[Mary Meriam]

I wrote this but didn't enter it. Now I'm asking myself why.

Mary, Mary, fairy child,
Perched on Santa’s knee,
Do you feel beloved or wild,
And will you talk to me?

I do not like this shopping mall,
But I’ve been very good.
Why are you so big and tall
And lost in Brier Wood?

[Jerome Betts]

In this regard I might point out that it was commonplace for Oxford students of forty years ago and more to use the washbasin because they didn't fancy crossing a wet quadrangle at night to the only comfort station. Auden did it. Not me of course. I was made of sterner stuff.

John, what strange memory-jogging by-ways you send us down. Washbasins? You mean with taps and hot and cold running water and not just a ewer and basin set for shaving water brought up by the scout? Such luxury! Now at last I understand what those long yellow streaks were under an upstairs front quad window in a certain classically-facaded college in the early 1960s . . .

[John Whitworth]

Shaving water brought up by a scout! My FATHER had that at Cambridge. I stil have his little brass shaving kettle - though that rather argues the water was NOT brought up, doesn't it? Nope, at Merton we had washbasins but you did have to cross the quad for a bath or a pee. My room prevously belonged to Alan Brownjohn the poet, and previous to that by T.S. Eliot. Not that I knew at the time.

Or maybe it was Louis MacNeice.

[Gail White]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Nope, at Merton we had washbasins but you did have to cross the quad for a bath or a pee. My room prevously belonged to Alan Brownjohn the poet, and previous to that by T.S. Eliot.

Did you ever meet Max Beerbohm, John?

[John Whitworth]

No, but the Duke of Dorset was always popping in and out - that was before his unfortunate accident.