Feb 1947

Page 13

Undoubtedly G. Mountain, of Christ's, is a busier man than any, either inside or outside the University, as can be seen by observing his progress up or down Regent Street any morning of any day of the week. To return to Emmanuel we easily find the rooms of P. A. Lockwood, on whose mantlepiece a portrait of Lenin and a membership card of the Conservative Association sit side by side. He did his best to vote for Herbert Morrison at a Union debate, but the crowd won and pushed him into the wrong or the "right" lobby. Spink, also of Emmanuel, is making his second attempt to take up residence with, we hope, every prospect of success. These are the activities of the Old Peterites up here, young men who by now are thoroughly versed in the ways of Cambridge. But taken as a whole, Universitymen are living a life which is more what the men of the 'thirties hoped they were leading, in so far as the man who can turn his hand to anything, indeed the man who has turned his hand to everything, is to be found in Cambridge now ; and they are enjoying themselves and working hard, because that, as much as anything else, is precisely what they want to do. The words of Mr. Tom Griffiths, Oxford scholar and ex-Sheffield steel worker, when he writes of the ex-servicemen at Oxford, "who retrieved a civilization are now 'bent on its re-creation," may be true of that "other place," but the mood at Cambridge is different, as can be seen by the way people flock to hear Bertrand Russell quote the words of Omar Khayyam could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,. Would not we shatter it to bits—and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?" And his (Russell's) reasons why he thinks the world has an excellent chance of completing its own destruction, with little or nothing to say about the re-moulding process ; or from the way scores of people attend such debating duels as those between Mountbatten and Gillie Potter at Union. There is a sincere, also desperate desire, to know and understand ; but for the re-creation of our present civilization there is only a shrug of the shoulders in face of present day destructive forces, Cambridge, to quote a current idiom, "couldn't care less." Yet, with best wishes to the School, we remain, sir, Yours faithfully, THE CAMBRIDGE OLD PETERITES

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CALENDAR, EASTER TERM, 1947 JANUARY 18 Sa. Full Term Begins. 19 Su. Second Sunday after Epiphany. 25 Sa. 10.45 a.m., Annual General Knowledge Paper. 6 p.m., Debating Society. 13


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Feb 1947 by StPetersYork - Issuu