Chapter VII: College
Having passed the three subjects at the Higher Stage, I was assured of a place in the University College of my choice, Aberystwyth. Why I chose Aberystwyth I do not know; probably because it was the choice of some of the other boys, who sat Higher. That was the history of my school days, and even of my days in college. I just drifted along with no particular aim in life.
Although I had opted for a Teacher’s Training Course, what was called the Normal course, I had no firm conviction that I was to become a teacher. If you became a Normal student, you pursued the usual degree courses and then when you had gained your degree, you followed a year’s Teacher’s Training course. This was the only way in which the poorer students could afford University education, as they were awarded an annual grant of Fifty Pounds provided they became full-time teachers. If they did not they were given special terms for refunding the amount of grant given, but I believe the terms were very generous ones.
So once again preparations had to be made for a move into lodgings, but this time not to a nearby town, but to a distant town that had to be arrived at by train. The impending move was anticipated with no great anxiety since this time I knew that I would have the company of school friends, and indeed by this time I was an experienced and hardened lodger, maybe more so than my friends, who all had been day-pupils. Perhaps my parents were more anxious than I was, especially my mother, knowing nothing about conditions in a University College. But, with her usual efficiency, she directed all the kitting-up preparations.
First of all, a trunk had to be bought. After much discussion and hesitation, it was decided that a large trunk was needed, not those flat ones which I found out afterwards most other students had. It had to hold all my clothes, including a heavy dressing gown, which had never before been a part of my wardrobe, some heavy books, like Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary, and another piece of furniture which, in spite of my protests, I had to include – a heavy old-fashioned trouser press. New shirts, underwear, a sports jacket and flannel trousers had to be bought. The prevailing fashion in trousers among the students of that time were very light grey and very wide flannel trousers, which were called Oxford bags. But I believe I drew the line at having such wide ones as the Oxford bags. Plus-fours too were quite fashionable.
There is one name that is going to be mentioned often in my account of College life, the name of Bill Elias, who, although no particularly close friend of mine in school, was to be my co-digger for four years and who pursued exactly the same courses as I did, a fact which was not always conducive to maintaining a happy relationship. Nevertheless our relationship had its advantages, for it was he who made all the arrangements for travelling on the day of departure for Aber and who had arranged our lodgings in Trinity Road.
In spite of the fact that good use was made of my large trunk for many years, I often regretted not having bought a smaller edition. Its transport was always quite a problem. On the day of my departure my father had to harness old Doll to the gambo, as the smarter turn-out of a trap did not have sufficient room for the trunk. So after rising early we set out in the gambo, but Doll, not realising that we had to catch a train at a certain time, proceeded at her usual slow pace and refused in any way to be hurried.
Our journey was a cross-country one over hill and dale to Llanpumpsaint station, where I would join the other Carmarthen boys – Bill Elias and D.A. Thomas. They must have watched with much amusement my trunk being unloaded from the gambo and laboriously carried to the van at the back of the train. Still, it was a relief to catch the train and to be in the company of familiar friends. The train was full of students, all in high spirits. The only opportunity some of the older and more boisterous students had to let off steam was when the train stopped at the many small stations on the route. They would rush out on the platform, dancing like wild dervishes, until the guard, with difficulty, herded them back to their compartments.
The Carmarthen to Aberystwyth train was a notoriously slow one. Many apocryphal stories about it have been related. One story is that two passengers travelled in the same compartment from Aberystwyth to Carmarthen without exchanging a single word, but when the train arrived at Carmarthen, one of them said to the other, ‘Thank God, the worst part of my journey is over’, and when the other asked him, ‘Where are you going?’ his reply was, ‘To Hong Kong’.
The scene on Aberystwyth station, when we disembarked, was quite bewildering; hordes of students milling around and trying to identify their luggage, comprising mainly of trunks. I had no difficulty in identifying my trunk – it stood out by its sheer size. Having identified the trunk I had to arrange with the local carriers its transport to the digs in Trinity Road. The carriers were employees of a firm headed by a well-known local personality, named Potts. The standard charge for each trunk was sixpence, but when the carrier tried to move my trunk he must have thought that a surcharge should be made. I suppose I should have offered him a tip, but I have never acquired the art of tipping.
Nevertheless the trunk arrived in Trinity Road almost as soon as Bill and I had been settled in by a jolly buxom landlady (these are the adjectives generally used to describe seaside landladies!). Aber students, we found out later, felt that a landlady’s service deteriorated with time, and so it was a good idea to change your digs at least every year. However Bill and I were well satisfied with Mrs Rees’ service, and so extended our stay to two years.
The terms charged for lodgings were ten shillings a week plus any items of food supplied by the landlady herself. These items of food could push your weekly bill well beyond a pound, but I managed to keep my bill at around a pound or even less, thanks to the hamper, in the shape of a large biscuit box, that I received from home, without fail, every week. The biscuit box usually contained butter, bacon, eggs, and a fruit-cake, and the weekly change of underwear.
I often wonder whether I fully appreciated the effort put into producing these items, and the trouble of having the box despatched by rail every week. The box had to be collected from the parcels office in the station either on Thursday or Friday, and never was I disappointed. But to ensure this regular despatch, my parents had to go to great trouble to make the necessary arrangements. There was no nearby station to which they could take to box. The method adopted was something like this:- the box would be taken on Tuesday evening to Llainbattis so that it could be taken on the following day (Mart day in Carmarthen) in my uncle’s Dodge. My uncle or my cousin would deposit the box in the Red Lion Hotel. It had been arranged that the proprietor of the Hotel should had over the box to the G.W.R. goods cart, or possibly motor-van, that called regularly for goods to be sent by rail.
After settling down to tea we were surprised to find out that we were going to have another co-digger, this time a third-year student. His name was David James Jones, a product of Llandyssul County School. He had a nickname, ‘Dai Jim’, and it was by that name he was known not only to all the students, but to almost all the people of the town. Indeed the townspeople had an even less complimentary name for him – Dirty Jim. We learned afterwards that he had gained the nick-name because, as one of the best players in the College Soccer XI, he was notorious for his sliding tackle – a tackle by no means relished by the tackled player nor appreciated by the spectators.
But let me keep to our first-day experiences. Dai Jim proved to be of invaluable help to us in explaining the procedures, such as registering and meeting advisers on your courses. He was really our guide and mentor during the first week. If I remember rightly we went to be registered in the Registrar’s office on the day of our arrival. Then on the following day we had to meet a member of the College staff, who advised us on what courses we should follow.
It is not my intention to try to explain all the rules and regulations for acquiring a degree. Suffice to say that I was advised to pursue Latin and English at the subsidiary stage (i.e., the second-year stage for anyone who had matriculated but had not passed the Higher Certificate examination) and Greek and Philosophy at the Intermediate Stage (i.e. the first-year course). This meant that I had to drop my third Higher subject, Welsh. I was not sorry that I had to do this, as I had no great confidence in my knowledge of what was really my native language. I had realised the teaching I had in Welsh had not given me a sound grounding and preparation for a degree course.
It had also been explained to me that in order to pursue an Honours course in Latin I should have to take Greek to a stage that satisfied the Classics Department. I thought I could do that without undue trouble, as Bill and I had to study Greek with Mr Allen at least to the Senior stage, although we had no Certificate to show that. To complete the first year courses, we had to take a Science subject, supposedly to give us a wider and more balanced understanding of academic studies.
We had already been advised by some of the senior students that the soft option for a science was Philosophy, and indeed we soon realised that that advice was a genuine one – all you had to do was copy down lectures and reproduce them in the examination at the end of the year. The Intermediate Philosophy class was the largest of all the classes, well over a hundred, and so, if you had arranged for another student to answer your name at the registration at the beginning of the lecture, your actual presence would not be missed. Indeed there was little benefit in attending the classes – the notes that Prof Jenkyn Jones dictated were exactly, word for word, notes that he had dished out every year. Some of the students had a full set of notes even at the beginning of the year, having been given to them by students who had followed the course previously.
Before your courses were finally fixed, you had to be interviewed by either the Professor or a Lecturer of the Department of the subject which you had been advised to take. The more popular subjects such as English and History had long queues outside the Professors’ studies. Fortunately the less popular subjects, such as Latin and Greek, attracted small queues. So I was soon fixed up for those two most important subjects, i.e. most important for me. The interviews for English and Philosophy were mere formalities, one following the other like sausages from a machine.
After all this we were informed that we were to sit in the evening an Intelligence Test in the Examination Hall. We thought that we had had enough of examinations, but this was compulsory for all Freshers. When we entered the Hall, we saw sitting on a desk on a platform an imposing figure that we had seen during the day parading around in cap and gown, a very tall and distinguished figure wearing glasses with very dark rims – an imposing figure indeed! We were handed writing paper and properly printed question papers.
The questions were very general ones, testing your opinions on politics and the affairs of the day. One of the questions set was, ‘What is your opinion of the co-education of the sexes?’, a perfectly valid question at the time, but one that should have aroused some suspicion in our minds, for indeed the whole examination turned out to be a hoax. It was arranged by the senior students as a preparation for the Freshers’ initiation ceremony which was to follow on the next day. The imposing figure who seemed to be the chief supervisor was none other than the Students’ President, one who soon after leaving College, became one of the most influential members of the BBC hierarchy in Wales, who indeed eventually became its Head, namely Alun Oldfield-Davies.
On the next day all the Freshers were summonsed to attend a meeting that evening in the Examination Hall. Whether the summons was made orally in the quadrangle or by a written notice on the college notice-board I cannot remember, but with the innocence and naiveté of Freshers we were again duped into believing that the meeting was just a part of the normal routine for settling in new entrants. But again it had been planned by the Seniors as the final part of the initiation ceremony.
It turned out to be a hilarious affair, but not so hilarious for some of the victims. It was a kind of inquisition with a row of severe-looking figures, solemnly attired in cap and gown, acting as inquisitors. The chief inquisitor would call out a name, summon him to stand on the stage in sight of all present and then would read a quotation or quotations from the answers he had given to some of the questions set on the previous evening, and in most cases awkward and embarrassing questions were asked on the co-education of the sexes. Many of the answers, of course, produced a hilarious and noisy response from the seniors. Those Freshers who made more brazen and over-confident responses and those who were inclined, as we say, to show-off, were summarily punished.
I felt very sorry for one particular Fresher, who was made the chief butt for the stinging barbs aimed by the inquisitor. He was a tall gangly fellow with the stooping shoulders of a studious pedant, and his pronounced Oxford accent made him an object of ridicule and fun to Welsh students. He was given the ignominious task of climbing a slippery pillar at the edge of the stage. Every slip he made produced loud guffaws of laughter.
But there is a sequel to that! Hugh Bowen became one of the most popular of the College students. He bore no malice towards anyone, and became well-known to all by the greeting he gave to every student he passed on the road or in college, and his greeting was always, ‘Cheers’, given in his inimitable accent. He was voted a member of many of the college societies and was a formidable debater in the Literary and Debating Society (the Lit and Deb) and to crown it all, he gained a First Class in English Honours.
My answers to the questions set the previous evening must have been guarded ones, and not worthy of being exposed to the embarrassing questioning. I was allowed to sit quietly with the other Carmarthen Freshers, perhaps not to enjoy the performance but to pray that I would escape such treatment. But the whole performance must have made an impression on D.A. Thomas, one of the four Freshers from Carmarthen, because in the following year he took a very active part in the initiation of the Freshers of that year. He must have thought that the treatment we had had was much too tame, for he helped to devise a form of treatment that really deserved the adjective ‘inhumane’.
Every Fresher was given, as it were, the mark of Cain. Barbers’ cutters had been collected in town, and with these a close-cropped furrow was made on each Fresher’s head from the forehead to the nape of the neck. Then his hair was plastered with dollops of sticky cart-grease. The Freshers’ landladies must have taken a poor view of the state of their pillows on the following morning, for it was well nigh impossible to wash away the grease completely, even after several washings. Freshers remained branded for several weeks; some tried to hide their embarrassment by wearing any kind of headgear they could borrow, while others had a crew-cut, not in fashion in those days, but less embarrassing than the single furrow. So many protests were made by the College authorities and, I believe, in the Cambrian News, that such an uncivilised treatment was not again meted out to Freshers during my stay of five years.
Whether after this we were immediately plunged into the routine of lectures, or whether the first week was given over to the gradual process of being introduced to the geography of the college and to the many different student activities, I cannot remember. The first term in a College can cause the downfall of many a fresher, if he succumbs to the temptations of a way of life so much different from that of school and home. There is the temptation of joining too many College societies, there is the temptation of attending all the concerts, soirées and smokers, there is the temptation of spending a great deal of time in the Students’ Union, playing cards, table-tennis and billiards, and there is the temptation of becoming deeply involved in a love-affair. One temptation, prevalent in College today, was strictly prohibited – all public houses were out of bounds, although some daring characters ignored this prohibition.
Bill Elias and I had been warned of these many pit-falls, and so we had determined, right from the beginning, that our first priority would be serious study, and that we would make a judicious choice of societies to attend, but that we would aim at becoming regular members of a Rugger team in order to have the enjoyment of a game and in order to maintain physical fitness. I remember being asked by the Latin Professor whether I had regular physical exercise. He said that this was essential, but the manner was unimportant as long as you, as he said, had a good sweat; you could do that, if you so desired, by digging an old lady’s garden.
So we established a regular routine from the very beginning, spending most off periods during the day in the College Library. Sometimes we were tempted to follow others to the Union for the eleven o’clock ten minutes break, the ten minutes being extended to the midday lunch. Almost every evening we devoted three hours, from six to nine, to study.
Strangely enough our co-digger, Dai Jim, followed a completely different routine, even though he was in his third year and preparing for the Honours examination in Chemistry. He could not understand how it would be possible for us to accelerate the pace for our Honours year if we kept working at such a pace in our first year. But he had fallen into the trap of having a love-affair, not with a college student, but with a town-girl. A college student had to be in her hostel by ten o’clock, whereas a town-girl was free to set her own standards. The consequence of this was that Dai Jim very rarely returned to digs before eleven o’clock, when Bill and I would be ready to retire to bed. While we put in our three hours from six to nine, Dai put his three hours in from eleven p.m. to two a.m.
When we attended our first lecture in Latin, we found that the Subsidiary Class was a comparatively small one, not more than six or seven students, and that in spite of the fact every student to take an Honours degree in an Arts subject had to pass Latin at the Intermediate stage. Hardly any student who had managed to pass Intermediate Latin took the subject to a more advanced stage. Indeed some students had to re-sit the Intermediate examination every year, even in their Honours year, and it was not unknown for a student to gain a very good class in Honours and yet fail to be awarded a degree because he had not passed Intermediate Latin.
The Professor of Latin was H.J. Rose, a brilliant Oxford Rhodes scholar, whose native country was Canada. I say ‘brilliant’ because I remember being told by his assistant lecturer, Miss A. Woodward, that in his Final Honours in Oxford he obtained a first class in every paper he sat in Latin and Greek. He was a large man with an ungainly walk, a kind of flat-footed shuffle; he had twitchy lips and an involuntary shaking of the head, as if he suffered from St. Vitus’ dance, but this, I found out later, was the result of having suffered shell-shock in the First World War. Rose was quite a character! Before I complete my story of college life, I shall have a few interesting and amusing stories to tell about him.
We were set every week an unseen to be translated into English and a passage of prose to be translated into Latin. These were marked by Rose himself; he explained his marking and discussed the translations with each one of us on his own in his study – the only type of tutorial lecture we received in all the subjects we took.
I remember well my first attempts being handed back, with both unseen and prose having assessments like VVS+. I thought that this was a very good mark, even though many red marks were plastered between the lines. ‘Very very satisfactory’ with a plus must have been a very good mark. But it soon transpired that his mark was far from being satisfactory; it stood for ‘vix vix satis’. (The translation for non-Latin scholars is ’scarcely scarcely satisfactory’, with the ‘plus’ taking a little of the edge off. Rose’s top mark, which hardly anyone ever attained, was S (Satisfactory). From that the grades descended something like this:- S, S=, VS, VS+, VS-, VVS+ etc. It was anyone’s guess what these grades represented in percentages.
Keen and studious students always took down copious notes in lectures. Some lecturers dictated their lectures at dictation speed so that every word uttered could be taken down without difficulty; other lecturers, although reading their notes at a speed impossible for word for word copying, had such an orderly and clear way of setting out facts and opinions that at the end you have produced in your note-book a logical and adequate synopsis of the lecture.
Rose did not fall into either of these categories. Many a time you would have failed completely to reproduce any notes. But I cannot claim that his lectures were uninteresting. It was obvious that he did not aim at producing narrow examination results, but tried to give us a wide background, and a sound basis for the study of Latin Language and Literature. And yet some of the work he set seemed to have no relevance to the knowledge required for a Classics degree.
For example, he advised us to read Maine’s ‘Ancient Law’, a work that to our student minds was no preparation for a Classics degree. Another book he advised us to read was ‘Ciceron et ses Amis’, although he knew that some of us had very little knowledge of French. Soon after I had struggled through the French, I came across a book in the Library with the title ‘Cicero and his Friends’, an exact translation of the French version. For the Christmas holidays he gave me the task of making a synopsis of a book whose title and content I cannot recollect, but again seemingly having no relevance to our course. I struggled to make some sense out of my synopsis, but when he asked me to read it in class at the beginning of the term, I was summarily stopped after reading only two or three pages. He gave no comment; he too must have thought that what I had read out was of no relevant value.
The assistant lecturers in the Latin Department were Miss A Woodward and P.K. Baillie-Reynolds. Miss Woodward, a rather severe-looking woman in her fifties, could be considered an efficient teacher, but not an inspiring one. The one strange fact that I remember about her is the way she took Bill Elias under her wing. Bill was hardly the type to encourage the mothering instincts of an old spinster. Perhaps the encouraging factor was that in the First Year Honours course Bill opted to take a course in Philology, a subject in which Miss Woodward specialised. Many a time on a Sunday afternoon Bill would be invited to tea. I hardly think the intention was to have a discussion on Philology. They must have found that they head something in common, but what I have no idea. What was strange to me, however, was the fact that when I met Bill many years after, they were corresponding with each other and that he knew everything about her latest moves. P.K. Baillie-Reynolds was the lecturer in Roman and Greek History and was one of those methodical lecturers, whose lecture notes could be taken down almost word for word.
There was no chair of Greek; the Head of the Department was E.D.T. Jenkins, whose lectures took the same form as the lessons we had in school. When Professor Rose left in the middle of our First Year Honours, E.D.T. Jenkins took charge of the running of both departments. I must have made quite a good impression on him, for at the end of my stay in College, he gave me a very complimentary testimonial, which I was prepared to use in my many applications for a job, even more so than that of the other Heads of Departments.
I have already anticipated my criticism of the English Professor when, in describing my English lessons in school, I mentioned that I found that the notes given on several of the English set books were identical with those that I was given in college. Professor Atkins was a dapper little man, whose head overtopped his lectern by only a few inches; he rested both elbows on the lectern and proceeded to dictate his notes very clearly and precisely. If I could have sat back without having to concentrate on writing, I am sure that I would have enjoyed listening to his scholarly and interesting treatment of an author. But he must have had plenty of practice in delivering his lecture – they had been repeated to more than one generation of students.
I am finding it very difficult to concentrate my account on the first week. To continue, Wednesday afternoon, at all times, was free from lectures, so that those who participated in sport could hold their practices and sometimes their matches. So one of the first things we four from Carmarthen did was to put our names down for the Freshers’ Rugger Trial on the Wednesday of our first week.
We were four forwards, and so could hardly expect to be chosen en bloc for the First XV. But we must have been much too optimistic to think we could qualify for the Firsts in our first year. Before we finished in College, we all four managed to form half the pack of forwards in the First Eleven for a few matches. Actually I was the last of the four to gain a place, and indeed the first of the four to lose his place. The other three, Bill Elias, D.A. Thomas and Geraint Owen had a bigger and heavier physique than mine and had gained a regular place long before me.
We must have decided to sample the entertainment given in the Literary and Debating Society on the Friday night. My clearest recollection of the debate was the frequent interruption from the back of the Hall by one of the students making a peculiar falsetto yodelling noise to the accompaniment of shouts of ‘Up, up, up!’ from his pals. This was a signal for lifting him up bodily so that he could be displayed to all. When I was appointed as a temporary teacher in my old school, Carmarthen Gram., imagine my surprise to find that the Geography teacher was indeed the yodelling student, and indeed, later on he became the Headmaster of one of the Secondary Schools in Llanelli and an important local councillor, even being made a Mayor. It is surprising how seemingly wild and irresponsibly behaved students often turn out to be highly respected and responsible members of their communities.
Saturday afternoon was spent watching a Rugger match, and the evening spent in the pictures, usually in the Pier Cinema. This was really the pattern of every Saturday, either watching or playing rugger in the afternoon, and then relaxing physically and mentally in the evening in the pictures – no boozing in pubs!
Sunday too was always a day completely free from swotting. It was natural for me to keep up the habit of attending religious services on Sunday. My usual companion for these services was Geraint Owen, the son of a very prominent Congregational minister and National Bard. On the first Sunday I must have set up a record by attending the phenomenal number of five meetings. The first meeting was the ten o’clock service in Baker Street Chapel, the second was the young people’s prayer meeting immediately after, the third was the Sunday School, the fourth was the evening service at six o’clock, and the fifth was the Christian Union meeting in the College Examination Hall at eight o’clock. I may add that it was not long before I began to fall from grace.
The Rev. Peter Price was a controversial character, a fiery preacher, and often at odds with fellow ministers. He had been condemned by many for expressing in public his doubts about the sincerity of the leaders of the 1904 Religious Revival. He was, however, popular with the students. A good number of these students would attend his prayer meetings. He conducted these meetings in the fashion of the Quakers – he never asked anyone to take part. There were long pauses of silence, until the spirit supposedly moved someone to stand on his feet and pray. I remember, during one of these awkward silences, whispering to Geraint that, as the son of a minister, he should stand up, but with no success.
The Sunday School class was composed of Freshers only, and the teacher was John Hughes, a lecturer in the Education Department, who soon after became a Professor in Toronto University. A sure criterion of John Hughes’ personality and kindly nature was the fact that the number of the members of his class was fully maintained throughout the year, something that could not be claimed for the Second Year class under Timothy Lewis of the College Welsh Department.
There were many devout Christians in the Christian Union. A few of them would meet early every morning to hold prayer meetings. But the only reason why Bill and I often attended Christian Union meetings on Sunday evenings was that the Christian Union committee was very often successful in inducing very able speakers to address the meetings. These popular speakers included the Rev. Herbert Morgan and Professor T.A. Levi. Kenneth O. Morgan, in his ‘Rebirth of a Nation’, says, ‘the extra-mural department headed at Aberystwyth by the Rev. Herbert Morgan, a socialist minister formerly in charge of Castle Street Baptist Chapel in London, was to have an especially powerful impact on the cultural and intellectual life of Mid-Wales’. Herbert Morgan was an eloquent speaker on both religious and secular matters, while the other, even more popular, attracted full houses because of his witty, humorous, and indeed informative addresses.
A good illustration of Professor Levi’s wit and humour is found in J. Williams Hughes’ ‘Troeon yr Yrfa’. It is a quotation from a talk on the British Constitution, in which he describes Parliament. “Parliament – from the French word ‘parler’, meaning ‘to talk’; the room in our houses which is now known as ‘the lounge’ used to be called ‘the parlour’, the room where they met to talk. And that’s what they do in Parliament, they talk and talk and talk. And there’s one man there called ‘Mr Speaker’, but they won’t let him talk. But then they walk; that’s how they vote – they walk to one of two lobbies. Well that’s how they carry on in Parliament – they talk and walk, and they walk and talk. And it puzzles me how they don’t suffer from foot and mouth disease.”
In describing the activities of the second week, I shall, really, be describing the activities of most weeks in the first two terms of my first year. Although the activities follow a certain pattern, yet the pattern cannot be a rigid one – there were many deviations. Lectures began in earnest on the Monday, each lecture beginning at ten minutes past the hour and ending on the hour. I cannot remember how many lectures we had during the day, but the period ten past eleven until mid-day seemed be out of favour with both the lecturers and the lectured. It was during this period that many of the students congregated in the Refectory in the Students’ Union, for a coffee and a chat.
A peculiar custom unique to Aberystwyth College was what the students called ‘quadding’. In the ten minutes intervals between lectures most of the students would congregate in the Quad, as it was called, but instead of congregating in stationary groups, the men paraded in twos on one side and the women on the other side, something like this:-
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Sometimes some intrepid gallants would cross over to the other side to walk around with their lady-loves. As soon as they were spotted they would be hailed by loud shouts of ‘oil’. It puzzled me for a long time why the word ‘oil’, but eventually it was explained that it stood for ‘the order of the institute of lovers’.
In the eleven o’clock break, the President of the Students would mount a big gridiron in the quad to make his daily announcements. It was after these announcements were made that the students moved, many to the Refec., some to work in the Library, and a few to lectures. It was very rarely that I followed the crowd to the Refec, and never did I cross quad. I resisted the temptation of becoming attached to any female, maybe for two reasons. I had already formed an attachment at home, and I also realised the perils of such an attachment in college.
We did not have many lectures in the afternoons. Although I cannot remember my actual time-table, I am almost sure that some of the afternoons were completely free of lectures. Wednesday afternoon was free for all, when all the students taking part in any sport would make their way to the Vicarage field, where there were pitches for rugger, soccer, hockey and netball, while the gymnasts trained in the gymnasium attached to the dressing-rooms. The four of us from Carmarthen turned out regularly for the Rugger practices on Wednesday afternoons, but none of us gained a place in the First Team during our first year. Very little work was done on Saturdays and then in the afternoon we played matches, either at home or away. The Seconds played such teams as Llanidloes and Newtown.
Our evenings followed, on the whole, a fixed pattern. After tea at half past four Bill and I would have a relaxing half-hour of billiards from five to half past five. Bill was invariably the winner, but on the rare occasions on which I won he would insist on having an extra half-hour, when he would be satisfied with his usual win. It was hardly ever that we failed to have an empty table. There was a reason for this. There were at that time two Liberal Clubs in Aberystwyth, the one belonging to the Coalition Liberals, under Lloyd George, and the other belonging to the Independent Liberals, or the Asquithian Liberals. It was to the Independent Liberal Club that we went, as it was less popular and less frequented than the other.
After the game of billiards we would take a walk along the Prom and would follow the students’ custom of kicking the bar – a railing at the bottom of Constitution Hill at the end of the promenade. I have no idea what was the origin of the custom. After the walk Bill and I would settle down to three hours of swotting. Then supper at nine, and after that a time of relaxation for me, but an extra hour of swotting for Bill, while Dai Jim hardly ever returned to digs before eleven o’clock.
Work on Saturday evenings was, of course, out of the question, even in our Honours year. It was an evening of relaxation from the daily grind and also for relieving the tiredness resulting from probably a hard afternoon’s match.
Every Aber student, present and old, talks about the Aber spirit – a term that is rather difficult to define. Each generation of students maintained that it was the spirit engendered by a comparatively small closely-knit family, confined within a unit, enclosed by strict social regulations. The post-war generation of ex-service students, released from the shackles of army discipline, enjoyed a less restrictive regime and insisted on the relaxation of college discipline and regulations, especially those concerning the relationship with women students.
In my time almost all the ex-service students had left – most of the students entering college straight from school. The numbers, swollen immediately after the war by the influx of ex-service men, were now restored to a modest seven hundred, and although in my time there was a proliferation of societies and clubs, resulting in the formation of many cliques, yet the spirit of a closely-knit family was very evident, as there were so many activities and entertainment which brought together all the students of whatever faculty. Aberystwyth College differed from the other University Colleges, especially Swansea and Cardiff, in its remoteness from centres of population. This meant that almost all Aber students were full-time residents, while the large majority of Swansea and Cardiff students merely attended lectures, returning home at the end of the day and thus failing to foster the social relationship that Aber students enjoyed throughout the day and more especially in the evenings.
I should think that in my first year the most popular Society, and the one that drew together the majority of students, was the Literary and Debating Society, or in student parlance, the Lit. and Deb. It was held in the Exam Hall every Friday evening. The Hall was always full to capacity, whatever the subject of the debate and whoever were the chief speakers.
The speakers were generally students, but sometimes they were members of the College staff, or even well-known personalities in the political world. The more boisterous elements in the audience, such as the rugger clique, would congregate at the back of the Hall – they were the ‘gods’ who delighted in punctuating the debate with humorous, and sometimes ribald, remarks, and indeed would give a rough ride to political speakers holding extreme views. Bill and I, being the serious students that we were, put in only an occasional appearance in the Lit. and Deb., choosing only those meetings which had interesting speakers or well-known politicians, such as the Communist M.P., Saklatvala.
The Lit. and Deb. changed its character during our first years, as a result of the inauguration of the Political Union. Political debates became the sole monopoly of this Union, resulting in the trivialisation of the subjects debated in the Lit. and Deb., and also resulting in the name being changed to the Debates Union. However most students persisted in calling it the Lit. and Deb. And as such it remained the most popular Society with all students.
But to Welsh-speaking students the Celtic Society was becoming the chief attraction. However, it was very rarely that I attended its meetings. Since my retirement a large part of my reading has been in Welsh. I have read many of the works of Welsh authors such as Prof. T.H. Parry-Williams, Prof. T. Gwyn Jones, Gwenallt Jones, and Waldo Williams, and I have often thought that, if I had attended the Celtic Society or if I had been able to take Welsh instead of Philosophy, I could have come to know these outstanding Welsh authors personally. Maybe I could have derived more benefit from College if I had associated more with those students who were more interested in Welsh learning and culture than the rugger types from, say, Llanelli, the Amman Valley and the Tawe Valley, who, although they were Welsh-speaking and had had an upbringing similar to mine, had little interest in Welsh history and literature. But then I could have lost on other accounts. Such are the ‘ifs’ of history!
The Welsh Celtic Society had become especially attractive through the efforts of one or two special characters. One of these characters was Idwal Jones, who came from Lampeter. He was one of the ex-service students who entered College after the 1914-18 War and was one of the prime movers in introducing a more entertaining social life and in forcing the authorities to introduce less restrictive regulations with regard to the relationships of men and women. It seems that he was the life and soul of College entertainments, not only in the Celtic Society but also in concerts, smokers and dances. Not only had he a talent for fun and jollity, but he also had a talent for writing comedies, for writing scripts for revues, for parodies, topical verses (English and Welsh), limericks etc. etc. He was also an excellent raconteur of stories, not all of the drawing-room type.
Although he devoted a great deal of time to the lighter social life of the College, he graduated with a good Honours degree in English. He had rather a derogatory opinion of the straight-from-school students who took too serious a view of their studies. His lighter verses were mainly in Welsh, but the following is a good example of some of his English composition, and shows his contempt of the too-serious young student:-
The Celtic may perish, the Lit. and Deb. go to pot,
The Coll institutions may moulder and rot;
Colliers may strike or the town clock may not,
The stove in the digs may explode on the spot;
The landlady’s fire may fade and expire,
The price of the butter mount higher and higher,
The whole place may burn, yet he cared not a jot,
One thing only matters, and that thing is – SWOT!
Another member of the Celtic Society and a well-known character, whose personality had many characteristics in common with those of Idwal Jones, was Waldo Williams, renowned in later life as one of Wales’ distinguished poets – a Welsh Nationalist, a pacifist and a rebel against the Establishment, even suffering imprisonment for his ideals. Waldo and Idwal were co-diggers in Aber. Waldo was a student in my time, but Idwal had left College in the summer of 1925 to become Headmaster of Devil’s Bridge School, but he continued to co-dig with Waldo and to take part in College entertainments in the evenings. Many are the amusing stories told about these extraordinary original geniuses.
Here are one or two of those stories: Idwal Jones sat a paper in the Philosophy Department although he was not a student in that department that year. He gave his name as John Smith. One question in the paper was on Empedocles’ theory of Love and Strife, and after discussing the question John Smith gave this illustration:- Imagine a scene of domestic happiness. Mother and father at the fireside gazing lovingly at one another, and the cat purring peacefully – Love. Suddenly the kettle spits on the cat’s tail – Strife.
In his comedy ‘Yr Eosiaid’, Idwal Jones had the form (Fersil) for the Latin poet, Vergilius. John Hughes, the Music Organiser for Merionethshire, who made the musical arrangements, did not like the sound of Fersil as it was too much like Persil. That inspired Idwal to write the following verse:-
Old Virgil he did have his home,
So they say, in Ancient Rome.
But he changed his name to Versil
When he washed his shirt with Persil.
Wass you ever see? Etc.
Many too are the stories of Idwal Jones as a practical joker. He borrowed half a dozen alarm clocks from diggers in the town, set them to ring at different times and placed them behind the books on the shelves in different parts of the College Library. Johnny Bach, the Librarian, who tried to maintain a strict rule of silence, was very annoyed when the first alarm sounded, but when the others went off at irregular intervals he became livid with anger and was completely at a loss what to do.
The stories of Idwal Jones that I have just related are a free translation of stories found in D. Gwenallt Jones’ ‘Cofiant Idwal Jones’.
Characters like Idwal Jones and Waldo Williams attract stories that are handed down from generation to generation. Some, I feel sure, are probably true, but some must be apocryphal. The story related by D. Tecwyn Lloyd in ‘Waldo’ (a tribute edited by James Nicholas) must be one of the true ones, as he himself was a witness.
This again is a free translation – ‘I remember one time having tea in a small café in Stratford-on-Avon – four of us; my wife, Rhys Dafis, Waldo and myself. Halfway through the tea, Waldo started to talk about John Morgan, his Headmaster when a pupil in Narberth Grammar School. Quietly and slowly at the beginning, but, in the process of warming up, raising his voice, accelerating his speech, and busting out into laughter now and again. Then, when he came to describe John Morgan giving a lesson on the Aeneid, he stood up on the floor of the café to act the whole story.
‘The method used by John Morgan to drive home the lesson was to dramatise and act the passage under consideration; the acting was miming, and then asking the pupils who or what was the subject of the miming. When Waldo stood up, to the amazement of the people in the café, he was bending under a heavy burden on his shoulders, and raising his arms above his head as if catching hold of the burden to keep it steady. “Now, tell me”, he said, “what character of Virgil’s Aeneid am I acting?” and unless he had an immediate answer, he shouted, “Aeneas carrying his father Anchises on his shoulders. That’s pietas!”.
‘To see Waldo on the floor of a café in Stratford stumbling under the weight of the imaginary Anchises, and with outbursts of laughter explaining the whole drama in Welsh must have given the impression to the sedate customers of the café that a reincarnation of Shakespeare himself had returned without warning. It’s hardly likely that such acting had ever been seen in Stratford.’
In my first year the Classical Club was set up, and, of course, this had to be attended regularly. Looking through old papers recently, I have come upon a notice of a Classical club meeting. It reads as follows:-
Classical Club
A meeting of the above will be held at No. 1 Laura Place on Wednesday, March 5th, at 8 p.m. The subject of the debate will be ‘that the influence of Roman Civilisation upon Modern Civilisation is over-emphasised’.
Speakers Affirmative: Mr G.O. Williams
Negative: Miss Billingham and Mr L.J. Saer
Coffee and biscuits will be served
G.R.Williams (Sec)
The year of this meeting, unfortunately, is not given, and I am confused as to whether I was made Secretary in my first year or second year. Nevertheless I am certain that I was made Chairman in the following year, and that in spite of the fact that the likely candidate seemed to be a graduate with honours in Latin. I shall not name this person, as he became a very well-known and very eloquent minister of Religion in later life. He, without a doubt, would have been made chairman had he not hidden his talent for oratory by devoting his first three years entirely to ’swotting’. After my election he showed very little Christian spirit as he always cut me dead when we met. No. 1 Laura Place, where we held most of our meetings, was a large dwelling house near the college, bought by the College authorities. It was an ideal place for a cosy intimate gathering of comparatively small numbers of students and staff. Sometimes we had visiting classicists to address us.
I have mentioned other social activities such as smokers, concerts and dances. Smokers were men-only get-togethers in the Students’ Union. These were noisy and boisterous affairs with the emphasis on fun and games rather than on any quiet sober entertainment.
Quiet and refined entertainment was usually provided by the Music Department, as indeed it still is. For me one of the highlights of these concerts was an oratorio performed by a combination of local choirs from Aberystwyth and Newtown with singers and instrumentalists from the college. It was a highlight for me as it was my first experience of a complete oratorio sung by a large choir with professional artistes. But I can remember only one of the artistes, a fine baritone of the name of Arthur Fear. The oratorio was Handel’s Samson, the character portrayed by Arthur Fear.
Important concerts and lectures, such as the Inaugural Lecture at the beginning of a new session, were held in a large hall off North Road, where the bowling greens are situated today. This was a wooden structure in the style of the modern Welsh National Eisteddfod Pavilion, but not quite of such huge proportions. As I am writing these words the tragic loss of life caused by the fire in the Bradford City Football Stand, again a wooden structure, is very much on my mind. Such was the fate of this Hall in Aber, but fortunately with no loss of life.
Dances were held in the Parish Hall, now the Castle Theatre, almost every Saturday night and through the changes brought about by the ex-service men, the men were allowed to escort the women back to Alexandra Hall, the women’s hostel at the end of the Prom. The usual time for closed doors at the Hall was ten o’clock but I am not sure whether there was an extension on the Saturday night.
Neither Bill nor I frequented these dances. Indeed, throughout my stay in College I can remember attending only one dance, and that was in Alexandra Hall. After a great deal of persuasion by a few women from the Latin Department I reluctantly agreed to turn up. I felt like a fish out of water, spending most of the time sitting out. What stands out in my memory was my vain effort to dance with an attractive young lady, employed as Assistant Librarian in the College, and later employed in the National Library. Whenever Miss Felstead could be heard walking on the balconies of the Reading Room in the National Library you could see all eyes turning to watch her smart walk and shapely legs. She approached me in the dance and although I tried to convince her that I had no idea how to dance, she just told me that she would show me how. But after I had clumsily trodden on her feet a few times, she politely told me that it would be better for us to sit out.
The climax of all social and sporting activities came in the middle of February in what was called Inter-Coll Week. It would take a brave and resolute man to continue with his studies in that week. This week was not only the week when the various teams of the four constituent Colleges of the University of Wales played each other, each team striving to become Inter-Coll champions, but it was the week of the Inter-Coll Eisteddfod, of the annual revue held in the Coliseum, and above all, the week of the annual Rag.
In our first year we were spectators of the matches rather than participants. We were, naturally, interested in the rugger matches, but in that year we were more than usually interested in the Soccer matches, because Dai Jim our co-digger was the captain of the Soccer XI. We had very little interest in the Eisteddfod – Bill because he was monoglot English and I because I had taken very little interest in the activities of the Celtic Society.
Present-day students have made a name for themselves by creating a record almost every year in the amount of money collected in a Rag week. The collecting effort is really extended over several weeks, coming to its climax in the actual Rag Week. I cannot remember that we succeeded to the same extent.
This is what I remember of the Rag Week in 1926. There was much unrest at the time in the coalfields, especially in South Wales. The Rag Committee had decided that the theme, as it were, of the Rag Week should be this unrest. It was arranged that the most experienced and most eloquent member of the Political Union should impersonate A.J. Cook, the communist leader of the coal-miners in S. Wales. Placards were displayed in the town announcing the visit of this person, considered a controversial extremist by the respectable Liberal chapel-going townspeople, and announcing the time of the address to be given to the students in the College Examination Hall.
Large numbers of students assembled outside the Railway Station to await the arrival of ‘A.J. Cook’, who had been taken to Borth to board the train there. When he arrived he was greeted with tumultuous cheers and carried on to an open wagon, which was dragged by the students all the way through the streets to the College. I cannot remember the contents of his speech, but I can remember that it was an inflammatory speech in the style of the Hyde Park tub-thumping orator. The Cambrian News must have taken a very poor view of the whole affair.
As soon as Inter-Coll Week came to an end, the more serious students must have thought that the fateful end of the session was looming near, and so from then on to the examination time at the beginning of June the social life of the College became almost dormant. The short summer term, however, had its attractions – pleasant Sunday walks up Constitution Hill over to Clarach or Cwm Woods, bathing in the sea for hardy and intrepid swimmers, watching cricket matches on Saturday afternoons and also fraternising on the Prom, breathing in the ozone from the sea.
Apart from these pleasant experiences there was one event in May that was a very memorable one. Aber was the host college for the National (i.e. England and Wales) Inter-Coll Athletics meeting. Every University college, except Oxford and Cambridge, were supposed to send fully representative teams, but, unfortunately, it was during the one week when there was a General Strike in support of the coalminers, and so, in spite of valiant efforts being made to find transport, quite a few failed to turn up. However, a sufficient number of competitors turned up to make it a very successful meeting.
To me the highlight of the meeting was the performance of one athlete from London University. I have already mentioned my first sight of a black man in the flesh. The second one must have been of Jack London of London University. ‘London of London’ was repeatedly announced as the first – he was first in five events, although he had been originally chosen for the hundred and two hundred yards sprints. Because the University had only a skeleton team he was chosen on the day to take part as well in the High Jump, the Long Jump and Putting the Shot, and indeed emerged first in all the events. Jack London was an impressive figure – tall, sleek and athletic.
Then came the end-of-session examinations – the examination that would decide your fate for the following year – what course or courses you would have to pursue or indeed whether you would be allowed to return to College. I believe I approached these exams in the usual cool and collected frame of mind, but after one paper my equanimity was suddenly disturbed. Looking back, I cannot understand why it should have had such a shattering effect. Since Bill and I were following more or less the same courses, it was our habit to compare our answers to the questions in the papers, i.e. to hold post-mortems. After the Latin Unseen paper we began to compare our translations when I realised that I had unwittingly omitted two lines of the Verse Unseen. I was so upset that I vowed there and then that never again would I hold a post-mortem, a vow that I religiously kept.
Nevertheless when the results appeared on the Notice Board in the quad, I had passed Ordinary Latin, Intermediate Greek and Intermediate Philosophy, but I had failed Ordinary English, being awarded only Intermediate English. I had regurgitated the lecture-notes in Philosophy with success, but regurgitation failed to satisfy the English examiner. So in the following year I had to repeat the Ordinary English course instead of following the Final course.
After the results appeared I received a note from Professor Rose asking me to see him in his house opposite the Students’ Union at five o’clock in the afternoon – an afternoon of a fine summer’s day. When I knocked at the door promptly at five o’clock, Mrs Rose answered and told me that Professor Rose was not in at the time, but was expected back soon – would I wait in the lounge. I sat in a chair near the window facing the street. After at least half an hour’s wait his huge bulk suddenly appeared, but completely naked except for a pair of short bathing trunks, slippers, and a towel slung over his shoulder. He had to wear slippers in order to walk all the way from the sea-front through the streets back to Jarvis House. Prof had no respect for the conventions. At another time he was seen pushing a baby’s pram, wearing a mortar-board and gown, with carpet slippers on his feet.
Although he had a wife and five children, he seemed to spend very little time at his home. Students who kept much later hours than I did used to say that, whenever they passed the college at night, they would see a light in his college study. His youngest son, Michael, was preparing to sit the Common Entrance Examination in order to gain a place in Hereford Cathedral School, and was being coached for that exam in Miss Trotter’s Private School in North Road. Miss Trotter had no Latin tutor in her school, and, instead of Prof Rose undertaking to coach his son, he asked me to take on the job, a job which I was rather reluctant to accept, as it seemed to be an extra and precarious test of my knowledge of Latin and also of my ability to teach it.
So in my second year I attended Miss Trotter’s School two or three times a week at the rate of five shillings an hour – a generous supplement to my Normal Training grant. Prof Rose exhorted me to make ‘the little bugger’ work hard, as he was inclined to be very lazy. Michael, however, in spite of his laziness and his excuses for lack of preparation, was an apt pupil and had no difficulty in translating passages from Caesar’s De Bello Gallico and Virgil’s Aeneid, even though he was only twelve years of age. He had no difficulty in gaining a place in Hereford Cathedral School.
What was our co-digger Dai Jim’s fate at the end of the year, actually his third year, the year of his Final Honours in Chemistry? Had he done enough work to obtain a good class in spite of the fact that so much of his time had been given to courting his town girl-friend?
In his favour was the fact that he could not escape the daily round of laboratory work from nine a.m. to five p.m. It was interesting to hear his post-mortem report after sitting each paper. The final paper in Honours Chemistry was what they called the Big Essay paper, three hours being devoted to answering one question only. Dai Jim had decided to prepare answers to three questions which he considered to be the most likely ones to be set. When he came home after sitting the first paper he told us, ‘One of my essay questions has gone! It turned up in today’s paper!’ Then in a later paper the experience was repeated. So when the seventh and final paper, the Big Essay paper, was due, he said, ‘If my one and only question does not turn up, I shall be sunk!’ But his gamble came off! Perhaps there is some justification in the claim made by some critics that examinations are a poor test of a person’s knowledge and ability. Actually, the class he gained was a very creditable one – Class II, Division I, or as we used to say a 2A.
The second year, 1926-7, followed more or less the same pattern as the first year. The three of us returned to the same digs in Trinity Road. It was a common practice among students to change digs after a year, the contention being that familiarity brought about a deterioration in the landlady’s service. Another reason was that students might have developed new friendships and so wished to change co-diggers. We three – Bill, Dai Jim and I – had no complaints with the service of our jolly and kindly-natured Mrs Rees, and we were sufficiently compatible co-diggers not to wish to separate.
The courses I had to pursue in the Second Year were First Year Honours Latin, Ordinary Greek and Ordinary English. After the first lecture in English I had an interview with Prof. Atkins when he explained to me my unexpected failure in the first year examination – I had not shown a close acquaintance with the texts of the set books; I had simply repeated the Professor’s own critical appreciation. After that I resolved to learn a few quotations from the set books, especially verses from the poets, and intersperse these quotations in appropriate passages of my answers. This method enabled me to avoid further failures in English. Is this another argument against an examination-orientated education?
However, Prof. Rose’s approach to instruction was by no means orientated towards examinations – there was no possibility of ’spotting’ the questions that he would set. It was only in his lectures on Roman Religion that you could take down some notes, and indeed being a well known authority on that subject, he gave us very interesting lecture. Roman Religion was one of several Special subjects which you were allowed to study in the Honours course. Actually, of the five pursuing Honours, four of us opted for Roman Religion, while Bill Elias alone chose to study Philology with Miss Woodward.
I have already mentioned Prof. Rose’s unconventiality. He shocked his class of three men and one woman when describing some primitive customs such as fertility rites. He mentioned the image of the god Priapus which was to be found in many Roman gardens – he had a large head, a small body and a huge penis. When describing the primitive method of igniting a fire, he took a board-pointer, placed it through the inkwell hole in the desk and twirled it around. He said that the pointer was called the male wood and the plank underneath the inkwell hole the female wood. ‘Of course’, he said,’ you can see the analogy!’.
Unfortunately, but perhaps in the event fortunately, Prof. Rose moved from Aber half-way through the session to become Professor of Greek in St. Andrew’s University, Scotland. For the remainder of the session Mr E.D.T. Jenkins, Head of the Greek Department, took charge of both the Latin and Greek departments. Mr Jenkins, known as Jinks Bach, was a completely different character from Prof. Rose. He was more of the Secondary School type of teacher. However, although his approach was rather uninspiring and unimaginative, he made us prepare our work thoroughly, and so there could not have been any adverse break in our studies during his interregnum. Indeed, in later years when I applied for the Headship of Llandovery County School he gave me a really glowing testimonial.
Geraint Owen, D.A. Thomas and I continued to play rugby, but I cannot recollect whether Geraint and D.A. succeeded in being chosen for the Firsts that year or whether it was in the third year. It was in my fourth year, my Teacher’s Training year, that I managed to be picked about half a dozen times for the Firsts. Bill, in the second year, realising that there was little chance of his being chosen for the Firsts, decided to have a go at playing hockey. Thanks to his innate ability in games, he soon gained a place in the first Hockey XI even though he had never handled a hockey stick before.
I had several trips that year, either playing for the Seconds or supporting the Firsts. One such trip with the Firsts proved to be the most fateful in my life, fateful in the sense that it set the wheels moving towards a life of married bliss which has now reached the half-century mark. The First Team, due to play Llangennech on that day, had stopped in Carmarthen, where they were informed that the game had been cancelled. Walking along the streets I met two young girls, one of whom I knew as Elsie Jones, who was teaching in Ysbyty School, the other being introduced as the new teacher in Panteg. This new teacher was to be my wife after several years of courting. However, I cannot say that it was a case of love at first sight, and it was after several meetings during my holidays that we eventually came to an understanding. In my last two years in College, Carrie and I corresponded regularly every week.
The F.A. Cup Final of 1985 between Manchester United and Everton has generated much excitement among soccer fans, and especially among Welsh fans because of the inclusion of Welsh players in both teams. A similar level of excitement was engendered by the Cup Final of May 1927, at the end of my second year in College and at the end of my second year in the Trinity Road digs.
There was great interest in the game in our digs, mainly because Dai Jim was a prominent member of both the College and the Town teams, and Mrs Rees’ son (and Mr Rees’ step-son) Aeron Thomas was a leading player in the Aber XI; and again because one of the teams in the Final was Cardiff City, a Welsh team! Mr Rees and Aeron travelled with a large contingent from Aber all the way to Wembley, and their long trip was rewarded with a dramatic victory by Cardiff City over Arsenal. I can remember quite clearly Mr Rees’ attempt at conveying the excitement of the one goal scored by Len Davies right through the legs of the Arsenal goal-keeper.
The end of the second year came with all exams passed, enabling Bill and me to pursue the Final Honours Course in Latin in our third year. Dai Jim had completed his Teacher’s Training with success, perhaps no great achievement as hardly anyone was failed. He also succeeded in gaining an appointment for the following academic year, although there was much unemployment among budding teachers. What with his good Honours degree and his prowess on the football field he was the successful applicant for the post of Chemistry teacher at Tywyn County School.
For some reason or other, Bill and I decided to change our digs for the crucial Honours year. We must have decided to look for digs in a quiet part of Aber. That we found in No. 8, Glyndwr Road, a cul-de-sac leading to the Drill Hall. In many ways Bill and I were ideal co-diggers. We realised that we had no outstanding ability and had to put in a lot of hard work to cover the Honours Course in Latin, as many as twenty-six set books having to be studied; we both refused to succumb to the many distractions of College social life; we both took similar exercise in that we continued to play Rugger; we had our half-hour of billiards every day followed by a walk on the Prom; we often had long country walks on Sunday. I have mentioned playing rugger. Bill decided in the Honours year to change allegiance from Hockey to Rugger, and if I remember rightly, he, D.A. and Geraint succeeded in gaining regular places in the First XV.
In spite of these similarities in temperament and interests, there was a great deal of tension between us at times. We had the impression that the class awarded in Honours depended on your position in relation to the others, that is that the one who came out top stood a good chance of gaining a good class, even a First. So there was a certain amount of rivalry among the five taking the course. Bill and I, I suppose, felt this all the more as we saw all the time what kind of marks we were having, especially in the weekly assignment of Unseens and Prose translations. Looking back, this feeling of tension was completely unjustified, as the class awarded depended a great deal on the External Examiner, and on the comparative results gained in the other three Colleges.
It was with a certain amount of curiosity, tinged with a little anxiety, that we looked forward to meeting the newly-appointed Latin Professor. Our anxiety was soon dispelled as Prof J.F. Mountford proved to be a friendly, approachable type of person. He had the rounded and rosy-cheeked face of a jovial butcher, the impression of a butcher being enhanced by his very light-coloured raincoat. Those of us who took Roman Religion as a special subject wondered whether he was expert enough in that subject to continue where Prof. Rose had left off. We had our doubts about this as we had learned from Miss Woodward that Prof. Mountford’s special interest was Latin music. However we soon found out that there was no need to worry. Actually, his lectures were quite interesting, and at the same time delivered in such a way that at the end of the lecture we had useful notes for study and for revision. That could be said for the lectures on all the other topics.
I have often maintained that the most difficult exam I had to sit was the Higher Certificate exam; what is today called the A level. In all College exams it was possible to anticipate, with some degree of certainty, many of the questions, as your studies had been directed by the examiners themselves – you knew what their favourite topics were, and you knew what was their approach to those topics. It was not so in Higher; it was impossible to anticipate special questions; you felt you had to have a thorough knowledge of the whole set syllabus. I do not think that I can claim to have been quite so cool, calm and collected when sitting the Latin Honours papers. The reason for that was that most Honours students were anxious not to just pass, but to gain a respectable class.
The weather during the exams, even if one remained calm and collected, did not help one to remain cool. They were held in a heat-wave in early June. I still have a vivid picture in my mind of the first paper – the Latin Prose paper. There we were, five of us among a large crowd of anxious-looking examinees in a huge hall that was so badly ventilated that all the doors along the sides had to be left open in order to create a draught of cool air. That meant that we had a clear view of people enjoying themselves playing tennis while we toiled and racked our brains for suitable answers.
We had three hours in which to translate into Latin two passages of prose. I made rough copies with the intention of making improvements in my fair copies. But I failed to have further inspiration and so sat back for the last hour watching the tennis, and without putting pen to paper. This has always been a failing of mine, a failing that is still persisting in the writing of these memoirs. I write a rough copy and when I sit down to write the fair copy I find that I cannot make any emendations or any polishing of style.
We had to sit seven papers in all. One of these was the Verse Composition Paper which was being marked by Miss Woodward. I felt that I had performed in the paper according to form; that is, Verse Composition had always been a weakness of mine. When I met Miss Woodward at the end of the exams I told her that I had not done well in her paper, and her curt answer was, ‘No, you haven’t!’. However I was not unduly worried as we had been told that this paper had no great bearing on the result.
Many students stayed up after their exams had ended until the results were given. Several days had to elapse before the results were given, as the papers had first to be overlooked by the external examiner.
So, knowing that the hay harvest had started at home I decided to pack up and leave for home to await the result. After some anxious waiting the fateful envelope was delivered by the postman. The result given was Honours in Latin, Class II, Division I. Without any justification at all I was a little disappointed that I had not gained a First. Actually no one in Aber had a First; Morris Kyffin and I had 2A’s, W.V. Williams had a 2B and Bill and Agnes Mead had Thirds. Bill’s result was a very disappointing one; I did not think there would be such a difference in our results for we had both devoted more or less the same hours to study, and the marks that we gained throughout the course, if weighted a little in my favour, had been comparatively close.
Having crossed the main and most difficult hurdle we were determined to enjoy our Teachers’ Training Year. Most students did not take a too serious approach to the courses of the year. We realised that the practice of education was what really mattered and determined the eventual pass or failure. So serious preparation was concentrated on what were called Criticism lessons and on the teaching practice in schools.
As serious study was to be discounted, Bill and I decided that we could have D.A. Thomas to dig with us. So we again changed digs, this time more to the centre of the town, on the corner of North Road and Queen’s Road. Our landladies were two old spinsters, the Misses Cole. They were an old-fashioned humourless pair, and the furniture and décor of the rooms were gloomy and old-fashioned, but there was an improvement on our other digs – each of us had a separate bedroom.
The three of us had to return to Aber two weeks before the beginning of the official term in order to put in a fortnight’s teaching in a local school. D.A. had been advised to follow the Teachers’ Training Course in spite of his having failed to qualify for a degree. In his third year, having been rejected for an Honours Course, he had pursued finals in Chemistry and Physics, but he failed both. There is no doubt that D.A., not taking life too seriously, had wasted a great deal of time in social and sporting activities.
To gain a Teacher’s Certificate you had to study and pass in the theory of Education, but more importantly, your ability as a teacher had to be assessed during forty days of practical work in various schools. The fortnight before the beginning of the Autumn Term was meant to give you a gentle introduction to teaching; it was spent more in observation than actual teaching. I was sent, with another student, to a small Primary School in Rhydypennau, between Bow Street and Llandre, and strangely enough, here am I, nearly sixty years later, having lived in several different parts of Wales, writing these notes hardly a mile from this very school.
D.A.’s presence in digs brought about a great change in our life-style. As he took part in so many College activities, we had constant callers from several students with similar interests. It was surprising that the Misses Cole put up with such comings and goings, but I should think, because they depended so much on the little income gained, they were loath to lay down any strict rules.
As we had so much time on our hands for leisure pursuits, in addition to frequenting concerts, smokers, and entertainments we had regular card schools in digs. The card games played were mainly Auction Bridge and sometimes Poker. We even joined schools in the Students’ Union, but the regulars there were not much to our liking; they were much too keen and too ready to hold post-mortems. As we were three in digs, we needed only one other to make up the four for Bridge. The one other, more often, was either Bill Harries or Frank Cleaver – two very different characters. Bill Harries was a North Walian with characteristics generally attributable to Northerners – cool, calm and deliberate of speech, while Frank Cleaver, a South Walian, was excitable, impetuous and fond of foul expletives.
The card sessions were usually held after supper, and supper was after ten o’clock almost every night – a practice that must have been annoying to our landladies. There was a reason for the late suppers – D.A. had had a love-affair for quite a time with a Music student, Hilda Pugh, while Bill had just been bitten by the bug. So the early evening was spent with their girl friends, and it was only after the ten o’clock closing of the Hostel doors that they returned to digs. No such temptation came my way, as by this time Carrie and I corresponded regularly and kept company when I was on holiday.
One card session stands out very vividly in my memory. After supper four of us settled down to a game of Bridge, the stakes being a modest penny a hundred. My partner and I soon piled up a good number of points for our side. Midnight arrived with our partnership still holding a substantial lead, and so our opponents refused to give up and insisted on carrying on. At two o’clock we were six hundred points up, and although this did not mean that there was a substantial sum involved, they insisted on continuing. And so it went on in spite of my protestations. It was six a.m.. When we eventually ceased playing, and the score was exactly the same as it was at two o’clock! We had two hours in bed, and then it was a mad rush for the nine o’clock lecture.
Before going to the lecture room, we had to have a glance at the notice board to see what team had been chosen for the Firsts game against Lampeter College at Lampeter on the following Saturday. And to my surprise my name was included in the team – we four, Bill, D.A., Geraint and I had been chosen to form half the pack of forwards, quite an achievement for Carmarthen Gram!
By the Saturday I had developed a bad cold, but no such misfortune was going to stop my turning out for the first time in the First XV. We had to change in the College itself, while the game was being played in a field about half-a-mile away. D.A. told me that the best treatment for my cold was a hot whisky. So, on the way to the field we called in a pub and had a hot whisky each – my first taste of alcohol! It must have done me a lot of good, for although the game itself was a shambles, I thought I had performed with credit and had made some contribution towards winning the game.
The game was a shambles because the referee lost control completely. An incident at the beginning of the game soured the whole match. A Lampeter front-row forward rose up from a scrum with blood streaming down his face from a gash above his eyebrow. The Lampeter inside-half, Berach Bach, immediately pointed to one of our forwards as the culprit. He was given marching orders straightaway, but I was convinced that Britton was innocent and that the culprit was really D.A., who indeed had quite a reputation for toughness and rough play. The match ended with Lampeter having thirteen men, and Aber fourteen. Quite a baptism for me!
Weekly criticism lessons, called by us crits., were held every week in Alexandra Road Primary School and Ardwyn Grammar School, when a Professor or Lecturer with a group of the Training students listened to a lesson given by a trainee, and then gave their criticism of the presentation. It was an ordeal anticipated with some dread by the students, especially the shy and diffident type.
My turn came to give a crit. in Ardwyn Grammar School. I was to translate a Latin Unseen with Form Five. Teaching Latin had its advantages – classes were generally small and composed of those intelligent pupils reckoned to have an aptitude for languages. Although young inexperienced student teachers often had problems of discipline and of control of their classes, it was not often that unruly and disruptive children dared to misbehave in the presence of an inspector. For my lesson in Ardwyn Prof Mountford was my assessor, and on the whole he confined his remarks to helpful rather than adverse criticism.
There were many amusing stories told about these crit. lessons. A certain lesson given in Alexandra Road School was supervised by a partly-retired Professor of Education, by the name of Foster Watson. He had a short pointed beard and was known to the students as Fuzzy Wuzzy. His pet theory was what he called ‘eye discipline’, that is, all the teacher needed to do to stop a child misbehaving in class was to fix him with his eye. But his theory had a disastrous result in this lesson. When Foster Watson took over the lesson in order to show how it should be taught, he spotted a boy in the back talking and being inattentive. So he applied his pet theory; he fixed him with his eye. The boy stared back and responded, ‘What are you staring at, you bloody goatee?’.
The last two or three weeks of the term were spent in a particular school in one of three counties; Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and Merionethshire. I was sent with another to Llanelli County School for Boys, where there was quite a thriving Latin Department. Naturally, a raw student was not given many lessons with the Upper Forms. So most of the lessons that I had to give were with the Lower Forms, large classes of thirty five to forty lively boys, very often in small rooms in cramped desks.
The School, at this time, was over-crowded in old buildings and temporary huts, and it was no easy task to keep your classes sufficiently under control to give effective lessons. One Form was particularly difficult to control. It was one of three Forms housed in a temporary hut, divided by glass partitions. You had a clear view through the clear glass of the next room, and even of the room further away. The room too was so cramped that the boys, sitting in long desks, had to write on their exercise books, with one having his book on the desk and the one next to him holding his book on his knees, and thus alternately along the whole desk.
But what made the teaching in this room so difficult was the frequent presence in the next room of the weakest disciplinarian on the permanent staff. In all my years of teaching I have never seen a teacher with so complete a lack of control of his classes. He would be seen sitting at the teacher’s desk with head down, taking no notice at all of the boys throwing missiles at each other, and even walking on top of the desks.
I was rather anxious about the possibility of being inspected by one of the College Education Department inspectors when I was taking a lesson with this Form of lively boys and when Daddy, as he was called by the boys, was taking the next Form. And indeed it was to this very Form that Georgie Green of the Education Department came to inspect me. But what a transformation! They responded impeccably. I am sure that I could not have been criticised for lack of discipline and control.
On the whole, children respond responsibly when an Inspector is present. I remember a Latin Inspector being sent to a school, which I shall not name, in order to assess a teacher who was known to be unable to control his classes. This Inspector, realising that classes were not likely to misbehave in his presence, was appalled that even then this teacher lost control, so he had no alternative but to advise him to resign rather than be given the sack.
One of the problems for me, who did not frequent pubs, was what to do with the long evenings and even more so with the week-ends. There was no need to spend a whole evening preparing lessons, and indeed, because we never had a full time-table of teaching, much of the preparation could be done in free periods. I must have spent more than one evening a week in one of the cinemas. It was then that I heard the first talkie – Al Jolson in ‘The Singing Fool’.
Before returning home at the end of the first term I was informed that I would have to put in two or three days in a school near my home in order to ensure that I would have completed the necessary number of teaching days by the end of the year. I arranged to have these days in a small nearby school, called Ysbyty School, a school that had one room only and, at that time, one teacher. On a particularly cold afternoon John Davies, the teacher, told me to take about a half a dozen of the youngest children to sit around the coal-stove in the middle of the room, and then try to keep their attention by telling them whatever I liked. That must have been the longest and most taxing lesson that I have ever taken! How I kept on talking throughout the whole afternoon, without any preconceived plan, I cannot imagine.
What I remember of the second term of the training year are the Rugger matches, the Inter-Coll, Eisteddfod and the final teaching practice. I managed to keep my place in the First XV at the beginning of the term, but for the Inter-Coll matches in Inter-Coll week the selection committee decided that they must have a bigger and heavier hooker. So I was denied the coveted honour of being awarded half-colours, the qualification being half a dozen games with the Firsts and one Inter-Coll game.
So I was a spectator for these games against Cardiff, Bangor and Swansea. The Cardiff and Bangor matches were at home, while the Swansea game was away. But I managed to watch the Swansea game in Singleton Park, having travelled down with the college choir, competing in the Eisteddfod in the Patti Pavilion, Swansea. Swansea had a very strong team which included two players who later became outstanding members of the senior Welsh team – Claude Davey and Watcyn Thomas. So the result was a win for Swansea.
During the training year I had drawn closer to the Welsh-speaking contingent and had become a member of the College choir. The Inter-Coll Eisteddfod is still a very thriving institution in all the constituent colleges, creating much rivalry among the students. Like most Eisteddfodau, the one in Patti Pavilion continued, midst much excitement and even rowdiness, until the small hours of the morning. What I remember is that the choir failed to get a first, and that the final tally of points did not favour Aber. More often than not, the home College were the eventual winner of the so-called championship.
The Inter-Coll week was also the Rag Week. Bill and I, as usual, took no active part, but D.A. was very much involved. I wonder whether the Education Department was aware of this and thought that he was devoting too much time to such activities to the detriment of his studies. However, D.A. was no conformist and aroused the displeasure of the Department in many ways. The result was that he was failed at the end of the year.
For the final teaching practice I was sent to Dolgellau Grammar School. My partner was Dawson Ridley, one of the College characters. He was popular among students because of his extrovert, fun-loving and often irresponsible behaviour. Indeed, we were a thoroughly incompatible pair. He used to spend the evenings in Dolgellau with one of the school staff, notorious for his drinking and who had been censured more than once by the School Governors. Dawson also complained that he had lent him sums of money, without being repaid.
Actually, Dolgellau was such a quiet unexciting town in the winter-time that we decided to spend our week-ends back in Aber. We managed to do this without financial loss, by bargaining with our landladies. The grant given by the Education Department for digs was thirty shillings a week. We shrewdly divided this thirty shillings between the two digs so that we had a sufficient surplus to pay for the train-fare both ways. Dolgellau Grammar School was a comparatively small school with a few boarders – a complete contrast to Llanelli County School. The pupils too were a more docile lot. So the teaching was done with very little strain – indeed, it was quite a pleasant experience.
Even before sitting the finals in June, we began to apply for jobs. Every Friday morning the newspaper racks in the Students’ Union were crowded with Training Department students scanning the advertisements for jobs, mainly in the Times Educational Supplement. In spite of the depression of the early thirties, there were plenty of vacancies in Secondary Modern Schools but not so in Grammar Schools. As no Sec. Mod. Schools had Latin on their curricula, Bill and I could apply only for jobs in Grammar Schools. It seemed to us that the few vacancies for Latin were filled mainly by Oxford and Cambridge graduates. But I did have an affirmative response for one application, and was called up for interview. I was really the first of the trainees to gain an interview. But there was no success.
The interview in Heversham was rather an unnerving and anxious experience. First of all, the travelling was quite trying for an inexperienced traveller. The train journey from Aber involved a very early morning start, several changes with helter-skelter running from one platform to another, and then after arriving at Lancaster having to travel the final few miles to Heversham by bus.
Eventually, I arrived at the school, just as the boarders were making their way for tea in the dining-room. The Headmaster, after asking a few questions about my journey, invited me to have tea with the boys. This again was by no means an unadulterated pleasure – I felt that all eyes were fixed on me, and I wondered what kind of impression I was making.
After tea the Head asked me what my plans were for returning to Aber. I had to tell him that I would have to stay the night in an hotel in Lancaster and then catch the first available train in the morning. So he kindly, or so he thought, I suppose, told me that I could stay in the school for the night, and in order to pass the fine summer’s evening I could take a walk over to the playing fields, and have look at the facilities there. I cannot remember having a formal interview with the Head, and indeed there was no interview with the School Governors.
Another novel experience for me was to hear a knock on my bedroom door at seven o’clock and to see a pretty young maid entering with a cup of tea on a tray. After breakfast with the boys I returned to the bedroom to collect my things, and then I set out after saying good-bye to the Head, thinking that I could not have made a favourable impression. But worse was to come – after I had gone about two or three hundred yards, I realised that I had no money and that I had left it on the bedside cabinet. So feeling that the bad impression was worse compounded with my forgetfulness, I returned, with nervous apologies, to collect my money. And what a feeling of relief when at last I got away from an ordeal that in the end resulted in receiving a letter informing me that the post had been filled.
After that I must have filled dozens of application forms for jobs anywhere in Wales, England, Scotland, and even in South Africa. This I did throughout the summer holidays without having even a reply from most schools, However, toward the end of the holidays, I was summoned to two interviews, one in Birkenhead High School for Boys and one in Hawarden County School.
Both interviews followed the usual pattern of appearing before the Headmaster and the Board of Governors and answering formal questions. Although these interviews were rather nerve-racking they were not such a long-drawn-out and tortuous affair as the one in Heversham. Neither interview brought me a job, but I felt that the job in Hawarden would have been mine had there not been a strange quirk of fate.
Both Bill and I had had invitations for the interview. Bill thought that since I had a Second and he a Third I had the better chance even though he had superior sporting qualifications. When we arrived in the School and met a third applicant we felt really confident that one of us would get the job, as this applicant, a Double First in Latin and Greek, had had several interviews already and had obviously been turned down because of a very bad stammer.
After we met the Head, Bill thought that the job would be mine, as the Head was concentrating his attention on me, and even suggesting what my answers to the questions should be. The interviews started promptly at three o’clock, and the first to be interviewed was the Double First. But, mirabile dictu! A fourth applicant turned up at twenty past three, having travelled from Northern Ireland and having started his journey that morning and then hitch-hiked all the way from Holyhead, while Bill and I, travelling from Carmarthen, had had to travel the previous day and had to stay in an hotel in Chester. He had one qualification for the job that we did not have – one year’s teaching experience. I believe that it was this that weighted in his favour and gained him the job.
At the end of the summer holidays of that year Bill too had been unsuccessful in obtaining a job. Having had a Third in his Honours he was unable to return to College to study for a Higher Degree. So in the end he decided to apply for jobs in Private Schools even though the salary offered was a good deal less that that of the Burnham Scale. Eventually he succeeded in gaining a job in a Private School in Warminster, which proved to be a stepping-stone to a post in Hookergate Grammar School, near Newcastle-on-Tyne.
D.A. not only failed his Degree Finals but he also left College without a Teacher’s Training Certificate. I hardly think he was failed because of lack of teaching ability. It is quite probable that his rather rebellious nature had come to the notice of the Education Department, and maybe a poor showing in the theory examinations gave a sufficient justification for their failing him.
D.A.’s misdemeanours were well-known to the students, but there was one particular stunt of his that was kept secret from all except from me. On the door of Alexandra Hall, the women’s hostel, there was a brass plaque giving the name of the hostel and the name of the warden, Miss K. Guthkelch. D.A. on a particularly dark night borrowed a screw-driver, unscrewed the plaque and took it back to digs. He showed it to me, but he made me swear to keep it secret. On the following day the President of the Students announced from the grid in the Quad that the plaque had been stolen and that it should be returned immediately. This went on for about a month, the announcement being repeated every morning. At the end of the month D.A. decided that he had had enough of this, and again in the dead of night replaced the plaque without a single soul, except myself, knowing who had perpetrated the misdeed.
Another amusing incident which may illustrate D.A.’s character must be related here. Towards the end of the summer term he decided to try to qualify for Swimming Colours. All you had to do to qualify was to swim a mile in the sea off the Promenade. Bill and I were rather doubtful of his chances of success because his only swimming stroke was the breast-stroke, and yet we felt that his strength and stamina as well as his physical courage might carry him through.
D.A. returned to digs just as Bill and I were sitting down to tea. He was beaming with success, and his first words were, “Boys, I have swum the mile, and what is more I have drunk half a bottle of whisky neat, and I am still perfectly sober”. He sat down to tea, but the amusing part was that you could see the gradual process of getting drunk. By the time we finished tea, he was talking all kinds of nonsense. He pointed to a picture on the wall – the ubiquitous Monarch of the Glen – and said, “That’s funny! That animal has two front legs and four hind legs”. When Miss Cole came to clear the table, D.A. got up from his chair and immediately collapsed on the floor. We tried to make excuses for him – “He has just swum a mile, and is feeling ill”.
But the episode did not end there. At six o’clock that evening the four of us, Bill, D.A., Geraint and I, had to turn up in the College to have our photo taken with the College Rugger XV. The problem was how to get him up through the streets to the College without any of the College authorities seeing him in such a state. After much cajoling and coaxing we managed to get him to College undetected, and in order to keep him out of sight until it was time for the photo to be taken we took him down to the underground toilets. I have the photo of the team in my possession and in it you can see D.A., bleary-eyed and with his head in a slumped position.
In spite of D.A.’s academic failures in College, the subsequent story of his life is one of success after success. He managed to be appointed to the post of sports Master at Colfe’s Grammar School, London, as a non-graduate (a cheap appointment for the Authority!). At the end of his first year of teaching he returned to College to sit finals in Chemistry and Physics and to resit the examination for the Teaching Certificate. He passed both Finals and since the Education Department had had a good report of his teaching ability in Colfe’s Grammar School they had no option but to grant him his certificate. After a few years in the Grammar School, he was appointed Headmaster of Ammanford Secondary Modern School, a post he held with much success.
Having failed to gain a teaching post, I decided to return to college to pursue a course of research for the degree of M.A. So I consulted Professor Mountford about a topic for research. The topic he gave me was ‘The Syntax and Vocabulary of the De Excidio Britannica of Gildas’. I had never heard of Gildas, nor of his work the De Excidio Britannicae. Professor Mountford told me that by making a study of the syntax and vocabulary only, I would avoid the complexities of authorship, style, and historicity, and at the same time I could add to my knowledge of the Latin language.
Although I had never heard of Gildas I soon learned that he had a significant importance for the study of one particular period of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon history. Gildas was a Celtic saint who spent most of his life in Wales, living in the Sixth Century A.D. The ‘De Excidio’ is divided into two parts: 1) the Epistle 2) the History. The History is the one documentary evidence for the first half of the century, hence its importance. However, the History is more of a sermon or diatribe attacking the morals of the period, and especially of five Welsh Princes, and so much of the evidence given is of doubtful value to historians.
Bill and D.A. having left College, I decided to team up with Geraint Owen. We found suitable digs in No. 11, Queen’s Road. My memories of this research year are extremely vague. Indeed I must have concentrated so much on the research that I had very little interest in College social life.
Digging with Geraint, too, was no incentive to becoming involved in social activities. If anyone deserved the appellation ’swot’, Geraint was the one. After gaining a First Class Honours in Welsh, he had decided to pursue a two year course in Honours History. So the two of us were devoting most of our time to study, he to sit Honours and I to complete my research by the end of the year. But our method of working was completely different. He would always sit by the table writing summaries of what he was reading, while I preferred to sit in an easy chair to do my reading.
By the end of the year Geraint had mountainous piles of notes, far too many for any worth-while revision. However, his method paid dividends, as again he gained a First Class Honours. While Geraint had this mountainous pile of notes, I had equally mountainous piles of slips recording every syntactical usage and every non-classical word, all of which had to be evaluated and collated for the final copy of my thesis. I used to spend most mornings and afternoons in the National Library of Wales consulting works in German and French, and using for the vocabulary heavy dictionaries, such as the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, seven huge volumes of German research (interrupted, I believe, at the letter I by the 1914-18 war), Forcellini’s Latin Dictionary, and, of course, the Lewis and Short Dictionary.
Fortunately, I had one relaxation and even recreation from a continual round of research. That was the teaching I continued to do in Miss Trotter’s School. Not only did this provide relaxation but it provided a sum of money which was very much appreciated since I had ceased to have a Teacher’s Training grant. I was paid five shillings an hour, a princely sum in those days. As I taught six lessons a week, my weekly wage, as it were, came to thirty shillings. Since the landlady’s bill hardly ever came to more than a pound, and since I continued to have my weekly hamper from home, I was able to subsist quite well on thirty shillings. Of course, it was frugal living! I remember that my supper was almost invariably bread and butter and threepenny fish from the fish and chips shop nearby.
Towards the end of the year I submitted my written thesis to Professor Mountford so that he could give his assessment and judge whether it would satisfy the examiners. He saw no reason why it should not satisfy them and advised me to submit the thesis in the following spring.
In the meantime I was still applying for jobs – any Latin job anywhere and everywhere. However I returned home at the end of the academic year with no job in prospect. There was, of course, no dole in those days. Fortunately I was able to help on the farm, and thus justify my continued dependence on my parents for food and lodging. Geraint, not satisfied with his Double Honours, decided to study for a further degree in Oxford University.