Fifty Years Ago (Annus Mirabilis); Wadham College, Oxford

It dawned on me today that it is almost exactly 50 years since I heard the news that I'd been offered a place to read English at Oxford. I matriculated in 1963,"between the end of the 'Chatterley' ban and the Beatles' first LP", as Larkin put it. On checking the telegram, I see I received news of the offer of a place at Wadham College on 28 March, 1963. I was in Germany at the time.

Paradise lost: Beowulf, Milton, Virgil... 

and Anglo-Saxon grammar, a cigarette and pipes!

Cool or Uncool, 1963?

From Freshman to Graduate...

From Year 2 College Photo:

Graduation and Degree Ceremony:

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester:

All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams given o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

Aphra Behn:

Hail Sacred Wadham! whom the Muses Grace,

And from the rest of all the Reverend Pile

Of Noble palaces, design'd thy Space

Where they in soft retreat might dwell,

They blest thy Fabrick, and they said- do Thou

Our Darling Sons contain;

We Thee our Sacred Nursey ordain,

They said, and Blest, and it was so...

John Dryden (1683):

For this in Wadham's peaceful halls reside,

Books be thy pleasure, to do well thy pride -

Quit not for public cares thy college life...

Wadham College, from British History Online