Robin Lane Fox’s reputation precedes him.
He’s a storied academic and the world’s longest-standing gardening columnist with 55 years and counting at the Financial Times. Whispers of the man’s exploits have long been exchanged in the Oxford cloisters, where generations of students have hoped to catch a glimpse of the fabled professor.
Professor Lane Fox, extraordinary lecturer in ancient history, to give him just one of his official titles, is said to have given lectures on Alexander the Great in the first person. Some insinuate that he believes himself to be a reincarnation of the man.
Others say he traded his historical expertise for a place in a Hollywood cavalry charge against armoured elephants, perched atop a horse named Gladiator.
‘I’ve heard,’ one Ivy League classicist confides, ‘that once his jacket began smoking during a talk due to an improperly extinguished pipe.’
He also despises garden gnomes.
Lane Fox, garden fellow, to give him another of his titles, is as close to the platonic ideal of an eccentric Oxbridge academic as one can be. And given how endangered they are these days, it’s perhaps no surprise how elusive he is.
Making contact is a challenge. Emailing is a dead end. Calling? Forget about it, there are no mobile phones in Lane Fox’s world, and good luck getting hold of the landline.
