Author: Roger Pearse

Up before 7:00 and on the road at 7:15.  Very hot and humid here, and I was glad of the air-conditioning in the car.  A good trip down to London in the rush hour.  When I am on the way to Oxford, and get onto the M40 out of London, it always feels as if I have left London almost immediately.  The motorway runs through countryside.  It’s never too busy, and I have never been held up going north on it towards Oxford. 

Soon it starts to undulate, up and down, but ever upwards.  Then you reach the sign saying “Oxfordshire”, and immediately pass into a wide cleft in the hills, from which you can see the whole valley in which Oxford lies.  Immediately there is a bare hill to the right, with woodland at hand, reminiscent of the downs.  The cooling towers at Didcot — the landmark if you go by train — are visible in the far distance.  Then a sign saying “Thame” reminds us that this is the landscape of “Farmer Giles of Ham”. 

From here on, the air and light seem enchanted, heavy with memory of summer days in Oxford.  The brick buildings give way to Cotswold stone.  The Oxford exit appears, and the broad straight road that takes one from the M40 to Oxford is soon traversed.  A spell on the ring road, and I found myself driving up the Abingdon Road.  Then comes Folly Bridge, the Head of the River pub, and Tom Tower of Christ Church is visible and we’re in what I think of as “the real Oxford”.  Brilliant, hot sunshine, and Oxford almost glows with light.  I park in the Westgate centre car park, which is as shabby as ever, and go through the Westgate centre which I remember from my student days.

I sold my books at St. Philips bookshop.  Fifty books, which made only 175 GBP (about $270), but at least they are off the floor.  The remainder he didn’t think he could sell, and will be given away, including all the Italian translations.  Then up to Carfax and into the bank to deposit the cheque; the bank I used as a student, now much rearranged, but still at the same address.

On to the Bodleian, where the entrance area has been rearranged.  Gone are the cloak-pegs and cupboards; instead a turnstyle and I must swipe my card.  Bags are forbidden, unless of clear plastic.  But I have anticipated this evil, and prepared accordingly.  Inside my normal plastic bag is a clear plastic bag, containing my papers.  I remove it, fold the outer bag and stuff it in my pocket, transfer my wallet and mobile phone into my trouser pockets — for I am wearing only a shirt and tie in the hot weather — and I can go anywhere in the library.

Up to Duke Humphrey’s library, where the Combefis volume awaits.  A quick persual of “Asterius of Amasea” reveals a volume containing a huge variety of materials, only a few of which are by Asterius.  The Eusebius passage is there!  I look for information on the manuscripts Combefis used; the usual vagueness in a single page headed “Candido Lectore”.  I note which pages I want, and after a fruitless attempt to obtain copies resolve to obtain them from Birmingham instead.

Down to the Lower Reading Room, and the catalogues.  I’m looking for three articles on the Coptic history by Al-Makarim, what it is, manuscripts etc.  The Bodleian has all three journals (hurray).  But it takes at least half a day to get any (boo).  Then I discover two of them are in the Sackler library.  “What’s that?” I wonder.  It turns out to be the books associated with the Ashmolean, including Egyptology.  Those journals will be on the shelves.  I’ll go there.  By now it’s lunchtime.

Out I come… to rain.  The weather has changed, and I am caught out.  I walk valiantly down the road towards the High, and then along, hoping to get to my car and my umbrella, but the rain increases.  I’m driven into the covered market, as the thunder crashes overhead.  The market used to be down-market, but has been renovated.  It’s very pleasant there, with tables and cafes, and I spend 20-25 mins before the rain diminishes enough that I can leave. 

Once I have my umbrella from the car, back up the road and into the Sackler library.  I eventually find a photocopier, and get the articles.  Exit; it’s raining again.  I go down to the Bodleian, then down to the High, then down Magpie Lane to Merton college.  Little has changed, although the porters’ lodge has been reordered in a sensible way and an iron gate installed across the main entrance to force visitors through it (less welcome).  The porter tells me incidentally that Merton now has 600 undergraduates, twice what it did when I was there, the increase mainly in the last few years.  It seems that the college has omitted a few important facts from the material it sends out to graduates each year.  Then across St Albans quad, out into the garden, and up to the turret on the wall, in haste as the rain increases again.  Past King Charles’ mulberry tree, and back through Fellows Quad. 

Finally out, back to the Westgate Centre.  I pop into Sainsburys and buy some rolls and cheese and water for the journey back.  It is 3:15, and I leave, and head out into a monsoon-like downpour which turns the Oxford ring-road into a river.  But by the time I get to the M40 it has slackened, and I get home by 6:15.  A good day.

I’m off to Oxford on Thursday.  I shall make a day trip of it, and if the sun shines it will be very pleasant. 

Getting to Oxford is not as easy as it might be.  It is unlikely to cost less than 40 GBP in petrol. The Oxford City Council will meanly charge me another 20 GBP to park there.  (Both charges are mainly tax, and seem to be levied out of spite rather than to fund necessary works; the latter, indeed, go undone).  The actual journey from London is simple; straight up the M40. 

Once there, my first stop will be to try to sell some academic books.  For some time I have been weeding out books that I never use, and piling them into a heap.  Most are patristic.  There are 20-odd Sources Chretiennes volumes of Tertullian, all in mint condition.  There are half a dozen Italian translations of his works also.  There are also some classical texts, and one or two items such as “C.S.Lewis at the BBC”.  I’ve just counted them, and there are 73.  Such a lot of money spent… and on items that in truth I have hardly used!

Then I shall go onto the Bodleian.  The medieval Greek commentaries made up of patristic quotes were largely printed in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are themselves hard to find now.  They have one which I have never been able to access, and which contains some fragments of Eusebius.  The Bodleian can be hard to deal with; I hope that they will supply me with reproductions of the pages without charging obscene prices.

I shall visit my old college, and go and sit in the gardens at a wall seat where Tolkien used to sit and where we sometimes had bible studies when I was there.  It was 1983 when I left, and somehow this is more than 25 years ago!  Those unlined young faces that I see in memory now have children of their own, and where are they all now, that jolly company?  I remember sunlight in the gardens as if it was yesterday.  I remember playing croquet on the lawn, all unawares that such things would come to an end and a life much less agreeable follow.  I remember sitting in my room overlooking St. Albans Quad — how I remember that room! — and listening to voices rehearsing a production of the Wizard of Oz in the gardens; and playing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on my HiFi, which I had obtained by pure coincidence at the same time. 

I shall walk down the High street, and into Cornmarket.  But however hard I look, I will not see the faces of friends; everyone will be a stranger.  It will be like taking a time-machine to your own past; everything is the same as you remember, but you no longer belong.  For we are all gone, the Grecians of my day, gone to other things, to pay bills and walk the treadmill of life.  In the streets will be a new generation, as heedless as we; and they too will pass away as we have done.  Sic transit gloria mundi.