Twice a week there would be high-table dinners. At the commencement of each meal, the principal would recite a Latin prayer, and the tutors, dressed in black academic gowns, would be served a three-course meal by the students. The principal explained to her that this tradition dated back to medieval times in the Benedictine monasteries, where St Benedict’s fundamental rule was that the strong should protect the weak. The head monks would impart their knowledge to their novices, and the novices would serve them a meal as a sign of gratitude for their teaching. When the students started to arrive, she was laughed at, in a good-natured way, for being the tutor who would not let any male student step an inch inside her flat unless accompanied by a female student – not even to help her change a too-high-to-reach light bulb. They didn’t realise how much she depended on this job, and how she had to be seen as completely proper. She was the mentor to twenty students living on her floor, and meetings were initially held on two chairs set outside her doorway, while students discussed how they were settling in at the university.
