UEA/SMI/1/23 - Letter, Adrian Smith to his family, 26/2/64

UEA/SMI/1/23

Item

Letter, Adrian Smith to his family, 26/2/64

26/2/64

2 leaves Letters (MS)

Written from the Green Common Room.

‘The roof is no longer attached to the Biochemistry lab.’

For the following year’s Biology intake of 26 places there were 160 “1st” place applicants and 420 others.

After the party at the sailing club the last van home had to stay the night as the van cracked the axle and ground the differential to bits having been frozen brittle in the open all night.

With 10 minutes to spare Adrian completed his essay on the existence of enzyme-substrate complexes.

There’d been ‘a fab debate: Prof. Watt as Mat. Arnold v. Prof. Bennet-Clarke as Darwin v. Prof. Macfarlane as Mephistoph. v the Vice-Chancellor as Abe Lincoln … B-C won, Watt unreasonably lost (being consigned to the radio-active wastes outside the shelter). Happily there was also little support for the preservation of the Vice-Chancellor, at whom B-C had taken some well-timed swipes (albeit unintentional) about the centreing of authority. Since the V-C is currently refusing to accept our Student Union constitution this went down well. Thistlethwaite seemed a typical Cambridge conventionalist – no he doesn’t go to meeting!’