St Hilda's, August 2009

It was the Mystery and Crime conference at St Hilda’s, Oxford last weekend (21^st-23^rd August) and, as last year people seemed to be queuing round the block to say, “Are you coming to St Hilda’s?” Yours Truly put in an appearance.

Gosh, I can see why people like it.  St Hilda’s is a lovely venue.  It’s a Victorian college, founded in 1893, and the main building has a real grace and charm.  The setting is perfect, with the river running close to the main door with lawns and trees.  The accommodation is fine, if a bit student-y (it is a college, after all) and the Garden Building, where I was, has a complicated sort of trellis arrangement on the outside.

As a picture paints a thousand words, so to speak, here’s what it looks like from the outside:



Goodness knows what all the woodwork is for, but I can tell you, it’s great for hanging out the white jeans and white tee-shirt that I managed to slosh red wine down.  I don’t know what it is about me, wine and anything coloured white but, as sure as night follows day, the three things will come together and then it’s Ho for the tube of travel wash and some impromptu laundry.

The highlight of Friday night was, without a doubt, the after-dinner speech by Priscilla Masters on the subject of Luck and her early life.  Priscilla’s parents, who sound an incredibly generous and open-hearted couple, adopted Priscilla and six other children (I think it was six;  I was laughing too hard to take notes) the children coming from all four corners of the globe.

The great thing about St Hilda’s is that it doesn’t loose sight of the fact it’s an academic institution.  The speakers present proper papers and I knew I was going to enjoy it when the very first one was Jill Paton Walsh on Lord Peter Wimsey’s first case, the Attenbury emeralds, followed by Kate Charles on Margery Allingham.  Theology, morals, psychology and motivation all got thoroughly analysed and it set the tone for the weekend.  It’s great to have serious stuff like this but treated with enough humour – and there was lots of humour – to lighten the discussion.   It was a bit like the best conversation in the pub who’ve ever had and set the standard of the papers to follow.

Privately, Jane Finnis and myself descended to personalities over a bottle of wine.  I essayed the theory that Rudyard Kipling’s short stories were complicated (Mrs Bathhurst to you, Jane!) Jane took the opposite view  and the ensuing literary discussion (complete with quotes, poetry and yet more wine) was one of the best bits of  the weekend.

The only thing wrong with St Hilda’s isn’t a televisions and I didn’t have a radio.  Dear Lord. This, with England’s fate hanging in the balance at the Oval (Cricket, yes, we’re talking about cricket) was a severe deprivation.  Calls home filled some of the void and so did Len Tyler’s frequent trips to his car radio.  (“We should be at the Oval, Dolores;  Flintoff’s hitting them all over the ground.”)

It was Len (L.C.)Tyler who pondered one of the conundrums of the weekend; when is a Man a Woman?

Now, those of you who know Len, author of the excellent The Herring Seller’s Apprentice, will know that he isn’t given to such deeply philosophical sounding speculations.  Not shortly after breakfast, anyway. I mean, it sounds like something almost German in its complexity.  What it actually was about was the annual meeting of Mystery Women, the group set up by Lizzie Hayes.  I asked if he was attending and hastened to reassure him that mere sex was no barrier.  After all, Martin Edwards and Andrew Taylor are members and Andrew’s got the tee-shirt to prove it!  Len duly attended and after that came the punting.

Okay, hands up, I was pants.  Priscilla Masters, who was watching my attempts from the front of the boat (she was sort of lured into it) eventually took matters into her own hands, suggested I shipped the punt-pole and paddled us up the river.  And back.

And, as I’d been silly enough to get in a punt wearing white jeans, it was back to the laundry again….