McGill

The day of the Complexe Desjardins was also the day of McGill, a day for a bit of family history as my mother graduated from this university in 1936, at which time we now know that the fairly small number of ladies at McGill were corralled into the Royal Victoria College. Their equivalent of Girton or Somerville.

A rather grand place, with a large central campus spreading out into the neighbouring streets. Founded in 1821, an almost exact contemporary of our own University College, founded in 1826, and some 200 years younger than Harvard College, to the buildings of which these had some resemblance - although to be fair, my knowledge of US university buildings is mainly derived from horror films.

Lots of students milling about, seemingly on return from a half term holiday for Thanksgiving, a custom which I do not remember from my student days, but which BH assures me did indeed exist.

The idea then was to go to the library and see if they would let us look at the student year books, a North American custom which I am fairly sure we did not have. Start with a helpful porter in the grand central building, a North American version of the sort of porter you might get in 'Lewis', who directed us to the Redpath Library.

The lady at the desk at the entrance to the Redpath Library directed us to the rare books department on the fourth floor.

The lady at the desk at the entrance to the rare books department took our passports into her custody, instructed us to leave all our coats and baggage in the cloakroom and took us off to her collection of year books. Where BH turned up the picture of my mother included above. Rendall, Cynthia, picture top middle.

The lady at the desk also explained that the year books had been scanned and that we could look at them there at our leisure, although that did not have had quite the frisson of seeing the real thing at the real place. But we did come across the plausible mention of her love of classical music and an intriguing mention of her regret at doing arts rather than medicine, this last being entirely new to me. A regret which was hidden deep under her enthusiasm for, and for teaching, English Literature.

 I should also say that the rare books department appeared to be well endowed and to have a lot of very rare stuff, in addition to year books. So, altogether a fine place, with very helpful staff. One wonders how one would have got on if one tried the same thing at a UK university.