Part 2 in process - Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS)

fitted into small cornices of the House of Commons, from which they are hooked out for a
vote, and from which several fiddled expenses.
The last lecture and the last practical class disappeared, and there was
silence upon the waves as in Genesis, but there was no sign of creation. The remains of the
shattered castle were saturated by a cold mist and a colder rain and glowered over Sea View
Place. How glad were those lecturers to get rid of the students. I have only the vaguest
memories of those Christmas examinations. Having found the door of the Old College off the
alley of dustbins (Pier Street), I could at least find the place of trial. The door is situated in a
very narrow alleyway of its own, along which putting tourists stray if they hit the golf ball too
hard. None of our lectures took place in that grim Gothic pile that used to be the railway hotel.
The University of Wales was founded in the late nineteenth century and the hotel became the
Old College. This was a great and noble aim that was corrupted quickly into meaninglessness,
so by the time I arrived on the scene in 1968 nothing of the ideals remained. There was a small
department of Welsh but that was kept carefully hidden in a corner. There were a few friendly
Welsh students, and there were courageous people like Ffred Ffrancis, often imprisoned for his
efforts on behalf of the Welsh Nation and Welsh language. None of these ideals remained in
chemistry, physics and mathematics, departments which should more comfortably have been
housed in Surrey, may be Tunbridge Wells in Kent, another spa.
So among the rubbish, dark alleys and dustbins of discarded ideals, I had to
make my way to that hidden doorway one howling rain sodden December night, and find the
examination room. I must have ordered two scoops of green peas to fortify mind and body. I
had to leave my notes behind and make my way directly to the door. The alternative was life
down a coal mine, and that would have been the end of me. The second choice was the
machine shop of Aladdin, amid the crashing presses and grease removing poison for the rest of
my life. I had gone through these trials endless times at the Grammar School, ever since the age
of eleven or twelve. This Gothic relic must have a room in it somewhere, a room filled with
desks and overseen by a grim prison master, hauled out for exam duty and in no good humour.
The route to the hidden doorway of the alley way was through a graveyard flanked by a castle
wall. All of this was a Norman idea, the churches were built close to the castles. The Norman
thought that all natives should be excluded. I think I went around via Pier Street or down the
side of Laura Place, very quickly and straight for the door. It was indeed open and there was a
light inside. Come to meet your destiny it beckoned. A piece of cardboard on a stick guided
the student towards the examination room. At that point things began to feel familiar. I had
gone through the trial by fire many times before. There could have been three written
examinations in chemistry: physical, inorganic and organic and these were the ones that took
place in the Old College. There could have been just one examination. The examinations in
physics and mathematics must have taken place in the campus on Penglais. They were
concerned only with a few weeks of lectures, but needed to be attacked and demolished. I recall
very vaguely that the questions set by Mansel Davies were hand written with fingers missing,
so had to be deciphered. The examination papers must have been stencilled out and placed on
rows of desks. The smell o the stencil solvent was the first thing that greeted a student at an
examination desk before the age of xerox. No calculators were allowed because there were no
calculators in 1968. We did everything by log book. Even these may have been issued to