Head to head

摘要

These entertaining journals are ill-served by their title. The dust jacket and the title page carry different dates, and both are wrong. More importantly, John Rae, who died in 2006, would have been outraged by the implication that he was a typical "old boy". A non-conformist by upbringing, educated at an unfashionable school, with a modest degree from Cambridge, where he won half-blues for swimming and water polo, he rejoiced in being an outsider, a maverick and a source of irritation to conventional, rugby-playing headmasters who disliked his "vulgar bounce and salesmanship".