Mid July took us to Cambridge, the occasion being the Worshipful Company of International Bankers’ Master’s Summer Dinner, held this year at Jesus College. The dinner moves around, and a Cambridge year was a fine excuse for my girlfriend and me to build a proper weekend around a single evening of black tie. And what an evening: the college’s magnificent hall, timbered roof and royal arms above, a drinks reception to open and, in the best traditions, a stirrup cup to close. The inscription above the dais reads “Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum fratres habitare in unum” – behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity – which, for an evening of livery fellowship, could hardly have been better chosen. Our speaker was Sir David Wootton, former Lord Mayor of London and himself an old Jesuan, and the whole evening was proof that the Company’s fellowship travels very well beyond the Square Mile. We stayed at The Hobson, named for the Cambridge carrier who gave the language “Hobson’s choice”, though unlike his customers we had no complaints about the accommodation allotted to us.
The rest of the weekend was entirely our own, and we used it thoroughly. King’s College first, because one must, and its chapel remains one of the most astonishing buildings in England, the fan vaulting alone worth the trip. From there the day took on a satisfying rhythm of effort and reward. The effort: climbing the tower of Great St Mary’s, the university church, up a spiral of alarmingly steep steps that in the July heat felt considerably longer than advertised. The reward: the whole of Cambridge laid out below, colleges, courts, and river, which very nearly justified the state of us at the top.
Refuelling was taken seriously. Lunch at The Granta, looking out over the mill pond where the punts and canoes queue for custom, and a few well-earned pints at The Eagle, where Watson and Crick announced they had found the secret of life, and where the RAF bar ceiling still carries the graffiti of wartime aircrew. Few pubs anywhere carry that much history in one room.
The heat, it must be said, was formidable, and the locals had the measure of it. On the meadows beyond the mill pond, Cambridge grazes cattle on its commons, and one resident Hereford had abandoned all pretence of grazing in favour of lying flat on her side in the shade, surrounded by sun dodgers doing precisely the same. Rarely has a cow spoken so eloquently for an entire city.
The quiet highlight, though – her choice, and the best call of the weekend – was the Botanic Garden. Forty acres of lush, beautifully kept planting, glasshouses, and winding walks, with some very contented waterfowl patrolling the lake as if they owned the freehold. We wandered it for hours and could have stayed longer. Cambridge in summer is an embarrassment of riches, and we barely scratched it. We shall have to go back, ideally when the tower steps have had time to fade from memory.
Charlton Krentz 