Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 379
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[Page 379]
187
got into the empty theatre and black-leaded the wires. The next morning true to form, Booth was rubbing his forehead on the wire and getting a black mark on it each time he did so. His class, of course, was in fits of laughter, and he thought that we were laughing at his jokes, the humour of which grew more atrocious. As we filed out of the theatre I was the last to leave, and as I did so I pointed to his forehead. He rushed over to look in a mirror on the bench and discovered the real reason for the uproarious laughter. He was a very subdued lecturer for a long time after that incident.
Our next class took us - would-be engineers only - down Science Road to the Engineering School for instruction in that very tricky subject, Descriptive Geometry by William A. Miller, a dour senior lecturer from Glasgow University, popularly known as "Wullie", much against his liking. During my time he was appointed Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, and finally the Professor in charge of the Department on the retirement of William Warren in 1925. He was highly regarded by all the students.
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The four lectures every morning occupied us until twelve o'clock, when we were free until beginning practical work in the big drawing office, or in the physics and chemistry laboratories, between 2 and 5 p.m. Some of the students who lived at home or in boarding houses brought cut-lunches to eat in the University grounds, or if inmates of one of the four men's colleges - St Pauls, St Andrews, St Johns and Wesley - went "home" for lunch. Others had a snack or a meal in the refectory of the Union, the undergraduates' club, membership of which was compulsory, all students being compelled to pay a fee of one guinea each year: returned servicemen, however, thereby acquired life membership and were given a special badge.
There were at least a score of returned soldiers in the Engineering School, mostly in the third and fourth (final) years, but being a very late starter, I was the only one in my year.
Incidentally, the only financial assistance that returned servicemen got from the Commonwealth Repatriation Department, was an interest-free advance of up to a few hundred pounds.