Young adulthood
When I was 17, coming up to 18, I felt under pressure to apply for a university course. I genuinely feared that I might not get in. There were fewer places in those days. The terms for the lucky few were more generous than they are now – we received maintenance grants, and did not have to pay tuition fees. I felt, and still feel, that I was very fortunate.
When I did secure a place (in Manchester), I found myself among a mixture of eighteen and nineteen year olds, and I considered the latter to be more mature, as they had put their year between leaving school and going to University to good use, that is, through doing paid work. During my studies, I lived in Dalton Hall, a hall of residence founded by Quakers in the 19th century but now owned by the University. It had a large intake of international students – a good thing. An annual play was a feature of life there, too.
One of the extra-curricular activities I engaged in was to go on a trip with fellow students to Agecroft Colliery, a few miles outside Manchester. It was a working colliery. The noise at the coal face was deafening. We had a shower when we returned to the surface. I found coal dust in my saliva for several hours afterwards.
Another activity was taking part in the “Bogle Stroll” walk in aid of Manchester University Rag Week (in February 1966). With many others, I walked from Lancaster to Manchester (the Student Union building) along the A6, for about 52 miles. I became soaking wet in the rain, and cold, and very stiff. It was easier, though, to continue walking than to stop. I made it to the end in 20 hours of the 24 allowed. I was stiff for a few days afterwards. I still have the tie awarded to those who finished the course.
I spent about a year in Germany, in the middle of my languages course. Indeed, I spent both my 20th and 21st birthdays there – the former in Kiel and the latter in Berlin.
In Kiel I met students from other British universities. I attended a German language course designed for foreigners. I also attended German literature lectures, where I learnt how to take notes in German (rather than in English). I took advantage of the opportunity to learn basic Swedish with a native speaker, as Scandinavian language courses were on offer, at no extra cost. I stayed in a student hostel, namely the Christian-Albrecht-Haus, where there were numerous students from abroad, which I liked. International students were well looked after. I had the opportunity to go sailing on the Kiel Bay. I joined a group trip to the Frisian island of Hooge and a visit to archaeological sites in Jutland.
At Easter I attended a performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Castle, and I realised that it was not just for Christmas.
From Kiel, it was fairly easy to go by ship to Copenhagen, from Travemünde – and I went. Well, I had to get up early, around 4am and walk the few miles to the railway station, to catch the first train, not long after 5am, in order to be in time for the early sailing. I had some bread with me, for breakfast. I tried to cut into it, with a blunt knife, as I sat on the quayside, and cut myself. A member of the Swedish ship’s crew bandaged me up without a fuss.
In Denmark, I stayed with family friends who lived in Hørsholm, outside Copenhagen. (The daughter of the family, Anne Grethe, had worked as an au pair in Newport: she had had a hard time with the host family; but anyway, somehow or other she had met our family and had been befriended by us.) The family showed me round the area: one day we went to Helsingør and by the ferry across to Helsingborg in Sweden; another day Anne Grethe took me to Copenhagen. (Many years later, I went back, with Jane, when we were on a cruise, which also included the transit of the Kiel Canal.)
Later, in West Berlin, I was an assistant teacher of English in a “Realschule” in Charlottenburg– a school that catered for 12 to 16 year olds who had not got into a “Gymnasium” (grammar school) – in other words, it had a practical orientation. The 1967-8 winter was very cold (to me), with lots of snow, but I don’t remember getting ill. Public transport, and the school itself, carried on running, regardless. Lessons com-menced at 8 in the morning and ceased at about 1.30 in the afternoon; there were some lessons too on Saturday mornings. They never stopped because of the winter cold but only because of the summer heat: when the temperature inside the school became too hot in the course of a summer morning (measured by the headmaster’s thermometer), the children had to be let go.
I found the teaching hard work but learnt a lot by doing it. The teachers of English and French took an interest in me. I had a lot of time on my own, some of which I spent wandering around Berlin (and trying to imagine what the city was like before the destruction of World War II and its subsequent division). I made friends with two students from Newcastle University who were there at the same time: one of them keenly missed her boyfriend, back at home, who she later married. (She could telephone him more easily than he could ring her, because of the superiority of the German telephone system.)
It was always exciting to visit East Berlin, across the notorious Berlin Wall. The atmosphere was quite different. The West was prosperous and had lots to offer but was a bit showy; the East was quiet, with much less traffic, and fewer goods in the shops, and more ruins remaining from World War II. Highlights in the East included the Museum Island, and the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, where Bertolt Brecht had been active, and where the Berliner Ensemble played (worth seeing). Berlin is full too of lakes and forests, and the public transport is excellent, so I travelled around quite a bit.
I attended some classes (German literature) in the Free University of Berlin (for example, on Franz Kafka). Just at this time (1968) student protests, and occupations of buildings, were at their height, in Paris and Berlin (and to a certain extent in British Universities, including Manchester). Once I got into a packed main lecture theatre to hear a visiting speaker, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who spoke in support of the students.
While in Germany, I got in touch with German Friends; Lore and Leo Engelhardt, from Karlruhe, in particular, became substitute parents to me, to a certain extent, and I stayed with them a few times. They had four children. Thomas wanted to be a pilot. He had a glider, and one day he took me up in it. (I do not have a head for heights, though!) He let me take the controls for a little while. It was one of the most exciting things I have ever done.
In the summer of 1968 I visited Nuremberg and Munich, staying in youth hostels. I arrived at the Nuremberg hostel in the dark, by bus from the railway station past the walls of the old city. The following morning I looked through the window of my room and saw the old city laid out before me in its grandeur, inviting me to explore. (Much later, we visited with the children.) From Munich, then, I went by train (steam-hauled from the border) to Prague (then behind the “Iron Curtain” and requiring a visa to enter). Prague had become a popular tourist destination for West and East Germans and Austrians, because of the “Prague Spring” of liberalisation under communism. The trams are useful; but much of the city you can walk around; and, apart from the main sights, many of the ordinary streets have harmonious architecture. I stayed in a student hostel and got to know students from neighbouring countries. A few weeks after I left, the troops of the Soviet Union and her allies invaded Czechoslovakia.
When I returned to Manchester, I felt much more competent in German, and more mature generally. However, I feel now that I did not reach something like full maturity till my late twenties; and some who know me may say that I have never achieved it.
I never had a clear idea, either at school or university, about what I wanted to do, I mean, what career to pursue. While I was thinking about this, I was tempted to take part in a work camp in (London)Derry organised by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. (I also spent a lot of time at weekends with Young Friends and FoR members, both in Manchester and in London.) I spent two weeks based in the Bogside, a Roman Catholic area, and two weeks at a Christian Movement for Peace play scheme work camp in East Belfast, near the Newtownards Road, which was a predominantly Protestant area. The tension arising from the communal conflict was palpable. It was shocking to see burnt out houses. I was in Belfast, indeed, when the British Army moved in to support the Police.
At this time, my paternal grandmother wrote to me, telling me to get a job. I have kept the letter.
