Lord Reith and I

He was bigger even than I expected, well over six feet though then almost 80: a vast crag of a man, slow moving but upright, the famous shrapnel scar in his left cheek still deep after more than 50 years.

The occasion was one peculiar to the ancient Scottish universities: a rectorial installation. Malcolm Muggeridge had been our candidate. The founding father of the British Broadcasting Corporation was his guest. And—probably because I was a medical student and might therefore know what to do if he died—I had been detailed to …