David Waddington Memoirs Read Online Free PDF Page A

efforts than the weavers. But at the Brierfield Club I met the Conservative candidate Alan Green and his wife, and years later I met, first, their eldest daughter Hilary and then their second daughter Gill who, after a decent interval, I proceeded to marry. I then myself became the candidate for Nelson & Colne and by 1968 was the Member of Parliament. But more of that later.
    Back to Oxford, and in January 1948 I was persuaded to take up rowing. Sitting in a boat on the Thames in the freezing cold was not a pleasurable experience but it was good to get some exercise, and I made some great friends outside politics. In the summer term I rowed in Eights Week and at Marlow Regatta and had a fine time.
    In the summer of 1948 I went off to France with Nicholas Coleridge. We went by train to Paris and our party (it was a tour organised by the National Union of Students) went to a university refectory to get an evening meal. We were given a coupon which we exchanged for soup and black bread and then took the metro to the Gare de Lyon. The journey south overnight was very uncomfortable . The lucky ones were in very old first-class carriages sitting six instead of three a side; the less lucky lay down in the corridor. After a sleepless night we arrived in Marseilles, after which the train travelled along the coast to our destination in heat the like of which I had never before experienced. St-Aygulf was then a small village waiting to be rebuilt after suffering much damage when the Americans landed in the south of France in the summer of 1944. We slept in one of the buildings which had been shelled and were given a hunk of black bread for breakfast in a barn without a roof. A nice girl said that what we needed was ‘onny’, which when translated was ‘honey’, and we bought a communal pot which made the bread nearly edible.
    In my second year at Oxford I had a room to myself and decided to throw a party. It was a big mistake. When everyone had settled down to drink and have food, I announced that I had to slip round to Oriel to see my friend John Morrison who was also having a party. I returned an hour or two later to find my party was still going strong but the room looked somewhat bare. It took me a moment or two to realise that several large pieces of furniture had been thrown through the window into Catte Street. The next day I was summoned before the Dean, John Armstrong. He had a very soft voice but his dulcet tones did not disguise the message. I would be sent down if I erred again.
    At about this time Peter Emery, who had been on the Nelson & Colne tour, asked me if I would like to stand for the OUCA committee. He said that if I was interested he would look aftermy campaign. Canvassing was strictly forbidden so I did not see what campaigning needed to be done; but I said, rather weakly, that I was prepared to leave matters in his hands. I was mortified when the result was announced: Brown 14, Collins 15, Jones 23, Snooks 4, Taylor 3, Waddington 148. Nowadays it would be called ‘overkill’.
    Years later Peter entertained me most generously both in London and in his constituency, Honiton, where I went to speak for him. But I was a bit disappointed with his hospitality in Oxford. He invited me out to lunch and took me to the BR (British Restaurant) in Gloucester Green. The BR, which was located in a Nissen hut, provided meagre meals for less than a shilling, helping people to eke out their rations.
    In those days Gloucester Green was a rather seedy part of Oxford and home to the bus station. There was a pub there with a bad reputation which was frequently raided by the proctors. John Addleshaw, head of the Manchester chambers which I was later to join, told me that when he was an undergraduate he was in the pub when one of these raids took place; and the landlord’s wife invited him to hide under her skirts. He accepted the invitation but the experience persuaded him never to marry.
    I decided fairly early on in my time at