Friend and Colleague

Extract

Kenelm was appointed a Lecturer in Italian in the University of Cambridge from 1 October, 1948. Professor Vincent showed flair and imagination when he made this far from obvious choice for the post which had become vacant following the retirement of Miss K.T. Butler. He had been one of the two examiners of Kenelm’s thesis on St Thomas and Dante, and was impressed by its quality. Kenelm had, I believe, some family connection with Italy and had spent some time there in the past, but he had had no formal training in Italian literature, apart from the deep knowledge of Dante he must have acquired while preparing his dissertation.

We were never formally introduced. After three years as Lector, I became an Assistant Lecturer on the same date on which Kenelm was appointed to a Lectureship, and a few days later, in the morning of 18 October, we bumped into each other in the Departmental Library, a gloomy and not much frequented room now occupied by University offices on the top floor at the back of the Old Schools, facing Clare College. I vividly remember that the first thing he said after a few words of introduction was a defensive and characteristically modest ‘I don’t know any Italian’. We must have felt a liking for each other from the beginning. Five days later he came to the house my wife and I rented in the Hills Road area for what was meant to be a brief afternoon visit and to meet my wife, and stayed till late in the evening.