When my first grant cheque came through, I paid it into the local Midland Bank and opened an account. It was a Midland Bank cheque, so I presumed it had to be paid in there. My parents never had a cheque book or used a bank. With the money I bought a maroon college blazer and a maroon-and-white college scarf from Gray’s, the college outfitters on the Bailey. That was what you did, what all new students did. I also bought a suit, the first in my life. It was in charcoal grey from Burton’s, the height of chic.
I longed to have a duffel coat, the third item of clothing that every fifties student needed to acquire, but my funds did not run to this. Instead, I used to borrow one on special occasions – i.e. taking a girl out – from Edmund Vardy-Binks, who lived below me in the Keep. He had a very thick, expensive duffel, hardly worn, so I was doing him a favour really, giving it an airing. Often I just took it, without telling him. Edmund Vardy-Binks – now I look at his name, he does sound a bit posh, but I don’t remember him appearing so.
To save money I posted my dirty clothes home every week to my mother to wash. As if she didn’t have enough to do. When she sent me back the clean and ironed clothes, she always enclosed a large slice of her homemade gingerbread. I don’t remember her ever visiting me at Durham, not till the very end, or my sisters and brother. Was I ashamed? I hope not. I don’t think any other students had parental visits either – yet I bet most parents would have liked to have been invited. I don’t think parents were as involved as they are today. They had no idea what university was like. It was all a foreign country.
I did have one family visitor, out of the blue, who just turned up at the Castle gatehouse, asked the porter for my room and was shown up. This was my Uncle Jim from Cambuslang, the one who had written the Scottish dialect play. He took me out for a Chinese meal and drank Drambuie all the way through.
In my first term, I went for a trial for the college football team, but they were all so much better than me, then the rugby XV and they were total hulks, so I joined the boat club. They were desperate for new members, advertising for absolute beginners.
At that age you always think there must be something you will be really good at, that you will discover a hitherto unknown natural talent lurking inside, just waiting for you to find it. The thing about university, starting off from scratch, is that you can give new things a go, then move on, without being embarrassed or anyone ever really noticing.
The boat club was full of hearties, ever-so-public-school types, but I had heard that the boat club dinner at the end of term was a total piss-up, so it was worth joining. I was too small to row, so I was told, too weak and useless, so I was made a cox. I felt a bit insulted by this. I might have been weak and weedy, but I wasn’t titchy. Coxing turned out to be quite good fun, sitting at the back of the boat, making sure we got through the bridges, shouting orders at four lumps.
I quite liked getting up early in the morning, while everyone was still asleep, going down to the college boathouse before breakfast. It felt healthy, clean living, virtuous. It was rather a smart, classy boathouse, with our college coat of arms on top. You left a pair of old rubbish shoes inside the boathouse which you put on when you carried the boat out, to avoid any mud and wet, and then put them on after you had finished. I liked the ritual, feeling I really was in some elite, special club. Our boat took part in one of the novice races at the Durham Regatta, which was an enjoyable event, but we got hammered.
I then took up sculling, which was more satisfying. You could go on the river at any time, no need to worry about any crew, on a whim, then glide off into emptiness, skimming across the water, lost in thought. Except I wasn’t. I was busy imaging people on the river bank admiring this lone sculler, gliding along. More like splashing along. More like crawling along. I wasn’t much good at that either. But the point was to try out new things, new self-images. I still could not believe I was getting it all for free.
But the boat club dinner was a great success. I turned out to be good at the getting drunk part. I even managed to throw an orange through a medieval stained-glass window in the Great Hall. I am not sure if it broke, but I hid under the table, hoping no one had seen. I somehow got myself back up the stairs of the Keep to our room, waking up Hugh. I was then very sick. Fortunately I managed to get the window open in time, so my vomit decorated the battlements rather than our sitting room.
My subject was history and I was in the first year honours class, considered to be an honour in itself, as there were those who were following an apparently slightly easier degree course, in General Arts.
Almost from the beginning, I was either bored rigid or had no idea what was going on. The history was mainly either Roman or medieval, whereas at school I had enjoyed modern history, i.e. nineteenth century, about the railways, trade unions, the Industrial Revolution. Now it was all dreary documents in Latin or medieval English. The Roman history professor was Eric Birley, well known in his field, who did at least radiate a bit of excitement for his subject, but the medieval man, Offler, seemed as dead as his subject. I had him as my tutor for a while and he spent more time filling and puffing at his smelly pipe than talking, and when he did, through clouds of smoke, it was all a mumble.
Even worse, all those doing first year history had to do a course in economics. This time I was totally lost. The theories and systems, words and notions, all seemed to be nonsensical – or totally obvious, common sense dressed up in a pretend scientific language.
Lectures were not compulsory, so I started missing a few where I decided I was understanding nothing, or was dozing off. You had to do a weekly essay, see your tutor, read it out and have it discussed. My history tutor for a while was a Dr Gerald Harris, a member of our college, whom I quite liked. But he left to take up a history lectureship at Oxford. I suspect a lot of the tutors felt like a lot of the students – that, really, they should have been at Oxbridge.
I didn’t reveal my feelings of boredom and incomprehension to anyone, just accepted this would be what it was like; you had to get through it, stick at it, somehow, as I did with Latin at school, and it would turn out okay. But at the same time, I had begun to suspect I was there on false pretences. I was not the academic type. I didn’t like studying, always trying to get away with as little as possible. In one way I think university is often wasted on the young. Aged eighteen to twenty-one, I had no interest in studying, ignored the unique opportunities afforded by having no responsibilities, no need to earn money or worry about others. A few decades later that all changed. I even once spent a whole year walking and studying Hadrian’s Wall. Writing non-fiction books is studying, which I now do and love all the time.
Yet all around, there seemed to be so many swots, going straight back to their rooms, into their books, down to their essays. They seemed to me totally joyless. I am sure they, in turn, considered me trivial and a waster.
There were two Africans in my history group, the first black people I had ever seen. They were from Sierra Leone and had been at Fourah Bay College, founded in 1827, the oldest university in West Africa, which had had a connection with Durham since 1876. They never saw fresh air, never drank, never played, never spoke, made the most of every moment to study. An example to us all, I suppose, but not, alas, to me.
I blame Nobby, for leading me astray. In the silent, empty afternoons, I would eventually drag myself to my room and sit at my desk, staring out of the window, supposedly reading a book on medieval strip farming, my mind miles away, while Hugh my roommate was busy at his desk writing up some geography field excursion.
Nobby would appear in the room, having ignored the ‘oak up’ that Hugh had insisted on, and start singing ‘Let’s go to the Buffs, oh baby, let’s go to the Buffs’.
Now I look up the date of that great song by Danny and the Juniors, ‘At the Hop’, I see it did not make number one till 1957, so Nobby could not have been singing that tune in 1954–55. But he did come in crooning his blandishments, his enticements, his sweet nothings in my ear.
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sp; And so we would go down the stairs of the Keep, across the empty courtyard, through the gatehouse, where presumably Cicely the porter spotted us, as she spotted everyone, and went tut tut. Then left across a deserted Palace Green, down Saddler Street and into the Buffs – the Buffalo Head public house. It would be empty in the early afternoon, as even the hardened local drinkers would not be there at that hour. We preferred it to the Union bar, playing shove ha’penny and spinning out a half glass of Mackeson for the rest of the afternoon. Not exactly a drug den or an orgy, but it did feel awfully wicked, wasting away an afternoon. Shove ha’penny was new to me, and so was Mackeson stout, a sweeter alternative to Guinness.
Obviously it was not Nobby’s fault. I was more than willing to be distracted. Nobby was the same year as me but reading for a General Arts degree, which was considered a doddle, at least by him, compared with an honours course. He did strike me as clever, and would obviously survive in life on his wits.
I probably wasted a whole term mucking around with Nobby, till I grew bored, deciding there was a more amusing, enjoyable way of wasting my time, using my energies.
I had no luck with girls in the first term. As a fresher, you think you will – after all, there will be new girls, and all the freshers’ parties and balls and events, but the second and third year students get there first. They know all the ropes, read all the signs, pounce first and pick up the best. Many would even come up a day early to do some scouting, help the innocent newcomers find their feet, har har.
Durham was like Oxford and Cambridge and most British universities in the fifties in that there were not enough women to go round. Not even for sharing. The proportion was around five men to one woman. And, of course, the few women who had got in were very hard-working and practically locked up every evening in their college like nuns.
Around Durham, just a few miles away, were a couple of girls’ teacher training colleges, Neville’s Cross and Wynyard Hall. I was told they were usually easier meat, stuck out on their own in the country, and some might even be up for it. So I suppose at Durham we were luckier than some places. At Oxford, I was told the ratio was ten to one. Having to compete with the gilded youth from the best public schools, what chance would a spotty fellow from Carlisle have?
The two training colleges had regular Saturday night hops and a charabanc would be laid on for all the single, unattached Durham chaps, departing from Palace Green. It didn’t seem strange at the time, just obvious logistics, but it was rather artificial and soulless, heavy-handed match-making, if not marriage-making – being bussed in for a specific purpose, like factory farming. Lots of relationships were started, and eventually consummated in marriage, but mostly you were eying the girls and watching the clock, worried that you would miss the charabanc going back to Palace Green and be stuck in the God awful wilds of rural Durham.
What you hoped to do, if you managed a few dances with someone half-reasonable, who seemed half-interested in you, was invite her back for afternoon tea at the Castle on Sunday afternoon. This was a decent ploy, for university undergrads were considered a notch up from teacher training students, and getting into the Castle itself was a big attraction.
So you would buy crumpets from a bread shop in the middle of Durham, perhaps steal some jam from the table at breakfast, straighten the bedclothes, open the bedroom window to let out the pong, tidy the desk and prepare your lair, making it all as attractive as possible. The most vital thing, of course, was to get Hugh out of the way, bribe or threaten him, encourage him to go off and see something exciting at the railway station – surely there were train numbers he had not spotted? On no account come back till chucking-out time at six, which was when all women had to leave the premises.
I would borrow Edmund Vardy-Binks’ duffle coat – not even telling him I had taken it – then hang around the porter’s lodge till the latest object of my lust eventually trotted up, in her best frock, heavily lacquered hair and stiffest petticoat.
Then what happened? Not a lot. I would usually suggest a walk first of all, along the river, over Prebends Bridge, then back to the Castle and up to our rooms high up in the Keep. There was a sort of kitchen on the landing where I heated up the crumpets and made tea, taking them back to my room and the waiting, expectant female, passing on the way some lewd fellows who would give the thumbs-up sign, lots of winks, nudges and other vulgarities.
Probably an hour of idle chat about films, pop songs of the day – did you like Pat Boone or Guy Mitchell? – the usual crap you had to get through, before possibly, hopefully, managing to manoeuvre her on to the bed, supposedly where she would be more comfortable, take the weight off her lacquered hair. Then there was a frantic final five minutes of wrestling, pushing and shoving to get your hand somewhere, anywhere, if only into the pockets of her belted raincoat. Eee, dear, as my mother used to say.
It must have been so frustrating for the girl as well, though we hardly thought of their feelings, just our own, furious at her for being a tease, as we saw it, and the waste of time and energy, not to mention the crumpets. It was worse, of course, if during the wrestling you had shot your load in your pants. The fury, the shame, the humiliation and the annoyance. I could not send them home to my mother, but would have to wash them myself.
I usually managed to have a girl round to tea most Sunday afternoons, which didn’t go unnoticed by everyone else in the Keep. I would pretend how exhausted I was afterwards, keeping them happy.
I went to a hop, somewhere, every Saturday night. There were college hops, training college dances, hops at the town hall and also at the County, Durham’s smartest hotel. I would put on my best charcoal grey suit, my best white shirt and attach to it my best Van Heusen collar. I did not send these collars home to be washed as my mother was never any good at starching and ironing. I would use them several times, turning them inside out when too grubby, then splash out and send them to the laundry to be properly starched. Laundry was picked up each week at the porter’s lodge and then returned in your cubbyhole.
One of the problems with the County dances, unlike the college or training college hops, was that you were competing with the other young men of the town. Hard to believe it now, but young miners had a surprising amount of money in the 1950s, if they were doing shiftwork. And they were fit and cocky, proud to be miners, a job for life, just as it had been their father’s job for life, a job no one expected ever to end.
The County and the town hall were also frequented by sixth form girls from the local Durham High School, a posh local school for girls. I got lucky and picked up a girl who had a silly nickname, like Kipper, or Fishface, or Cod, who I went out with for a few weeks. She was very bossy and organised, told me what to do, where to be, what we would be doing next. I began to feel a bit trapped. That was one advantage of the long vacations. You could use them to extricate yourself from difficult or delicate relationships.
During the first term, I did get another unexpected visitor, apart from my Uncle Jim. It was Reggie, Reg Hill, formerly Toddles, my best friend from Carlisle. He stayed for the night, sleeping on our floor, and then went next morning for an interview at Hatfield. This was our rival college, full of hearties and rugger buggers. He’d got an interview to come up the next year, as he was convinced he was not going to make it to Oxford after all. If all else failed, he would just have to go off and do his national service. He seemed pretty fed up.
But not as much as I was. At the end of my first year, when the results came out, I found I had been chucked out of the honours school. Next year I was going to be demoted to General Arts.
Nobby had also made a mess of his exams, but he was straight out, as he was already on the lowest tier of human undergraduate life. He wasn’t at all put out. He went off to join the police force. Last I heard, which was many years ago now, he was a chief superintendent.
When I came home for the long vac, it was all round Carlisle, among the grammar school and high school types. Have you heard, Hunter has failed his exams,
women and booze, serves him right, silly prat, I bet his mother will be very upset.
I did not dare reveal the truth to her. She had invested such hopes in me, allowed me to stay on at school in the sixth form, then go to university, when another mother in her situation might well have insisted I went out to work, to bring some money into the family. She had paid for me to go to France, twice, trips my brother and sisters had not enjoyed. She had advanced me money when I was broke. And done all my washing, lavished loads of gingerbread on me.
I didn’t exactly lie to her, or use the words ‘failure’ and ‘exams’. Just indicated I was doing a slightly different course the following year. But not to worry. I was still going back, to study for my degree.
But I knew I might not get a degree. If I mucked up again, at the end of my second year, I would definitely be out this time.
16
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
I had a good grant, and train fares to Durham, but I still needed to work in the holidays, as all students did. I didn’t want to stay at home, especially in the long vacations, but travel, anywhere, just travel. We didn’t have gap years in the fifties. A gap month was the best you could hope for, if you had saved enough money.
Another reason for not hanging around too long at home was that my bed was occupied. While I had been away, someone had moved in. My half of the bed, beside my younger brother Johnny, had someone else sleeping in it. Not long after I started at Durham, someone from some sort of social services in Carlisle asked my mother if she could take in a boy temporarily, from a children’s home. He had reached sixteen, was about to start a job, as a driver’s mate, but had nowhere to live. He was too old for the children’s home, and had no money to rent anything, and they didn’t want him to be homeless.
The Co-Op's Got Bananas Page 17
