All Souls is, in my opinion, the most attractive college in the city of
Oxford. The old library is a stunning room, wooded, arched, filigreed
and guilded. I once went there to listen to a lecture on the life of
one of the most famous scientists that Britain has ever produced. I was
not alone; the young academic presenter had filled the room with people
interested in her discourse on the life of Isaac Newton. Her lecture
was very interesting. She gave us an insight into a man who most of us
picture sitting under an apple tree on a sunny days wondering why the
apples fall down rather than up; a man absorbed in science and quite
divorced from real life; a man who spent most of his life in his
laboratory surrounded by lenses, prisms, astrolabes and, of course,
mountains of books. The young academic’s research gave us an
entirely different picture. He was apparently the first of the
publicity-seeking breed of scientists, a breed that has grown
phenomenally since his day. The lecture ended and we applauded,
politely and reservedly, as befitted the surroundings. The first
question came from a youthful and handsome academic, the lecturer
clearly knew him. He produced the usual scholastic pregnancy by
uttering a series of vague noises and then adopting a false stutter.
Having ensured everyone’s attention, he then turned his gaze
towards the eager presenter.
"What colour were Newton’s eyes?" he asked forcibly, the
stutter forgotten.
It was as if our lecturer had suffered a direct hit. The wind was taken
out of her sails. She now began to stutter. She clearly did not know
the answer, and finally responded by asking her interrogator if the
colour of Newton’s eyes was important. He simply shrugged:
the
damage was done. Peer review can be bloody spectacle.
We do know the eye colour of our three rogues. Because of his very
successful acting career, we have one of the greatest collections ever
of films and photographs of Richard Burton the actor - his eyes are a
piercing blue. Howard Marks’ main claim to fame is as a
cannabis
smuggler, he is still alive so we can look into his eyes - they are
blue, an unremarkable blue. Sir Richard Burton, famous for a number of
things but probably most well remembered for his great explorations,
lived in the Victorian era, before the days of colour photography - but
it matters not because his eyes were very noticeable and observed by
many. Isabel, his wife-to-be, once described them as large black and
wondrous. Most people described them as black, and they are painted so
in the portraitures that survive.
Eyes are more easily described than the rest of a man. All three of the
rogues could be described as handsome. Both Richard the actor and
Howard the smuggler were definitely attractive to women – and
very much attracted by them. Richard’s appearance is likely
to be
the most well-known, and the most exposed – he appeared in a
number of films dressed only in a toga and possessed the legs to carry
the parts off. He was ruggedly handsome, though certainly not of the
Arnold Schwarzenegger mode. He had very definite features, a
well-defined chin and pockmarked cheeks; his face took on a very
definite cragginess as age took its toll. His hair was dark and a
little curly. One of his defining physical features was his voice, a
voice that, through his many films and recordings, can still thrill a
listener with its resonant precision and lyrical cadencing.
Howard Marks is not so obviously good looking. He has a long face,
rather pronounced lips, an easy smile and puppy dog eyes. He has an
indulgent look, which is pretty much in line with, though not entirely
suggested by, his lifestyle. He usually wears his hair long; it is dark
and fairly straight. He has been described as having the voice of
Richard Burton and the appearance of a Rolling Stone.
Sir Richard Burton was well developed up top. His shoulders and chest
were broad, possibly as a result of a dedication to sword practice in
his early life - and it was through his attachment to combative sports
that he earned the nickname "Ruffian Dick". His facial appearance was
daunting, due, in part, to a dreadful scar inflicted by a spear on one
of his escapades in Africa. He had a proud mouth, enhanced by a
curiously cultivated beard and moustache. His hair had a ginger tinge
and was kept short.
All three men were "dressers," in the sense that they certainly were
interested in, and carefully selected, what they wore. They were also
somewhat unconventional in their clothing: from the white suit of Sir
Richard Burton to the "something red for Wales" of Richard Burton, to
the flamboyance of Howard Marks’ hippy phase.
Does this physical information help to ascertain or determine character
or personality? Not a lot, but it helps to get us a little closer to
three men who are all already well known. It also helps us to
distinguish between the two Richards, often confused since they share a
name. In this book I will try to avoid any confusion between them by
referring to Sir Richard Burton, the explorer, as Burton and to Richard
Burton, the actor, as Richard. The labels are approriate.
Were they all rogues? Perhaps - but only in the nicest sense; as in a
fun-loving, mischievous person, or someone who is pleasantly
mischievous or frolicsome. Certainly not in the more evil
interpretations: a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel, a rascal; or the
older meaning of rogue - a wandering beggar or tramp, a vagabond. The
phrase "rogues and vagabonds" has apparently been applied to a large
class of wandering, disorderly, or dissolute persons. They were
formerly punished by "being whipped and having the gristle of the right
ear bored with a hot iron."
So, yes, Burton, Richard and Howard were, or are, rogues, but nice
rogues, with the gristle of their right ears entirely intact. However
they have all been guilty of some conduct that could be regarded as
wandering, disorderly and dissolute - though not usually at the same
time.
The span of the three rogues' lives reaches from the present day back
to the early 1800s. Their lives can be briefly summarised by breaking
them down into epochs and major events. The epochs of Burton Victorian
life are: student, soldier, explorer, diplomat and translator
–
the major events are the attainment of goals such as his march to Lake
Tanganyika, and these events are usually marked by the publication of a
book. Richard's life began in the years of depression and ended in the
year made famous by George Orwell - 1984. The epochs of his life are
more mundane than his namesake's: student, airman, actor –
the
latter stage of his life broken up into mini-epochs by his four
marriages, and the major events are clearly established by the release
of his many films. Howard Marks’ life began as the Second
World
War ended and he is still with us. His epochs are: student, dabbler,
dealer, distributor, smuggler – the last is the major phase
and
can be divided up into four, each punctuated by an arrest; the major
events are the various large shipments of cannabis that he arranged.
The social skills and background of each man differ considerably.
Burton was born into the upper middle class. In later life he slipped
effortlessly into association with the dissolute upper classes and
deliberately shocked the stricter Victorians. It is unlikely that he
would have mixed well with the lower classes, except as an
anthropological observer - noting their behaviour just as he noted the
behaviour of African and Indian tribes. He liked the rare and expensive
things in life. He was always short of money, but did not let that
deter him from spending up to and beyond the limit. Richard was very
different in this respect, he was a working class man at heart and by
birth; his best friends were from a similar background and his tastes
remained philistine throughout his life, particularly in relation to
food. Of course he was an actor and could rise to almost any occasion,
but it is doubtful that he really was comfortable in the rarefied
company of , for example, the Windsors with whom he and Elizabeth
Taylor dined fairly regularly at one stage. Though he was impressed by
the glitter and the fact that he was eating at the table of the
aristocracy, he could not resist being critical of the fashionable set
and in the final analysis could not refrain from an outright attack on
the ruling classes. I believe that for all his reading, his refined
diction, his wealth and his sparkling milieu, he would have been
happiest playing bar billiards in a good local pub. Howard differs from
both men; he was born into the middle classes, but raised in a
predominantly working class environment. He is an adapter; someone once
called him protean. He could fit into almost any society. He was the
product of a changing age and relished the opportunities that the
sixties placed before him. He also existed in the socially compressing
world of cannabis consumption. In his early days beer, wine and
champagne had strong class associations - pot did not. Through selling
marijuana he transcended any class distinctions and happily took his
fill of beer, wine and champagne. He maintained the friendships made in
his early life but also made new ones across a wide social spectrum. It
is ironic to note that his downfall was chiefly at the hands of a
member of the aristocracy.
Hence there are well-defined differences between the three rogues - in
appearance, in social graces, in intellect and in the areas that they
chose to excel, or the areas that life chose for them. But they also
have a remarkable amount in common. I first linked them together when I
discovered that they each began their adult life at three Oxford
colleges that stand, cheek by jowl on Oxford’s Broad Street:
Balliol, Exeter and Trinity. The realisation that each had that roguish
streak to their character quickly followed this discovery. Added to
this they were, of course, famous figures - most people have heard of
at least two of them if not all three. There my bonding of this trio
could easily have ended, as a whimsical connection between three
interesting characters. But then I found more characteristics of their
lives that linked them together.
All three are, or were, masters of disguise and great travellers -
though for rather different ends: Howard for the drug trafficking,
Richard for the film sets and Burton for exploration and consular
duties. Stating that they were masters of disguise is really another
way of saying that they were all actors: well clearly Richard Burton
was, he was one of the few great actors who survived the stage, film,
TV and radio with memorable successes in all - but he was also an actor
off the stage, and so were the others. Sir Richard Burton's acting
ability is made clear in one of his many biographies, "In this [lack of
stable identity], as in his talent for mimicry and disguise, his
ability to enter into many different roles, and his powerful vocal
equipment, Burton had all the natural attributes of a first class
actor." He regularly disguised himself as an Oriental Arab - and, aided
by his enormous grasp of language, was undetected in the most intimate
of circumstances. Howard Marks appeared in a number of plays during his
Oxford days, then later went on to become Mr Nice, Mr Hughes, Mr
Presley, Mr Tunnicliffe, Mr Jennings and so on and on - in the mid
1980s it is claimed that he had forty-three aliases. On the back of his
book, entitled Mr Nice, there are a series of passport photographs
portraying Howard as smart, scruffy, bearded, clean-shaven,
long-haired, short-haired, tie and collared, open-necked. You can still
spot the puffy lips and turned-down eyes but that's because you are
looking for them - the disguises are good.
All three were drinkers, though Richard Burton must be the champion in
the art of imbibing, he once said, "I have to think hard to name an
interesting man who does not drink." Richard was sometimes known as
"Beer Burton" and became a self-confessed alcoholic in later life - the
substance that had given him so much joy in his earlier days became a
relentless monkey on his back as he matured. Sir Richard Burton also
had problems with the demon drink at various periods in his life -
particularly during his sojourn in South America. He was a heavy
drinker and was even accused of leading the poet Swinburne down alcohol
avenue. During Burton’s expedition to Mecca, he somehow
became
attached to a man in Cairo who drank formidable amounts and became
formidably adventurous and aggressive in drink. Burton could happily
cope with, and match, his friend's intake but described his subsequent
behaviour as worse than any two Welshmen he had met in Oxford. It is an
interesting comparison – one wonders whether it would have
applied to our two Welshmen – Richard and Howard. Howard
himself
was a determined drinker, in addition to his proclivity towards pot. He
loved pub life from a very early age and went on to make many useful
contacts in bars all around the world.
They were all writers to some degree: Burton's output was prodigious,
varied and highly decorated with academic references; Richard's output
was limited, but of quality; and Howard's writings are mainly
autobiographical, but still expanding. They all had frustrated academic
leanings - having left Oxford in their youth, yet taking with them a
yearning to return. Howard was back within a year, Richard returned
many times and even Burton, the least attached to his old University
for reasons that we will learn, did return, and displayed an
uncharacteristic nostalgia for what might have been.
As mentioned, two of the rogues were Welsh; they were born within a few
hours walk of each other. Two shared a name, though we will see that
one of the two Burtons adopted that surname in later life. Two of the
three rogues are now dead, but all three attended Oxford University at
a time of great change and all three became famous in later life and in
different ways. However, one of the most important links between them,
the link that gave me the incentive to devote a good period of my life
to their lives, is that they were all iconoclasts of the highest order.
They were mould breakers, though in very different times and in
different worlds. The time span covered by their lives is not
continuous but it does cover a period of great change. It takes us from
the rigorous control of the Victorian era, through the impoverished
times of the thirties, into the post war era which saw the working
class really breaking down barriers, through the maniacal hedonism and
revolutionary days of the sixties, right to the present day liberalism
which has seen the near legalisation in the UK of the drug that Howard
Marks smuggled. There is little doubt that they all, in their separate
careers, influenced the changes that have contributed to 21st century
life.
So, the three rogues of Oxford have much in common - but the anchor
that holds their lives together is the city itself. And what a city
Oxford is. It is sometimes called the golden heart of England, and when
you walk its streets on a fine spring day you know precisely why - the
stone facades of the colleges do seem to glow with an inner golden
light.
To the stranger Oxford can be puzzling, disappointing and secretive.
Many of the colleges have awesome entrances, together with notices
imperiously informing tourists that they are closed. They are
surrounded by high walls that deny the casual observer any opportunity
to glimpse what lies within. For a stranger it is easy to step outside
the golden heart of the city and find her or himself in parts of the
city that are anything but attractive, and then to rediscovers the main
thoroughfares and see them to be stunningly beautiful: the sweep of the
High Street as it rises from Magdalen College towards Carfax with the
cupola of Queen's, the spikes of All Souls, the tower of St Mary's and
the dome of the Radcliffe Camera on one's right; the extent of the
Broad with its lining of colleges and ancient shops, the courtyard that
contains the Sheldonian Theatre surrounded by its bearded figures and
graced by the Clarendon building, the Bodleian Library, the Divinity
School and Convocation House. This entire set of buildings is extremely
impressive, varied, yet balanced. Between all of this and the High
Street is Radcliffe Square, possibly the most impressive space in the
whole of Oxford: dominated by the magnificence and roundness of the
Radcliffe Camera building in its centre, it is bounded by All Souls, St
Mary’s Church, Brasenose College and Schools Quad and is, for
me,
a numinous place - a place to sit and stare and contemplate.
For the Oxford intimate, the city is a different place: the colleges
open their doors and present countless delightful quadrangles, endless
surprises in the form of buildings that are quite hidden to the
outsider's eye and acres of perfectly maintained gardens and lawns. To
the architect Oxford presents a confusion of styles and strange
juxtapositions of eras. Classical and Gothic have been battling it out
for centuries in Oxford, just compare the splendour of the Ashmolean
Museum, which would happily fit into any ancient Roman or Greek scene,
with the ornate complexity of the Victorian Examination Schools or the
Town Hall topped by its golden oxen - three edifices all erected in the
same century.
Even the origins of the city of Oxford are romantic - and mystical.
Back in the eighth century, a young Anglo-Saxon princess entered the
area that was destined to contain the city. She had decided to devote
her life to Christ and wished to find a suitable site for a priory. In
those days there was plenty of land to choose from and no fear of
planning restrictions. Though the area was not completely devoid of
settlements, ancient kilns have been found in the vicinity for example,
these were distributed around the countryside and did not amount to a
town. Significantly, the Romans had shunned the area though their roads
ran to the North, South and East of it.
The name of the princess was Frideswide, and she was, of course, very
beautiful - though there is little evidence to support that particular
claim, except that someone clearly thought that she was so. This man's
name was Algar; he was a King from Leicester and had a very different
role in mind for this would be nun. He loved her and wanted her as his
Queen. He pursued his love diligently, so much so that she felt it
necessary to beg for help from the saints themselves. And help they did
by courteously creating a great electrical storm in the area. Algar was
struck by lighting and blinded - a sad end to his valiant pursuit of
the lady who had stolen his heart. Fortunately, Frideswide now pitied
the blind King and led him to a well in the village of Binsey, just to
the south-west of where the city would one day be. Here she dropped
water from the well into the burned out eyes of the poor man - and a
miracle occurred - Algar was cured, he got his sight back. But he did
not get the fair lady. She, determined as ever, founded her priory on
the meadows trapped by the meeting of Oxford's two great rivers - the
Thames and the Cherwell, - not far from a shallow part of the Thames
where oxen crossed. From these beginnings Oxford began to grow around
the priory and around the nearby Oxen Ford from which the city took its
name.
John Fowles, memorable author that he is, believes that women achieve
immortality through their children, men, on the other hand, have a
tougher time. The three rogues seized upon one of the solutions that Mr
Fowles recommends to redress this imbalance between the sexes - they
wrote. However, it is my guess that only Sir Richard Burton is likely
to achieve immortality this way - indeed he has already done so, to
some extent - through his translation of The Arabian Nights and perhaps
The Kama Sutra. He also gets a mention whenever the discovery of the
source of the Nile is discussed. Richard Burton, on the other hand,
will more likely be remembered, at least for some time, through his
films; his writings are in comparison sparse and of limited interest.
Howard Marks has yet to stand the test of time and it is likely that
immortality may not be uppermost in his thoughts right now. He may yet,
of course, produce great works that provide him with some claim to
immortality, some stake in the years that follow his death. Currently
his most likely stake is his association with the battle to legalise
cannabis. This is a very different achievement to, for example, the
discovery of the source of the Nile, but it does have a direct impact
upon far more people.
Frideswide cheated them all. She did not take John Fowles' route for
women, having devoted herself to Christ she had no children. She did
something altogether more remarkable than creating a book: by curing
the blindness of her pursuer, Algar, she had produced a miracle.
Through this miracle she became a saint and, though a little known
saint, she is the patron saint of Oxford, her patronage is celebrated
in the city every October 19th. So, in a very real way, she is still
with us. Every visitor to Oxford is told of her story. Many visit her
shrine, now within the cathedral of Oxford - itself within the walls of
Christ Church. Recently a newly formed square has been named after her,
near the railway station where the Victorian Frank Cooper's Marmalade
Factory (now a music venue) stares sightlessly across a traffic strewn
mayhem towards the 21st century Said Business School.
In her immortality, she was able to see the clusters of habitations
gradually forming around the priory that she had created and in the
early tenth century watched Oxford become a real city, enclosed by
walls. Then, in the following century, she looked on as a castle
appeared at the south-western edge of the walls. Peering within the
bailey of the castle she would undoubtedly have been pleased to see the
establishment the first college, an establishment for the education of
secular clergymen. Later she would see a bedraggled procession of young
men making their way from the ships at Dover to the walls of her
expanded city. These were the students from the University in Paris,
recalled by Henry II as a result of a dispute with the French. They
made their way to the college, and so in 1167 Frideswide witnessed the
very early beginnings of the university in her city, it was recognised
by the Pope in the early thirteenth century, and thus became the third
university in Europe and the oldest English-speaking establishment of
its kind. At around this time she would also have seen monks of various
orders making their way to her city and establishing their monasteries
there - adding to the academic resources of the place. In particular
she may have noted the wanderings of an inventively busy Franciscan
monk called Roger Bacon, and looked with wonder at his optical
inventions and his experiments with gunpowder.
But there were bad things going on that she would rather not see: from
the burning of the Danes in the Church that bore her name at the turn
of the millennium, to the murder of Edmund Ironside later in the
eleventh century. Oxford, since the time of her pursuer, Algar, has
been regarded as an unlucky place for Kings, which is probably why
Henry I built his Beaumont Palace outside of the city walls. His sons,
Richard the Lionheart and John were born there.
At first Frideswide saw the university as a collection of halls in
which the students, predominantly clerics in training, lived and
studied. She could have watched them making their way to lectures held
in the churches of the city and in the nearby Abbey. In 1188 she could
have watched the historian, Gerald of Wales, giving a public reading to
the assembled Oxford dons - the Welsh were in the city early. But the
most significant events that she was to witness were the establishment
of the early colleges in the thirteenth century: University, Merton and
Balliol. Small at first, they each have a different claim to being the
oldest - Balliol is of particular interest here since this is the
college that Howard Marks attended. In the early fourteenth century she
would observe some fervent building activity around St Mary's Church as
a library and meeting room were added to the north-eastern corner.
These were the first buildings that the University actually owned
– but there were to be many more.
Over the centuries she saw colleges begin to appear all over the city:
first Gloucester, then Exeter, the college that Richard Burton
attended, followed by Oriel then Queen's. Oxford was becoming a city
dominated by the dons and its patron saint could see that trouble was
brewing. At the end of the fourteenth century, just before the founding
of New College the troubles erupted. Drink was at the centre of it, of
course - but it was simply the catalyst that helped to release more
fundamental sores. As Saint Frideswide looked, with some disgust, into
the bar of the Swyndelstock Tavern - located on one corner of Carfax,
the central crossroads of the city, she saw gathered there various
academics and clergyman. They were arguing with the innkeeper, claiming
that his wine was rubbish. This being many years before the discovery
that the customer is always right, he disagreed. It was also many years
before appeals to the Trading Standards Division of the City Council
were possible, so the consumers took more direct action - they poured a
quart of the offensive wine over the innkeeper's head. Non academics of
the city took this as an attack upon themselves and leapt to the
innkeeper's assistance, and so the first Town versus Gown battle
commenced.
The battle spread through the city as old scores were settled and the
city folk and academics remembered more and more unavenged insults and
maltreatments. At the end of the engagement sixty-three students and
academics were killed and some townsfolk were seen "carrying [the]
entrails in their hands in a most lamentable manner." Town won, but
ended up paying Gown. For many years after that terrible occasion
Frideswide would observe the mayor of Oxford annually making his way,
on his knees, from the Town Hall to the University Church of St Mary in
order to pay a shilling for each of the students who died. But even
this did not remove the tension between Gown - rich and privileged on
the whole, and Town - poor and servile on the whole.
Lincoln was founded soon after the establishment of New College, then
came the fanciful All Souls, followed by the extensive Magdalen in the
mid 15th century. One of the greatest graduates that Magdalen was to
produce started life as a butcher's boy from Ipswich, but went on to
become the second most powerful man in the land - Cardinal Wolsey. He
was also the man who, before his fall from power, began a project that
would certainly take Frideswide's eye. In the early fifteenth century
just as the adjacent Corpus Christi was completed, he began building
the largest college in Oxford - incorporating the many times re-built
church of the city's patron saint – Frideswide herself.
Initially
called Cardinal College, it was taken over by Henry VIII when he sacked
Wolsey and thence became Christ Church, and, perhaps, the grandest of
the Oxford colleges to this day.
A few years later Frideswide would witness more burning in her city. In
the year that Trinity College was founded, this being the college that
Sir Richard Burton attended, three bishops were brought to the city.
They were tried in Oxford and then burned at the stake. Their crime -
being Anglicans in the cruel days when Queen Mary dictated a return to
Catholicism, these were cruel days. Bishops Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley
were all killed in 1555 at a stake in Broad Street. The spot is still
marked and is very close to the colleges attended by the three rogues -
they would all have been aware of the crime that had been committed by
the government of an earlier day.
On a lighter note, Jesus College- a college with leanings towards a
Welsh intake - was founded a little later in the 16th Century, just
opposite the Turl Street entry to Exeter. Wadham followed at the
beginning of the next century, and it was around that time that
Frideswide would have witnessed something that reminded her of her own
times - a country dividing. Charles I brought his 3,000 odd troops into
her city and established it as his capital. Christ Church became his
court and the manicured Tom Quad the storage place for the royal cattle
- but not for long. Soon the civil war was over and things gradually
returned to normal in the city – though the colleges were all
much the poorer, having melted down their gilt to pay for the war.
Fortunately Cromwell did not take vengeance on the city and soon
Frideswide would see it grow again. She would also see a very energetic
man called Christopher Wren, storming around her city adding bits here
and bits there: the splendid Sheldonian Theatre, Tom Tower over the
entrance to Christ Church and - through his student Hawksmoor - the
Clarendon Building to hold the University Press. The 17th century saw
little in the way of new colleges: Gloucester was refounded as
Worcester and Hertford was founded from an older hall. But as the
century drew to a close there were a few surprises for Frideswide: a
balloon rose into the air above Christ Church Meadow with a man sitting
nervously in the basket below it, and a man-made river was created all
the way from Oxford to Coventry - the canal. And this is the point at
which we leave Frideswide to her endless patronage of the city, as we
enter the two centuries that brought three rogues to Oxford, first Sir
Richard Burton, then his namesake and finally Howard Marks, student in
the 1960s – let’s meet them now.
Howard rolled out of the gates of Balliol College on a sunny, wintry,
January morning. He squinted down the Broad; the sunlight was so
intense that it seemed to burn his tired retinas. He could barely see.
Someone bumped into him as he staggered down the steps; they said,
"Sorry Howard," but he could not tell who it was, nor did he care. He
felt worn and tired, sick but hungry. He could remember just snatches
of the night before - but knew that the session, which had started with
a few pints in the college bar and had then continued with a bottle of
whisky in the Master's room, had been a long one. He had bounced from
wall to wall as he returned to his room, well after midnight, and well
sloshed. He had heard music as he approached his door; it's volume
swelling as he drunkenly opened the door. He almost fell into the room
and was vaguely aware that there were a lot of people about, lounging
on cushions on the floor and leaning against the walls. There was a
group sitting cross-legged in a circle holding hands and humming with
the music. No one took much notice of him. He collapsed onto the floor,
his back propped against the wall. Someone passed him a half-smoked
joint and he smiled vaguely in gratitude. Hours passed, the music
changed, some people began a swaying dance which seemed to have little
connection with the rhythm of the music. He had a long conversation
with a girl who slumped down next to him, but he could not remember
what she had said, in fact he could not understand what she had said,
nor she him. He had awakened still in the same position, sitting
against the wall: he and the girl, she was a stranger, leaning against
each other. There were fewer people now, and those who remained were
asleep. Now, he needed to get to George's Cafe and that was the reason
that he was standing on the steps of Balliol, half-blinded in the
mid-morning sun.
He walked out into the street, standing for a moment on the white cross
embedded into the street's surface. He often stood there, trying to
imagine just how it would feel to be burned at the stake as the three
bishops had been all those years ago. Then a horse and carriage went
by! It was so close that he felt the warmth of the horse as it passed
and the large, iron-rimmed, wheel of the carriage almost crushed his
toes. He turned and stumbled back to the pavement alongside Balliol. He
rested his hand against the wall with his eyes tightly closed: he felt
really queasy, perhaps he had imagined the horse and carriage - but he
could still hear the horse's hooves ringing on the cobbles and the
grinding of the iron wheels. He opened his eyes, he could see the
carriage that had almost run him over proceeding down the Broad - and
another was coming in the other direction. This one was pulled by two
horses in a line. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. When he
opened them the carriage was alongside. In it sat two young men dressed
in fine colourful cloaks; on their heads were mortarboards with long
blue tassels. They looked disdainfully at him, or through him, as they
passed. He wondered vaguely if there was some sort of ceremony being
held on down the road at the Sheldonian Theatre. He had not seen horse
drawn carriages here before - but you never knew in this time-warped
city.
He looked at his hand which rested against the outer wall of Balliol,
supporting him. It seemed very bright - perhaps he was on an acid trip?
But no, it was not so much that his hand was bright: it was the wall -
it was almost black. He looked up, and back along the Broad, the whole
of Balliol's Gothic frontage was blackened: the square tower above the
entranceway, the leaping fascias of the dormer windows, graceful spires
and multiple chimneys - all black, as if licked by a fire that had
discoloured, but not destroyed, them. The effect was depressing, even
in the glittering sunshine. Something was wrong, Howard thought about
returning to his room - but he needed George's food.
He staggered down the Broad in the direction of the Sheldonian; the sun
was still very bright. In the middle of the road, opposite the gates of
Trinity College was a queer little building mounted on small iron
wheels. He had certainly not noticed this before. It was a shelter of
some kind, very substantial and open at the end nearest to him. It was
made of wood, half glazed and with a neat leaded roof. Yet another
horse and carriage stood nearby and inside various men, dressed rather
strangely in bowler hats and long black coats, seemed to be waiting for
something. He glanced nervously into Trinity. It too looked different,
one of the buildings looked almost new though he was sure that all of
the buildings of Trinity college were old, and there were trees and
flower borders in the quad whereas he could have sworn that it was
simply been covered in well-manicured grass. All of this was very odd -
he was beginning to enjoy it in a way, though he still felt somewhat
nauseous and tired.
He was about to cross the Broad when a man of about his own age shot
through the entrance of Trinity dressed as some of his friends
sometimes did on Victorian Society evenings, though this chap was also
carrying a sword. He was clearly intent on his business and almost
collided with Howard as he veered off to the left. The two men looked
at each other briefly. Howard almost laughed at the strange moustache
and beard sported by the man The facial hair was dense and dark, with a
slight tinge of redness. The centre of the beard had been shaved but
not the side lobes which jutted forward in two points like dark jawbone
extensions. But the laughter died in his throat as he looked into the
eyes of this strange man. They were very dark and stared fiercely into
his for a moment.
"Peace, man," said Howard swaying a little, holding up his right hand,
palm open - his usual greeting in the face of aggression.
The other man stopped in mid-stride, eyed Howard's shoulder length
hair, sheepskin coat, frayed jeans and Spanish leather boots and said,
"Damned board strutters," then turned away and carried on down the
Broad. Howard allowed himself a puzzled smile and turned across the
street towards the entry to Turl Street. It was becoming quite a day.
Whatever mixture he had taken last night was having a hell of an
effect. This was beyond dope and LSD and booze - or maybe it was some
freak combination of them all.
He noticed that the side of Exeter which overlooked the Broad was
almost as blackened as Balliol, so too was the History of Science
Museum next to it. Beyond that the Sheldonian Theatre looked in very
poor shape, its walls crumbling, blackened and pitted. But, just as he
entered the mouth of Turl Street, things began to change. The front
quads of Exeter, Jesus and Lincoln Colleges all face onto this street,
and all of the fascias began to vibrate very slightly, the unsightly
black grime dropped away and the limestone began to glow goldenly in
the sunlight. He looked behind him and the same had happened to Balliol
and Trinity. Also the queer little hut in the middle of the Broad had
vanished. In its place stood an old-fashioned army ambulance. Freshly
painted in green, it gleamed in the sun and the white backdrop of the
red crosses painted on its side sparkled brilliantly with reflected
sunlight.
Howard began to walk south along Turl Street towards Lincoln College.
Two men were coming towards him, they were dressed in brown uniforms,
one was walking with the help of a crutch, his left leg in plaster, the
other had one eye covered in bandages and one arm in a sling. They did
not seem to notice Howard, though he stared quite openly at them. As he
passed the gates into Exeter, he glanced inside and stopped to stare.
There were a number of men in the quad, most of them were uniformed
soldiers of some sort, some were simply soaking up the sun, some
reading, others exercising. As he watched someone tapped him on his
right shoulder. He looked around to see a smart man of roughly his own
age, he too was in uniform - the blue of Royal Air Force with the wings
displayed on each lapel and a folded cap fitted neatly into a shoulder
clip. This man was handsome and clean-shaven; his hair was cut to
regulation neatness and his cheeks pockmarked. His blue eyes looked
into Howard's and he smiled kindly saying, in a welcomed Welsh accent,
" Here old man, you get yourself a pint on me."
Howard looked down at the man’s hand, he was holding out a
shilling. "An 'aff you mean," he said before he could stop himself.
"Beggars can't be choosers, you know taff," the man replied and,
placing the shilling firmly in Howard's hand, he walked past the
porters' lodge and into the quad of Exeter without looking back.
Howard walked further along Turl Street. Shaking his head bemusedly. He
knew that man from somewhere, but he could not think where. And the
bloke was Welsh, spoke exactly as he did - South Welsh in fact. As he
turned into Market Street he looked down at the shilling - and it
vanished. One moment it was there in the palm of his hand, then gone.
He looked around him on the pavement, there was no shilling - he would
have heard it drop anyway. He turned into the covered market, found a
seat at one of the small tables in George's Café and ordered
himself a full English breakfast. All was normal now, there were no
soldiers about, no crazy Victorians with swords, and the breakfast was
good, very good. "Bloody strange experience though," thought Howard -
perhaps he had imagined it all. Perhaps he should keep away from the
LSD. He paid and left, lighting a spliff, the first of the day, as he
walked back to Balliol.
Of these two accounts which is the most accurate: Frideswide's swathe
through a thousand years of history or Howard Marks' hungover
meanderings through just over one hundred years of recent flashbacks?
It must be Frideswide's account since the story of Howard's walk to the
café is pure fiction - it did not happen and could not
happen,
or could it? Did Frideswide actually exist? Do you really believe that
a man's sight can be restored with a few drops of water after a
lightning strike? The first account of Frideswide was actually written
four hundred years after her death! It could have been complete
conjecture, it may have been mischievous invention, it could have been
a simple myth that became reified by repetition and then recorded. But
then there are the relics - buried beneath a stone in the cathedral
itself. Well, what do relics prove? The church itself has been rebuilt
numerous times during its history, we cannot even be sure that
Frideswide's original eighth century church was in the exact position
that the cathedral now occupies. And relics are easily created. Whilst
in Sind in India, Burton, then a soldier in the Indian Army watched
some antiquarians digging at a site that was supposed to have been an
ancient camp of Alexander the Great. He knew that the natives were
faking Greek coins and selling them to the naïve British so he
devised his own scam. He obtained a cheap vase with Etruscan figures on
it; he smashed it, treated the shards with fire and acid and then
buried them at the site. Later he delighted in the joy expressed by the
diggers when they proclaimed that the Etruscans had originated in Sind.
This tells us something about Sir Richard Burton as well as casting
doubt on relics. Interestingly Burton was later a digger himself and
expressed deep shame over his indiscretion in Sind.
But what is true? It is said that Christ Church was founded in 1525,
others claim 1546. It turns out that both are true! Wolsey founded the
place as Cardinal College in 1525, Henry VIII had it refounded as
Christ Church in 1546, so it really depends upon what is meant by "what
is true." The college is there now, of course, I saw it yesterday - but
it is not the college of 1546, it has the Bell Tower - Tom Tower, added
by Wren much later, it also has Peckwater and Canterbury Quad which
were added in the 18th century and Blue Boar Quad in the 20th century.
It is still Christ Church, but not the Christ Church that Charles I
would have remembered.
The Oxford portrayed by Howard's shamble from Balliol to
George’s
Café is reasonably representative of the city at the time of
the
other two rogues, as well as his own. The details are drawn from
accounts of the different time periods from photographs and, in some
cases, from actual recollections - the description of the two injured
soldiers walking along Turl Street, for example. There is a sense in
which a reconstruction can be more real than history, and maybe more
true than a factual account. In writing the final chapters of this book
I assembled three men in whom I had seen the essential characteristics
of the each of the three rogues. I set them loose in a college bar,
paid for the booze, followed them from place and drew inspiration from
what they said and did. Is this truth? Clearly not, but it was good fun
and the last three chapters of this book are pure fiction - but
anchored in a reality of sorts: the reality of the characters of the
three rogues.
How well do we know these people - the three rogues? I would not claim
that Sir Richard Burton is the most biographed of all Victorians, I am
sure that Byron would put him well in the shade, but there are at least
sixteen books devoted entirely or mostly to the life of the "Victorian
Enigma" as he has been called. This includes a bibliographical study
published in the late 1980s which lists nearly fifty books and
pamphlets written by him, excluding translations, and contends that the
definitive biography has yet to be written. The challenge is that the
man had so many interests, was an expert in so many things, spoke so
many languages and did so many things, that no one person can ever
fully understand his life and achievements and encapsulate them in one
book. But this is a difficulty that any biographer faces, however
limited the target.
Underlying any biography lies a basic question – how well
does
the work capture the character of the subject? Bernard Malamud once
wrote, "The past exudes legend; one can't make pure clay out of time's
mud. There is no life that can be captured wholly; as it was. Which is
to say that all biography is ultimately fiction." But Sartre claimed
one hundred per cent success with his treatment of Flaubert and opined
that it is always possible to achieve this given the correct approach
and access to the necessary documents! His biography of Flaubert is
extremely large – and, some say, pretty well unreadable.
However,
he did claim that, at the end of his biographical assault on the man,
he could accurately predict what Flaubert would say in answer to any
question or do in response to any set of circumstances. This is a
grandiose claim - and one that is difficult to put to the test! Some
people have been biographed to death beyond their death; Byron is an
example once more. This presents a difficulty in itself, with so much
material and so many interpretations surely the real personality must
get lost somewhere between the cracks?
Perhaps the problem of accurate character biography is solved by the
fortunate provision of the subject’s own account of their
life;
but an autobiography is both feast and famine for the biographer. In
one sense it provides a wealth of material and an apparently
unimpeachable insight into the character of the subject. On the other
it should make the biographer redundant. But a biographer’s
work
is always someone’s view of someone else, and autobiography
is
either diary like, that is simply factual, or the writer’s
view
of themselves – or worse still the view of themselves that
the
writer wants to project. Life is led by the second, yet recalled in
huge chunks of time ranging from hours to days to years. Not that we
want the second by second account, it would be incredibly boring for
the most part and the wood would certainly be lost amongst the trees.
But even if we had it, the extraction of truth may still be flawed. In
order to "understand" a person some distance is generally essential. A
wife’s view of a long wed husband is likely to be quite
different
to that of a recent friend and vice versa. The close partner is likely
to be saturated with detail, much of which is not apparent, or
important, to someone at a greater remove. Autobiography is biography
by the closest of partners, oneself, and is likely to be affected by
saturation and coloured by selectivity. Is anyone really going to spend
much time writing about events that severely embarrassed, hurt or
demeaned them? Are they likely to solicit the opinion of others in
relation to their own character and actions? In fact they more likely
to have some agenda in writing about themselves: the simplest being
self-aggrandisement - the creation of a legend within their own minds.
There is little autobiographical material available from Sir Richard
Burton, for reasons that will be explained. There is a great deal from
Richard Burton through his unpublished notebooks, a great deal of which
has been transcribed into Melvyn Bragg’s biography of the
actor.
There is an extensive, but of course, incomplete story of the life of
Howard Marks through his own book: Mr Nice. The latter is especially
interesting since it contains large slabs of dialogue. It makes the
book more readable, but Howard can hardly expect us to believe that he
remembered all those words - this would really be living by the second
and recalling in the same increments. Fortunately there are two
biographical works to weigh against Howard’s own story
–
unfortunately they were written before the autobiography, possibly
using the subject’s own work! The three books on Howard
contain a
great deal of detail. One suspects that they are actually incriminating
for those involved. But where does the detail come from? Were detailed
notes kept of each dope deal – I rather doubt it, this is
hardly
a business that welcomes documentation?
In addition to the detail there is something eerie about the biography
written by David Leigh on Howard Marks when it is compared with the
man’s own autobiography – the words in some
dialogues are
almost identical, yet the autobiography was written some twelve years
after the biography. And even where the words are not identical, the
sentence breakdown often is. I have just read through a rather
important section where Howard undertakes his first hash related
adventure outside of the UK. His main supplier has vanished, he is
thought to be somewhere in Germany. The dealer’s wife asked
Howard to help, and in the biography she says, "Howard, he’s
disappeared. There’s something wrong. I think he must have
been
busted. If I give you a few hundred pounds, will you go and find out?"
But in the autobiography, published twelve years later she says,
"Howard, Graham has disappeared. There’s something wrong. I
think
he’s been busted. Can you go and find out? You can have all
the
expenses you need."
The similarities are so great that it is the differences that are
significant. Leigh somehow gained access to telephone tap recordings,
and it is therefore just possible that his version is a transcription.
But I am sure that Howard did not have this access to this putative
recording – and if he had then the transcriptions should be
identical – or nearly so. Weirder still there are things said
in
one book by one character that are said in the other book by another
character. For example in Leigh's book it is Howard who, in response to
a policeman's statement that he has a Black Maria outside, says, "Bring
'er in! There's no colour bar 'ere." But in Howard's book it is friend
and protector Albert Hancock who says, "Well bring her in Hamilton.
There's no colour bar here." Maybe Howard was recycling his
friend’s joke.
The simplest explanation is that Howard used Leigh’s book in
writing his own and slightly rephrased the dialogue. An autobiography
based on a biography possibly – but Leigh and his book are
not
listed in the acknowledgements within Mr Nice. From another source I
have determined that Howard had collaborated on the biography and,
rather characteristically, had demanded half the proceeds for doing so.
The author first chosen to take on the biography was not David Leigh.
It is of some interest that the original biographer backed out of the
deal because he had just completed and published a similar
collaborative biography on the Great Train Robbers which had then been
shown to contain a great deal of imaginary material: the robbers had
taken him for a ride – and he wasn’t going to be
taken
again. David Leigh was not so squeamish – perhaps he should
have
been. Howard’s reaction to the manuscript was that he had
spent
too much time on the first thirty years of his life, not too surprising
since that represented over three quarters of his life up until then.
Howard also stated that "the patently faked dialogue jarred on me." But
he did go on to adopt a similar, if not identical style in his
autobiography.
In writing this book there is a tendency to fall foul of the "Stockmore
Street" effect: the danger of allowing coincidences to run away with
you. I first experienced the Stockmore Street effect when I advertised
in the local Oxford newspaper, asking for anyone who had attended one
of the two stage appearances of Richard Burton in the city to contact
me. A number of people did so; some of them had to be discounted since
their encounters with Richard were actually in their dreams. But a lady
living in Stockmore Street responded by sending me an interesting
postcard briefly describing her own recollections; I rang to ask if we
might meet. She agreed, so I went to her semi-detached house and we
spent two delightful hours together talking of Richard Burton and
related topics. She told me of her days in Somerville College, what
Oxford was like in the war years and of her memories of the play
Measure for Measure, in which Richard played Angelo. It was all very
useful and I thanked her warmly.
Two days later I was searching for one of the two books that provide
early biographical details of Howard Marks. I had previously looked in
the usual places without success but, on that day, came upon a very
useful Website which concentrated on out-of-print books. It turned up a
number of copies of the book that I wanted - but they were all in the
USA - except one. This book was in the UK, so I sent the bookshop an
email and they replied with a telephone number - an Oxford number! I
called, they still had the book and we agreed a price and a time for
collection. The bookseller gave me the address and explained that it
was not a shop, that he operated an Internet-based second hand bookshop
from his home. At the time the address did not register in my mind
particularly, except that I was more than pleased that it was in Oxford
itself, what luck! But, as I approached Stockmore Street again, just
two days after visiting my Richard Burton informant, I though - this is
weird of all the streets in the city – it’s the
same one.
Then I looked at the number, it seemed a little familiar. When I got to
the house I found - wait for it - that the book I wanted to purchase
was being sold from the other part of the semi-detached in which I had
interviewed the lady just two days before.
Now isn't that eerie? Yes, it is; but it is purely coincidence. The two
people, though they live next door to each other in an attached house,
have no other connection. They are neighbours and that's about all. It
does not add to the commonality or connections between Howard and
Richard. But one could begin to think so; after all it is a hell of a
coincidence. That book could have been anywhere in the UK. The lady I
interviewed could have lived anywhere in Oxford. The book could have
been sold to someone else, it could have been available more cheaply
from somewhere else. But for all of that the Stockmore Street effect is
still a pure coincidence. And connections that are purely coincidental
are best ignored.
Many coincidences concern place. It is true, for example, that Sir
Richard Burton and Richard Burton have been to the same obscure African
country, one as an explorer, the other as an actor. This is
interesting, but not significant - it is a coincidence. I suppose in
that sense it is a coincidence that all three Rogues of Oxford began
their adult lives in the same city and that their colleges are within
spitting distance of each other. This is a coincidence, but, in itself
it is not a very remarkable one. Many people do go to University in
Oxford, currently there are roughly fifteen thousand young people
there, and some of them are bound to have lives that overlap to some
extent. It is not the coincidence that is important here, it is the
influence. You cannot spend time in this city and be entirely
unaffected by it. Most people who do spend time in Oxford: be they town
or gown, if they stay or if they go, should they do well or poorly
– tend to have affectionate feelings for the place. Most come
back, sometimes for visits, sometimes to work, sometimes to live. Even
Sir Richard Burton, who liked the city and university the least, did
return - and had a yen to stay. Richard Burton came back many times and
came very near to accepting an academic career at one of the colleges,
and as already noted Howard Marks was back within a year of leaving.
The objective in writing this book was not to discover new biographical
material: not to find that stack of letters that puts a new light on
the marriage of Sir Richard Burton, nor that unpublished manuscript of
a novel written by Richard Burton. I have, however been a little more
diligent than some biographers in relation to the three rogues'
relationship with Oxford, for obvious reasons. When researching Sir
Richard Burton this meant digging into the archives of Trinity. It also
involved a search for a rare book written by someone who was his close
friend whilst he was in the city, Alfred Bates Richards. The book is a
sketch of Burton’s life and I expected to learn a good deal
about
his Oxford experiences from it. At first I tried to buy the book, but
it turned out to be a very rare indeed, the only copy I found was
priced at $3,000 – just a little beyond my meagre research
budget. However, a trip to the British Library did the trick.
Unfortunately the book was a disappointment in many ways. First it is
very small, less than 100 pages, and much of it consists of reprints
from articles available elsewhere. What’s more the author is
quite unrevealing about his stay in Oxford with Burton –
though
they were close companions. I suppose in such a short biography
Burton’s stay at Trinity College was not considered important
in
comparison with his other achievements. Disappointing, but there was a
compensation. The book turns out to be a jewel in that it contains the
only snatch of autobiography by Burton that survives - aside, that is,
from his many books which describe his travels.
From a biographical point of view Howard Marks is a warmer body
entirely since he is still alive, kicking, smoking and even writing.
There are quite a few people still in the city of Oxford who knew him
during his undergraduate, graduate and dealing days, some of them are
still in touch with him. There is, as described, a very large amount of
autobiographical material available here which is still expanding. The
problem as always is to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Richard Burton the actor is a not so warm, he has been dead for nearly
twenty years - but there are people around with living memories of him.
It was therefore possible to find people who were at Oxford at the same
time as he was, and who had seen him in the performance of Doctor
Faustus for which he returned for in the 1960s.
In writing about Richard, the existing biographies do provide an
element of balance. Two are written by Richard’s brothers,
the
one, a policeman, much older and slightly in awe of his younger
brother. The other, a sports organiser and broadcaster, younger and
probably jealous of his elder brother’s success. Their
viewpoints
are clearly quite different, the one biography is hagiographical, the
other subtly critical. In addition there is a biography written whilst
Richard was still alive; it was written by a stranger who was refused
access to Burton and his close relatives and friends. And there is yet
another which was written posthumously but with the full support of his
last wife.
The biographies of Sir Richard Burton are either too close or too
distant. The one written by his wife is accepted as a character
building hagiography that is more selective than any self-serving
autobiography. Those that immediately followed this publication were a
little more balanced and the more recent ones again, such as The Devil
Drives and Snow upon the Desert are interpretative, but do gain from
some additional material and are often critical in approach. However,
as James Casada points out in his excellent bibliography, many
important parts of Burton’s life are based on his own
anecdotes
rather than independent observation and are therefore as suspect as a
biased autobiography.
But from all of this material we do now know the colour of the eyes of
our three rogues, we also know roughly what they looked like and
something of their commonalties. Time then to dive a little deeper into
their lives, to endeavour to understand the character of each of them
and how that character has been shaped by events. But one last question
before we do so - was their fame earned or was it, like Isaac Newton's,
cultivated through intensive public relations activities?
I would suggest that Burton's peak in press coverage and general
popularity followed his penetration of the Muslim city of Mecca. This
he did entirely alone, so any information on his adventure could only
have originated with him. He was an inveterate writer of letters to the
press and an inveterate recorder of his own experiences through the
numerous anthropological and travel books that he wrote. Richard was,
like all famous actors, the target of a vast PR machine funded by the
studios for whom he worked. His publicity peak undoubtedly occurred at
the time of his affair with Elizabeth Taylor, at a time that he least
welcomed the intrusion. On the other hand he was no hermit; he
conducted many interviews on TV and radio and with the press, some
under the influence of alcohol and many providing contradictory
versions of his life. Howard revels in publicity; his peak was probably
at the time of his second trial. He has used the press to strengthen
his claims of innocence and is the only one of the three rogues to
publish an autobiography. So there we have it, all three were or are
self-publicists of some order - rogues are rarely creatures of the
shadowlands. In the following chapters a little light will be shone
onto each of their lives, both the early years leading to their student
days in Oxford, and their subsequent life as roguish adults.
Sources
1. Cities of the imagination: Oxford, David Horan.
Signal Books 1999
2. Oxford: An Architectural Guide, Geoffrey Tyack.
Oxford University Press 1998
3. Sir Richard F Burton: A Bibliographical Study,
James A Casada. Mansell 1990
4. The Devil Drives, Fawn M Brodie. Penguin, 1971.
5. Mr Nice, Howard Marks. Minerva Press 1997
6. High Time: The Life and Times of Howard Marks,
David Leigh. Unwin Paperbacks 1985