On the morning of 16 April 1980, two well-known Oxford figures chanced to meet in the High. 'Have you heard the good news?' called out the one, the former head of a prestigious college. 'Sartre is dead.' The other, a well-known and distinguished man about French history, was delighted. According to his own account, the two of them then enacted a little dance or jig to express their pleasure. The occasion may be compared with Mrs Bessie Braddock's notorious celebration in the newly-elected House of Commons of 1945, when she marked the absence of Winston Churchill from the government Front Bench with a few rhythmic steps.

LRB 20 May 1982 | PDF Download