HILDISH misunderstandings can be persistent. I once persuaded Hugh Trevor-Roper to return to his old school to talk to the boys. Mellowed by common-room port, he confessed that a line in the school song defeated him: “I know many old men,” he explained, “who prefer the country to the town.” At 12 years old, he had mistaken the Latin anthem’s reference to what was originally a dual foundation — an urban hospice for the elderly and
