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DOWNING COLLEGE 2011–2012generous humanity as a teacher. But he also identified a complication in thearrangements for supervision. David’s unconventional, ‘non-academic’ pastmeant that colleagues in the English Faculty were reluctant to set up theexchange teaching on which Directors of Studies normally rely. David wastherefore effectively compelled to offer supervisions across the whole Englishsyllabus, to which some students took exception. It is characteristic of Davidthat he honestly confronted these issues in one of his last novels, Even if TheyFail (1994). His final book, appropriately English in a University Education (2006),has on its cover a picture of Downing.It is possible to offer here only glimpses of David as a Fellow and (on hisretirement in 1988) an Emeritus Fellow. There were his poetry readings,including a memorable recitation of Edgell Rickword’s poems in the octagon ofthe Downing Library. (He also presented the Library with a copy of Donne’spoems that Rickword carried with him in the trenches). As part of an annuallecture course in the Classics Faculty on ‘Greek Writers on Warfare’, he threetimes read, by way of introducing a comparative dimension, a chapter ofFlesh Wounds. The students listened spellbound, on each occasion breakinginto spontaneous applause. At Matriculation Dinners, David captivated theFreshers in English with an account of his fraught visit in 1946 to George Orwellon the island of Jura. (Orwell evidently thought he had been sent as aCommunist-Party spy.) The Captain of the Downing Fellows’ Cricket Teamrecalls with gratitude from 1984 David’s smiting of fifteen runs, inspiringthe rest of the Fellows to a famous (and rare) victory over the College Staff.But above all, David was a genial, civilizing and occasionally uproariouspresence around the College.A few days before his short, final illness, David was to be seen, as wascustomary, making his way across the College lawn, for coffee in theSenior Combination Room (where he had the knack of virtually destroyingevery newspaper he read). Dressed in his white suit, he seemed to resemblenothing so much as the genius loci of Downing, the genius or ‘spirit’ of the place.So he will be remembered by those of the College Fellowship and Staff whohad the privilege to know him.Paul Millett196