Vinod Mehta, the irrepressible editor of one of our popular weekly magazines, The Outlook, had this on his last page comments, “Oxford dons, as is well known, enjoy a spot of nude-bathing at a secluded male-only spot on the river Cherwell. In the 1940s, Maurice Bowra, the distinguished classicist and a legendary figure at Oxford, was reclining au naturel with fellow dons (Isaiah Berlin, John Sparrow, Hugh Trevor-Roper) when some women students floated by on a punt. Bowra covered his face with a handkerchief while the others scrambled to cover their genitals. When asked about his reaction, Bowra said, “I don’t know about you, gentlemen, but in Oxford I, at least, am known by my face.”
I have never been in a similar predicament and really cannot think of how I would have reacted had I been. I mean both being nude and the response!