The Day Gone By (35 page)

Why no one was ever disciplined over Alasdair's party I have never understood. This, too, took place on a winter's night and the secret planning was matched only by the suicidal cheek which brought the revels to an end. We decided that nothing would do for us but to have a barrel of bitter standing broached in the bedroom. And it must be illegal, of course. It never even occurred to us to enquire whether the College buttery would supply us. (I'm sure they wouldn't have: not a barrel.) No, no; we hied away to The Jolly Farmers and propounded our scheme to Billy Iles. It all worked. We bought from him what I believe is known as ‘a pin' or, as Billy called it, ‘four 'n 'alf'. (Thirty-six pints doesn't sound much for a party, but we meant to have some bottled as well, and anyway, we had to tailor our prank to the smugglable size of the barrel.)

The pin fitted snugly into a sugar-crate, which was carefully fastened down and ticketed ‘Books: with Care'. Someone even found a Blackwell's label to stick on. Then the crate was loaded into Stan Roberts's taxi and driven by Stan his very self to the gates of Worcester.

Alasdair, in his second year, had some of the nicest rooms in College: 10:3 (the third set on Staircase 10). Immediately below lie the De Quincey rooms (the ones I had had for the scholarship exam.), from the tradition that they were occupied by Thomas De Quincey when he was up. If so, he was extremely lucky: I spent much time, both before and after the war, in negotiating with the College authorities to try to get those rooms for myself, but never succeeded. Stan Roberts, actually assisted by the suitably tipped assistant porter, carried the laden sugar-crate up to 10:3 and then left us to our own devices. We got the barrel into the bedroom, but I can't now remember upon what we supported it: we had no proper cradle, of course, but something efficient was improvised. The spiling and tapping were carried out, and we reckoned the beer would have settled well enough by that night.

Undergraduate beer parties differ little from one another, I imagine, though perhaps, if one held in 1892 must have been rather different, at least in appearance, from one held in 1940, a similar difference might apply to one held in 1990. I don't recall much about the early stages of the beer-up in 10:3, except that Alasdair was got up as Groucho Marx, whom he could simulate extremely well, especially with the adjuncts of a painted black moustache and an unlit cigar. ‘The Dean? Why, the first time I met him I swept him off my feet.' His eyebrow work was particularly good. In the sitting-room was a conspicuous sign, devised by Mike Seale, pointing the way to the bedroom and reading ‘To Ye Pysse-Up: Refills'.

Now it so happened that this term the occupant of the De Quincey Room was one Dr Kiernander, a don belonging to a non-Oxford academic institution which had been evacuated to Worcester as part of the general exodus from London marking the outbreak of the phoney war. Dr Kiernander had not exactly endeared himself to Worcester - or to us, anyway - during the Michaelmas term, and as the beer flowed more freely, imaginations ranged and songs were sung, it occurred to William Brown and Jim Sharp, with natural spontaneity, that bouncing on the floor might be an effective way of reminding Dr Kiernander of the Vigornian presence vibrant above him. His name became adopted into those songs which are traditionally sung at undergraduate beer parties.

‘So, balls to Dr
Kiernander, Kiernander, Kiernander,

Balls to Dr
Kier
nander, dirty old sod.

For he's kept us waiting while he's masturbating,

So balls to Dr
Kier
nander, dirty old sod.

The other dons, to stop his frolics;

The other dons, to stop his frolics … ‘

William's lean, angular frame was well suited to bouncing. He spun and twirled like Ravel's Scorbo: he seemed to be in three places at once, while the further corners of the room were kept in bouncing continuum by Alasdair, Mike Seale and myself. The lights shook and the coal fell in the fire. As people paused breathless for a rest, I felt stirred to improvise, though the tune was not mine but something of Arthur Askey's which swam into my head.

‘Poor Kier
nander,
whatever can he do?

He wakes with a fright in the middle of the night

And the ceiling's falling through.

O-oh, poor Kier
nander
, the noise becomes obscene.

He hurries hence in self-defence

And goes to fetch the Dean.

O-oh, poor Kier
nander
-'

But that, in fact, it forthwith transpired, was exactly what Dr Kiernander had done. Colonel Wilkinson, the Dean of Worcester, was suddenly among us. Voices trailed off and silence fell. We noticed that Dr Kiernander was not among those present, and we thought none the better of him for that.

The Dean paused for a short space, but all he finally came out with was ‘This party will now disperse.' His eye then fell upon ‘To Ye Pysse-Up: Refills'. Following the direction indicated, he reached the bedroom and stood gazing at our broached pin on Alasdair's chest-of-drawers.

‘What's this?'

‘That, sir,' replied Alasdair, trying to look a little less like Groucho, ‘is the cause of the trouble.'

I remember trying drunkenly to insist that the onus of any blame was equally mine, but all the Dean said was ‘Go to bed, Adams.' I didn't, however. We adjourned to someone else's rooms, got hold of some more beer from somewhere and continued in a rather less unbuttoned style.

The following morning we saw our pin, now empty and bungless, lying well out on the central lawn in the quad. This turf was sacrosanct. There was a standing fine of half-a-crown for anyone observed walking on it by the porter, Sergeant-Major Bryant, ex-Grenadier Guards.

How it had got there we never discovered. Somebody went and distracted Bryant's attention while Alasdair and I hauled the barrel off the grass and back up to his rooms. Later, we returned it to Billy Iles. As I have said, I have always been puzzled that the Dean took no further action. He must have guessed that our barrel was contraband and besides that, I wouldn't mind betting that we must have cracked the ceiling below. Perhaps he didn't much care for Dr Kiernander, either.

That spring we made an expedition down the underground Trill Millstream; we did. In fact, I reckon I must be one of the very few people who can have traversed the length of the Trill Millstream three times. As is widely known, the originator of this exploit was T. E. Lawrence who, when he was up at Oxford (Lincoln), decided that the stream was probably navigable and went down it successfully with a companion, a torch or two and a loaded pistol ‘in case of rats'.

I have no idea what has happened to the Trill now that old St Ebbe's has gone and so much of south-west Oxford has been redeveloped. The topographical set-up used to be this. The Isis runs from north to south past the west flank of Worcester, under Hythe Bridge and on down to St Ebbe's. It then makes a right-angled bend to the east and so reaches Folly Bridge and Christ Church meadows. Its course forms, in fact, an arc of ninety degrees. This arc used to have a chord, and the chord was the Trill Millstream, which ran out of the Isis into an arched brick culvert just below the north-west corner of Paradise Square, and ran eastwards underground to emerge at the south-west corner of Christ Church and thence back into the Isis. The tunnel was of arched brick all its length, and I remember it as being about five or six feet wide - the water surface, that is - and the water as fairly fast-flowing - about two or three miles an hour - and three to four feet deep, with a firm bottom. It was not a sewer, but various storm culverts entered it along its length (as I shall recount). The opening at the upstream end was covered by a timber door which was in effect a top-hung hopper and not locked. You only had to pull it up to get in.

I would very much like to know what sort of craft Lawrence used. As will be told, I have good reasons for wondering. For our first expedition we took two canoes from Magdalen Bridge and paddled them upstream. William Brown and I were in one and Alasdair and Mike Seale in the other.

I am nervous by temperament, and when I was young I would sometimes, in fits of bravado, enter upon hare-brained exploits and then, later, wonder what the hell I had got myself into and why. As the wooden door swung up and we shone our torches into the pitch-black tunnel, I felt much more like going back than going on. However, no one else said anything to that effect and, having bumped and scrambled the canoes in, we began floating down.

The door swung down behind us and we were now entirely dependent for light upon our torches. Our voices echoed in the cavern. No effort was involved in going down, for we were simply drifting with the current. However, we found ourselves having to take note of two features. First, the height of the progressive sections of rounded brick tunnelling above us varied. In some places they were only about two-and-a-half or three feet above the surface of the water, while in others they were a good five or six feet. Going through the lower lengths you had to duck and stay ducked, and you couldn't always see for how far, for there were curves. Secondly, at intervals the tunnel above water level was crossed by stout iron pipes with diameters of about five inches. These also involved ducking, while in addition several ran across so low that we had to force the canoes hard down in order to get them under.

This was what finally buggered this first expedition. I don't know how far we'd gone down (the total length of the stream was perhaps 700 yards) when we came to an extra low pipe under which the up-curved prows of the canoes simply would not go. We got out into the water, standing waist-deep, and did all we could to force one of them under. No good. Then we even had a shot at lifting it over, but that was no good either: I've forgotten why; perhaps the roof was too low or the canoe was too heavy. (One of us had to hold the torches.) There was no help for it. We had to go back. Going back was, of course, harder work. We didn't use the paddles much: we put our hands to the roof or the walls and shoved. There was nothing much to it, and eventually we re-emerged at the Paradise Square entry.

However, I felt annoyed and frustrated. To have been baulked in this way was maddening. Once I was dry (it wasn't much fun paddling back to Magdalen Bridge and then walking back to Worcester in soaking wet clothes) I put in some time thinking it over. The answer came over the first pint of the evening. A canoe would not go under that pipe: but a punt would.

William said he'd had enough of it: he thought honour was satisfied. However, Mike and Alasdair were game, and felt, like myself, that a punt was surely the answer. So the second expedition, three men strong, set out from Magdalen Bridge one afternoon about a week later.

Everything seemed to be in the bag. We entered the tunnel as before - more self-confident now - and drifted smoothly down. It was no problem at all taking the punt under the pipes - it had so little freeboard - and when we came to the pipe which had baulked us before we slipped under it easily, lying prone. On we went, and at length - oh, whoopee! - saw a glimmer of daylight ahead. This brightened and approached, and we found ourselves at the downstream egress of the Trill from under the south-western walls of Christ Church.

And here, if you'll believe it, was where we once more came unstuck. At its very mouth, the stream curved in a right-angle between its brick walls, and this the punt could not negotiate: it was too long. Again we got out into the water and tried everything we could think of; we pushed, pulled and heaved. The frustration was extreme, for several feet of our bow were actually out of the tunnel and protruding into the daylight. We turned the punt on its side and yanked and dragged, but nothing would get it round that very last bend.

Like the Duchess of Malfi, we felt we could curse down the stars. I was in such an unreasonable state of emotional mortification that I was all for leaving the ruddy punt where it was and going home. Heaven knows what Round and Faulkner, at Magdalen Bridge, would have had to say, but I was past caring. It was Mike Seale who pointed out that obviously the College authorities would be told: punts cost a lot of money. We would indisputably be for the high jump. We had no alternative but to go back up the stream.

At this point Alasdair said he was going home; he was soaking wet and already had a cold from last time. This was so entirely out of character that I have never quite understood it. Alasdair's courage and sterling endurance we had seen for ourselves many a time. What I think now is that he meant exactly what he said, no more nor less. He feared possible illness; he knew himself to be no coward and that our opinion of him was so high that he could afford this indulgence. In fact, we didn't think ill of him: we knew him too well. And besides, we all thought that all that Mike and I were in for were a couple of uncomfortable, tedious hours and that would be that.

As Alasdair left us and headed for St Aldate's, a cloudburst began. The rain simply belted down. Well, we thought, at least we'd be out of that. With some little difficulty we dragged the punt scratchily free from the walls on either side (we'd jammed it pretty tight in our efforts to get it round the last bend), climbed in and began the upstream journey, Mike in front (i.e., at the stern) and I behind.