AN exhibition featuring the 1944 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on the Ouse just north of Ely will be opened in Ely Library on Saturday by two of the oarsmen who took part. At the same time, they will log on for the first time to www.diamond44.com, a new website that will contain plans to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the race in two years' time.

The opening ceremony will be announced by Ely's Town Crier Avril Hayter at the entrance to The Cloisters at 11.35am. Just after midday, guests and members of Diamond44 will embark on a river cruise along the course from The Lark to Queen Adelaide bridge.

It is hoped that Littleport folk will gather at The Lark at 1.30pm and Queen Adelaide residents on their bridge over the river at 2pm to greet the party on board Riverboat Georgina.

A Pathe News report of the race will be shown continuously during the exhibition, which runs until the end of the year. The film clip was found by researcher Lynne Turner, from Soham, who explains how it came about.

AS a post-graduate research historian, I have a passion for anything historical. When I saw Jack Waterfall and Terry Overall's appeal for information on the 1944 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, held on the River Ouse in Ely, I was enthralled.

For the past 18 months, I have been studying the archive of the King's School Ely, with the intention of publishing a book looking at the influence of Ely Cathedral on education. In my research, I have unearthed many interesting references to the King's School, Cambridge University and the River Ouse. At one time both the school and University shared a boathouse, now the Boathouse Restaurant, and it was from here the eights were taken for the 1944 race.

Once the contact had been made with the Diamond44 group, I then wanted to find out more about this event. I quickly realised that a Dean of Ely Cathedral, Charles Merrivale, was a founder of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1829; look at his memorial plaque in the cathedral for proof.

In the Cambridge University Library I found a limited print book, published to commemorate the centenary of the race in 1929. This book outlined how Charles Merrivale and his friend, Charles Wordsworth (nephew of William Wordsworth) on leaving Morrow School had gone to Cambridge and Oxford respectively. On meeting up again they decided to organise a boat race and hence the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race was born. But the plot thickens...Whilst talking to the President of the Old Eleans, Tony Merrifield, I was stunned when he revealed that he clearly remembered the 1944 event, because he was there. Not only there, but in the Oxford stake boat alongside his friend Jack Bennett in the Cambridge boat.

From here snowballed a variety of contacts that have been followed up by members of Diamond44. What fascinated me was a suggestion that film footage had been taken of the event. When I phoned the East Anglian Film Archive in Norwich, they had nothing they suggested Pathe. I was able to contact Pathe via the Internet. Searching through the catalogue of their archive I found exactly what I wanted - a 45-second clip of the race with commentary. On phoning Pathe and speaking to Larry McKenna, one of their archivists, he told me that the clip could be transferred and purchased on video. The service was remarkably quick, I received the footage the following day.

I watched the clip immediately. It was amazing to see the banks of the river I had walked along a couple of days before thronged with people, but nearly 60 years ago, all intent on watching the boat race. Amongst them soldiers, some wounded and receiving treatment and others who were stationed in the area training to undertake the D-day landings in June of 1944. It is even more amazing to meet and talk with people who were there; who says that history is in the past? For me researching the past is very much about human lives and the living.

Published in the Ely Standard on October 31, 2002