211075 Downing Record 07 - Downing College - University of ...

celebrating “Salute the Soldier” in honour of the two battalions of theCambridgeshire Regiment who had spent over three years as prisoners of war. SoI turned round and went the other way: the most important “about turn” in mylife, as it happened. I walked past Christ’s and Emmanuel and came across aporter’s lodge in Regent Street. I asked the porter the name of the college andwhen he said “Downing” I remembered that several boys from my school had beenthere. I nervously asked the porter if the tutor dealing with engineering wasavailable and, after telephoning, he said Dr Wild would see me.The first thing Dr Wild said to me was how pleased he was to see I was wearingthe Eighth Army medal ribbon. He explained that he had been responsible fordeveloping the thermite bomb we left on the engines of abandoned vehicles. Thatwas a good start but then the questions got sharper. When I said I had got a placeat Oxford just before the war to read Chemistry which had to be declined forfinancial reasons, he replied “You don’t think getting a place the read Chemistryat Oxford cuts much ice here, do you?” About ten minutes later he said he wouldgive me a place and signed a letter saying so. I couldn’t believe my luck!So I came up to Cambridge and sat down again to lectures after a break ofsix years.I well remember our first practical period. Six of us were assigned to a hugeRobey Uniflow steam engine with a demonstrator sitting by the fly-wheel. Hewas standing no nonsense and after ordering one undergraduate to remove hisscarf handed us cards telling us to measure the dryness of steam in the cylinder.Then someone whispered in my ear that the demonstrator was the Master of StCatharine’s College [Col. Donald Portway, a Downing man. Ed]. In my room thatafternoon trying to work out the “dryness of steam” I wondered where I had cometo. A generation later my son came up to Downing to read Natural Sciences by amore testing route!My purpose in writing this account is to record my appreciation of the manto whom I owe the most – Frank Wild.Editor’s note: The author graduated in 1948 with a first in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos and waselected to the title of Exhibitioner.35