30 December—Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction yesterday on federal sex trafficking charges reminds me of the time in 1969 when I was knocked off my bike in front of her father’s bookstore and had the opportunity to observe the fabled heated toilet seat of Headington Hill Hall. Well, not her conviction, but Ghislaine herself, whom I never met. And who must have been a child at the time. Like the girls she pimped out to princes, presidents, and other predatory pricks.

Anyway, a few days before our guys made it to the moon—Apollo 11 was already en route—it was sunny and warm in Oxford, so I decided to bike to town from my flat in Cowley, rather than drive in. As I was coming off the roundabout (traffic circle) just before Magdalen Bridge, I was knocked off my bike by the mirror of a Land Rover the driver was lucky enough to be able to start that morning.

There was I, lying under my bike, helpless in the roadway. And who bothered to stop to administer first aid or even to see if I was still alive? Not a goddamn British soul. Except the good woman who was driving the murderous Land Rover. She had pulled over onto the pavement (what we more properly call a sidewalk) on the bridge and ran back to inspect the havoc she had wreaked.

The only other person to evince even a modicum of solicitude was publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine’s father, then also a Labour Member of Parliament, who happened to be visiting his bookstore at Magdalen Bridge. He was getting into his illegally parked Rolls-Royce when he witnessed the vehicular assault. So he got to me just after the assailant.

Maxwell lifted the bike off me and the nervous assailant helped me up while blowing fag (cigarette) smoke in my face. The bike had suffered no damage at all (naturally) and I had only superficial damage. But my mac and trousers (raincoat and pants) were torn and my Omega needed a new glass (crystal) and band (watchband).

Now that I was alive and standing, we introduced ourselves. Relieved, the female perp—obviously a member of the upper-class ride-to-hounds county set because she was driving a Land Rover—lit another fag. And, after giving me her registration and driving licence (drivers’ license), she asked me not to report the incident to the rozzers (fuzz), assuring me that her husband would take care of everything.

What the hell, I thought, Robert Maxwell, MP, was a witness, after all, and I had the woman’s information. So she lit another fag and drove off. The dutiful husband did in fact come through the next day. Suffice to say, I made out like a bandit. And, I learned, it wasn’t the first time the poor bugger (guy) had to bail out his careless, inattentive, chain-smoking wife.

So Maxwell walked me and the bike back to his bookshop. And on the way he came out with, “Rosenberg? Rosenberg. Du bist a Yid?” (“Rosenberg? Rosenberg. Thou art a Jew?”) He used the familiar pronoun. And he didn’t even know my middle name. “You wouldn’t know it, but I am, too.” Actually, it was common knowledge, as was just about everything about Robert Maxwell, some good, mostly bad. Naturalised (naturalized) immigrant, war hero, self-made publishing tycoon, opportunist, goniff, show-off. But, as Max Bialystok said in “The Producers,” which I had only recently seen at the Odeon, “When ya got it, flaunt it!” So why not give Maxwell a break—at least for flaunting it? And he was the only bystander who bothered to help me, after all.

So Robert Maxwell, MP, invited me for cocktails at his mansion, Headington Hill Hall, not far from his bookstore and even less far from my flat on Divinity Road. Jesus and wow! Not why you think. Because I don’t ordinarily drop names, you’ll have to take my word that an invitation to a nob’s (big-shot’s) residence wasn’t that big a deal. (I mean, it’s not like he was Richie Blumenthal.)

But the word around the university common rooms was that Headington Hill Hall had a heated toilet seat in one of its loos (cans). This was back in the sixties, mind you, considerably before everybody had them, as we all do today, usually as heated bidet seats.

The rest is—as they say—disappointing. Yes, I certainly made it a point to check out a loo, if only a powder room. (My mother had taught me to always check out bathrooms, one of the few things my wives agreed with when they came along.) And it did contain that certain piece of bathroom furniture. And there was indeed a wire running from the seat of that certain piece of bathroom furniture to a switch on the back wall. Robert Maxwell, MP, neither warned me about nor instructed me how to operate his wired toilet seat, so that’s all I can verify.

Because, being a gentleman, I lifted the seat . . .