1963 1st Term (Christmas Term)

Arrived from a Welsh coalmining village all of 40 miles from Cardiff. I'd never been so far away from home. I was so homesick. Tried to stay in Cardiff some weekends, usually failed and landed up travelling home Sunday morning, consequently I was missing from College several Mondays. Wanted to leave college and understood the meaning of the word 'hiraeth'.

 

2nd Term (Easter Term)

Discovered the more interesting side of College life, after attending the Biochemistry Society dinner dance with 'Jim o'r dwyrain'. After that, any ball or dinner dance was a must, even went to the History Society dinner dance (gave up history in the 3rd form at School). Jim was invited for his speciality 'y crwban' which he did at the end of the evening, by lying on his back with arms and legs In the air. Wonder why everyone found it amusing!

 

Exams (End of Easter Term)

Had we actually covered that area of work this term? I'd been to all the lectures, well nearly all, I must have been asleep or still drunk in most of them.

 

Easter Vacation

PANIC, worked the clock round. At least my parents were impressed, daren't tell them the truth.

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Results (End of Summer Term)

I had to have a viva, obviously a border line result. Jim persuaded me to go camping down the Gower for the week before the viva; he said it would be a walk over.

 

Viva voca

Ted Hill's questions were OK and Geoff Callely's were easy, my Biochemistry was strong but Ann Williams had covered Bacterial Classification, it was so boring and it seemed more an art than a Science. I'd had it. She was so nice, put me at ease and asked if I really wanted to study Microbiology; apparently I'd scraped a pass each term and my Biochemistry and Chemistry were much stronger. How could I explain that there hadn't been time over the Easter vacation to do it all and Microbiology seemed the easiest one to 'waffle' through; so I'd taken a calculated risk. Then she referred to my home-sickness and mentioned my absences on Mondays. Not a single question on Bacterial Classification and the time was up. As Jim said, the viva was a walk over.

 

Another year of fun at Cardiff after all, thank you, thank you Mrs Williams.

 

1964

Microbiology at Cardiff had come of age, it would no longer be an offshoot of the Botany department; it would at long last have a Professor of its own. Rumours were rife, he was called David Hughes, 'wonder if he's Welsh', from London, had worked with Krebs and was bringing people with him. It was all so exciting. When he arrived some disappointment, he didn't speak the language of heaven but at least he looked Welsh, short and dark.

 

Chose Professor Hughes honours project 'Sonication and it's effects on Bacteria'. It was a great honours year, I had my own personal technician. He'd pop up several times a day to fetch anything I needed from his laboratory. Krebs had trained him well; I was lucky.

 

July 1966 — Degree Results

Thank goodness a 2(i), Professor Hughes offered me a PhD grant, but I was off to Tenovus to cure cancer. Six weeks later, realised the mistake but Professor Hughes had given out all the research grants, told me to come back next year.

 

July 1967

The year was up, went to see Professor Hughes, 'Here I am Professor, ready to start my PhD'. The Professor remarked 'but you're married now'. I replied 'so what, I still want to do a PhD', 'but you'll leave me in 2 years time when your husband finishes his PhD'. I was annoyed so I gave Professor Hughes a bollocking. 'Right' he said 'you seem to be serious, I'll get your year at

Tenovus registered as the first year of your PhD. If you really want a PhD you'll do it in 2 years'.

 

September 1967

(First day In the Research Laboratory Top College)

Alan Griffiths, John Fry and Gwyn Jones didn't look too pleased to see me, then Gwyn said 'do we have to change our ways or are you a good sport?' I don't think I affected their lifestyles, and I collected quite a repertoire of new words and blue jokes that year. The laboratory atmosphere did change the following year when an evangelist and born again christian joined the laboratory. Although Alan Griffiths used to privately keep me amused with his dry sense of humour.

 

Demonstrating

First year students were in hot-pants and long boots. Professor Hughes came to the laboratory door and called me over. I thought he had something profound to discuss with me about my project. I quote his very words 'wish those boots would walk all over me'. I was speechless, this was my mentor and PhD supervisor. Thank goodness Alan Griffiths was really my supervisor and he didn't have sexual fantasies or did he? Some of those jokes did make me wonder?

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The Ups and Downs of Research

The amoebae were dead again, it must have been Ted Hill's technician, she'd put her 'oils' in MY incubator. I'll kill her, Alan Griffiths confirmed that he'd seen her by the incubator when he went home. Right I'll sort her out, marched out of our laboratory and into the one next door, was about to say something but noticed Alan Griffiths and Co by the door laughing. They'd egged me on, in order to watch two women fighting again.

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A post-doctorate post became available working with Ted Hill. Professor Hughes asked me if l was interested, how could I take it after the way I used to treat poor Olwen. It took 18 hours for the amoebae to encyst and some experiments started at 8.00 am and finished around 2.00 am the next morning. One such occasion remains vivid in my memory. It was around the time of the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarvon and there had been a bomb scare at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff. I was working mainly in Top College but the spectrophotometer I needed at 2.00 am was down Newport Road. I placed all my test tubes, with pipettes and ice buckets into the back of the car and drove through the centre of Cardiff, the police were everywhere. It was the one time in my life that I wished I didn't have a Welsh accent. Luck was on my side, no one stopped me. One more successful run completed.

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July 1969

Only 3 months left to finish my PhD; would I make it? My grant hadn't arrived and it had been cut from £500 to £350 per annum because I was married, so I was desperate to receive it. Went to see Professor Hughes, he said it was my fault as he'd cancelled my grant when he offered me the post-doctorate. This was very confusing as I hadn't accepted the post-doctorate. Professor Hughes had just assumed I would. Did he really expect me to do a PhD in even less that 2 years? The man was mad and I told him so.

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PhD at Last

Fortunately Professor Hughes forgave my outbursts of temper and my last

academic contact with him was when he insisted that my PhD viva was

arranged in such a way that my son's breast feeding would not be disrupted.

 

Can still remember the look on Alan Griffiths' face when Professor Hughes told Professor Vickermann that my viva had to be over by 3.00 pm as the baby's feed would be due. Professor Vickermann was fortunately a kind man with a sense of humour.