A Time of Gifts – 20. My last year – or not?

Tags

A J Ayer, France, Martin West, scholarship, The Delusionists

My last year as an undergraduate was also full of joy, but I was also fitting into the avuncular role that I have since fulfilled in my dealings with the young. The Delusionists for instance, a dining club started by a group of delightful lawyers in our second year, was passed on to me to run, and I filled it with my freshmen as I called them, those who had come up when I was JCR President.

 

My second year friends had been those with political interests, and I believe the senior lawyers did not want them in what was supposed to be purely a fun gathering, but they approved of my younger chums, and I think we did them proud in keeping the Delusionists going for several more years. The Dean had backed down when he decided to stop being the life and soul of the College, but I managed to persuade my Classics don, the brilliant Greek scholar Martin West, to join us, and he entered into the spirit of the thing with gusto.

 

Another don who proved socially dynamic, though I only met him the once, was A J Ayer, whose ‘Language, Truth and Logic’ was a bible for Oxford philosophy – and was the only book I had been enjoined to read before I went up to Oxford. I had found it incomprehensible, and several readings over the years left me still feeling I had not understood it thoroughly, but both the book and the man exemplified the sheer intellectual energy of Oxford in the period between the wars.

 

 

Chalet des Anglais

Pres de l’hotel au Prarion

St. Gervais–Les-Bains

Haute Savoie

 France

9^th August 1974

Thought I’d write before I left for France – letters will be appreciated at the address above until the 30^th.

I’ve discovered another scholarship for English, though not as good, which I’ve applied for the Application Form for. My money for July arrived though not the fees yet. They really are mounting, due to the increase in Grants.

Gaji must be a favourite with the College Office, as they’ve given him a room that an Etonian had last year! Centrally heated, and quite nice though not enormous – if he has any inclination tell Anila to teach him bridge, it’s very useful. I’ll be back by October to meet him.

I have finished my 5 Vac. essays though there’s still quite a lot of reading to do when I get back if I’m to keep my scholarship. I had dinner with the new Senior Tutor last week and it seems dicey though I got the impression my tutors still approve of me – had to refuse George for dinner tonight as I’m going down to London this evening after an emergency Standing Committee, preparatory to driving down to France with two friends tomorrow.

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A Time of Gifts – 19. The End of my Third Year

Tags

Bridge Cuppers, champagne, football, Greats dinner, Holland, Monopoly, opera, Toulouse, Vile Bodies, Wolverhampton

I sense a valedictory note in these letters and those that follow, even though I still had well over a year to finish my course (and though this was not certain till the very end of my final undergraduate terms, I did stay on for further degrees). I am sorry that I have not generally mentioned individuals in these letters, because reading them brings back memories of the truly wonderful friends I had. I should note that the character disliked by the distinguished diplomats I mention was Tissa Wijeyeratne, who transformed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, very much for the worse, since he disliked the more sophisticated ethos of the individuals I mention such as Shirley Amerasinghe, who was internationally acclaimed – and then suffered from another extremist, when J R Jayawardene stopped him chairing the Law of the Sea Conference.

 

The one who produced champagne when I won the Junior Common Room Presidency of the College was the one I spent a week with on Hayling Island in the summer of this year, and with whom I probably had deeper and more wide-ranging conversations than with anyone else in my undergraduate days. I went about every fortnight to the opera in London with one who did not mix with my other friends, and became a Catholic Priest, and has just retired. He studied at the English College at Rome where I spent a memorable night in 1976. Then there was Benazir Bhutto, with whom there were long sessions of Monopoly, most memorably when I put her brother up in my rooms. And the mad Australian who was the livewire behind the Vile Bodies, and with whom I explored much of South East Asia in the years that followed.

 

One memorable day that is not recorded in my letters was the day the Vile Bodies went to Calais for lunch. We left before dawn, one of our number having stayed up all night on the top of All Souls Tower to which he had climbed, dressed in a Chinese silk dressing gown which astonished the citizens of Calais. The second car stopped for breakfast at the Ritz and so missed the ferry we caught, but we met up for a wonderful lunch where the only lady brave enough to join us – who later became a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall – consumed massive quantities of moules marinieres, with the champagne she seemed to live on (and to which in time she converted me, after the initial distaste born of my first taste of the stuff at Rheims, so very long ago).

 

(50)

4^th March 1974

The love cake arrived two months late, half stale, to be wholly consumed a week before he fled Oxford to find peace in the foothills of the Himalayas by the Editor of ‘Cherwell’ – the Chitty whose friends you met last year.   This, unfortunately, in addition to making all those who persuaded him to take on the job feel guilty, deprives one of my incognito post of Cherwell’s political correspondent – too soon, alas, since I hadn’t succeeded in publicizing myself sufficiently to be assured of winning this week’s Union elections. Still, 4 mentions in 4 weeks wasn’t too bad, most of them in letters to the Editor who obligingly published.

Anila seems to have told you I intend to return overland – which was only suggested – and have organized a ball, the future prospect of which was all I was deputed to consider. Despite the hopeful figures I made up, the Union thinks it too risky.

If I haven’t written since, my XI won the football match against the Dean’s XI very handsomely, which is a slight disaster as it’s traditionally a draw. Also the Ref., who’s meant to send the Dean off, got confused and sent us both off – of course, we were nearly the worst players on the field. I slept for about 12 hours after the match and spent last week in a state of complete exhaustion as we went to London on Monday and missed the last train back and had to spend the night in Reading, and then there was a spare ticket to the Opera on Tuesday as well, and the termly Chapel party was on Wednesday after the Ash Wednesday service, and I fell fast asleep at the party I went to on Thursday to watch the election results – just as well, probably, since I found it all very interesting to the indignation of the tight–lipped Conservatives round about. I shall probably collapse of exhaustion at the end of term and shall go away for a week to recover, but as I’m fairly ahead with my work as well, life’s relatively satisfactory.

A Time of Gifts – 18. Moving to Maturity

Tags

Evelyn Waugh, opera, OUSU, Oxford, politics, scholarship, Students' Union, Vile Bodies

The first term of my third year saw the last set of student demonstrations to really rock Oxford. The Examination Schools next door to Univ were occupied, in pursuit of a demand to establish a University Students’ Union (previously the University had worked only in terms of Colleges) and there was much high drama though it all fizzled out in the end. OUSU was finally established, but just when student radicalism was dying out, with greater concentration on obtaining well paid jobs. I should note that, whereas the brightest in my year sought Civil Service appointments, and the brightest in the next thought of the bar, the intake of 1973 was the first in which a job in the city became the preferred occupation.

 

A constant factor during my time at Oxford was my father’s efforts to help others too to get in. It is a mark of his unparalleled generosity, as well as his deep commitment to promoting education for all he came across (notably the children of staff in Parliament and at home) that he devoted time and energy to finding youngsters places at good educational institutions. In the case of our neighbor, Gajan Pathmanathan, after a place had been secured and his father died suddenly, my father financed his studies at Oxford – though he was helped by my getting a British Council scholarship for fees in my final year, and Gaji getting the same from I think his second year onward.

 

These letters also include the first mention of the Vile Bodies, a dining club based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, which became quite a cult, so that in time our photographs, in sepia, were displayed in period decorated cafes. It was the precursor to two other clubs in which, started in my graduate days, I served as Senior Member, the Keats Society, and the Piers Gaveston Society which I believe still flourishes.

 

(13)

12^th November 1973

Life’s been excessively exhausting, and I’m only writing now because the Proctor’s party for Presidents has had to be postponed due to sit-ins and demonstrations and other lunacies – opposing all of which, as well as organizing  an election for JCR Secretary (the right man won) as the old one resigned, has taken up quite a bit of time.

The JCR unfortunately approved of the demonstrations, but luckily I succeeded in falling asleep whenever any were on, or worked, and avoided them. In addition, what with bi-weekly freshmen entertainments, solid Union hacking as I’ve decided I want to be President, ludicrous committees and endless and endless dinners – in addition to being told by Cawkwell that my work’s improving, – I have succeeded in sleeping solidly for 14 hours twice last week. Also my philosophy essays are getting shorter and shorter and might soon melt into nothing. The noises of the sit-in finally dissipating are floating up to my room, none of the issues resolved, and everyone as uninformed as ever.

Sorry for some sort of non sequitur – I’ve just had a neurotic friend round who doesn’t trust the Dean or the Chaplain and talks to me for hours about his problems – this in addition to arguing on behalf of someone who’s being rusticated, for not even pretending to work over the last 4 weeks.  I’m hopeful he’ll be kept on but it’s rather in the balance.

For the rest, I’ve dined on Trinity High Table with Ravi Tennakoon, discussed ‘The Waves’ with Helen Gardener, Clive James & the Warden of all Souls – part of Union hackery – had to refuse a play with Claire due to a Society Dinner, set up the Vile Bodies society in memory of Evelyn Waugh – Secretary, Mr Chatterbox, the gossip columnist whose identity changes weekly should be suitable? – already had my one completely drunk evening for the term at a rather seedy party, and not yet had a game of bridge. No more letters probably till term ends and I start unwinding.

A Time of Gifts – 17. Another Summer

Tags

Cornwall, France, Iceland, Italy, Oxford, Switzerland, USA

This was another idyllic term, with little pressure of work. But I also record my first disillusionment with politics, as well as the difficulties of unreserved devotion to one cause or another. And it notes again the fact that, though I relished the hectic social life, I was also extremely happy on my own.

 

4^th April 1973

I must confess my own determination to come back has weakened slightly and, my results having just come out today, with a 2^nd, I’ve decided in any case to do a postgraduate somewhere, before returning, though unfortunately I probably shan’t be able to do it here. Five of us here got 2^nds, though the sixth failed completely, which is a bit upsetting.

Having spent days at Clara’s, I came here last week partly to finish my work as I shall have to be free in London for Thatha, partly because I can’t bear to be away from here. I had various people around last week, including Aruna, and this week the Opera twice, once with the only Don left in College, and yesterday I found myself next to the Junior Dean and his wife who’ve asked me for dinner tomorrow. But even the weekend, when I was practically alone in College except for the barman in the Beer Cellar, was marvelous – I hope I have the energy to escape from Oxford next summer.

The Dean and Chaplain return tonight from the Schools’ men reading party to Cornwall, and I hope to get them to lunch to meet Thatha at Pam’s – I hope they’ll be satisfied with the 2^nd – my tutor seemed delighted.

This morning I spent at the Union and, being now trusted by the Higher Echelons, witnessed the opening of the President’s correspondence, and subsequent resealing – done at Balliol, of course – which was fascinating, but quite disillusioning, as there were the Senior Members of our side, which considers the other dishonest. I think I shall find the Union elections fun next term, but I can’t quite see myself fitting into one side or the other sufficiently dedicatedly enough to get very high. Besides, the complete unmasking of left–wing intentions in the Labour Club was quite upsetting. I shall try to write more often, and it wasn’t only politics that prevented frequent writing. I did do some work, as the results show.

A Time of Gifts – 16. Triumph and Tragedy

Tags

Buddhist Centre, Greek, High Table, Junior Common Room, Latin, Oxford, President

All other Oxford courses had an examination in the course of the first year, and then finals at the end of one’s third year (with Chemistry then having a fourth year too). The exception is Classics, which is a four year course with just two examinations, in the second term of one’s second year, and then at the end.

 

We were then out of kilter as it were with our peer group, since when they were fully relishing Oxford with no examination pressures, we had to study, for what was also the longest exam in the system. This was Honour Moderations in Literae Humaniores, as it was called, with eleven papers.

 

As the letters indicate, I did not study as I should have, and continued to enjoy an intense social life. I also had much to do, because I had been elected President of the Junior Common Room, the College student body. I was half surprised at this myself, since I was an unusual candidate, not playing any games or running any societies – the other contestants were the rugby captain and the conductor of the college choir. But I won by a fairly large margin, largely I think because I had been very hospitable to the first years when they came in.

 

Other political ventures were not successful, as noted here, and the term ended in tragedy with the death of the husband of Clara, my cousin, with whom I had stayed when I first came to England. I got the news of his heart attack just when Mods started, so I could not go down, and he suffered another and was dead by the time I got there. I think I was of use, despite my recording a detachment that I regretted.  

 

 

(39)

28^th January (1973)

Life’s been terribly busy, and looks likely to be so for the rest of the term, though one problem has been solved, by the Balliol and Univ machines reaching agreement – we gave in, I regret to say, though perhaps wisely – on Labour Club officials for next term and, as part of the agreement, the following term. It’s all terribly involved, but I should be Secretary next term.

At the moment, we’re having a violent campaign on for the Univ JCR, where I’m the underdog candidate for President – though I do have the stronger ticket. My opponent happens to be Captain of Rugger, which doesn’t help. Unfortunately, the elections being next Monday, I’ve got to give up the Dean’s trip to Covent Garden, to see Sibley and Dowell, which is all very annoying. Still, I’ve got enough to keep me occupied – I’ve been offered my 1^st paper speech at the Union, in favour of Euthanasia, along with Trevor Huddleston and other worthies, and though I don’t know whether I quite approve of Euthanasia, I accepted; having bought my dinner jacket last week for 28 pounds from my Bursary, which left 12 which will be swallowed up by the Union Anniversary Dinner and the Labour Club dinner, with Harold McMillan and Harold Wilson respectively. I should be on High Table for the latter, being the editor of the Club Magazine and so on – which I’m modelling blatantly on the New Statesman, with Competition and Diary – tomorrow, having a very Conservative and Social Chairman, we have Lord David Cecil speaking to us, with dinner beforehand. Most of the party regulars considered it anti-social to attend, so there’ll just be 3 of us, the Librarian of the Union, and Cecil – should be fun.

A Time of Gifts 15 – Christmas Vacation in College

Tags

arrack, bridge, Christmas, Oxford, Sussex

After the intensity of term, I had a month of a very different sort of Oxford experience, namely the College to myself – except for the extraordinary kindness of the dons who remained, the Dean of course but also the Chaplain and the most senior don who had been an undergraduate at Univ, Tony Firth. On Christmas day itself, in addition to dinner at George Cawkwell’s – a tradition over five years – I was invited to lunch by a first year I had befriended, whose father had been our Domestic Bursar (before David Burgess, the Chaplain, was roped in to do that job too).

 I knew my time at Oxford had been special, but rereading these letters makes me realize how utterly unique it was.

 

 

(57)

17^th December 1972

Life’s been great fun, this last week – term ended with throwing popping balloons down from the battlements, and I went off on Sunday for 3 days with Charlie, one of which consisted of a trip to London for the universities Rugger match, which I regret to say we lost, and lunch at the HC’s where Tilak beat poor Charles at table-tennis despite him being the College Captain. Charles’ family was just as delightful as ever, except one year older. Just before I left, I found out his father died in an accident – his mother must be a marvellous person.

I returned on the Wednesday to find interviews in full swing – one of this year’s freshers had to spend the night on my sofa as they’d taken his room for candidates and he should have left, but he produced some candidates from his school and we played bridge  – on the bus from Charles’ I met 3 candidates, all looking very nervous!

I’ve still managed to get quite a bit of work done, despite being taken advantage of for being one of the few with a room still in College – which led to a 3^rd year boring me to death on Friday evening for 5 hours, just as I was about to start on a novel, having finished my quota of work – to be followed luckily by a friend, who spent the rest of the night reading poetry, all of which led to great depression when the College finally shut yesterday, in the beer cellar. Luckily the other History Tutor invited me for dinner, with the Dean and the Asst. College Secretary, in his cottage in the country, which was great fun and quite alcoholic – he kept pouring out, or threatening to, that strange Polish drink called Avocat, while consuming chocolates and conducting a Violin Concerto – he was the Tutor who organized carols round the College. Leslie suggested evensong at the Cathedral today and actually came to take me along – it was a beautiful service, with a marvelous choir and a sonorous Dean of Christ Church, about to be a Bishop, about to be Archbishop. Afterwards we tried to gallop back to the Junior Dean’s for drinks, and actually got one before they had to go for dinner in the SCR and the annual fight about who gets in, and I worked in the Library, all by myself, which is a beautiful experience. I’m certainly enjoying the vac.

A Time of Gifts – 14. The beginning of my second year

I noted before the wife of a tutor telling me the joy of coming back to Oxford for one’s second year, and she was certainly correct. The letters of this period record an almost ecstatic joy in the experience. This includes much that seems absurd, forty years later, but at the time nothing else in the world seemed of consequence. Even the very real turmoil in Ireland at the time, for instance, is seen through the prism of how it affected the Oxford Union.

But the range covered suggests why one might be forgiven for thinking all this was world enough. Politics and philosophy, music and literature explain why I was more sociable then than at any other time in my life.

(Univ)

6^th November 1972

Very sorry again for the lengthy delay – life is just too complicated to communicate effectively. In fact, due to an essay crisis for tomorrow morning, I’m forced to abandon College bridge tonight after nearly falling asleep at a lecture in the morning and a class this afternoon – should, however, have some sort of freedom from work after tomorrow – for essentials like playing bridge and carpet bowls on the quad at 3 am and climbing on the roof and watching the lunacies of Labour Club Elections. I’m safe on Committee for another term, and encouraging freshmen at the Union so as to build up an effective Univ machine. I have a tellership on Thursday and I’ve already got my borrowed Dinner Jacket and am contemplating wearing a frog instead of a rose like my tutor at the dinner.. Incidentally, I start serving in Chapel in a few weeks time, while telling this time in favour of  ‘Christianity is a Myth’ – my conscience salved by the fact that I was going to abstain if I spoke from the floor, instead of against. Auden was at dinner on Tuesday and we’re organizing an expedition to see him on Friday – I keep seeing him all over Oxford. Last Tuesday I fell asleep during a special lecture of Dr Popper – a famous German Philosopher who’s quite loony – yesterday the Dean tried to teach me squash and I kept missing the ball.

This week I had only one essay and I finished it yesterday – even though I am writing during a lecture I ought to have gone to, especially as I’d arranged to play someone at chess afterwards, but I only got to bed at 5, due to an importunate 3^rd year consuming my coffee – and mangoes – having lost the key of his bicycle and preferring  to work all night rather than walk back in the cold. Since we’ve taken to playing  hide–and-seek through the college after 2 am, I’m not getting much sleep at all. Also, this morning I’d left all my essentials in the laundry so it was too late to get them in time for the lecture anyway – so I excuse myself, guiltily since it’s the only real one I go to now anyway. Incidentally, before the hide and seek, certain lunatics were pouring water from my windows onto passers-by in the High Street, only male students to salve our consciences.

A Time of Gifts – 13. Summer travels

Tags

Belgrade, Bulgaria, Dubrovnik, East Berlin, Ljubljana, Rumania, Sarajevo, Soviet Union, Warsaw, Yugoslavia

Sadly there are no letters from the longest segment of the vacation, which was in Yugoslavia where I was hoted by Milan and Helga Kovac, who had worked in Ceylon and suggested I join them. Milan was I think surprised when I turned up at his house in Celje, not least because he was due to go abroad, but he duly took me to where Helga was, by the seaside, with the Ceylonese girl Ayra whom they had adopted (and named after my cousin, Ayra Perera, who later married Derrick Nugawela).

 

In addition to a lovely week with her in Ljubljana, and a climbing expedition arranged for me by Milan’s sister (soon abandoned when it was clear I could not cope), I did much exploring on my own, down the coast and to Sarajevo and later to Belgrade where I stayed at the house of our ambassador, Walter ‘Jew’ Jayawardene, who had been Co-Secretary with my father to the Constitutional Assembly. I went from there to Rumania and Bulgaria, and also got a visa for the Soviet Union since my father had suggested I join him on a Parliamentary delegation there.

 

But there are notes on the highlights of that long summer in a letter from Russia, where I was treated very well, by the government as well as by our ambassador there and his immensely hospitable and caring wife. I do not think my father had expected me to turn up, and was astonished to see me walk in to his hotel in Leningrad, but he and the delegation and the Russians coped admirably. Oddly enough, it was this year, when finally these letters are seeing the light of day again, that I have travelled again in the countries of the former Yugoslavia that I so enjoyed 45 years ago.

 

The vacation ended with a few days at our High Commission in London, where Pam Gooneratne organized a sale which I was roped in to help at, at the beautiful Tea Centre which sadly the next government sold.

 

1^st September

I’m still quite depressed about having wasted 6 pounds by stopping over in Kiev instead of buying a direct train ticket to Moscow from Budapest, which was charming, as is Moscow, particularly in the company of the Ambassador’s family – father himself having gone off on a tour (he did phone).

I hope to join him in Leningrad tomorrow. On the 30^th, we went to the Kremlin, and yesterday Tchaikovsky’s house and one art museum and ‘Swan Lake’ in a smaller theatre – the Bolshoi beginning next week – which was still super .

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Sovietskaya

            Moscow

8^th September

Due to a surfeit of stamped envelopes supplied to State Guests by the Soviet Government, I feel compelled to overcome my inhibitions about writing. I have installed myself in Thatha’s hotel room here too, as MVP is at the Embassy and Mrs Siriwardena was tying herself into knots trying not to upset me, due to their having only 3 bedrooms, the daughter going into the parents’ room, instead of the brother’s, where I was, and not telling me – besides it’s more interesting here. How our father survives is beyond my powers of comprehension – incidentally, with all the food, all our stomachs are in a chaotic condition.

Due to nearly 2 months having passed – to my regret – a detailed exposition of my travels will be most difficult. Suffice it to say that the Adriatic seacoast was magnificient and I’d like to go back, the mountains were exciting, but I wouldn’t – can you imagine the emotions of a lazy coward in a hailstorm with lightening jolting him, after 6 hours of steep climbing? Ljubljana with Helga and puddings was quite pleasant only I’d have liked more books. Venice was delightful, so was Belgrade in Jew’s quiet house, with abstruse Catholic philosophy, Bucharest and Sofia weren’t worth the money, though now I can always say – disgusting reason, but practical! – that I’ve been there. Budapest was charming, Kiev was a waste of money. Moscow was an experience – it’s enormous – Leningrad was beautiful. To that cursory list, I can only add a few things that ought to be remembered always – unless I become even more blasé, which is quite possible – my paying-guest place at Dubrovnik, with the girl who looked somewhat like you if not for her lameness and squint and slight mental deficiency? – with a beautiful sister who bullied her; walking through the rain along the battlements; searching through Split for 2 hours for a room with a Dutch girl and an excitable old Croat who adored Mrs B and finally let me sleep on his floor; the long walk up to the castle in Ljubljana on a beautifully meandering day; deer on a glacier in the Logarska Dolina valley; the Oxford graduate in Bucharest who took me round his monastery and dilated upon the ‘Trout’ – he knew our worthy chaplain; Sofia in pouring rain and a Russian church service – and so on and so forth – probably, particularly the mountain views, enjoyed more in retrospect.

10^th September

Had to vanish again – for the Bolshoi “Swan Lake’ – it really does things to one’s heart. I’ve seen it thrice here so far – at the Stanislavski here, which was quite thrilling too, at Leningrad, which was disappointing and this, which was magnificient; also the circus, a breathtaking experience –  being known before only through Enid Blyton’s loony books. In addition to my official programme!! – which is the best way of seeing things, since one doesn’t stand in queues or pay, while attentive guides are provided – I went to Tolstoy’s house and Chekhow’s and Stanislavsky’s graves, and a few minor museums. Also, as I wrote, the Siriwardenas took me to Tchaikovsky’s house, and the Puskin Arts Museum which has a super collection of itself, though nothing compared to the Leningrad Hermitage – where, though, we could only have 2 hours, officially planned, which meant missing the Impressionists and most of the painting – though they did give us da Vinci, Rembrandt – the best collection in the world – and Rubens. Unfortunately, the Museum shut on the Monday, when I was free due to hyper-official functions.

I nearly forgot – talking of ‘Swan Lake’ – sunrise in St Mark’s Square in Venice, and evening with a gypsy orchestra – or, at least, a haunting violin – the beer, though, less than a pint, cost 8 rupees. I think it was worth it though.

After this incoherent and interminable massive, I think you’ll welcome post-cards hereafter. Best of luck for your GSQ but do write – to my absolute horror, I dreamt of you last night – eating too much, I suppose. I leave for Warsaw and Berlin tonight by train while the delegation flies.

 

24th September

After the super Russian trip, I took the train to Warsaw, the night Thatha left, and had a rather interesting day in dripping rain, persuading custodians to open museums and palaces that were shut – it was, unfortunately, a Monday – and visiting  heaps of churches – the most per street in the world, notwithstanding Italy. Got to East Berlin next morning and discovered Thatha after quite some trouble – and a fantastic museum with reconstructions of Babylonian, Greek and Roman temples.  However, father and I were routed by East German officialdom, and ordinary tourists have to spend 1 pound 50 a day, so, despite having to miss Dresden, I left next day, had a few hours in West Berlin (which is extraordinarily colourful after the East, which is colourful enough after Moscow and Warsaw) but hasn’t museums and so on – and then left for Hamburg where I woke up my poor cousin at midnight, and left for England to get here on the Friday, straight into Aunty Pam’s fair.

However, due to Janaki’s in-laws arriving and a general feeling that I’d dodged touristic obligations in Germany, I went to Paris on Monday, found the Samarasinghes missing – which meant a hotel room – and an attack of conscience as I’d let the friend who came with me down – broke my spectacles and rushed back, to be overwhelmed with work for the fair.  However, I did have to go down to Oxford one afternoon for my spare specs – and Leslie has fulfilled his promise of last Saturday when I went down for some books and to show my schoolfriends the place, to have Thatha for the feast – a big Univ do – with guests like Marghanita Laski, Tom Stoppard – best playwright in England at the moment, if you’re an ignoramus – and Constance Cummings.

Got my spare specs, which aren’t too good but have to do since getting new ones on the NHS is a process so I’ll wait to get back to Oxford, and survived two mad days which meant being on my feet for 16 hours yesterday and an equivalent amount, I felt, the day before. Everyone was getting quite neurotic – but it seems to have been quite a success –  I’m quite glad, since I’m getting to be very protective about the Gooneratnes.

For the 2 weeks before the sale Aruna left the house since she couldn’t live in chaos! –  and she and Tilak consoled each other. Superb. I met heaps of people yesterday, including Manel Tampoe, as loony and nice to talk to as ever – awaiting the revolution to sweep away the privileged – there was a small demonstration outside, which was conquered by Carmini and orange juice, and the lamprais were stolen at the end and the Tea Centre is in a mess which means clearing it at dawn tomorrow, but I quite enjoyed myself.