When Saeed returned to Cambridge University after his long convalescence following his kidney-removal operation, there was more change in store as he was soon informed that his PhD supervisor, Dr A P French, was leaving for the US. Saeed was instead taken under the wing of Denys Wilkinson, whom he describes as “a scintillating and charismatic, tall, slim, handsome Yorkshireman”. Wilkinson, then 30, was only five years older than Saeed and insisted on being called by his first name, which was another culture shock for Saeed. But Denys was “a very good supervisor”, who held regular Tuesday-night discussion sessions with coffee and biscuits that Saeed would later copy when active at the University of Birmingham later in his own career. This section of the memoirs includes Saeed’s famous remark to Denys at his house as to whether some music playing on the radio was by “the Bolshoi Ballet”. Denys’s reaction was to ask another student, George Chadwick, “to hit him on the head”.
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My time at Cambridge part 2
Posted by matindurrani on March 22, 2014
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2014/03/22/my-time-at-cambridge-part-2/
My time at Cambridge: part 1
After shining as a physics student in Lahore, Saeed’s time at Cambridge University was markedly different – suddenly he was one of many top students, not the only one. In this part of his memoirs, he describes life at Cambridge, including his “quite stupid approach” to research, which included being too “idiotic” to admit he didn’t know how particular experimental equipment worked, turning up in the lab at 3pm after spending hours at night on advanced mathematics in his room with the gas fire blazing, and feeling “embarrassed and ashamed” after getting pump oil into a cyclotron, which a technician then had to spend a full day and a half repairing.
Posted by matindurrani on December 14, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/12/14/my-time-at-cambridge-part-1/
Saeed Durrani (1929-2018) 