The Complete Yes Minister

We got to Oxford in little over an hour. The M40 is a very good road. So is the M4, come to think of it. I found myself wondering why we’ve got two really good roads to Oxford before we got any to Southampton, or Dover or Felixstowe or any of the ports.

Bernard explained that nearly all of our Permanent Secretaries were at Oxford. And most Oxford Colleges give you a good dinner.

This seemed incredible – and yet it has the ring of truth about it. ‘But did the Cabinet let them get away with this?’ I asked.

‘Oh no,’ Bernard explained. ‘They put their foot down. They said there’d be no motorway to take civil servants to dinners in Oxford unless there was a motorway to take Cabinet Ministers hunting in the Shires. That’s why when the Ml was built in the fifties it stopped in the middle of Leicestershire.’

There seemed one flaw in this argument. I pointed out that the M11 has only just been completed. ‘Don’t Cambridge colleges give you a good dinner?’

‘Of course,’ said Bernard, ‘but it’s years and years since the Department of Transport had a Permanent Secretary from Cambridge.’

[It is most interesting to compare Hacker’s account of the dinner with Sir Bernard Woolley’s recollections of the same event. First, Hacker’s version – Ed.]

The dinner itself went off perfectly.

I knew they wanted to discuss their financial problems, so when we reached the port and walnuts I decided to open up Pandora’s box, let the cat out of the bag and get the ball rolling. [Hacker never really learned to conquer his mixed metaphor problem – Ed.] So I remarked that, for a college on the edge of bankruptcy we had not had a bad little dinner. In truth, of course, we’d had a wildly extravagant banquet with four courses and three excellent wines.

The Master countered by informing me that the Fitzwalter Dinner is paid for by a specific endowment – Fitzwalter was a great sixteenth-century benefactor.

The Bursar added that most nights I’d find them eating Mother’s Pride⁷ and processed cheese.

I remarked that what they need is a twentieth-century benefactor and this innocent remark produced a long lecture on the different types of University benefactors. Isaac Wolfson, apparently, is only the third man in history to have a college named after him at Oxford and Cambridge. Jesus and St John being the first two.

‘Benefactors achieve some sort of immortality,’ said the Bursar. ‘Their names are kept alive and honoured for centuries. Sir William de Vere, whose name was inscribed on a sconce, directed a Baronial army away from Baillie in the fifteenth century – he had the soldiers quartered at St George’s College instead.’

I didn’t want to appear ignorant, but I ventured a comment that I didn’t actually know there was a St George’s College. ‘There isn’t,’ said the Bursar, ‘not any more.’

We all chuckled.

Then the Bursar told me about Henry Monkton.

‘The MonktonQuad is named after him. He stopped Cromwell from melting down the college silver to pay for the New Model Army.’

Humphrey added:

‘Told them that the silver was much better quality at Trinity, Cambridge.’

More chuckles all round. Then the Master pointedly remarked that it now looked as if there’d be no college left to remember these benefactors. Unless the problem of the overseas students can be solved.

They all looked at me and waited. I’m used to this kind of pressure, but naturally I wanted to help if I could. So I explained that one always tries to help and that politicians only go into politics out of a desire to help others. I explained that I’m an idealist. And, in case they were under the impression that all this talk of honouring benefactors might persuade me to help Baillie in some way, I pointed out that any honour is irrelevant to me – after all, there’s not much point in having your name on a silver sconce when you’re six feet under.

Humphrey changed the conversation abruptly at that moment, and started asking when the University awards its honorary doctorates. The Master said that the ceremony isn’t for a few months but the Senate makes its final selection in a matter of weeks.

I don’t think that it was entirely coincidental that Humphrey mentioned this matter at this juncture.