Letter: How Owen Chadwick inspired a new author

I was the cleaner for Prof Owen Chadwick and his wife, Ruth, at the master’s lodge of Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1977-78. It was a short but happy time, and I have much to thank them for.

Both Owen and Ruth were unerringly kind, with a great generosity of spirit. They included me in anything going on in the house such as visits by well-known guests, and gave me books for my children. I remember conversations during coffee breaks, when Ruth worried that appointments at the college were being made without candidates even being aware they were in a selection process, and that Igor the family’s dog was unwell.