Oxford
Studying at New College, Oxford, he was awarded a first class honours degree in English in 1934 and a second class honours in Modern Languages (French and German) the following year. He was active in rugby and left-wing clubs including the University Labour Club and he initiated an Oxford Branch of the Independent Labour Party. During university vacations he visited Italy in 1933, the Soviet Union in 1934, Germany in 1935 where in Munich he witnessed a rally led by Hitler, and visited the Soviet Union for a second time in 1936.
Following Oxford Bertram was briefly an international correspondent with The Times in London but left after the editor Geoffrey Dawson refused to run his article predicting a sweeping victory for Labour in the New Zealand 1935 general election. He then took a short-term teaching position at St. Paul's School, in Hammersmith before accepting an offer by the Rhodes Trust in late 1935 for a one-year travelling fellowship to Japan and China. He was twenty-five at the time.
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