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

longer really welcome, which was no surprise. At that point the pressures were made much
worse, pressure at home and pressure at the EDCL. The only small island of escape was the
digs at Alexandra Road, and my attic room. The latter was the only place free of sudden verbal
assault or overwhelmingly false authority. For the first time I began to feel that it may be better
to leave for Aberystwyth early, but in the end stuck it out until about mid January 1971. By that
time the final examinations were only about six months distant, so the atmosphere among the
class of 1971 was one of nervous anticipation. The class was particularly anxious that they be
lectured to clearly, but a vain hope. There is a lot wrong with the lecturing system itself if not
tightly disciplined and clearly delivered. This is what I tried to do a few years later at UNCC.
The change over to practical organic chemistry took place in the middle of the
Spring term of 1971. This meant classes in the new organic laboratory built behind the main
EDCL Building. I had a look at the place on google maps while I am writing this, there seems
to be a stub left of that organic chemistry laboratory but little else. It has a ludicrous existence
now as some kind of pottery shop for something described as “Aberystwyth University”. In the
Spring Term of 1971 the eighteen students of the final year chemistry class were guided up the
staircase past the stores, around an obscure corner, and sideways into the new organic teaching
laboratory. It was an improvement over the reeking atmosphere of the old laboratory, full of
ancient fumes. Each student had a cupboard of apparatus and I still have distinct memories of
that new organic laboratory. For example I spent a short half term break in a synthesis on my
own. On another occasion Sam Graham talked in quite an interesting way on analysis of
compounds using NMR, interpreting chemical shift patterns in the manner of an organic and
analytical chemist. There were interesting side rooms with ultra violet apparatus, and perhaps
gas chromatography and infra red. All of that was totally destroyed in 1988 when the EDCL
closed. Practical organic chemistry was my weakest subject so caused me the greatest amount
of anxiety. This level of anxiety was increased by a practical examination. The course was not
assessed entirely on that one practical examination, but it contributed quite a percentage.
The practical organic examination took place towards the end of that Easter
term of 1971, but before that happened the EDCL was evacuated one day by a fire alarm. The
class of 1971 huddled together in a white coated heap on the grass outside the old lecture
theatre and started chanting: “burn, burn, please burn down, burn, burn please burn down” in a
scene from “The Lord of the Flies”. Just before the final practical examination I was
interviewed in Welsh by the BBC in that laboratory. I was the only one who could speak Welsh
and was singled out by J. M. Thomas for the task. I improvised desperately as the other
students watched and at one point let slip a remark that chemistry was not as important to me as
cynghanedd. For this I was scowled at by JMT, who was already trying to use the BBC to get
himself an FRS. He managed this at last in 1978 and vanished never to return. I believe he went
to a place called Cambridge where no Welsh was spoken. During his tenure as head of
department the EDCL greatly declined as a teaching laboratory, it graduated eighteen students
in 1971 but only five in 1978. The entire sixties expansion had been pointless.
The practical examination itself consisted of an unseen synthesis ambushing
the unsuspecting students. Russell Drury was next to me and set off at a furious pace. He had
been a technician and thought that the examination was a race. There were crucibles, flasks,
retorts and electric heaters flying everywhere until someone put him out of his misery and told