The Vice-Chancellor's Bike
From the formal obituaries, and the conversations with people who knew her, the fund of great stories about Rosemary continues to grow. One of my favourites is the one she herself related in her Woman's Hour interview.
When she was Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge, she used to turn up at the Senate House on her bicycle, and instead of leaving it round the back, where the undergraduates and others were supposed to park their bikes, she used to leave it in front of the building. One day one of the officials remonstrated with her and rebuked her.
She replied, "Oh, don't you think you could make an exception in the circumstances? I am the Vice-Chancellor." The hapless guardian, who had not known, or had failed to recognise her, was covered with confusion. "After all," she continued, "there is a reserved parking place for a Vice-Chancellor's car."
Hence it came about that, in front of the Senate House, there was a bicycle rack with the sign Reserved for the Vice-Chancellor.
Does anyone in Cambridge know if it's still there?
(A related story, from someone who was an undergraduate at New Hall in Rosemary's time, is that it was common knowledge among visitors to New Hall that if you ran into someone who looked like the gardener, it was probably the College President.)
When she was Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge, she used to turn up at the Senate House on her bicycle, and instead of leaving it round the back, where the undergraduates and others were supposed to park their bikes, she used to leave it in front of the building. One day one of the officials remonstrated with her and rebuked her.
She replied, "Oh, don't you think you could make an exception in the circumstances? I am the Vice-Chancellor." The hapless guardian, who had not known, or had failed to recognise her, was covered with confusion. "After all," she continued, "there is a reserved parking place for a Vice-Chancellor's car."
Hence it came about that, in front of the Senate House, there was a bicycle rack with the sign Reserved for the Vice-Chancellor.
Does anyone in Cambridge know if it's still there?
(A related story, from someone who was an undergraduate at New Hall in Rosemary's time, is that it was common knowledge among visitors to New Hall that if you ran into someone who looked like the gardener, it was probably the College President.)
posted by Tony at 10/17/2004 02:42:00 pm
1 Comments:
I can certainly vouch for the specially allocated bike slot during my undergrad days...though whether it survives I'm not sure. I left my bike outside Trinity when I came down and....such was the quality of the bike...when I decided 3 years later that I'd maybe find it useful in London, it was still there...and I'd not even locked it ;-(
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