The Incredible String Band – “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (2)

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

For me, the summer term (or “Trinity” as it was known then) of my first year at university was one of the happiest times of my life. The year was 1975, and I was studying law at Oxford. In those days, and maybe still now, I don’t know, law students at Oxford were uniquely privileged with regard to exams. With the exception of only two subjects, the only exams before finals were “Prelims” at the end of the first year, which of course made the Trinity term of that year a bit of a hard slog. Prelims had no effect on Finals. The two exceptions were law and classics, which had the first exams as “Moderations”; in each case held at the end of the Hilary (spring) term. The name derives from the fact that these exams did “moderate” finals; but not in the case of law! Further, the classics students had theirs in the second year, whereas lawyers got it over with in the first year.

In every term except two, law students did 1.5 subjects. The two exceptions were the last term and Trinity in the first year, when we only did one subject!

I had gained a distinction in Law Mods, which was harder to do than getting a first in finals. More importantly to me, in the closing hours of 1974 I had started going out with the girl who is now my wife, and the relationship was looking very rosy indeed in the summer of 1975. We saw each other every weekend and exchanged letters daily.

The summer was an unusually sunny one [though not as sunny as it was the following year], and I was on Cloud Nine.

There was a trendy record shop on Little Clarendon Street in Oxford at that time, and I was a frequent patron of it.

One sunny Saturday I was browsing in that shop with my girlfriend, and was delighted to find in the racks “the other half”!