And that had a powerful appeal, particularly to those who had been denied the choice to stay on at school, to go to university, to be something else, other than going down the pit.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was delighted to not go to university. I couldn't wait to be out of education.
And it was a huge emotional thing to leave the law and become unemployed - to be a student again.
Eventually, I won the right to attend school, but the prejudice was still there.
When it came time to go to the University, it was during the war.
I was in school, but I wasn't into school. I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing in school, which was film studies. That was what I intended on doing, but I didn't go away to a university because I wanted to stay in L.A. and audition while I took classes, so I elected to go to a community college and just take G.E. courses. It was terrible.
My dad, in particular, was adamant that I should finish my education. He encouraged me to go to Oxford, for instance, and I rather doubt I'd have gone if he hadn't. I would have gone straight back to L.A. and tried to start my career.
I could have easily gone down the wrong path and dropped out of school, but I was given a second chance.
The acceptance to Harvard was more of trophy than a real possibility to me. I would have been miserable.
He wanted to be a lawyer, couldn't afford it, so he started dealing to go to college - good intention.
Even if a university should turn out to be another version of a school, I had decided I could lose myself afterwards as an anonymous particle of the London I already loved.