Boyd Piece of Another Period

Four sons and a Cambridge childhood
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83615-164-7
Verlag: Grosvenor House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 253 Seiten

Dixon and Amelie Boyd were Belfast medical students. Later he was a Cambridge Professor and she an Academic's wife. They and their four sons, became a Cambridge mid-century fixture. Their copious letters (and memories of those sons, the authors) bring to light an unvarnished picture of that University at a time of dramatic change. Darlingest, It not only seems but it was a long time ago. We were half our present ages; the war was no more than a shadow of a man's hand in bright sunlight - possible but not very probable... In a wider field no atomic power or bombs; no television; unemployment and a servant class; no penicillin; no Russian imperialism and a well-established British Empire. We had not even dreamed of Cambridge, let alone three periods of residence and a Chair and Clare. Dixon Boyd to his wife on their 25th wedding anniversary 19 August 1958 On the Margins of War Jews, Blacks and Irish Sex and Psychoanalysis Who knew Who Scholarship, Science and Preferment Clare College as Family This volume tells us what they then thought and how they then acted.

Richard, Stephen, Robert and John Boyd were brought up in Cambridge. All except Richard were Clare College undergraduates. Richard: Went to Merton College and became an Oxford Physiologist. He served as Chair of the Physiological Society and is now a retired fellow of Brasenose College Oxford. Stephen: A lexicographer became Professor at Osaka University and co-editor of the Kenkyusha Anglo-Japanese dictionary. He lives in Osaka. Robert: A paediatrician became Principal of St George's University of London and Chair of the UK Medical Schools' Council. He is emeritus professor of the University of Manchester where he lives. John: A diplomat became Ambassador to Japan then Master of Churchill College and Chair of the Trustees of the British Museum. He was an honorary Fellow of Clare College until his death in 2019.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boyd, Richard

Boyd, Robert

Boyd, John

Leseproben

2 Cambridge on the Margins of War

iGetting Established in Cambridge

By September 1935, back from the USA and the Carnegie, Dixon is in their first Cambridge home, 9 Newnham Terrace, just round the corner from Gwen’s grander house. Cambridge was thenceforward, despite two London intermissions – one brief, one longer – their place. It was to remain the focus for more than half a century until widowed Amélie sold their final Cambridge home.

Dixon and Amélie wrote only when apart so letters cluster round separations. Over the years, until the death of JMcC in 1952, a cluster usually means Amélie is in Northern Ireland. That autumn was one such period. While Dixon was settling into Newnham Terrace and into his role as demonstrator in anatomy, Amélie was moving towards a different life. In the final trimester of pregnancy with John, she is supported at Lennoxvale. ‘Daddy made me breakfast in bed Sunday a.m., came up complete with rose from the garden to see me’. “Made” doubtless meant suggested to “the maids”. Margaret would have cooked, and Sarah carried. The expected infant, with sobriquet fitting either gender, is reported as vigorous. ‘Fish kick[ed] all over one side again so fish only one I think’; singleton status a relief as both grandmothers had been twins.

By Christmas, Amélie had rejoined Dixon, and they had moved into 11 Bentley Road, a substantial detached Edwardian house. Its ownership is not clear: bank loan, mortgage, paid for by JMcC, or rented? The latter seems likeliest as there is record of dispute over whom to blame for water damage from a leaking roof. Bentley Road seems a very substantial residence for a junior academic. Census records tell us that six other households, generally more senior and more distinguished, preceded or followed the Boyds into that house. Five of the six, husbands were fellows of the Royal Society; two, nominees for a Nobel prize.

Reunited in Cambridge, Fish became John in January 1936, at the Brunswick Nursing Home.

5. Parenthood – Amélie and Dixon with John, 1936.

Dr Amélie Boyd became Mummy. Her and Dixon’s roles diverged accordingly and according to the times. Motherhood certainly spelled the end of Amélie’s academic aspirations. Her detailed interest in Dixon’s research also waned though vigorous social involvement in his professional life did not. Wives were generally excluded from formal college and university activities but that was absolutely not the case in the domestic setting. Life in Bentley Road soon became expansive with staff (nanny, maid and gardener), dinner parties and overnight visitors. Amélie threw herself into that life. Dixon’s colleagues came to meals, Belfast and transatlantic figures came to stay. Creating and conducting a busy and hyper-hospitable domestic scene was absolutely Amélie. It continued throughout the marriage.

Dixon’s career was on a more than satisfactory path. A teaching fellowship at Clare College attracted letters of congratulation. ‘How delighted we all are, here at Queens (and down Lennoxvale) at your election to a Fellowship’ writes QUB vice-chancellor with a nod to JMcC. Dixon remained a fellow, with interruptions, for the rest of his life.

By July the academic year was over. Amélie, and John, and Nanny, were again at Lennoxvale and the letters flow. Dixon has moved into college for the vacation despite maid and gardener at Bentley Road. Amélie orchestrates use of the house by friends and by Dixon’s stepfamily. She also orchestrates, again, Dixon’s physical wellbeing – ‘You’ll have to go to a dentist sometime, foolish to let them go and no economy – so there says your wife’. Following report of a headache, she enquires: ‘is it your glasses do you think? If you think so, do you think you could coax yourself to go and make an appointment … or will you wait till I bully you?’.

The college fellowship was small in number, friendly, and of course entirely male. Its members, mostly from grammar schools, said Dixon, were or became academically distinguished (distinction remains a key mark of fellowship but there are more than ten times as many; the current ‘master’ female). The younger fellows were especially convivial. With Amélie in Belfast, a relaxation for Dixon could be

London with Hammond – leaving at 6 in his car (black tie, I wonder can I still tie it!). We go to Ballet with Spooner, Greaves and his fiancée. I am looking forward to it

[Probably July 1936]

Those four were to become lifelong friends. Other amusements are mentioned in the same letter. ‘To-night the College entertained the servants. Dinner and Concert. They were frightfully pleased and very un-self-conscious. the “lower classes” are charming (pace the shades of your Auntie Olga!)’. A bit rich coming from the Greenisland boy.

Dixon reports with satisfaction the ‘prospect of a bunch of papers – if I ever write them’; slowness in writing up research becomes a recurrent theme. Lecturing to large audiences scared him and he later told us of vomiting with anxiety as he walked over Silver Street bridge on the way from Newnham Terrace past Gwen Raverat’s house.

Domestically, matters were well-managed by Amélie, but “the department” soon became a problem.

Work is going well at moment but HA [Harris] is worrying me a lot. He and JS B[axter] [fellow Walmsley product] are thick as thieves and yesterday HA took me aside and said that there might be a lectureship and if there is he thought I should not get it as I hold a Fellowship. On the surface a good enough excuse but why the hell could he not have said it when I got the Fellowship. A lectureship should not be on basis of income but of ability to carry out the duties and a new man does NOT know the ropes. However, he can do what he likes. All I do know is that I will not toady to him. He is a most obnoxious person and has not even the knowledge of anatomy that would excuse his obnoxiousness. I am going to speak to Thirkill [Master of Clare] about this and sundry other incidents and get his advice.

[Dixon at Clare College to Amélie, probably July 1936]

Thirkill notwithstanding, or perhaps at his suggestion, Dixon decided to leave. According to her later account, Amélie was recovering, in the Brunswick Nursing Home (from being delivered by the GP, forceps and all, of second boy, Robert) when Dixon informed her of his 1938 appointment to become University of London Professor of Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College in Whitechapel, East London. (Walmsley had been right. Cambridge could then, as now, be a good stepping stone). Dixon was 30, early for a medical scientist to get a chair. He thought she would be delighted; allegedly, she wept. It was expected to become a permanent move away from Cambridge.

Finding a suitable London house seems to have been a challenge. It is not until ten months later that, their move now imminent, Dixon pens in characteristic style a farewell to their Cambridge home. He is staying in “digs”. She is coping with the move.

28th March 1939

St Philips Vicarage, London E1

Monday Night.

Darlingest Wife,

Just a note – Bentley Road has been so pleasant. Three and a half years of real married life without the strain of newness that leaves a SWEET SWEET bitter tang in my memories of Queens Elms, and without all the distraction and ‘homelessness’ of America in our ‘Wanderjahr’. It has been so pleasant, so very very pleasant. Cambridge, Home and Garden, Clare! The boys [only two then] – it will always be for us their birthplace. All our intimacy and snuggling down before fire in study, or on Veranda or in a double single bed! Really something to be proud of – to have found our feet so sturdily and promptly in an alien land and among the cold English. … I am more in love now than ever before … Bentley Road or Timbucktoo – it’s all the same. So, keep that in mind in the inevitable depression of the next week.

‘Alien land’ or ‘cold English’ were not overt musings of the Dixon we knew. He was, for us, completely English, and, of England, Cambridge. Ireland was spoken of, if at all, as a distanced memory.

iiLondon Briefly

Fernside, Theydon Bois, on the outskirts of Epping Forest, had been eventually selected. It was well placed for Dixon’s new workplace, with plenty of room for children. Robert pulled himself to a stand in a cot there that last summer of peace, an early memory. Gardener and housekeeper were recruited and vegetables planted for the new life. Nanny moved with us.

It was all in vain, and brief. Six months later the German Army was in Poland, Amélie and the boys were in Ireland. Within the first week of war, a harassed evacuation organiser reported on her use of Fernside. It would be paid for.

200 expected children did not arrive, and 59 expectant mothers that had not been catered for did … I managed to find accommodation for … eight at Fernside. Mrs Gillies helped to shade windows with brown paper etc and has bought less powerful bulbs, all yours have been put away, also the things in the nursery, cot etc have been stored in the dining room and that door locked, so they have the use of five bedrooms, servants sitting room and kitchen … I am enclosing the forms for you to fill in [for] the Post Office...