Letters
The Oxford image
Sir: I read with interest David Taylor's ave atque vale on Oxford, for today, 8 October, is in fact the 50th anniversary of my arrival at Keble College, and my life membership of this Society. I left in 1935, with a good degree in Eng. Lit., and the question arises, with me as with him — was it all worth it?
David Taylor implies that the degree itself wasn't. I agree with him. I got my first London job, in advertising, on the strength of my having edited one of the undergraduate weeklies, and I suspect it may have been the same with him. Yet the contact, in the English School, with men like Tolkien and C. S. Lewis has remained.
Throughout 30 professional years as a writer with 18 books published, and in radio and television, including editing Panorama, the Oxford image has ever been before me, and 13 years ago I came to live here permanently.
It is a salutary experience, but the past recedes before the paternity of Oxford senior life, and all is absolved within the beauty of the Oxford scene, and the grandeur of the university stone. I would not have it otherwise.
Michael Barsley
Oxford Union Society, Frewin Court, Oxford
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