An Oxford interview 

It was the middle of the 1960s. I was working in Paris. Unexpectedly, I received a letter from a friend of mine at Oxford. “One of the colleges wants to appoint a Fellow in Engineering Science. Are you interested? There will be lots of other applicants, but I think you stand a decent chance.” The letter came at the right time. I wanted to return to the UK. I applied. Three or four weeks later I received a letter from the principal of the college: “Do come for lunch. You will have an interview in the afternoon and another one the following morning. You can sleep here in college.” I took a flight from Orly, arriving at quarter to one. The secretary let me in to talk to the principal. I gave my name. He looked at me, then at a piece of paper on his desk, and slowly his gaze returned to me. 

“Good, very good,” he said. “Your interview will be at…” He consulted the piece of paper on his desk again. “…3.30 or maybe 4.00. Ask my secretary. You need to eat, of course.”

“Yes,” I said, expecting an abundant lunch. He kept his eyes on the same piece of paper. “Do you know Oxford?” He asked. “I’m afraid, no,” I replied. “Well, then,” he continued, “Go to Cornmarket Street. There are many restaurants there.”

“Where is Cornmarket Street?” I asked, feeling a bit deflated. 

“Just ask, anyone can tell you.”

I headed off, had lunch on Cornmarket Street, took a walk around Oxford and presented myself for the interview at the required time. The room was full of respectable looking men, no women. One of the respectable men addressed me: “Have you had a pleasant journey?” I assured him that the flight was most enjoyable. Satisfied, he explained to me, how the University worked, the relationship between departments and colleges, and finished by telling me what my job would be: “You will be required to give eight tutorials a week during term time. Are you happy to do that?” The rest of the questions were more or less irrelevant. The college had no Fellows in Engineering. They did not know what to ask.

I was invited for dinner. I was led into a magnificent hall and offered a seat at the High Table. I sat next to an ex-Germanist who at the time held the Chair of Comparative Slavonic Philology. We had a lively conversation. He turned out to be familiar with Hungarian literature. In fact, he had recently translated the poem Parizsba tegnap beszokott az osz into English. Subsequently, he called my attention to some archaic phrases of Slavonic origin in the poem Janos Vitez.

Continuing the Hungarian theme, he told me that he had just written a paper in some philological journal on the relationship between the German Arbeit and the Hungarian munka. He claimed that both words, which mean work today, had originally meant torment, and, interestingly, the quite similar Russian word muka kept its meaning of something very painful. I was impressed. “What a life”, I thought, if from now on these were the kind of people I’d be sharing my meals with: science by day, arts by night.

Just out of curiosity I asked one more question. “Can you read all the European languages?” He admitted that he knew very little Basque or Albanian. “I presume”, I smiled, “that gap will soon be filled.” His reply was entirely earnest: “Alas, no. My next language will be Maori.” I could have continued the conversation until daybreak. Unfortunately, the discussion was stopped by the end of the dinner. As soon as I stood up, I was cornered by another Fellow who was, frankly, utterly dull.

Back in my room I was reminded that it was the bleak December, bitterly cold. The only source of heat was a single-bar electric heater above a low cupboard. I spent the night fully clothed on the top of the cupboard wrapped in the blanket provided.

In the morning I defrosted and rushed to my interview at the Department of Engineering Science. The only questions were about my research. I was happy to expand upon that. I had no idea how well, or how badly, I had done.

Three weeks later the Fellow who called my attention to the advertisement came to Paris on business. I met him. I did not need to ask him. He volunteered. “It was a very strong field,” he said. “You did well. You came ahead of most of the Oxbridge candidates. Unfortunately, the college was a bit reluctant to elect someone with some obscure degrees from Communist Hungary, and as it happened there was a very strong candidate. A first from Cambridge, PhD from Stanford, CERN in Geneva for his present job, and plenty of publications. He was elected. Well, that’s that. I am sorry that this is how things turned out, but if I were you, I would keep going. Engineering has suddenly become fashionable at Oxford. A number of further vacancies will be advertised. If I were you, I would apply as they come up. You are bound to succeed.”

I was in two minds. Should I apply when the next vacancy comes up? My wife was all for it, as was my three-year-old daughter (having consulted her teddy bear). While waiting for the next advertisement to appear I got a letter from the same principal. He offered me the job. Forgetting a lunch invitation is bad enough, but offering a job by mistake, smacked, without doubt, of early dementia. How could I find out whether he meant it? It seemed unlikely. I decided to phone the college. The secretary confirmed the offer.  I took it and spent more than thirty happy and productive years at Oxford.

So, what had happened? As I found out later, the Cambridge-Stanford candidate had turned the job down. A more interesting one had been lined up for him by University College, London. He did okay. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Internet Society in 2012 and was named the Father of the European Internet.

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