London Banter - View Single Post - Electoral registration (was: Croxley Rail Link go ahead confirmed)

[email protected] · April 9th 15, 05:17 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
08:29:35 on Thu, 9 Apr 2015, remarked:

And what with students in those days probably being from a 4yr
O-level stream, not having gap years, and almost always on a 3yr
degree course, not very many undergrads would have been over-21
anyway.

Not exactly. All Cambridge students

Not all students went to Oxbridge. Difficult to imagine, I know.

True but note which newsgroup we are in.

had to do the 7th term entrance exam.

As I did, but I'd been accepted already on the basis of my A-level
results, so it was only an examination to see if I could win a
scholarship/exhibition.

True, but everyone had to take it in my day (before yours).

I think I'd also studied Latin as a prerequisite for entrance, only
to find that by the time I applied it wasn't necessary any more.
Although in retrospect I found that understanding Latin was very
useful in other ways.

Indeed, though it was still needed in my day.

But the real point was that no-one could vote before they were 21 1/2
and most not until they were nearly 22.

And despite experiencing that 2-term "gappy" part-year, after having
sat the exams, I was still not 21yrs old until the very last few
weeks of my final term.

I came of age on 1 January 1970, between 18 and 21. My 21st birthday was at
the start of my third year.

--
Colin Rosenstiel