Inheritance

Chapter Thirteen. The Sheffield Letters.

Chapter Thirteen 

The Sheffield Letters 

166 Hunter House Road 

Hunters Bar 

Sheffield 11 

Yorkshire 

October 18th 1959 

 

Dear Rachel, 

Two weeks of my first term have passed, and at last, I have some spare time to write the letter I promised you. To be quite honest I'm missing the laid back atmosphere of the old school. Here things are quite scary. During freshman week, I was asked to attend a meeting in the office of the department head. There I learned that 120 students had been accepted in to the first year honours chemistry programme, but that there were only 42 places in the second year. No matter how good your marks, if you're not in the top 42 you'll only be allowed to take a general degree, and the prospects of obtaining a spot in a Ph.D. program with a general degree are almost nil. To make matters worse I discovered that I had the lowest A level marks of any of the students at the meeting. Like I said-real scary!!!  

Here's the good news. During the week before classes started I had to register in two optional courses. There was really only one option because all honours chemistry students are required to take honours math as one of them. I chose to take physiology as my other (NOT PHYSICS!!). This turned out to be a good choice, because classes are small and the lab work is fun. Last week we had to obtain a kymograph of a frog's heart beat. I'm such a chicken!! I couldn't bring myself to put a connecting pin through the beating heart. Luckily my lab partner is a girl majoring in zoology. She did it for me when the prof wasn't looking. No way could I have gone to med school!! The math is so hard, far beyond the level of last year, and I'm struggling to keep up already. So far the chemistry has been O.K. I really like the labs.  

My chem lab partner is a chap from Sunderland. He's a great soccer fan and last week I went with him and several of his buddies to watch a first division game at Bramall Lane. I really enjoyed it and plan to go to football games for a break. Luckily there are two first division teams in Sheffield so I can go to a match every Saturday. After the game we all went to the Union bar for a few beers and then most of them went to the Union Dance. I didn't. It just didn't feel right to go dancing without Sheila, so I went along with a couple of others to the pictures. We saw "Rosemary's Baby". It scared me half to death. 

By the way if you're thinking of going to University don't worry about money. I've found that the County grant is more than enough. I got a grant of 330 pounds for the year. All my books and stationery cost me a total of 24 pounds. My lodgings are 3 pounds fifteen shillings a week and that includes all meals except week day lunches. I figure I'll have enough money left over at the end of the year to take a real vacation. It looks like I might not need to work the post at Xmas.  

My lodgings are lousy. Three of us share an attic bedroom that will be really cold when winter comes. There's no heating!!! I don't know why, but ever since moving in, I have been having this strange dream. I wake up alone in bed and start looking for hidden doors in the attic walls. Eventually I find a moveable panel at floor level. I have to go on my knees to get into a dark musty passage that I follow through the bowels (That's a good word isn't it!!) of the house. I don't know what I'm looking for, and eventually get lost. I wake up terrified and in a cold sweat. I have no idea what it means and what causes it. I just wish it would stop. 

The landlady, Mrs.Jewett, is a really nice Cornish woman who loves to cook. Our meals are humungeous and delicious. If I'm not careful I'll really put on the pounds because I don't think I'll be getting much exercise