There were no counselors in my grammar school.  No one in my forty eight house village had ever gone to college.  Information on how the world of higher education worked wasn’t scarce, it was non-existent.  Somehow, you were just expected to know these things.  In my case, before going to university or college there was compulsory National Service to complete, two years in one of the armed forces.  It was 1950 and I was eighteen.  A grand plan wasn’t so much in mind as getting through the “now” and trying to absorb it.

I knew of Loughborough College and filled out my application sitting atop a tank on maneuvers on the Sennalager Plain in Germany.  In those days an interview was mandatory.  Mine was arranged to be on a day in April when I was on a one-time eight day leave from Berlin. 

As colleges go Loughborough was unique.  It had a College of Engineering, a College of Art and a College of Education.  The College of Education had only two departments, physical education and sports and furniture making.  My ignorance and misunderstanding of the ways of higher education was on display when, at the interview, I explained that my preference was for a place where I could study civil engineering with some furniture thrown in.  Not only was that construct immediately disassembled but my interviewer was considering candidates only for the furniture program.  It was late in the day, the last train – a steam train – was soon and my response was to the effect, “if I come in September, will you give me a place?”  His affirmative got me on the train, a happy traveler…