No . 133
The Trusty Servant
Raikes in 1921
later that year and played for the university team in all four of his years there . However , as his obituary in Wisden put it , ‘ he found the pleasure of life at Oxford too alluring ’: his weight ballooned through a lifestyle of drinking and gambling and he was dropped in his final year . He was also , mysteriously and briefly , married to a bank manager ’ s daughter from Headington . More certainly scandalous was his attempt in 1925 to hire a car with a fraudulent cheque . The car was found abandoned after an accident ; when Raikes was arrested an illegal pistol and ammunition were found on him , so that was added to the charge-sheet . Yet in classic establishment style , Raikes ’ s barrister father managed to get the charges dropped and sent him abroad , to farm sheep in Argentina .
Books of Wykehamical Interest
A biography of Sir Herbert Baker , architect of War Cloister , has been writted by John Stewart . Sir Herbert Baker : Architect to the British Empire examines his life and career , which stretched from London , through the monuments to the war dead in France and Belgium , via South Africa and Australia to its culmination in New Delhi , the new imperial capital which he built with Sir Edwin Lutyens . Along the way the book tells of his friendships with some the leading lights of his age , such as Lawrence of Arabia , John Buchan and Jan Smuts .
234 pages . McFarland . ISBN : 978-1476684345 .
Forgotten Englishman : Thomas Stephens and the Mission to the East , by Nicholas Fogg , tells the story of a Tudor Wykehamist who was the first Englishman to sail around the Cape of Good Hope , as part of the Jesuit mission to the East . He spent 40 years in Goa until his death in 1619 and wrote a classic work of Indian literature , the Christian Purana , an epic poem on the life of Christ in the style of ancient Hindu texts . He was the first Englishman to make a significant impact on India .
362 pages Gracewing Publishing . ISBN : 978-0852448526 .
Two Forthcoming Publications by former Classics Dons
Jock Macdonald ( CoRo , 64-01 ) has written a selective memoir around his deepening awareness of Climate Change . Eschewing any overload of data , he tells the human story in facing up to the crisis . As Matthew Huntley ( Director , P & G Wells 1983-2008 ) observes in his blurb , the book is very readable , ‘ interspersed with a series of delightful interludes involving classical history and literature , archaeology , and the joys and perils of owning a ruin in Umbria ’. The title , Gibbon ’ s Years , evokes the period in Roman History which the historian , Edward Gibbon , thought was the happiest ever ; we too , though we may not know it , have lived through such a period in the Western World .
Publication date 28 September . 303 pages . Matador ISBN 978-1803132938 . £ 12.99 . Available from the author , jockmacd9 @ gmail . com or from troubador . co . uk .
Meanwhile John Falconer ( CoRo , 78- 14 ) has been editing and translating a family correspondence between Dresden and Cambridge , and beyond , to be called Letters from Helfenberg . In 1913 his German grandmother married an English classics lecturer in Dresden ’ s Frauenkirche and moved with him to Cambridge just before the outbreak of the First World War . The selected letters , exchanged through war and peace from 1909 to 1948 , juxtapose local and personal news with frequent references to the international events of the time , together with a rich overlay of literary allusions , philosophical reflections and engaging observations . Publication date 28 July .
470 pages . Matador ISBN 978-1803132044 . Available from troubador . co . uk .
23