Professor Alfred Felix Landon Beeston 'Freddie' (1911-1995)

Freddie Beeston's first article, on two inscriptions (RES 3427 and Gl 1210) to which he returned forty-seven years later in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 14 (1984): 33-39 and 100-102 respectively.

When this article was published, a contemporary of Freddie's at Christ Church, Robin Zaehner (later, Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, at Oxford), approached him and said 'Beeston, I'm sorry to see you have started to publish articles'. Rather surprised, Freddie asked why, to which Zaehner replied 'Because if you write articles, you'll never write a book, of course!' Fortunately, Freddie proved him wrong, though he remarked many years later, 'I suppose I never have written a book in the sense he meant'.

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