One thing I particularly enjoyed about life at Heythrop was the fact that we were soon overtaken by some of the second-year novices we thought we had left behind at Manresa. They were more mature than any of us, after having tasted something of the world, at least in the armed services, and so they were allowed to by-pass the juniorate and to join us in our three-year course of scholastic philosophy. None of my junior companions, having come straight from Jesuit schools, were much interested in philosophy, and many of them were Town Mice, little relishing life in the countryside. But I was not only a Country Mouse, like William Shakespeare, but very interested in philosophy. So, when it came to afternoon walks, I left my junior companions to amuse themselves in more practical pursuits in the woods round the College, while I chose one or other of the older men to go for walks and talks on philosophical subjects in the surrounding countryside. Once a week we had a whole day for such outings, and then we would bring pots and pans with food for cooking and eating beside a brook. Then, on my return home, I found I could remember every topic that had come up in the course of our conversation, and I would write it all down – and what I wrote I still have with me as a treasured possession.
This leads me to mention an important fact in my past experience of life that I have hitherto left unmentioned. It was in my last game of rugby at school, when I was trying to tackle another boy with the ball. Then instead of tackling him properly round the hips, I tackled him round the knees, and so I was struck in the eye by his heel. When I stood up and opened my eye, I saw everything in the world upside down, if for a second or two. So I had to go to a local eye doctor, and so I was recommended to wear spectacles for reading. This was all right for the noviceship, when we had little time for study, but not for the juniorate, when we returned to our studies. Then instead of reading, I would go to some scenic spot in the grounds for thinking. Such a spot was a little hill near the College, on which was situated what we called the Rock Chapel, with a spectacular view over the Vale of Clwyd. There was no such spot, so far as I remember, at Manresa. But at Heythrop I would sit on a chair in a lawn of daisies, surrounded by yew trees.
This was also how I attended our lectures on philosophy. Of course, I took notes at the time, but then, instead of following them up with further reading, I would write them up in my own way, with my personal comments to what the teacher had been saying, so as to make his words my own. Not everything he said was worth preserving, as I preserved the conversations I had while walking and talking. But there was one notable exception, and that was the course of lectures on the History of Philosophy given by Fr Copleston, which covered the first two years of philosophy – though he wasn’t our only lecturer. Later, when I came to read the best-selling book entitled Sophie’s World, I thought how inferior were the lectures given to poor Sophie in contrast to those we received from Fr Copleston. Yet in class his manner was so dull and off-putting. It was only when I came to write up his lectures in my room that I realized how interesting they were. Then we could discuss what he had said in our subsequent walks and talks. And then on two occasions he had been invited by the BBC to engage in broadcast talks with Bertrand Russell and AJ Ayer, both of them famous names in the world of logic. We gathered in one of our classrooms to listen to them on the radio, and while we were listening, in came Fr Copleston himself, to our warm applause. For poor Russell we felt so sorry. In his Jesuit adversary he seemed to have met more than his match, but Ayer gave as good as he got.
In the course of our walks in the surrounding countryside I would notice many kinds of wild flower growing by the path along which we were walking. So I would pick them up and on our return home put them on a ledge beneath a certain window called Botany Bay, for due identification. Subsequently, in view of my evident interest in these flowers, I was myself chosen as identifier. And then, during the months of May and June, when most wild flowers appear in the English countryside, I found I had identified no fewer than two hundred such flowers, many of them put on the ledge by myself. Of course many of these flowers found their way into our philosophical conversations, imparting to them a practical edge, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s own experience as (in the Baconian expression) “the country boy from Stratford”. Such is the experience he puts into the mouth of the exiled duke in the Forest of Arden, “This our life exempt from public haunt/ Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,/ Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
All this time, needless to say, my father continued sending me his weekly letters, and this time, instead of sacrificing them in what Hopkins called “a massacre of the innocents”, I kept them till he died in 1972. Then from them I typed out passages of general interest, partly to send to my mother for her widowed consolation, partly for the benefit of my Japanese students, to give them an idea of a typical English family. The little book in which I published them I came to regard as the best book I had ever published, with my own commentary interspersed with extracts from his letters. In particular, in response to my own letters about scholastic philosophy, he would retail his own “philosophy of bears” for the winter and his sympathy with the bears in their habit of hibernation. As for the spring and summer, he had an appropriate philosophy of gardens, with emphasis on the fruit trees, the birds that were always eating the fruit before he could retrieve it for the family, and even the little ants. He would describe all these things in the garden, as well as the various events in the family, with eyes of wonder and affection. Only, when it came to cats, he could hardly sympathize with them in his concern for the safety of the birds.
To return to Heythrop College (as it was now named, after the former Heythrop House), I find I have omitted any mention of the house itself or the wide grounds in which it was set. Originally it had been built in the classical style during the eighteenth century for the then Earl of Shrewsbury. Then it was quite the most impressive “stately home” in the county of Oxfordshire, rivalled only by the residence of the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace in the town of Woodstock – half-way between Heythrop and Oxford. From the village of Enstone there was a long, winding drive leading up to the mansion, which was flanked by two modern additions over the former stables. On the right was the theologians’ wing, and on the left was the philosophers’ wing, while the old mansion in the centre was for the staff from the Rector downwards. There were two chapels, the larger to the right for the main community and the theologians, and the smaller to the left for the philosophers. As one entered by the stately portals, one came upon a vast hall, which was sometimes used for special lectures, and a sweeping staircase going up to the second floor. There was a story making the rounds on our arrival, that when the plans for the new additions to the building had been laid before the then Father General, a Pole named Fr Ledochowski, he noted that there were no lavatories included on either side, and so he commented in the famous words of Pope St Gregory the Great, “Non sunt Angli sed Angeli,” They aren’t English but Angels!
In front of the mansion, but just outside the main grounds, was the place reserved from time immemorial for the meeting of the Heythrop Hunt – with the huntsmen on their horses, wearing not the customary red but green, with all their dogs. It was a magnificent sight for the start of the hunt, but once they had ridden off we had no idea of where they were going. No doubt they had no idea either, as it depended on the fox, once they caught sight of him. Anyhow, from the mansion there extended a straight avenue of horse chestnut trees (appropriate to the huntsmen’s horses) and to the right we had our cricket ground, which was kept smooth and well manured by the sheep we occasionally allowed to come on the pitch. To the left there was also a golf course, which was the preserve of the theologians, but we philosophers might join them on days of “fusion”, when our two communities were allowed to mix freely together on great feasts. There was also a swimming bath, which we used in the summer. In the winter, when it froze over, only one or two thick-skinned philosophers would brave the cold and break the ice for a swim.
Then there were the more extensive grounds in which we had a hut for those who wished to spend the weekly day off working in the woods. One year – I think it was my third year – I volunteered to act as cook, following recipes sent to me by my mother. Apart from boiling the water for tea, and cooking bacon and eggs, my main task was to prepare the potatoes. They had to be peeled, then cut into slices, and put into a large pot with water just