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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Suffolk Action on behalf of Mrs. Mary Wilson and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs. Wilson fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The London School of Economics was evacuated to Cambridge at the outbreak of war. Cambridge, being somewhat conservative in outlook at that time, was, I think, nervous at receiving such a radical institution, but welcomed us warmly.

I was a Social Science student from London travelling to Cambridge by rail. If you had your ticket you trunk was collected and delivered door-to-door for the sum of 2/6 (12 1/2p).

We were billeted in private homes for the most part. My first billet was at 2 St. Paul’s Road (now demolished) with Miss Cunningham in a Victorian house, unaltered, and VERY cold. In the artic winter of 1940 I frequently woke to find icicles on my blanket and water frozen in the jug (no hot taps!). In the second year I was in Newton Road with the bursar of Emmanual and his wife (Mr. & Mrs. Gardner). It was more comfortable here and I experienced my first bombs — diving under the table.

We paid £1.10s (£1.50) a week our first year and £1.12.6s (£1.72½) the second with all food.

Our student HQ was in Grove Lodge, Trumpington Street. Tutorials were held here but we used university lecture rooms. We were welcomed into university organisations such as the Choral Society. Two programmes I have (1940 and 1941) of ‘Singing on the River’ request the audience (in the event of an air raid) to take shelter in the nearest town shelter on a)Peas Hill or b)St. Mary’s Court, Market Square — opposite the Milk Bar or c) Pembroke college cycle shed! The warmest place to study was the university library where, if you got there in time, there was s supply of Fitzbullen Chelsea buns from the café.

Bicycles were in short supply and my first cost me £1.10s (£1.50): it was c.1920, built like a tank and called a ‘sit-up-and-beg’. I cycled back to London on it.

May Balls were held in the Dorothy Café but punts could be hired afterwards, as now.

During my second year, the euphoria of the first began to change, as undergraduates left to join up and the atmosphere became more serious. Then came the influx of servicemen into the colleges and Cambridge became very crowded. I came down in the summer of 1941, to continue with training all over the country until 1942 when I started work in a London Hospital, and into the time of the Blitzes — that is another story.

Cambridge was a magical place in the black-out. Imagine the colleges in the moonlight and snow covered. Romantic!

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