Sporting Aspects
MY OXFORD AUNT By J. P. W. MALLAL1EU THE roads to Oxford are full of memories. I have travelled over them on foot and in most sorts of vehicle. I seem to remember that I first travelled the Banbury Road in a horse-tram in 1912 when, as a boy of four, I was visiting my Oxford aunt; but it may have been a horse-bus. Through six years of preparatory school and three years of university, through innumerable visits before, between and since those stays, I came to know those roads so well that I could say where I was, blindfold, merely by the bumps: So when last Saturday, on yet another visit to my Oxford aunt, I left Henley behind, rattled along that glorious, tree- lined straight road, groaned up that uew-fangled dual carriage- way and came at last to Nettlebed, the years fell away more easily than the miles. My history tutor spent so much time in Nettlebed that we became convinced that he was carrying on with one of the lovelier villagers. We felt somewhat let down when we found that he was wholly absorbed in the work of the parish council. Beyond Nettlebed was the spot where'we had that puncture in 1921. I remember that puncture, as I remember everything else about that day, because we were on our way; during school-time, to see our first Varsity rugger-match, not merely with the permission of our headmaster but in his company. Indeed, it was the headmaster who had to change the wheel. Now, as we passed through Dorchester, where the sherry used to be so good, and approached Oxford itself, memories came thicker and more vividly. There was the spot where a front wheel flew off our hired car in the dark and lost itself over a hedge, a story the garage never believed until they found the wheel in' a ploughed field. And here, just at Littlemore, is that crossroads. Some friends of mine, delighted with what, to us, was the new pointing, were singing the Magnificat as we drove. We had just reached the line For He that is Mighty hath magnified me when a car shot across our bows at great speed. On its appearance we, of course, stopped singing, but when, having missed us by inches, it sped down a side-road, we, as one man, without any lead, continued where we had left off with And Holy is His name, remembering even to put the new-pointed accent on Holy. , I sometimes wonder how we camr unscathed through those wild, gloriously happy years, but by the time, last Saturday, that I had reached the Iffley Road, I was far away from such mature reflections and had become an undergraduate again. I decided that the visit to my aunt should wait a little, and that I would see whether my middle-aged body could match its new-found spirit by doing that afternoon some of the things a real undergraduate might do.
There was plenty of choice. On the rugger-ground the O.U.R.F.C. were to play the Army, and already there was a trickle of duffle-coated cyclists and duffle-coated walkers going through the gates. But just round the corner where, I had always understood, the University had its soccer-ground, there was, not a trickle, but an immense crowd, in duffle-coats, of course, but carrying rattles, empty beer-crates and other impedimenta which would have seemed strange in the Iffley Road twenty-five years ago. Even stranger to my eyes was the fact that this crowd had its back to the rugger-ground and was queuing with all the usual signs of good-humoured impatience to get in to the soccer-ground. ' For Pegasus were playing Cockfield County in the Second Round of the F.A. Amateur Cup. All Town and nearly all Gown seemed interested in this fact.
I, however, went past both rugger and soccer, over Magdalen Bridge, round the High, down past Tom Tower to Folly Bridge and the river; and it was here that body first began to complain against spirit. The river was, and no doubt still is, a wonderful place in Eights Week, when the college barges are alight with colour and the river shimmers in the heat and supporters of victorious crews fling themselves in as though Zuleika Dobsbn had come again. But Eights Week is in June, whereas this was January. The barges were untenanted; the willow-trees were bare; and a cutting wind ruffled the grey-green water. As I walked along the towpath, my body shivered into the protection of my greatcoat: A moment or two later even-my spirit had begun to shiver. For on the river, on the towpath, around the boathouses were young men and women wearing only thin shorts and thinner vests who obviously were not shivering at all.
Some were gliding up and down in skiffs or pairs or eights. Some, with oars resting on the water, were listening intently, to the megaphoned advice of an American coach. Some sat in moored tubs and peered into mirrors as they swung their blades, trying to discover their faults for themselves. One ribald-sounding crew had manned a kind of barge in which the oarsmen could sit two abreast while coaches strode along the gangway between like the whipping masters of a slave galley. No one looked cold. No one felt cold, except me.
I made my way back over Folly Bridge—how well named it now seemed—past Tom Tower and round the High to Magdalen Bridge. How ever could Magdalen Tower he once seemed so tall to me ? Why ever should they want to reface the lovely, withering stone of Magdalen itself ? I groused and grumbled as I swung the car round into Iffley Road. But here, for a time, my spirit and even some parts of my body revived. Here were familiar sights, such as " No Parking " notices completely surrounded by parked cars. Here was the familiar roar. Here too was the familiar gateman still, after twenty-five years, so intent on the game that late corners could walk in for nothing, even to an F.A. Cup-tie.
Pegasus, before a huge crowd, were treading Cockfield County into the mud. They had scored three goals before I arrived, and scored two more before. I left.Faces, whether of Town or Gown, glowed with single-minded pleasure; but none of their warmth seeped through to me. For one thing I had no empty beer-crate on which to stand, nor had I" the energy of those who had climbed the tower of the near-by church and were getting their view of the game from there. So I could not see. Worse, the cold of the mud struck through my thin shoes. Worse still, with arriving so late, I could not be a part of the watching crowd, feeling my enthusiasm grow with theirs.
Listlessly I circled the field until I reached the hedge and could peer at the Rugger match on the other side. Cold mists were rising from the ground I once knew so well, mists blanket- ing the sporadic shouts which came from the stands and turning \ the faintly peering sun to red. Years ago I had been at home on that ground, had caught the enthusiasm which makes cold and mist and mud of no account, which absorbs one in the glories of a great playing game. But now I was watching, not playing, and watching from, the wrong side of the Mtge. Years ago the pleasures of ,a violent game in January were equalled only by the pleasures of the hot toast and tea, the armchair and the big fire which came after. Now I could think only of the hot toast and tea, the armchair and the big fire. Worse, I now realised that I had been thinking only of these things ever since two o'clock, that for me on a cold Saturday afternoon in Oxford they were all that mattered. I knew that it was not just the river, not just the weather. I knew that it was my age.
I called to see my aunt. She came to greet me with shining eyes and affectionate disapproval. " You are naughty to come so late," she said. " If you had got here by lunch-time you could have taken me to the match."
My aunt is in her ninety-first year.
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