No Cows, One Mayor, and the Afternoon Off

In 1588, the year of the Armada, the town’s fair and cattle market moved from Bargate into the school yard. For a time it was one of the most important fairs in the East Midlands, until in the 19th century it moved back to Wide Bargate. “Nowadays, there are no cows,” says the school. Every December it opens the market anyway.

In most years the whole school gathers in the December cold in the Beast Yard, and the Town Clerk reads the declaration, the text of which the Old Bostonian Association keeps on its website, supplied by a former bursar, Lawrence Rich. It opens “Oh Yes! Oh Yes! Oh Yes!” and requires “that no manner of person use any unlawful games during the time of the said Mart”. It is addressed to everyone resorting to the Mart. Nobody in the yard has come to sell a heifer.

At the stroke of noon, by the clock of St Botolph’s, the mayor calls for a half-day holiday for the pupils, the Head grants it, and three cheers follow. The school’s own page notes one exception: “boys who owe coursework, who have the pleasure of spending the afternoon’s holiday working in the Library”.

The tradition is weatherproof. In 2010 the Beast Yard was so ice-bound that the ceremony moved into the Library, with the prefects representing everyone else. The school magazine’s 1968 cartoon of the day, kept by the old boys’ association, shows a smiling dignitary in a chain behind a scroll, hands raised, and school caps flying overhead. Nobody in it looks as if they owe any coursework.

I tried it at home. On a Friday at noon, by the oven clock, I read a declaration at the kitchen table forbidding unlawful games during the said Mart, which was Saturday. My husband, as Head, granted a half-day. The youngest gave three cheers. Then the eldest pointed out that it was half-term and they were already off.

That left the one person in the house who owed coursework. I spent the afternoon in the library, with my tax return.