Edwin Morgan in his younger days 2 Born in 1920, in the west end of Glasgow, his parents Stanley and Margaret were politically conservative and Presbyterian. His father was a director of a small firm of iron and steel merchants. Edwin attended the former Rutherglen Academy, and the High School of Glasgow. 3 While he was at Glasgow University, World War II broke out and, having registered as a conscientious objector, Edwin served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1940. He returned to university in 1946 and a year later graduated with first class honours before joining the staff of the English Literature Department, turning down a scholarship to Oxford. His studies had included French and Russian and, later in his career, he went on to become a prolific translator.
Even though it may not boast any dreaming spires or belong to the Russell Group of leading universities, there was a time not so very long ago when Leicester University punched well above the weight of its provincial rivals.
Named Britain’s ‘University of the Year’ in 2008, with a heritage that encompassed great thinkers such as novelist Malcolm Bradbury, a former student, poet Philip Larkin, one of its old librarians, and Sir David Attenborough, who lived on the attractive campus as a child, it was home to nearly 23,000 students.
Exactly a decade ago, Leicester came 17th in the Guardian University Guide’s national league tables, and was also top university for ‘student satisfaction’ outside Oxbridge.