The don who embodies Oxford

Sir John Betjeman gripped the sword and, with great gusto, sliced through the marzipan towers of Battersea power station. The party, nearly 30 years ago, was for the launch of ‘Temples of Power’, Glyn Boyd Harte’s delicious compendium of unusual industrial paintings.

Such memorable occasions are not so unusual in the life of Jeremy Catto. He is the quintessential Oxford don — his portrait by Boyd Harte shows him in black tie and plimsolls, with his left foot shooting out of the frame. I can’t detect Jeremy anywhere in his friend Alan Hollinghurst’s novels, but if one were to devour C.P. Snow, Goodbye Mr Chips and Porterhouse Blue, there is a smattering of Catto in each.

This month the cruel dictates of age will force him to retire from Oriel College. Oxford undergraduates, past and present, want to storm the Bodleian to prevent it.

With university lecturers having so recently threatened to strike (‘Not so much red brick as breeze block’, some might say) and with even Oxbridge becoming more uniform and systematised, the example of Jeremy Catto is a powerful antidote to the modern transformation of our universities. Some dons become pundits and take to television; others forsake collegiate life and bicycle home every evening to north Oxford. Jeremy Catto, in contrast, is the focal point of college life and has devoted everything to the pastoral care of his charges. Rather like Fagin to the Artful Dodger, a tutorial might end with ‘Now shut up and drink your gin.’

‘Cousin Stephen’ was governor of the Bank of England and a scion of Morgan Grenfell. Jeremy, on the other hand, enjoyed no such riches. His father had for a time managed a rubber plantation in Malaya, and his schooling in Northumberland, where he befriended the young Bryan Ferry, took him by sheer merit to Balliol. His contemporaries included Chris Patten, now Oxford’s Chancellor, whose time in the Cabinet prompted many a Cattoesque quip about the lack of spine around the Great Lady.

Anyone wanting to read mediaeval history will naturally gravitate to Oriel. The subject comes alive in Catto’s tutorials and no undergraduate emerges from three years there unappreciative of what it means to know how to think. The first two volumes of the mammoth History of the University of Oxford bear his name, and his lasting friendship with the late Hugh Trevor-Roper saw a powerful, sometimes hilarious axis in the incessant scheming of university politics.

Jeremy embodies the best virtues of the best teacher. He delights in quoting Harold Macmillan, who said, ‘All Oxford need teach you is to know when someone is talking rot.’ His approach is one of profound intellectual rigour combined with a broader appreciation of society, conversation and personality. ‘The best bankers are historians, not economists. They know how to think strategically.’

Thus has Jeremy Catto always been a constant influence in other parts of university life. As a senior officer of the Oxford Union for 30 years he has steered countless ambitious students to greater things. ‘Well, Alan. I’ve pointed out to William Hague here that Pitt was already prime minister by 21.’ ‘Thank you — and bugger Pitt.’

Those who enjoyed drinking claret and hearing a weekly paper from one of their number would be invited to join the Canning. It was entirely natural that it would continue in Jeremy’s rooms late into the evening, rarely without some former student, now a figure of great influence somewhere, phoning for a chat above the din.

His network of friends is unbeatable, both for its variety and for its affectionate loyalty. One such is Sir David Manning, our man in Washington, a former pupil whose career Jeremy has followed with growing delight. ‘I’ve stayed in every embassy he’s ever been posted to. I like it when my pupils run the world.’ Twenty years ago, on a flight to Singapore to visit another, he caused consternation by changing into his pyjamas. ‘But it’s bedtime....’

Never censorious of anyone’s politics, he takes pleasure in everyone’s success. Where so many of the Left will sneeringly put down a youngster whose politics they don’t share, such an attitude is unthinkable to Catto. ‘Now, I hope you’re never rude across the Chamber to that nice Paul Murphy.’ A Labour MP he may be, but no one may insult an Oriel man.

There are limits to his talents. He can’t sing, and if ‘donnish’ can mean ‘erratic’, then it accurately describes his driving. Only through Jeremy can one make a new friend while suppressing giggles in chapel during his rendition of ‘O God, our help in ages past’.

Be he at high table, in the Garrick or in the Greek taverna in Summertown, he is a master of conversation. ‘Remember — all white wine is non-alcoholic.’ His private language is like a passport to humour for all who now adopt it. ‘Ah! You wicked old thing. What deep gigglette and shriekino.’

If there are no more dons like Jeremy Catto, where are our universities heading? The insatiable thirst for firsts risks narrowing the purpose and benefits of a university education. Too many professors and tutors look on extracurricular activity with undisguised scorn. But a university education should be the most potent of all civilising experiences. Library slaves who know little else of the world will not make their best contribution to its improvement. University life is not just a knowledge machine: it should build characters and confident opinions.

If any university, especially Oxford, intends to draw on the financial generosity of its alumni, it will need to pay careful attention to what they think of the institution they once attended. Oriel’s successful endowments over the last few years are in no small part down to the admiration donors have for Catto.

Jeremy Catto embodies the true idea of a university. His retirement marks the end of one of the most constant influences in Oxford life. It should also mark the start of some serious questioning about what an Oxford education — or one at any university — should entail. His many admirers are a worldly bunch. When they gather in college to honour him at the end of June, I would not like to be the Dean who has to contain their unrestrained cheers for this don of all dons.