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Authors: C. P. Snow
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ever taken a scholarship to the university; those masters who had degrees had taken them externally through London and Dublin. None of them knew his way about. One or two, wanting to help me, suggested that I might stay at school and then go to a teacher’s training college. It meant real hardship to my mother unless I earned some money at once; not that she would have minded such hardship – she would have cherished it, if her imagination had been caught – but she resented stinting us all for years so that I might in the end become an elementary school teacher.
My mother found no more help in the parish. This was the vie de province , the life of a submerged and suburban province. The new vicar, though even ‘higher’, was less cultivated than the old one. The doctor had lived in the district all his life, except when he was struggling his way through a London hospital and the conjoint; from his excessive awe at my passing an examination, I suspected that he had had trouble with his own. He knew the parish like the palm of his hand, but he was quite ignorant of the world outside. He could suggest nothing for me. Perhaps he was anxious to take no responsibility, for my mother, given the slightest lead, would not have refused to let him set me going. My mother had always believed that if I showed promise Dr Francis would interest himself practically in my career. But Dr Francis was a wary old bird.
Aunt Milly took it into her head that I ought to become an engineer. She first of all pointed out that, though I might have done better than anyone from the local schools, no doubt plenty of boys in other places had achieved the same result. Then, in her energetic fashion, she went off, without getting my mother’s agreement or mine, and plunged into discussions with some of her father’s acquaintances at the tram depot. She obtained some opinions which later I realized were entirely sensible, It would be necessary for me to become a trade apprentice: that meant five years in the works, and working at the technical college at night; it would be easy to get taken as an apprentice by one of the town’s big engineering firms. Aunt Milly produced these views with vigorous satisfaction. She felt, as usual, confident that she had done the right thing and that this was the only conceivable course for me. She overlooked two factors. One, that my mother was shocked to the marrow of her bones by the thought that I should become for years what seemed to her nothing but a manual worker. Two, that there was almost no occupation which I should have liked less or been more completely unfitted for. Aunt Milly left the house in a huff, and it was apparent that we could expect no further aid from her.
That aggravated our distress, for up to now my mother had always known that she had Aunt Milly as an ultimate reserve, in the very long run. It was only a few days afterwards, when I had begun answering advertisements in the local paper, that I received a letter from my headmaster. If I was not fitted with what he called a ‘post’, would I go to see him? At once my mother’s romantic hope surged up. Perhaps the school had some funds to give me a grant, perhaps after all they would manage to send me to a university – for, learning from the handbooks on careers that I had discovered, my mother now saw a university as our Promised Land.
In brutal fact, the offer was a different one. The education office in the town hall had asked the school to recommend someone as a junior clerk. It was the kind of job much coveted among my companions – the headmaster was giving the first refusal, as a kind of prize. The pay was a pound a week until seventeen and then went up by five shillings a week each year, until one reached three pounds, the top of the scale. It was a perfectly safe job; there were prospects of going reasonably high in the local government offices, perhaps to a divisional chief at four hundred and fifty pounds a year. There was, of
My mother found no more help in the parish. This was the vie de province , the life of a submerged and suburban province. The new vicar, though even ‘higher’, was less cultivated than the old one. The doctor had lived in the district all his life, except when he was struggling his way through a London hospital and the conjoint; from his excessive awe at my passing an examination, I suspected that he had had trouble with his own. He knew the parish like the palm of his hand, but he was quite ignorant of the world outside. He could suggest nothing for me. Perhaps he was anxious to take no responsibility, for my mother, given the slightest lead, would not have refused to let him set me going. My mother had always believed that if I showed promise Dr Francis would interest himself practically in my career. But Dr Francis was a wary old bird.
Aunt Milly took it into her head that I ought to become an engineer. She first of all pointed out that, though I might have done better than anyone from the local schools, no doubt plenty of boys in other places had achieved the same result. Then, in her energetic fashion, she went off, without getting my mother’s agreement or mine, and plunged into discussions with some of her father’s acquaintances at the tram depot. She obtained some opinions which later I realized were entirely sensible, It would be necessary for me to become a trade apprentice: that meant five years in the works, and working at the technical college at night; it would be easy to get taken as an apprentice by one of the town’s big engineering firms. Aunt Milly produced these views with vigorous satisfaction. She felt, as usual, confident that she had done the right thing and that this was the only conceivable course for me. She overlooked two factors. One, that my mother was shocked to the marrow of her bones by the thought that I should become for years what seemed to her nothing but a manual worker. Two, that there was almost no occupation which I should have liked less or been more completely unfitted for. Aunt Milly left the house in a huff, and it was apparent that we could expect no further aid from her.
That aggravated our distress, for up to now my mother had always known that she had Aunt Milly as an ultimate reserve, in the very long run. It was only a few days afterwards, when I had begun answering advertisements in the local paper, that I received a letter from my headmaster. If I was not fitted with what he called a ‘post’, would I go to see him? At once my mother’s romantic hope surged up. Perhaps the school had some funds to give me a grant, perhaps after all they would manage to send me to a university – for, learning from the handbooks on careers that I had discovered, my mother now saw a university as our Promised Land.
In brutal fact, the offer was a different one. The education office in the town hall had asked the school to recommend someone as a junior clerk. It was the kind of job much coveted among my companions – the headmaster was giving the first refusal, as a kind of prize. The pay was a pound a week until seventeen and then went up by five shillings a week each year, until one reached three pounds, the top of the scale. It was a perfectly safe job; there were prospects of going reasonably high in the local government offices, perhaps to a divisional chief at four hundred and fifty pounds a year. There was, of
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