Mr Nice: an autobiography by Howard Marks Read Free Book Online Page B

there was no overlap whatsoever between girls who studied and girls who would ‘do it’. The ones that ‘did it’ would invariably be girls who had left school as soon as they could, and they would tend to work in Woolworth’s, betting shops, or factories. Consequently, my first sexual liaisons in Oxford were initiated in the Cornmarket Woolworth’s store and the odd street encounter. Most of the latter seemed to be with foreign students attending nursing and secretarial colleges. The illusion of British blue-stocking celibacy became further entrenched.
    Halfway through my first term a notice appeared in the Porter’s Lodge at Balliol College announcing: ‘The following gentlemen will read essays to the Master on … The subject will be “The Population Problem”.’ My name then followed along with six others whose surnames also began with L, M, or N. I was not aware there was a population problem. About a week’s notice was given, and I was very nervous. I hurriedly withdrew some books from the college library, and shamelessly copied huge chunks. Someone informed me that Sir David Lindsay Keir, Master of Balliol, used these essay readings to determine how well freshmen could hold their sherry. This gave me some comfort.
    Fortunately, I was not one of the three gentlemen chosen to read an essay. I drank an enormous amount of sherry and had a long conversation with Sir David about the origins ofthe Welsh language and its grammatical peculiarities. He was of the belief that Welsh was a purely Celtic language with grammatical features akin to those of Gaelic and Breton. I, on the other hand, steadfastly maintained that the aboriginal Welsh was pre-Celtic with unique grammatical oddities such as the regulated mutations of the beginnings of nouns. A few weeks later, he told me that I might have been right. Sir David had not, up to the time of our conversation, been aware of the admittedly disputed fact that America had been discovered in AD 1170 by Prince Madoc ab Owain Gwynnedd, whose followers bequeathed elements of the Welsh language to the Padoucas Indians. Keeping my sherry glass full, Sir David listened with polite interest to my detailed account of this esoteric history.
    Also present at this essay reading (or, in my case, non-essay reading) were freshmen John Minford and Hamilton McMillan, each of whom had a very significant effect on my life. John Minford was immediately convinced that I was a talented actor and persuaded me to join the Balliol Dramatic Society. Hamilton McMillan, years later, was convinced that I would make a talented espionage agent and persuaded me to work for MI6. It is strange to think that had my surname not begun with M, I would have suffered neither the glare of stage lights nor the attention of the world’s media.
    To entice me into participating in Balliol Dramatic Society activities, John Minford asked if I would be prepared to play the part of First Yob in the Balliol College/Lady Margaret Hall Christmas pantomime,
The Sleeping Beauty
. It was a small part, which consisted of uttering a few appropriate, timely obscenities and lying around looking either vaguely menacing or perversely seductive. I agreed on condition that Julian Peto be persuaded to play the part of Second Yob.
    My membership of the Balliol Dramatic Society led to my befriending other members, and I soon became adopted into a group of largely second-year Balliol undergraduates, oftenreferred to as ‘The Establishment’. These included Rick Lambert, the current editor of the
Financial Times
, and Chris Patten, currently Governor of Hong Kong. They were all heavy drinkers and very entertaining. ‘The Establishment’ also formed the core of the Victorian Society, and I was invited to become a member. It was a strange society, to say the least, but again the main requirement was to down large amounts of drink, this time port, which I had never tried. Each member was obliged to sing a Victorian song to the audience