Monday, September 04, 2017

half century…

Fifty years ago this week (well, maybe not quite this week… but pretty close), I started at Oxford School of Architecture. A handful of my close friends from that time (plus hangers-on!) will be duly getting together in Oxford to celebrate this momentous occasion.
It might get messy!
Fifty years ago, I was young. I was naïve. I was innocent(!?). I really didn’t know much about life or the world (when I compare myself to 18 year-olds of today).
Thanks to a random conversation with my Maths teacher, Gwyn Jones, I’d set my goals on becoming an architect (as opposed to a ‘draughtsman’, whatever that meant).
I’d passed my 11-plus and, much to my parents’ surprise (and staunch resistance), had gone through the ‘Remove-stream’ at Handsworth Grammar School and taken my O Level exams a year early.
Like many of my generation, no one in our family had previously gone to university. For both me and my family, it was an utterly different world. As far as my parents were concerned, I would be studying in Birmingham. I applied for a place on the architecture course at Aston, Leicester and Oxford. Much to my relief, Aston didn’t want me but Oxford offered me an interview (I can’t remember anything about Leicester apart from submitting an application).
As a very young 17 year-old, I duly went down to Oxford by train and was interviewed by the Principal – the wonderful, charismatic, unique Reginald Cave. My memory is that the interview lasted more than an hour… Reggie looked at my sketchbooks (yes, this was still a time when you needed to be able to draw if you wanted to be an architect!), asked me all sorts of mystifying questions and chatted about life and about my A Level subjects (Maths, Further Maths and Art). At the end, he offered me a place on the course… BUT, due to my young age, insisted that this be deferred for a year.
Being offered an unconditional place was absolute music to my ears and I readily accepted it - I’m pretty sure that my parents were a) similarly proud and b) at a complete loss as to how they were going to afford to make it all happen (we were very much a working class family)! 
You can imagine an equivalent situation/opportunity for a student today… So, what did I decide to do? Gap year? World travel? Somewhat ridiculously (when I now look back on things), I decided that I’d stay on for another year in the sixth form – that way, I could have another year playing for the school’s first eleven football and cricket teams. How utterly, utterly embarrassing, looking back… but despite the illogicality of the decision, my parents agreed.

A year on and I was preparing to make my way to Oxford. I needed to purchase, amongst other things, a drawing board, set square and T-square… plus drawing pens and pencils. I remember my uncle Len (who worked for the Water Board and knew about such things) telling which pens to buy (in the event, he was wrong and it took me another year or so to compile appropriate replacements!).
I distinctly remember being driven down to Oxford in our Ford Anglia (I had digs with a Mrs Brown in Headington), accompanied by my mother and our ‘auntie’ Ella. In the car’s small boot were my entire life’s possessions (or so it seemed): a medium-sized case, a portfolio and bag containing various pieces of equipment and books. Contrast this, for example, with when we took our daughter Hannah to Bath Spa University thirty years later… Moira and I had to drive her down in TWO cars, because she insisted that she NEEDED to have ALL her shoes with her (and, believe me, there were dozens!). Incidentally, I should point out that, amongst my small ‘array’ of clothes was a ‘sports jacket’… an item that my mother insisted I would need in order to attend the ‘Saturday dances’.
I kid you not.
My memories of enrolment day are relatively hazy. I remember getting my grant cheque and paying it into the bank (I was on a ‘full’ grant - £360 per year – and, amazingly, this really did suffice, just)(and without parental contributions). Of course, there were also no course fees! I think I remember getting stuck in a lift that first morning(?) and shaking hands with Steve Bowles (who was later to become my best man – he clearly thought that shaking hands was a very strange thing for students to do and has spent the past 50 years reminding me of this sad occasion).
But, hey man, this was the 1960s… flower power, drugs, Woodstock and much, much more.
On that first morning, I decided to walk into Oxford with one of my fellow architectural students, Rob Parkinson… he was public school-educated, had a posh accent and AMAZINGLY was walking around in his BARE feet (I know)! Boy, did I feel incredibly ‘un-cool’ (or whatever the word was in those days). The rest is history (obviously)…
You could buy a pint of mild in Old Headington for 1s 3d, but us hard-drinkers got into a routine of spending a whole £1 at the Turf pub on a Friday night (that’s 8 pints @ 2s 6d a pint).
Oh, yes, we knew how to live the high life!
Student life was very enjoyable, but tough… architecture students worked bloomin’ hard (even if it seemed to us that the rest of the student community spent most of their time in the common room – somewhat incredibly, we didn’t have a student bar in those early days!). Long hours and unremitting days… culminating in gruelling ‘crits’ when we had to explain and justify our schemes to our tutors (and, sometimes, to fellow students)… and then followed by two or three days of ‘rest and relaxation’ (drinking). Very competitive and great fun… but, crucially for me, it was all part of the process of ‘growing up’… and having the freedom to do this away from the confines of home was incredibly important. Those first three years on the course – and especially the first year – were gloriously life-transforming.

I readily accept that university is not for everyone (although it seems that’s what most young people are pushed into these days… wrongly, in my opinion), but just having time-off from family/home life gives young people the freedom to take their own decisions and make their own mistakes (which they will) and to learn about life, money, responsibility and relationships… still, hopefully, with the parental bail-out contingency if everything goes terribly wrong (in theory)!
As I say, for me, university WAS life-transforming and I’m just so grateful that I was given a chance to take advantage of the opportunity.
No doubt, the next few days will involve recalling various embarrassing stories and situations that we’ve spent the last 50 years trying to erase from our memories. Fortunately, there’ll also be LOTS of very fond memories too.
Photo: From a similar get together 5 years ago (very sadly, Christiane is no longer with us x).

 

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