Oxford… a residence for fantasy, as it has been since – and possibly before – Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson, which appeared in 1911.

As one sees here, many surprising connections could be made, some beyond the university. Hilary Rubinstein attended Merton College. Having graduated, he went to work for his uncle, Victor Gollancz, the publisher. Hilary recalled reading that Kingsley Amis was writing a novel while at St John’s. He dropped Kingsley a line, and so secured Lucky Jim for publication. [An idiot publisher had already rejected the novel; one assumes he is now working for Tesco.] Apparently Gollancz was not pleased about the deal, but one imagines that Amis’s wild success must have calmed his nerves somewhat.
Hilary was a year my junior (which is like saying that we were of the same age). He shuffled through various stages of his career, soon entering A.P.Watt, London’s oldest literary agency, where for several decades he ruled as Britain’s finest literary agent.

One of his first moves, as he reshuffled that rather somnolent organisation, was to appoint a foreign rights agent. For this task he selected the beautiful, wonderful and wild Maggie Noach. I can have been but one of the herd of chaps who adored Maggie. And – adorable qualities apart – Maggie in a couple of years had doubled my income. Spreading my light abroad.

Kingsley Amis had interested Hilary in science fiction. He had encouraged me to join Watt, together with my staunch friend Harry Harrison. Amis – this Amis – cared about the fortunes of his friends. I would go frequently to see Hilary; we would smoke his – or my – slender cigars and converse. This pleasant hospitable man always had time for his clients.

He and his wife, Helge, had a cottage outside Thame, that quiet country town not so far from Oxford. Hilary invited me to spend a week there occasionally on my own, writing. Many were the weeks I spent there, in that pleasant cottage, reading one or other of Hilary’s interesting books of an evening. On his shelves I found a book about the remarkable Lou Andreas Salomé and her relationship with Nietzsche. I have never forgotten it.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, I joined the Barnstaple Atheneum, to the astonishment of all concerned. I had met with the name Nietzsche in a science fiction magazine and wanted to read ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’.

In Hilary’s cottage I learnt something of his relationship with this remarkable woman, Salomé – who incidentally spent many years with Rilke.

Oh, these distant people, known only through books – or through Google…

I used to stop writing to walk up through the fields for lunch in a Thame pub. My wife would come at the end of the week and drive me home, probably with another novel under my belt.

Hilary eventually retired from A.P.Watt; so I left too. I went to Curtis Brown, while Hilary and Helge founded the Good Hotel Guide. Hilary and I met occasionally. He died in 2012.

Helge had an independent career, in which books were also involved, including her Oxford Book of Marriage, and chocolate. Helge founded Ben’s Cookies, the first stall of which stood in Oxford Covered Market. Margaret and I were crazy about Ben’s Cookies.