This Much Is True

A lot of young Jews from England went out to be on a kibbutz and make new things happen. That wasn’t me: I was not a pioneer. I’d always assumed that Jews didn’t really do any kind of practical, manual work, because Mummy said, ‘If you want a job done, get a man in to do it.’ Daddy could no more put up a shelf than fly, so we had proper workmen in to do jobs around our house. I wouldn’t dream of digging the garden or doing woodwork or anything like that. It’s not what we do. Other young Jews spent a year in Israel, helping to build a nation. I hadn’t come to build Israel; I just wanted to experience this thriving new country for a few months. I thought of it as an alternative summer holiday.

I didn’t meet any Palestinians nor Arab-Israelis, but at that time I didn’t have a consciousness. As my politics developed, I fell out of love with Israel — and I didn’t go again, for a long time.

Cambridge

I went up to Cambridge in October 1960 and that’s when my life started. That was the moment I knew I would have the chance to become myself. I knew it was going to open a door of endless possibilities. And it did. It was at Cambridge that I became who I am.

I was determined to make an impression, not least sartorially. I decided to smoke a pipe. I wore a circular blue fur hat and swore all the time. That certainly got me noticed, although looking back I see how silly and exhibitionistic I must have seemed.

My parents drove me to Cambridge in our Daimler Conquest Century saloon. Daddy bought this wonderful car second-hand from Organs Garage in North Oxford. It was his pride and I felt it was a perfect car to transport me to my new life. Liz and I were at Newnham together, which was and is an all-female college. It was founded in 1871 by a group of radicals — philosophers, campaigners, scientists, writers — who came together to create a Cambridge college that organised ‘lectures for ladies’. They built their own library in 1897, because at that time the women students couldn’t use the university libraries. (It wasn’t until 1948 that Cambridge allowed women to receive degrees.)

Newnham is divided into four halls; Liz and I were in Old Hall, which was the oldest part of the college, and is the most elegant. For three years I lived there in beauty and fellowship, some lust, a little learning, and sowed the seeds of my career.

The friends I made at college remain dear to this day. I had no brothers and sisters but suddenly I felt part of a family, of a community — a much-used word these days, but so it was. We undergraduates lived together on site, each in our own room, and we breakfasted together. Breakfast makes a community. You arrive fresh (or not) from sleep, you share your night thoughts, discuss the day’s events, lectures in the offing, love and the lack of it. Plus, there was always a proper cooked breakfast, and the scrambled eggs were excellent. I’m told I used to come down to the breakfast table each day and announce, ‘I have just had a wonderful bowel movement.’ This is (alas) possible: every morning Daddy asked me if I’d moved my bowels. I was merely continuing that tradition.

Going to Cambridge meant I was finally allowed to own a bicycle. Mine had a little basket on the front for my books and shopping, and a bell to warn people of my approach. As I am very short, I couldn’t reach the ground by merely lowering my feet from the pedals; at every traffic light, I was obliged to dismount fully — a nuisance. Now that I’m a driver, I view cyclists with dislike — there are too many on London roads and they are aggressive. But in Cambridge, sixty years ago, it was a pleasant way to get about.

At night we used to sit in each other’s rooms, drinking hot chocolate or tea and talking. I think I talked a lot. The confidences we exchanged cemented our closeness.

The top floor of Old Hall above the gateway was our eyrie; there were four rooms and the kitchen — called the Common Stock. That’s where I kept my food.

When people came for tea and cakes, mine were always better than anyone else’s. I’m a good hostess — learnt from Mummy — and I’d prepare my speciality, which was fried mushroom stalks. I’d discovered you could buy mushroom stalks more cheaply than mushrooms in the market. And very often I’d have smoked salmon and cream cheese. I’ve always felt that smoked salmon was an essential ingredient of any social occasion. But it must, like a woman, be MOIST!