For many years David Lodge was an astute member of the literature advisory panel of Arts Council England, which I served as director of literature.
In 1995 Lord (Grey) Gowrie was chairing the Arts Council as a whole. As well as being a former Conservative minister for the arts under Margaret Thatcher, he was a literate man and a poet, but he also fancied himself as the next chairman of the panel.
Bringing this about meant the defenestration of Michael Holroyd, the chair at the time, and probably the wisest, most experienced literary adviser in the country.
David was outraged. He insisted on a special meeting of the panel to confront Gowrie with the wrongness of his action. Lordly hauteur capped literary sensibility and Gowrie would not give way, though his tenure did not last long. David remained a voice of conscience on the panel, supported by all its other members.
