ࡱ> 8:7 9,bjbjqq 42ee9$  0bdddddd^ddybb#qk\jN08@dd : Robert G. E. Murray, OC, MA, MDCM, DSc, FRSC WARTIME OBSERVATIONS When war was declared on September 4th 1939 I was in Canada for a brief holiday and my return crossing was cancelled. An alternative trip on a neutral American ship was obtained but it made me late for Term. I arrived in Cambridge after dark on October 9th to my digs on Alexandra Street (now under Lion Yard complex). I went across St. Andrews Street to report my arrival and walked straight into a post, erected in my absence, at a street crossing beacon. So my first wartime blackout experience was on the College doorstep. I reported my return and my problem bearing a bloody nose. Changes had been made to advance the start of formal teaching to include Full Term. As a result I had to work hard to catch up; fortunately there was extra time for revision at terms end. Changes in the College were evident with some Fellows and staff already off to or awaiting wartime assignments. By ͨmas, as a direct sign of war, some rooms in College were vacated due to call-up or volunteering. This was good for me because I was allotted a fine set with a view on the 2nd floor of R staircase but my move was delayed for finishing the installation of washing facilities in third court rooms and I was given temporary tenancy of M1 for a few weeks. The vacated rooms included those of senior students I had known, doing classics, who did not have the protection from call-up some of us had as medical students. Not much more than a year later some were lost as RAF pilots in combat; and another pilot visited back from Coastal Command having lost an eye in a bird-strike through the windshield. There was more than work to be worried about. The war was in quiet mode through part of 1940. Items were issued that Autumn for war readiness: ration books appeared in November making the College our provisioner, then came a gas mask in a cubic stiff-cardboard box which had to be carried when out and about and, finally, we were issued with an Identity Card which, in my experience, only became essential if you went within twenty miles of the channel ports. The College undertook maintenance jobs while contractors were available: The St Andrews Street front was cleaned and the First Court weathered walls resurfaced. The most insistent sign of wartime was the blackout, which was very strictly observed, followed by occasional air-raid alarms. Woe betide the careless wight leaving a light on in the daytime without seeing that the blackout curtains were tightly closed. It was treated severely with a fine of fifty pounds plus costs. Everyone had to be sure of the effectiveness of their blackout precautions; there were patrols in College and Wardens outside and chinks in the curtains brought shouts of Lights. Greater anxiety and more evident war footing came in June 1940 with the retreat to Dunkirk and retrieval of troops across the channel; a trainload of them came to Cambridge. This was followed by steadily increasing aircraft sorties and the threat of invasion. There was no reduction in lecture or laboratory timetables. Students who were volunteers for tasks needing physical help had to find the spare time. I remember joining in unpacking WW I Lee-Enfield rifles from greasy crates to arm the Home Guard and, also, weekends spent in helping them dig, build and sand bag emplacements on local roads. There came instructions to look out for parachutists who might be up to no good. By mid- 1940 there were more frequent air raid warnings leading up to the heavy bombing of London in December. I was among the students the College delegated to patrol the courts and the whole property at set hours of the night. A privilege in that task was to have a key to the side gate into the Fellows Garden. A hazard to shortcuts across First Court for a while was ever shifting piles of slates destined for the Hall roof that were hard to see in the dark. These ventures out into the night, despite some loss of sleep, provided no malefactors but some magic moments in that lovely surround. Oddly enough, I do not remember the College having a formal assigned air-raid shelter. I doubt that there had ever been an occasion for public celebration in Third Court but there was one in 1940 when F.H.A. Marshall ( known to all as Tibby) was awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Society for his lifes work on the physiology of sex. We serenaded his triumph under his windows. He was one friendly older Fellow who kept in touch with students with small written notes of concern or encouragement and played a part in keeping some of us informed about College affairs. I do not remember other excitements and was more than busy enough. In both years I enjoyed the Darwin Club and helped it organize biological seminars and invite interactions with some biological scientists. But there was diminishing activity in the Club by 1941. At that time there was no effective social centre for the students. For the most part each of us had to make several groups of friends, often started in Hall, sorted out as varied sets of interests meeting at random in our rooms or out together to a pub or an event. Many were involved in team sports or rowing but I stuck with getting back to cricket and enjoyed summer games with the Jabberwocks based on the College grounds in the Long Vacation (it is sad to hear that the grounds have been abandoned to development); there were also summer pick-up games, some in local towns, organized by enthusiasts among the Jabberwocks. In 1940 we played 10 matches and won 8 of them. In College I think the Buttery was an important point of intersection for everyone and supplied of more than commons and commodities; its Steward was a sort of collector of information and almost as important a message centre as the Porters Lodge. Facilities were a bit basic: there was one pissoir in second court and a rather random distribution of toilets on staircases. There were no available washroom facilities for visiting ladies, which produced the odd embarrassing happening especially in the Fellows building when the Garden was open. An older anatomist filling in as a demonstrator who was up in Edwardian times talked of ͨs men going to the Lion Hotel for a bath once a term. In our time we had to walk in dressing gown and towel to the bath house between the First Court and ͨs Lane, which was an exciting early morning trip in my first year and a half going across the street and down ͨs Lane with all the town cycling to work. Over the years Cambridge was spared serious air raids and I remember only three sets of bombs being dropped in my time; the nearest strikes were at Fenners and the Mill Road railway bridge. On a clear night during a raid over London I watched from somewhere near Coe Fen the flashes of antiaircraft shells bursting over the horizon. We felt more than fortunate and direct experiences were another story. Despite restrictions imposed by war, the University and the College maintained their roles for the students in the face of losing faculty and staff to the many forms of national service. Adaptation to circumstances was accomplished. When the summer term and the Tripos examinations had been completed in 1940 the decision for my progress was to defer the clinical work and have a third year doing a Part II in Pathology. This became the foundation for a life of research and teaching in microbiology. However, having a working space in that Department changed the pattern of life in College and my main social contact was in hall. Most of my fellow medical students had gone on to the dispersed London hospitals and those doing a part II were similarly engaged. It was a great year even if I did not come up to expectations. Early in 1941 it was clear that funding my being overseas was a trial for parental finances and it would be most advantageous to return to Montreal. Correspondence with the McGill University Faculty of Medicine showed that they would be prepared to take me on for the clinical years. So time was spent with advisors over this and with the authorities to gain the proper exemption as a medical student, an exit permit and, the most difficult, a berth on a ship, In a sense I was joining four classmates, including David Edwards from ͨs, who were Rockefeller Scholars to prestigious medical schools in North America. Thanks to Professor H.R. Dean for helpful advice and introductions I spent the waiting time usefully learning physical diagnosis in a ward of Addenbrooks Hospital. In three and a half months instructions came to board a ship that joined a convoy of 40 vessels. It took three weeks to.get to the Gulf of St Lawrence after losing only four ships (a record that year) and on to Montreal. The voyage was another adventure in itself. Available heat was from coal fires in the rooms and we had a coal allowance. 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