College Record 2013
Adventures of an Oxford Househusband by Alan Mendelson (MCR 1973-76, VF 1989-90). Since I had promised to follow my wife where’er she should go, when she became a graduate student at Wolfson in 1973, I became an official resident of the United Kingdom. One of my rights was that I was entitled to work. Before going to Oxford, I had been calmly assured that finding work would be easy. Following the advice given me – free advice being worth what you pay for it – I faithfully read all the academic ads in the newspapers. I applied for posts in far-flung places, but to no avail. I must admit that I did not apply to Belfast. This was during the Troubles and, although I was desperate, I was no fool. I didn’t think of going to a head-hunter, if such animals existed in England at the time. I am sure they wouldn’t have been interested. An American with a doctorate in the History of Culture? A doctorate in what-did-you-say? The concept of History of Culture didn’t even translate into English English. Since one had to retain a certain academic respectability, I decided to study Greek (not for the first time). My teacher was a charming and generous Welshman, and we met in his ‘rooms’ in Jesus College. Actually he had only one chilly room with a three-bar electric heater he was loath to use, even on the coldest day. It is still a mystery to me why such a place was referred to in the plural, but I suspect, like many other things in Oxford, this usage goes back to something in the seventeenth century. The Welshman was a firm believer in the efficacy of body heat to warm his allotted space. And he was right. By the end of the session we were just shivering, not chattering. One other salient fact about our teacher: his hobby was collecting ancient (and very expensive) silver Greek coins he would buy at auction. Athenian coins with the owl of Minerva and Syracusan coins with marvellous leaping dolphins were some of the treasures he showed us. Being a genuine collector and slightly eccentric, he would tell us that these coins were gifts for his wife. It is not recorded how she felt about the coins he bestowed upon her. I can only hope that she loved Greek coins half as much as he did. We met to study Greek about three times a week; my humiliation was constant. My classmates had begun their Greek and Latin studies shortly after they were weaned 123
so, with a little gentle prodding, they could recollect what they once knew by heart. I was not so lucky. My Greek was no better than my Latin or my Yiddish for that matter. That is, they were all on life-support. What I needed was a room of my own where I could study. I found such a place in the attic of the house which Sara and I shared with nine other students at 10 Chadlington Road. If I am not mistaken, after renovations, various Presidents of Wolfson have lived in this house. I would be willing to wager that not one of them knew that an American once used a cupboard in their attic to study Greek. It was no larger than an isolation cell at Alcatraz but, at the time, it was heaven. A year passed, my Greek improved, and I finally found a job. My employer was none other than Wolfson College; I was allowed to be a night porter. In the Americas, a porter might have to carry something heavy. To my relief, at Wolfson a night porter didn’t carry anything heavier than a letter or a key. This was good. One of my jobs was to sell laundry detergent: 3p for one cup (rounded down from 3.4p a cup). But if you bought two cups you would be charged 7p (rounded up from 6.8p a cup), unless of course you bought the cups separately, in which case the total amount owed would be 6p. If this confuses you, just think how I felt when I tried to explain the economics of soap-selling to various Rhodes Scholars and their spouses. I once dealt with an emergency. A distinguished Israeli academic (whose magnificent lectures on the period between the two World Wars I had actually heard in Jerusalem) had put his electric kettle on his electric stove and had turned everything on. The smell of burning plastic filled his apartment. There was black smoke. I defused the emergency by turning everything off and removing his melting kettle. I left it to him to explain to the Domestic Bursar the next day how he had managed to set his kettle and his stove on fire at the same time. A night porter, after all, is not an engineer or a solicitor. For my labours, I received about 75p an hour, the equivalent of maybe twenty cups of laundry detergent, depending on how you count. There were, however, fringe benefits. Once I got to stand in the lift with a young Emanuel Ax, who was about to give a recital. Sara, who is an excellent amateur pianist, claimed that Ax played too loud. ‘He’s a real banger’, she concluded. Maybe she was right on that particular evening in that particular hall, which had not been built with acoustics in mind. 124
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Adventures of an Oxford Househusband<br />
by Alan Mendelson (MCR 1973-76, VF 1989-90).<br />
Since I had promised to follow my wife where’er she should go, when she became<br />
a graduate student at Wolfson in 1973, I became an official resident of the United<br />
Kingdom. One of my rights was that I was entitled to work. Before going to Oxford,<br />
I had been calmly assured that finding work would be easy. Following the advice<br />
given me – free advice being worth what you pay for it – I faithfully read all the<br />
academic ads in the newspapers.<br />
I applied for posts in far-flung places, but to no avail. I must admit that I did not<br />
apply to Belfast. This was during the Troubles and, although I was desperate, I was<br />
no fool. I didn’t think of going to a head-hunter, if such animals existed in England<br />
at the time. I am sure they wouldn’t have been interested. An American with a<br />
doctorate in the History of Culture? A doctorate in what-did-you-say? The concept<br />
of History of Culture didn’t even translate into English English.<br />
Since one had to retain a certain academic respectability, I decided to study Greek<br />
(not for the first time). My teacher was a charming and generous Welshman, and<br />
we met in his ‘rooms’ in Jesus <strong>College</strong>. Actually he had only one chilly room with<br />
a three-bar electric heater he was loath to use, even on the coldest day. It is still a<br />
mystery to me why such a place was referred to in the plural, but I suspect, like<br />
many other things in Oxford, this usage goes back to something in the seventeenth<br />
century. The Welshman was a firm believer in the efficacy of body heat to warm his<br />
allotted space. And he was right. By the end of the session we were just shivering,<br />
not chattering.<br />
One other salient fact about our teacher: his hobby was collecting ancient (and very<br />
expensive) silver Greek coins he would buy at auction. Athenian coins with the owl<br />
of Minerva and Syracusan coins with marvellous leaping dolphins were some of the<br />
treasures he showed us. Being a genuine collector and slightly eccentric, he would<br />
tell us that these coins were gifts for his wife. It is not recorded how she felt about<br />
the coins he bestowed upon her. I can only hope that she loved Greek coins half as<br />
much as he did.<br />
We met to study Greek about three times a week; my humiliation was constant. My<br />
classmates had begun their Greek and Latin studies shortly after they were weaned<br />
123
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