Archive: Student Rag Days Quieter Than They Used To Be – March 1962

The story of student Rags remains unwritten and yet to be immortalized in literature. Perhaps one title that could capture the essence of this annual event would be one of the profanities often thrown in the aftermath of undergraduates’ antics.

In recent times, students at Manchester College of Science and Technology realized the significance of their public image and thus explored the views of city residents on the annual University Union’s Shrove Tuesday Rag. However, the survey only scratched the surface of mixed emotions such as envy and outrage that brew in the average Mancunian whenever the eve-of-lent saturnalia festival is mentioned. Out of the 550 individuals surveyed, 86 percent were in support of public collections for charity, 62 percent made it a point to watch the Rag procession, and only 30 percent recollected stunts from previous years.

The survey’s existence highlights a shift in dynamics over the years from when Rag days were louder and busier. Today, the students view themselves as impresarios of a three-ring circus, and not public enemy number one.

"A social thing," notes a staff member of the Merseyside Hospitals Council, which arranges the counting of charity money collected during Liverpool’s Panto Week. Over the years he has witnessed a transformation with students becoming more civil in their horseplay. Distinctions between social classes have been eroded, therefore pranks that could have been perceived as denigrating to the masses can no longer be tolerated.

In Liverpool University, the center procession of Panto Week was banned after complaints that the previous year’s had been like an advancing army led by Attila the Hun.

Contrary to popular belief that student dealings in charity exists only to pelt people with flour and water, Mr. David Malpas, Panto Secretary, reports that this year’s receipts showed only a slight reduction from previous years.

This was a quieter affair; hence fewer students took part in collections. However, the few that did were passionate, and the level of charity was unparalleled. The concept of the carnival in a charitable sense is gradually becoming outdated, even though it had a re-awakening in the austerity era after the war.

Despite predictions of Rags’ fallout and eventual phasing out, the event remains persistent over the years. Fewer than 20 percent of students participate, and the amount collected declines by £1,000 every year. The attitude of policymakers and the public has also affected the character of Rags.

The stunts remain academic with less outrageous activities than before. Currently, popular matters involve gauging how many students can fit into a telephone kiosk. Although there have been some grotesque displays, they occur only occasionally, such as the footprints painted in Manchester a few years ago that indicated a statue had descended from its pedestal to visit the gents.

The historical beginnings of this event are indistinct, although Manchester has a habit of tying customs to the calendar. There are examples, like ancient Shrove Tuesday’s practice of avenging the schoolmaster, documented as far back as the manuscript of 1688, where at Eton, every year on Shrove Tuesday, at nine o’clock, "All the boys in the school cry out three times as loudly as they can, and stamp and knock with their sticks and then they do all run out of the school."

In the past decade, two newspaper reports have revealed the established pattern of the event: "They dressed up in various fancy and bizarre costumes and engaged in some disruptive behavior afterward. They carried lit torches and proceeded towards the Royal Exchange, then extinguished the flames before entering Mr. Roberts’ smoky cafe. Here, they indulged in a hearty meal and concluded the event with a pleasant smoking concert."

Initially, the primary purpose of the gathering in 1905 was to entertain themselves, and the concept of collecting donations for charity was not yet prominent. "Three hundred pupils paraded in Oxford Street while singing in unison and succeeded in drawing the attention of the more reserved citizens. Their objective was to pique the curiosity and interest of the general public."