December 1969

December 1969

This is the Trent Christmas card. It makes me smile because it is a very honest card, black and white, showing snow, concrete buildings and grey, grey, grey. It shows a Canadian winter and 60s architecture and drives me to reminisce. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had lived in residence in one of those grey cement buildings on the Trent Campus but I did not- I lived in a long low three-story residence, long corridors with rooms on each side with wooden floors that creaked, linked to an original old Peterborough house that had been repurposed as Traill College in the middle of the town. The kitchen and dining room were in another refurbished house next door, we caught buses to get to the Library or our lectures and classes on campus, although tutorials in professor’s offices depended on which college they were attached to. Such a luxury to stroll down two flights of stairs to my English tutorial at Traill without having to go out in the cold!
Peterborough, Ontario is a pretty place, and I first saw the Trent University campus outside of town in the spring after the school year was over, with apple blossom blooming, the hills around green, the river sparkling, and the grey buildings new, modern, and impressive. In the fall when I started Trent it was lovely, and as it got colder, the hills behind covered with sumac bushes turned red and orange and still looked great. But I never again saw blossom- for most of the university year the grey buildings were stained with rain, or covered with snow. Crossing the bridge over the frozen? river to the lecture halls was a windy experience and I was so glad I was not in Science and didn’t need to do it very often. I only needed to enter the colleges on the campus to go to seminar rooms or tutorials, so I never got to know much about Lady Eaton or Champlain Colleges. I badly sprained my ankle on the steep snow-covered stairs going down into Champlain on the way to a cast party in second or third year- the same arthritic ankle due to have its third surgery this summer. So this card is a true picture of Trent for me.
However, as my mother’s last letter of December 3 1969 shows, my experience of Trent was wonderful. I enjoyed my classes, I made friends in residence and in class, and met a more varied population of older students and professors when I joined the Gilbert and Sullivan group so I could sing. At larger universities, my observation was that the students in the performing arts field fill these sorts of extra-curricular activities, and there was little chance of getting involved in them if you belonged to a different discipline. At Trent, opportunities were open.
The faculty at Trent was also unusual- with a diversity (of the time, mind you- no women taught me, although the Head of Traill College was a woman) that occurred naturally because it was a new school and had hired from around the world. At commencement when the professors appeared robed, there were a multitude of colours from different universities in assorted countries, and even fringes and bobbles as well as unusual hats. There were older men, expert in their fields but also interested in teaching- Trent offered only an undergraduate degree at the time. And there were many younger academics at the beginning of their careers at this new university, who stayed there and helped Trent grow. Because the Trent population was small (as I have said, smaller than my High School had been) faculty and students mixed more than was possible at larger universities and the cast of ‘The Mikado’ included students from the four years in the choruses, and the soloists in the main roles included young professors as well as students. Our music director was a professional who made the necessary learning and rehearsing challenging but enjoyable, adding the stage moves and dance later involved more people and was more fun, and from that first year show came my involvement in more singing groups later- a town-and-gown group in Peterborough and a small madrigal/motet group in the English professor’s office in Traill just for fun, not for performance.
Living in Peterborough meant that the bank, bus station, and stores were within (a long) walking distance, and the most wonderful shop was the Trent University Bookstore. Of course I had never met a bookstore I didn’t like, but this one had- as well as all the necessary textbooks- some other books I wanted to read, and records I wanted to buy which expanded my horizons, as well as interesting things to look at. I saw my first live hockey game in Peterborough (so Canadian), and admired (without the slightest desire to emulate) the rowers on the river who practiced their racing skills (so Oxbridge).
I was lucky that I went to Trent in the early days, that I lived in residence in town, that I made friends and had fun as well as enjoying my work. I went to class, wrote essays, did well, and continued to grow up. My parents had insisted that going away to university was what they wanted us to do and they not only paid for the whole experience, they were right! Trent was a positive step towards my career in education, and as I taught the next generation of high school students in Ontario, Nigeria, the Northwest Territories, and British Columbia through the 70s to the 2000s, I remained convinced that education is any country’s best hope and must be encouraged. I can reminisce fondly about my university years, and wish that everyone who wants further education could get it. I wish we could change the system and rather than encourage our government to forgive student loans (although that would be a first step), actually support all students in all educational endeavours like more advanced countries!