ABSTRACT
In the early 1960s I went from a working-class North-of-England background to Cambridge, at a time when the university was even more male-and upper class-dominated than it is today. I found myself one of a dismally miniscule group of proletarian students, besieged by gun-toting aristocrats like some exotic endangered species. My roommate, a Cockney, was hauled in by his Tutor and asked why he dressed like a garage mechanic. All the young men around us (there were hardly any young women) seemed chinless, well over six foot, and brayed rather than spoke. They all seemed to be called Jeremy or Alisdair, stamped their feet in cinemas and elbowed the Cambridge townspeople off the narrow pavements. We plebeians clung defensively together, cracking bitter jokes about the arrogance of the English ruling class and flamboyantly drinking the most socially disreputable beer we could find.
