My dear Friends
November in Glasgow will be gloomy, but only from the weather perspective. Although I have been here in Cambridge for thirty years, Scotland remains part of my inner landscape, especially as my mother, Dorothea, was born there. All my formative years were in Glasgow, although I spent the first eleven years of my life in London, where I went to a Jewish primary school.
Glasgow changed me and shaped me. I discovered Christianity there, although it was not until twenty years later, in an English landscape, that it was to flower and I entered the Catholic church, as you know.
Glasgow has a real grit to it, and the friendliness is tangible. It has a rough reputation, with the gangs and the Gorbals (now thankfully gone) but in realty it as a sophisticated city, rich in art, music and culture, with many fine museums and, at least in 1972 when i left, 72 parks. I think its cloisters in the University rival some of the buildings in Cambridge and there is a sweeping boulevard up to the university, named University Avenue.
I didn't complete my degree there, although I got most of it, because I was a rebel in the sixties and was making a statement, but I don't regret the four years I spent there. I had some wonderful lecturers, particularly in German, and I am still in touch with one of them . Looking back, it was amazing that not only did they tolerate me but gave me references which were the gateway to my entering the University in Cambridge twenty years later.
More of the story next time!
Shalom from Gila
November in Glasgow will be gloomy, but only from the weather perspective. Although I have been here in Cambridge for thirty years, Scotland remains part of my inner landscape, especially as my mother, Dorothea, was born there. All my formative years were in Glasgow, although I spent the first eleven years of my life in London, where I went to a Jewish primary school.
Glasgow changed me and shaped me. I discovered Christianity there, although it was not until twenty years later, in an English landscape, that it was to flower and I entered the Catholic church, as you know.
Glasgow has a real grit to it, and the friendliness is tangible. It has a rough reputation, with the gangs and the Gorbals (now thankfully gone) but in realty it as a sophisticated city, rich in art, music and culture, with many fine museums and, at least in 1972 when i left, 72 parks. I think its cloisters in the University rival some of the buildings in Cambridge and there is a sweeping boulevard up to the university, named University Avenue.
I didn't complete my degree there, although I got most of it, because I was a rebel in the sixties and was making a statement, but I don't regret the four years I spent there. I had some wonderful lecturers, particularly in German, and I am still in touch with one of them . Looking back, it was amazing that not only did they tolerate me but gave me references which were the gateway to my entering the University in Cambridge twenty years later.
More of the story next time!
Shalom from Gila
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