November 1955

In November 1955 Bedford College of Physical Education featured in ‘I want to be....’ – a series of features about careers for boys and girls broadcast as part of Children’s Hour on BBC Radio Home Service.  The programme contained interviews with tutors and groups of students and was first broadcast on 12 November 1955.  In her letter of 10 November, Alice reminds her parents to listen to the programme.  We know from a subsequent letter that Alice and her fellow students “thought the broadcast very bitty especially compared with the tape we bought from the BBC of all the recordings they took here”.

We learn of some of the extra-curricular activities undertaken by Alice: playing lacrosse for the College, visiting a probation officer for a biology project, and attending a weekly evening lecture delivered by an outside speaker. 

Alice makes reference to rehearsals for an end-of-term play.  She is following a long tradition going back to the early years of the College of students putting on an entertainment at the end of the autumn term.  These were often pantomimes or revues containing topical references to the College and its ways.