No.127
The Trusty Servant
Bogling for Ekker
Ian Alexander (G, 67-72) writes:
One of the requirements on Junior
Men was – maybe still is – to take
five hours of exercise a week, and to
report on this in writing to a prefect.
This formal system was known not
as exercise but as Ekker, in much
the same way that Rugby football
was called ‘rugger’, and as the most
remarkable example, the waste-paper
basket in Mugging Hall was the
‘wagger’ (short for ‘wagger pagger
bagger’, formed from the initials of
the original). The name soccer for
Association football is, I think, one of
the few widespread survivals of this
odd late-19th-century Oxford argot,
apart from nicknames like Bozzer/
Bozza.
Ekker was not much trouble for
those good at team games or rowing:
they did their weekly matches and
practices, perhaps added a game of
squash and a toll, and they were
complete. At the end of the week,
they wrote out their hours of cricket
or football on a slip of paper (an
Ekker Roll), handed it in, and the
prefect in charge presumably gave
it the briefest of glances before
approving it.
Things were not quite so easy for
those - how shall I put this? - less
likely to be selected for the house
team, and devoid of skill at games
like squash. It was of course possible
to go for a run – a nominal three-
mile tour around St Catherine’s Hill
(before the motorway sliced across
the back of it) was accepted as an
hour for Ekker purposes, but once
a week was plenty, and in any case
variety was mandated. Swimming was
a possibility, but doing lengths for an
hour was never my cup of tea; and
of the gymnasium, the less said the
better. Delights such as aikido or yoga
were far in the future.
There was, however, one pleasure
which counted as Ekker: bogling. A
bogle was the notion for a bicycle,
and with the bicycle store and
maintenance workshop next to
Music School, it felt as if nearly
everyone had two wheels. I bought a
second-hand bogle there and rode it
whenever I could.
An Ekker ride had to be a definite
activity: one could not just ride into
town and hope to add 20 minutes
to one’s Ekker Roll. But on a sports
(hah!) afternoon, it was fine to saddle
up and go for a proper ride, and the
obvious thing for a member of the
Natural History Society to do was to
take binoculars, one-inch map, water
bottle and bogle, and head up into
the chalk downs for some wheeled
birdwatching. That meant a stiff
climb, and with antique three-speed
16
gears, that in turn meant hard work
in bottom gear trying to get uphill
without getting off and pushing.
One man in my house had a racing
machine with ten-speed Derailleur
gears (we pronounced the unfamiliar
thing ‘dee-rail-ia’) and whippet-thin
saddle and tyres; the rest of us looked
on enviously, supposing that it made
hill-climbing effortless.
Once up, there was the freedom of the
open road, wind and chalk grassland,
the singing of the yellowhammers
and the skylarks, and the occasional
lapwing defending its nest.
Bogle, Binoculars, Freedom:
up in the chalk downs, c. 1970. I
must have developed and printed the
photo in the school darkroom.
That sorted one hour of Ekker, at
least (‘Ah, bogling again. Where did
you go this time?’). Only four more
hours to handle.