I was the cleaner for Prof Owen Chadwick and his wife, Ruth, at the master’s lodge of Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1977-78. It was a short but happy time, and I have much to thank them for.
Both Owen and Ruth were unerringly kind, with a great generosity of spirit. They included me in anything going on in the house such as visits by well-known guests, and gave me books for my children. I remember conversations during coffee breaks, when Ruth worried that appointments at the college were being made without candidates even being aware they were in a selection process, and that Igor the family’s dog was unwell.
One morning while I was polishing Owen’s desk, I noticed his open manuscript and began to read. I believe it was The Popes and European Revolution, and he was working on a chapter about castrati in 18th-century Italy and how poverty brought the families of some young choirboys to take such drastic measures.
Owen had an engaging style, the kind that makes a subject accessible yet belies how difficult it is to achieve. I remember sinking into his leather chair as I carried on reading his manuscript a bit at a time each day. Having left school early without confidence or qualifications, I began to think that I, too, would like to study history and write, and that perhaps I could.
After leaving the master’s lodge and studying part-time, I took modern history at London University, then a master’s and PhD at Cambridge, and have since become an author, scriptwriter and consultant.
I never did tell Ruth or Owen about why I had left their employment and how reading Owen’s work had changed my life, but I always planned to, and I think they would have been pleased.
