Rapidly I learnt a new language. Scouts , sub fusc , tutes and pidges, quads and collections. To state the obvious, Oxbridge is a little world unto itself. At first, I was charmed by these quirks and traditions and any nervousness was lessened by the fact that my college was, by Oxford standards, diverse; there were a couple of Scousers, some Scots with actual Scottish accents, a couple of Geordies, a Mackem, one or two students from Northern Ireland.
I arrived at Oxford thinking I’d make heaps of new friends. But you don’t need new friends if you already know everyone. Invite-only dining clubs made it easy to identify the contempt with which outsiders were held. A friend of mine who studied at Pembroke was originally denied access to their dining society, or Teasel club, until he led his team to victory on University Challenge. Suddenly he was seen as a potentially useful chum, and so an invitation was issued.
I don’t mean any of this as an attack on privately educated people. Many are genuinely decent, deeply generous and well-meaning. One of my good friends had been to Harrow. He was very kind, very clever, and, like me, enjoyed drunkenly reciting bits of Tennyson of an evening. He bought me a ticket to a fancy ball at the end of our second year because I was skint. But many are nastily entitled.
louisareid I’ve always taken what teachers said to me with a grain of salt, have they ever worked in the real world? because as I got older and worked in finance I always found that teachers have no common sense when it comes to money.
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