Oxford Exit

Vivian’s first day as a member of the Bodleian staff:

My staff identity card bears the photograph that was taken that first morning: white face, startled eyes, well-combed hair and something of terror in the tension of the lips.

I was taken on a tour of the Library by the Assistant Secretary, and historical facts and figures whirled around my head as we raced through subterranean passages, high-ceilinged reading rooms, and huge, dim caves filled with shelves of books and the hum of distant machinery.

At last I was dropped off in the Cataloguing Department and given a seat at a desk next to my mentor, an elderly gentleman whose duty it would be to initiate me into the ways of cataloguing a book according to Bodleian Rules.  I sat and worked under his guidance like a medieval apprentice with his master.  I enjoyed learning those cataloguing rules: they seemed designed to hide books so that no one, outside a small circle of initiates, would ever be able to find them again.

Since the main qualifications needed in this department were neat handwriting (there were no typewriters) and an unwillingness to take responsibility for one's own mistakes, I fitted in beautifully. As in every other situation where I have found myself, I notice that the ability to tell a fluent lie is a great aid to acceptance and advancement.