Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is John Loaring, whose claim to fame is that he invented PPI, and who was at Lampeter from 1964-67 while it made the transition from being an all-male theological college. He recounts how many of his contemporaries thought that having female students was an experiment that would fail and go away, and John recounts how he ended up going to Lampeter in the first place. We learn that he had previously been working for the Inland Revenue and as a porter for British Rail, and did train announcements at Cardiff General. We talk about the days when we were paid to go to university. His father worked for the railway for 38 years but was always classed as temporary staff. He recalls the days when there was a lot of mental bullying depending on one’s background and we discuss the concept of stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. He was the first in his family to go to university, and we learn about the role that rugby and drinking played in his student days. John used to write down what was on