Mill Lane Special: Boy Meets Girl, 1963
Regular readers will remember our popular Mill Lane feature on the theme of ‘Girl Meets Boy, 1958’, which went ‘live’ in Michaelmas Term 2025. We now present the sequel, which surveys the years 1961 to 1964. The absence of ‘mixed’ colleges in Cambridge remains the dominating factor in this period. Women undergraduates could only attend one of three colleges (Newnham, Girton, or New Hall). Hughes Hall was an affiliated institution which trained graduate women teachers. Darwin College, founded in 1964 as the first mixed college in Cambridge, is graduate-only to this day. The other colleges would remain all-male bastions until the 1970s or later; the male undergraduates were in consequence far more numerous than the female. What effect did these antediluvian (but quintessentially Oxbridge) arrangements have on ‘inter-personal relationships’? Read on…
1961 Varsity Handbook
p.61-62. Dancing. If you want to meet girls in Cambridge (and most people do) the best way is at a dance or party. The person who can dance well, or even just dance, stands a far better chance than the man who can at best just stand around being charming and getting the drinks.
Readers should note that at this date, and indeed for many years to come, the words ‘person’ and ‘people’ were often elegant synonyms for ‘man’ and ‘men’.
So many bird and bottle parties (and these make up most of undergraduate parties) only provide music for jiving, and nothing can equal the boredom of the frustrated group of men drinking themselves silly in a corner, perhaps singing and making a lot of noise, but really rather pathetic.
For those who prefer ballroom dancing…The Dorothy holds regular Wednesday and Saturday evening dances, with a good ballroom, which is used not only for regular dances, but also by the popular up-to-midnight clubs which provide music ranging from traditional to Latin-American.
If you, like many others, are fascinated by foreign girls, you will enjoy the frequent dances at the Language Schools.
The Dorothy Café was housed in an imposing building on Sidney Street (with an equally imposing entrance on Hobson Street). It featured a ballroom and several restaurants, and the Dorothy’s Oak Room could be hired for parties. The Dorothy finally closed its doors in 1972; the premises are currently occupied by Waterstones Bookshop.
The former Dorothy Café (now Waterstones) as seen from Hobson Street. Note the pair of Classicizing stone ‘rostra’ projecting from the wall!
The back staircase in Waterstones still hints at the Dorothy’s departed glories.
1962 Varsity Handbook
p.38 Cambridge Life: Girls: The Male to Female ratio in the University is about 8:1. Cut out the men who are not prepared to stick the pace, and it falls to 7:1. Cut out those who have steady girl friends at home and it falls to 6:1. Include Addenbrooke’s Nurses (Telephone 56361) 5:1, Homerton (475471), 4:1 and foreign girls 3:1.
With careful management a man can run three girls: one in Cambridge, one at home, and one in London. This is quite fair, since the foregoing mathematics has shown that if you won’t take a girl out, there are two others who will.
p.39 Cambridge Life: Women: Do not accept your first proposal in Cambridge out of flattery, or your last out of desperation…If you are overweight give up meals. If that doesn’t work try giving up mid-mornings as well. Go to your hairdresser making sure you have time to read “Tatler” and “Vogue” to discover what you should be wearing, and then go to Marks and Sparks to buy it. Hard by is Joshua Taylor’s where the girl at the cosmetics counter will tell you exactly what you need. However your local chemist may be able to supply a similar thing more cheaply.
The wicked looking smile of the Oh! so charming man you met at the Union cellars probably is wicked. A wolf may wear sheep’s clothing, wolf’s clothing or no clothing at all.
The departmental stores of Robert Sayle’s, Eaden Lilley, and Joshua Taylor once constituted the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Cambridge retail. Located on the corner of Sidney Street and Market Street, the former premises of Joshua Taylor survive, but have been subdivided into various ‘retail outlets’ and at least one bar. O tempora, o mores!
The former premises of Joshua Taylor in the centre of Cambridge.
p.49 Women’s Page: About entertaining; it is important to repay hospitality. Most Cambridge men like to take out the girl unless they are going steady and have reached another agreement – so the least you can do is tea or coffee in return. Do try to make your food edible – stodgy old crumpets or buns are all right for the elephants, but for most men the long trek to a women’s college is an event, and a little imagination may make it one to remember…in this sphere [women] can really add to Cambridge instead of trudging in the wake of the men.
The ‘long trek’ primarily alludes to Girton College, situated at a prodigious distance from the centre of Cambridge. It might refer to Homerton College, which is unique in being located on the ‘other’ side of the railway. But Homerton was at this date a women-only teacher-training college having no formal connection with the University. Hughes Hall, sandwiched between Mill Road and Fenners cricket ground, is another possibility. The extract can hardly refer to Newnham College (located opposite the then brand-new Sidgwick Site), or indeed New Hall (now Murray Edwards College) which occupied a house in Silver Street until the move to the present site in 1964.
1963 Varsity Handbook
p.45 Women’s Page. Dress simply. Beware of spending your whole life in Marks and Sparks one-pieces, but don’t waste haute couture on the gaunt and rather inclement Mill Lane lecture theatres. Men’s size 40 chunky sweaters are ideal à deux, but cardigans have the edge in the open air. As for parties, it’ll probably be too dark for him to notice what you’re wearing.
p.47-48 Men’s Page. The fact is that a young male with a bit of determination will have little difficulty in finding himself a lady companion. Whether he succeeds in holding on to her is a totally different matter. This causes the majority of men to give up hope…What the disillusioned Romeo forgets is that the self-inforced [sic] hibernation becomes a stampede just after half way through the academic year and that the corridors of Girton are suddenly deserted except by Juliets who have taken to double doses of Chanel No.5 before breakfast. It’s worse for their morale to be unloved than it for yours. You can at least brush off the other sex with a game of darts at the local.
The Mill pub, on the corner of Mill Lane and Granta Place.
1964 Varsity Handbook
p.47-49Women’s Page. “Where have all the young men gone?” you may ask yourself during the first few days in Cambridge… Men are the only subject everyone mentions, when they know you [sic] coming up to Cambridge; - how many there are, what a gay life you’ll lead, and don’t come back married, will you? ha! ha!
There are so many men, that you’re in a position of strength. No need to go out with anyone you don’t really like. No need to feel rivalry with other girls. You can choose your friends whether from the Pitt or the Tiddliwinks [sic] club by a little tact and charm.
Don’t let a possessive third-year man tie you down, then leave you desolate when he goes down. Assert your right to go out with as many people as you like. Don’t be too eager, yourself, to persuade your man he ought to think about settling down.
…boyish figures looking for a second mother. When you find yourself cooking for them, listening to their neurotic fantasies, and ordering their lives for them, it is time to move on.
Gas rings, with the help of a cookery book, produce some extraordinarily good meals. Anyway, alcohol will cover up any failure. Going Dutch on the odd occasion seems only fair in a University where grants do not vary with sex.
N.B. ‘Going Dutch’: to share expenses equally.
p.51 Men’s Page. Cambridge women have the upper hand; any suspicion that they are being used as toys and that they are not the only ones will bring the beautiful relationship to a hasty close. And be discreet. It is not so long ago that everywhere the girls went, a chaperone was sure to go; or that an undergraduate walking the streets at night would make a proctor worried unless the girl with him was his sister. Times have changed and attitudes too – but discretion is the better part of romance.
And here is some concise advice for the romantically-inclined:
p.55 Relax on the River – with your girl friend or your books. SCUDAMORE’S Mill Lane – Granta Place – Magdalene Bridge Reduced prices – Monday to Friday.
But, where will it all end?
p.22 Unilever Profile No.1 Peter Salt on Peter Salt:
Motivation. The usual. A hungry wife. Two hungry children. A hungry dog. Sometimes I get hungry, too.
The terrible temptation. About 5 feet 6. Blonde. Blue eyes. Luckily I married her.
Most paradoxical quality. I’m lazy. I can watch my wife mow the lawn without a qualm of conscience. Yet at the office I work hard.
The writer works in marketing at Unilever. The advertisement promises graduates a starting salary of £850 p.a., rising to £4,500 for senior managers. The accompanying illustration shows a carefree husband reclining in a hammock on a sunny day, while his wife in a 1964 ‘one-piece’ perspiringly mows the lawn…
Scudamores punting station at Granta Place, and a glimpse of the sylvan Upper River.
Andrew Green remembers the Mill Lane era
The March e-newsletter featured a Mill Lane Adventure on the theme of Letters. It prompted Andrew Green to write in with his own memories of the Mill Lane era, which readers will find below. Andrew was an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius in the years 1970-73. Readers may also like to click on the link (below) to view Andrew’s blogpost, in which he conjures up the lecturing style of Professor Sir Denys Page with aplomb, and also recalls long-ago tutorials with Henry Deas at Gonville and Caius.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1973, Andrew trained as a librarian, and worked in a number of UK university libraries before being appointed as Director of Library and Information Services at Swansea University. A fluent Welsh speaker, Andrew subsequently served as Librarian of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, from 1998 until his retirement in 2013. He lives in Swansea.
"I've just been reading, in the Cambridge Classical newsletter, your most recent reconstructions of Mill Lane life long ago.
Many of the names you mention and quote are familiar.
Seeing W.H. Plommer's handwriting gave me a jolt, instantly recalling his scrawls on my undergraduate essays on Greek architecture. He was kind to me, even when I came up with an unlikely reconstruction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
Guy Griffith was my Director of Studies, a man of mild temperament and a generous nature. The three of us Caius classicists would meet in his room in Tree Court in late afternoon over sherry, while he puffed his way through several cigarettes and we read out our essays. At the end of each term he would hand out a huge sheet, with a matrix of classical authors and their works, and jot down the (impossibly numerous) works he thought I should read over the vacation. I have a copy of his ‘Guide to the Classics’, left to me by my father, who was also taught by him in Caius."
[N.B. The lively and informative ‘A Guide to the Classics, or How to Pick the Derby Winner’, was co-written by Guy Griffith and Michael Oakeshott in 1936].
"There's a passing mention in your piece of Henry Deas, who also taught me in tutorials, after he'd officially retired, in a dark, miserable room in St Michael's Court. His handwriting was even worse than Plommer's. Some years ago I wrote a brief recollection of him: Mr Deas – gwallter. As you'll see, his grandson contacted me after reading it.
I'm glad to see Dorothy is still very active. Hope all is well in the Faculty Library."
Outside the Old Ark: the cottages in Little St. Mary's Lane, and the one-time shortcut to the Mill Lane Lecture Block.