memories..

[T00ts]

Yeah I went to a college where skills gained were by working with your hands,the principal was a mammoth tosser with delusions of grandeur,it wasn't oxbridge.

I went to college on a scholarship a year younger so I was the baby of my year. It was more like a finishing school in many ways. If we saw the Principal in her office she had an armchair while we had to sit on the floor. We had a student's Union of sorts and in my last year I was appointed Treasurer. 3 years of floor sitting had taught me a few things about who I was and still am. On the last few days of the last term I had to hand over the 'books' to said Principal ready for the next Treasurer. For the first time on record we were leaving the account in credit and yet we hadn't skimped on any of the usual stuff expected and I stood and waited deferentially while the P finished a conversation. I approached to submit my books to be roundly told in a loud voice not to interrupt her.

I didn't I merely gave a balletic curtsey dropped the books on the floor and left. It was a defining and later frightening moment when I realised that all that deference over 3 years was wasted. Some years later she retired to my town where by then I had a bit of a reputation with my own large school. She invited me to tea, gave me a chair for the first time and asked my advice about various things in this new, to her, town. Was it my imagination or did I note just a touch of unvoiced apology in her tone. A brilliant talented woman who taught me a lot about all sorts of things and who I admired greatly in her field. I just don't sit on the floor.

[cromwell]

Anybody else have other memories?

Yeah I went to a college where skills gained were by working with your hands,the principal was a mammoth tosser with delusions of grandeur,it wasn't oxbridge.

[Borchester]

I have just gotten an invite from the old Alma Mater to contribute to the Uni funds, which, for some odd reason caused me to remember an odd incident.



The North London was not even a real university at the time. It was a polytechnic and the sort of place where other polys would say, well, we may only be polys, but at least we ain't the North London. I had a had a great time there, but I never assumed that it was any sort of intellectual or social powerhouse. Which made the following incident that much odder...



I had gone up for the interview and the guy interviewing me suddenly asked what I was doing for a living (I was a mature applicant) and I said that I was a gardener, whereupon the chap's eyes opened as though he was trying to crap a hedgehog.



"Not mowing lawns and such I hope? " he said.



"Oh no, " I lied. Actually, I loved mowing lawns because it was easy work but I could see the way things were going." I have people to do that sort of thing. I am the main contractor." In fact I was the only contractor but I did not mention that.



"Good." he said and that was me set up for three years of agreeable mediocrity



In was about my only encounter with traditional snobbery. It was also dangerous because this was the early 80s when all the unis were busy polishing up their leftie credentials but the lecturer who interviewed me was a real throwback.



Anybody else have other memories?