Lord Thomas of Swynnerton was “never comfortable with the demands of academic life”. In October 1966 he began his first weekly lecture on European history at Reading University. He told us that if he had known when he left Oxford that this tradition would still exist 10 years later he would never have entered academic life. He further announced that he knew little about the subject and was only standing before us as the specialist was on sabbatical. His suggestion was that we could more usefully spend the hour each week in the university library working our way through the reading list instead.
I took him at his word and did not attend his, or any other, lectures during the next two years. Although I now regret not listening to this “thoroughly entertaining and popular teacher”, I did read lots of books.
