Glitterless Prizes

Nine years ago, I wrote a rather theatrical article for the Times Higher Educational Supplement, entitled 'When a history PhD is a millstone rather than a stepping stone'. I had just been elected a Research Fellow after serving my apprenticeship as a graduate student, and I wrote it as a protest, on behalf of the many contemporaries less fortunate than myself who, after a three year slog in the archives and at their type- writers, had in most cases obtained a qualification for which there existed virtually no job openings.

I assured the editor that this was just the sort of piece his journal needed: a young viewpoint, telling the bitter truth exactly as it was, and sure to arouse a great deal of interest and controversy. In fact, it made about as much impact as the speeches of Michael Foot at the last election.