BACK TO CHRIST CHURCH
By DEREK WALKER-SMITH, M.P.
w HEN I received an invitation to attend the Christ Church Gaudy I regarded it as a pleasant imperative ; for I had not been in Oxford for nearly ten years. Subconsciously, I think, I had avoided going to Oxford in those post-war years. It had changed, they said, in outlook and way of life ; and so pleasant were my own memories of Oxford life in the twilight of the 'twenties that I hesitated to sacrifice memory for what might be less pleasing reality. Of course, such a feeling is absurd. In a college with 40o years of history changes are but ripples on the smooth surface, quickly merg- ing in the broad expanse of a gracious heritage. Undergraduates talk of university generations ; but undergraduates, and—if this is not lese maieste—even dons, are but passing phantoms. The university itself is a triumph of continuity in changing times. One quick, grateful glance at a mercifully unbombed city was enough to convince me of that. I noticed in conversation with all, porters and scouts as well as dons and deans, a becoming and spontaneous appreciation of the immunity of our halls and quadrangles, our libraries and chapels, from the physical ravages of war.
Changes, of course, I noticed, but they were surface changes. Taxis jostled each other vigorous and unorganised at the station where stood six horse-cabs when I first arrived to sit for a scholarship in 1927. There were some new porters at the gates ; but others knew me. Later on at dinner Lord Greene said that the first visit to the House without finding at duty a single porter from one's under- graduate days marked a crossing of the threshold of old age. For me that lies in the future, for I am in the middle of the three age- groups to which the House extends its hospitality. Last year, in its first post-war Gaudy, it entertained fittingly the senior vintage. Next year the younger vintage will have its turn.
So it was an old friend from my undergraduate days who accom- panied me across Tom Quad. "•Of course, the House itself doesn't change," he volunteered in answer to my unspoken query, " but life is very quiet compared with your time." My spirits rose. Who, twenty years after—and still less, I imagine, forty years after—can resist the subtly flattering suggestion that we were dogs in our day? Not I, at any rate. My reverential steps took on a positively jaunty air as we entered Peckwater. Here changes confronted me. I walked for the first time on the grass of Peckwater, hard surfaced in my day. This I put on the credit side. But after ten years the surface of the library seems to have peeled far more than I remember to have been the case. The yellowish Burford stone still stoutly resists the dis- integrating elements. But the darker Headington stone is fighting .a rearguard action, and stands in need of masonic reinforcements. whose arrival I hope, Bevan consenting, will not be too long delayed.
On my old staircase, immediately opposite the library, I experienced the mild shock of seeing two names where my name was once painted over the oak. But almost at once, as my eye travelled up the list of names, I noticed with approval the name of Gladstone, a visual reminder of continuity in changing times. It is, of course, a fine and worthy thing to make two urdergraduates grow where one grew before. But they must have their complications, these shared domains, especially in a college famed for diversity of taste and interest. It means so much, the room of one's own, in that first joyous flowering of adult life. I felt grateful that it had been my lot to have one, and hope that sometime, somehow, it may be the lot of Christ Church men again.
And so to Hall for the Gaudy Dinner. Outside in the sunlight was a gorgeous diversity of academic robes and a welcome assemblage of familiar faces. Five of my Parliamentary colleagues were there, with the unusual addition of gowns. But there were others whom I had not seen since before the war, others with whom I had played football, attended lectures, dined and, above all, talked—for talking, not quite for instruction, not quite for victory, not quite for fun, but for a mixture of all, is perhaps the principal and abiding activity of university life. There were the history dons at whose feet I had studied, Keith Feiling, J. C. Masterman, Ernest Jacob, J. N. L. Myers, now all professors or heads of colleges. There was the Senior
Censor, Michael Foster. First, he taught me at school ; then he was Christ Church don while I was undergraduate ; then we reversed roles for a time, and he was a brilliant officer student in the syndicate whose studies I directed at the Staff College. Now he is restored to his rightful eminence and dines at the High Table, while I more humbly but with equal contentment will take my appropriate place in the body of the Hall. There, too, is " Prof "—Lord Cherwell to the outside world, but " Prof " to generations of Christ Church men as well as to his colleagues in the War Cabinet. " You know the Bishop of Derby, of course," he says to me. I regret that I have not that honour. But after twenty years I should know that it is risky to try to correct Lord Cherwell on questions of fact ; for the Bishop of Derby turns out to be none other than Canon A. K. Rawlinson- as " Rawlers " a familiar and well-loved figure of earlier Christ Church days.
" Every time I enter this Hall,' says the Dean, " it takes my breath away." If he says that, what of me who am entering for the first time for ten years? There it is in its familiar and compelling splendour. At the High Table the Dean presides over a distinguished company ; for Christ Church entertains those who have earlier in the day received their honorary degrees—Lord Wavell, Lord Oaksey (" Lawrence of Nuremberg "), the Lord Chief Justice, Sir William Slim, Sir Keith Park and Lord Greene, the Master of the Rolls. They look magnificent, indeed, in their academic robes. But from where I sit the strip-lighting over the pictures, new since my day, throws the portraits of Cardinal and bygone Deans into vivid relief, leaving the living diners by contrast in the shadows, a reminder that in an ancient college the transitory greatness of the present is at nothing to the accumulated history of the past.
After dinner—and we are grateful to the Steward and his staff for putting back for one night the clock of austerity—we settle down to listen to the Dean and other speakers. For his appointment seven years ago Dr. Lowe needs no .other recommendation beyond great learning, great gifts, genuine piety and a warm and sympathetic per- sonality. But to me, at any rate, it is a very happy thing that the ancient foundation of Christ Church should choose as its head one of its own Rhodes Scholars from the Dominion of Canada. The Dean speaks twice with great effect, once in proposing the health of the guests and again to give a survey of the year at Christ Church. Between his speeches come those of Lord Wavell, Lord Oaksey and Lord Greene. All speak well, but I like best the speech of Lord Greene, as an old House man, evocative, nostalgic, reminiscent. After dinner I walk round Tom Quad, where I have walked so often before in companionship and in solitude, in conversation and in reflection. Then with my companions—Michael Maclagan, now Fellow of Trinity, and A. J. Ayer, a year my junior at Christ Church but now a Professor of Philosophy at London University—I turn into the Senior Common Room. Here there is a brisk mingling of the men of yesterday, today and tomorrow. I meet and talk with new men as well as old friends, with Mr. Fisher, son of the Archbishop of Canter- bury, just starting his career at the Bar, and with Mr. Trevor-Roper, already distinguished as the author of the Last Days of Hitler.
It was late when I retired to Canterbury Quad for the night, but early when I awoke next day in sunshine. Nature had made it a day to be spent in Oxford ; but the politics and pressures of every- day life forced' me reluctantly towards London. I took with me, however, a fine addition to my album of memories, and a gratitude reinforced not only to those who administer the House today, but to those noble shades who look benignly down from the Elysian fields upon the enduring fabric of their handiwork.
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