Page 25 - Linacre 50 years

Linacre College

1962–1977 at St Aldate’s

“No term passed

without a major

“An introductory party

dramaƟc
in the fall of 1975—

producƟon, and a
something about real

concert aƩracƟng
beer”

a large audience

of music lovers

from Town and

“I fondly remember siƫng in the Linacre TV Gown. The unisex

“One evening in the depths of winter, all electric room watching the first Monty Python series. dressing room

power in College was cut off. By universal but I would be laughing the loudest, surrounded by was the College

unspoken consent, the whole community decided bemused students from other countries.” kitchen.”

to abandon work and family and stay put, mingling

and sipping by candlelight till quite late in the night.

The result was a delightfully convivial, civilised and

unforgettable evening, of a kind which would have

been inconceivable in the older undergraduate

Colleges.”

Note the price, in the lower leŌ corner, of the 1972 matriculaƟon photo

“Linacre was proud to have only one Common

Room where both fellows and students could

meet. . . It was the Common Room which was

striving to develop ‘new traditions’, like the Linacre

College Lectures, Supervisors’ Nights and Linacre

Night (the annual ball). It was somewhat exciting

trying to fit a three-year-old College into a 900-year

-old university!”

“I can read my diaries of my three years at Linacre

and not recall the myriads of parties it records I

attended (what exactly was the “Witch Hunt” at

Court Place on 1st November 1969?); proposing

the motion that “Love is better than sex” at the

Oxford Union (in the 1970 summer holidays, as

women were not yet allowed to speak at the

Union during term-time); watching the christening

of Linacre’s first rowing boat on 7th February

1970; and attending the National Union of

Students’ Conference in Bradford, a few weeks

after being a ‘runner’ for food and beer for my

friends ‘sitting in’ at the Clarendon Building.”