St Andrews students celebrate Raisin Monday with giant foam fight

Hundreds of students have taken part in a mass foam fight as part of a centuries-old ritual.

The messy display took place on Raisin Monday, the culmination of a weekend of festivities when University of St Andrews first years say thank-you to their more senior student “parents” for mentoring them.

So-called “children” were given embarrassing costumes to wear to descend on St Salvator’s Quad for a huge shaving foam fight.

Raisin Monday
Raisin Monday

Paloma Paige, association president for the students’ union, said: “I think it’s gone splendidly.

“The point is just to have fun in this really unique tradition.

“I know some people ran in saying ‘what is this, what are we doing?’ – but nobody really knows and that’s the whole fun of it.

“The foam hasn’t gone back centuries, especially the shaving foam. It’s just evolved throughout the years and this has now become the quintessential part of the whole weekend.”

First years could be seen slipping and sliding over the grass while spectators watched from a bank above.

Fancy dress outfits included bananas, gnomes, robots and a police box.

One student said: “I have foam in my eyes – it’s quite painful.”

Raisin Monday
Raisin Monday

Raisin Weekend dates far back into St Andrews’ history and is so called because children traditionally gave their academic parents a pound of raisins to thank them for welcoming them to St Andrews.

St Andrews was founded in 1413 and is Scotland’s oldest university.

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