No punts in view

In the Parks this morning, the Cherwell had almost overflown onto the Oxford University cricket ground. And the Windrush Valley, below us as we drove home, was flooded worse than I have ever seen it. When will our politician begin to make (and take action upon) the connection between these extraordinary conditions - repeated all round the world - and the climate change we humans are effecting?

On Your... Eminence!

"Marx" is not a name to associate immediately with a Prince of the Catholic Church, yet Cardinal Reinhard Marx it is seen here with Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet: he was talking in Oxford this evening.

The Archbishop of Munich, one of Pope Francis' "C8", and a heavy hitter in every sense, was giving the 2014 Newman Lecture, his theme “A Certain Idea of Europe”: I was glad to have been there. Not just for the substance, but for the reassurance of seeing that there's at least one very human presence besides Pope Francis in the top echelons of the Church - someone with an internationalist outlook, able to communicate 99% effectively in a foreign language (if not more than one), sporting not a vestige of scarlet but what looked like designer stubble, and referencing - his only mention of an American - Philip Roth, for goodness' sake.

Europe, the Cardinal said, was in pole position to dominate the year's headlines, not just being in the news, but making the news. The commemoration of the centenary of the beginning of World War 1 was as important as the elections to the European Parliament this May. "All the soldiers who fought in the terrible civil war of Europe were baptised and had learned the 10 Commandments. This history is not over, but very present... Europe is still in the making."

Peace and security are two sides of the same coin, he stressed, paying tribute to the EEC/EU for providing us with a secure peace for longer than his own lifetime.

I buy the Cardinal's idea that only the Church can bring the Gospel to society, and what indeed is the future of mankind without the Gospel? As he stressed, he isn't a politician, but I'm glad there are such as he intent to "inspire the European project with the voice of the Gospel" (another Marx-ism), and to urge all of us in the rich West to learn a culture of restraint.

Fathers and brothers

Six months ago, almost to the day, Miles Wright, youngest of four brothers, died after a long battle with cancer. I knew him relatively slightly, despite us being almost exact university and school contemporaries. My time at Ampleforth also overlapped with that of older Wrights, David and Martin, now Fr. Ralph and Abbot Timothy. Finally, the eldest brother, Peter (Fr. Stephen) has always been a very good friend of all the Davis family.

The three surviving brothers celebrated Mass in memory of Miles yesterday, at the little church of SS Gregory and Augustine, Oxford. I was privileged to be one of only a couple of handfuls of friends and family invited along, and to lunch afterwards. It was good to catch up with the brethren.

Each gave the assembly a short spiel about what has made him tick in life: Stephen - just off to spend eight weeks with Ampleforth's daughter community in Zimbabwe - has for a long time involved himself closely in the charismatic movement. Ralph many years ago moved from Ampleforth to join its now long independent foundation in St Louis, Missouri: he is a much published poet and veteran pro life campaigner. And Timothy, just approaching the end of seven years in Rome, teaching at the Beda, has become an authority on Christian-Muslim relations, and shortly takes up a teaching post in a North American university.

Third Wright: forthright, his verdict on Rome given with a question: "What sort of Church is it that requires a newly appointed Cardinal to spend €5000 in order to get properly togged up?" Ecumenism? "The Ordinariate: a complete waste of time!"  Other religions? "Yes Muslims and Christians can pray together, but not with Hindus and Buddhists."

We need to talk about Michael

I rode - a Boris bike - from Westminster to Paddington yesterday via the North bank of the Serpentine. If you are used to normal English temperatures, then wearing a Burqa - this is just one of many women I saw there who were - must be a trial on such a hot afternoon.

I omitted to say in my last post how much I enjoyed meeting again my school contemporary Michael, over from Los Angeles, in my excitement to describe our visit to The Bankside Gallery. Why are old friends better than recent ones? Not only had we been in the same school house, but we also overlapped at Oxford; yet we could never be said to have been close. So why bother to reestablish contact after all this time? We concluded it was because then was such a formative period in our lives. Maybe also ranks need closing: others we knew better at school are now dead.

Narrating our respective stories (the abridged version) made me reflect upon my good fortune. Michael, for all his celebrity as a professor twice over, has had to live through bereavement, loneliness and (to a great extent) exile from the country he calls home: he could be said to suffer from nostalgia, in its original sense. From his standpoint, my stable life in a beautiful part of England, supported by my wife and family, seems enviable indeed.

Two important things we are both it seems glad to find ourselves still sharing: good health and our Faith. Returning from the South Bank, Michael and I went to Vespers in the richly-decorated Lady Chapel of Westminster Cathedral. This was a first for me, and I was impressed, but at the same time a little alarmed by the triumphalist note sounded by placing poor old John Southworth's body in the middle of the main nave aisle in preparation for his feast day (tomorrow). What does martyr veneration do to foster better mutual understanding between Christians and those of other religious persuasions in our midst?

"Messiah"

Ten years ago, Martin Smith celebrated his 60th birthday by conducting his beloved Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment in "Messiah" in Inigo Jones' Banqueting House, Whitehall. Last night, he did it again, this time in Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theatre, to mark his 70th birthday. And with the same tenor and bass soloists - all four in fact Cambridge alumni. (Where is the home-grown talent?!)

The banked seating last night gave the opportunity to witness the degree of close eye contact between for instance Nicholas Kraemer at the harpsichord, the first cellist and Maggie Faultless, the leader. While these performances may spoil one for "Messiah" when rendered by lesser players and singers, they certainly bring out new things. "Comfort ye...", the first words we heard, were sung by Mark Padmore with all the intensity required to remind us of Shaw saying that the text was a work of genius: "a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief". Tim Mead wrenched the heart similarly with "A man of sorrows...", and then there was the angelic Katherine Watson (only 26, and a big star looming). Gerald Finley's "The trumpet shall sound" stole the show in the London performance, and did so again last evening. In the intervening decade, he has added Hans Sachs to his repertoire: I thought I detected even a bar or two from "Die Meistersinger" in his oh-so-free final section: brilliant!

Martin looked shattered at the end: I do hope he is not already feeling any pressure to do it all over again in 2023! But where he's concerned nothing would surprise me.

Dr. Brenda Boardman

I've admired from afar the work of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute over a longish period: in its early days, when the geographical ambit of the Summerfield Trust was wider, we gave it some money; but I never met its best-known pioneer, Brenda Boardman. For 17 years, she and her husband John helped to fly Oxford University's environmental flag, starting from a time when the word "environment" featured within no other department's title.

It was a pleasure therefore to find myself sitting between Brenda and John at the annual lunch of the Gloucestershire branch of the Oxford Society today, at the Three Choirs Vineyard. Afterwards we heard from Brenda, not only about the genesis of the ECI's inter-disciplinary work on the environment, but with her appraisal that there's currently a sorry lack of joined up green thinking within the University.

She described the situation as "both brilliant and heartbreaking": despite fairly recent endowment being provided for more than one new institution at Oxford, working in the environmental field, "we are still largely living in the realm of wishful thinking." All the Colleges come up with when asked for their response to the challenge of climate change are toe-dipping gestures such as the LMH allotments.

"Oxford's four most recent buildings are the four buildings which are Oxford's heaviest users of electricity." The University has lasted for 900 years, but with the problems the world faces, it's almost impossible to conceive it lasting another 900 years unchanged, she sighed - as did we all.

Alberic OSB, RIP

Brother Alberic Stacpoole (as he then was) and I were university contemporaries even though he was more than a decade senior to me. After school, he had been commissioned in the Army, where I got the impression his career had glittered, though I never knew the details. It was clear to me at Oxford that he took his studies rather more seriously than I did: this didn't in any way come in the way of our friendship, and it was still a mighty surprise that he came down with a First.

We next met properly at Lourdes in the early 'Seventies: I recall standing on a balcony with him after a late lunch. It was a hot day, but he was observant enough to detect that the breeze of the evening was just beginning to show itself: there was a sensitivity that reflected his always immaculate appearance.

It was a shock to see him again - after a long gap - at Easter last year. His handshake had the same warmth, but try as he might to make sense, his mind was elsewhere. So it's a mercy that he has at length died.

I took this happy photograph of Alberic (centre) at Ampleforth on 8th July 1973 - after the ordination of Fr. Richard ffield, seen looking away to the right.

Joanna Trollope

“Simplex munditiis” is one of those phrases that, like others in Horace, a schoolboy may long be able to recall. Anyway, this one does: its translation, “artless in her elegance” came to mind as I listened to Joanna Trollope on the theme of “Real Life: Real Stories” yesterday evening.

With her immaculate appearance, commanding presence, bejewelled sentences and warm involvement of an all-too-small audience, she charmed us in her discussion with Edward Gillespie. And in the second part of the evening, she displayed a deft touch, turning the tables on her interviewer. “How do you stay a fresh-minded nuisance?” she asked Edward, as he contemplated life after Cheltenham Racecourse. (I rather wish he had done so more succinctly: listening to him was less interesting.)

Alongside such as David Attenbrough, Judi Dench and Imogen Cooper, Joanna Trollope is surely now close to attaining the status of National Treasure. On the strength of her performance – it was in aid of the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum’s appeal – she certainly counts as one of Gloucestershire’s treasures. Born near Minchinhampton Common (“an offered up upland,” as she described it), she clearly acknowledges both her roots in our county, and that our causes are also hers – encouraging philanthropy amongst Gloucestershire’s super rich, opposing threatened library closures, not to mention “Building a New Future”, the title of the Art Gallery appeal. On the screen behind her, the first image projected was Piero della Francesca’s “country” Christ Risen: she told us how she had been to see it this Summer in Borgo San Sepolcro (lucky her).

By way of contrast, Joanna’s second image was a Gwen John interior, reflecting the fact that a decade ago she left Gloucestershire for self-imposed exile in London, from where she does not now contemplate a return. After all, she maintains – rather controversially so far as our household is concerned – “men are more romantic about landscape than women.” And, as a writer, “you do get terribly sick of the inside of your own head.” (Her solution? To go and sit anonymously in Caffè Nero in the King’s Road.)

For someone so outwardly conventional, even middle-brow – Joanna listens to Korngold, looks fondly upon black Labradors, and has a way of speaking that might best be described as retro – she espouses some surprisingly radical ideas. Feminism, naturally. (“Now that we have the vote, we are in quite a hurry.”) But more than that, she possesses a brave candour. The cuttings don’t let us forget the furore that blew up when she compared the plight of the villagers of Aston Magna with those in Moss Side, Manchester. As she said last night at the Parabola Arts Centre, “We all have equal human validity… It won’t do to live in a bubble.” “What gets my goat? Injustice.” Inside the rather stoical velvet glove, there is an iron hand.

Yet her cheek is still soft: this I can tell from the nice double kiss she gave me during the interval yesterday. Not so long ago I looked through the nearly-50-year-old bundle of thank you letters my mother had received from those who came to my 21st birthday party. (What a pity no such archive will exist for this generation of 21-year-olds! Even if – unlikely – they get round to writing to say thank you, they will at best do so by email.) Anyway, in the bundle I found one signed “Joanna”. A reminder that we had known each other at Oxford.

Golden reunion

Agnes began her Creative Writing course at the weekend, and is now a graduate member of St Catherine's College - the third in the family to make it to Oxford. It's hard to believe that 50 years have elapsed (almost) from the day I first arrived at University College to begin my three-year degree course.

Caroline and I returned there yesterday for celebrations in College - a lunch followed by a symposium, "Past and future reflections". The former was splendid (we never looked forward to food of that quality in our day, even for the grandest occasions): the latter, though in part entertaining, was dominated by a few rather noisy voices. They reinforced the impression that we are a complacent generation.

The College had circulated a Matriculation list with 104 names on it. 18 are now known to be dead - we stood in silence to honour them before lunch: of the remainder, 38 turned up (from all parts of the globe), and an additional 29 spouses and others were present. It was the first time Caroline had been to Univ. on an official visit.

I had been charged with taking photographs, which ate into the time I had for chatting amiably to old friends, but also gave me an excuse not to chat too long to others amongst those present. My website now hosts the album.

On that first day in October 1962, my mother drove me up to Oxford: we parked in the High Street (now impossible) at the entrance to Logic Lane - having discovered that my first year rooms were in Durham Buildings, just nearby. The car parked in front of ours belonged to the mother of another new boy. David Mills (for it was he) and others present yesterday may have their own Wikipedia entries. For my part, I am content to be relatively anonymous.

Not in the same boat

At breakfast, Edmund was studying the newspaper report of Saturday's dramatic events on the Thames. "I support Oxford," he explained to William, "because I went to Oxford: Mummy supports Cambridge as she went to Cambridge." "Why," responds William, swiftly, "would you want to marry someone you're racing against?"

Ox.Ag?

We are all partial where our Alma Mater is concerned. (Should that be "Almae Matres are"?) I was accordingly delighted to get a call from Agnes today to say that she'd been offered a place on the Oxford University MSt Creative Writing course. She'd applied without much confidence of success, but I'm of course not surprised in the least that they've recognised her potential!

Old pals, Old Palace

When Fr. Felix Stephens and I were in the same house at school, we scrambled to get the county cricket scores, he supporting Gloucestershire and I Warwickshire. Bumping into him in Oxford on Sunday morning after a long gap, neither of us had anything to say about the dismal performance by England's batsmen in Abu Dhabi.

It was chance that took Caroline and me to the Catholic Chaplaincy for Mass, and chance also that Felix happened to be preaching: the desert and the marketplace was his theme - expounded at rather greater length than I'm currently used to sitting through, but probably not so fully as in the discourses we were subjected to when I was an undergraduate (and Fr. Michael Hollings the Chaplain).

Felix, evidently not at present able to live up to his name, hinted that, not just he but all of Oxford was seething at the decision to withdraw him from his post as Master of St Benet's at the end of the current academic year.

CBSO at the Sheldonian

Friday's was my first visit to Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre for a symphony concert: we had heard the OAE and Andreas Scholl there some years ago, but a full orchestra playing from the romantic repertoire was something else. If truth be told, despite the well-documented brilliance of the CBSO under its young conductor Andris Nelsons, it produced rather too harsh a sound for my ears, sitting in the first tier up. Still, the chance to listen carefully to two old warhorses (Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony and Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto) in such virtuosic performances doesn't come often. In fact it was a treat.

My back has now recovered from sitting squashed for two hours on what is effectively a bench, an ordeal only partly offset by the beauty of Wren's architecture.

Highlight of the evening: the pianist was lissome Hélène Grimaud, her performance in the Brahms combining elegance with strength way beyond what her appearance gave me to expect.

Oxford catering

A different ceiling photograph today: I took this last night in Oxford's Divinity School, the venue for a dinner to celebrate John and Maria Paz's wedding earlier in the year, in Chile. (The elaborate lierne vaulting dates from the 1480s, we were told by the groom's father.)

While this setting perfectly matched the sumptuous dinner we were given (Chilean wines to accompany it), the lunch I had earlier was a discordant affair: Jesus College Hall dates from three centuries later (than the Divinity School), but with its portraits of Elizabeth I and Charles I, not to mention Lawrence of Arabia and Harold Wilson, inspires a similar degree of awe. All right, term had ended, and I was being treated, but "hot lunch" consisting of a sausage, fried egg, a few chips and some spears of broccoli - in a soup bowl - still didn't quite fit.

Susurrus

En route home from East Anglia, we paused in Oxford in order to go to the Botanic Gardens. I'm ashamed to admit it was my first ever visit. Nor even this time was I there principally to see the Gardens themselves, but because they were the venue for "Susurrus".

This is one of the Oxford Playhouse's "Plays Out", put on to encourage audiences to think differently about theatrical work and where it's performed. At the entrance, you pick up headphones, a miniature iPod-type device and a map. At each of eight different points, you are invited to sit down and listen to a passage on the tape, with appropriate music as you walk round in between.

Susurrus - meaning a soft murmuring or rustling sound - is perhaps not the most appropriate title for a play being performed quite so close to the Oxford traffic. Though the content itself is dark, the musical reference points (Britten's Dream, Janet Baker, and Maria Callas's last UK concerts) and the beautiful setting of the Gardens made it, for me, both a nostalgic and an enlivening experience.

For Caroline, it was rather less so, but both were glad we had made the effort to set aside an hour to go. Susurrus is on till 27th, I see from the theatre's website: if you are anywhere near between now and then, I recommend it.

I certainly hadn't appreciated how extensive and impressive the Botanic Gardens were, nor how close to the Cherwell: next week, with the new term starting, people will doubtless be in these punts if the weather holds.

Oxford revisited

From the back entrance to my former College, Univ., it was only a short distance to the Canterbury Gate of Christ Church ("the House"), so I passed that way often when I was up at Oxford (in the early 'Sixties). I took this photograph on Tuesday morning, standing just inside the Gate. On the left is the East end of the Library which faces onto Peckwater Quad, scene of much partygoing.

In 1765 General John Guise, an Old Member of the House, died leaving it a collection of some 2,000 drawings and 200 paintings. They were hung - or a few of them were - in the Library until the late 'Sixties, when the Christ Church Picture Gallery was built - to "House" them properly. It's celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special exhibition and has on display some of the best drawings, prompting our visit - my first for a long while.

What an amazing collection it is! And what a place on its own is Christ Church! We were there with Caroline and Andrew Meynell, having been staying with them. This gave us easy access to the Cathedral - Andrew being an Hon. Canon - via Cardinal Wolsey's Tom Quad.

Doubling as a college chapel, it's a tiny cathedral, you tend to forget - compared to Gloucester for instance. But the stained glass is particularly fine, dating from many different periods.

We ended up at The Bear for a nostalgic (for me anyway) lunch.