Written by Antony de Peyer
I was one of the first residents at ISH when it opened. I moved with several others from International Hall in Brunswick Square. The ‘others’ included, amongst others, Roy Rohatgi, Shah Shujatullah, and Peter and James Willis.
I only lived there for a year, but ISH remained the centre of my social life, certainly until 1970, when I got married to Toos.
1968 is the year I want to tell you about. The memory (very ordinary!) goes like this:
I’m phoned by Roy one day in the summer of 1968. He asked me to help look after a Dutch girl at the Saturday film one summer evening, she had his name and the place from a former resident, then studying Art History inThe Netherlands, David Stuart.
So along I go at the pre-arranged time, 7.30, I think, and go up to his room, where I meet one Toos van Seventer from Utrecht. I didn’t catch the name, and on the way down in the lift I asked Roy (who was a good friend until he went back to India decades years later) to repeat the girl’s name: ‘Toos’, he replied, pointing to his feet , pronouncing it “TOES” as a memory aid! Well, it was useful at the time, and actually it’s a good way to help English people pronounce a name that an awful lot of English people pronounce TOOS(which she hates!). Well, that’s the memory! And the pronouncing aid is still useful, I find.
We moved out of London in 1975, and my contact with ISH virtually ceased. But that evening at ISH will always remain special for me.