FOR someone with neither academic nor geographic links to ‘the other place’, my friend’s assertion that she preferred Cambridge to Oxford bordered on the blasphemous. Something had to be done.

“Come with me to May Morning,” I suggested. Once she had accepted the prospect of an early start, this young-at-heart grandmother agreed.

Soon after 5.45am we were in High Street, surrounded by lively survivors of balls and bottle parties; former students and Oxford’s own who love the tradition, all jostling for the best positions. One young man, who seemed to know me, said he was grateful to the Oxford Mail for listing licensed premises open through the night. He had plotted an excellent route. While declining a swig from his bottle of claret – but thanking him all the same – I said I was sure it hadn’t been meant as an aid to a nocturnal pub crawl.

A cry of ‘Hush’ went up as the choir atop Magdalen College Tower began to sing. Although hardly of hi-tech clarity, and not everyone observed the request, we got the gist.

Everybody seemed happy, apart from some small children forced to rise before they considered it reasonable, and a large, well-spoken, bearded man, old enough to know better, who threatened a young student with violence because the young man had inadvertently pushed his girlfriend. His foul language neither impressed nor helped his cause.

Meanwhile a T-shirted young man, (it was darned chilly) egged on by chums, tried to climb a lamp-post. He reached a wall, tried to get higher up, but failed. We left, noting his lack of progress by the friendly jeering.

BY the time those bridge jumpers met their soggy end, we had moved to Radcliffe Square. En route, two middle-aged men in striped blazers, clutching half-filled champagne flutes, caught my friend’s eye. Such attention to detail impressed her, and Oxford’s stock was rising.

It further increased when she was swept into an impromptu dance by a Morris dancer waiting for his team’s turn to perform.

Bagpipes and Scottish dancers near the ‘side door’ of All Souls, and every instrument under the sun being played on the steps of the Clarendon Building made sure the occasion prospered. Children, dressed in costumes similar to those of their parents, prepared to dance a mini-maypole. Were they brainwashed into compliance or did they genuinely enjoy their parents’ passions? AS the crowd began to disperse, the final call was for breakfast. The choice — influenced by local knowledge – was clear: Mick’s Cafe, near the station. A generous full English, swilled down by a pot of strong tea, accompanied by friendly banter from the host, did the trick. The magic of Oxford had claimed another victim.