What an extraordinary world we live in
where, if you save up some money, you can do something that past
generations could only dream of: living and studying (if only for a
week) at Christ Church, Oxford. Remember Hardy's Jude, never destined
to fulfill his dream. Christ Church has been running Summer Schools
for twenty-four years and I'm staggered to hear that one lady has
attended all twenty-four events! I was in a minority being a first
time participant. Some people stay for two or even three weeks doing
different courses. I can see that not everyone in the world is broke
yet.
So what did I expect of an Oxford
Summer School? I made the mistake of thinking that it may not be too
serious: a lecture, lunch, an outing, a film, all pretty relaxed I
thought. Wrong.
I arrived on Sunday just before lunch
at Tom Gate where everyone who studies at Christ Church likewise
arrives. A constant flow of people were being disgorged from taxis
and flowing in under the famous Tom Tower, designed by Christopher
Wren (think St Paul's Cathedral) that houses the Christ Church bell,
Big Tom. A gent in the regulation bowler hat was directing this
stream of students to the registration table to collect our name
badges (to be worn at all times lest we be mistaken for a common
visitor). We were assigned a porter to conduct us to our quarters and
lug all our stuff. My porter was a pleasant young chap named Nat
(student earning a quid during the hols) who lugged my bike bag and
sports bag up the sixty-seven steps to my room on the top floor of
Peckwater Quad! He was gasping a bit when he got there, need to work
on that aerobic fitness Nat. That goes for me too, I was gasping just
carrying the lighter bags.
Peck Quad, as it is known by Ch Ch set,
was opened in 1707 and must has housed many subsequently famous
persons. Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) and two of his
brothers lived in Peck as undergraduates.
My room was huge, probably designed to
accommodate two people, and included a large desk, two small sofas, a
bar fridge, assorted chests of drawers, a bed, a coffee table, a wash
basin and lots of floor space in between. Speaking of the floors,
these had developed a decided slope over the last 300 years and books
placed carelessly on the desk had a tendency to slip quietly onto the
floor.
Lunch was served shortly after arrival
and I was disappointed to discover that a section of the ceiling in
what we all know as the 'Hogwart's Dining Room', more properly the
Hall, had collapsed. Men were busy with scaffolding in the hope of
having it propped up by dinner time!
A delightful lunch on a terrace
overlooking part of the grounds set the scene for what was to be a
week of gourmet meals three times a day. I'm sure the regular
students don't enjoy such a cordon bleu menu. The only complaints I
heard all week were to do with expanding waistlines.
A free afternoon allowed everyone to
settle in. I took the opportunity to unpack my bike and cycle along
the Thames (known as the Isis in Oxford circles) to Iffley Lock where
narrow boats were coming and going along the river, transferring from
one level to the other via the lock.
After dinner in the magnificent Hall
(complete with scaffolding), we met our tutor and tutor groups for
the first time. The courses on offer were many and varied: Elgar's
Music, Stonehenge, the Wars of the Roses, Jane Austen's novels, the
Art of Toulouse Lautrec, the Music of the Beetles plus others I can't
remember at the moment. The course my group was doing was 'Alice's
Adventures in Oxford' and our tutor, Edward Wakeling, is a world
expert on all things 'Alice'.
A brief summary for those not familiar
with the background of the 'Alice' stories: Alice was the daughter of
the Dean of Christ Church, Charles Liddell, and Charles Dodgson was a
professor of mathematics at the college. He wrote the the first book,
which when published became 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', for
Alice Liddell after he and a friend took Alice and her sisters on a
boating trip on the Thames when she was about ten years old. He told
them the story to entertain them on the long trip for a picnic at Godstow, up river from Oxford. On their return she asked if he would
write it down for her, which he eventually did. He worked for several
years on the little hand-written and illustrated book he called
'Alice's Adventures Underground' and presented it to Alice. It was to
prove a generous gift when later in life Alice sold it for a
considerable sum.
Our group when assembled totalled
eleven in number and I would say, in terms of nationality, fairly
representative of the participants in the 'Oxford Experience', as the
summer school is known. There were five Americans (one of them a
man), two Germans, one Canadian, one Brit and two Australians
(including myself). There were some French in other courses a
smattering of Dutch and a very few Asians. Eight out of the eleven in
our group were teachers of literature and university professors, one
was a retired nurse, one worked in charity administration and then
there was me. After we'd all introduced ourselves and been given an
outline of the course, our tutor took us down the road to the 'Head
of the River' pub where we continued our getting-to-know-you session.
We met for our first lecture on Monday
morning at 9.15 and discovered that this was not going to be a
doddle. Edward calmly informed us that we would be delivering a seven
minute talk on some aspect of Charles Dodgson's life the very next
morning! And another one on Friday morning! So, you see, we weren't
just swanning around.
Each morning we attended our class,
some afternoons we were free to explore the town or work on those
research projects. On Tuesday afternoon we had a tour of the 'Alice
related' places around Christ Church. The stained glass in the Hall
was replaced in the 1930s and one window is devoted to the 'Alice'
story: a cameo of the real Alice and one of Charles Dodgson, images
of Alice and friends from the book, the Dodo, the March Hare, the
Hatter.
We were privileged to be allowed to visit the Deanery in Tom
Quad where Alice and her family lived. The wife of the current Dean
welcomed us into her home and garden where we say the ancient
chestnut tree that inspired the Cheshire Cat's tree, the door in the
garden wall that featured in the book as the door Alice was trying to
open with the golden key, and we saw the day nursery, overlooking the
clock tower in Tom Quad, where Alice and her sisters had their
lessons and played with their toys.
An excursion on Thursday afternoon, in
the warm sunny weather we had enjoyed all week, took us to Godstow
where the picnickers went on the 4th July, 1862 and
started the 'Alice' phenomenon. From there we moved on to Binsey to
the little church of St Margaret of Antioch, an ancient 12th century, Grade 1 listed building. In the churchyard there is a holy
well, the mud of which was thought to have healing powers and was the inspiration for the Treacle Well in the 'Alice' story. We gathered on one
side the well to perform a little play of the Hatter's Tea Party
(another of our tutor's bright ideas). One of the Americans, quite a
character, had visited the 'Alice Shop' over the road from Christ
Church and bought masks for us. I was to play Alice, she was the
Hatter, a young Canadian lass was the March Hare and one of the
German women made a perfect Dormouse. Our narrator was an American
professor from the South who tries to modify her drawl when away from
home!
The rest of the group were the audience
and they sat on the grass on the other side of the well and watched
us making fools of ourselves in our masks. I discovered that it's
quite difficult to read a script through the eye holes of a cardboard
mask!
Our evenings included a game of croquet
on the Masters' Lawn with a glass of champagne in one hand and a
mallet in the other, a puzzles night and two 'Alice related' film
nights.
And thus the week passed, full of
friendly people, good food and enjoyable study. The formal end to the
week was on Friday night when we were treated to a champagne
reception on the Cathedral Lawn and a formal four-course dinner in
that wonderful Hall, watched over by portraits of Christ Church
people dating back to Henry VIII. Truly, a week to remember.
