My cousin Jasper made good the loss; he was the son of my father’s elder brother, to whom he referred more than once, only half facetiously, as ‘the Head of the Family’; he was in his fourth year and, the term before, had come within appreciable distance of getting his rowing blue; he was secretary of the Canning and president of the J.C.R.; a considerable person in college. He called on me formally during my first week and stayed to tea; he ate a very heavy meal of honey-buns, anchovy toast, and Fuller’s walnut cake, then he lit his pipe and, lying back in the basket-chair, laid down the rules of conduct which I should follow; he covered most subjects; even today I could repeat much of what he said, word for word. ‘…You’re reading History? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats. You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away. You should go to the best lectures – Arkwright on Demosthenes for instance – irrespective of whether they are in your school or not….Clothes. Dress as you do in a country house. Never wear a tweed coat and flannel trousers – always a suit. And go to a London tailor; you get better cut and longer credit….Clubs. Join the Carlton now and the Grid at the beginning of your second year. If you want to run for the Union – and it’s not a bad thing to do – make your reputation outside first, at the Canning or the Chatham, and begin by speaking on the paper….Keep clear of Boar’s Hill….’ The sky over the opposing gables glowed and then darkened; I put more coal on the fire and turned on the light, revealing in their respectability his London-made plus-fours and his Leander tie….‘Don’t treat dons like schoolmasters; treat them as you would the vicar at home….You’ll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first….Beware of the Anglo-Catholics – they’re all sodomites with unpleasant accents. In fact, steer clear of all the religious groups; they do nothing but harm….’

Finally, just as he was going, he said, ‘One last point. Change your rooms.’ – They were large, with deeply recessed windows and painted, eighteenth-century panelling; I was lucky as a freshman to get them. ‘I’ve seen many a man ruined through having ground-floor rooms in the front quad,’ said my cousin with deep gravity. ‘People start dropping in. They leave their gowns here and come and collect them before hall; you start giving them sherry. Before you know where you are, you’ve opened a free bar for all the undesirables of the college.’

I do not know that I ever, consciously, followed any of this advice. I certainly never changed my rooms; there were gillyflowers growing below the windows which on summer evenings filled them with fragrance.