I have already mentioned the influence of Mr Pollard at school, and the Radio Club, and his prediction about the future of computers (which he made at a time when they existed only in University/defence industry research labs). His influence persuaded me to apply for a maths degree course; I applied to a number of places, but got no offers – until one day a letter arrived “out of the blue” from Portsmouth, offering me a place (they had perhaps got names of unsuccessful applicants from either London or Southampton); it arrived on a Friday, and the course had started the previous Monday – so I travelled down on the Sunday and started the course a week late on the following Monday. This was September 1961.
I arrived by train in an unknown city, with an address of arranged lodgings, but no idea of how to get there. After what seemed ages, I knocked on a door and asked if they were expecting a student – they were, and I was in “digs”. The first was with Mr and Mrs Andrews in Kimberley Road; behind the back garden was Highland road cemetery, so we made the usual jokes about the “quiet neighbours” – much later, I discovered that many of my ancestors were among the occupants[59]. The next with Mr and Mrs Hudson at 70, Devonshire Avenue. After graduation, I found a 1-room flatlet near Clarence Pier. I lived in Southsea until moving to Romsey in October 1965.
Mr and Mrs Andrews were an elderly couple, retired; they used the income from students to eke out their pension. They did well for us, and were kind-hearted (they let me play their piano, and even screw a Univox (described later) onto it, and we could watch TV when not working, though they chose the programmes! … usually switching off just as the programme we students most wanted to see was coming on). There were three of us students, and had a room each, and laundry was no problem. But unfortunately, they were creatures of habit, and their habits and often-repeated sayings became irritating when repeated daily or weekly. By contrast, the Hudsons were “young middle aged”, a childless couple who enjoyed life; being so much closer to us in age, it was closer to being a “friendship” relationship, and life was so much more enjoyable. In both these digs, my co-conspirators were Tony Hyde and Jeremy (both pharmacy students); Jeremy I found a touch too wild for my taste, but Tony and I were good friends – I visited his family, who lived at Elstree, and he took me for a drive (in a Mini) on the first bit of what later became the M1 motorway (then known as the Elstree bypass).
In November/December 1961 the rest of the family moved from Yorkshire to Coleford, in the Forest of Dean; I missed out on the “going on approval” and induction, hearing all about it in letters; so in December 1961 I went[60] for Christmas to a family home I’d never seen, in a place I knew nothing about – the family had been welcomed there and were settling in, and the folk in the church there had been told “all about me”, but I knew nothing of them. However, it was a good move for Mum and Dad, and they settled in there and stayed for about 15 years. In my holiday visits I gradually got to know some of the local young people, in particular Tony Court, and enjoyed discovering the area. Rosalie went to Bells Grammar School in the town, and Marguerite went to the town primary school and then to Monmouth School for Girls, having won a scholarship there at age 11+. Rosalie got involved in the local guides, as I think Mum did briefly.
Student holidays were spent relaxing and working. Before going to University, I worked for a few weeks at Menston Hospital (an “asylum”), which opened my eyes to the problems of the forgotten mentally ill; at Coleford I had jobs in a Builder’s Merchant’s office in Coleford, at a Plywood factory in Lydney, and for the Forestry Commission doing “light agricultural weeding” – an euphemism for hacking down 8-foot high undergrowth with a bill-hook, to discover 3-inch high baby conifers underneath – and woe betide me if I accidentally sliced off the top of a tree.
At other times, I just relaxed at home, and explored the local area in the Forest of Dean, either on my Lambretta scooter or more usually walking with the dog.
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