Читать книгу As Luck Would Have It - Derek Jacobi - Страница 24

This was the hallowed St John’s College, third on the left down King’s Parade after King’s, Clare’s and Trinity, with its beautiful St John’s Chapel, built by Margaret Beaufort, the founder, daughter of John of Gaunt, its famous choir, its Bridge of Sighs seen from the River Cam on a punt.

On arrival I felt just like a schoolboy. My parents dropped me off at my digs: in spite of my scholarship, the college had no room for me in my first year. We all cried – it was like being left on the moon. I was 54 miles from home, and to me that was a distance near to infinity. I was an only child from local Leytonstone schools where I had hardly walked more than 200 yards from home to my form room, where I had sprinted to classes with my mates, where we’d race each other along the road to the silver 1930s nude sculpture of a lady which stood in a window in a house nearby to see who could reach the naked lady’s bum first. The winner had the day at his feet.