No chancellor in recent decades has matched Princess Margaret for gusto in the 1960s at Keele University. Malcolm Clarke, president of the students union 1967/68, vividly recalls her at the annual student balls. "She came every December to the Royal Ball and she came to some of the summer Commemoration balls too."
It was customary for the student president to have the first waltz with the princess, which Clarke dreaded. He was, a friend said, a "man of many parts clumsily assembled" and 6ft 4.
Union staff fruitlessly tried to teach him to waltz in the pre-ball weeks. He decided his only hope was to keep the princess chatting in the bar until the waltz band had left the stage, which wasn't too difficult. "She liked her drink - whisky and water, I recall."
But back in the main hall, the chancellor said she fancied doing the bunny hop, a dance which meant putting her arms around the terrified student.
"She was staring into my navel," Clarke chuckles. "The best
I can say is that she deserved everything she got which was to be kicked around
the hall by me."
