Christopher Gray attends a retirement dinner for publisher Bob Campbell

Among the many words of praise showered lavishly on publisher Bob Campbell at his retirement dinner last Thursday night at Wolfson College — a humdinger of a do, let me say at once — there was one that definitely did not find favour with the great man’s son.

“Adorable!” scoffed novelist Tom Campbell in his address to the assembled throng, 140 strong and including his younger sisters Chloe and Nancy. “I am not sure this is the first thing I would choose to call my dad.” He was still chuntering about it, in feigned fury, at the end of the evening when our paths crossed in the loo.

I, too, thought the adjective a little twee, and certainly unsuited to describe a chap dedicated to such down-to-earth activities as fly fishing (of which much was heard during the dinner, including one oft-repeated story concerning the ungenerous proportions of a cock salmon caught during one of his regular trips to Scotland).

My first thought was of that gooey Perry Como song that begins: “A. You’re adorable. B. You’re so beautiful C. You’re a cutie, full of charms.” (When L is reached, we are ready for mention of that strange radiance so beloved of songwriters. I mean love light.) Tom, as it happens, employed the same initial-letter approach in his speech, these being supplied by his father’s christian name. “B for bluffer,” he began. “He is a truth-seeker, but also he’s a great bullsh***er.”

For the O, Tom offered Orrible, adding in explanation of this spelling error: “Well, I did go to a comprehensive school.” Then, lest anyone should think he was being a bit hard on dad, he gave for the second B “big-hearted”.

Many at Wolfson echoed that opinion during the dinner, with proceedings conducted — as the master of ceremonies, Bob’s American colleague Steve Miron, explained — in the manner of a Quaker meeting. Those who felt moved to speak, stood up and did just that.

In fact, it was evident that considerable thought had gone into the speeches delivered variously by old friends, colleagues from the world of publishing, and some of the many distinguished scientists Bob has dealt with in more than four decades. As boss of Blackwell Science, in succession to his mentor Per Saugman, and later president of Blackwell Publishing, he has been a leading figure in the production, in particular, of journals. In more recent years, following Blackwell’s absorption into the American firm John Wiley & Sons, he was the company’s senior publisher.

Among the guests were Lord May, a former President of the Royal Society and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government; the prostate surgeon Prof Roger Kirby; statistician Dame Karen Dunnell; Bahram Bekhradnia, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute; urologist Christopher Woodhouse (aka Lord Terrington); and Chris Higgins, the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University.

One of Bob’s oldest friends on view was his former Dragon School colleague Adrian Bullock, the son of the historian and founding Master of St Catherine’s College, Lord Bullock. He might have been the one, I think, to give us the ‘A’ word. He certainly said: “To know Bob is to love him.”

Adrian spoke wittily of his pal’s lack of expertise as a speaker of French, this despite the fact that Bob and his wife Frances have owned a house on the River Vienne at Charent since 1978. “Bob,” he said, “has created a special language all of his own.”

This struck a chord with me who can speak with experience of Bob, the builder of mistaken impressions through language. Thirty or more years ago, with him on a wine-buying trip to Burgundy, I saw the look of puzzlement that passed across the face of a grower as he enquired, after sniffing a wine’s bouquet: “Quelle raison?” Bob had turned a question concerning grape varieties into an expression of existential angst. He meant, of course, ‘raisin’.

Bob’s enthusiasm for wine, and indeed food, was reflected in what was laid on for our delectation at Wolfson. Following a champagne reception, dinner offered a choice between a smoked fish platter or roast tomato and red pepper soup, followed by canon of venison with port sauce, baked cod with butter beans or mushroom mille-feuille. Wines were Petit Chablis J. Moreau et fils, 2012, Château Lyonnat, Lussac Saint-Émilion, 2008 and Graham’s Late Bottled Vintage Port, 2008.

As we ate, a jazz band played. This had been assembled by Alyn Shipton from the remains of Vile Bodies, of which Bob’s Marlborough College (and Dragon) contemporary, the late Humphrey Carpenter, had been a member. Another Marlborough contemporary — an unlikely one for those who remember public schools as they were in the 1960s — is his life-long friend Carolyn Halliday. To the tiny teenage Campbell fell the task of greeting the then Carolyn Wheeler as the first girl in a school of 800 boys. He was pictured doing so on the front page of the Daily Express in September 1963.

In her amusing speech at Wolfson, Carolyn spoke for many, I feel sure, when she said: “Bob has had huge success in every aspect of his life, and one of the reasons for this has been his wonderful wife, Frances.”