Recapping Capping: Massey students' graduation week pranks from 1955 to 1992
The months of April and May used to be filled with scandalous pranks, lies, and tricks for Palmerston North and the Massey campus — also known as capping week.
Capping week was around the time of graduation ceremonies, where students would break free from academic pressure, and break into weird places... even the New Zealand military.
It was common knowledge that the public despised capping weeks and its pranks. From Massey being put up for tender in the newspaper, to 23 pink bicycles being hauled up flag poles around the city, to students ‘borrowing’ a $25,000 bronze horse. Not to mention the number of times students simply choose the gag of just running around naked.
The earliest recorded capping prank of significance happened in 1955, where a meeting room was turned into a makeshift hospital the night before an important meeting. Students stole hospital road signs around the city, moving them to point toward the Massey campus.
During this era of pranks, whenever someone important was visiting campus, students would move their vehicles to remote areas on campus — including the rugby paddock.
In 1959, a warning in the old magazine Chaff was put out to students: “We can enjoy ourselves to the full without becoming vulgar... ransacking buildings, removing road signs, and radars is not even slightly funny, but tying a gentleman to a suitable fixture by his only garment – underpants – is in a different category.”
In 1963, an angry columnist for The Time newspaper said, “I can’t laugh any more at the chamber pot held out in public. The outsize float borne toilet has lost its novelty, no matter what off rituals are being enacted around or in it.”
More than 20 years later in 1986, the public’s disdain for capping week remained. The capping controller, Alison McPhail wrote, “It is vital for Massey students to make a huge effort to improve the public opinion on Capping Activities and student behaviour in general”. The year before, fines were a large contributor to the capping loss, and the student association couldn't afford to pay unlimited fines and Court costs.
In 1987 Massey’s student association encouraged students to get stunts approved by offering them a prize fund, assuring the association would pay for any fines and legal costs if they got caught. By 1990, winning stunts would get as much $1000 (estimated $1900 today).
Previous capping controllers told Massey students stunts had to be:
Funny
Not dangerous
Reasonably legal
And students sure did run with that reasonably legal line.
God defend NZ (the army can’t)
On April 5th, 1965, the capping prank of all capping pranks took place just one week after it was approved by the Stunt Commitee — students successfully broke into the New Zealand Army and stole a truck.
At 5pm, three ordinarily dressed students entered the Linton Military Camp in their car. After driving around the Linton headquarters for 20 minutes, nearly getting caught in a crowd of soldiers leaving the camp cinema, and momentarily attracting the attention of an officer, the students hurried to find military vehicles.
At 5:20pm, the army was having dinner, so the students began jumping in and out of at least 16 Landrovers and eight trucks, to record numbers from the ignition switches. Several cars drove past with a clear view of what the students were doing.
At 5:40pm, the students scouted the camp for escape routes, finding a road past the officer’s houses with no gate blocking the exit to the main road.
The students returned to Massey to let everyone know they could go ahead with the theft.
Stopping off at the gas station, the students purchased a blank key they would be able to use to start a military vehicle.
The students made their way back into the camp unchallenged and tried the key in one truck with no luck. But when they tried the key again in a second truck, the motor purred.
While the steering was heavy, they made their way out of the camp, only needing to pause for a cattle stop. The curtains of an officer’s house drew open momentarily, but didn’t stop the pranksters from getting onto the main road with their ordinary car following behind.
The students then defaced the truck in white paint, before parking it in front of Palmy’s Regent Theatre around 10:30pm.
Within 20 minutes, the truck was at the Cop Shop and hundreds of residents gathered. Very quickly, the event drew national attention and concern for military security.
A Chaff article written by the pranksters said there was speculation “as to how the security of Linton Camp was penetrated. It wasn’t. We found no security to penetrate”.
The students wanted to prove a political point, writing: “Laws of a country are aimed at protecting the weak. Apparently, the army is weak and needs protecting.”
The day after, the three students could be seen entering the police station with their lawyer. The Stunt Committee withdrew approval after the prank was completed, but it was too late.
In 2013, a book of Chaff archives reflected on the incident, saying, “Our sympathy should be with the authorities at Linton, who were, we feel, unnecessarily embarrassed”.
Robbing for charity
In the late 70s, a good capping prank turned sour after one vital element was overlooked.
A group of students arranged with a local bank to stage a mock robbery, with the purpose of actually just collecting money from tellers and staff for charity.
While the bank manager knew about the stunt, the police did not.
A concerned citizen called the police, and they turned up armed to surround the bank. Nervous police officers apprehended the students. This mix-up was particularly dangerous, considering the students were only armed with water pistols.
While the exact year of this prank is unknown, future capping controllers in 1984 and 1986 would go on to use this stunt as a warning for pranksters to be smart about their plans.
Sheep in red
Red was a popular colour in the 80s, and Massey students took this love to an extreme.
An innocent sheep was taken from a nearby Massey farm and painted red. The sheep was then tied up in the City Square with a sign attached that read: “I am an elephant tampon.”
The pranksters were told to return the sheep to its paddock, but unfortunately, they had left it too long, and the sheep had ‘disappeared’.
Whether the sheep got away from his tied post, or the students gained a new live-in pet, we’ll never know...
Littering is underrated
In the late 80s, the city council started to take control of the out-of-control capping week. In 1988, the council banned the capping float event called procesh. This only encouraged students to take revenge via pranks.
That year, Chaff wrote, “1988 was a good year for stunts. The banning of procesh by the city council appears to have stimulated the creative instincts of students and a number of good stunts were carried out.”
The star prank that year was when fake Palmerston North council letters were distributed to resident’s mailboxes, saying there would be a “SPECIAL ONE DAY COLLECTION” of rubbish. The letter told residents to dump piles of junk outside their homes to be collected.
The prank by students Marco Creemers and Anne McTamney was a success. They convinced numerous Palmy residents to clean out their garages and place the rubbish by the road.
The letter had a professional tone, convincing many. Streets were littered with trash for days, leaving the student association answering many angry phone calls.
The great Hepatitis E ‘outbreak’
In another fake letter from 1988, students warned Palmy residents there was a Hepatitis E outbreak in the city water system.
The letter invited the public to supply a 20ml sample of tap water and send it to the Palmerston North City Corporation. The letter was addressed from the Manawatu Area Health Board, and said a lab to test water samples had been set up.
The hoax letter encouraged residents to get their Hepatitis E immunisation, and included a vaccination enrolment form.
The letter said, “We emphasise the need to act quickly to prevent an outbreak of the disease. We thus ask that you reply to this circular as soon as possible.”
No parking, no problem
The Palmerston North campus lacked parking spots in 1988. In protest, students Connal Holmes, Marco Creemers, and Jon Bridges ‘parked’ a car on the library steps. A sign on the car read “LAST PARK ON CAMPUS.”
To make their point even clearer, students put bike stands in a line from the Registry Steps to the Science Towers. This was to highlight the fact that only lecturers were allowed to park in the centre of campus, which often left half the carparks empty. Students were forced to deal with the overflow by parking on the road and getting $40 fines.
Condom vending machine
Before the flurry of capping pranks began in 1988, the vice-chancellor, Thomas Neil Morris Waters published a message in Chaff encouraging no student “hooliganism”.
This message didn’t seem to stop students landing on the front page of the paper.
On a sunny Tuesday, during Aids Awareness Week, students set up a makeshift ‘condom vending machine’ to give away free condoms at a Catholic intermediate school.
While staff from the St Peter’s Catholic School were at a morning meeting, Massey students began dispensing condoms to children as young at 10-years-old. The stall had slogans written on it like “The Pope says safe sex is good sex” and “Get it on to have it off”. The stall was set up in an effort to boost the effectiveness of Aids Awareness Week.
This stint made the front page of The Dominion, now known as The Post, with the headline, Students give condoms to 10-year-olds. The school was not happy and debated taking the students to the police.
Kidnapping an MP for the greater good
In 1989, students took a political stand against the introduction of student loans by kidnapping their local MP Dave Robinson. The prank made national news and caused a stir at the Beehive.
At the time, the Government had proposed to increase university fees so students would have to pay 20% of course costs — an estimated $2000 per year (roughly $4000 today). The Government also proposed to introduce a student loan scheme, which we know today as StudyLink.
The kidnappers, who called themselves the Coalition Against Student Loans, hunted down Robinson who was arriving for work at the old Evening Standard office near the Square. They forced him into a car, before driving him to campus and holding him captive in the radio studio.
The students then faxed the Prime Minister, David Lange, to let him know the MP was held hostage. The student’s had three stern demands for the Government to meet upon Robinson’s release:
The proposal for increasing university fees be dropped immediately.
The proposal to introduce a student loan scheme be dropped immediately.
The Government promises to not increase tuition fees from the current level.
While Robinson’s release was meant to be negotiated between the student association and the Government, he was let go by midday on the condition that he actively oppose the Government’s fee and loan schemes.
Auditions for TVNZ in Palmy!
While many pranks targeted the general Palmy public, this prank targeted the theatre nerds of 1989.
Students advertised an audition callout for a new TVNZ comedy show. They lured victims in with high paying parts as holiday employment.
20 people showed up to audition and were asked to do embarrassing things in front of a camera.
The participants discovered it was a joke the next day when the footage was played in the Student Centre foyer at lunchtime for the amusement of Massey students.
