At the end of September I drove over to Wantage Hall, Reading Unversity for a taste of life as a freshman undergraduate. The first afternoon as I settled into my rooms I met and made two firm friends. One was a man some 5 years older with a “Jimmy Edwards” RAF style handlebar moustache that he proudly wore. Like probably 50% of the intake who  had completed  their National Service, Antony Parkin  had done his time in India in the RAF. , gone into journalism and had come to University  on release from “ The Farmers Weekly” to take a course in Agriculture. He seemed older than  he was   because  alone among the intake, he was already married. His father had been  a firm supporter and close friend of many members of  the first post war Labour Government0 and in fact had been instrumental in setting up the Dock Labour Board, a reform that  ended the  abominable practice of  recruitment  by the day. During the war years Tony had spent  a lot of his time at  Lord Stanhope’s in Kent, who was a close friend of his father. Consequently he had an outlook on life, which although left wing in sympathy, was very  patrician in practice; a sort of modern or latter day Whig!
The other man who also had done his two year service in the RAF, was an ex- Wellington  public school boy Nigel Armstrong. Perhaps it was the overseas experience, the better education, savoir faire, or whatever ,  but we all instantly clicked. Over the next week or so our little group expanded with others of a similar outlook and style to about  5 or 7.  We three all had motorbikes which for some unknown reason were forbidden to freshmen, so quickly we had to rent garage space in nearby houses. One of the others , Brian Croot and his close chum Sam McGreedy son of the rosegrower, shared Brian’s huge 1923 Bentley Tourer.Also included were a couple of farming types from Kenya and Southern Rhodesia who again gave our set an overseas  flavour  with a broader outlook on life. Together we would attend lectures , meet up in the Buttery, and in the evening drink copious quantities of beer in the nearby pubs, sing bawdy rugger songs and  do the usual wild things that well educated  students did.
Our first year’s  tuition was a four subject session of pure science, in which all the agriculture, horticulture and dairy technology students took part. I did zoology, botany, chemistry and geology as an alternative to physics. The courses were clear and interesting, and I could easily hold my own with the interesting professors and other lecturers. In zoology though one of the junior lecturers had an unfortunate squeeky high pitched voice, and was instantly dubbed “No-Balls”.  Young students of course can be merciless in their banter, and I must confess our lot was loud and a bit over vociferous. After about three weeks we arrived in the lecture room , to find that rather than sit where we wanted with our own cliques, we had been split up and had to sit in alphabetical order. I was positioned on the front row,by the window, and next to me in the corner was an attractive slightly plump 18 year old girl Jill Colledge, and beyond her was the wall. After the usual polite introductions we then proceeded to dissect together our shared formalin soaked dogfish, to reveal their veins and arteries or whatever . So it was that by chance over the coming month’s gradually I would spend a little less time with the boys and increasingly more time at the weekly hop dances and later at the full evening dress functions for the gala evenings. This was my first experience of a relationship with a girl and by the spring I enjoyed the company and the pleasure of taking someone to a West End musical (4 shillings return Reading to Paddington after 6.00pmor 20 p today).  Jill’s family lived in Earley about a mile away from our Hall across on the other side of  the the abandoned Whiteknight’s  park. Her Mother Sybil, or Ma,welcomed me and it was not long before I was aware that there was a tricky domestic situation at home which coloured and controlled all their lives. In essence Sybil had come from a wealthy home and had been brought up in middle class luxury and fine surroundings.Her Mother who was German Swiss had twice married, latterly to a theatre impressario.She had five children in all born to both fathers, but of these only Nancy was a full sister to Sybil, the rest being half brothers or sisters. Like so many girls that came of age in the 1920’s she found  that most of the young eiigible men of her age had been killed in the first World War as part of the toll of over a million casualties.  By chance she had happened to meet  George Colledge a good looking  ex - RFC airman  whilst filling her car with petrol  at a garage and soon a relationship blossomed The marriage once it had settled down was never a success. George had been born in Australia, and had been orphaned as a child, and then been  brought up in England by a maiden aunt. As a young man aged sixteen he had  taken a job as a crewman on the “Archibald Russell” on a trip round Cape Horn to Australia, and then during the war had joined the Royal Flying Corps  as an aviator on the Western Front. After the war he had a good solid, but unexciting job as a representative for a building materials  supplier. They had two children Jill who was 18 and Janie some 6 years younger. Sybil was a domineering, very outspoken and rather snobbish woman, with an exceptionally quick and sharp witted business brain, but curiously a completely naïve in assessing a character, a deficiency which continually led over the years to endless personal problems and never ending litigations. She excelled at bridge  however, and would play regularly at county level so she was by no means slow apart from that one blank spot. All the time however she would lash out  with her  waspish  tongue and de-grade poor George who was a kind and unpretentious man, so much so in fact that eventually he sought  solace in the pub, and  found comfort in the bottle. When he had a bad fit of over - drinking he would return home in a blinding rage creating havoc and embarrassment all around, which then inevitably would cause more  tongue lashing in an ever more frequent downward   spiral. The strain of Jill’s home life had given her a quiet firm tolerance, and once she had confessed  to me all the family problems that she had lived with, I found in her a sympathy  and an empathy with my traumatic and  unhappy childhood, with   the  similar marital problems that I had experienced. There was a natural understanding and a meeting of minds which was a comfort to us both as slowly our friendship grew. Jill was more like George in her quiet character with a steady intense determination to succeed and excel at whatever she was doing.  She was very keen on sport being a member of the University rowing team, but what she really excelled at  was swimming, and in this each morning she would cycle to the large Municipal Pool and train doing at least 20- 30  lengths a day. She had powerful shoulders and in fact so excelled that  a year later she came second in the all Britain University Championships. But  at the same time I was friendly with another girl from a wealthy middle class family and at the end of our first summer both in turn came down to stay at Orchard House which Father had now come to visit for the first time, from Ceylon. The first part of the summer of 1951 was glorious and it was a real treat to have a home and lovely garden to show off to ones girl friends. I asked Father what he thought of the two girls especially the rather attractive flaxen haired girl that I fancied. He suddenly became alive at the  question and said very quietly but very firmly:

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Jill Aged 8.

Sybil

Jill

Sybil and George Colledge on left.

Jill's Grandad holding Sybil, and George in the RAF, along with Jill as a Sea Ranger.