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become doctors, or more likely, their ambitious parents were forcing the majority of them into this rather glamourised, but really devoted profession, whether they liked it or not. A few obviously had no chance of ever passing the matriculation, no matter how long or how well they were coached.
In due course I sat for, and passed, my examinations, and a fortnight later, after first paying fourteen pounds for a term's lecture fees, I found myself entering the Mathematics lecture room at 9 a.m. on the first day of Lent Term with nearly fifty new undergraduates in Arts, Science, Engineering and Architecture. We were lectured for three-quarters of an hour by no less than Doctor Carslaw himself, the Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Science. He was a Scot with a good sense of humour, and frequently brightened one of his lectures with an amusing story about his own undergraduate days in Scotland: he was affectionately known by the nickname "Cocky" Our engineering group - civil, mechanical and electrical and three mining - numbered thirty two in all, and included the genius A.H. (Sandy) Britten, who had won the annual Barker Scholarship and wore the black velvet tabs on his gown accordingly.
On the hour, we walked across the main quadrangle to the Inorganic Chemistry School, to be taken by Doctor Charles Fawsitt, the Professor himself, and another distinguished product of the Scottish Universities. He was exceptionally tall and slim, and for the first day of term, only, wore a light grey morning coat with a "claw-hammer" tail, a red carnation in his button-hole, and light-grey trousers to match. He had a dry laconic type of humour, and mostly lectured by a process of asking questions and then promptly answering them himself. Some of the things he said were quite amusing but not, I think, always intended to be, as he often seemed genuinely surprised by the roars of laughter that followed. He would not tolerate any unnecessary noise or misbehaviour in class and offenders were summarily ejected from the lecture theatre. Nevertheless he was very popular among the students, who included first-year medical aspirants, to whom