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Life at Liverpool University between 1948 and 1953 was never dull for student Jack Hill:
The meals at Derby Hall were at regular times so we would tend to troop en masse along the lane leading to the rear entrance to the grounds. Catching practice with a soft ball was a common pastime and on one occasion I was front man walking backwards most of the time and catching and throwing without necessarily looking closely except if the recipient was walking alongside a wall and could be given a ricochet type shot.
On this occasion the ball bounced off the wall of the workers' sheds. I caught it and without more ado threw it towards Wally. At the same moment, a Park Warden came riding along and the ball hit him smack on the neck. He leapt from his bike, strode angrily over to me shouted how old are you sonny, to which I replied 23.
He said that grownups don't play with balls and stormed off. That in a park mind you. Still rules were different in those days.
Every year the circus came to Liverpool and was planted on the lawn just over the way from our house. Bob Toy was a daredevil and on one occasion he resolved to climb the big top and steal their flag. So after the performance had finished and the animals had been put to bed we watched from the front room window to try and see Toy doing his stunt.
With all the lights out except for a few security ones we could hardly see a thing. Therefore it was only after he had succeeded that we were given an idea of his perilous trip. He had had to walk up the roof of the tent holding on to the lighting cable and then when he reached the top he found the main pole extended about three metres above the canvas.
So he had to shin up this steel pole and then struggle to get the flag from its pole. The flag was something like two metres long and a metre wide so it was quite tricky. When he got back to us he was shivering with the cold and the excitement.
During the first vacation when I was making the kitchen cupboards a strange thing happened when no-one else was in the flat to answer the doorbell. I opened the heavy door and there stood a gypsy lady with her basket of pegs and other useless objects. She was very sunburned and wrinkly just like gypsies used to look and wouldn't take no for an answer.
She finally talked me into crossing her palm with silver [which I could ill afford] and then the hairs on the back of my neck started to rise as she told all sorts of details about the Hill family. I can't give specific details now but the descriptions of dad & mum and Madge and her children were quite uncanny.
The Architecture Course was quite intensive, but everyone was keen to study and obtain the Degree at the end of the fifth year. Naturally in a year of 125 people of varying ages and experiences, there were some bright students and some not so bright.
I seemed to be average and coped with the work but seldom shone like, for example, my close friend Bob Nicholls, who invariably managed to produce schemes which received accolades and high marks. It was clear that he would be one of the few to get an honours degree without having to struggle.
Projects varied in complexity and could be a one day sketch scheme such as an 'Oculists consulting room' to a mountain top retreat in a ski resort or a private house or a school gymnasium which took the best part of a term.
We had to produce working drawings for some of the designs and gradually we developed techniques based on examples displayed from previous years work.
One particular year a national working drawings prize was one by a Liverpool student and thereafter his work became the norm for subsequent years of students.
Drawing techniques were brought back from America by students who had taken the opportunity and had the money, and one of the innovations was a plastic sheet called Zippatone which saved incredible amounts of time to get very slick effects.
By third year we were expected to have evolved a subject for our thesis project, and having been involved with the mining industry, I decided to design a rehabilitation centre for injured workers. I found an exciting site immediately adjacent to the Sanatorium at Markfield where a quarry had been in operation, so without any difficulty I had a ready made two-level site.
All students were allocated one of the lecturers as a mentor and by a stroke of misfortune I was coupled with a chap named Wiesner who had knowledge of a centre at Cambridge where all the layout was at one level with many small buildings. Therefore when I outlined my proposals for a multi-level scheme with stairs and steps to encourage disabled men to gain exercise he declined to give any support . I refused to accept his ruling and so I was deemed a troublemaker and left to my own fate.
Happily for me the freedom allowed my fellow students to be much more critical with their comments, and as things turned out I graduated with an honours degree {admittedly second class}. Bob Nicholls of course received a first and eventually moved to America where he became a Vice Dean at Georgia University.
As a means of improving my output, I had in third year purchased a drawing board on a free standing frame which had a straight edge with parallel motion, and it was quite amazing how much more efficient one became. I always preferred to stand when working but another student who was disabled had to use a wheel chair and had a system called a pantagraph which was more efficient still.
By working out a schedule of production, I was able to complete all my thesis work and be one of the very few architecture students to attend the Commemoration Ball.
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