There is one issue on which I feel I must add my own personal comment and that regards the admission of Ladies.  I must wholeheartedly side with those who oppose such a move.  As many Returners enter middle age they forget that youth have their own problems.  Young ladies, as they enter into womanhood, encounter physical problems best addressed within the privacy of their own sex.  Young men in their cups often in the late hours of the night relate and exchange details of masturbation techniques. All this might be forgotten as the years pass.  Such Returners who really feel the need for heterosexual social contact might well be satisfied by attending the local tennis club's dinner dance.  Or enjoy all the conviviality of membership of the Bible Reading Fellowship. 

I would certainly support any move to refound the Lampeter Ladies Sewing Circle.  They had similar ideals to our own.  Had we sufficient funds and administrative capacity undoubtedly we could assist in reinvigorating this lapsed organisation. 

The move to admit ladies embraces a basic misunderstanding.  It was for the concerns and the protection of young ladies that the Club was originally founded.  Tales abound.  At least one Member satisfied the curiosity of an attendee at an Open Day in the doorway of the gymnasium. 

The Club sought to fill a vacuum in the College organisation.  In the mid-sixties when girls were first admitted a member of staff was specifically appointed to look after the welfare and moral rectitude of the innocents, then lodged in the Hartfords.  Unhappily she left after three months because whe was pregnant.  She was not replaced. 

Guadeamus 

Peter 
 
 

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