At Your Wits End
Those were the days, my friend… Kate Turkington
When I was a student and dinosaurs ruled the earth, if you went to university and got a degree at the end of your three or four years, well, that was considered a bonus. You went to university mainly to have a good time and if you picked up a qualification along the way, all to the good. Mind you, mine was the first generation of UK students who went to university on merit, not breeding or money.
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nly 1% of UK’s population went to university in those far-off days of the 50s and most of us were from working-class homes on State Scholarships. The government gave us just enough money to see us through a term at a time and have the odd beer, but if we failed even one exam, we were booted out never to return. Amazingly, the pass rate was nearly always 100%. Harold (‘Winds of Change sweeping through Africa’) Macmillan told us all in Britain that we’d ‘Never Had it So Good’. And we believed him. It was pretty
April 2008
true anyway. We went to parties and balls, debated superficial and frivolous issues in our great debating halls, and worried over who would win the Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race. The government didn’t give us enough money to last through the vacations, so we all became barmaids, potato pickers, chambermaids, bus conductors or washeruppers during the vacs. Good training for life and a great incentive to pass those exams. I started teaching at Wits at the beginning of the 70s and was housed in a prefab hut down near the swimming pool. There were WITSReview 63
