Comments on "oak"

[Hide] original entry

My choir had a rehearsal today at the chapel at Churchill College. I was pleased to find that there were trees nearby, so that I was able to lean my bike up against some oak.

The story of the founding of the chapel is interesting. Some of the fellows of Churchill were passionately opposed to there being a chapel at the college, and so the chapel is not in fact the chapel of Churchill College; it is owned and operated by a separate trust, and merely happens to be located on Churchill's premises.

This wasn't enough for Francis Crick, who resigned his fellowship in protest at the building of the chapel. He had an exchange of letters with Winston Churchill along the following lines:

Crick: I am resigning my fellowship in protest at the institution of a chapel at Churchill College.

Churchill: I'm sorry to hear that. I don't really understand the problem. The chapel will be an amenity for the benefit of those students who want to use it, and no one else will ever have to set foot in it.

Crick: Very well. I enclose a cheque for ten guineas towards the founding of the Churchill Brothel. I am sure you will agree that there can be no reasonable objection to this; it will be an amenity for the benefit of those students who want to use it, and no one else will ever have to set foot in it.

(Actually Crick, being an erudite chap, called it the College Hetairae. The "cheque for ten guineas" was a reference to the fact that when the colleged had decided some time before that it would not spend any of its own money on a chapel, some eminent chap -- I forget who -- had immediately sent them a cheque for the same sum towards a chapel-building fund.)