When I first went to Cambridge for an interview, aged 17, I was too shy to ask anyone where “my” college was. An hour later, having toured the city, I was back at the railway station. Somehow I found Emmanuel and was despatched by a porter to a room that smelled of old gas fires.
Ten months later, I arrived, now the owner of an academic award in English but still not knowing which way to turn. I made friends with Ian Black and Paul Carling, two boys in my year. We were the last of the grammar-school generation and the last to experience all-male colleges. The city was cold and puritanical; the fellows were reserved and not very encouraging. But something about its rigour spoke to me.
The Front Court at Emmanuel College © John Boaz
A cloister at Emmanuel College © John Boaz
Faulks at Emmanuel College’s first world war memorial in its cloister © John Boaz
