Living in the past

1960s/70s and beyond

I

Henry Butler was perfect don material. Not in the real-world, mafia sense, but rather in the Oxbridge college, ivory tower tradition of other-worldliness. 

On the one hand, he exuded the donnishness of the book-lined study, the glass of port and the dry-as-dust seminar on a rather recherché academic topic.

On the other, his whole approach to life – from his Northern grammar school via Oxbridge and through his twin obsessions of history and cinema – was directed toward creating a faux WC Fields style of witty mumbling and bumbling. The heavy drinking, perfected as a student, helped in that regard, of course.

Eventually, by being awarded a history lectureship at the university and a college fellowship to go with it, he achieved his twin main ambitions. The suite of rooms that went with a fellow’s status meant that he could also afford to rent his dreamed-of flat in Earl’s Court.

What a pleasant bachelor life he constructed for himself. He could split both working weeks and holidays between college and London, giving the occasional lecture and tutorial and then hopping on a train to spend a few days researching at the British Library or catching the latest cult film.

It was a time when he could easily cultivate and affect an effete charm, almost pretending you lived in a bygone age of lost perfection, just as Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade had created with their 1950s hit show Salad Days which he saw countless times.

Life outside of work and research could be fun too, and camp evenings at a well-known queeny pub out of town – always in the company of outrageous friends like Talcy Malcy, The Wet Loofer and the, inseparable, Crystallised Fruits – were a riot.

Despite the warning of a sympathetic senior colleague that he should tone it down a bit, especially when not within the college walls, Henry worked on presenting himself to the outside world as a fully-fledged aesthete.

He ignored the advice as too cautious because he found that his own approach to life worked very well for him in London with his Earl’s Court pad being well-used by an endless string of his pick-ups from the local gay pubs.

II

Lying semi-conscious on the floor in the hallway of his flat, having been brutally assaulted, badly beaten up and near-fatally stabbed multiple times, Henry survived the vicious and demented attack that very nearly killed him, only because he was discovered in the nick of time, barely alive, by his cleaner, two days after he had, late at night, taken back just one too many pub conquests, a man on a mission more murderous than amorous.

III

A beard hid the worst of the facial scarring and, slowly, Henry got back into the swing of academic life. 

Trips to Earl’s Court weren’t contemplated, or even possible, as the flat’s lease had not been renewed. Visits to London were confined to the strictures of the railway timetable and the availability of matinee tickets at the opera. The local Arts Cinema had to pick up the slack with his attendance at foreign film showings.

The occasional metaphorical flash of the old Henry was given to the students who came and went each year through the university’s revue society, as he introduced them to his LPs of Max Miller and his videos of Will Hay over glasses of sherry. Genial and amusing company, he was viewed by them as a harmless old eccentric from another era. They didn’t know quite what he did at the university, but they thought he might be a specialist in some or other arcane historical subject.

IV

It was a surprisingly long life for Henry who only eventually lost his lectureship because his chosen period of research went badly out of favour. 

When he was cruelly deprived of his college rooms, he decamped, in every sense of the word, to a rather mundane terraced house in the poor end of town and spent his days eating badly, drinking too much and wallowing in the nostalgia of Buster Keaton films.

It was three months after he had died that his body was discovered. The house smelt sickeningly of old sardine tins when his landlord finally let himself in. 

It was established that the death was not suspicious and there were no signs of suicide, with natural causes given as the reason. The police report stated that, ‘It looked like he just lay down to die.’

The coroner was unable to verify accurately the date and time Henry Butler had passed away, but, drawing on the facts provided by the Bursar of his college, he noted in his report that it wasn’t the first time Mr Henry Butler had been left for dead.