A bizarre explanation was offered by the journalist Petronella Wyatt in the Daily Telegraph at the weekend for the abrupt end to her Oxford career 26 years ago after just two weeks as a student. In a sentence, she ran away from Worcester College because everyone was beastly to Petsy for being a Tory and having a dad, Lord Wyatt of Weeford, who was a high-profile pal of Margaret Thatcher.

Oh yeh? If that was so, why didn’t she say as much at the time? Instead she told her father (it is recorded in his diaries): “Not at all like Brideshead Revisited . . . Queers and Lesbians. Boys with curly ringlets down to their waists. . .” “Next door through the paper- thin walls,” reported Lord W., “she heard a boy and a girl making love and grunting all night . . . She says nobody at Oxford wants to talk about anything but sex and sport.”

There is more in a similar vein, but no mention at all of any anti-Tory bias. Why not?

Petronella picked out for particular abuse in her Telegraph article the late Harry Pitt, a Worcester history don. After she stumbled over a translation, he allegedly said to her: “Do Thatcherites refuse to learn French or are they just stupid? I suggest you take some basic French lessons in your spare time, or are you too busy socialising?”

Does this sound very likely? Not to me.

If Pitt did object to Ms Wyatt, then a possible explanation is at hand in the attempt Lord Wyatt had made to wangle her into Worcester, his old college. His diary reports an exchange with its Provost, Lord [Asa] Briggs: “Asa said, ‘I want to get your archives into the college.’ ‘At the moment,’ I replied, ‘I’m keener on getting Petronella into the college.’ He took the hint and said he was doing his best and hoped that Harry Pitt (in charge of history) would do the same.”

To be fair, Briggs and Pitt, later told Lord W. that Petsy must win her way in through examination - which she did.