Low life

First class

Jeffrey Bernard

Dear John M. W. Chipman, invitingThmaenktoyosupveaermuch speak at matth for eAr rynoouirdleattnear, Brakesbury Annual Dinner at Balliol Col- lege, Oxford on Monday 14 June. tremendously flattered and happy to accept on the condition that our beloved editor puts some money up front for the hire of a dinner jacket — and trousers — plus also price of a return ticket to Oxford. I'm a'"n astounded at your bravery in asking Me' Are you trying to get sent down? You saY that the Balliol Debating Society debates flippant motions but I do hope you realise just how flippant I can be round about A 8 p.m. after a hard day in the office and an hour in the buffet car. Ah well, it's Y°Ilf degree and your career. I do have worries though. For one thing I shall be palpably and audibly out of MY ill; tellectual depth at Balliol and the fact that frequently make a public fool of mYse

doesn't mean that I necessarily relish it. I can't swim and the waters at Balliol must be terribly deep. And, talking of waters, my landlady tells me there's something called the Balliol Buttery Bar in the college. We could meet there so please write and advise me about opening time.

Another worry is the business of talking for 15 to 20 minutes. That's a hell of a long time The only time I've done this sort of thing before was at the Chelsea Arts Club a few weeks ago and it was pretty disastrous. I ran out of words after only five minutes and sat down rather abruptly to wipe the egg off my face. But thanks for assuring me Of accommodation for the night. It was bootless to exclaim. Any man who drinks a toast needs accommodation, be it under the table or in the Randolph. By the way, is that dreadful pub still going? I drank there Years ago when I was a stagehand with a touring show that stopped at the Playhouse for a week. Well do I remember fantasising that I was an undergraduate. I suppose you must spend a lot of your time, as I did, Making love to beautiful girls in punts un- der weeping willows, stroking the winning boat in the boat race, scoring a century

the Cambridge, gambling and drinking 'me inheritance away and getting lots of

More recently, I spent a few days in the Radcliffe Hospital when I lived in Lam- bourn and I advise you to steer clear of the Place. Yes, the old pancreas was at it again and they turned me into a paranoiac by ac- cusing me quite falsely of secretly eating AM sandwiches. Then I was visited by a brought wife and a bloodstock agent who drank lots of wine with them which we urank in the day room and, as you can im- agine, I simply daren't fall ill in Oxford again. Another thing about Oxford which stirs annoying memories is that it reminds nlj e of the poet Dom Moraes. I think it was !sin College he was attending when he tucked my Ezra Pound letters. Pound and I struck

UP a correspondence after I wrote hint a Youthful fan letter and Dom flogged . But You don't have, like Pound, to be in

a lunatic

asylum to write to me, as you

Yourself have just proved. ePl AnYway, I can't stop thinking how very wish you must be to be at a university. I '41 I'd been a swot and not what we called a 'bad hat' at Pangbourne. I used to sit at the back of the class and think about sex all 'lay. What on earth did you do? As for the Wretched University of Life you've missed

I it'ss impossible to get a grant and

e degrees are ten a penny. You should see "le graduates, fellows and senior members u, the Coach and Horses. From Harold 1;lacMillan to Norman Baton is a free fall u'd want a hundred parachutes for. Well, thanks again for the letter. I must close now as Norman keeps saying — and go off to uwio a little

flippant debating over a cocktail

vvi,sth We're trying to find the Derby co`urter, which isn't so flippant after all y_tne to think of it. So, see you on 14 June., , 'Jars Sincerely,

Jeff Bernard