The true Stoic

An early memory from the years we lived near Stowe was the sight of my father pushing our front door firmly shut in the face of one of its headmasters, who was attempting to force his way in and apologise for some misdemeanour. He had, I believe, tried to seduce my mother. Later on I shared a London flat with a Stoic, a dark, mysterious, gipsy figure who worked on Ready, Steady, Go but was principally a beautiful tennis player, mentioned here for having helped Stowe win the Public Schools Championship in successive years. Sometime after I left, he was found by the police dead in the bath.

Nights there had been full of incident. His old school friends would pour in through the windows at all hours, some with their girlfriends, and the next morning the floor would be littered with their bodies. Stoics then seemed a reckless, raffish set, epitomised by David Niven.