Going Up

Abstract

One doesn’t just go to the University of Cambridge. One ‘goes up’. Also, one doesn’t just register; one ‘matriculates’. No doubt these affectations also rang in the ears of John Cleese, who went up to Downing 4 years before me, which meant that I just missed the famous Footlights revue of 1963 where he got his start. I went up, and matriculated, in October 1964. Along with my cohort of new science undergraduates at Downing, I’d attended a mathematics summer school a few weeks earlier, which was a relaxed affair; a group of us even rented a motor boat one weekend and travelled by river from Cambridge to Ely and back, giving us the chance to see Ely’s beautiful cathedral. It was also during the summer school that I switched from insisting on a soft drink in the pub to drinking pints of bitter. With neither my parents nor my grandparents touching alcohol, all this suggested that a pleasant 3 years lay ahead.