mind. Meanwhile, on the strength of my Birkbeck examination results I was able to persuade Kent County Council, the county in which I lived, to provide me with a student loan of £60 a year. Lodgings, food, clothes, and tuition fees cost more than this, but with the help of one of my mother’s friends, a Miss Cameron, I was able to get a small grant of £15 ayear from a private charitable trust. With £75 a year, I could manage, even though it was less than half of my wage from Murray, Bull, and Spencer.
I took the train from Euston to Manchester carrying all my possessions in my rucksack and having with me a raglan overcoat and umbrella to protect me against the well-known rain. All southerners in England believe that it rains every day in Manchester. It was a scary moment arriving at Manchester’s Victoria Station. I had no idea where to stay and knew I had to find somewhere that was inexpensive. I asked the taxi driver at the station if he could take me to a cheap but decent hotel nearby. Luck was with me. He was a kind man and when he knew that I was a student took me the few hundred yards to a commercial hotel where, for a minute sum, they provided bed and breakfast. In those days, students were uncommon, particularly in the north of England, and people regarded us with touching respect. They thought that by going to college a young man could escape the traps of working-class poverty, and everyone cheered you on.
Next morning I walked through the centre of Manchester to the Oxford Road and down to the university. I joined the group of would-be students waiting to enrol. When my turn came, I told the secretary I had to start as a second-year student since I was from a London college now closed. This was not part of her programme and I was ushered into Professor AR Todd’s room to explain myself. He was a tough, gruff young Scotsman. I showed him the letter of recommendation from Birkbeck and the results of my first year’s examination. He harrumphed and said, ‘This is very irregular, you know, to ask to start in the second year. You won’t have been doing the same things there as we do here in the first year.’ He paused, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I can see your problems, and so what I would like you to do is write an essay saying why you’ve chosen to come to Manchester and why you want to start in the second year.’ This I did, not mentioning the girl who had attracted me to Manchester , or that Birkbeck was an evening-class college of London University . I did include the fact that I could only afford two years, and this seemed to impress him. He signed the forms for my enrolment and sent me back to his secretary. Soon she gave me my pack of papers, membership of the Student Union, and the address of landladies approved by the university. Most lived in a rather pleasant set of semi-detached suburban villas, about a mile from the university and close to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. I soon settled in comfortably,sharing accommodation with a history student, and was looked after by a kindly landlady.
At the end of my first month as a student, Professor Todd summoned me to his office and when I got there, he was angry. ‘Lovelock,’ he said, ‘you’ve let me down; you have cheated.’ I was dumbfounded and searched my mind for anything that would explain his accusation. ‘How have I cheated?’ ‘You know full well,’ he said. ‘Students never get the exact result for their gravimetric analyses and certainly not twice running. You are not only a cheat, you are stupid. If you had thought of putting down something close to the right answer, you might have got away with it. No, you just looked at the demonstrator’s book and copied down the composition of the solution you were supposed to be analysing.’ What he was on about was a student exercise in analytical chemistry, the gravimetric analysis of the strength of a solution of potassium bromide. I did it by precipitating the bromide ion
I took the train from Euston to Manchester carrying all my possessions in my rucksack and having with me a raglan overcoat and umbrella to protect me against the well-known rain. All southerners in England believe that it rains every day in Manchester. It was a scary moment arriving at Manchester’s Victoria Station. I had no idea where to stay and knew I had to find somewhere that was inexpensive. I asked the taxi driver at the station if he could take me to a cheap but decent hotel nearby. Luck was with me. He was a kind man and when he knew that I was a student took me the few hundred yards to a commercial hotel where, for a minute sum, they provided bed and breakfast. In those days, students were uncommon, particularly in the north of England, and people regarded us with touching respect. They thought that by going to college a young man could escape the traps of working-class poverty, and everyone cheered you on.
Next morning I walked through the centre of Manchester to the Oxford Road and down to the university. I joined the group of would-be students waiting to enrol. When my turn came, I told the secretary I had to start as a second-year student since I was from a London college now closed. This was not part of her programme and I was ushered into Professor AR Todd’s room to explain myself. He was a tough, gruff young Scotsman. I showed him the letter of recommendation from Birkbeck and the results of my first year’s examination. He harrumphed and said, ‘This is very irregular, you know, to ask to start in the second year. You won’t have been doing the same things there as we do here in the first year.’ He paused, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I can see your problems, and so what I would like you to do is write an essay saying why you’ve chosen to come to Manchester and why you want to start in the second year.’ This I did, not mentioning the girl who had attracted me to Manchester , or that Birkbeck was an evening-class college of London University . I did include the fact that I could only afford two years, and this seemed to impress him. He signed the forms for my enrolment and sent me back to his secretary. Soon she gave me my pack of papers, membership of the Student Union, and the address of landladies approved by the university. Most lived in a rather pleasant set of semi-detached suburban villas, about a mile from the university and close to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. I soon settled in comfortably,sharing accommodation with a history student, and was looked after by a kindly landlady.
At the end of my first month as a student, Professor Todd summoned me to his office and when I got there, he was angry. ‘Lovelock,’ he said, ‘you’ve let me down; you have cheated.’ I was dumbfounded and searched my mind for anything that would explain his accusation. ‘How have I cheated?’ ‘You know full well,’ he said. ‘Students never get the exact result for their gravimetric analyses and certainly not twice running. You are not only a cheat, you are stupid. If you had thought of putting down something close to the right answer, you might have got away with it. No, you just looked at the demonstrator’s book and copied down the composition of the solution you were supposed to be analysing.’ What he was on about was a student exercise in analytical chemistry, the gravimetric analysis of the strength of a solution of potassium bromide. I did it by precipitating the bromide ion
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