Graham Greene's publishing skills have helped put Garsington Opera on the international map, writes GILES WOODFORDE

The man sitting next to me on the X90 bus looked most alarmed as I burst out laughing for no apparent reason. I was reading the CV of Graham Greene, highly distinguished publisher, and now chairman of Garsington Opera. And the reason for the laughter? I had just noticed that Graham Greene and I both worked for the publisher Secker and Warburg early in our careers, missing each other by only a few months.

We met in Graham Greene's London flat. On the wall, staring at us fixedly, was publisher Fred Warburg himself, as painted in a highly idiosyncratic modern style by his wife Pamela. Although not nominally employed by the firm, Pamela de Bayou (as she liked to be known) exercised a very firm influence over Secker and Warburg, taking an active interest in everything from the colour of the office carpet, to the design of book jackets, to the attractiveness of any girl that her husband might think of employing. But for Graham Greene it wasn't a case of going straight into publishing after he completed his education at Eton and Oxford. First, his CV reveals, he went into banking.

"It's always slightly a joke that I say that," Graham explained. "My grandfather was a banker, and he was deeply saddened that his one son had died, leaving him with only' three daughters - only' was the way they put it in those days. So he rather looked to me to carry on the tradition, and although, right through my childhood, I'd said: No, I'm not going to be a banker, I've no interest in finance,' I suddenly found myself going off to work in the Dublin branch of the bank.

"But before I started in Dublin, I had begun looking for a job in publishing, because that's what I really wanted to do. I was turned down by about 50 publishers - and I'm not exaggerating - most of whom said they thought I'd be too ambitious for them. But my father's second wife was a literary agent and she got me an interview with Fred Warburg. He was rather fascinated, because he came from the Warburg financial dynasty, and agreed to see me, to tell me why I should stick to banking.

"My mother said: Publishers are all vain, so show Warburg your knowledge of his list'. The most interesting thing he'd just done was a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, published simultaneously in hardback and paperback. Now it's very commonplace, but at that time it had not been done before. So very quickly I asked Mr Warburg how it had worked out, so of course he spent most of the interview telling me what a brilliant idea it had been. The only other test was that he dropped his pen on the floor, to see if I would pick it up for him." A job with Secker and Warburg was duly offered. The year was 1958.

"I was about to get married," Graham continued. "My future wife was earning £9 a week and Secker and Warburg paid me £5. We could manage not too badly on that - we were able to entertain Fred Warburg and his extraordinary wife to dinner: I remember ringing my father and asking him what wine I should offer. He said: There's a very good Tuscan wine at four shillings and ninepence'. Others at my level wouldn't have been able to afford it, but it was my wife's income that made it possible. It was a terrifying occasion - Pamela criticised our flat, our furnishings, everything. I survived the job for five years, but I could see I was going nowhere. So I accepted a job with Jonathan Cape. Fred Warburg was absolutely horrified and called me a traitor."

Graham Greene went on to become managing director of Jonathan Cape and later chairman of a group that comprised the publishers Chatto, Virago and Bodley Head as well as Jonathan Cape. He also served on many book trade bodies, both nationally and internationally. Now he is chairman of the governors of Compton Verney, the award-winning art gallery near Banbury, as well as Garsington Opera. How, I asked Graham, had music and opera entered his life?

"There was really no music in my family, although my mother had been an assistant to Julius Gellner, who produced some operas at the Royal Opera House. As for my father, he became Director-General of the BBC and it's always said that he wanted to stop Desert Island Discs because he thought it had gone on long enough. And he was notorious in the BBC for not going to the Proms. He wouldn't have recognised God Save the Queen, except for the fact that everybody got up when it was played. But I became interested in opera, although I'm by no means an expert.

"Leonard Ingrams the founder of Garsington Opera and his wife Rosalind asked me to join the board. I said that I really didn't know much about opera, but I suppose that the experience I had gained of managing artistic enterprises - I'd spent time dealing with some very difficult personalities - may have stood me in good stead.

"The chairman keeps an eye on the money, tries to keep the board together, and generally makes sure that the ship is on an even keel. It certainly doesn't involve acting as artistic director, although, of course, all the members of the board take an interest in what is staged. In fact, next week the general director, Anthony Whitworth-Jones, who is responsible for artistic policy, will be presenting the board with his proposals for the 2009 season. As the standards at Garsington are now so high, we have to work further and further in advance, because the singers we want to engage are booked up way ahead. It's one of the risks - we have to book the singers before we are sure we can sell all the seats."

Carefully avoiding the dreaded word legacy, I wondered if there was anything that Graham Greene would like to achieve as chairman of Garsington Opera.

"I'd like to make sure that Garsington goes on, is financially viable, and continues to raise its standards. And, maybe because of my own lack of musical education, I would like to feel that we'd reached out to local schools - we have slowly increased this work, and there have been startlingly interesting results. If we could do more of that, it would be a wonderful legacy.

"It's also rather exciting for little old Garsington that our production of Die ägyptische Helena has just been presented, in hugely expanded form, by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, with Donizetti's Don Pasquale, presented at Garsington last year, following on at Geneva Opera next month. It's truly a bit of Oxfordshire being exported abroad."