He began undergraduate life at Cambridge in September 1948; his tutor was the noted literary critic Frank Raymond Leavis, who had also been a conscientious objector (in WW1). He was much influenced by F R Leavis and his views on literary criticism. He graduated in 1951, did a year's post-graduate certificate of education, married (Audrey Atherton) in 1952 and began his career, briefly in Bolton, then in September 1953 returned to The Liverpool Institute as an English teacher, later (1956) becoming Head of the English Department.