Michael Cross' memories

I enjoyed this account of going to Oxford University in the 1950s... by Michael Cross.

There are mentions of quite a few former GA Presidents along the way.

A few extracts

There were also, I remember, the Admiralty Handbooks. These were written by geographers in both Oxford and Cambridge during the War years to inform the military of the history, geography and culture of countries in the sphere of war.

We were all well aware of the Davisian cycle of erosion and it seemed almost to be geomorphologically 'fashionable' to look for erosion surfaces - they seemed to play such a major part in the interpretation of landscapes. Wooldridge and Morgan's Geomorphology along with Wooldridge and Linton's Structure, Surface and Drainage in South East England were necessary 'reads'. We were also made aware of a new (to most of us) hypothesis challenging Davis's, one formulated by Penck - summarised by "wearing back as opposed to wearing down". Little were we to realise that over the decades to follow another half dozen or so hypotheses would be suggested by competing geomorphologists. (I have often thought that it would be true to say that wherever two geomorphologists are gathered together, they will disagree!)

Research on frontal systems had only properly got underway in the inter-War period. Air masses were new to us. The then latest edition of Austin Miller's Climatology had what appeared to be an added chapter, Air Masses, and we were advised to buy this edition and avoid older second-hand copies without it. I find it remarkable that today it is routine for TV weather forecasters to refer to air masses in their forecasts. Similarly, most had not heard of the jet stream. I believe some empirical knowledge of jet streams was gained by fighter pilots over Japan in WW2 but it only 'filtered through' to the general public with the growth of high-level airline flights in the 1960s and beyond. During my three years I cannot recall any mention being made, detailed or otherwise, of the jet stream.

Jean Brunhes 'classic' text La Geographie Humaine, although nearly forty years old, was recommended reading, as was The British Isles by Dudley (later Sir Dudley) Stamp - aka 'Deadly Dudley'! 

I wonder why he was Deadly Dudley... as in deadly dull?

In 1954, the annual meeting of the British Association was held in Oxford and thus the accompanying volume The Oxford Region was an up to date source. Edited by my tutor A F Martin and by R W Steel, other familiar names are listed on the Contents page (Dr Steel left midway through my time at Oxford and went on to become Professor of Geography at Liverpool.)

Reference:

https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/alumni/news/181127-mcross-1950-geog.html