The wonderful Michael Kidson, who taught me History, had the uncanny knack of knowing when I was giving less than 100%, which, being a grumpy teenager, was just about the whole time. By penalizing me horribly for essays that were nearly very good, but where he had worked out that I had taken short-cuts, he unwittingly made sure that I would spend the rest of my life writing as well as I possibly could.
In one of my last one-on-one sessions with him, I asked him what he thought I should look to do with my career, more out of politeness than because I thought he had any particular insight.
‘Become a librarian,’ he said after giving the matter a good deal of thought. ‘Because then you would actually have to learn to shut up.’ Before I had time to make a come-back, he added cheerfully: ‘Or become a club bore. That way you would be enjoying the two things that you really seem to love- alcohol and the sound of your own voice.’
In being slightly unfair to him- (no adult had a more positive or durable effect on my teenage years than he did)- I hope that I am accurately reflecting what an important weapon surgically directed sarcasm was in the days before teachers were required to find good in everyone and everything, even when none existed. Above all, I wish that he had not died, partly because he was my hero, and partly because a reason to call him pinged into my inbox at 15.57 this afternoon.
It was an invitation to go on a cruise ship as the guest speaker and wildlife guide next May. In other words, to be paid to be doing the things I still most enjoy: being among seabirds, eating prodigiously wonderful seafood meals, and talking. Yes, talking, and being paid to do so. In my nearly sixty-one years on this planet, the only invitations that could possibly mean more would be a call from Chris Silverwood asking if I was available to prop up England’s creaking middle order against the New Zealeanders, or a call from Dominic Cummings saying: ‘You’re right. I’m completely useless; you have a go.’ Actually, forget that last one.
By my age, you should have learned to take these things in your stride, to treat the two imposters of triumph and disaster just the same, in Kipling’s words. But to do so would be to downplay and dilute the general ghastliness of our Covid world, and the only honest reaction is to say how incredibly thrilled and excited I am. The one thing that the company concerned can absolutely rely on is the effort that I will put in to getting it right for their customers, and interesting, and just about accurate.
Next to helping explain to the current occupant of the White House that the inconvenient bit about democracy means if you lose, you go, it is probably one of the more harmless things I can do, as well.
‘Morgan-Grenville’, said Michael Kidson in one his tour de force reports which both delighted and appalled my parents, ‘has an enviable disregard for evidence, and a fine knack of creating strong opinions out of a fact vacuum.’
Not any more, he doesn’t.
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