encouraging a bracing democratic atmosphere’; Franco was providing ‘a convenient testing bed for the hardware of the Nazi war machine’. Heath returned to Britain resolved to canvass for the republican cause, even though he accepted that it was probably lost. He was moreover convinced that the Spanish civil war was merely the preamble to a greater European war for which Britain must urgently prepare.26
He had had few illusions about this since the summer of 1937 when he had spent two months in Germany working on his German. In his biography, John Campbell writes that Heath ‘never learned a second language’. In his copy of the book Heath wrote against this remark ‘Wrong!’ He does, indeed, seem to have spoken German with some fluency at this time. He read it too; he claimed that Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks had given him a unique insight into the German character: ‘What a superb book it is,’ he told Professor Winckler, in whose home in Bavaria he spent several weeks as a paying guest.27 But he was not a natural linguist, and by the time he found himself negotiating with German politicians over Britain’s entry into Europe he would have found it impossible to sustain a serious conversation in their language. To his surprise, he was invited to attend a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg and found himself within a few feet of Hitler and meeting the other Nazi leaders at a cocktail party: Göring, ‘bulky and genial’; Goebbels, ‘small, pale and insignificant’, and Himmler, ‘I shall never forget how drooping and sloppy Himmler’s hand was when he offered it to me’. He was horrified by the ferociously nationalistic zeal which permeated the whole affair: ‘I was utterly convinced now that a conflict was inevitable, and that it was one for which we must prepare immediately if we were to save Europe from the evil domination of National Socialism.’28
He went back to Germany in August 1939. His companion was Madron Seligman, a Balliol contemporary who was, and would remain, his closest friend. Seligman was Jewish, educated at Harrow and from a family of rich aluminium manufacturers. A fine sportsman and a lover of music, Seligman could have made himself at home in any sector of Balliol society. For a time, remembered Roy Jenkins, he had links with the ‘Rugbeian pi group’ which went in for ‘low living, social concern and high moral tone’. Though Heath avoided association with any clique, this was a group with which he too had much in common. He and Seligman became, if not inseparable, then at least intimate to a degree which Heath was never to permit himself with any other friend. The two discussed where they should spend their last months of liberty before embarking on their respective careers. Seligman favoured Spain. Heath acquiesced and filled in a visa application. To the question why he had visited Spain the previous year he wrote: ‘To observe the Civil War’; to ‘What is the purpose of your present visit’, he wrote: ‘To observe the peace.’ Perhaps the Spanish authorities found this unduly flippant; perhaps they disapproved of his republican sympathies; the visa was refused. Instead, the two set out for a tour of Danzig and Poland, travelling by way of Germany. Seligman’s Jewish blood, Heath told Winckler, provided the couple with ‘many amusing moments’. The words were curiously chosen: it was less than a year since the pogroms of Kristallnacht and since then the plight of the German Jews had inexorably worsened. Seligman was protected by his British passport, but if they had got their timing wrong and war had broken out while they were still in Germany he would have been in great danger. Even as it was it must have been always unpleasant and sometimes distressing. The English were not well liked in Germany in 1939 and an Englishman of Jewish appearance was doubly unwelcome.29
They travelled to suit Heath’s budget rather than Seligman’s, which meant that discomfort was added to their other woes. The train from Berlin to Danzig was filled with drunken Austrians and they had to try to sleep in the luggage rack: when they had a meal with the consul next day, according to Seligman, Heath was half asleep and ‘didn’t utter a word the whole way through lunch except to say how bad the food was’. By the time they reached Warsaw it was obvious that war was imminent; they were sped on their way and hitch-hiked towards the frontier with the Polish army as it moved up to defend its country. Once in Germany things were still worse; the – far more formidable – German army was moving the other way and they had to battle against the tide. Suspicion of foreigners, particularly English-speaking foreigners, was even worse than it had been on the way out and several times they thought they were on the point of being arrested or beaten up. Eventually they arrived at Paris and called at the Embassy, to be told: ‘Unless you get out now you will never get out at all!’ The advice was perhaps unduly alarmist but the situation was indeed dire: Heath got back to Dover a week before war broke out.30
His Oxford career was over. He had reason to feel proud of his achievements. He had attained heroic status within the university – ‘That’s Teddy Heath. He’s going to be prime minister one day’, a new arrival among the women undergraduates – the future Mrs Anthony Barber – was excitedly informed. More important, his name was known in Westminster; visiting politicians had noticed him as a potential recruit to their ranks. Only in one way was he disappointed. He had read Modern Greats (PPE) and he would have liked to crown his triumphs with first-class honours. He knew that the time and effort which he had devoted to the Union, the OUCA, the Balliol JCR and his musical duties had made his task doubly difficult. ‘He would have done even better had he not been a man of wide and very active interests,’ wrote Lindsay. ‘I have the greatest admiration for Mr Heath’s energy, initiative and sense of responsibility.’ Such praise from Lindsay was most welcome but Heath had still hoped for more. ‘You seem to have got a very nice Second in the Schools, and I dare say that all things considered you are quite satisfied,’ wrote one of his tutors at Balliol consolingly. Heath did not think his Second was very nice and he was far from satisfied. He believed that, with just a little more application, he could have gained the coveted First.31
In this he was probably wrong. The notes which Lindsay made on the undergraduates, based on the reports of the various tutors, show that Heath was not felt to be distinguished academically. One don was ‘not impressed, uninspired work’, others contributed ‘fairly intelligent, decent, slow mind’; ‘No outstanding work; second class’; and even ‘stupid, lacks thought’. This was not the whole picture; some said that he was ‘v. intelligent’ or ‘can do v. good work’; but the overall picture was not that of a student for whom first-class honours could be expected.32 The economist Redvers Opie taught both Harold Wilson and Heath at Oxford and left notes on his pupils. Wilson had ‘exceptional intellectual ability and a remarkably comprehensive mind’; Heath, on the other hand, ‘was usually given a beta mark and criticised for trundling out run-of-the-mill views’.33 When he was writing his memoirs Heath got hold of Harold Wilson’s marks in Finals so that he could compare them with his own. He found that he had one beta+ while the rest were betas or beta–. Wilson got one beta+ and the rest alphas. The figures were not quoted in Heath’s memoirs.
If Heath had achieved all he did at Oxford and nevertheless gained first-class honours it would indeed have been a triumph. If, though, he had failed to become President of the Union and, in spite of the extra effort put into his work, had still gained only a Second, it would have been a sad waste. No one can doubt that he made the right decision and put his energies where they counted most.
New graduates leaving Oxford at the end of the summer term of 1939 must have been aware that whatever career they planned was likely to be interrupted. It was still possible, however, that war would not come. If it did, it might last only a few months. The only sensible thing to do was to prepare for a peacetime future with a tacit awareness that all such plans would probably come to nothing.
For Heath the first and most important decision was whether he should pursue music as a career. As organ scholar