BIRKENHEAD
SCHOOL
0068 UPPER SIXTH
With the A-levels behind me I moved on to the Upper Sixth. It was a small select group, made up only of those who were attempting Oxford and Cambridge entry. As such our lessons diverged from the A-levels and were angled towards the higher-level requirements -- almost undergraduate -- of the scholarships.
The first of these attempts had in fact been made the previous year when I went for an interview at Cambridge, at Saint Catherine's College. It was just about the first interview I had ever done, and it showed! I had to travel halfway across England to get Cambridge, and that didn't help. When I got there I boarded in the college's lodge, and was all by myself – and was very lonely - the first time I had really been so alone. I was there for three days, during which time the only thing I did was go out to watch the local rugby match; Oxford University versus Bedford. It was, even to this day, the only time I ever watched professional sports, rugger or football, from the terraces!
The main problem, however, was that I was ill-prepared. As I have said, it was the first interview I had ever done and I found the place very forbidding. I ate in hall with the students, which was rather awe-inspiring. But when it came to the interview itself, the critical question turned out to be "Who do know who has been to Cambridge?" I guess I should have known a number of people who had been to Cambridge, but no one had prepared me to say this and I said "Nobody" -- and that was probably the end of my career at Cambridge. The net result was I didn't get in by the back door, and had to sit the scholarship entrance exam the following spring.
After my A-level results, and gaining my state scholarship, I interviewed for Imperial College. In reality, this was already my first choice, since I was still highly was targeted to become a scientist -- and in particular a physicist. Accordingly, the interview for this, in the college in South Kensington London, was much more friendly and I felt a much happier glow about the whole College. I guess I must have done reasonably well, and my state scholarship probably did me no harm; though in the physics stream, that I eventually entered, something like two-thirds of the students had state scholarships. It was a very elite institution. In particular where everywhere else physics streams started by studying maths, physics and chemistry for the first two years, at Imperial we was studied physics in general for two years and then specialised in a part of physics! This was another reason why I loved the idea of going to Imperial.
Maybe that was the reason why, in the spring of 1959, I made such a mess of the Cambridge scholarship exam. In particular, in the first part of exam, I managed to shuffle some of my answers underneath the spare paper and these accordingly were ineligible. I still don't know whether this was deliberate, albeit unconscious, or whether it was a genuine mistake. Whatever the reason, Cambridge went out the window -- and I never really regretted that.
En route to those scholarship exams, I very arrogantly ditched Oxford. My headmaster, who was an Oxford graduate, put in a lot of effort persuading Oxford to set up a special course for me, combining economics and engineering. I, perhaps unfortunately, would not - at that stage - have ever dreamt of doing engineering. That was for losers and I was intent on being in the elite doing physics - so I quite brusquely refused the offer. In retrospect I am sorry, mainly because it was impolite of me to reject it so harshly. Even so I suspect Oxford would not necessarily have been the best place for me to study. One of my classmates at school, a boy called Cowen, went to Oxford, on a choir scholarship, and committed suicide in his first year. I have a suspicion I might have felt much the same.
In any case I only stayed in the upper sixth until the results were known, in the spring, and then I left to go to Farnborough.
While I was still in the school, however, I was one of the editors of the school magazine; though in reality I got landed with the job of being the advertisement manager. This had one perk. I used to go and canvass for an advertisement from Sam Wanamaker’s ‘New Shakespeare’ theatre. I never got an business, but I enjoyed my visits to the bowels of the theatre; where the bevy of beautiful girls were – due to the heat, always dressed in the bare minimum of clothes!
The school magazine when I left, with our new cover design
hits