Early in the year, the P.E. Department was asked to provide a Gym Display for the Open evening for parents of prospective pupils for the coming year. The time for preparation was short - the new second year boys had scarcely begun their gymnastics lessons, so volunteers were called for and a programme hastily worked out. There's not much variety that can be put into a Display because of the lack of time to practice some of the more spectacular stunts, but it was decided to try this year's show with music. The Gymnasts responded enthusiastically and with a total amount of four hours practice - really hard work - a good display was knit together. At four o'clock on the Open Day itself, the team had its first complete 'dress-rehearsal'. During the evening it had been planned to give two shows, but such a large number of parents wanted to see the show that an extra show had to be put on. On the following day, 2 special performances were given for the 2nd and 3rd Year. That weekend happened to be the Christmas Bazaar, and we seized the opportunity to use the Display as a show to help in the fund raising, and put on four more performances, each time in front of full-houses. In total, more than a thousand people watched the various shows, and their keen response spurred on the performers to great heights of showmanship.
The programme started with 'easy' vaults and agilities such as astride vaults, cartwheels, arab
springs etc, then gradually became more difficult using the long box and high buck for
'long-fly' vaults, thief vaults and so on, until the groups combined for rebound vaulting over
two bucks with two trampettes and this led into the climax of Cross Vaulting over the High
Buck - plenty of near misses and one or two very slight collisions, especially when the more
daring performances speeded up their runs and began to include their own specialities.