Origins of ‘trashing’

SIR – After leaving Oxford, with no childish “trashing” (Letters, June 4), I started a career as a teacher.

At that boarding and day school, at the end of the summer term there were things done during darkness that were often ingenious but which never caused mess or damage. One jape saw the miscreants climb the flagpole on College Green and then drop car tyres over it which, as they piled up at its base, carried an entertaining message.

Then, years later, an Australian soap shown on the BBC depicted pupils trashing their school at the end of term. This was copied in British schools. Most of those youngsters then went on to universities, taking this new “tradition” with them.

Tim Hickson

Pershore, Worcestershire