Cattle boat to Oxford

the long version

Reginald Isaac Wilfred Westgate, known most of his life as "Bill," was sixteen years old when he took his first summer job as a surveyor's assistant in the Canadian wilderness. Already he was a proficient writer with a remarkable ability to observe and record the world around him. He seldom broke his rule to write home on Sunday. The letters collected here were written to his father, mother, and two sisters during the formative years of his life from 1921 to 1927. Each letter is a gem, revealing with poignant, often humorous perception a cast of characters that ranges from "wild young Roman Catholic Indians" and Scottish cowboys to Oxford's boisterous students and austere dons and London's high society. These letters, blended with other writings and personal vignettes by Bill Westgate and his wife, Sheila, portray the coming-of-age of a rare and beloved classics scholar, teacher of Greek and Latin, and headmaster. Bill Westgate was truly a man of profound intellect who lived and loved life to its fullest - in many ways a modern-day Mr. Chips.