Raisin receipts remembered
Fancy dress, foam fights, Latin in fine script and general frivolity: many of our alumni will have fond memories of their own Raisin Monday. It’s a tradition unique to St Andrews that has evolved over the years to include the use of bulky or embarrassing objects as receipts – a phenomenon that seems to have first occurred in the 1970s.
For this year’s Chronicle, we asked our alumni to share some of their most unusual Raisin receipts. You can enjoy a selection of their memories below.
‘My Raisin receipt in 1962 was a plastic bucket which, despite losing some of its Latin wording, has served for the past nearly 60 years as a waste basket in our guest bedroom! As a tertian in 1964 I gave one of my bejants a ball and chain. I gave the other one a pair of black brogues (mysteriously discovered washed up on the West Sands) with the receipt painted round the outer surface of the two shoes. They were too big for him, but he hobbled around in them all day.’ – Martin Hodgson (MA 1965)
‘In 1966 I was given a stag’s head by my senior man, John Shippam (BSc 1967), with my Latin receipt hanging from its mouth. The panda on its antler was, I suspect, given by my senior woman. It was heavy and accompanied me to all lectures that day. I studied medicine and was one of the first five students to go down to Manchester. I became one of the ‘lost medics’ who finally graduated from St Andrews in 2003. Happy memories!’ – Dr Julian Newton (BSc 2003)
‘As an exchange student from the US in 1966-67, my Raisin receipt involved me being pushed in a bath chair behind a donkey named Dusty Springfield. I was pushed into Professor Lionel Butler’s class, donkey and all. He was a very good sport about it. My unusual receipt was featured on the front page of The Scotsman newspaper.’ – Kate Delano-Condax Decker (JYA 1966-1967)
‘My senior man was John Thewlis (BSc 1967), who was also a leading light in the Sailing Club. The receipt he gave me in1965 was written on a yacht sail, about 3m tall and 2m long. He attached it to a wooden frame that I had to carry on my shoulders around St Andrews. Raisin Monday that year was extremely windy. I shall never forget how I staggered from Hamilton Hall to the Buchanan Building for my lectures that morning, buffeted by the elements. As I rounded the corner from North Street a sudden gust of wind knocked me off my feet!’ – John Symons (MA 1969)
‘I spent all my free time in the first six weeks of term building a life-sized TARDIS for my academic son, James Harvey (MA 1993). I presented it to him after breakfast at David Russell Hall and our academic family transported it into town via the Physics building common room where we stopped for a well-earned rest.’ – Richard Loxley (Gibbs) (BSc 1991)
‘My academic father, Joe Viner (MA 2018), had a keen sense of humour and he surprised me with a unique receipt: my academic brother, Gareth Richardson-Peat (MA 2021). We had to carry him, inscribed with the traditional Latin, from Queen’s Gardens to St Salvator’s Quad. When we presented him to the staff member on duty, they, quite understandably, suggested that we did not hand him over and instead take him to the foam fight with us, which we duly did.’ – Joel Moore (MA 2020)
‘My academic parent, Peter Warren, used this locket, which had belonged to my grandmother. He must have purloined it at some point and returned it as my raisin receipt.
‘He was a medic, but was studying Logic, Metaphysics and Medieval History while waiting to re-sit Chemistry, and led history tours in the town. We met at a student ‘hop’ during my first week. Peter gave me a brief tour, and we ended up missing the 11pm curfew in force for female-only residences such as University Hall. I had to ring the bell – oh, the shame! – summoning the unamused warden, Miss Walker, in her dressing gown. After this inauspicious start we got on fine, and I stayed in Hall (Lumsden Wing) for my full four years, also organising musical evenings in Old Hall.
‘I led the University orchestra and the chamber orchestra and gave lunchtime recitals with Peter at the piano. I also played in the ceilidh band and was co-recipient of the music prize in 1966.
‘Peter and I were close friends for about three years before parting ways, but our respective families have remained friends, visiting and even exchanging homes for holidays, and meeting when they come to ski in Austria, where I now live.’ – Gail Schamberger (Harvey) (MA 1966)