By Caryl Davies from Aberystwyth
"My memories of the Second World War are really memories of being a student in Aberystwyth where comparatively speaking, the war hardly touched us at all.
Of course, the proportion of women to men in the student population was much greater than is normal or certainly than was normal at that time. Otherwise, apart from the blackout and food problems, life was not very different from what it would have been in peace time. Travelling was difficult of course and even slower and less reliable than it is today.
What springs to my mind as typifying this period in my life is the great Alexandra hall food scandal. I can't remember in which year this revolt happened or what sort of pressures we students thought we could bring to bear. Neither do I remember being malnourished.
Breakfast was the issue and the number of sardines issued to each student. But behind this trivial and frivolous sounding complaint lay the more serious conviction that our rations were being siphoned off so to speak by the warden to provide party food for the American airman she invited for coffee on a regular basis.
This reminds me of another episode which sounds equally trivial in retrospect. There was an American airbase near Aberaeron and this represented a hazard and a threat for delicately nurtured women students though not apparently for their warden.
My parents had friends living in Aberaeron and they were eager for me to visit them for the weekend when I asked the warden for permission to go, she said I must have written requests both from my parents and their friends in Aberaeron.
I must have produced these because I can remember spending a quiet and innocent weekend in Aberaeron, unharrassed by marauding packs of American GIs."
By Caryl Davies from Aberystwyth
