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== 1948 ==
Jim has had a soft spot for the road ever since he took up my first post in 1949 at the then Westminster Bank at 189 Cowley Road: "A late '30s building . . . still there but empty and in poor condition now. We shared the building with the Ministry of Food - - then dealing with ration books and so forth. On my first day, the bank manager took me on one side and said 'Now then Tallett - I hope you are going to prove more useful to us than your predecessor. He spent more time thinking about acting and the Playhouse than banking.' So I said cautiously 'May I ask his name, Sir?' Ron Barker, was his reply. Ronnie B was a couple of forms above me at the City of Oxford High School (now the History Fac) so I knew him well. After he said bye bye to banking he went on to much greater things as we know. And so did I in a different way. But the ten years or so I spent in banking (from Cowley Road to High Street, then Bristol, Cambridge and all over the south) stood me in huge stead for my university post.<br/> "The manager was proud of the fact that his wife was a descendant of Anne Hathaway. He also spent quite a lot of time over the road, down some stairs in what was known as 'the Rat Hole' (was it The Ampney Cottage"??. If Head Office phoned I had frequently to go across the road and say that he was needed on the 'phone. That aside, he was a gentleman of the old school, as they say. He taught me a very great deal more than Banking!"
== 1939 - 2015 ==
