UNIVERSITY
My academic record leaves a lot to me desired. Actually I have been to university twice. Once in SA where I studied architecture and received the interrelated degrees of B. Building Arts and B. Architecture. Then very late in life I did a MSc in Building Conservation and Management at Heriot-Watt near Edinburgh, but done remotely except for exams.
That MSc fulfilled an ambition to get into building conservation. I was already a member of the IHBC, ie the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and was very into the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland (AHSS). But you will probably find that boring.
So I will concentrate on my youth at the University of Port Elizabeth in SA.
As a setting, it was idylic. A short walk or cycle from the Cape Recife nature reserve with its lighthouse, water purification ponds full of birds and less used beaches. I visited often on my own and saw monkeys, some mongooses and even a large baboon, most likely wandered down from the distant mountains.
I found aspects of it easy and others very difficult. Got very stressed out and yet enjoyed a great deal of it. There were some highlights.
At first we had our studios in the old university library in central Port Elizabeth. Adjoining it was on the street frontage the modern Biology Department and we got to know some of the students. We sometimes thought their course more attractive than ours when they laid out the catch of the day in the sun - survey trawls in the bay. But would change our minds when the smell of fish in the sun reached our noses.
On the other side of our studios was an old double storey house where we had lectures. And there was a garden up the approach path. But all this was while the new campus was being built in Summerstrand towards Cape Recife. A vast ultra modern concrete place; possibly the laragest single location university campus in the world of that nature. Our new studios were still "on the drawing board" and still some way in the future.
So we were moved as an interim measure into part of the Feather Market Building in the city centre where we had much more space. Adjoining our studios and offices was the large arched central hall that had been the main feather market building during the heyday of the osrich feather boom, but which then had a basket ball court. We were able to watch internation basket ball matches from our studios.
On the upper level beyond that was a large hall that had been part of the feather trade market too, but by this time was used as a multi-purpose space for things such as pop concerts. Not far from here was the opera house, but it was not suitable for such use.
We once managed to casually walk in during the half-time interval to see the Troggs. Never trust a student! And on another occassion saw some mediocre male pop singer that was the supporting act, but which the crowd evidently liked. The main act was Eartha Kitt. She had had her hit Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend. Remember this was back in 1972 during apartheid and prejudice. She was not white and it was surprising that she had a tour in SA. The audience was absolutely awful to her and she left crying. Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of her tour on Wiki, but it does note that her career faltered at about this time after criticising the Vietnam War policy of Lyndon B. Johnson and this may have been an attempt to get a wider audience.
But the next year we moved out to the new concrete campus. We still didn't have a our specific building so we were moved into the top floor of the library - a large inverted concrete ziggurat of a building. We set up our studios at one end and of this vast space. I was to later see that the university computers, large fridge sized things with whirring cassette on them, were located at the other (with occassional rainwater pouring down alongside from a leak in the flat roof.
Being students, we managed to get up onto that vast flat roof with its great views out across the campus with the bush and the sea beyond. We planned to have a braai (BBQ) up there, but word got out and we were severely sanctioned.
We were expected to work late on projects and doing that in a studio environment together was far better than home alone so we got quite comfortable in our studio space, music blaring into the night. The university authorities realised this and tried to put a stop to it. A night guard would patrol within the floor at about 10:30 at night. The lights would be switched off so I borrowed a large paraffin lamp. We then found that we could leave the lights on uninterupted if we locked the intermediate doors. The guard would try them, but could not get at the switch and moved on. We went deadly quiet until he had gone.
Sometimes he persisted so I devised a plan to deter him. I taped wild animal sounds, hippos, crocodiles, monkeys etc and set a small speaker within the ceiling panesl far down beyond our studio space, but controlled within it. I then played this very softly as he approached. Just enough to make him wonder. And perhaps be intimidated by the sounds. Imagine him trying to explain what he heard to his supervisor.
We never did get found out.
