So, in December, early December of 1949 I went up to Cambridge. It was snowing and I had to stay in St John's College, but the exams were taken in Emmanuel. I used to walk in the snow to Emmanuel and there were 600 candidates for, in Charter... 600 candidates for in St John's, two Major Classical scholarships. I mean, Classics is what people did in those days if they were clever – I mean, unless they were very clever mathematicians. But, I mean, generally that was the cursus honorum. So, I went in to the exams in Emmanuel, which actually was, had a Master in those days who like the headmaster of Winchester and St Paul's and other places, didn't approve of Jews. And in Emmanuel's case, since he was the Master, he actually could arrange for no Jews whatever to be in Emmanuel. So, that's what Emmanuel meant apparently.

But it wasn't true of many Cambridge colleges, I don't think. My list of colleges were: St John's... John's, Queens', Christ, Emmanuel, Sidney Sussex – and John's came top of the choices. So I did my, I did the papers, and I was pretty good. I was...

[Q] Why not Trinity or King's?

Well, Gibson distributed his best 'horses' – he was a keen horseracing man – to various colleges, so they wouldn't compete against each other. So, it was quite arbitrary where you went. I think he was not entirely without thought in sending me to John's, because for reasons that I'll disclose it was actually a very good choice for me.