‘You wicked man! Whatever am I going to do with you?’ ‘You angel, you angel fluff on toast!’ Years on, I can still hear the historian Jeremy Catto’s booming voice, just as I often reach for his fiercest imprecation – ‘It’s all too, too Gormenghast’ – when something goes wrong. Catto was a noted scholar, a dedicated teacher, an Oxford institution and the tutelary deity of Oriel College for decades. Above all, he was a force whose personality helped shape almost everyone he encountered. Now, this tribute by a former pupil seeks to recapture some of his personality before it is lost for good.

It is a book primarily intended for those who knew the man in question – and especially those who responded to Catto’s charm. Not everyone did. Some found him absurd, others sinister. It was always rumoured when I was a student that he had been the model for Uncle Monty in Withnail and I. But even readers who may struggle to sympathise with him – or find the slew of Oxford slang and defence of old-school elitism wholly rebarbative – will gain something from this well-researched, empathetic and insightful biography.

Not least, it portrays a more intriguing individual than might at first sight seem likely. When Catto retired in 2006, another former student, Sir Alan Duncan, said in a Spectator article that there was ‘a smattering of Catto’ in Porterhouse Blue, Goodbye, Mr Chips and the novels of C P