event subsequently came
to be known); it took the form of a Garden Party mainly for
parents and prospective parents. The third was an Old Boys’
Day, when the Old Boys’ Dinner would take place.
The programme for these annual events became fixed in
1888. The Warden’s birthday remained a whole day’s holiday
(until his death) and included the Prefects’ Concert; the
Summer Gaudy was the largest event (usually around 5 June),
and the Commemoration was changed to become a two-day
event in the Autumn Term and included a dinner and School
play. The annual OSE (later Martyrs) rugby match was always
Chapter 8
Left: Diamond Jubilee Dinner, 1933.
Below left: Jubilee, 1913, showing OSE, staff and parents.
Below: Douglas Bader and the former Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Lambeth, during the 1963 celebrations.
Above: Bunting in the OSE Rhubarb colours in the Quad for Gaudy 2013.