might have at that time.’ Sadly, I cannot argue with that. For one reason or another, I did not take advantage of all that Trinity had to offer. I did not enjoy my time there; I do not have nice memories of the place; I did not make many friends; in fact, the only saving grace was my introduction to the world of art history by means of the stupendous teaching of Anne Crookshank.
When I did graduate, although I knew I wanted more than Anne had managed to impart in two years, I was not at all sure about a future career. It was by no means clear in those days – at least it was not clear to me – that one could make a career in art history, and so I considered other options. The Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank (which was not then the HSBC that it is today) was a popular choice for graduates wanting to work abroad (and that included me); the world of advertising attracted arts graduates who sought something creative and I did apply to a firm called Benton & Bowles in Knightsbridge but the experience of the interview convinced me that advertising was not for me. Because of my working in Claridge’s, hotel management strayed into my mind, although it soon strayed out again. I felt I was too Irish to even think of Sotheby’s or Christie’s. But if I really wanted to learn more than Anne had taught me, then I could: there was the Courtauld Institute in London, and I could do another art history degree there.
It was all too confusing and, to solve my dilemma, I decided I needed a year abroad to think. I would go to Germany. I had never been there, and did not know a word of German; it would be a new experience. I enrolled in a language school in Cologne for three months in the autumn and found accommodation (through the school) with a widow and her unpleasant adult son. I wrote to my mother (on 6 October 1968):
I have meals with the family. She is very rough, and a war widow. The son, who is about thirty, speaks good English and thinks he knows just about everything. All the time it is how great the Germans are, etc, etc. I just told him the other night what everyone thought about the Germans, and that shut him up.
When I came home in December (for my Trinity Commencements), I went to see Anne Crookshank and asked her about the Courtauld.
‘By all means apply,’ she said, ‘and I’ll give you a good reference. It’s fiercely competitive but my pupil Margaret Mitchell got in last year.’
But although Anne and I were still very much teacher and pupil at this stage, she had observed something of my character over the two years of my sitting at the back of her seminar room.
‘But there are other options,’ she said. ‘Have you thought of Edinburgh, which has a very good reputation under David Talbot Rice? Or the University of East Anglia: that’s a new department? They might suit you better than the more hothouse atmosphere of the Courtauld.’
The way she said ‘hothouse’ alerted me.
‘And Edinburgh would be a friendlier environment than London can be,’ she added.
After Christmas, I returned to Germany but this time I went to Munich. There was a reason for my choice: Penny was there. But our nine months in the city is a story that must – in the interests of discretion – wait to be told in full another day. Sufficient to say that we had a fabulous time. I taught English at the Berlitz School and we travelled a lot, to Salzburg, to Prague, and we drove to Greece. Penny was very musical and had a beautiful singing voice. Her rendering to her own accompaniment on the piano of Schubert’s Die Forelle with beautiful German diction could and did (on one occasion) bring tears to the eyes of even a German. We went very often – gaining a substantial discount on last-minute tickets with our student-cards – to the best of opera and to wonderful concerts. Afterwards, walking through the night streets in the snow, Penny would burst into loud song, paraphrasing musically much of what we had just heard. My pocket diary from the time records that we heard Daniel Barenboim, Hans Hotter, David and Igor Oistrakh, Michelangelo Benedetti (drunk at the keyboard, as I recall), Rita Streich, Birgit Nilsson, Otto Klemperer, Herman Prey and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the concert hall, and, at the opera, a complete Ring Cycle, Arabella, The Sicilian Vespers, Tristan, Rosenkavalier, Faust, Orpheo, The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto, Madame Butterfly and Die Freischütz. Penny remembers a conductor dropping dead on the podium during a performance at the opera but I have no recollection of that.
I bought an ancient Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and we toured the castles of King Ludwig, and learned a lot about Bavarian Rococo. We lived in the student quarter of Schwabing, near the English Garden. I learned very little German. My only regret is that I did not learn to ski. The snow lasts in Munich until well into March, and skiing is possible almost on one’s doorstep; but, foolishly, I did not take it up.
I soon found employment. ‘Now I have got all sorts of good news for you,’ I wrote to my mother (1 February 1969).
‘The most important thing is that I have landed the most marvellous job. I got it through one of the schools I applied to teach in. It is giving an intensive course in English to two ladies. The director of the school, who is awfully nice and has given me all sorts of help, tells me that they are both immensely rich and also very snobby.1 This is just a sudden sort of whim that they have got, that they want to learn English, and is an excuse to spend some of their husbands’ money. I have to teach them from 9 to 1, then go to lunch with them until 2 (talking English). I get an allowance to cover the cost of the lunch and get paid £12 10s per week. The unfortunate thing is that these women will, I am sure, get tired of English after about three weeks. No, I no longer teach the two ladies,’ I informed my mother (on 5 March 1969). They have gone to France to buy clothes and won’t be back for a while. Anyway, they had got fed up of the classes, as their English was nearly as good as mine.
But my carefree Munich existence was not without some clouds. Reminding me that Elliott did feel a responsibility for me, my mother wrote to say he had said she should ‘take me home’. I replied (7 April 1969):
Elliott is talking nonsense telling you to take me home and I am glad that you and Alice have the good sense to see that. I just want you to see and remember that I am, and always have been, completely different in temperament to any of the others, so to try and make me lead the same sort of lives they do, would be absolute madness, and were I to come home and work in Dublin, which is what Elliott wants, I would be very, very unhappy. You must know that I am not wasting my time here or anywhere else, and you may rest assured that I will turn out alright, so don’t worry.
The paragraph which followed contained the sort of news that could only have worried my mother more and added fuel to Elliott’s fire:
I went to High Mass with this family that I have got to know. There was one Cardinal and four bishops – all very colourful. There was an enormous crowd of people, all waiting to get communion from the old Cardinal. Ordinary old bloke he was too: just as bad as they are at home.
But all the time, I knew that this happy, carefree and very irresponsible life had to end and that I must not stay on in Munich for more than a year or I might be trapped, with no qualifications and no career, in an expatriate existence for life. Furthermore, Penny and I had influenced each other too much and we had become too alike to make a success of any longer-term partnership and, with sadness, we both knew it. I applied to the Courtauld and to Edinburgh University, and I was interviewed for a place on their courses by both. The interview at the Courtauld was in February or March. My friend Peter Feuchtwanger wrote to me (on 24 January 1969): ‘Was pleased to receive your letter this morning and to learn that you are planning to come to London for the interview. When will it be? I shall write to Prof Gombrich2 the moment you have a definite date. I hope you will stay with me.’
My Courtauld interview, by Anthony Blunt3 and one of his lecturers (I don’t recall who), was one of the cruellest experiences I ever endured, and I have never forgotten it. Blunt started the interview by telling me that they did not normally
