My Brief Career at Christ Church, Oxford

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

Christ Church has, through the ages, been a political college, having produced 13 British prime ministers, the highest number by any college in Oxford and Cambridge. They included Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64), Sir Anthony Eden (1955-57) and two of the most famous prime ministers of the 19th century, Sir Robert Peel (1834-35 and 1842-46) and Sir William Gladstone (1892-94, 1886, 1880-85, 1868-74). Christ Church was also the alma mater of our own prime minister, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (1956-59).

I started my career at Christ Church in October, 1960.

Freshmen are usually accommodated in the College quads at the House, as Christ Church is popularly known at Oxford. Eight of us freshmen were shunted to a boarding house near the Oxford railway station, appropriately named the Railway Annex. The digs were most ordinary, about a mile from the College, eight single rooms with common bathrooms, a dining room where a regular English breakfast was served; and a living area with a black and white television set, quite a luxury in those days. There was a regular bus service to Carfax, the city center, very close to Christ Church, but the first purchase for most us was a bike.

I got a transfer to Peckwater quad at the start of the Hilary term in January. Peck is one of the most prestigious quadrangles in Oxford. I shared a large, oak-paneled study with a fireplace, leading to two single rooms, which had obviously been monks’ cells in the middle ages. They had undergone few changes since. The only fixtures were a bed, a chest of drawers and a sink. Our rooms were on the third floor, with the bathrooms in the basement. So we had to make the trek down three floors in the heart of the Winter to attend to our ablutions. Unlike the common bathtubs we had got used to in our digs in London, the bathrooms at the House had showers with hot water, a luxury in those times; although hot water was not always a given. I had been compelled on many an evening to shower in icy cold water.

We had a scout who acted as our own personal assistant, who woke us up, made our beds, cleaned our rooms, looked after us when we were suffering with any ailments, mainly hangovers, attended to our laundry and generally made life very comfortable for us.

During the first week at the House, we met the Masters of the Honours degree subjects we had selected, mine being Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Sir Roy Harrod, famed English economist, held the fellowship in economics and modern history at Christ Church. He was a senior adviser to Sir Harold Macmillan, the British Prime Minister at that time. He gave us the usual pep talk, ending with the hardly traditional advice that we should ignore the university lectures, but concentrate on the weekly tutorials we had with graduate students, which he said was all that was necessary to get through our first year.

I cannot explain what caused my abject failure at Christ Church. I had always been a good student, but at Christ Church, I didn’t attend a lecture, cut most of the tutorials and hardly picked up a book. Universities in England in those days had no Counselors, so I went from day to day, bad to worse, until I failed Prelims. Twice. I couldn’t confide my predicament to my parents who were in Colombo, as I knew how disappointed they would have been. There was really no one I could have asked for advice while I was digging my academic grave. That’s not strictly true. The graduate student who was taking my weekly tutorials in Logic visited me halfway through my second term, and asked me why I hadn’t showed any interest in pursuing my studies. I dodged the question, and he went away, no doubt satisfied that he had made an effort to help me. Which he did, to no avail.

I am certain that things have changed now, but in those days, universities had no Student Counselors to help us with our problems, no facility for changing the course of the career path we had decided upon on admission, no taking a year off “to find ourselves”. British Universities did not coddle their students. You either finished the degree that you had originally selected in the mandatory number of years, or you didn’t; you either did your work or you got the hell out. It was as simple, as rigid as that. Ironically, the exact sentiment as expressed in the motto of my old alma mater, Royal College: Disce Aut Discede – Learn or Depart.

I was rusticated, which is slightly better than being sent down. I would have been able to resume my studies at the House had I passed Prelims in the future. Which I didn’t even attempt.

As one of the 26 Colleges that made up the University at that time (there are 45 today), Christ Church was breathtaking in its history and its architecture. The House boasted a number of nationally and architecturally significant buildings, including Tom Tower, the Christ Church Chapel and Tom Clock, designed by one of the most acclaimed architects in British history, Sir Christopher Wren. Tom Clock deputized as the National Clock when Big Ben of Westminster Abbey in London was out of commission.

I did most everything else during my brief stint at the House. I have many wonderful memories of the sports in which I participated. I was a member of the Christ Church boat which competed and finished second in the 1961 Torpids, held at the end of the Hilary term. The training for this test was pretty rigorous. We had to run to the boathouse through the Christ Church Meadows, do about half-an-hour of warm-up exercises and then row four miles along the Isis, a tributary of the Thames, with our coach following us on a bike on the pathway alongside the river screaming instructions and insults at us.

There’s a funny story about the problems we faced when the hot water gave way in our showers at Peck. The bow (the guy at the back end of the boat) of the Christ Church crew was a friend, who also had his digs at Peck. I confided in him the torture I had to endure on some evenings, when, after four hours of rowing, the hot water had run out in our bathrooms, and I was compelled to shower in icy-cold water. He looked at me in puzzlement and said,

“I don’t know what you are talking about, old chap. I have my showers every Saturday morning, and there is plenty of hot water during the weekends”. We rowed at least four miles, ran perhaps a half a mile from our boathouse in the Meadows to the House, five evenings a week. And he showered once a week!

Oxford was not much better on the food stakes. Except for the first term which I spent at the Railway Annex, which provided breakfast, all our meals were in the Great Hall. Historically impressive surroundings, terrible food. Lots of bacon and eggs, baked beans, transparent slices of beef, bread and potatoes, so many potatoes. Hardly a suitable diet for a Sri Lankan raised on rice, stringhoppers and spicy curries. I would have killed for an occasional pol sambol! There were no cooking facilities whatsoever in our rooms, so like in London, I fell on the last resort of Indian food. I patronized an Indian restaurant at the Turl called, if memory serves, the Taj Mahal. The owner/manager offered me all I can eat Masala Chicken for seven shillings and sixpence, about 40 new pence after the Brits went metric in 1971. Or about six rupees in Sri Lankan currency, at the then rate of Rs. 13.33 to one sterling pound. Given my appetite, I feel the Indian owner of the restaurant fed me out of kindness, certainly not for profit.

We were allowed 45 pounds sterling per month (Ceylon Rs. 600) by the Exchange Controller in those days, which was sufficient for all expenses, tuition fees, books, room and board. The cost of this type of education at either Cambridge or Oxford these days would be in excess of 2,500 sterling pounds a month!

I was on the Christ Church tennis team and we played various colleges with mixed results in the Summer. The only game that I remember was the match we played against the lady’s team of the Oxford University Lawn Tennis Club. We got trounced by some very attractive ladies.

We also had a “social” cricket team called the Warrigals, named after what I later learned was a wild, untamed horse, of which I was a member. We played informal one-day (not 50-over, that format hadn’t yet been invented) matches against other colleges at Oxford, and even a couple at Cambridge. The Christ Church cricket grounds were famous, being the alternative used for First Class matches when the University Parks were, for any reason, not available. The Christ Church ground was the venue used when the touring Australians played the University in 1961.

The Warrigals organized a memorable ten-day tour of Kent villages in the Summer of 1961, playing on village pitches and sleeping over at village pubs. We had a wonderful time. I used to be a mediocre off spin bowler, who neither spun nor turned the ball. But one freak ball I bowled caught a rough patch, probably hit a stone and turned a mile from outside the off stump to just clip the leg bail. The few spectators, inebriated enough to cheer anyone, shouted “Goonesena, Goonesena” when I took this wicket. To be even drunkenly compared to the most accomplished Ceylonese spin bowler in England of that time was a heady moment for me, even though my swarthy skin-color played no little part in the comparison.

I was the star of the College badminton team because no one else played the game. I also led a pretty busy social life, partying, drinking and gambling with the best, activities hardly conducive to a successful academic career.

Perhaps I can claim a Sri Lankan, if not a world, record of being offered places at three of the finest universities in the world, Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews, and ending my academic career without a first degree. My father said that I would regret this failure for the rest of my life, and he was right. I do, to this day.

More than anything, I regret I did not give my parents the pride of their son graduating from the most prestigious university in the world. Especially as I know now exactly how much that wonderful feeling means to parents. Pride that all my children have filled my heart with. Pride that no one can take away from me.