Queue Cambridge

Note: some names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Actually just one name, to protect me.)

Toward the end of May, husband completed his series of Wilde Lectures in Oxford. A big celebration in the big city seemed in order so I booked us tickets to Ronnie Scott's, the iconic Soho jazz venue, followed by dinner at a restaurant in Lexington Street that a friend recommended: Andrew Edmunds. (Now I can recommend it highly myself.) The jazz was melodious, the cocktails jazzy, and the food absolutely excellent. All in all a delightful--and delightfully late--evening. Scraping up pudding crumbs we hustled to the station to catch the last train from London back to Cambridge.

 

Trains however were delayed that night, due to two fatalities on the tracks. The typical disgruntlement of passengers inconvenienced by a signal failure or leaves on the lines did not appear; there were murmurs rather than grumbles. It was sad. Eventually arrived, and we all crammed in. We travelled slowly to let the rail congestion untangle, stopping at one station long enough that people in day-glo jackets handed round bottles of water. In general stiff upper lips prevailed: people in our very full carriage commiserated with one another and made wry jokes rather than moaning. We were all in this together. The old Blitz spirit.

But all that camaraderie and good will evaporated when we finally reached Cambridge, spilled from the train, and dashed for the nearly-barren taxi stand.  The few waiting cars filled and departed and a queue formed. In fact two queues formed rather than one. Separate and distinct. Both grew. 

Queue One eyed Queue Two askance and vice versa. Queue etiquette is sacrosanct. No rules existed about what to do in the case of duplication. A debate began about where exactly the posted "Queue Here" sign pointed. This situation was no joking matter. 

'Why don't we just take it in turns?' suggested a woman around my age in a quiet, sensible tone. She was ignored. A young woman near the front of our queue and an older man in the other one became spokespeople, each arguing the legitimacy of their own interpretation of the "Queue Here" arrow.

"It always starts here," said the young woman.

"The sign says to queue here," said the man, pointing at his feet.

I wandered down to the other side of the station to check whether there was by some miracle a bus at the stop. Nope. I returned to Simon who had remained in the first queue. "No buses," I told him. 

'Excuse me, this is a queue,' someone said. I looked around: a small man with a small beard who was speaking to me.

'Yes, I know, ' I said. 'I'm in it.'

'Well, you have joined it,' he said tartly. 

Simon and I exchanged a puzzled glance. It seemed fairly clear that the two of us were together. Simon said with unwonted annoyance, 'She joined me.' Even he was discomposed by the queue kerfuffle.

'Oh, I do beg your pardon,' said the man, sounding more accusatory than apologetic. He turned slightly away, pulled out his phone, pressed buttons and spoke loudly into it. "This is Donald Duckworth. I want a taxi to Gonville and Caius. Yes, now. Cambridge station." Then he abandoned the queue and marched to the far side of the car park to await his ride. 

Meanwhile a taxi arrived at the 'Queue Here' sign, a seven-seater. A man from Queue Two nabbed it, but then turned round to call out, "Anyone else going to Waterbeach?" Several people shuffled their feet and murmured and then joined him. A return to civility.

A sedan pulled up and this time the young woman who had represented our queue in the earlier debate laid hands on it. "I'm going to the Barton Road," she announced. "Anyone else?" Near enough, we thought, to Clare Hall, and accepted the invitation. The three of us sped through dark and quiet streets, and soon Simon and I found ourselves home in our cosy flat at Clare Hall, tea brewing. 

*****

And that was that, we thought. But no. This is Cambridge! The next day we had lunch in college with husband's old friend Mick Brown, a physicist. Mick, I learned, had once belonged to Gonville and Caius College but left it  many years ago in protest over its refusal to admit women. 

"We had a brief encounter with someone from Gonville and Caius last night," I said, telling the little story about the dueling queues.

"Who was it?" asked Mick. "Who rang for a taxi." I remembered the name the man had given on the phone. 

"Donald Duckworth," I told him.

"Oh-- Don Duckworth!" said Mick. "He's in English. Goes on about Shakespeare, I believe. Quite witty. He of course opposed women." 

Mick told us a bit more about the contretemps at Caius (pronounced "keys"). Stephen Hawking, also famously a member of the college, attended the meeting to cast his own vote-- on the side of equality, of course. The opposition managed to stack votes for their side by recruiting various ancient fellows who had not been seen in college for ages. Everyone noticed. Then, said Mick, "You could hear Hawking's comment, in his very identifiable mechanical voice, 'Ah. The graves are opening." 

The motion to admit women failed, and Mick along with several other members resigned to found Robinson, a lovely college across the street from our own Clare Hall. 

Caius did finally admit women starting in1979-- almost a decade before Magdalene College, which held out until 1988.