HOLY DISORDERS:
FEN'S ATTITUDE TO COLLEAGUES AND ASSOCIATES

Fen’s attitude to his colleagues and his friends was so impossibly, determinedly and vigorously rude and overbearing that his mere survival remains a tribute to their patience and understanding. Interestingly, Crispin, presumably having spoken with them, says that they suffered his eccentricities knowing that any reaction would lead to their own discomfiture. That said, the aged Wilkes, for one, was not at all intimidated and was quite capable of quelling Fen’s excesses when necessary, once silencing him by addressing him as ‘You unchivalrous young hound.’Another colleague, The Regius Professor of Mathematics (Holy Disorders), much addicted, like Fen, to the works of Lewis Carroll, showed that he too could deal with his bumptious younger colleague when necessary. He first pretended not to remember him, then claimed he thought he was the New College buttery boy, and refused pointedly to push off when told.

To his friends, Fen combined callous disregard with a well-hidden sympathy. His review of Richard Cadogan’s first book of poems ended with, ‘This is a book everyone can afford to be without.’ Yet Cadogan, his contemporary, knew Fen well enough to overcome this dismissal, and even said he would hate to have Fen as an enemy, feeling there was, ‘Something one can only describe as formidable about him.’ (Moving Toyshop)