Turl Street, not Exactly Diagon Alley
Before Michaelmas term starts in October, students need to make a shopping trip to Turl Street to buy the essential items that a student at Oxford would need. They are not as exciting as owls and wands, but not obvious things either.
Turl Street is actually the last stop. First, I had to set up a bank account and buy a few items from shops on the High Street (the equivalent of a U.S. Main Street). Three banks offering “Student Accounts” were located at Carfax: Lloyds, HSBC, and Abbey National (now Santander). A student account meant that you did not pay any fees and had an overdraft of £1,000, in case your student loans or bursaries were delayed.
Carfax
Carfax Tower (a remnant of a thirteenth-century church) is the center of Oxford. According to the rules of Oxford University in 1986, “All Junior Members who are required to fulfil requirements for residence with the University . . . shall reside within six miles of Carfax.” My degree required nine terms of residence. It is unclear how this requirement was enforced. As indicated by a comment I made in 1987, “Meryl [a second-year graduate student] is very dissatisfied with Oxford and is looking for a flat in London, clandestinely, of course. She has a room in college as a front that she is in residence here. I guess she will be living in London.”
Oxford University Press Bookstore
Next, I had to go to the Oxford University Press Bookstore to get two essential items: The Examination Degrees and Regulations and the Oxford University Pocket Diary (published annually)
The Exam Degrees set out the dates of examinations and the rules that applied to them, as well as the requirements that needed to be fulfilled to obtain a degree. I suspect that it was drawn up by the Legal faculty given that it was 913 pages long and nearly indecipherable. For an M.Phil. in English, there was a prescribed reading list that specified the edition and page numbers (e.g., Aldhelm, de Virginitate, prose, chaps. 1–5; verse, ll. 1–105, 2861–904, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auctores Antiwuiddini, xv [Berlin, 1919]). We were expected to read the prescribed texts and draw on them when writing our final exam at the end of the year.
The Pocket Diary was a slim, 3.25- by 6.25-inch hardcover calendar that included a map of Oxford, dates of terms, telephone numbers of all the colleges and university offices, church service times, and a space to write in appointments for each day. The only pocket that it would fit into comfortably would be the inside pocket of a suit jacket. The pocket notebook is one of the three manly items that an Oxford student might carry (the other two being a pocket knife and handkerchief). I threw it in my purse and used it in a decidedly non-masculine way. I recorded the names of people I met on the day I met them and described the circumstances of our meeting, details of who I encountered or snippets of conversation, and occasionally something that I planned to do.
Shepherd and Woodward
Shepherd and Woodward was a gentleman’s outfitter store. I was reminded again that for centuries only men were Oxford students. Keble had only started accepting women in 1979 (just seven years before I arrived), and the ratio of men to women was 6:1.
The item that I had come to purchase was a college scarf. Each college had its own scarf, so students could show that they were Oxford students and indicate their college by wearing the scarf, especially at sporting events. The scarves were made of soft wool and had a pattern of stripes representing your college’s colors. (For a picture of all the college scarves at Oxford, see Academic scarves.) Not only were the scarves warm, but they made it easier to know where to start looking (in case someone caught your eye or insulted you at a pub).
The Covered Market
At the corner of High and Turl streets is the Covered Market. I did not have anything I needed to buy there, but I had heard that it was referred to as the Valley of Death because of the dead game hanging there.
But that shop is easily avoided. The rest of the covered market is charming, and it’s a good place to take cover from the rain if you are walking around central Oxford.
During Michaelmas 1986, my favorite place for lunch was Brown’s Café at the Covered Market. It was unpretentious and cheap. In later years, I had tea there on different occasions with K. P. Nayar, Victor Lal, and my daughter Helyn when she was a little girl—and sometimes I just ate there alone. It was the kind of place where you could do that and not feel self-conscious.
Turl Street
In 1986, Turl Street was still a brick lane. It ran from High Street to Broad Street and had three colleges located on it: Lincoln, Exeter, and Jesus. This gave rise to the joke: “How is the Church of England like Turl Street? It runs from High to Broad and has Jesus.” Some of its shops date to the seventeenth century.
Turl Street acquired its name from a twirling gate. “Originally the road came to an abrupt halt here [at Ship Street] at the city wall, but by 1551 it was extended by a path (known as ‘The path leading from the Hole in the Wall’) to reach what is now Broad Street. In 1722 the gate was removed altogether.”1 Thus, if you were entering Turl Street from Broad Street (prior to 1700), you would need to go through a hole in the wall, which is really the only thing that Turl Street and Diagon Alley have in common.
My destination was Walters of Oxford (another menswear shop) at 10 Turl Street. This was where students could buy subfusc attire and academic gowns. This is my graduate student gown; the undergraduate gowns were only waist length. I left it wrinkled because that’s how we wore them. The streamers hang down the back (not out to the side as in the photo).
For graduation, I hired a doctor’s gown.
After graduation when I became a tutor at Oxford, I wore a “working” black gown. This looked like a minister’s robe. The streamers were gone. Instead it had long black sleeves that hung almost to the floor with a slit to put your hands out.
Back at Keble
In addition to the items that I acquired in the shops, there were several things that could only be purchased at the Porter’s Lodge at Keble. I bought a mug. I did not have any need for the neckties, cuff links, tie pins, and shot glasses that were also on sale. And I was reminded once again that Oxford was a man’s world.
An even more obscure bit of college apparel was available from the Rowing Club: a set of Keble sweatshirt and pants.
A quite different array of gifts and merchandise is available at the Keble Shop today (e.g., water bottles and teddy bears). However, the 2021 Keble Fresher's list of items to bring to college shows that a few things are still the same (bring a bike instead of a car). Minimalism has always been an advantage. Traditionally, students must remove their belongings from their rooms at the end of each term so that the rooms can be rented out to visitors when the university is not in session. If you did not want to take things home, you could store them in a dimly lit, cobwebby locked place called the Void.
Each of these entries is delightful to read!