On a fine Saturday in a Sydney mid-winter I went to a public lecture at the University of Sydney in General Lecture Theatre One at 2 pm. This room is as steep as a ski jump and the grey audience, like me, took the steps slow and careful. Knowing the lecturer, I had something I wanted to give him, at the end of the talk, for another project. Accordingly I slowly made my way down to the front. All went well; there were no ominous portents.
GLT
I have been to that room many times, and I knew that there was a back exit that avoided ascending all those steep steps. That was my advantage: local knowledge. As the talk drew to a close, I thought I would indeed take the back exit and miss those stairs with my arthritic knee. After a brief word with the lecturer, handing over the poster I had for him, and seeing the slow moving audience taking the stairs, I boldly pushed though the door marked exit at the back and then through a second door into the Vice-Chancellor’s garden, and just for a micro-second I hesitated, should I prop open the door just in case or push on. But if I propped it open, it would stay that way, and I did not want to be responsible for that. I may even have thought, without fully crystalizing it, that it was Saturday and not all doors might be open, but then there was a wedding party in the quadrangle when the lecture started, and the Nicholson Museum was open – I stopped in there to find the location of the lecture on the way there. In other words, everything is open for business. As I said, ‘boldly’ I proceeded, and the exit door slammed shut behind me.
The day was mild and I was in shirt sleeves, but it was July and when the sun goes down the temperature drops quickly from, say, 18C to 10C or less. The Vice-Chancellor’s garden is fully enclosed and gets little sun, as I entered it was already chilly. I hastened to the exit nearest to the mens toilet in the Quandranlge to relieve that need …. only to find it shut and locked. Ooops! Not too worry, I said to myself. I tried the other two doors. Same story. I went back to the door I had exited from the lecture room: Locked, and since it is well away from the lecture hall there was no point in knocking to gain attention. Stuck.
If the doors were locked today, they would stay locked on Sunday, and Monday was a public holiday and so the lockdown would most likely continue. At some point, my wife Kate would miss me and wonder just how long that lecture was. Even so she would not immediately conclude I had trapped myself in the Vice-Chancellor’s Garden, and conjure a key to release me. She was more likely to think in terms of hospitals or alien abductions.
I could break a window, and that might set off an alarm; the windows are all too high to give access to any but a determined thief more agile than I am.
Moreover, I had not brought my window-breaking tyre iron. If I waited for nature to take its course, it would be Tuesday morning when the doors open, about 72 hours to shiver and hunger, perhaps a fitting end, some would say, for me: hypothermia. After all those thoughts, it was time to act.
First things first. There are plenty of bushes in that garden, so I relieved the water pressure and took stock. Only one thing for it, really. I pulled the iPhone from my utility belt, well, just a plain pants’ pocket, and noticed the battery was only 30%, but surely enough for a call. First I used the web to find the University Security Service telephone number, and then I called it, and explained to a seasoned operator my predicament. (I inferred from his quick comprehension of the situation that it has happened before.)
The security operator said someone would be along as soon as possible. Hallelujah, I thought. The battery shrank after the internet use and the telephone call, but it was still only 45 minutes since the end of the lecture; Katie would not yet be wondering where I was. Security called me back twice to tell me someone was coming. My spirits soared. About one hour after the lecture ended, I heard the rattle of many keys and the shaking of a door. It drew me like magnet, and after some more rattling and shaking the door opened and there stood the angel of mercy, Doris, with a mighty big key ring, which she had fetched from the office.
I was effusive in my thanks. She concentrated on documenting the event for the records, putting my shame on file some where in Security.
Considerations of dignity made me hesitate to post this essay, but I decided to do so to thank the Security Service for getting me out.
I took no pictures during the confinement to save the iPhone battery. Web searching did not lead to any pictures portraying the Security Service of the University.
Skip to content