Subject: Fwd: Life in Aberystwyth
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:41:02 EDT
Dear Myron, Please find below the latest page to Crystal Spheres.       Despite Myron like Yeats in Dublin never entering a pub, the drinking culture in Aberystwyth did provide a focus for many students to meet, socialize, and mix with townsfolk and students from across all subject areas in the college.  It fostered a great spirit of togetherness amongst students and provided a way of letting of steam off and giving students a break from the demands of academic study. The small size of Aberystwyth as a holiday town by the sea meant that students were able to walk down to the town each night and could all walk back to hall at the end of the night safely and without the need for transport. It was possible to rank different student halls for their general rowdiness, togetherness and general sense of fun according to their drinking reputations.  The halls on the seafront were the greatest drinkers in the university because of their proximity to the pubs and Ceredigion and Carpenter Halls were always ranked as the most drinkingest in the college.  Students from these halls would often go on town tours in the evenings together drinking en bloc and by the time they were returning to halls late in the evening walking along the seafront; it would be the highlight of the night if one of their members could not keep his beer down. In the seventies Ceredigion Hall formed its famous ‘Vom Soc’ with its emblem of Knights in helmets and any student not able to keep his beer down was entered into the ‘Vom of the Month’ competition, which was reported on in the student newspaper ‘Pick Up’.  Carpenter Hall though rowdy, was held in great esteem by students for its ability to raise as much money for rag week as all the other halls combined in a good year.      In the seventies the two universities which raised the most for charity in Europe were Aberystwyth and Nottingham and in 1978, Aberystwyth finally overtook Nottingham. The bulk of the money was raised through selling rag mags in university campuses and towns across Britain.  To facilitate transport to sell the mags, a fleet of brand new minibuses would be hired each year and so much money would be raised, that by the end of rag week the buses could be bought outright and donated to worthy charities.      Few universities in Britain can match Aberystwyth for its compactness and great views. All students can be housed in hall if they so wish and the halls are located on the seafront with superb sea views or else high up on Penglais hill with fine views over the town and sea, framed between the two large hills of Pen Dinas on the left and Constitution Hill on the right. Pen Dinas is the site of the largest Iron Age hill fort in the county and is topped with a monument marking the victory at Waterloo.  Constitution hill can be reached by walking up a steep winding path from the sea front or by taking the cliff railway to the Café and the world’s largest camera obscura at the top. The scene changes constantly with the sea matching the colour of the sky, being grey on stormy winter days and blue on lovely summer days.  It is tradition to walk along the prom to its end next to Alexandra Hall at the foot of Constitution Hill and to lightly kick the metal safety rail two foot above the ground. This is called kicking the bar and perplexes the tourists each summer.      Walking back along the prom you pass various halls of residence, hotels and the bandstand before reaching the Royal Pier Pavilion and the Old College. Continuing you pass around the castle to south beach and then to the harbor with its piers and marina, with its range of small and large boats and fine views out to sea. Most of the boats are sailing vessels, but there is a small fleet of fast rowing vessels similar to those seen in the Oxford Cambridge boat race, but without sliding seats.  These are the sea version of the river rowing boats and are surprisingly fast.  Crews practice at sea throughout the year when it is not too rough and every two years take part in the ‘Celtic Challenge’.  The Celtic Challenge is the brain child of Aberystwyth book binder Alan Blair who has worked on the RNLI lifeboat as a volunteer in Aberystwyth for many years. In the Celtic Challenge, each boat has two rowing crews who alternate as they row from Arklow in Ireland across the Irish Sea to Aberystwyth throughout the night on the May Bank Holiday, to arrive about midday. This event attracts crews from across Europe and the time of the crossings vary greatly each time, because the speeds achieved depend directly on the roughness of the sea and the prevailing winds. Kerry
I was definitely not part of this scene at Aberystwyth. I think that the only real education is self education.
