In the summer of 1971, Shiplake College 1st VIII rowed for the first time in the Princess Elizabeth Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, here is the report from the 1972 version of The Court:
"Our performance at Regattas justified an entry to Henley Royal Regatta where we were given a bye on the first day and then raced St. Paul's, Concord of the United States who were a seeded crew. At the start Shiplake went into the lead but St. Paul's slowly caught up and beat us by a margin of five seconds. For a first appearance at Henley most experienced observers felt that we had not been disgraced."
The Boat Club continued to make great strides and certainly projected the image of the School further than ever. The national press began to speak of Shiplake as ‘a leading rowing school’.
The July 1971 sponsored walk will never be forgotten by those who took part. On a day of blazing heat, teachers, parents and governors took part in a sponsored 30 mile walk. The course began three miles below Henley bridge and followed the river upstream to Pangbourne – The distance totalled 18 miles and 12 miles brought you back to the College. About 170 set off and 64 finished, those who completed it joined ‘The Thirty Club’. The walk raised £1,300 to go towards establishing a permanent servery for the cafeteria system.
During the holiday building work started on the servery where the gallery of the old billiard room had been: it involved the demolition of the strongroom of the original private house.
We really like this snippet of Headmaster John Eggar's Speech Day speech taken from The Court:
"You go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits—for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting with humour and good grace to rebuke and reputation, for the art of indicating agreement or disagreement in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage and soberness, but above all you go for self-knowledge."
