Transcripts of extracts from the diary of Joan Schneider (née Garrod) relevant to Girton and life in Cambridge. The transcripts include notes and editorial comments added by Joan Schneider when transcribing them in 2013. She has ‘omitted purely personal or irrelevant matter and there are many gaps when I was too busy (or lazy) to keep a record’ but ‘included some trivia - - - (eg ‘mended stockings’)' to add to the picture of life at Girton.
The extracts begin with entrance examinations and J G’s Girton interviews in November and December 1947 respectively. They then cover J G’s Girton years from 1948-51: she lodged with Janet Aynsley and Barbara Megson at Girton Gate with Mrs Stewart (widow of Hugh Stewart, a former Chaplain to Girton), moving to a private house in Girton village for part of the Easter Term 1949, and then to the Grange in Michaelmas 1949.
They give a picture of the following:
J G's studies in modern and medieval languages and of those who taught her (including Alison Fairlie and Odette de Mourgues of Girton, also Eric Blackall of Gonville and Caius College, M de Glehn, and Leonard W Forster of Selwyn College - she also describes Forster’s inaugural lecture at University College, London on 7 February 1951);
social matters (she describes some dances and balls in detail);
singing (she describes a trip with Corpus Christi College students on 29 November 1949 to sing carols at the Corpus Christi ‘Mission’ in Camberwell);
and her interests in drawing and art (in May 1949 her sketches of cricketers were accepted by Varsity, and she mentions an ‘Illustration’ class at Cambridge Technical College in May 1950).
The most detailed extracts relate to J G’s participation in sport, including cricket (she played cricket for the University women’s team and several matches are described in detail) and rowing (she coxed the University women’s second boat from February 1951).
At the end of the file there is a transcript of an extract of a letter to J G’s parents, dated 23 January 1951, describing her first outings with the University women’s rowing crews.