This is a film of the Sheffield Student Rag Week of 1967, possibly made by the University of Sheffield Student's Film Unit.  It shows the rag parade assembling, marching through the city centre and being dismantled at the end.  There are also various fund raising activities, including a beer marathon and a boat race along the river. The film begins with what appears to be a group of Lord Mayors, interspersed with short images from the student rag week.  The Mayor gives a speech from the...

This is a film of the Sheffield Student Rag Week of 1967, possibly made by the University of Sheffield Student's Film Unit.  It shows the rag parade assembling, marching through the city centre and being dismantled at the end.  There are also various fund raising activities, including a beer marathon and a boat race along the river. The film begins with what appears to be a group of Lord Mayors, interspersed with short images from the student rag week.  The Mayor gives a speech from the steps of the City Hall to a crowd of students.  A large flag of the rag emblem, the money spider 'Seb Toots', is unfurled from the window of Western Bank, with students below holding bundles of the rag magazine, Twikker.  In the city centre, at the roundabout at the junction of the High Street and Arundel Gate, students are selling copies of Twikker to people passing by, accompanied by a band. Then the students have a pie eating contest in front of the City Cathedral, followed by a yard of arm beer drinking contest outside the Student Union building.  There are both male and female contestants who take part.  This is followed by a beer marathon which starts at the outside bar of the Student’s Union.  The contestants then set off, running to the next bar.  One goes in The Albert, on the corner of Burgess Street and Barker’s Pool.  Other contestants run to the Raven Tavern, then the Foresters Inn (all Tennants pubs).  The first one back arrives to drink his final pint, followed by several more participants.  The film switches to the Rag Week office, where the organisers are reading through the publicity they have received in the national press (on 23 Oct. 1967).  The received publicity for a stunt involving painting ‘HMS Twikker’ on the side of the Cunard Q4 (QE II) liner whilst on the Clyde. The film moves on to dancing to a live band playing in the student’s club.  Following this is a boat race along the River Don with lots of homemade rafts, some needing to be lifted out after being mangled.  Onlookers watch from Lady’s Bridge as the motley group of vessels reach the finish.  Then it is onto the High Street where a lone student tries to get some interest in a balloon race.  Next the film moves to Northumberland road where the Rag Parade assembles.  A crowd watches as the parade sets off, led by a band, and including a large dragon.  It makes its way into the city centre, with one male student in a nightie running on ahead.  They are watched by a large crowd as they proceed along the High Street, with the Mayor and others sat judging the floats, one of them featuring a giant head of the Disney character Pluto.  Another float has a large sunflower and a windmill.  A crowd watch from outside Woolworth’s as more floats pass before the parade finishes at some waste ground in front of the works of Ketton Cement and George Oxley.  Here the floats are dismantled and all that is left is piles of debris, burnt on a bonfire.