INGENIOUS FLOATS IN CAPPING PROCESSION

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 6

INGENIOUS FLOATS IN CAPPING PROCESSION

Framed in the arch of the Bridge of Remembrance soon after 10 a.m. yesterday an incongruous group of apparently animated wheat sheafs in tall top hats caught the attention of crowds of sodden shoppers waiting in Cashel street in the persistent rain. As the drizzle developed into a heavy downpour the distant group broke into a canter and soon became recognisable as the advance guard of all Capping Week processions—the celebrated University of Canterbury haka party. They paused for a brief haka around a traffic officer at Colombo street, then continued at an orderly run up Cashel street to High street —where they all quickly fell down on the street and stretched out in the rain.

This unquestionably sensible action was greeted with warm approval from the crowd, which evidently was well acquainted with the rules and rituals of university processions. An elderly woman nervously crossed the road in time to avoid a brass, silver and beer bottle band whose members’ only protection from the rain was a white shirt each. The drum major was more warmly dressed in cossack fashion, and twirled a baton mounted with a skull. Following a float which urged the citizens of Christchurch to free the Dean and the Brigadier came a float bearing a massive lion which reared back on its haunches as a kiwi of similar proportions took short, vicious runs at it and speared the lion ferociously in the chest. An encouraging commentary on the forthcoming British Lions* tour of New Zealand, the float was also one of the best examples of the skill and thought students applied to the capping procession this year. Next came a long wriggling creature named the “One-eyed, one-homed, flying purple Walter cash-eater’’; while the following float, “A boiler to soot everybody,” changed the subject from national politics to the local controversy involving the Ham smokestack.

“Connolly’s modern army’’ marched triumphantly, but decrepitly behind a huge army tank, which required to be pushed by army volunteers. The brigadier m the turret held a sun umbrella at a rakish angle and the modern military machine belched smoke alarmingly. A float advocating the consumption of a home brew labelled “Mother's Ruin,’’ preceded another bearing the slogan “Live and Die Happy.’’ on which enthusiastic surgeons gambolled around an operating table, recklessly throwing large pieces of offal at one another. “Berlei Graham Can Give You An Uplift” encouraged the next float which the students had named “Berlei Graham’s Banned Waggon.”

Among the floats which drew the most appreciative remarks was a tall macabre figure standing with arms out-stretched and one foot in a grave. It was labelled, “Death

duties: the poor cocky can’t afford to die.”

An Oriental note was introduced by a column of veiled women dressed in saris who bore on their heads unidentified pieces of china and enamel ware. They were illustrating the opinion that “The country is going to the pot.”

“Don’t be Boord —drink and feel merry,” announced a banner on another float. An ineffectual attempt had been made to censor the word “merry.” The float was entered by “Alcoholics Unanimous.”

A female figure of ample proportions cut out of a sheet of cardboard was the standard which several buxom students (ostensibly female) tried to meet in the “Where is our Sabrina” contest. Later came a huge, skilfully constructed elephant pulling an ancient car which either had been, or intended to go, “Around the World in 80 Years.” It was explained that “pulling this is a hard tusk.”

Dense clouds of smoke completely concealed a float illustrating the re-equipment of the New Zealand army, but it cleared in time to show a safety campaign motor-car making erratic progress on bare rear wheels. A girl rashly crossed the road in a deceptive lull in the procession and barely escaped capture by a small dinosaur which had obviously escaped extinction because of its extreme manoeuvrability. Cavemen followed in bedraggled sheep-skins, closely pursued by the mother and father of all dinosaurs—a truly massive creature with a lolling red tongue and mounted by a sooty hunched prehistoric jockey. To dispel all doubt as to its nature a hoarse voice kept up the plaintive cry: *’*l am a dinosaur, I am a dinosaur. . . .”