I thought I had unleashed the full force of my student intellect in a history essay. The formidable Betty Behrens let me know I did not understand what scholarship was
I held them in awe. My supervisors at Newnham College, Cambridge, in the 50s were of the generation who had served in the war: Bletchley Park, the Board of Trade, that kind of thing. They were fiercely intelligent in a way my schoolteachers had not been. I was brimming with admiration and fear. It was why I had studied hard to be there, to pit my wit against the finest in the land. But I was to come a cropper severely. In the end, it served me well enough. But the pain remains.
I had studied economics in my first year. My supervisor was Ruth Cohen, who sat on the floor in dishevelled tweeds, her legs wide and an ashtray between, to catch the ash from her continual smoking. Needless to say, she was brilliant. Soon she would be made college principal, take herself off for a makeover and emerge, neat, tidy, almost smart, to lead the college with style.
