MY FIRST YEAR AT TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE: THE BERKSHIRE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, BULMERSHE, READING...

 College part 1: arrival, the room-mate, Bracknell and my spring and summer term digs…

NOTICE THE LETTER WAS DATED DECEMBER 1968, MONTHS BEFORE MY A-LEVEL EXAMS...

I made my way to Bulmershe Teacher Training College in Reading during October 1969 with a lift from my parents in my father’s Austin 1100, SOF 318 H. We ate something at the ‘Quiet Woman’ in Oxfordshire, I recall but I would rather have been alone to make the trip, in truth. I would usually get travel to and from Reading by train but the route took me past the back of Birmingham City’s football ground, which meant that the journey could only get better after that…

MUM & ME OUTSIDE THE QUIET WOMAN, EN ROUTE TO COLLEGE...

It did, through Leamington Spa, Oxford and Didcot, before the train finally pulled into Reading. I would use the rail route many times during my three years at Bulmershe. Often, when returning by train on Sunday evenings after 10pm, it was as if Reading had died. There were no buses to the college in the Earley/Woodley area at that time of the day and so I was forced to walk…

BULMERSHE...

I was due to share a room in college with an art student whose name I cannot even remember, who had already been into drugs before he arrived at college but I hardly ever saw him anyway. Never once in the time spent as a student in Reading was I offered drugs, nor did I see drugs being used of any kind. Sounds strange but true… Maybe it was because I was studying PE? Who knows? Anyway my room-mate was clearly several years older than me but I recall him having sex with a girl in his bed as I lay alone in mine just a couple of metres away, on the rare occasions he deigned to turn up at our room.

BULMERSHE WAS A DECENT COLLEGE TO ATTEND...

My father had insisted that I should have my hair cut before attending college but when I arrived there, I had the shortest hair on campus, it seemed to me. And I was wearing a tie… Thanks, dad, again… By the end of the first year, my hair was just about the longest in the PE Department, I reckon.  

ARRIVAL AT THE ACCOMMODATION...

25 YEARS AFTER I LEFT...

In the next room was a guy called Pete Moran, known as Bugsy, who was a talented soccer player but tough looking. He was to dabble in drugs during his sophomore year but late on that first afternoon, I kept goal for him in the gymnasium and leapt spectacularly about. One or two third year students watched us and applauded my goalkeeping but I wasn’t to grace either the soccer or rugby team because of my ridiculous addiction to following Aston Villa. 

MY ROOM IN THE THIRD YEAR...

The first meeting of my tutor group was a revelation in my life because it was the first time ever that I made other folks laugh, despite my terrible shyness. It was clear that we were all going to have to introduce ourselves, one by one, saying our names, where we lived and which subjects we were studying. I was so worried about doing this, that I was almost ready to run out of the room. Seriously…

Oddly, the two students to introduce themselves before me were from the coast, both from from places which were somewhere ‘on Sea’. The girl before me said that she was Marilyn Seal from Shoeburyness, Southend-on-Sea, studying whatever it was, thus leaving the shuddering me to go next. I began: “I’m Peter Ray, I’m studying PE and I’m from Birmingham, er, on-Sea…”

There was a pause and everybody collapsed laughing… That moment would change my life completely.

I don’t recall what I ate during the first term, except that I used the canteen rarely, although I tasted yogurt there for the first time.

I recall having to purchase a glockenspiel to play and also doing clapping games in music sessions, which really, for a PE person like me seemed to lack a little in the excitement department although I was reasonably rhythmic, I guess…

During that first term, I spent the opening few weeks on campus and then saw Reading FC lose 2-3 to Walsall. I soon began to miss Villa, despite having plastered Villa images around my room. Thus I started to travel home for many weekends, a trend which I kept up for the three years I spent as a student in Reading. 

I truly regret playing only mid-week soccer and rugby games for college, for I realise now that the PE lecturers were impressed enough by my ability to actually plead with me not to watch Villa. They were correct. What they said was true, that I could watch Villa during the remainder of my life, which of course I haven’t actually done. I also used to hitch-hike, take train rides or simply board buses to Aldershot, Brentford and to other central London clubs to watch football. 

In December 1970 on the final day of term, I hitch-hiked to Plymouth, stayed with a relative for two nights, saw Villa draw with Argyle, then thumbed home from Devon to Birmingham for Christmas. I remember being dropped off at an exit from the M5, then walking into the southern extremities of Birmingham, before catching a bus into the city centre then the number 55 to home in Shard End. 

I always seemed to pick up lifts easily, for my college scarf and handy black umbrella seemed to work to my benefit and it was surprising how many women actually stopped for me. Generally those women had a dog in the car, which would invariably sit on my lap in the passenger seat… 

I hitch-hiked across to Bristol on a foul Tuesday in 1970 for a League Cup Quarter Final too, which again Villa drew. I was dry and clean until the rain stopped as I was dropped off in Bristol but as I shook out my brolly and crossed a bridge, a driver of a truck cruelly and intentionally drove through a gutter puddle and splashed much of it onto me. Luckily, I was staying overnight at the digs of a Bristol University student I had met at Villa Park. His landlady gave me food and dried my clothes. The game was played on a mud-patch and in driving rain, so my first experiences of a double bed and an electric blanket were quite memorable… I decided against returning to college on the Wednesday but instead hitch-hiked home to Birmingham for a very long weekend. 

ANDY LOCHHEAD CELEBRATES PAT MCMAHON'S GOAL AT EASTVILLE...

However, that first term ended with no room-mate at all, for he had moved in with his girlfriend. After Christmas, I was to live in lodgings for two terms. A student of French, Charlie ‘Cheerth Boys’ Watts and I were placed with Miss Herbert, a retired headmistress from Wokingham. She owned nine cats. Food was sparse. Not for the cats though… 

On the first day, Miss Herbert called upstairs, “Peter, do you like bacon?” 

“Yes…” I replied.

Then: “Do you like beans?” 

I retorted, “Er, yes…” 

Finally, “Do you like tomatoes?” 

I hesitated, puzzled but quickly responded: “Yes, Miss Herbert…”

She then hailed Charlie. “Peter wants bacon, beans and tomatoes. Is that all right for you?” 

Charlie called back: “Yeth, Mith Herbert!”

When the food came, World War Two rationing had certainly been reintroduced to Berkshire… 

THE LOWTHER CLOSE DIGS SOME 15 YEARS ON...

WOKINGHAM'S RIFLE VOLUNTEER.
 LOWTHER CLOSE WAS JUST BEHIND THE PUB...

Charlie was my mate because he was more involved with the PE guys than the French students. He was a Swindon Town fan and sometimes sang boringly as we travelled to and from college: “Donald, Donald Rogers, Donald Rogers on the wi-ing, Donald, Don…” and so on… Rogers was Swindon’s legendary goalscoring winger, who famously scored two extra-time goals for Swindon v Arsenal in the 1969 League Cup Final.

On that first day at Miss Herbert’s house which was a Monday, Aldershot FC, mid-table in the 4th division, were due to play an FA Cup-tie against Huddersfield Town, who were top of Division 2 at the time. It was meant to be a walkover for the Yorkshiremen. Charlie and I just had to get out of the house, so I suggested thumbing lifts to the match. Now thumbing from Wokingham to Aldershot wasn’t easy at that time due to the fact that although the sixteen miles or so of roads did eventually go from A to B, alas they meandered via F… 

We made it however and I fell in love with Aldershot FC. Charlie and I stood with the singing masses behind one goal and got carried away as Shots fought back from a 1-0 deficit to win 3-1, with an exciting and wonderful display in a stirring, dramatic atmosphere. “Come on Soldiers, come on Soldiers…” replaced Charlie’s Donald Rogers chant for several days… 

JIMMY MELIA SCORES A PENALTY FOR THE SHOTS IN THAT GAME...

Pleasingly, just one lift was secured to return to Wokingham and we were in a local pub by 10.15pm, a rare pleasure in that town, for shortly after spending a month in Miss Herbert’s quaint and furry surroundings, she became very ill. Charlie and I were moved temporarily into a women’s college and placed in staff bedrooms with en-suite sitting rooms. Nice… 

EASTHAMPSTEAD PARK BEFORE WW2...

This was Easthampstead Park College, having then just amalgamated with Bulmershe and where we were due to attend some of our lectures anyway. Only third year girls were in residence, as the women’s college was being phased out. For two weeks we were pampered by the residents, with coffee almost on tap and we were suddenly living in the attractive countryside grounds of a mansion-like building, on the extremities of the booming new town of Bracknell. We had the gymnasium and a fine football pitch to ourselves. Cool…

1980s & THE FOOTBALL PITCH USED TO BE ON THE GRASS IN THE BACKGROUND...

THE IMPRESSIVE DRIVE...

Easthampstead Park was where Catherine of Aragon was apparently left waiting for a few years to find out what Henry VIII would do about securing a divorce, etc…

RETURNING IN 1997...

Bracknell was to be our next home though. I was moved to the Long household and Charlie lodged just opposite in a neighbour’s house. Great Hollands was then a new council housing estate, Peter Long was a little overweight and a driver for Castrol Oils, his spouse Maria was Spanish, rather and she carried a little extra weight too. She was the mother to Elizabeth, who was four years old and Dan, just two. Maria’s cooking was quite splendid… 

57 AYSGARTH, GREAT HOLLANDS...

THE REAR VIEW...

Here began a strange phase of my life, very much alone, for Charlie soon became hooked on a girl at college called Heather Futrell, someone he was to marry. He would spend more and more time in college with her, leaving me rather stranded in Bracknell… 

ME WITH MUM & THE LONG FAMILY...

The water in Berkshire was not pleasant to taste at first but gradually I became used to it and eventually preferred it to Birmingham’s water for drinking. However, I misinterpreted Maria’s difficult to understand words soon after moving in because although she had told me to do whatever I wanted and to feel at home, it turned out not to be the case at first. 

Sadly, after returning to Great Hollands late from a football match, I made myself a slice of toast in the kitchen, for I thought that it would be OK to do so. I washed the knife and plate too but Maria told me off the following day, for doing so without her permission…

I was really confused and very upset by that incident, although Maria soon began to treat me really well… 

ME WITH MARIA & MUM WHEN I MOVED IN.
NOTE THE TIE AGAIN...