Everything that was built in Australia was based on what we knew “back home” in the old country the UK. This was especially true of the University in Melbourne where I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to attend for Hobart University music department was quite young in those days. Janet Clarke Hall, the hall of my residence was a mirror image of those fine colleges that were well established “back home” and as a fresher I liked to imagine that I was joining centuries of tradition, although if I had to face it, I had to acknowledge that in Australia one century was about all we could manage.

As part of the initiation procedures every member of the college had to pass a domestic science exam. We had to prove that we knew how to run a household and how to cook. A special kitchen area had been set up for the purpose.. This was because a benefactor suffered too much from his academic wife’s bad cooking and house management he was determined that no one else should suffer the same consequences and this condition was set in stone. Most of us thought it was a joke and treated it very lightly. I certainly didn’t take it very seriously and found that I had to do a re-write before I could become an accepted member of the college.

Other strict rules were in place: no men were allowed in the Ladies’ college until the afternoon. I only became aware of the significance of this rule when a close friend David Smith, a fellow muso and one to make a much greater impress ion in the music world than I ever did, used to come round for coffee every morning. It took us some while to register that he was not Dave – a fellow muso but a MAN and coffee became an afternoon rather than a morning affair thereafter.

Apart from the studies, practicing the piano and singing in the tiny inhospitable sound proof cells burning the midnight oil to get assignments finished and listening to music in the library, we got up to the usual student japes. We never did work out how all our bathrooms became festooned with shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day. One of the antics was a pop idol look-alike held a concert.

As one of the swooning fans, I dressed up in bright pink and purple clothes – the uniform of the fans in those days and attended the usual lectures in this garb. I sat next to Dave as usual and he didn’t recognize me. A group of us gathered at the local watering hole for lunch – came outside to find it pouring with rain so unwittingly expected to hail a taxi – dressed as we were no one would touch us with a barge pole.