The Bohemian life

Well, dear readers, another reimmersion in academia at a seminar at St John's House, home of the University of St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. The speaker was Dr Phillip Haberkern of Boston University, and his subject, or rather his question, was "Was the Bohemian Reformation a failure?" Now, I freely confess that my knowledge of Czech history in this period is severely limited, essentially to naughty Jan Hus and his downfall after the Council of Constance, but Dr Haberkern took in nearly three centuries of history over his 45 minutes, and rather wittily and, as it turned out, insightfully, presented the sweep in five acts, as a tragedy.

You are probably wondering, if you are wondering anything at all, what his answer to the question was. Well, he didn't really give one, nor, I think, was that his intention. The question was to provoke debate. It is interesting (to me anyway) that a modern single-volume history of the Reformation in Bohemia does not exist, not even in Czech, though there is apparently a five-volume history. This is odd, as Bohemia and the Czech lands were so obviously key to the development of religious radicalism from as far back as the 14th century. Dr Haberkern hopes to plug this gap in the historiography over the next two years.

I recognised some landmarks in his tour d'horizon: Hus, as I say; Matthias Corvinus; Ferdinand II; the Battle of White Mountain. But there was a vast amount of material which was new to me, which I suppose was why I went along, as well as to see some old faces. The idea that leapt out of the talk for me was the idea Haberkern presented of looking at the Czech lands as a laboratory for evangelical ideas, a testing ground for how, in late mediaeval and early modern Europe, you create a non-Catholic church. Clearly, the reformers of the 16th century, with whom I am more familiar, were acutely aware of what had happened in Bohemia from the first appearances of Wycliffite influences in the University of Prague in the 1390s through to the political struggles of the 1520s.

We (I say "we"; as an interloper, I kept my trap shut) talked about concepts of success and failure, and of how they can be measured. One interesting approach was looking at the influences of Czech reformism on the rest of Europe, what Haberkern called Reformation genealogy. In an absolutist sense, clearly the Bohemian Reformation was a failure; after the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs unleashed an extraordinarily thorough campaign of re-Catholicisation, which, by the time of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, had largely succeeded. Think about that; changing hearts and minds in the space of a generation. Of course it was underpinned by coercion, and the Czech clergy in particular were faced with the harsh choice between conversion or exile. Many chose the latter.

The reformers themselves certainly saw it as a failure. Jan Komensky (or John Amos Comenius, as the West better knows him), the greatest historiographer of the Bohemian Reformation, in his numerous works over a long life, painted a picture of not only disaster but, in a sense, inevitable disaster: for him, as Haberkern argued very persuasively, the best of times was necessarily the worst of times, because as soon as the reformed church gained any kind of established status, its eye was off the ball, and it became concerned with politics rather than the maintenance of discipline and doctrinal purity.

I am an historian of the English church if I am anything, so this was an interesting parallel (especially given, as I mentioned above, one of the driving forces behind the Bohemian Reformation was the influence of John Wycliffe). I am particularly fascinated by the idea of re-Catholicisation, as it was exactly that project which my beloved Queen Mary was pursuing in the 1550s, with some of the same motive forces which were seen in the Czech lands after White Mountain (with the notable exception of the Jesuits, who established only a toehold in England, if that, before Mary's death in 1558). Speaking almost counter-factually, which I know is anathema to many proper historians, what happened in Bohemia demonstrates that pushing back the Protestant tide was perfectly possible, and it is tempting to wonder what would have happened in England if Mary had had the longevity of her half-sister. My old history master from school will curl his lip at this, but I look forward to reading Eamon Duffy's new book, Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants and the Conversion of England; Dr Brian Mains, my most formative influence and a great scholar, converted me to Tudor history, a genuinely life-changing experience, but he admits to an almost visceral aversion to Duffy.

Another observation, if I may. The Reformation Studies Institute holds seminars like this on a more-or-less weekly basis (I think), sometimes with guest speakers, and sometimes with research students giving the talk. Certainly that was the case in my day, more than a decade ago now. They are a great thing, because they mix accomplished academics, like Dr Haberkern, for example, with the slightly-less-formed ideas of young researchers (I can't now remember what I gave my talk on, and shudder to think). What heartened me today, as an observer slouching at the back and feeling slightly fraudulent, was the bright interest of the students, and their engagement with the subject, even if it was slightly outwith their own field. I was particularly interested by the idea that a student (I'm afraid I don't know her name) raised that the Habsburgs had developed a playbook, if you will, of re-Catholicisation which they has used in the Netherlands, and which was replicated in Bohemia. Haberkern seemed intrigued by that notion, and that's everything that these seminars, and academia in general, should be.

My tiny patch of scholarly endeavour is Catholic England, and I am sure I have not tilled it very diligently or well. I confess (and I hope my supervisor, Professor Andrew Pettegree, a man with the patience of a saint, will forgive me for saying this) that I always felt a bit of an outlier in the Reformation Studies Institute, among a group of scholars of the Protestant Reformation. My colleagues knew all that there is to know about Calvin's Geneva, or books in Lyon, or the reformed church of the Low Countries, and I battled away with my English monks. But, and it is a very big but, I learned so much from the community at St John's House, and relished my time there. As I have written before, 2017 is the year of finishing the thesis. I was delighted today to see that the flame still burns, safe in the hands of the very gracious Dr Bridget Heal, who allowed me to sit it for today's seminar.

I would not claim that there are any life lessons to be learned from my afternoon. What I will say is that it was lovely to be back in the company of fellow Reformation historians. Some waypoints, if that is the word I want, were familiar, and some were new. That is, surely, the stuff of history, and of learning in a more general sense. I now know about the Letter of Majesty, for example. (Such a great phrase.) What do all these musings mean? Everything and nothing, I suppose. I have two more conferences this summer for which I must start preparing papers, both in London. But I suppose it comes down to this.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with the aforementioned Dr Mains, my history master at RGS. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, but it didn't seem to matter. The years rolled back. We talked of everything, almost of cabbages and kings (and his hatred of Eamon Duffy), but one of the things I said to him, based on my experience of teaching in St Andrews back in the early 2000s, was that my motive force as a tutor, the thing which brought me joy and fulfilment (and a tiny amount of money), was getting students who had no real knowledge of the early modern period to engage with the times, and, ideally, to understand the 16th century. I wasn't universally successful, but I didn't expect to be. But if I had two or three students per seminar group who lit up and got it, and I flatter myself that I did, I think my work was done.

What do I mean by that? I suppose what I mean is that there were a precious few students whom I persuaded to understand that the average Joe of the 16th century was just a person, like you or me, but was also fundamentally different. The religious furies of the Reformation were not, I would argue, a cover for socio-economic disputes or a way of playing out political controversies under another guise. These things mattered, to a degree we have to struggle to understand. It was real. The idea that the body of Christ was or was not literally and actually present in the Eucharist was a huge matter.

Anyway. That was long-winded and self-referential. What I meant to say was that I had a great day re-engaging with the Reformation part of my brain. Nostalgia and intellectual stimulation: what more can you ask for?

Et in Arcadia ego

And so, dear readers, to my alma mater, the University of St Andrews (actually the University of St Andrew among the Scots, if you want to read the papal bull). It is now more than 20 years since I first matriculated as a student here – my adventures at Oxford must wait for another day – and 12 years since I ceased to live here full-time. The occasion of my return is twofold; to re-establish contact with my old colleagues at the excellent Reformation Studies Institute (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/reformation/) at a seminar tomorrow on the Reformation in Bohemia; and to attend a debate on Thursday on the motion that “This House believes Israel is a force for good in the Middle East”. As an occasional blogger for the Times of Israel, I couldn’t miss this one.

Going back to your university town is always, I suppose, a bouquet of mixed emotions. All the more so, I think, in St Andrews, which is a tiny town of 18,500 people, a huge number of them students and academics. This really is a place which exists on golf and academia. (I suppose my Catholic friends would also point to the bones of St Andrew, brought here by St Regulus in the mid-8^th century AD.) The university – Scotland’s oldest, and the third-oldest in the English-speaking world – really does dominate the town, at least in term time, and in my eight years here I experienced virtually no town-gown tension, because the town realised how much it needed the gown.

Students are everywhere. Like a lot of old universities, we speak in code. First-years are bejants (or bejantines – we began admitting women very late in the 19^th century); second-years are semi-bejants; third-years are tertians; and final-year students (we have the civilisation of a four-year degree course) are magistrands. Speaking from the venerable age of 39, they all seem very young now, though I’m sure that magistrands look down in a benevolently patronising way on bejants. I certainly did, and I was probably more insufferable still as a postgraduate, swishing around town in my black gown.

Ah, yes. Gowns. They’re a big thing here. St Andrews is (I think) the only one of the ancient Scottish universities to preserve in any meaningful way the tradition of undergraduate gowns, which are bright red, and – code again – worn according to your year. Bejants wear the gowns as one would expect. Semi-bejants wear them slightly pushed back off the shoulders. Tertiands wear them off the left or the right shoulder, according to whether they are arts or science students. Magistrands wear them halfway down the back, which feels weird at first but you get used to it. (I haven’t touched on St Mary’s College, the divinity school, where students wear black gowns with a purple saltire on the chest.) Anyway, gowns are worn frequently in St Andrews, more or less according to your taste. The opportunities are endless: debates, formal hall dinners, chapel services. None of this is compulsory, unlike at Oxford and Cambridge, but it is one of the quirks of the place which some (many) St Andrews students enjoy. Some wear them recreationally; when I was an undergrad, there was a man called Richard Urquhart who wore his red gown pretty much all the time, and was known as “Gown Man” as a result. I am not immune. Once I had graduated and got my beloved black Master of Arts’ gown, I often used to slip it on and parade around town, because I could.

I touched earlier on debating. St Andrews has a strong debating tradition, and, these days, are doing very well in national and international competitions. There are claims that some kind of forerunner of the Debating Society (http://www.stadebates.org) was founded in the late 18^th century, and it likes to claim that it is “the oldest and, some say, the finest of its kind in the world”. Oxford and Trinity College, Dublin, might have something to say about that. But it was, for eight years, my spiritual home, redolent with tradition and formality. I enjoyed debating; the thrust and parry of intellectual argument, but also the cheap gag and the roar of the crowd. It was also a weekly opportunity to throw on black tie and gown, and stroll through the balmy seaside air. And it was a community. The Debating Society technically includes every matriculated student, which I think is a very good thing, but in reality there was a small coterie of regular attenders who were of similar tastes and similar mindsets.

I suspect that at times we were too cliquey. There could be too many in-jokes, too much self-reference, too much flummery that outsiders would have found baffling. I never headed the Society – I tried three times but was defeated each time, as I have previously written; I’m not bitter (yes I am) – but I held positions of authority, and I hope I always tried my best to widen the audience and encourage those who would not otherwise have come in to a debate to give it a try. The baby was not thrown out with the bathwater; when I was in charge of publicity, the phrase “Gowns encouraged” appeared on our posters, and I almost always wore black tie to attend debates. And I daresay I was as savage in howling down weak arguments as any backbencher at PMQs. Attendance could be sparse, or we could be full to the rafters. One of the best-attended debates I can remember was on the motion “This House would undress”, the proposition fronted (if I can use that word) by a man called Vincent Bethell, a militant nudist and head of the “Freedom to be Yourself” campaign (I’m not making this up, check Wikipedia). The local police insisted that we black out the windows of the debating chamber, lest passing burghers see something untoward. And the room was full. Several students supported by the motion by taking off their clothes. None of the attractive ones was near me, unfortunately. I was too close for comfort to a lanky, long-haired Old Etonian who decided to shed his scruffy garb.

The long and short of it was that I adored, and adore, the Debating Society. My ambitions were thwarted, and I never wrested control of it, but I did chair many a debate, and I loved it. I loved the formality, I loved the exaggerated courtesy, I loved the conviviality, and I loved the social side of things. I missed a golden age; it was not long before I arrived in 1996 that the Society had been banned from many restaurants in St Andrews either for unruly behaviour or for unpaid debts. We were not quite as Bullingdon in my time. We observed the usual traditions, of course: port before debates; a dinner afterwards (often a curry in the great Balaka, https://www.balaka.com) and the hallowed after-dinner debate, on the motion “This House believes the sun will never set on the British Empire”.

It was an odd custom, this after-dinner debate. Sometimes, it could seem jingoistic, especially when carried out in a Bangladeshi curry house, but it was meant in a spirit of affection and usually, I would say, self-mockery. Occasionally, it was pompous; occasionally, its pomposity was punctured, as brilliantly by Andrew Neil, Rector of the University, who stood up, declared “The British Empire has ended, as has this dinner”, threw down his napkin and left.

So that was (some of) how I spent my time. It was a blast. But for me, university was about the people. I was married in the University Chapel (lightning didn’t strike), and I remember looking around at my fellow St Andreans and thinking just how lucky I was to have met and befriended so many interesting and quirky people, who had in the most part come back to St Andrews from all points south to celebrate the day. If the marriage didn’t last, the memories have. Don’t get me wrong, many, if not most, of my friends are mad as ship’s cat, but I am still in touch with them after all these years. Often we need not communicate for days, weeks, months, years. But the bonds forged in this strange little coastal town in Fife run strong and deep as the cables of the Forth Bridge.

It is invidious to choose individuals, but I will do so anyway.

Barry Joss. He was already a St Andrews legend when I arrived, a magistrand (fourth-year, remember) and a slightly vulpine figure who was well known in the student community; Treasurer of the Debating Society and later of the Students’ Association; later still Rector’s Assessor for Andrew Neil; always seen in a waistcoat and tie, and connected, it seemed to me, to everyone in town. I discovered later that he didn’t like me at first (well, I was a little odd), but we later fell into a great friendship and spent a madly licentious year sharing a flat together. He then decided that 10 years in St Andrews was enough, and moved to Glasgow, his hometown, where he has remained since, though he is returning to St Andrews on Thursday and we shall sit like Statler and Waldorf in the debate and reassure ourselves that it was much better in our day. (It was.)

Hugh Martin. Hugh was a postgraduate when I met him, having pursued his undergraduacy at New College, Oxford, before a stint working for WH Smith before he returned to academia. He and Tobias were great friends, having been in hall together, and it was in that connection that I met him. I had been warned that he was an irascible old bugger who rarely socialised, but for whatever reason he took to my company, sharing a taste for air hockey, garlic and the odd ale or two. He is now madly successful in university governance, but we see each other regularly and the years fall away. Later on at night we will tend to sing.

And, finally, the man and the mystery which is Peter Murray. I first met him entirely coincidentally, as he was then sharing a flat with a girl in whom I had an interest, and he was on crutches. He answered the door cursing me under his breath as I had roused him from his sick bed, but the casual offer of a can of lager proved the starting point for a friendship which has lasted 18 years and is still going. He is a very senior PR guru now but I can occasionally remind him that I know where the bodies are buried. He was an avid debater too, in charge of the schools debating competition for two years, and if I may be permitted one recollection it would be this: we were sitting in the chamber, all in black tie and gowns, and he looked down contemplatively, then looked up in consternation and mouthed at me “These aren’t my trousers!”

So the good side of returning to St Andrews is the recollection of friendships made and strengthened. There were so many good times. However, walking through the streets this evening, there was an element of tristesse. I miss my youth, like lots of people. I was carefree, and in those days there were no tuition fees, so I didn’t have the burden of debt hanging over my head. There was academic work, of course there was, but, freakishly, I rather enjoyed it, having hit upon a course which suited me. And so I look at the young people today, and hope they are enjoying themselves as much as I did. I will see a sample at Thursday’s debate. If they’re not, they’re missing out.

The groves of academe

Well, dear readers, it has been quite a few days. I have been on the road on what became a three-centre trip around the country which was as enjoyable as it was exhausting (in ways good and bad).

First, on Thursday, to Durham, for a seminar at the Department of Theology and Religion. Professor Nicholas Watson from the English faculty at Harvard was talking about vernacular Bibles before the English Reformation. I had expected it to be a Lollard-heavy hour but Wycliffe and his followers didn’t dominate proceedings. He began with a marvellous evocation of a scene from Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody (1605), in which Elizabeth I is presented with an English Bible by the Lord Mayor of London and, in imitation of the elevation and breaking of the Host, lifts it above her head and unfastens it: “So long shut up, so long hid, now, lords, see/We here unclasp: for ever it is free!”

I learned a great deal about early mediaeval vernacular Bibles, from Anglo-Saxon prose translations of the Gospels through Anglo-Norman verse Psalms to Middle English metrical versions of the Old Testament. I was particularly taken with the anonymous Cursor Mundi from around 1300:

Men covettes rimes for to here

And romance rede of mony maner

Of Alisander the Conqueror

Of July Caesar the Emperour…

Sanges sere of selcouthe rime

Ingeles, French and Latine.

To rede and here ilkan is prest

The thinges that ham likes best.

The wise mon wil of wisdome here

The fole him drawes to foly nere…

Bot by the frute men may see

Of wat virtue is ilka tree…

Professor Watson’s central thesis is that vernacular English Bibles (and under the umbrella of “English” he included Anglo-Norman or insular French) existed for centuries before Tyndale’s work and the Great Bible of 1539, and were often tolerated and employed by the Church, though there were periodical attempts to control and license them. But it was an emphatic rejection of the Whiggish idea of an English Bible representing England’s march to independent statehood with Henry’s break from Rome in the 1520s and 1530s.

Then to Oxford’s dreaming spires. The journey, by Cross Country trains, was not a pleasant one. Because of problems on the East Coast main line, more passengers piled on to my train to get at least to York or Sheffield, so the service was very busy and cramped. The wifi was useless; not only did you have to pay for it, an affront enough in this day and age, but it barely worked at all. I had, of course, packed a bottle of wine to numb the pain of public transport (I always do) but with the tray table only just big enough for my laptop it was quite a juggling exercise. I was not at all sorry when we pulled into Oxford and I could leap off (well, slouch, perhaps).

I was staying in my old college, Christ Church, a short taxi ride away. I haven’t been in college since my abrupt departure in 1995, and much has changed. The porters’ lodge is now a symphony in blond wood, looking a little like it was purchased at IKEA, and the staircases are now accessed by electronic key fobs. I was given a guest badge and (unnecessary) directions to Peckwater Quad. My room was not large, but it was clean and had an en suite shower and toilet (though no television – presumably a licensing issue). There is also free wifi throughout college, which I daresay students now couldn’t live without. When I was at the House, the internet had hardly been invented. Typing essays on a computer was considered advanced technology.

Having inhaled a sausage roll at the station, I decided to forgo further solids and found my way instead, relying on very old instincts, to the college bar in the magnificent Tudor undercroft. It, too, has changed greatly in the 20-odd years since my last visit; the bar has moved and there is more light wood and, incongruously, that low-level bluish lighting which nightclubs seem to prefer (so I’m told). The barman, an affable young man, told me with regret that they didn’t serve large glasses of wine, but I was mollified by the fact that the small (very small) glasses of wine on offer were only £1.40. It simply meant more trips to the bar, which I suppose is good exercise.

The bar was initially very quiet – this was, I suppose, about 8.30 pm by now – but began to fill up after an hour or so. The jukebox, I discovered, was free, so the barman and the few patrons were treated to a selection of 1970s singer-songwriter hits from Cat Stevens to Joni Mitchell. They took it on the chin. What surprised me, when others wrested control of the playlist, was that the students, who must have been born in the late 1990s (how terrifying that is to write) seemed to favour songs from the 1980s – we certainly had Come On, Eileen and Relax. It is trite to say how young they looked, but they did. I daresay I did too, in my time, as I was only 17 and shaving was not yet a daily activity. Even in the gloom, though, I could discern that sheen of intelligence and self-confidence which Oxford instills in its students. Perhaps Cambridge is the same (I barely know the place) but it is quite striking on the banks of the Cherwell. At closing time, I returned my teeny-tiny glass, thanked the barman, and returned to my room for an early night.

So on to the main business of my trip, a two day conference entitled “Prison/Exile: Controlled Spaces in Early Modern Europe”. (Those freakish enough to be interested can find more details on the conference Twitter feed, @OxPrisonExile.) After the opening keynote lecture by Professor Rivkah Zim of King’s College, London, “A Politics of Place in Early Modern English Prison Writing”, I was part of a three-person panel discussing “Nostalgia and Utopia”. My paper, which will appear on my academia.edu profile shortly, was entitled “Imprisonment, Exile and the English Church, 1553 – 1558”, and examined the effect that imprisonment and exile had had on three of the leading figures of the Marian Church: Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor; Reginald, Cardinal Pole, papal legate and the last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury; and Queen Mary herself. Modesty aside, it seemed quite well-received, and sparked a few questions, though my bowels did turn to water when one interlocutor prefaced his question by saying that he was studying Gardiner’s time in prison. An expert on Gardiner I am not.

It was a diverse panel. I was followed by a Hungarian academic, Dr Csaba Maczelka, speaking on prison and exile in early modern English and Hungarian literature; then Dr Florence Hazrat of the University of Geneva (though a St Andrews PhD, hurrah) who talked about the incorporation of imagery from Psalm 137 (come on, you all know the words) in different versions of The Merry Wives of Windsor, among other things. She also played a piece of music by Matisyahu, the well-known Hasidic Jewish rapper.

The rest of the conference went by in a blur of topics from sacrifice on the Elizabethan scaffold to “Barbary Captive Discourse and its impact on the Anglo-American imagination”. I enjoyed much and understood rather less, but it was handy that the conference, at the Ertegun House on St Giles, was but a hop, skip and a jump from the Eagle and Child, that famous haunt of Tolkien, Lewis and the other Inklings (“Oh God, not another fucking elf”). So a few pints were had there in the interstices of the conference.

On Friday night, the great Michael Hennessy came through from Reading to share some cheer. We found a table in the Turf Tavern, an achievement in itself, and, happily, they were serving Old Rosie (for me) and Lillie's Apples and Pears (for Mr H). It was a long-overdue catch-up, and an opportunity for nostalgia for him (he is an Oriel man). I had to pity the poor student who fished out his wallet to pay for his drink at the bar, only for a condom to fall out when he opened it. He didn't notice, bless him, but everyone else did. How we larfed. Somehow, some semblance of sobriety was preserved, or at least we avoided a descent into utter oblivion, though we both became a little lachrymose towards the end of the evening. I am reliably informed he made it home, eventually.

The closing keynote address of the conference was given by my old tutor and chum, Professor Bruce Gordon, formerly of St Andrews, but now wreathed in glory at the divinity school at Yale. His title was “Exile, Refuge and Prison in the Mind of John Calvin”, and it was a tour de force. I have always found Calvin the most unappetizing and unsympathetic of the 16^th century reformers, even more so than the anti-Semitic and scatologically-obsessed Luther, so for me to find an hour-long lecture on him engaging is a testament to Bruce’s manner as well as his undoubted expertise. (He confessed to me over coffee that he’d spent a career trying to deny that he was a ‘Calvin man’ but now finds himself regarded as a world expert. He is much in demand this Reformation Year of 2017.)

When the conference closed, it was time to return to the Eagle and Child (the Inklings called it the Bird and Baby; I prefer the Fowl and Foetus) for a couple of pints and await the next stage of my odyssey, for I was due to stay for two days in Bloxham in north Oxfordshire with my old friend Hugh Martin and his wife Catherine, who teaches at the school there. Hugh very sportingly drove down to Oxford to collect me in his bright orange Jeep and we wended our way through the darkened countryside past Banbury and into the little village of Bloxham itself, where Hugh and Catherine stay in a little college attached to the school.

Over that evening, I had best draw a veil, as I knew it would be the one night on which I could really let my hair down. Suffice to say, there was lasagne, there was wine, there was gin, there was brandy and, as always when Hugh and I are together, there was singing. The usual repertoire. Even the cats slunk away when they saw which way the wind was blowing. And they are normally very friendly cats.

Sunday dawned bright and clear, though it is fair to say none of us rose early. After a late lunch of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs washed down with champagne, and with another job application completed, Hugh and I wandered to one of the (I think) three pubs in the village, the Elephant and Castle, which, to our delight, served no fewer than five different kinds of still cider. I had the Henry Weston’s Family Reserve, and it is a delicious glass (or glasses). The barman was friendly but not intrusive, and some locals came in and chatted about motor racing while their excellent dog, a little West Highland White terrier, sat amiably at their feet. We retired for dinner and Top Gear (I am still not convinced by the new cast), and had a reasonably early night.

Then came the unexpected part of the journey. On Friday morning, while in Oxford, I had been asked if I could present myself in London for an interview on Monday afternoon. It was rather short notice, and, of course, I was travelling without a suit, but I am nothing if not intrepid (that’s a lie), so I put away my return ticket and was driven to Banbury station where I caught the train to Marylebone. Of the interview I will say little until I know the outcome. But the opportunity of being in London was too good to miss, so after I had been quizzed I walked along Millbank, dragging my bundle behind me, and made for The Speaker on Great Peter Street, one of the best pubs you will find in London. There the inestimable landlord, Dennis, treated me with the scant courtesy which I have come to expect, and I settled in for an afternoon of Guinness. A couple of old colleagues from the madhouse joined me to catch up, and, as the saying goes, a good time was had by all. Well, by me, anyway. I won’t speak for them.

Thence across the river in a Uber to Clapham, to stay for one final night away from home with my very old chum Pete Murray and his (as it turned out) very comfortable sofa. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of months so we headed out briefly for an excellent sourdough pizza at Franco Manca on the Northcote Road, before he had to retire to his room to work on a pitch (he recently started a new job and they are working him hard). Not before we watched the final episode of Meet the Lords, however, which has been an interesting insight into the Upper Chamber for one who used to work at the opposite end of the building. Black Rod has ensured a lot of camera time, which I don’t think has wholly endeared him to some colleagues, and my old boss Robert Rogers, now Lord Lisvane, overcame his natural shyness to pop up a couple of times. As a series, I don’t think it has been quite as effective as Inside the Commons, and I think at times they have been guilty of rather hamming it up (though when you are dealing with old hams like Lord Cormack, there’s a limit to what you can do). I loved Lord Palmer in the first episode, he of the silver staircase, but I warmed rather less to Lady King and Lord Tyler.

And so the weary pilgrim returned home. Grand Central, for whom I have a lot of time, had impeccable wifi for once – take that, Chiltern – and the usual bottle of wine soothed the strains of the journey. I was very pleased to drop my bag last night and sink into a dry martini (Sacred cardamom gin and English dry vermouth) then spend a night back in my own bed.

If I were a travel writer, I would probably draw some profound lessons from my peregrinations. If there is one, I suppose, it would be that you should always travel with a tie, because you never know when one might need it. (At work I kept a black tie in my desk in case a Royal were to be gathered unto God.) I will say this: it was delightful to be in Oxford again after a long absence, and Christ Church made me very welcome as an old member, even if I never graduated; London was everything it always is; friends at least affected to be pleased to see me, which was touching; and if I never travel on Cross Country again as long as I live I will be happy.

This has been rather longer than I intended. For those of you who’ve made it to the end, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. Hatta al-Quds, as the man said.