While sections of the lecture made sense, I couldn’t understand its content as a whole.

Afterwards I volunteered to for the equivalent of blackboard duties. This task involved unpinning newspaper cuttings that the lecturer had pinned to a huge piece of rough blue cloth, then taking the cloth itself down and folding it up.

At the other side of the hall I could hear people muttering, somewhat incredulously: ‘Yes, she’s related to the famous philosopher, his economist daughter, the Olympic rower, and the Canadian ice hockey professional’.