SOME TIME IN THE SPRING OF 1966 the dean of University College, Oxford sidled up to me in the quadrangle and began to mutter. He was called Tony Firth and he had a very distinctive and widely imitated style: a slight figure, head on one side, given to muttering and much use of the double negative. He appeared to be addressing me on the subject of Alpine weather, chuckling that “it’s not impossible that the cloud can descend for three days and then you’ll jolly well have to read a book”.
I’m not sure when I worked out what this conversation was about, but I eventually understood that I was being offered membership of an exclusive club, the . Ever since 1891 Oxford undergraduates as well as fellows and graduated members of its colleges had been invited to form “reading parties” in a chalet high on the slopes.
