No doubt many people remember their University, or College, class as being of vintage quality. Certainly hindsight suggests that the Cambridge Music Faculty around 1950 was an instance for special mention.
Space forbids the mention of others.
Among the senior members of the Faculty too there were those with real gifts to offer to undergraduates, some of whom had been to some extent starved of musical activities in Service life. For my part I had returned to King's after four years in the RAF, opting to change from Classics to Music. Curiously enough my own interest in the arts had been fuelled in the RAF where I was lucky enough to meet many kindred spirits, including a group in Winnipeg that centred around the unbelievably talented Richard Burton. To return to the Cambridge musical scene, there were two members of the Faculty to whom I shall always be especially grateful - Robin Orr, later Professor, who it seemed to me brought sanity and humour to the Department, as well as his distinguished musical acoomplishments, and Patrick Hadley who figures later as the principal subject of this memoir. But for Robin's intervention I doubt if I should have survived longer than the Preliminary examination, for I arrived in the St. John's organ-loft minus one of the three prescribed performing requirement pieces.