ABSTRACT
But where to live? I was all right for the first term, as after my interview visit the accommodation people had told me of a room available in the Catholic Chaplaincy, then at 40 College Road in Upper Bangor. It was a large terraced house, with several rooms that were rented out to postgraduates to help raise some income. Evidently the income from a junior member of staff was just as good as anyone else’s, and as it was an ideal spot – just two minutes’ walk from the department – I was pleased to be there. I hadn’t lived in a setting of this kind before, or anything remotely like it, but I had already had a little contact with the university chaplaincy world in London, and had always been impressed by the chaplains and the activities they organized. They fostered an intelligent, critical apperception of belief, and enabled anyone who chose to be involved the opportunity to develop a maturity of insight analogous to the intellectual growth being achieved through their degree. It is unfortunately all too usual for people with a religious background to grow intellectually in their academic subject but not in the nature of the spirituality they have inherited. They may achieve a first in the former, yet remain at a teenage level in the latter. A regular chaplaincy involvement can restore the balance.
