Pass it on

Jumping straight into my top five films of the year, The History Boys.

Now I don’t remember school being quite like that in the 80s, but then I went to a comprehensive.

Hang on. I’ve just remembered one particular teacher. But apart from him (and that was just gossip), it wasn’t like that.

We did have a day trip to Cambridge, but not for formal interviews – just a snooping session, friendly chats, that sort of thing, to see whether we were interested in applying. Our head-of-year drove the three of us to Cambridge in her mini; the only details I remember from that journey are, bizarrely, joining the A1 (from a country lane, slip roads were for wimps) and listening to Bohemian Rhapsody at full volume. It was the first and only time she ever seemed human (the rest of the time she just clomped around school in her very sensible shoes being grumpy).

I went to see Downing and Magdalene. The tutor we saw at Downing told us he knew one of the students from our school at the college, “Judith Mel-hyoo-ish, yes, I know her well.” Not well enough to know how to pronounce her surname, though. I remember we had lunch there with some undergrads, but not much else.

At Magdalene I chatted to a tutor in his little office in the ramshackle tudor buildings behind Magdalene Street. I decided I preferred Downing; one reason, I remember, was that Magdalene was then still males only. Insert your own jokes here.

Our teacher took us for a cup of tea at the University Arms before we went home.

And then, of course, I went to Kent. But that’s another story.

Anyway, the film’s great. If there’s any chance of your seeing it, do. That would please Hector. “Your seeing it.” It’s a gerund. He likes gerunds.

Avaragado’s rating: rubber chicken and rice, I think