I like him, but very much against my better judgement: Norman Stone at Cambridge

I met Norman Stone at the end of my first tumultuous 10 days at Cambridge University as a young ex-Army officer freshly arrived at Jesus College. Shortly thereafter I turned up at his rooms for my first history supervision, or tutorial, not properly prepared – a situation made profoundly worse by the fact that my tutorial partner, George, also arrived similarly ill-prepared.  Norman gave us a tremendous bollocking, warning us that we would not survive our first year unless we seriously pulled up our socks. George and I promptly vowed to find tutorial partners of the brainy swot variety.

After this unfortunate start, matters improved.  I was fascinated by his mastery of the Eastern Front during the First World War, on which he had written the definitive book. Norman had unique access to the original documents, because he had learned three of the local languages whilst imprisoned in the Soviet Bloc for attempting to smuggle the girlfriend of a friend of his over the Iron Curtain in the boot of his car.

Our meetings became a real pleasure, as he teased me about my political views, taught me what history was all about, and also how to survive extraordinarily long drinking sessions without falling down the stairs on the way back to my College rooms.

He subsequently became my “moral tutor” – a position for which he was exceedingly ill-equipped but which at least showed the College had a sense of humour. He finally left Cambridge bound for Oxford, after the Jesus authorities tired of his lovely girlfriend bicycling through their courts.

A year or so later, when I applied for my first job in the City of London, at the investment bank Lazard Brothers, I asked Norman if he would be my referee.  He generously consented. At the interview I was asked if I knew what he had written. I didn’t. The lengthy and witty reference – mainly dissecting my undeniable faults, with a nod to my more questionable qualities – was gleefully read out by my interlocutor. It ended with the memorable line: “I like him, but very much against my better judgement.” I got the job.

We have met – off and on – many times over the ensuing 40 years.  Wise, irreverent, waspish, funny and always fizzing like a freshly opened bottle of champagne (usually served in a half-pint tankard), there has never been anybody like Norman. The universe is a lesser place now that he has gone.