I had reluctantly to miss a trial for the Leicester County Rugby Team to attend this improbable meeting, at which I was told that switching to History was the only way I stood a chance of getting into Cambridge. They pointed out Howard’s remarkable long run of success in guiding Newtonians to admission, and contrasted it with the woeful record of the scientists.
When I impertinently pointed out that Snow’s scientific career had been launched from Alderman Newton’s, he forcefully pointed out that in order to do so he had to stay on at the school after his time in the Sixth Form to work for several years as a lowly lab assistant, and then had to take an external London degree at University College Leicester. If I thought I was the intellectual equal of Snow, and if I was willing to face the many years toiling away at school after taking my “A” levels, and if I would be content to remain in Leicester to take my degree, then perhaps I should stick with science. It was presented as a series of conditions that only a fool would accept.
My protestations that it was far too late to switch to a whole new set of “A” levels were brushed aside as weak-kneed; my protestations that I much preferred science and maths to History were brushed aside as self-indulgent; and my admission that I was not sure that I wanted to go to any university, much less Cambridge, were brushed aside as pathetically unambitious. It was, I was told in no uncertain terms by Plumb, one’s duty to maximize one’s potential.
Impressed by their dogmatic certainties and no doubt flattered by their attention, I agreed to change to three new Arts “A” levels and to concentrate on History. The decision meant that I had just over a year to master my new syllabus.
My mother was infuriated by my decision, and marched up to the school to demand an explanation. As a young war-widow with four children to bring up on her own, she was not surprisingly somewhat risk-averse. She was particularly suspicious of sudden ill-thought out decisions. This was very understandable given that my father (from a secure position in the Royal Armoured Corps after their successful North African Campaign against Rommel) had bravely but recklessly volunteered to join the SAS; and given that he had then volunteered to join the Special Boat Squadron, the most exclusive Special Forces unit in World War II; and given that he had then been sent to his almost certain death by Churchill’s even more reckless decision (against almost universal advice not to do so) to invade the Dodecanese Islands in 1943. It proved to be the spectacularly incompetent, the comprehensively disastrous and the absurdly optimistically-named “Operation Accolade”. It has rightly gone down in history as “Churchill’s Folly”.
The Special Boat Squadron may have been “highly trained, totally secretive and utterly ruthless” as Gavin Mortimer describes it in his history of The SBS in World War II. It may have gone “from island to island in the Mediterranean, landing in the dead of night in small fishing boats and launching savage hit and run raids on the Germans”, but it never comprised more than 100 men and when sent to take the Dodecanese Islands with no air cover at all, they were sitting ducks for the German Stuka bombers who blew them to bits at their leisure.
So little wonder that my mother was so risk averse. Unhappily well-versed in such male folly (and, for her, their life changing outcomes), she was determined to prevent me from taking what she saw as an equally sudden and foolish change to the course of my future education.
My science teachers gave her a warm welcome, heartily agreeing with her that they thought that this was a ridiculous and reckless decision. It was particularly ill-advised they said because “Neil is the best mathematician we have ever had”. Fortunately at this point my mother asked what successes they had ever had? How many had they sent up to Cambridge for instance? When they said “None”, she decided that, on reflection, “perhaps my trio of advisors had a point”.
When I tell this story, many people express surprise that I accepted my elders’ advice, which in many ways went against my strong inclinations, but for a fatherless teenager, Howard, Plumb and Snow were a formidable trio to refuse.
Howard, after all, was a proven past master at preparing his pupils for the Cambridge scholarship examinations and was the most influential teacher at my school. Plumb and Snow were established academics who had both experienced major problems seeking to get themselves into Cambridge from our less than glamorous grammar school. All three had powerful personalities. All three were used to getting their own way. Their authoritative advice, when added to the magical effects of flattering encouragement, was difficult to resist.
Just how important such encouragement was, can be judged when compared to the attitude of the deputy Headmaster of my school who had assured me that it was a disgrace for me, and the three others who also decided to apply, to even consider applying to Cambridge. Such an application would “only bring shame and dishonour and humiliation on the school”, he said. It was absurd to think that “boys like us” could hope to succeed at such a distinguished university. As we were the brightest boys in the school and I was Head Prefect, it showed the levels of discouragement that even the most promising received. When we all won open awards in the Scholarship Examination (I won a Scholarship and the other three got Exhibitions), he refused to change his mind and greeted us on our triumphant return to the school with the words: “Don’t expect any congratulations from me. The standards at Cambridge have obviously fallen to an abysmally low level”.
Such an attitude shows just how influential Howard’s contrasting encouragement could be, and (in seeking the authoritative backing of Snow and Plumb to achieve his ends) also shows how far he was willing to go to guide his pupils to success. He and Snow may have failed with Plumb in the late 1920s but that setback had merely convinced him that better plans of attacks in the early 1950s would yield greater and greater success.
My experience demonstrates all too clearly the self-confident certainties that Plumb brought to advising and directing and encouraging the success of so many of his pupils at Cambridge. His own initial humiliating failure made him all the more determined to guide others to a smoother path to success. Many have told me similar stories of how they were flattered, bullied or generally browbeaten into taking his advice on the direction that their lives and careers should follow.
A typical example was the experience of Wallas Eaton, the actor. Eaton was taught by Howard at Alderman Newton’s in the 1930s and also went up to Cambridge to read History and then English at Christ’s. He told me that he was not only advised by Plumb and Snow on how to apply for admission to Cambridge, he was also then advised that he would never enjoy a successful acting career with the name he was christened with – namely Reg Eaton. In their customary authoritative way, Plumb and Snow decided that he needed a more distinctive theatrical first name. Unfortunately in the mid 1930’s they recommended a new name, namely Wallis, which Mrs Simpson was just about to make the most unpopular name in the country. By then Eaton had started theatrical work with his new name and the best that he could do was to unobtrusively change the spelling to Wallas.
Plumb admitted that their choice of Wallis could have been better timed in light of Wallis Simpson and the abdication crisis, but still argued that Eaton would never have become either a major in the war or a household name as an actor after it, if he had stuck with Reg. Jack always boasted that Wallas Eaton would never have appeared on stage with Vivien Leigh or been cast by Joan Littlewood if he hadn’t abandoned his distinctly down-market original first name. His new name, he argued, made him far more memorable in the ten years he starred in “Take It From Here” on the radio, not to mention making him sound more glamorous in the gay world he so enthusiastically lived in throughout his adult life.
This re-naming was typical of Plumb’s complete certainty that he was always right and characteristic of his unshakable conviction that his friends and pupils should always heed his advice: whether it was to change subjects, change names, change colleges, change fiancés, change careers, change wives, change husbands, change their children’s schooling, change homes, change political allegiance (nationally as well as collegiately) or even change sexual orientation – all of which he had been known to do or
