Philip Grierson - Personal Life

Personal Life

Despite his prodigious volume of publications and onerous academic duties, Grierson was extremely sociable. He moved into St Michael’s Court in the 1930s, and occupied the same set of rooms overlooking the Market Square in Cambridge after an interlude during the Second World War, when they were used by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. These rooms remained a hub of activity in college, constantly receiving visitors. Although he never married, Grierson had a great many friends in Cambridge and elsewhere, and would host sherry parties at the beginning of each year.

During his time away from study, the cinema was one of Grierson’s greatest interests. Evenings with friends in his later years would often begin with pizza (either at Pizza Express on Jesus Lane or, in summer, at Don Pasquale in the Market Square) and end with a movie in his rooms. As an undergraduate, he was secretary of the university’s film society, and was such a regular cinema-goer that in the 1930s one local newspaper commented that the opening of an eighth cinema in Cambridge would give ‘Mr Grierson of Caius the chance to visit a different cinema every day, and two on Sunday’. With the advent of video, he began to build up a collection of films in his rooms, which eventually included 2,000 items on video and DVD. Most had notes attached bearing Grierson’s scathing initial thoughts jotted down after watching. Grierson’s cinematic and literary tastes always inclined towards the exciting and adventurous: science fiction and horror were among his favourites.

As a student and young fellow, Grierson had a great interest in and admiration for the Soviet Union, which led him to spend a summer touring it with a friend in 1932. Subsequently he published a bibliography of literature on the Soviet Union down to 1942, which he updated annually until 1950. Grierson’s distaste with fascist régimes manifested itself in a refusal to visit Spain under Franco, and also in a visit to Germany in 1938 to aid the release of two Jewish academics. They were the father and father-in-law of David Daube, a friend of Philip and subsequently regius professor of civil law at Oxford. After being rounded up in Kristallnacht (9 November 1938 – 10 November 1938) they had been sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Once Grierson and some friends had been alerted to the situation by Daube they moved very fast, obtaining a visa to visit Germany on 14 November and papers for the release under British visa of Daube’s relatives expedited by the MP for Cambridge university. After flying to Frankfurt on 18 November, Grierson arranged the release of Daube’s relatives on 20 November and 26 November, and travelled with them back to England.

Grierson’s wartime experiences were relatively peaceful. Poor eyesight and a childhood injury left him unfit for military service, and despite being interviewed he was rejected from the Ultra codebreaking enterprise at Bletchley Park because his German was not strong enough. Instead, he remained in Cambridge as part of the reduced history faculty.

Throughout his life, Grierson remained active and relatively healthy. He played squash regularly until the age of 80, and enjoyed telling stories of how he had climbed Mount Etna in Sicily during its 1949 eruption. Physical challenges appealed to him, such as when on one occasion in 1932 or 1933 he walked home from London one evening – a distance of some forty-four miles – and arrived the following lunchtime. The evening, he was sworn in as fellow of Gonville and Caius in 1935 happened to coincide with an important family party in Dublin the next evening. Grierson was not deterred, and arranged for a friend to fly him from Cambridge to Rugby after leaving dinner at the earliest possible moment. At Rugby, he caught the post train for Holyhead, and after catching a ferry the following morning made it to Dublin in plenty of time for his party. Grierson learned to fly himself in his 20s, but never learned to drive.