The descent of the Cambridge ball

I went to quite a few May balls in my three years as an undergraduate at Cambridge. As an editor at the student newspaper I blagged my way into the top ones – Magdalene, Trinity and John’s – since they were stupidly expensive and even as a 20-year-old student I had the sense to feel it should be many years before anything to do with enjoyment was worth more than £20, let alone £100-plus.

The price certainly ensured a very high degree of pretentiousness – even by Cambridge standards – but it was impossible not to marvel at the splendour of the famous acts (Dizzee Rascal, Amy Winehouse) and the food and drink. Champagne spilling out of punts; sushi arrayed in ancient stonework; hog roasts, chocolate fountains, cocktail bars, main stages, dancing rooms, secret gardens and so on. Oh, and fireworks. The fireworks were fantastic. 

Much has changed since then. This year, showing their razor-sharp talent for stripping delight from every university tradition, Cinderella may go to the ball but if she does she will find prayer rooms, ‘quiet rooms’, soft drinks, ‘sustainability’ (vegan food and bad packaging), an emphasis on ‘accessibility’ and no fireworks because of the ‘disruption’ they cause, including to those with ‘sensory issues’. Churchill College is reportedly offering personalised ‘evacuation plans’. As far as I know, that is not a joke.

Some of these changes have been done under the aegis of the Access-a-Ball pledge, an initiative set up by the Cambridge Student Union Disabled Students Campaign, a worthy outfit but one that most students would never have heard of, let alone scrabbled to submit to, in my day. Even the once hedonistic Emmanuel has signed up, touting its ‘platinum certificate’ for accessibility. Instead of the booze-soaked head-banging fun-pit I recall, now students at the college’s May ball are to be warned about strobe lighting. 

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All this comes alongside a more general decline in all that once made Cambridge, well, Cambridge. The university now packages its student experience, from the academic to the social, in the neurotic, righteous language of ‘safety’ and ‘inclusion’. Politically and intellectually, Cambridge has become po-faced and twisted around the dreary shibboleths of greenism and anti-racism, its students and staff are obsessed with the phantom of ‘systemic racism’, the evils of the British Empire and the slave trade, and the need to be ‘sustainable’ – all somehow linked to a performative hatred of ‘capitalism’ and ‘settler colonialism’. Fun is their sworn enemy, unless you count a Greta Thunberg rally as fun.

Even the physical beauty of the ancient university seems to be an eyesore to this generation. I wasn’t alone in watching with horror in 2022 as the sacred grandeur of Jesus chapel became a battleground over a plaque commemorating Tobias Rustat, a major 17th century donor to the college and alum, for his links to the slave trade. Now the lawn in front of the beautiful gates of King’s College is marred by the hideous ‘encampment’ of anti-Israel activists.

The most extravagant May balls were hedonistic and beautiful but never worth their price and students who could cough up hundreds (some cost £400 now) were looked at askance. But who would spend £100, let alone £400, on an evening of veganism, prayer and quiet rooms? On a night out like that, one might start to be grateful for the offer of a bespoke evacuation plan. Better yet, save the cost of a ticket and head for the pub which is probably the last prayer-free outpost in Cambridge – and they serve real sausage rolls too.