N o .123
board of the classical prizes (and some
of the English ones), a record not even
surpassed by his star pupil, the great Sir
Jeremy Morse. He was clearly fiercely
exacting up to books teaching Senior
Div, but also a kind pastoral figure. Colin
Badcock’s obituary (TS 81) recalls games
of Sorry! accompanied by hot buttered
toast in the grand drawing room.
Michael Fontes (Tutor, 67-75), as
remembered by John Davies (Prefect of
Hall, 74-75), kept a well-stocked (and
well-padlocked) wine ‘cellar’ under the
Tutor’s stairs and was known for full-
blooded plant-raising on Canvas. The
curtains installed on his accession still
hang in the drawing room, albeit now
rather threadbare.
John Durran (Tutor, 75-90) is
remembered by Simon Woolley (Coll,
83-88) blowing under James Sabben-
Clare’s door in order to drive his Jack
Russell terrier berserk. He was famed
for his gorilla impression and for his
mountaineering expertise, although I
have not been able to confirm a story
that he took his supervisory duties to
new heights by scaling the outside of
College and surprising the Jun Men
at their window. Like Herodotus, I’ll
mention it anyway. He packed the
capacious drawing room with an esoteric
collection of objets, including Islamic
pottery, 500 obsessively catalogued tapes
and a set of ox vertebrae.
A more recent Tutor, who shall
remain anonymous but is about
to take up a senior position at an
eminent school, broke a window with a
champagne cork, but avoided detection
by artfully arranging the shards of glass
to mimic an impact from outside. Did
he not know to twist the bottle, not the
cork?
And what of the role now? Like
Godfrey Lee, I have corrected my fair
share of Greek and Latin proses while
taking toytime in School. My brief
stint helping with College Canvas was
T he T rusty S ervant
not as successful as Irving or Fontes’s
times. I told my vanquished team that
the important thing was that they were
record-breakers, and that history could
well forget which side had scored and
which conceded over 100 points in the
VIs match against OTH. This was a lie.
I shall remember College as a very
special place indeed. How many other
communities of 70 teenagers have their
own symphony orchestra, baroque
orchestra, jazz group and vocal group?
But the privilege of the residential
role is to see them when they’re not
on show. So let me give you a little
flavour of the always interesting, often
bizarre life of the men in gowns when
they’re in their natural habit. I