Halifax B-R Dinners
by Walter H. Kemp
The Halifax Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race Dinner
NOTE: Since its inception this event has been privately organized and constituted; it is not an affiliate or function of any Society or Club.
The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race Dinner was founded by Henry Hicks (Oxford-Exeter) and Dr. Hereford “Curley” Stiles (Cambridge-St John's), ca 1966. There is no available documentation before 1978, but the discrepancies in dates and memories of its founders are complicated because there were skipped or cancelled years. Our calculation that 2008 will be the forty-second is the agreed-upon figure by mutual consensus. Hicks, President of Dalhousie University (1963-80) and a Senator, was assisted by Oxonians H.B.S. Cooke and George Cooper. The first Dinners were held at The Halifax Club, and Hicks used his connections to fly over the Race television film by diplomatic service in the Air Canada pilot’s bag so that the guests could enjoy the event “hot off the media”.
Dr. John Godfrey (Oxford-Balliol, St Antony’s) took over the event in 1978 and firmly placed it within the social calendar of the University of King’s College, where he was the President (1977-87). He established the pattern of pre-dinner champagne in the President’s Lodge, high-table dinner in Prince Hall, and “dessert” back in the Lodge.
At first Godfrey’s Dinners were a huge success, with out-of-town (even out-of-Province) guests, exceptional post-dinner joviality and the music of “Brideshead Revisited” playing in the background. However, after Godfrey's departure, interest in the event dwindled for various reasons, and it declined to a small supper-party in the Senior Common Room or a Sports Supper focusing on the student athletes. (Godfrey was keen on King's rowing, but the Club had lost their boat in a fire and has not replaced it).
With Godfrey’s departure in 1987, the revived Dinner was the brainchild of Dean of Men, Dr. Tory Kirby (Oxford-Christ Church) assisted by Dr. Walter Kemp (Oxford-Exeter) moving toward his second term as Chair of the Dalhousie Music Dept. but who had been cross-appointed to King's in 1985. Since that year Dr. Kemp, aided by his wife Valda who formulates the invitations and prepares the "dessert" table, has organized and presided over the evening. The 1988 Dinner re-instituted the event as an Oxbridge High-Table with pre-dinner champagne in the Lodge and “dessert” either in the Senior Common Room or the Boardroom. Toasts to the Victors and to the Vanquished became a “dessert” feature, with elaborate rhetorical, academic, or musical spoofing by George Cooper and Walter Kemp for Oxford, Leslie Jaeger (Gonville and Caius) and R. MacGregor Dawson (Corpus Christi) for Cambridge. In recent years viewing of the Race video has become a regular part of the “dessert” period, through the arrangements of John Devlin (Cambridge-St Edmund's) and the generosity of Leslie Jaeger. Annual attendance holds firm between 26 and 36 guests. There is an almost equal balance in representation between the Universities, and within the Oxford alumni Exeter College constitutes roughly one-third of that group: the Pickwickian spirit of Henry Hicks, “Founder of the Feast” must be happy!
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41st Halifax Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race Dinner on the evening of 14 April, 2007 organized by Dr Walter H. Kemp (Exeter, 1963).
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