Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

stodgy dried egg omelettes late at night, to keep the hunger pangs at bay, before we
went to bed. In my first year I made friends with an American airman whom I met
and invited in for tea; we had some interesting conversations. One outcome was that
he wrote home to his sister and she sent me regular food parcels for a time, which
were very welcome. We entertained friends, of both sexes, to tea and toasted
crumpets before the fire - when we had not run out of coal. I suppose we had a lot of
carbohydrate and not very much meat in the College meals, but we did quite well
and were healthy. One food much detested was tinned snoek – sharkmeat from
South Africa.
It was also possible to eat out when funds ran to it. The curry restaurants were
popular. And we frequented pubs. Until then I had no experience of drinking. Green
Gables was tee-total and I had been limited to the odd sherry or shandy before
Sunday lunch at home in Whitley Bay, or a special nip of whisky or Gin and Stones
Ginger, for a nightcap in the evening. Now we spent many evenings at the pubs. The
‘Eagle’, the ‘Anchor’, the ‘Mill’ and the ‘Little Rose’ were the ones near to St
Catharine's, which we frequented most, but sometimes we went further afield, to the
‘Baron of Beef’ or the ‘Pickerel’, which later were put out of bounds, as haunts of
prostitutes and American airmen. Or we ran out to the ‘Green Man’ or ‘Red Lion’ in
Grantchester by way of training, or to the Trumpington pubs.
In College from time to time I was required to read a lengthy Latin grace before
dinner in Hall because this was a duty shared by the Scholars. We had a competition
to see who could read it the fastest and I became quite fluent. I still remember and
can reel off the words - "Oculi omnium aspiciunt et in te sperant, Domine. Tu das iis
Escas illorum tempore opportuno . . .“ When eating in hall we wore our tattered, short,
gowns and were required to wear them in the streets after dark, otherwise we were
likely to be accosted by the Proctors and their ‘Bulldogs’ and fined for being without
a gown – as ‘improperly dressed’. The College gates were locked at ten o'clock and
to get inside after this you either had to have a pass from your Tutor or pay a fine.
So we learnt to climb into College and the ‘night climbers of Cambridge’ were active.
There was a book of this title that we all studied, which described all the routes and
their degrees of difficulty; some were very dangerous, so climbing was frowned
upon. Students climbed the towers of King's College Chapel and placed
chamberpots, (which were still in regular use at that time), on the pinnacles; the
engineers on at least one occasion dismantled a Morris Seven car and reassembled it
on top.
It was all new and exciting and one was free to experiment and be independent
in a way that had not been possible before. Also, collegiate society during the early
years when I was a student constituted a particularly interesting mix. There were
young people like myself who had come straight up from school and older students
who had interrupted their studies to go to war, or had not gone to University from
school at the usual age, but returned from the war with a wealth of experiences,
good and bad. Many of my friends had been in the tank battles in the Western
desert, in the Navy commanding Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs), in the RAF, flying
fighter planes. Some had been captured and incarcerated in Prisoner of War camps
in Japan or Germany; some had been wounded. We all got on well together and
both played and studied hard. The returned warriors were I suppose more serious
and had thought about what they wanted to do with their lives; they were more
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