Our student days can sometimes be the best days of our lives and when we see nine young ladies crammed into a Model A Ford with ‘mortar boards’ on their heads it tells us they have just graduated and are off to celebrate in the traditional way by throwing them into the air.
The building behind is typical Amsterdam School architecture and possibly in the Rivierenbuurt area - can you identify it? The students probably studied at The University of Amsterdam and the car's sidelights suggest a date not before 1930 but if it had been 1928 then we could have expected the ladies to have a little more jollity because the Summer Olympics were celebrated in their city.
The traditional student car used to be the Austin 7 - cheap and readily available - so it is understandable that it was occasionally used in pranks. One famously ended up on the roof of Cambridge University. The Model A Ford is heavier than the Austin 7 and these ladies don't look as though they are about to do such a thing - plus the car is probably borrowed because it's too clean and tidy for student transport. The older generation in the background don't look interested, and perhaps we will never know just what mischief these ladies got up to? So, readers, see if you can identify someone in the picture and ask her for the whole story?
(Text by Robin Batchelor)