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Letters

Wednesday, 28th November 2007

Readers respond to recent articles in The Spectator

Sir: Lord Patten (‘Westminster politics has nothing on Oxford’s battles’, 24 November) shows less than his usual savvy in dealing with the vice-chancellor’s departure. It was not only the reforms proposed by Dr Hood that so many Oxonians objected to, but also the manner he went about trying to implement them. To bracket Hood with Lucas and North misses the point. The last two, former heads of houses, worked from within the system to effect change; Hood decided to adopt much less sophisticated methods, wholly alien to the traditional tone and spirit of the university’s counsels.

That tone and spirit are not hard to define. As and when the next vice-chancellor arrives, Lord Patten should present the new incumbent with the works of another New Zealander long resident in Oxford and, as it happens, mentioned by Frederic Raphael in last week’s magazine. ‘The great modern iconoclast’ Sir Ronald Syme certainly was. However, he was also so steeped in the learning of Greece and Rome that inevitably he was aware of what Thomas Hardy calls life’s little ironies — and some big ones as well. The air of Oxford contains a high irony quotient; this does not always synthesise with questionable techniques of modern systems managers. At the end of his book on Tacitus, Syme observes: ‘Men and dynasties pass, but style abides.’ The retiring vice-chancellor might ponder these words in his new home. Whatever else Oxford can overlook, it will never forgive a lack of style.

Robin Taylor
Blackburn, Lancashire

Razing the issue

Sir: Quinlan Terry (Letters, 24 November) answers Simon Thurley’s plea for better architecture by pointing out, with reason, that steel and glass buildings designed to last only 40 years are less environmentally congenial than enduring brick and stone. He might have challenged Thurley on the fate of Thurley’s own headquarters, the English Heritage building in Savile Row, formerly the Civil Service Commission, which has just been razed to the ground. It was a very good Art Deco building in stone. Why did English Heritage scrap it, and what will go up in its place?

Andrew Wilton
London SW11

Poetry packs a punch

Sir: Vernon Scannell, who figured in Jeremy Clarke’s column last week (Low Life, 24 November), was quite a legendary figure in Milton Keynes, where he was poet-in-residence some 50 years ago.

His mild, scholarly demeanour belied the fact that he had been a ferocious professional boxer. Drinking in a Milton Keynes pub one evening, some local heavies rather the worse for wear asked him what he did for a living. ‘I’m a poet,’ he told them. Banter led to insults, then one of them hit him. Scannell floored three of them in quick succession before returning amiably to his pint.