Inside Oxford with Alison Boulton

Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage: grace under pressure, is played out again and again in heroic actions by men and women in their daily lives.

Faced with a crisis, they keep a cool head. Their concern is for others – not themselves.

Oxford assistant headteacher Simon Underwood’s clear thinking and initiative saved the life of a 15-month-old toddler.

Arriving at a Northamptonshire holiday camp with his wife, Underwood was greeted by the child’s distraught parents: their youngster was lying face down in a stream.

“I had to concentrate on what I was doing. I was really surprised how clear and focussed I was on what was to happen. Every second was vital,” Underwood said. The teacher’s first aid skills allowed him to successfully perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the toddler, who made a full recovery.

“First aid is a life saved. It was the greatest achievement of my life,” Underwood said. Earlier in 2014, he was awarded the St John’s Ambulance’s Everyday Hero of the Year.

Oxford’s only Victoria Cross and Bar – in effect a double VC, awarded posthumously to Oxford-born Dr Noel Chavasse, recognizes a series of heroic actions – each one saving many lives. Chavasse’s record was unique in the First World War.

After winning the Military Cross in June 1916 for his 48 hours continual excursion into No Man’s Land – often in full view of the German lines – to bring back the wounded, Chavasse asked his sister (he was a twin, and one of seven children) to buy 1,000 pairs of socks and other comforts for his battalion, using his own money.

Twice more, on the Somme and at Ypres, Chavasse risked his life again and again to bring back and tend to his wounded comrades. Injured, he told his parents: “Don’t be the least upset if you hear I am wounded. It is absolutely nothing.”

When his first aid post was struck by a shell on August 2, 1917, everyone present was killed or wounded. Despite his own injuries, Chavasse crawled half a mile to get help, before dying two days later.

Watching the Watermill’s magnificent production of RC Sherriff’s Journey’s End, I was struck by the similarities to Chavasse’s story. Sherriff himself had been badly wounded at Passchendaele, where Chavasse’s regiment lost two officers and 141 soldiers.

Sherriff’s compassion for his characters: drunken Stanhope, steady Osborne, nerve- jangled Hibbert, idealistic Raleigh, trapped in a dug out on the Front Line, is one of the greatest explorations of grace under pressure.

The men’s comfort in remembering the domesticity they’d left, their determination to maintain a sense of small civilities and routine in the face of the madness outside, and their bravery, when called, to walk out in the knowledge of near certain death is intensely moving.

So too was the Oxford Playhouse’s sell-out success The Kite Runner, based on Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini’s story of Amir, the rich boy living in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul and his friend/servant Hassan.

Courage doesn’t always have to come first: it can emerge slowly, timorously, uncertainly after a great wrong has been committed. It can put things right, as well as do right by others. Oxford has been privileged to witness all kinds of valour reflecting values learnt here; many more acts within its walls are unsung – but all, infinitely worthwhile. n Journey’s End runs until October 11 at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury.

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