A Gift of Raisins

It's October 2015 and 2000 new students at St Andrews University celebrate Raisin Weekend. Raisin's origins are lost, but the ritual of new students joining new academic families goes back to the very beginning of student life. The tradition at St Andrews was to present a gift of raisins - now new students offer alcohol to their new families.

In a booze-fuelled, fancy-dressed series of rituals over one weekend, freshers or bejants get adopted by academic "parents" and meet their new brothers, sisters, uncles and cousins, partying in their halls and digs, and celebrating on the street with ambulance crews, university security and extra police standing nervously by.

New presenter Ellie Cawthorne, who recently completed an MA at Nottingham University, braves the initiation rites. She uncovers past Raisin celebrations with the help of university historians - including the fateful year, 1933, when Raisin was banned outright, partly due to theft of female nightwear.

As we hear from University historian Dr Norman Reid, the idea of academic families goes back to a pre-university era, possibly in the 13th century, when informal groups of scholars - some as young as 12 - gathered round a fatherly master, himself a recent student. There were no university buildings, and teaching took place either in a Church or the master's home.

Producer: Nick Baker
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.