Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Bats



My friend who was at Selwyn College, Cambridge in the 1980s, founded a College Dining Society called The Bats. Selwyn had just celebrated its centenary but The Bats wanted to pretend that they were a Society with great traditions and so they held a "bicentenary" drinks party. To authenticate their claim, they bought a large leather book and proceeded to make up their history, writing it down in ink in the beautiful book, citing great Bats who'd fought in the Boer War and The Bats regiment which served its country so bravely in the First World War. My friend designed the Club tie: a bow tie with bats.
At a party in Scotland twenty-five years later, he spotted a chap in his twenties wearing the Bats tie.
"Ah, a fellow Bat!" he exclaimed, warmly shaking the man's hand.
"Yes indeed!" the man replied. "The Society has an amazing history: did you know they supplied a regiment to fight in the First World War?"
My friend did not shatter the young man's illusions.

3 Comments:

Blogger Angus said...

So that's what students do at Selwyn. Mystery solved.

1:28 pm  
Anonymous kinglear said...

Quite... batty. And delightfully English-centric eccentric!

2:20 pm  
Blogger janerowena said...

They really did re-write History!

1:29 pm  

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