Subject: Reminiscences: First Term at Aberystwyth
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:35:37 EST
This was the toughest term of all my fifteen years at Aberystwyth and Oxford. The mode of teaching was entirely different, consisting of lectures which were often delivered in such a rapid and vague way that I had to spend hours in the library writing them up, researching on them and so on, to produce a set of notes. This set of notes was then used to face the many examinations. The lectures were delivered in the then new large lecture theatre of the EDCL, built in 1963, so in 1968 it was only five years old. So my routine quickly became one of library work. The EDCL had an excellent departmental library so from the very beginning I used the library extensively. The other libraries were situated on the Penglais Campus in the departments of physics and mathematics - the physical sciences library. I never used the National Library of Wales but that was available too. In the first term it was a matter of finding my way around Aberystwyth’s libraries and departments, and buying course books on a grant of 262 pounds a year supplemented by what I earned in factory work during the vacations. My lodgings at “Brig y Don”, Sea View Place, were rented at about 3 pounds a week, for which there was bed and breakfast with full board on Sundays. So in the first term I existed on two meals a day, consisting of breakfast and one meal at the Student’s Union of chips, peas and salad cream. This was consumed listening to Pink Ffloyd and Led Zeppelin. There were six students crammed in to a sitting room at the lodgings, still called by the Victorian slang “digs”, from “diggings”, and no TV. So all my learning came form notes written up in the libraries, and from long hours of study in the libraries. This contrasted with Grammar School days, where I would work far into the night in one room of our house “Pant y Bedw”. I always had a burning desire to learn and to do well, for the sake purely of doing well. The examinations at the end of the first term at Aberystwyth (Dec 1968) were carried out in the Old College, built in pre Raphaelite style. The practical physics examinations were particularly nerve wracking. However the chemistry practical examinations were continuous assessment, making it a little easier. I did get some time to go for a bike ride up to Devil’s Bridge and back to Aberystwyth, about thirty or forty miles, using a borrowed bike, to see Aberystwyth Town playing amateur soccer on a Saturday, and so on. Also there was time for a little photography, and after the Christmas examinations for a walk around the golf course above Aberystwyth to get much needed fresh air and exercise. This was before I started my regime fo athletics training every day. In the first term I had the traditional large box for clothes and books, which I had transported back home for the Christmas break, travelling back by bus.