I told you about our Apprentices practical examination?
Well, she went on to do a couple of days of theoretical exams and all the hard work she put in over the last five years payed off — she passed.
I was proud to accompany her to her Diploma Celebration and more than willing to arrange the traditional initiation ceremony for her.
Since very early years, Printers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been initiated after becoming a journeyman. The initiation may be carried through in other countries too – in German the ceremony is called 'Gautschen'. Over the years, the ceremony has been extended to take in not just printers but most pre-press apprentices too. We had our Gautschfest last Friday.

There were two young ladies to be initiated, this time round. One because she just passed her exams, the other because she passed her exams twelve months ago, but was not initiated by the company she did her apprenticeship at. Now we can't have that, can we?

So what happens at a Gautschfest?
At a prearranged time both ladies were supposed to be bound, hands and feet and carried or frog-marched downstairs, where two barrows were waiting to cart them off to the village fountain.
Two of our men were clever enough to creep up on their (almost) unsuspecting victim and close her office door to prevent her escape, before successfully overpowering her.
The other two weren't so lucky they were spotted and the young lady defended herself with a water pistol, of all things, before taking off .
I chased her down two flights of stairs before loosing my footing – luckily without serious injury.
The other guys caught up with her on the car-park. She put up a fight and I was forced to stop photographing and take hold of her so that the ceremony could commence!

Both ladies were bundled into carts and transported to the village fountain a kilometer away. There the ceremony master was waiting for them. His speech called for them to be sat upon wet sponges until their nether regions were well and truly wet. He then called for their christening – with buckets of water.
After the christening the ladies were freed from their bonds (well, they were supposed to be) and dropped into the fountain. As the fountain had specially been cleaned and refilled just the day before, the water was freezing – I can assure you.

The delinquents then had to pull their carts back to work, where a barbeque had been prepared in their absence.

They were lucky they only got wet.
Until two-hundred years ago the fresh journeyman was set under the influence for a week. During this period, a tooth was extracted, his hair was shorn (as badly as possible) and his colleagues all got as drunk as possible too. The initiation was banned after getting out of hand.
Not to be done out of a celebration, this modern form of initiation soon reappeared soon after the ban.
I quite enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoy the pictures ...