joemasonspage posted: " GYLES.BRANDRETH THERE are always young men and women at Oxford who are destined for prominent positions in later life, and many of them are already leaving their mark on their peers. All the people mentioned here were undergraduates at about the same " joemasonspage
THERE are always young men and women at Oxford who are destined for prominent positions in later life, and many of them are already leaving their mark on their peers. All the people mentioned here were undergraduates at about the same time as I was. When I was at Oxford there were several character who dominated the student press, either as writers or as the subject matter of reports. The student magazine Isis had one Gyles Brandreth as its leader editorial writer, and he was also head of the Oxford Union. We had all heard of Gyles Brandreth even then, although it was a bit later that the general public got to know of him through his broadcasting career. He studied History at New College.
One undergraduate who did not have a high profile as an undergraduate at Oxford, but who was known to me (because we had been at school together in Norfolk) was Paul Howell. He qualified in Agriculture (no longer done at Oxford) at Teddy Hall. He later went on to be a Tory MEP, as we were still in the European Union in those days. A firm believer in all things European, the increase in Euroscepticism in the Tory party cause him to leave the Conservatives and join the Lib Dems. He died when the light aircraft he was travelling in crashed in Mozambique. That was in 2008.
Gyles Brandreth was briefly a Tory MP, but another contemporary at Oxford who had a much more substantial political career was Ann Widdicombe. I was not aware of her during our university days; apparently she was active in the Oxford Union (unlike me) and became Treasurer of the Society but never attained high office. She read PPE at Lady Margaret Hall. She was a Tory Minister, but in the reverse way to Paul Howell she became a very anti-European MEP for the Brexit Party. Since her conversion from Anglicanism she has become an outspoken Catholic.
So far all the people I have mentioned were on the Right of Politics (although even as a young man Paul Howell was on the more Liberal wing of the Tories) but another contemporary was a self described Marxist all his adult life. This was Christopher Hitchens. He was already making a name for himself while still an undergraduate. Unlike those I have mentioned heretofore, I actually came across Hitchens at Oxford. He had read PPE at Balliol, and during our final exams I found myself in the same pub as Chris Hitchens during our lunch break. We were all dressed up in sub-fusc, the highly formal attire (complete with bow ties and gowns). Hitchens was not alone, but had in tow a highly sexed young lady, dressed in the female version of sub-fusc. He passed away in 2011 from cancer, having lived a Bohemian life (his description) with a lot of cigarettes and alcohol. I myself have drunk an inordinate amount of wine, and, in the past, I smoked many cigars, but so far I have managed to dodge the fatal bullet. He was, during his life, one of the leading atheist polemicists in the USA, wither he had moved at the age of thirty. Personally I could just about tolerate his atheism, but his Marxism I find completely unforgivable in someone over the age of twenty.
Michael Rosen was another name we all knew among the Oxford student body. He too had rather left wing views; in later years he became well known as a poet and author of children's books (he served for a couple of years as Children's Laureate), but at Oxford he was know more as the source of a number of witty epigrams. What he read at Wadham I have not been able to ascertain, but it seems likely that it was English Literature.
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