Two male students from St
Catherine’s gatecrashed St Hilda’s matriculation photoshoot on Saturday, and will
appear on one of the photos that will be available for freshers to purchase. Nick Troen and Archie Hardyment dressed
in full sub fusc as well as hair bands and make-up. Troen was sporting a skirt
and tights. Posing as ‘Nichola’ and ‘Annabelle’, they mingled with the crowd as
the students from Hilda’s queued for the photograph, but were spotted by
Georgie Edwards, one of the College’s Entz reps. Fellow Entz rep Tamsin Chislett
recalled, “She [Edwards] told me there were two boys heading for the photo, we
went to investigate with our JCR President and asked them sweetly if they had
name cards…they admitted defeat reluctantly and stepped out of the queue.” Both Troen and Hardyment managed to
appear in St Hilda’s 2005 matriculation photo, thanks to the obliging
photographer. Chislett explains, “The hotographer
took two photos, one with them and one without.” She added “The college JCR has
no plans of selling the photo with Troen and Hardyment in it. But, the
photographer will have it on file and Hilda’s freshers can purchase it if they
want to.” Troen said, “It was just an idea
that popped into my head before term started. I’m quite a fan of little pranks
and stuff; we’ve climbed a lot of colleges, and once put traffic cones on every
single philosopher’s head outside the Sheldonian. Everyone talks about crashing
matric photos so I thought: what would be the ultimate one to get into?”Troen explained that they were
aided by a ‘secret’ fresher at St Hilda’s, as well as “a fantastic make-up team
here at Catz who were really great in lending us clothes and doing our faces
and hair. Our costumes consisted of full sub fusc, skirts, tights, very painful
girls’ shoes (I’m a size 11 and I could only find size 7 shoes) and of course,
the obligatory socks ‘n’ bra combination. A couple of necklaces here and a
bracelet there completed the disguises.”Carina Berry, the boys’ ally at
St Hilda’s, said, “I walked onto the grass to find him [Troen] there with his
friend, trying desperately to blend in involving a handbag to cover the ’bulge’
area and crouching down to minimise height and shoulder breadth. They got as
far as lining up in height order for the photo.“Unfortunately, they were
discovered by the girls on the JCR Committee who he actually knew and their
cover was blown. Luckily they’re cool girls – anything for a few boys around! –
and they got to join in the ’comedy’ shot. I think that’ll go down in every
freshers’ memory – the temporary addition of ’Nichola’ and ’Annabelle’ to our
ranks!” Berry commented on the duo’s disguise,
“Nick at least made a lot of effort, and there are some manly looking girls in
this world.” Troen said, “Had the entire thing worked, i.e. no one had noticed,
I wanted to put my name down as Amanda Skyzed.”Hardyment added, “Nick’s account seems
accurate and I don’t think I have much to add; he only forgot to mention the
embarrassment of having to cycle through town in broad daylight in drag.”ARCHIVE: 2nd week MT 2005
Hilda’s matriculation crashed
