Goran R Buckhorn

In mid-May 1957, 125 elite Scandinavian oarsmen gathered at the Sogne Fjord in Norway to play ‘rowing Vikings’ in Kirk Douglas’s movie The Vikings. The film’s indoor scenes were going to be shot in a studio outside of Munich, some outdoor scenes in France, where the Vikings were going to storm a castle, and in Norway where a Viking village was built by a fjord. For The Vikings Douglas’s company Bryna Production contacted Kiersgaard to ask him if he could round up his old crew and maybe some other good men, who could act on the Viking ships. Of course, it is still a memory for life to have been in the movie.’ Before the interview came to an end, I comforted Persson by saying that there are de facto worse films about the Vikings than the one Kirk Douglas’s produced.

How like a hearth of light that splendid Gothic ship moored in the Seine, taking on millions of passengers through eight hundred years, setting alight a taper in each of their hearts, to carry forth into our oft dark world. I imagine her needles pausing mid-intercession, and beginning to embroider the phrase, “sic transit gloria mundi,” even the glory of her own earthly house, its two magnificent roses, eyes, seeing with celestial sight, eyes, now, bloodshot, enflamed. The light, become savage, has turned on the ship, fire consuming fire, fire, frenzied, trapped, fire exploding over the flying buttresses, fire roaring red, wounded, up the lace-like tower, fire falling over fire, a stampede of flames over-running all in their path. All stands charred, a hearth of darkness, save faintly glowing embers, here and there, like little eyes opening, orbs of new light, seeing an even finer ship being launched, its anchor, again, the Heart of Compassion.

Andy’ Larkin rowed for Harvard, raced at the European Championships and the Olympics, and then rowed in the slow lane, that is on the Connecticut River. Later in life, after his medical practice and family life quieted down, he describes how he took to the Connecticut River for peaceful excursions in his Alden Ocean Shell, exploring quiet and scenic places in solitude. For the next three years Larkin describes his experiences in the 6-seat in the 1st varsity eight; undefeated seasons, international racing, 1968 U. S. Olympic Eight Trials, the controversy when six of the crew endorsed and promoted the “Olympic Project for Human Rights”, problems with altitude training, and finally their performance in Mexico City. Here he can soak in the beauty of the Connecticut River scenery in all seasons: the birds in spring, the flowers and trees in summer, leaves in the fall, and snow and ice on the banks in late fall.

While articles are published on the crews of Oxford and Cambridge for the Boat Race Day, articles about the race and the crews will also show up where we least expect it, Göran R Buckhorn finds out. I have several of Waterhouse’s books, and, liking his style, I ordered the book I found online, Waterhouse on Newspaper Style (1989). Waterhouse then comes to an example of an article in this chapter, saying that the story was accompanied by two photographs of the two boat race crews, ‘Cambridge conventionally clad, Oxford stripped to the waist’. There were some other similarities in 1968 with this year’s races: Cambridge’s reserve crew, Goldie, won their race over Isis and Cambridge women won their race.