13 January 1955
About Jack (confidential).
My Dear Dante,
I met him on Sunday, when he calculated the odds at 13:7 in his favour, with two doubtful.
We had reckoned without the Midianites, otherwise the Three Murderers. Pratt, Davies and Kempton. Hating Jack like poison, they pushed the claims of Arthur Prest, the economist; far too nice a chap to be associated with them.
When we met on Monday at 10 it was soon clear that the Midianites had won over the two doubtfuls: Yale, the lawyer, who genuinely preferred Prest, and Sir Alexander Todd, who likes Jack but fears his competition later on for the Mastership. {That made it 13:9 in Plumb’s favour} But the boat was really torpedoed when two of Jack’s most loyal allies revealed that they had been brainwashed: Raven, a treacherous old swine, from whom nobody ever expects much, and Hamilton. Jack has a very high regard for Hamilton, and likes him very much – I think his defection hurt him more than anything. (I should add, of course, that Jack and Prest had left the meeting.) Kempton put up a strong case for Prest, arguing very temperately, and at about 11 a vote was taken – a dead heat 11:11.
By this time the Master had come out in Jack’s favour, and voted for him. We sat about for some time; several futile suggestions were made; and another vote was taken at 11.10 a.m. with the same result. We then adjourned for half an hour for coffee, until 11.45; after much caballing and false bonhomie, but not much result.
The fun started when we re-assembled. Pratt and Davies began to pull Jack to pieces, saying he had a gift for alienating people, that he was disliked by many people in the University, and that the servants hated him when he was Steward: in short, he wasn’t tactful enough to make a good Bursar. Since the late Wyatt was hardly the most tactful of men, there was also a lot of shit thrown at him in passing, as it were. Much of what they said of Jack, I feel, entre nous, to be quite true, but irrelevant; and doubly so since it was quite evident that nobody was going to freely change his mind at this stage. Some of the Opposition were clearly embarrassed at the tactics of their campaign managers.
But unless somebody did change his mind, we would have to go outside the College, which was unthinkable with two first class men available. After about ten minutes’ futile bickering in conditions of mounting tension the Vice Master (Steen) announced that he was going to abstain. Prest was then elected 11:10.
The tension of all this was quite unbelievable. I had to have a bath and lie down for most of the afternoon, and I wasn’t the only one.
Jack, as I’ve said took it philosophically, even puckishly. (“Shall I terrorise the servants”, he enquired blandly after dinner, “if I ask for the candles to be lit?”). Also the Midianites are somewhat ashamed of themselves, and are making no objection to Rupert Hall’s Official Fellowship. The Master is sure to appoint a sound man to succeed Prest as Tutor, so Jack will be able to consolidate his Empire. Prest himself is rather in the position of Eisenhower, a very clean man elected by dirty tactics and dirty men – which way he’ll swing is anybody’s guess. Everybody is now very nice to everybody else.
Thinking it over, it is clear that in some respects Jack has himself to blame. I am reminded of Wellington’s remark on being told that Parliament had refused to increase the personal allowances of the Princes of the Blood: – “By God!” he said, “They have insulted – personally insulted – two thirds of the gentlemen of England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge upon them in the House of Commons?”
This letter is wonderfully revealing about Christ’s College politics. It highlights the bitter intensity and unforgiving rivalry that so often convulsed the college; and it highlights, too, the need in such a small claustrophobic community to return as soon as possible to some semblance of civilised behaviour in order to keep the place running.
Kenyon’s postscript to this letter is equally revealing about how much less time was spent discussing their personal lives. Sex and women all too often get confined to the footnotes. To judge from John Kenyon’s description of his recent girlfriend they were not always treated or discussed with any great sensitivity. Of this un-named mistress, he wrote: “The affair of Black Bitch is not so strange as you suppose. She insisted that I take her to some stupid dance instead of returning to Cambridge to write my lectures. On the other hand, I don’t want to feel obliged to stay in Sheffield or even go there very often – this Christmas, for instance, I only wanted to stay ten days, but because of her I had to make it three weeks. But I admired her very much (she was a girl of real character and spirit) and I was genuinely sorry to see her go. As you say the solution would be an occasional girlfriend (not prostitute) in London. However I can’t really afford the time or the money, and my work effectively sublimates all unruly desires”.
It was quite clear that work and ambition ranked well ahead of sex, and love hardly came into it. One feels that “Black Bitch” is a very revealing name for his mistress. He might well have been talking about an old gun dog he admired but had had regretfully to put down when she ceased to fit in with his career plans and work needs.
As Kenyon said in his final sentences “Of course, I approve highly of Molly (or Lena) – I am never polite in such matters, I’m afraid.” Here he was speaking of Molly Randle who later became Selina Campailla when she married Dante, but such matters were granted about one twentieth of the time he spent describing Jack’s failure to get the Bursarship. College politics were serious, time-consuming preoccupations. They required detailed concentrated attention. Sexual needs and future life-partners got half a sentence each. Emotional needs got even less. What could more vividly display what really interested the dons of Christ’s than that letter? What could better illustrate how rapidly the high drama of college politics fades over time?
For that last reason alone college politics are best treated with the lofty disdain they deserve. The Fellows of Christ’s may have been infuriated by the way in which Snow depicted them in The Masters, but, in truth, he rather flattered them. He gave a dignity and a strong narrative power to college politics that they very rarely deserve.
Jack, however, was an addict. He may have learned the sycophantic arts of seeking favour with the English aristocracy in later life, but in the early decades of his life at Christ’s he sought power and influence in college through full-scale frontal attack after tireless plotting.
He was involved in long running battles with Canon Charles Raven, Master of Christ’s from 1938-1950, and Alex Todd (later Lord Todd) Master from 1963-1978. He was also centrally involved in a poisonous campaign against Lucan Pratt, the Senior Tutor whom he forced out of office in 1961. In the battle with Pratt he made many enemies, but he felt wholly justified in forcing him to resign from his central role in college admissions. Pratt had become notorious throughout Cambridge for his success in attracting brilliant sportsmen to Christ’s – so successful that it was not uncommon for an overwhelming majority of almost all university teams to be Christ’s men. Pratt became so obsessed with his success that he would sit in the Junior Combination Room to pick up tips about promising sporting talent from undergraduates. He became notorious in admission interviews for tossing a cricket ball or a rugger ball at aspiring candidates and judging them by the skill with which they caught them. I can confirm from my own experience that, when in my admission interview he read from my school reference that I had represented my school for both cricket and rugger and represented my county for the latter, he threw both balls at me simultaneously and, when I casually caught both of them, said “You’re in”. In my own defence, I should add that I also won an open scholarship, and when I saw the super-charged quality of the college teams, I never played a game of any sport again.
Plumb was infuriated, not by the standard of the Christ’s sports teams, but by the fact that Pratt
