Very Old Cambridge Tales: 2

SNAPSHOTS OF CAMBRIDGE

‘Ron Shakespeare’, a casual at the Arts, was so plastered the other evening that he actually got caught on stage at the end of a scene-change. The Stage Manager did his nut and threatened this time to fire him.

‘All right, all right – but first you give me an appearance fee!’ quipped ‘Ron’.

* * *

The other day, just after the April snow, I was accosted by a burly American girl with a pair of opera glasses round her neck, who was wandering along the Backs looking for the Bird Sanctuary.

‘You know, the most amazing thing,’ she said, is there don’t seem to be any hummingbirds here…’

* * *

A certain lecturer in moral philosophy was so liberal that when served by the nice Nigerian girl in the University Library tea-room, he couldn’t bring himself to ask for a ‘white’ coffee.

* * *

I called on old Addley and was relieved to discover that he had been able to resume his dissertation on William Gerhardie. Some chrysalids, which appeared all over his box-files and card-indexes when caterpillars crept in through his open windows last September, had hatched in the recent warm weather and the butterflies flown away.

* * *

Tucked away in a dank corner of our College gardens, I discovered a small dry-stone wall. It seemed to serve absolutely no purpose, so I asked an Adam who was tilling a flower-bed nearby, what it was doing there.

‘Those are pieces of boys’ hearts, sir,’ he replied with a wag of his head. ‘We keep finding them all round the College, now that the Women are up.’

* * *

The General Election. Dr M., Master of X., wanted to put up a VOTE LABOUR board on a tree overhanging the pavement from his garden. Appropriately enough, he rang up the Junior Bursar to send round a workman.

* * *

I was in Gallyon’s poring over a case-full of spinners. One of those Trinity toffs came in – cavalry twills, Viyella shirt, cheese-cutter – strode up to the counter, and quacked: ‘I want a dozen No. 8 hooks and a ton of shit! Er, I mean a tin of…’

KULYGIN

SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS

‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine

‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian

‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review

‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter

‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer

‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18

A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.

A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.