2011 - Merton College - University of Oxford
Transcription
2011 - Merton College - University of Oxford
POSTMASTER AND THE MERTON RECORD 2011 Merton College Oxford OX1 4JD Telephone +44 (0)1865 276310 www.merton.ox.ac.uk Edited by Matt Bowdler, Christine Taylor, Helen Kingsley and Philippa Logan Produced by Holywell Press Ltd, Oxford Contents NEWS 5 6 7 9 14 16 18 21 25 27 28 29 30 FROM THE WARDEN Sir Martin Taylor looks back at his first year as Warden JCR NEWS MCR NEWS MERTON SPORT Football, rowing and tennis success. CLUBS & SOCIETIES Merton Floats and the Neave Society report on busy years INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS THE LIBRARY THE ARCHIVES THE CHAPEL THE CHOIR THE GARDENS SCHOOLS LIAISON & ACCESS DEVELOPMENT FELLOWS 34 HAIL TO NEW FELLOWS FEATURES 37 41 44 48 50 52 53 VIEW FROM THE TOP Mark Fiddes gives Postmaster his views on creative marketing and how to get ahead in advertising SCENES FROM A PGCE A moving and thoughtprovoking story about the education system from Gabriella Gruder-Poni MERTONIANS IN… LITERATURE A collection of memories and musings from contemporary Merton authors and poets MERTON CITIES: PARIS Carol Pearson provides her perspective on the City of Light 2010-11 HAITI ELECTIONS George Zachariah reports on his work for the UN during difficult times on the Caribbean island FOR GOODNESS SHAKES Stuart Jeffreys tells Postmaster about the triumphs and tribulations of starting his own business WOMEN’S RUGBY WORLD CUP 2010 Ulrika Andersson-Hall revisits representing her country, Sweden, at the pinnacle of women’s rugby 54 55 58 61 62 65 AWARDS OF THE VICTORIA CROSS Alastair Porter reflects on Mertonian’s war-time bravery LOST, LITTLE KNOWN & UNBUILT MERTON 8 Alan Bott takes a look at the 19th-century restoration work of Edward Blore and William Butterfield ROBERT GILBERT, WARDEN OF MERTON 141721 Roger Highfield examines the curious connection between the medieval warden and a small church in the Oxfordshire countryside LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL An intriguing historical item by Alan Bott, inspired by the recent acquisition of an illustration of Churchill BOOK REVIEWS The Battle of Britain, 1960s mysticism and Thomas Braun MUSIC PREVIEW The Choir of Merton College’s inaugural CD RECORDS 66 69 71 74 75 78 80 82 THE WARDEN & FELLOWS 2010-11 ELECTIONS, HONOURS & APPOINTMENTS NEW STUDENTS 2010 PUBLIC EXAMINATION RESULTS & PRIZES UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS & PRIZES GRADUATE DEGREES, AWARDS & PRIZES COLLEGE STAFF PUBLICATIONS OLD MEMBERS 89 THE MERTON SOCIETY Simon Tross Youle reviews the events of his first year as Chairman 91 MC3 All the news from alumni across the Atlantic 93 MERTON IN THE CITY Richard Weaver reports on the 2011 meeting at Pricewaterhouse Coopers 94 GOLF SOCIETY Tom Hennessy hails Merton golfing achievements amongst the plus fours and par fours 96 NEWS OF OLD MEMBERS 134 IN MEMORIAM 152 FORTHCOMING EVENTS 4 POSTMASTER | 2011 From the Warden It is astonishing to think that my first academic year as your Warden is almost at an end. How quickly the time has gone; much has happened in this short time and much has been achieved. My installation ceremony seems now a distant memory, but an immensely happy one. It was a great platform from which to begin looking forward to Merton’s, and to my, future. The welcome given me has been tremendous. I am joining Merton at a time of great importance for the College: we face the challenge of major changes in the funding of higher education; and we are planning for our 750th Anniversary in 2014. The launch of our 750th Anniversary Sustaining Excellence Campaign at Drapers’ Hall in May was truly remarkable. Attended by some 300 Mertonians, the main speaker was Professor Martin Rees, Lord Rees of Ludlow. Lord Rees presented to us the unique excellence of Oxbridge, against the background of the recent significant developments in the UK higher education landscape. In March, I was privileged to be present at the opening of the new TS Eliot Theatre, the first major building project of the Campaign. It was a great pleasure for me to welcome Valerie Eliot, the widow of TS Eliot, and I am full of admiration for all the Mertonians whose generosity made the Theatre possible. I must also thank Richard Durden-Smith (1963): his interpretation of ‘Macavity – the Mystery Cat’ will never be forgotten! Another event that has had a lasting effect on me was the London Dinner last November which, coincidentally, was held at the Royal Society. Coincidentally because I had recently finished my term as Vice-President of the Royal Society – an office I enjoyed enormously. A record 140 Mertonians and their guests joined the Rt Hon Sir Brian Leveson (1967), the new President of the Merton Society, for dinner in the Dining Room. My wife, Sharon, and I have indeed been struck by the welcome and support we have received throughout the year by Mertonians in the UK. The same can be said for Mertonians in America. I greatly enjoyed meeting many of them in Philadelphia in the spring at the annual MC3 Reunion and afterwards in New York at the launch of Merton in Manhattan. I was so impressed with the energy and organisation of the North American Mertonians and their sheer numbers. Merton is fortunate indeed to enjoy such commitment from its Old Members. We very much look forward to meeting alumni from other parts of the world soon. Both Oxford and Cambridge have received much criticism in the press for their insistence on recruiting the best and brightest of students. Labour MP David Lammy raised the question of what he saw as low numbers of black students being offered places to Oxford. Merton was singled out as having a particularly poor record – a misconception built on the misuse of statistics. We have since met and enjoyed a cup of coffee together. I raised my reservations about the way the figures had been used, and he gave me some useful insights into how Oxford is viewed from the perspective of talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. My response to this point was that the College is deeply committed to accepting the brightest students regardless of their background. This commitment is key to the future of Merton and has been firmly reinforced by meeting the undergraduates and graduates throughout my first year. For me, this has to be one of the best aspects of being Warden at Merton. I remember when I was first announced as the next Warden, I received a huge number of messages. One in particular was from former Warden, Rex Richards, who said: “You’ll have the time of your life because the students are so talented.” And he was right. The students have also impressed me with their sporting success this year. It’s something that hadn’t been mentioned during my interviews or when I first arrived. I am particularly pleased that participation in rowing has more than doubled from the previous year. I think that people who have a balanced life, between academia and other interests, do best in life. Another highlight of my first year has been conducting JRF interviews. I enjoyed meeting people with such talent and energy. You learn so much from them that is intellectually stimulating and across a broad range of subjects. I am absolutely confident that we have chosen the very best. It is a time of great importance for higher education; for the future of Merton, and the wider University; many challenges lie ahead. However, Merton is in a robust position to deal with these demands, for which we must thank Jessica Rawson and her predecessor John Roberts. Their foresight and bold strategies have put us on such a firm footing. We are looking forward to the 750th Anniversary in 2014. I look forward to engaging with the whole Merton family – alumni, staff, Fellows, students and friends. I am keen that there is a legacy that lives after it, not just a celebration. I am confident that the Campaign which we have begun in order to enable that legacy will continue to be successful, because it can do so much to vouchsafe the ongoing excellence of the College. I look forward to sharing Merton’s future with you all. POSTMASTER | 2011 5 NEWS JCR JCR News The JCR has been delighted by the numerous improvements to student facilities that have been made over the year. A particular highlight has been the opening of two new student kitchens, one in 21 Merton Street and the other in 1 Holywell Street. Another is to be opened over the summer vacation while the opening up of an already existing kitchen to more students has completed a very encouraging set of developments. Furthermore, a new, permanent international students’ storage facility has been set aside, again on Holywell Street. I am most grateful to the Domestic Bursar, Douglas Bamber, for his help and understanding on these matters. The Common Room itself has seen the welcome addition of a brand new coffee machine. Many students had previously expressed the desire to have the JCR used more as a general meeting place, and so far this addition has proved very popular and successful in creating a more informal and lively atmosphere. JCR meetings continued to be well attended, with Michaelmas Term featuring debates on the proposals set forth in the controversial Browne Review of Higher Education. True to recent form, the general meeting narrowly voted that it would neither condemn nor support the proposals set forth, including the increase in annual tuition fees to £9,000. Views were passionate on either side, with many fearing that such a hike would deter disadvantaged students from applying to university, while others argued that the new method of repayment was fair and that, if sufficiently explained, the proposals 6 POSTMASTER | 2011 would not have a negative impact on access initiatives. On the topic of access, the latest university figures show that Merton’s JCR has one of the highest proportions of state school students in the university, around 66%, and this is testament to the excellent access work that is done across the College each and every year. From our now fulltime Access and Schools Liaison Officer, right through the College to the JCR Access Officer, it is clear that our hard work in this area is really paying off. The JCR continues to look for ways to improve this record further, with a new Alternative Prospectus produced and printed ahead of Open Days during the Summer Vacation. Foremost on the social calendar was, of course, the Nutcracker Winter Ball, held at the end of Michaelmas Term. Highlights included a live performance by rock band Electric Six in Fellows Garden, a chocolate fountain in the JCR and an ice rink in the Fellows Quad. Ticket sales exceeded our highest expectations, ultimately topping the 1,000 mark as the date approached. This resulted in the Ball securing a comfortable profit for the JCR of over £2,000 – a magnificent achievement for any studentrun Ball. Congratulations and sincere thanks must go to Corinna Fehst, the Ball Committee President, and her team for organising and overseeing such a successful event. The Neave Society continued to host fortnightly debates as well as regular speaker events. Highlights of the year included a visit by Father of the House and Mertonian Sir Peter Tapsell, who shared his knowledge of the Arab World with reference to the spring uprisings. Lord Adonis also featured on the year’s programme, speaking in the new TS Eliot Theatre about his time in government and sharing his thoughts on current education and transport policy. On the dramatic front, the Merton Floats organised a number of high-quality productions, culminating with this year’s Garden Play, Charley’s Aunt, directed by second-year Mertonian Finola Austin. The four evenings were widely considered a fantastic success, despite only one performance being held outside due to inclement weather. The Merton College Music Society held a number of recitals and concerts over the course of the year, and its partnership with University College Music Society, through the joint orchestra, continues to develop. Merton once again hosted Mertonbury in Trinity Term, an afternoon of musical performances ranging from solo artists to classical bands hosted on Chestnut Lawn. Now in its second year, the event is part of the annual Arts Fest, intended to showcase and introduce various activities, which this year included Salsa Dancing. Mertonbury has quickly developed an excellent reputation across the University and so long as the sun continues to shine on the event, and the Pimms continues to flow, it looks set to establish itself as a permanent fixture on the JCR’s, and indeed the University’s, social calendar. Overall, JCR members have experienced yet another busy and enjoyable year while maintaining the hard-working and highachieving ethic which has characterised the College in recent years. Jonathan Hinder (2009) JCR President 2010-11 MCR NEWS MCR News Over the past 12 months, Merton MCR has thrived as a hub of academic, sporting and social excellence. In academic news, Elizabeth Hunter was awarded the Royal Historical Society’s Rees Davies Prize, and Helena Gresty published Med School, My Foot in the Door, a book encouraging and advising on applying to medical school. Walter C Ladwig appeared on BBC 4’s World News Today to discuss President Obama’s Afghan drawdown plan, and on ‘The Hub’ on the BBC World News channel to discuss the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Afghanistan. Two MCR members have been awarded Junior Research Fellowships for the coming year. Edmund Highcock received the Magdalen College Prize Scholarship and Andrew Stephenson was elected to the Laming JRF at Queen’s College. This year the MCR and many of our members threw their weight into charity fundraising. In Michaelmas, a Burns’ night Ceilidh held jointly with St Cross and LMH raised £360 for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and later that term, a month-long abstention from alcohol by one of our social secretaries raised £500 for the Down’s Syndrome Association. Ben Sherlock competed in the 2011 London Marathon, finishing in an impressive 3 hours 24 minutes and raising over £2,500 for Multiple Sclerosis. Kyle Martin, a keen member of the MCR, MCBC and coach of the Oxford Adaptive Rowing Club (which caters for people with physical and mental disabilities), organised a 24-hour Ergathon, held in the Westgate Shopping Centre and Merton gym. Members of the MCR, JCR and Oxford Academicals Rowing Club took part in the gruelling event, raising over £3,000 towards the purchase of a new adaptive scull. The Town & Gown 10km run was the MCR’s crowning achievement this year, with more than 40 members taking part and £1,141 raised for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Numerous fundraising and training events were organised in the run-up and, on the day, the Merton running vests made a strong showing. Special mention should go to Tucker Murphy and Lee Harper (who has also been selected to represent the GB age group squad at the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Beijing this THE MERTON TOWN & GOWN RUNNING TEAM LINE-UP BEFORE THE RACE POSTMASTER | 2011 7 NEWS MCR September), who gained 7th and 8th place overall out of more than 3,000 runners. In other sporting news, both the Merton men’s and the women’s Cricket Clubs won their related intercollegiate leagues. MCR members who represented the first team include: Will Brandler, Kohilan Gananandan, Gautam Kalani, Daniel King, Seshadri Nadathur and Ishani Khazanchi. Impressively, more MCR members than ever are active in the Merton Boat Club. Two crews won blades this year: M2 in Torpids (MCR members Chris Gray, Paul Fineran and Felix Chow), W2 in Eights (MCR members Anne Miles, Gen Clutton, Laura Fraser and Christophe Snoeck) and W1 bumped up to Division 1 in Summer Eights (MCR members Kitty Dann, Stephanie Jones, Caitlin Goss and Katharine Pates). It was truly an exciting year to be on the river. In other rowing news, at a much higher level, Kathryn Twyman represented Great Britain at the Munich World Cup, winning silver in the Lightweight women’s double. Also on the water, the Blues Yachting Team won Varsity 4:0 this year. (Out of a team of nine, four were Mertonians: Masahiro Kotosaka, Hendrik ColdenstrodtRonge, Alexander Bajjon and Vanessa Johnen.) They went on to compete in the British University Sailing Association (BUSA) Yachting Nationals, and came 12th best team overall and the 7th best university in the UK. As this was the best result for Oxford yachting to date, the team was awarded the first ever Half Blues for Yachting for their successes. Other Blues awarded this year went to Victoria Ormerod, in both squash and real tennis, Ishani Khazanchi (Blue in Badminton), and Courtney Bishop, who won Half Blue in the Varsity athletics 8 POSTMASTER | 2011 FRESHERS’ WEEK CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION IN THE CHAPEL 1500m. In Dance, Han Huiqing competed in the Southern Universities Dancesport Competition (5th in Quickstep), InterVarsity Dancesport Competition (Best Beginners Team), Varsity Dancesport (Best Newcomer Trophy) and with her partner Tobias Teo (Balliol College) won 1st in all the Ballroom and Latin events (Waltz, Quickstep, ChaCha, Jive), clinching the Best Beginner Couple Trophy. They went on to the Ipswich Latin Festival 2011 where they competed outside the intercollegiate circuit, winning 1st Solo Bronze, 1st Couple Pre-Bronze (ChaCha, Jive) and 1st Couple Bronze (ChaCha, Rumba). Jake Yorke served as President and Captain of the Oxford University Powerlifting Club this year, organising and hosting the 2010 Great Britain Powerlifting Federation University and College Championships, which Oxford won. He was also placed first in the 2010 British Drug Free Powerlifting Association University Championships Men’s Open 110 kg class. As always, the MCR played an active role in the social life of the College. We hosted a large number of events including blacktie dinners, cocktail parties, game nights, tastings, exchange dinners, cultural events and garden parties. A new committee took over leadership of the MCR at the beginning of Trinity Term. It includes: Stephanie M Jones (President, Wolf Rittershofer (VicePresident), Patrik Flammer (Treasurer), Christophe Snoeck (Social Secretary), Pauline Souleau (Social Secretary), Kitty Dann (Welfare Representative), Amber Hood (Welfare Representative), Claire Higgins (Environmental Representative), Christopher Gray (OUSU Officer), Anne Miles (Arts and Culture Representative), Paul Fineran (Admiral of the Fleet), and Robert Machinek (Webmaster). Stephanie Jones MCR President NEWS SPORT | FOOTBALL Merton Sport MERTON-MANSFIELD FOOTBALL The year was a momentous one for the Merton/Mansfield 1st XI football team, winning the Premier Division title for what is believed to be the first time ever in the combined colleges’ history and reaching the semi-finals of the cup, only to lose to the eventual champions, a Blues-dominated Worcester. In a league otherwise populated by college sporting powerhouses such as Christ Church and Wadham, the underdogs instantly set about upturning the applecart, clinically disposing of Teddy Hall 3-0 in the opening game. Successes in all competitions followed for the remainder of Michaelmas, disrupted only by a controversial 2-0 loss to Worcester and a 3-3 end-to-end thriller with St Catz; the term’s highlight being a 6-0 cup romp against Keble despite playing with ten men for 80 minutes. Hilary’s arrival brought with it a glut of high-intensity games. Gaining a reputation for their expansive, passing football, excellent organisation and never-say-die attitude, the Ms were involved in numerous classic encounters; the titanic 3-3 battle against Teddy Hall (achieved a man short after a harsh red card for the goalkeeper), the dramatic fight back away to Worcester to rescue a point having been 2-0 down or the gritty victories against St Hugh’s and Christ Church, both won during the last throes of the action. The pinnacle probably came in the 2-1 quarter-final triumph over Teddy Hall; having heroically held firm against a sustained bombardment of long throws and punted set-pieces, the Ms broke away late on to snatch a winner that silenced the 50odd Hall fans on the sidelines. Despite a 5-1 loss at the aforementioned penultimate cup stage to old adversaries Worcester, the Ms recovered magnificently to clinch a draw against Christ Church and with it the league title, sparking wild celebrations that went on long into the night. Captain and Mertonian undergraduate Jeffrey Burgin, one of three M’s representatives in the OxStu Team of the Year, said of the achievement: “It’s just been incredible, the fact we were rock bottom of the lowest division just five years ago making it even more so. Everything about this season – the training sessions in the pouring rain, the dressingroom banter, the team socials, the buzz you got every match day when you pulled the shirt on – will undoubtedly be the defining experience of my time here and it has been something that I, and I’m sure any of the lads, will never forget.” MEN’S ROWING This past academic year, the College Boat Club has enjoyed a very successful year on the river. The men started Michaelmas with a strong pool of returning rowers, and a successful dev squad of mixed boats was run throughout the term, the largest and most organised squad in recent years. Novice recruitment and retention this year was especially successful, with Merton fielding five men’s boats in the Christ Church Regatta, making us the largest boat club on the river. The regatta ran its full programme this year, giving our new rowers some great successes on the water and contributed strongly to the excellent retention of new novices into Hilary. Hilary Term again started strongly with near to all the new novice rowers continuing into the senior ranks for the Torpids campaign. The men’s club continued the hard work of Michaelmas, with the 1st Torpid producing impressive performances at Bedford Head and the local Isis winter league races; the times produced ranked us at sixth on the river in terms of boat speed. It was very satisfying to cause a bit of a stir for our traditionally bigger rowing competitors with these results. The improvement in the pure boat speed of the 1st VIII this year can be attributed in a large part to the involvement of Rob Jeffrey, a former GB U-23 coach, with the club since January. Torpids produced a good set of results for the club across the board. The men’s 1st Torpid, despite being the quickest crew in the division, didn’t quite have the speed differential to close out the bump on a quick Keble crew in front, and held station for the week. The 2nd Torpid were looking very strong all term and easily completed four bumps on each day to earn a set of welldeserved blades. In addition, for the first time in recent years, we had a 3rd Torpid Jeffrey Burgin (2009) Football Captain POSTMASTER | 2011 9 NEWS SPORT | WOMEN’S ROWING qualify for the bumps week finishing up one; a real testament to the strength in depth in Merton rowing this year. Over Easter the club held its first training camp outside Oxford at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey. A fantastically useful four days of training was had in conjunction with Queens’ College Cambridge, and I hope the camp at the fantastic facilities available at Walton will become a regular feature in the club calendar each year. Back in Oxford after Easter, the Trinity Term preparation for Summer Eights hit the ground running. In a step up from Hilary, four Merton men’s VIIIs qualified for Eights Week itself; rewarding the focus on improving the coaching of lower boats this year. The 1st VIII had a tough week chasing a very fast Brasenose crew and trying to hold off a quick Pembroke boat from behind, which unfortunately managed to bump us on the Saturday. The 2nd VIII were again very quick, finishing up two for the week, and only being denied blades by a couple of klaxons. The 3rd VIII also showed their progression from the previous term by finishing up two as well. The 4th VIII rounded off a hugely successful week for Merton as a whole by achieving a bump to finish up one. Between the men and the women, Merton led the bumps charts for most of the week and finally finished second on the river in the total bumps tables, a fantastic achievement for a college of our size. I am certain that the coming year holds further success for the club, and that we can harness the involvement, enthusiasm and success this year to create an upward pressure to drive us on further and to greater heights next year. I pass on the captaincy to Josh Monahan, knowing that the club is thriving and in good hands. WOMEN’S ROWING Merton’s Women’s Boat Club has had a fantastic year, with a number of notable successes in college competitions and external events. We began Michaelmas in a strong position, with a committed development squad of 15 girls continuing from last year, including many from the Eights W1 and the Henley VIII. The club already seemed to have reversed its downward trend in the bumps charts, having performed well in Summer Eights 2010, and I began my term as captain feeling hugely enthusiastic about what we could achieve. We set out aiming to grow in numbers and sporting professionalism and to bump into division one in Eights, whilst maintaining the fun and sociable atmosphere of the club that gives it such appeal. An impressive Fresher recruitment allowed us to enter four boats in Christ Church Regatta. With the same number of men’s crews, MCBC was the largest club in the regatta, a rather impressive feat! One 10 POSTMASTER | 2011 Richard Millar Captain of Boats 2010-11 SPORT | WOMEN’S ROWING women’s boat made the third round, but even more pleasing was the overwhelming enthusiasm and the number of these novices who continued into Hilary Term. We entered four boats into Torpids, with the 3rd and 4th only narrowly missing out on qualifying. W1 bumped up three places, moving to 8th in the second division, from where I am sure we shall continue to climb. W2 achieved the very impressive feat of bumping up three places into the fixed divisions. Summer Eights was the culmination of a year’s hard training, including a productive pre-Trinity camp, and thanks to the dedication of crews and coaches was a brilliant success. Due to several rowers having exams we entered just two boats, having a third training in a four and entering Oriel Regatta in 7th week. W1 climbed two places on the first day, bumping Somerville to top division two, and then New College as sandwich boat to win our place in division one. We rowed over on the following days, closely pursuing Oriel, and several lengths ahead of New College, to hold our position. I was particularly delighted with this result as it had been my greatest aim when taking on the captaincy. The success was not limited to W1, with a fantastic W2 winning blades in spectacular style – barely having to race past Donnington Bridge on any day. NEWS In terms of external successes, the club entered Cambridge and City of Bristol Heads, with a composite W1/W2 crew coming 3rd out of eight IM38+ boats entered in the latter, beaten only by the home crews. Caitlin Goss of W1 rowed with the OUWBC development squad over Easter, entering BUCS where the club came 4th overall. I also joined the development squad at the beginning of Trinity, reaching the semi-finals of Henley Women’s Regatta with Osiris. Both of us entered Kingston Regatta in July with Osiris’s A crew and are intending to trial for the Blue Boat next year. None of this could have been achieved without fantastic coaching from Tom Broadway, James Watson and Edward Arnold for W1, and Anthony Lewis and Alan Sinclair for W2, whose enthusiasm and professionalism helped us all to realise our goals. I have enjoyed my year as captain more than I can describe and will always look back fondly on my experiences in the role. I am proud to be a part of such a friendly, vibrant and successful club, where I have made a number of great friends and discovered a sport that I am truly passionate about and hope to continue with all my life. I am sure that my successor, Tanya Goodchild, will help the club reach even greater heights with her great enthusiasm and dedication, and I am looking forward to seeing MCWBC’s successes unfold in 2011-12! Mary Foord-Weston Women’s Boat Club Captain 2010-11 POSTMASTER | 2011 11 NEWS SPORT | TENNIS TENNIS This year has seen a blossoming of the Merton Tennis Team, both in terms of its success in the intercollegiate League and Cuppers matches, and in terms of the consistently high number of players coming to weekly Sunday practices. In the Cuppers tournament, Merton made it as far as the semi-finals without having dropped a single set – the best the College has done as far back as memory reaches. Unfortunately, we had a very difficult match against New College in the semi-final and were knocked out, but not before a crushing series of victories against St Benet’s Hall, Oriel and Keble. In league matches, Merton continues to play in Division I, thanks to the brilliant leadership of our former Captain, Greg Lim. Not only have we held our position in Division I this year, but we also improved our ranking from third (out of six) in 2010, to second. We avenged our previous losses to University College in Cuppers and the league, beating them solidly this year by nine sets to three. Magdalen was so intimidated by our physical prowess that they failed to show up for our match – such is the fearsome reputation of Merton Tennis! Little further explanation is needed in declaring that these results show that Merton is one of the top three college tennis teams in Oxford. Merton’s team has a roster of about 15 players, but a few deserve special mention 12 POSTMASTER | 2011 and recognition for their outstanding services and commitment: Dr Reto Bazzani, our internationally ranked Swiss player who came back to help the team after finishing his DPhil; Alessandro Geraldini, the stoic fresher who also played for Oxford University; Dr Mostyn Brown, who had the most set victories during the season; and Jack Halsey, our vice-captain, who made sure we always looked our best, even if we weren’t playing our best. The end of the season also marks my departure as captain; however, the captaincy will be placed into the very capable hands of Graeme Addison. I offer my best wishes to him and next year’s team. And lastly, our many thanks go to our groundsman, James Lisle, who provided tea, sandwiches and cakes after every match, to the delight and envy of our opponents. And which gave our own team much time for further bonding and banter, usually at the captain’s expense. Long live Merton Tennis! Michael Uy (2009) Captain, Merton Men’s Tennis SPORT | BLUES AND HAIGH TIES NEWS Merton Sports Blues and Haigh Ties BLUES Blues or Half Blues have been awarded to the following: Courtney Bishop Sonia Bracegirdle Jack Coward Freddie Hendry Samuel Jauncey Will Kane Ishani Kazanchi Joe Northover Victoria Ormerod Timothy Sherwin Jessamy Tyrell Athletics Rowing Trampolining Athletics Rifle Shooting Rugby Badminton Swimming Squash, Real Tennis Shooting Rugby HAIGH TIES Haigh Ties for outstanding contribution to College sport have been awarded to the following: Jeffrey Burgin Mark Dethlefsen Michael Eager Mary Foord-Weston Richard Millar Katharine Pates Timothy Sherwin POSTMASTER | 2011 13 NEWS CLUBS & SOCIETIES | MERTON FLOATS Clubs and Societies MERTON FLOATS 2010-11 has been another strong year for Merton Floats; we were keen to build on the fantastic success of last year’s productions of Milton’s Samson Agonistes and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Our first task was to find a new society secretary, after Ellen Davnall left the College last summer. Unable to find just one replacement, we saw Meg Bartlett (Secretary) and Elizabeth Biggs (Technical Adviser) join Niall Allsopp (President) and Ed White (Treasurer) on the committee. We were keen to repeat last year’s successful formula of a more experimental, esoteric show in the Chapel in Hilary, followed by a more popular option (with a budget to match) for our Trinity garden show. Our chapel play in Hilary certainly met this criterion. Erstwhile Floats star Bevil Luck directed a cycle of five short Japanese Noh plays, translated by modernist poet (and friend of TS Eliot) Ezra Pound, alongside Merton musician Eddie Smith, who arranged and directed the lesserknown suite of incidental music, ‘Les Fils des Étoiles’, by Erik Satie. Bevil and Eddie were kept on their toes by the producer Olivia Kirkbride. Both the Pound and Satie pieces are very rarely performed, and the interweaving of music, poetry, drama and movement made for a unique and magical production, which sought to fuse Eastern and Western traditions. Mertonian actors Ayesha Jhunjhunwala, Ben Walpole, Finola Austin and Lizzie Hunter were joined by Shaun Chua, whose knowledge of Noh theatre helped the team give the show an air of authenticity; meanwhile, Eddie’s seven14 POSTMASTER | 2011 piece orchestra was augmented by Emily Meredith’s voice in Satie’s haunting songs. Although the beautiful surroundings of the college chapel in February created some unusual challenges (of both acoustics and temperature) for our intrepid performers, the play was very popular with critics and audiences alike. After treading this somewhat highbrow territory in Hilary – and after last year’s Chekhov – we felt some lighter material was necessary for Trinity’s garden show. Fresh from the chapel play, Finola Austin approached us, proposing to direct an adaptation of Brandon Thomas’ Oxfordcollege cross-dressing farce Charley’s Aunt. Requiring lavish costumes, period furniture (particularly a folding screen that had to be pegged into the ground to prevent it blowing over), and outdoor waterproof lighting to counteract the sunset (and the clouds), staging a show in the College gardens is no mean logistical feat. However, our Mertonian production team, led by Finola (director), Niall Allsopp (producer) and Elizabeth Biggs (production manager), surmounted all of these difficulties – not least a ten-minute ‘transfer’ (or dash) to the Chapel when it started raining at the beginning of our matinee. Fortunately, the production did not require much in the way of set-dressing, as the beautiful gardens (and, indeed, the Chapel) provided a perfect backdrop. Sadly, our Mertonian stars were all otherwise engaged – with exams, other NEWS CLUBS & SOCIETIES | NEAVE SOCIETY productions, or, quite literally, engaged to be married – forcing us to recruit actors from other colleges. However, our mercenaries really settled in to their adopted college, and gelled as a cast, with lively comic performances underpinned by a charismatic emotional warmth. Peter Swann (St Edmund Hall) was particularly memorable as Lord Fancourt Babberly, who dresses up as the titular Charley’s Aunt, in order to help his friends Jack (Max Mills, Christ Church) and Charles (Charles O’Halloran, Regent’s Park) in their romantic troubles. Despite the weather’s best efforts, the production was critically acclaimed and drew large audiences, who obligingly provided plenty of belly-laughs, and the odd burst of sunlight. Google ‘Merton Floats’ to find us on Facebook. Niall Allsopp (2008) THE NEAVE SOCIETY This year has seen the Neave Society continue to push boundaries and challenge political preconceptions, all the while holding faithfully to its guiding principles of unpretentious and reasoned discourse. And port. In March, we were lucky enough to be joined by Old Mertonian Sir Peter Tapsell, who talked entertainingly and informatively on topics ranging from the Middle East to Nick Clegg. This was a relatively informal event, with a real atmosphere of discussion, and its tremendous success has greatly informed the venue used for the hosting of future speakers. Whilst one fears they may struggle to attain the dizzy heights of Sir Peter’s oratory, one feels that whispering conspiratorially amongst the wingbacks and stonework of the MCR will undoubtedly lend speaker events a touch of the informal brilliance that was such a joy to behold on that March evening. Early this Trinity, Neave convened to debate the motion ‘This House would abolish all private property’. The fact that the motion was defeated only by the slimmest of margins truly bears testament to the leftleaning nature of this year’s membership. Indeed, many of our most vociferous – and most left-wing – members bid farewell to Merton this year. One is certain that they shall be sorely missed, and one can only hope that the new arrivals contribute just as many firebrands and future politicians to our society next Michaelmas. The society was extremely proud to host the distinguished Lord Andrew Adonis, who came to speak about his life in politics. A life, it emerged, that incorporated Christchurchian insolence, straight talking, political intrigue and a tragically unfulfilled wish to see Oxford endowed with a light rail network. Ed Vaizey MP received a stiffer welcome when he visited the society for a brief question-and-answer session, becoming mired in a lengthy debate on the subject of the censorship of pornography on the internet. One hopes that next term’s speakers will be just as prepared for such vigorous political discourse. It simply remains for me to humbly thank the outgoing executive, President Sam Hall, Vice-President Dennis Dillon and Treasurer Guy Daws and state my own excitement for the forthcoming year with the newly elected committee. We’re looking forward to welcoming new Mertonians as members and to organising a range of stimulating debates and engaging political speakers, beginning with a special visit to the House of Commons early next Michaelmas. VicePresident Karl Kahn, Treasurer Josh Brown and I have had a wonderful first term and look forward to upholding the values and principles of free and diverse political discussion that our members hold so passionately. Jackson Smith (2008) POSTMASTER | 2011 15 NEWS INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS | BIOMEDICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES Interdisciplinary Groups BIOMEDICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES In Michaelmas Term, we held our annual poster evening at which graduate students at Merton presented their current research to first-year graduates, supervisors, Merton Fellows and the Warden. In Hilary Term, we held a joint meeting with the College’s History of the Book Group, where Professor Peter Holland, FRS (Linacre Professor of Zoology at Merton and Associate Head of the University’s Department of Zoology) gave a highly fascinating and entertaining talk entitled ‘The Linacre Professors at Merton College 1860-2010: Evolution, Ecology and Eccentricity’. Thomas Linacre, physician to Henry VIII, died in 1524, leaving funds to support a series of visiting lectureships. Merton College agreed to host the lecturers as Fellows of the College. After running for 300 years, the lectureships were converted into the Linacre Professorship of Comparative Anatomy (which later became Zoology). In his lecture, Professor Holland introduced the 11 holders of the Linacre Professorship spanning from 1860 to the present day, and outlined their research contributions, their published work and their influence on science in Oxford. The Linacre Professors, plus the colleagues they brought to Oxford, included some of the most prominent figures in evolutionary biology, the founders of ecology and more than a few eccentrics – although Professor Holland left it to his audience to decide which of these distinctions described him best. In Trinity Term, we held a second extremely successful joint meeting with the College’s History of the Book Group. Our invited speaker, Dr Anna Marie Roos (Research Fellow at the Faculty of History, Oxford University) gave a GLOBAL DIRECTIONS Merton’s Global Directions Group held two events in 2011. The first, on 9th February, featured Professor John Kay, one of Britain’s leading economists, speaking on ‘The Future of Markets’, in which he drew extensively on his deep knowledge and experience within the field. The second, held on 26th May, was a halfday workshop on counterinsurgency on the theme ‘COIN: Where We Are, and What’s Next?’, which examined the construction of US and UK counterinsurgency doctrine, its implementation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the associated legal and ethical frameworks. The workshop, attended by over 100 people – a mix of students, academics, and practitioners from inside and outside the military – was the product of collaboration between the Global Directions Group, Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme, and the British Army Counterinsurgency Centre, who jointly convened the workshop. 16 POSTMASTER | 2011 highly informative and well received lecture entitled ‘The Art of Science: The ‘Rediscovery’ of the Copperplates of Martin Lister’s Historiae Conchyliorum (168592)’. Her talk provided a unique insight into the life and work of Martin Lister and his huge contribution to natural history and conchology. Dr Roos’ fascinating talk was preceded by an introduction by Professor Peter Holland outlining modern day research into molluscs. Both lectures this year were followed by highly popular opportunities to view relevant old books and material from the College’s Upper Library. The continuing expansion and strength of the life and biomedical sciences within the University ensures Merton is enriched with a large number of graduates and Fellows researching into all manner of living processes and medical interventions. New members to the BMLS group are always welcome, as are suggestions for formats and topics of future meetings. Simon Draper Supernumerary Fellow in Biochemistry We were fortunate to work with both institutions and their respective leaders; indeed, Professor Hew Strachan and Colonel Alex Alderson deserve special thanks for enabling the assembled group to come together. The event concluded with a keynote address by Dr Conrad Crane, Director of the US Army Military History Institute, who is perhaps best known for heading the writing team of the 2006 US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24, the INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS | HISTORY OF THE BOOK NEWS first counterinsurgency manual produced by either institution in over two decades and potentially the most influential piece of military doctrine in recent memory. Dr Crane’s keynote address, titled ‘Exorcising Old Demons and Discovering New Ones: American Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Iraq, Afghanistan and Beyond’, was particularly timely given the nomination of the architect of the US doctrine, General David Petraeus, as Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency in late April 2011. Travers McLeod Deputy Principle of Postmasters HISTORY OF THE BOOK An interdisciplinary enterprise, the History of the Book group has two goals: to explore the history of the knowledge-disciplines through their written records and to highlight the nature of the book itself. Both goals were very much in evidence through the group’s activities this year. Rita Ricketts shared some of her ongoing research into the history of Blackwells, the iconic Oxford publishing and bookselling firm, drawing on materials from the Blackwell family archives held at Merton. Book history and the sciences was a particular theme in the current year. In Hilary, the history and present state of preparing mathematical documents was elucidated by Mertonians James Binney, Yang Hui-He and (in a typographical rather than mathematical tenor) Giles Bergel. We were honoured to receive a lecture from the Head of the Library and Archives of the Royal Society, Keith Moore, who delivered an illuminating talk on the Royal Society’s publishing and book-collecting throughout its 350 years. Dr Anna Marie Roos continued the scientific theme with a talk on the illustrations of Sir Martin Lister’s natural history books that combined scientific, bibliographical and historical expertise. The talk was jointly held with the Biomedical and Life Sciences group and was accompanied by a description of the current state of Lister’s field by Merton Linacre Professor of Zoology Peter Holland: it was no surprise that it attracted an appreciative audience from biology, book history, the history of science and beyond. Peter Holland also took the spotlight for a lecture on the history of his own Chair, paired with an exhibition of books and papers in the College’s library relating to the distinguished position. Another lecture paired with an exhibition (in fact, two) was College archivist Julian Reid’s talk on the Bible translator and Warden of Merton Sir Henry Savile, which drew on his recent experience in co-curating the Bodleian Library’s highly successful exhibition on the King James Bible in its 400th year, accompanying a glimpse of some remarkable printed and manuscript Bibles and related holdings in the College’s keeping. All of the College’s library and archive staff have been strong supporters of the History of the Book group: their knowledge of books and their generosity in affording access to some of the College’s literary treasures for group meetings has been a tremendous asset. This was perhaps most graphically illustrated by the presence of Merton MS 317 – an exquisitely-illustrated 12th-century manuscript of Flavius Josephus that accompanied a paper by Merton classics Fellow Dr Luuk Huitink in Trinity (one of three papers on the classical text-tradition, the others being given by Enrico Prodi and Alessandro Vatri). The year was roundedout with two lively discussions of recent work in the field, which were particularly well attended by humanities graduate students, for whom book history affords a vital forum for following intellectual histories across linguistic, temporal and disciplinary boundaries. It’s been a privilege and a delight to serve as the convenor of the History of the Book group at Merton, whose production and stewardship of books shows no signs of diminishing even as the book itself continues to evolve. Giles Bergel JPR Lyell Research Fellow TURNING PAGES AT DR ANNA MARIA ROOS’ LECTURE ON MARTIN LISTER POSTMASTER | 2011 17 NEWS THE LIBRARY The Library The Library report in Postmaster often highlights how individual items or entire collections provide links between the College and others, whether Mertonians of the past or researchers and other communities of the present. That was demonstrated this year in different ways by three special collections: the Sandy Irvine Archive, the Frank Brenchley TS Eliot Collection and the John Robson Collection. On 1st June, the writer Julie Summers, biographer and great-niece of Andrew (Sandy) Irvine, gave a lively talk about Irvine, which drew a large and enthusiastic audience to the TS Eliot Lecture Theatre. The occasion marked the donation to the College of the Sandy Irvine Archive by the Sandy Irvine Trust, a milestone in a relationship between the Irvine family 18 POSTMASTER | 2011 and the College that is now in its third generation. Sandy came to Merton to read Chemistry in 1922, already something of a celebrity as an oarsman. When he and George Mallory disappeared close to the summit of Mount Everest in June 1924, he became part of one of the great unsolved mountaineering mysteries of all time. Sandy’s Everest diary had already been a particular treasure of the college collections for several decades when the more extensive archive was placed on deposit in 2004. What was and is so exciting about the archive is its inclusion of letters, photographs and other documents relating to Sandy’s life and the Everest expedition which were only rediscovered in an Irvine family home in 2000. The ‘new’ material included photographs taken by Sandy on the expedition and developed at Everest Base Camp in 1924. Sandy sent the negatives home to his sister Evelyn who had them developed and who kept Sandy’s brief descriptive notes of each image. The previously unknown letters, however, were the real prize. It is fair to say that Sandy was not a prolific letter writer, but the letters written during the Everest expedition to family and friends greatly enrich the brief diary entries which were intended to form an aide-memoire for a fuller account that Sandy planned to write later. Two excerpts will have to suffice here (spelling and punctuation are Sandy’s): 30 April 1924, Base Camp, Rongbuk Glacier, to Peter Lunn, a friend who was then just 10 years old: THE LIBRARY “Its great fun this expedition, you would love it if you were a bit older! You will probably hear the result of the 1st attempt before you get this letter I hope it will be to say that at any rate the Oxygen party reached the top. I really hate the thought of it. I’d give anything to make a non-oxygen attempt. I think I’d sooner get to the foot of the final pyramid without oxygen then to the top with it. Still as I’m oxygen mechanic I’ve got to go with the beastly stuff to look after it. After all I’ve got nothing to complain about being in the first party.” 30 April 1924, Base Camp, to his mother: “We arrived here yesterday in perfectly beastly weather – the worse for the fact that I’d been seedy for about 3 days – probably through working up to 12 + 2am with the Oxygen Apperatus for about a week + getting up at 6.30. Still I feel quite fit again today though I have been hard at it since about 8 oclock. I expect to have 6 of my new patent apparatus ready by tomorrow night + 4 original pattern patched up to be safe!... Today has been perfectly glorious. I don’t get much peace with my tool box at hand. I have cinemas, cameras, stoves lamps, chares [sic] + tents to mend in my spare moments when not fighting pressure gauges, flowmeters etc.” Although the Everest material – the equipment lists, invoices for supplies, Sandy’s drawings for the oxygen apparatus, the photographs and letters – are the best known and have been displayed in exhibitions and studied by researchers, the archive also documents Sandy’s outstanding success as a rower, with photographs, press cuttings, medals, pennants, and regatta ANDREW ‘SANDY’ IRVINE programmes. In addition the collection contains some photographs of the Irvine family, Sandy and his friends at school and university and the Spitsbergen expedition of 1923, in which his Merton friend Geoffrey Milling (1920) also took part. Perhaps some of Sandy’s love of invention and adventure remains in the archive. This is certainly a collection that attracts more than standard academic researchers. The past year has brought legendary mountaineers Peter Habeler (one of the pair to make the first successful Everest ascent without supplemental oxygen in 1978) and Tom Hornbein (who in 1963 made the first Everest summit via the West Ridge) to Mob Library to look at Irvine’s oxygen apparatus drawings; and we later welcomed a forensic scientist in search of Sandy’s DNA. We look forward to many more unusual encounters NEWS and to joint projects with Julie Summers and other members of the Irvine family. When the Brenchley T S Eliot collection was deposited in the Merton Library in 1986, Frank Brenchley wrote about it in Postmaster, describing his first purchase: “On the afternoon of my first day as a Merton College freshman in 1936, I went to Blackwell’s to stock up with the Oxford Classical Texts I would need for the term. Gazing in pleasure around that delightful shop, I saw on a table a prominent display of a dozen or more copies of a blue-bound book entitled T.S. Eliot: Collected Poems 1909-1935. I had never heard of the author; English literature at my school did not extend beyond Thomas Hardy. But, being an avid poetry-reader, I picked up one of the books and opened it at random. I was immediately fascinated by stanzas which struck me as beautiful and unalterably ‘right’, even where I was puzzled about their meaning.” Thus began an interest that grew into a major collection of Eliot’s works, with a special strength in original issues of periodicals and smaller publications. Frank continued to add to the collection from time to time after it came to Merton, with some of the more recent additions including volumes inscribed by Eliot to Warden Geoffrey Mure, whom Eliot had known at Merton in 1914. This year, at the celebratory opening of the new lecture theatre named for the poet, it seemed ‘unalterably right’ that both Mrs Valerie Eliot and Frank Brenchley were present and that the College was able to display for guests a selection of highlights from the Brenchley Collection. Sadly, Frank Brenchley passed away in July. His warmth and generosity towards the POSTMASTER | 2011 19 NEWS THE LIBRARY College will be remembered fondly. The fact that the exhibition included some new translations of Eliot’s poems into Armenian, sent to the library just days earlier by Mertonian Joseph Chytry (1967), indicates that the collection will continue to grow. Just as the Brenchley Collection began in Blackwell’s bookshop, so the John Robson Collection also owes something to that famous Oxford bookselling and publishing A LETTER HOME FROM EVEREST 20 POSTMASTER | 2011 business. John, who died in December 2010 at the age of 80, worked in the book production side of Blackwell’s for over 30 years. He had a personal interest in the history of printing, and after retirement and on advice from Blackwell historian Rita Ricketts, he donated to Merton his working library of publications about typography and book design. The books arrived almost at the same time that the College established the research group in the History of the Book, and many Merton students and researchers have had cause to be thankful for the breadth of John’s interests. When preparing this year for the History of the Book seminar on the mathematical typesetting software TeX, I was not surprised to find a relevant book in the Robson Collection. The collection is housed in the Mob Lower Library; the College continues to add relevant publications and welcomes donations. Collections like these rightly receive attention, but smaller donations that arrive with less fanfare also play a large role in the successful functioning of the library. This year one might mention the Blunden pamphlets inscribed to Derek Hudson (1930), donated by Hudson’s daughter Katherine Jessell, or the books on classics and philosophy from the library of the late John Garrod (1950), some of which were borrowed by students as soon as they were catalogued. We make every effort to ensure that no one’s name is omitted from the list of donations, as a way of expressing thanks and also as a way of making visible the many connections represented by these gifts large and small. Julia Walworth Research Fellow and Librarian THE ARCHIVES NEWS The Archives 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James version of the bible; a fact that has been difficult to ignore, given the attention it has received on television, radio and in the newspapers. As the home of the one of the six companies that produced the translation, Merton has received a reasonable share of that media attention. In February, BBC 4 aired a documentary by Adam Nicolson, When God Spoke English: the Making of the King James Bible. The programme included Nicolson in conversation with Dr Peter McCullough of Lincoln College, filmed in the Upper Library. The Library, together with the Chapel, featured again in KJB – The Book that Changed the World, broadcast on the History Channel in May. Directed by Norman Stone, who has also directed Shadowlands and Beyond Narnia, the programme combined interviews, ‘to camera’ narration, and historic re-enactment. The narrator, John Rhys-Davies, may be known to readers from Indiana Jones films and as Gimli the Dwarf in the film version of The Lord of the Rings. In the programme, RhysDavies talked about Sir Henry Savile, and examined some of the books that may have been used on the translation. The Archivist met with the directors of both programmes in advance, helping them reconnoitre the College and identifying locations especially associated with the translation. He also identified some of the books used on the translation and, with the Fellow Librarian, supervised some of the filming. The Archivist has also been involved with some of Oxford’s own activities to commemorate its contribution to the King James translation. As archivist of the two colleges where the translating companies met in Oxford, viz. Merton and Corpus Christi, this was perhaps unavoidable. From April until September, the Bodleian Libraries are mounting an exhibition in the Old Schools Quadrangle, Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible, which not only celebrates the translation itself and outlines the processes involved, but also examines the antecedents of the King James version, and considers how this particular translation entered the national culture and consciousness. The Archivist curated one of the sections of the exhibition, on the Oxford translators, which features Sir Henry Savile, together with several of the other translators, such as George Abbot and Leonard Hutten, POSTMASTER | 2011 21 NEWS THE ARCHIVES who met at Merton in what is now the Breakfast Room. The College has loaned to the exhibition a number of Savile’s books, including his Hebrew lexicon, together with its 16th-century astrolabe by Walter Arsenius, which is exhibited alongside Savile’s translation of a commentary by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Theon of Alexandria. The commentary forms part of the collection of Savile Manuscripts permanently housed in the Bodleian’s Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts. Sir Henry Savile and the contribution of Merton to the King James translation also serve as the focus of our summer exhibition in the Upper Library, which was available for attendees of the Merton Society Weekend. The exhibition includes the College’s copy of the first edition of the King James Bible, together with some of its antecedents, such as copies of the Geneva and Bishops’ Bibles. The College Register (the record of decisions of the Governing Body) contains an entry for 13th February 1605, which records the borrowing of books from the Library for the use of the translators. Examples of the works of Sir Henry Savile also help to demonstrate the range of his interests, and include his translation into English of the Histories of Tacitus and an edition of the works of early English historians, Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, that appeared in 1598. The College’s showcasing as a nursery of the King James translation should conclude, all being well, with an appearance of the Upper Library within the pages of the National Geographic magazine. In late June the Archivist and Fellow Librarian spent several hours with a National Geographic photographer and his assistant as they 22 POSTMASTER | 2011 documented the library from almost every conceivable angle, for a feature on the King James Bible. The article is due to appear towards the end of the year. Mertonians who visited the Upper Library during the Merton Society Weekend also had an opportunity to see part of a recent acquisition purchased for the Library through the combined generosity of Mertonian David Ure, and the Dyson Fund, created in memory of former English Fellow Henry (‘Hugo’) Dyson. The acquisition comprises four domestic account books dating from 1596, 1606, 1630 and 1787, which were offered for sale by the Antiquarian Department of Blackwell’s bookshop. The books help to fill some of the many gaps in our series of accounts, which have been dispersed over the centuries as no longer required. The three earlier records are Spice Books, and record the daily consumption of luxury foods by the Fellows. Such delicacies did not form part of their Commons provided at the College’s expense, and so the cost would have been charged to the Fellows’ battels. The word ‘spice’ was used more broadly in the 16th and 17th centuries, and included not only the condiments we recognise, but also vinegar, sugar and dried fruit. Although superficially merely a rather nondescript shopping list, even just the first page of the earliest account gives us a glimpse into the pioneering world of the 16th century. The Fellow who kept the accounts for the week beginning 19th November 1596, Samuel Slade, was a Greek scholar who later travelled Europe collecting manuscripts for Henry Savile’s edition of the works of St John Chrysostom. He was to die on the island of Zakynthos in 1613 on one such mission. The commodities recorded also attest to the great trading enterprises of the Elizabethan age. Sugar was traditionally imported from India, but by 1596 might also be procured from Brazil. Ginger was purchased from India and Africa, and mace, nutmegs and cloves from the Moluccas archipelago in Indonesia. Vinegar and mustard might be sourced at home, but dried fruit like currants and raisins might well be imported from southern Europe, Turkey or North Africa. By the 1630s the Fellows were enjoying additional delicacies, such as dates, almonds, capers, olives and oranges (‘orringadows’); all testimony to the human appetite for novelty, and to the global compass of English trading enterprises of the 17th century. We are indebted to David Ure for making this acquisition possible. Julian Reid, Archivist THE BREAKFAST ROOM AT MERTON LIBRARY & ARCHIVES | DONATIONS Donations to the Library and Archives 2010-11 It is a pleasure to record the following particularly noteworthy donations to library and archive collections: • • • • • • • • • • The Sandy Irvine Archive: correspondence, photographs and artefacts relating to Andrew Comyn Irvine (1902-24; Merton 1922) and his family, donated by The Sandy Irvine Trust Four domestic account books, viz Spice Books 1596, 1606, 1630, and Receptions Book 1787. Purchased jointly via donation from Mr David Ure (1965) and the Dyson Fund Additional records relating to BH Blackwell, Parker’s of Oxford, and William George’s Bookshop of Bristol (Mr Julian Blackwell) Eleven pamphlets and offprints by Edmund Blunden, several inscribed, from the library of Derek Hudson (1930), donated by Katherine Jessel Additional records of Dr John Morris Roberts, former Warden (Mrs Judith Roberts) Letter from Richard Cobb to John Morris Roberts, 13th March 1988; black and white photograph of senior members of Merton, including Alick Harrison and Dr Cooke, entering Fellows’ Quad, c.1964 (Dr Roger Highfield, Emeritus Fellow) One thousand rupee gold coin issued by the Bank of Mauritius, to celebrate 40 years of the independence of Mauritius (Mr Rundheer Sing Bheenick, 1964) Merton College Association football team shirt and socks, c.1973 (Dr Gary Backler, 1973) A large number of recent critical editions and monographs relating to Classics and Philosophy from the library of the late John Edward Garrod (1950), donated by Mrs Susan Garrod Postcard dated 11/11/35 from Oliver Elton to Lascelles Abercrombie (1935), donated by Arthur French Grateful thanks for gifts and support are extended to: Ward Allen; James Armshaw (2007); Brian Austin; Tom Barrett (2007); The Bodleian Library; Alan Bott (1953); Brepols Publishing; James Brown; Dragos Calma; the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; Charlotte Crowther; Rebecca Dobbs; The Revd Mark Everitt (Emeritus Fellow); Helena Gresty; Alan Morrison (Fellow); Christopher Braun; John Casson; the Consortium of European Research Libraries; Josef Chytry (1967); Juliana Dresvina; Lara Ehrenhofer; the Farncombe Estate; Christine Ferdinand; Louisa Fong; David Foxton; Karl Gerth (Fellow); Robin Taylor Gilbert; K F Hilliard; Luuk Huitink (Fellow); The Institute of Archaeology; Roger Highfield (Emeritus Fellow); J T Hughes; David Hunt (2005); The Editors of the Journal of Legal History; Brian Kemp; Roger Knight (2009); Magdalena Koźluk; David Leighton; Neil McLynn; Michael McVaugh; Margaret M Manion; Francis T Marchese; David Mitchell; Oxford NEWS University Press; Alex Polley; Julian Reid (Archivist); Thibaut Maus de Rolley; John Scattergood (VRF 2008); Tony Scotland; Eric Sidebottom; Julie Summers; Nicholas Utechin; Julia Walworth (Fellow); Elia Weinbach (1967); Dominic Welsh (Emeritus Fellow); Michael Whitworth (Fellow); Wolfson College Library; Michael Wood; Yale University Press We also thank Mertonians who have given us copies of their publications: Beatson, Sir Jack (1973), with JS Burrows and J Cartwright, Anson’s Law of Contract (Oxford: OUP, 2010) van der Blom, Henriette (Lecturer), Cicero’s Role Models (Oxford: OUP, 2010) Bowers, John M (1973) End of Story. A Novel (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2010) Bradley, Laura (Junior Research Fellow 2003-2005) Brecht and Political Theatre (Oxford: OUP, 2006) Cooperation and Conflict (Oxford: OUP, 2010) Braun, Thomas (1935-2008, Fellow), donated by the editor, Christopher Braun, Tomfoolery (Chippenham: ARP, 2010) Canepa, Matthew P (Visiting Research Fellow 2009) The Two Eyes of the Earth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); editor, Distant displays of power: understanding cross-cultural interaction among the elites of Rome, Susanian Iran, and Sui-Tang China in Ars Orientalis 38 (Washington: Smithsonian, 2010) Chen-Wishart, Mindy (Fellow) Reciprocity in Contract (University of Hong Kong, 2010) Clayton, David (1955) Lost Farms of Brinscall Moors: the Lives of Lancashire Hill Farmers (Lancaster: Palatine Books, 2011) Crofts, Natalia (2000) Fragments (pamphlet; Kherson: 2010) Dixon, Jack (1949) Dowding and Churchill: the dark side of the Battle of Britain (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2009) Dunnill, Michael (Emeritus Fellow) ‘Victor Horsley (1857-1916) in World War I’ (offprint: Journal of Medical Biography, 2010); ‘Victor Horsley (1857-1916) and the temperance movement’ (offprint: Journal of Medical Biography, 2011) Everson, Paul (1965), with D Stocker and B Lott, Little Sturton Rediscovered, Part 2: Sturton Old Hall and its Owners, and St Swithin’s Church, Baumber and the Burial of Dukes in Newcastle-under-Lyme (offprints: Lincolnshire History and Archaeology Vol. 43, 2008) Forker, Charles (1951) editor of George Peele’s The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England (Manchester University Press, 2011) Garfitt, Roger (1963) The Horseman’s Word (London: Jonathan Cape, 2011) Gay, Robert (1975) Shelltime 4 and ShellLNGTime (London: Intertanko 2010) POSTMASTER | 2011 23 NEWS LIBRARY & ARCHIVES | DONATIONS Gerth, Karl (Fellow) As China Goes, so Goes the World (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010) Grimley, Daniel M (Fellow) Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010); editor, The Cambridge Companion to Sibelius (Cambridge: CUP 2004); co-editor with J Rushton, The Cambridge Companion to Elgar (Cambridge: CUP, 2004) Haywood, Stephen (1981) Symmetries and Conservation Laws in Particle Physics (London: Imperial College Press, 2011) Herwig, Malte (Junior Research Fellow 2000-03) Meister der Dämmerung (München: DVA, 2011) Hofmann, Petra (Assistant Librarian) An Early Humanist Donation to All Souls College (Oxford: All Souls College, 2009) Hooker, Simon (Fellow) and C Webb, Laser Physics (Oxford: OUP, 2010) Jenkinson, Matthew (2003) Culture and Politics at the Court of Charles II (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2010) King, Andrew (Fellow) Auditory Neuroscience (London: MIT Press, 2010) Kreuzer, Gundula (Junior Research Fellow 2002-05) Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP, 2010) Lewis, Catherine (Assistant Librarian) Language of Stones (privately printed, 2010) Maclachlan, Ian (Fellow) co-editor with S Gaston, Reading Derrida’s ‘Of Grammatology’ (London: Continuum, 2011) Mairs, Rachel (Junior Research Fellow) The Archaeology of the Hellenistic Far East (BAR International Series, 2011) Mayr-Harting, Henry (1954) Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 10661272 (Harlow: Longman, 2011) McCabe, Richard (Fellow), editor, The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) Melican, Brian (2003) Lost in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Pons 2010) Mighall, Robert (Junior Research Fellow 1995) Private Lives: Keats (London: Hesperus Press, 2009) Newsholme, Eric (1935-2011, Emeritus Fellow) Functional Biochemistry (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), donated by Mrs Newsholme Norbrook, David (Merton Professor of English Literature) contributor, The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women, 1558-1680, ed J Harris and E Scott-Baumann (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) Oxley, James (1975; Visiting Research Fellow 2004-05) Matroid Theory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) Page, David (1963) co-author with W Crawley, Satellites over South Asia (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001) Perera, Shalini (2003) Corporate Ownership and Control (London: World Scientific, 2011) Rahtz, Sebatian (1973) contributor, The LaTeX Graphics Companion, 2nd ed. (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2007); The LaTeX Web Companion 24 POSTMASTER | 2011 (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1999); TeX People (Portland: TEX Users Group, 2009) Rawson, Jessica, Professor Dame (Warden, 1994-2010), editor, with K Goransson, China’s Terracotta Army (Stockholm: Ostasiatiska-Museet, 2010) Reid, Julian (College Archivist) and H Moore, editors, Manifold Greatness: The making of the King James Bible (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2011) Ricketts, Rita (Member of Common Room), editor, with C Morgan and J Stallworthy, Initiate. An anthology of new Oxford Writing (Oxford: The Kellogg Centre, 2010); contributor, Unbroken Wings, ed. by D Chandler and M Gelashvili (Tblisi: Universal, 2010) Ridpath, Michael (1979) Where the Shadows Lie (London: Corvus, 2010) Scattergood, John (Visiting Research Fellow 2008) Occasions for Writing. Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Politics and Society (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010) Shue, Henry (Emeritus Fellow) editor (with SM Gardiner) and contributor, Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (Oxford: OUP 2010); contributor, The Routledge Companion to Ethics, edited by Skorupski, J, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010); contributor, Global Climate Change, edited by Arnold, D G (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Slomson, Alan (1961), with R Allenby, How to Count. An Introduction to Combinatorics, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton & London: CRC Press, 2011) Sowerby, Tracey (1997) Renaissance and Reform in Tudor England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) Walker, Revd Robert T (1969) editor of two books by TF Torrance, Incarnation, the Person and Life of Christ (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), and Atonement, the Person and Work of Christ (Paternoster, 2009) Walworth, Julia (Fellow Librarian), and D d’Avray, ‘The Council of Trent and Print Culture. Documents in the Archive of the Congregatio Concilii’ (offprint: Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 2010) Wright, Anthony D (1965) The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629-1645 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) Wycherley, Lynne (Library Assistant), contributor, No Space but Their Own: new poems about birds edited by Howard, J, (Keighley: Grey Hen Press, 2010); contributor, Soul of the Earth: the Awen Anthology of Ecospiritual Poetry edited by Ramsay, J, (Stroud: Awen, 2010) Zeilinger, Anton (Visiting Research Fellow 2010) Dance of the Protons (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) Zilber, Boris (Fellow) Zariski Geometries (Cambridge: CUP, 2010); contributor to A Course in Mathematical Logic for Mathematicians by Y I Manin (New York: Springer, 2010) THE CHAPEL NEWS The Chapel The Chapel continues to provide a focal point for Christian worship within the College community, attracting a diverse congregation of current Mertonians and their guests, as well as an increasing number of old members and visitors. We are always pleased to welcome people back to the College. Details of all our services can be found on the College website. The year began with the installation of Sir Martin Taylor as 50th Warden of the College. The installation ceremony takes place within the context of an act of worship which, on this occasion, included music sung by the College Choir. The Chapel community has already benefited enormously from the support of the Warden and Lady Taylor, for which we are most grateful. The Sunday evening service of Choral Evensong or Sung Eucharist is the principal act of worship each week and attracts an average congregation of about 100. Preachers this year have included the Archbishop of Wales, the Bishop of Norwich, Prof Alister McGrath (1976), Canon Gilly Myers and the Revd Anna Burr, a parish priest serving in the Diocese of York, who is also mother of two of our current undergraduates, both members of the choir. The celebration of Christian Initiation forms an important part of the liturgical cycle each year. Amber Hood, a member of the MCR, was confirmed by the Bishop of Stockport in October, and another graduate, Olga Bardina, was baptised and made her first communion on the feast of Pentecost. Also at Pentecost, Alice Brooke, Tony Chappel and Kristine Merriman made a public profession of faith and renewed their baptismal promises. Last December, Tristan Pichon, son of Visiting Research Fellow Prof Christophe Pichon, was baptised, and Jakob Issa, the son of a member of the MCR, was baptised in August. Combining elements from the Christian and Jewish traditions, on Trinity Sunday there was a service of thanksgiving for the two children of our politics tutor Dr Sarah Percy. The Chapel continues to benefit from POSTMASTER | 2011 25 NEWS THE CHAPEL the hard work and dedication of Chapel Wardens, Sacristans, the Chapel Clerk and Pastoral Assistants (three this year: two from Ripon College, Cuddesdon and one from St Stephen’s House). During the last nine months we have said farewell to four students who have made particularly significant contributions to the life of the Chapel: Greg Lim, James McMillan, Richard Tovey and Michael Uy. I am very grateful to them and to the other students who sustain the Chapel’s activities throughout the year. As for clergy, at the beginning of the year the Revd Peter Anthony replaced the Revd Dr Andrew Davison (1992) as Junior Chaplain, and in Trinity Term we welcomed Canon Prof Paul Bradshaw, from the University of Notre Dame, as a Visiting Research Fellow. In October the Revd Mark Stafford will join the team as Junior Chaplain. Mark was ordained deacon at the beginning of July. He is serving his curacy at St Barnabas, Jericho and, with the agreement of the Bishop of Oxford, will spend 15% of his time at Merton. The College Choir continues to enrich our worship on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, at the popular twice-termly Compline and on other occasions. They go from strength to strength, and I am extremely grateful to the Reed Rubin Directors of Music, Organ Scholars and singers for their dedication and commitment. Musical highlights this year have included the Mozart Requiem at the All Souls’ Eucharist, an outstanding performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Passiontide Festival, the Easter Carol Service and, not least, the tour of the United States which, without the generous support of Reed Rubin (1957) and MC3, would not have been possible. Clips 26 POSTMASTER | 2011 from a few of the concerts can be found on YouTube, and some of the pieces performed on tour can be heard on the choir’s first disc, In the Beginning, which will be released later in the year. Last year I reported a new collaboration between Merton, St Aldate’s Church and the Jellicoe Community in London. It has been very good to continue that this year with a service in Trinity Term, Song of Moses, which explored issues of social justice. We have also begun a series of exchanges with Oriel College where the Chaplain, the Revd Dr Robert Tobin (1999), is a former MCR President at Merton. We have celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible in several different ways. In addition to the excellent exhibition in the Upper Library, the KJV has been used for the readings at the Wednesday Choral Evensong, and Warden Savile’s part in the translation was marked by a special service, attended by the Prayer Book Society, at the beginning of May. Later that month, a group of 90 children from three different schools (New College School, Pegasus School in Blackbird Leys, and St Barnabas School in Jericho) came to the TS Eliot Theatre for a performance of The Bible from A to Z, written for the College by Sarah Lenton and performed by a group of professional actors. It was very good to work on this project with Lady Taylor. That evening, the same group, joined by the College Choir, performed The Full 1611 to a packed Chapel. Merton remains a popular venue for weddings. John Corcoran (1999) married Emily Jenkins (2004) in April. July saw the marriages of current graduate Elizabeth Hunter (2000) to former Fitzjames Research Fellow Yang Hui-He, and of Paul-John Loewenthal (2003) to Barbara Glowacka. In August another current member of the MCR, Edmund White (2008), married Philippa Cox, and the following Saturday Supernumerary Fellow, Simon Draper, married Angela Minassian. WELFARE AND STUDENT SUPPORT In my last report I mentioned that Helen Brough, our College Nurse for 20 years, had retired. A few months after her retirement, Helen died in a tragic accident. Helen provided medical care and welfare support to so many Mertonians during her time at the College, and her family were particularly moved to see so many at her Memorial Service last September. She will be greatly missed. At her retirement, Helen was pleased to know that she would be replaced by a friend and colleague, Catherine Haines who, at that time, was College Nurse at St Anne’s. Catherine has settled in very quickly and has already become an established part of the welfare team. It is a great pleasure to work with her and Anna Camilleri, our Welfare Dean. As tuition fees and student finance remain a topic of national debate, the College has formed a Student Support Committee to administer all its grants to students; for hardship, research, welfare support, travel and other purposes. During the course of this academic year we have awarded grants and loans totalling £70,000. Student Support is an important part of our 2014 Sustaining Excellence campaign. We remain extremely grateful for the generosity of many old members, which enables us to support our students in this way. Simon Jones, Chaplain THE CHOIR NEWS The Choir The academic year of 2010-11 has been a defining year for the College Choir. The tour to the USA in April 2011 was a huge success and we are truly grateful to our benefactor Reed Rubin and to MC3. Our eight appearances in Philadelphia and New York were very well supported and we greatly enjoyed the hospitality shown to us by several groups of Mertonians. A significant occasion was our performance in Wayne, Pennsylvania: we particularly enjoyed performing with their fine organ, built by Dobson Pipe Organs. It was most appropriate that Lynn Dobson and other members of his firm were able to be in Wayne with us, so that we could announce that it is the College’s intention that Dobson should build the new organ for the College Chapel, in time for the 750th anniversary celebrations in 2014. As I write, we are just completing a tour of France where the choir has performed the 40-part motets ‘Ecce Beatam Lucem’ by Striggio and ‘Spem in Alium’ by Tallis. The choir has featured in a number of festivals, including the concert series in Louvie-Juzon and the Beaujolais Festival. Although not yet released, we were able to take our debut CD In the Beginning and sold all the copies we had with us by the end of the third concert. We are hoping for such an enthusiastic response on the disc’s release in October! In the UK, we have visited Tewkesbury Abbey where we sang Mass with the Abbey’s Schola Cantorum and in November we sang a joint service with the choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, in their chapel. Concerts in our own chapel have included a special event for the Friends of the College Choir and our Passiontide Festival in April 2011. This year’s festival attracted even greater numbers than the first festival last year and the concerts by The Tallis Scholars and Madeleine Ridd were particularly memorable. In May, we gave our first concert for the ‘Music at Oxford’ concert series and look forward to future collaborations. John Tavener and Matthew Martin have both composed music for the choir and their pieces will form part of the Merton Choirbook, which will be part of the 750th anniversary celebrations. The sung services are the focus of the choir’s work and it has been good to attract large congregations for some of our special services, not least the service for All Souls when the choir sang Mozart’s Requiem with orchestra, to a congregation of 400. We remain very grateful to our many benefactors and Friends of the Choir who help us undertake such an active programme each year. Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips Reed Rubin Directors of Music POSTMASTER | 2011 27 NEWS THE GARDENS The Gardens Recently we have been asked to provide a Caribbean garden for the new Warden’s Lodgings: this has highlighted how many plants we think of as English, aren’t English at all. Pendant lilac flowers of wisteria, seen across the front of many town houses in early summer, will be of Japanese or Chinese origin. Many plants have japonica as their species name, similar to our forename. Sharing its genus, equivalent to our surname, with its other relatives, like fatzia japonica for example. Hydrangea villosa, another Asian plant, provides us with large showy lilac flower heads throughout late summer; the buds are able to withstand the cold winter of Tibet by 28 POSTMASTER | 2011 their blanket of velvety fur, similar to that found on the skin of a peach. Australasia has provided us of course with silvery, scented leaved eucalyptus; these cope with drought by having very long tap roots. Plectranthus retain water by their pubescent leaves preventing excessive water loss. Callistemon and grevillea are used as summer bedding plants and are commonly called the bottlebrush bush plant because of their unusual long-stamened flowers. From Europe we have the castor oil plant, ricinus communis. It is now widespread throughout tropical regions for the seed being the source of castor oil. On garden tours people often ask if I am trying to kill them off as the seeds also contain ricin, a toxin used in biological warfare. The 2007 edition of the Guinness Book of Records put this plant as the most poisonous in the world. The real purpose of the toxin is for protection from insect pests, such as aphid. European spring flowering bulbs usually die down in late spring to avoid the shade of a tree canopy or, in the case of Mediterranean bulbs, the hot sun. The snowflake, leucojum autumnale, does the same with its foliage, but flowers in autumn to escape the huge competition for pollinating insects so early in the year. Lucille Savin Head Gardener SCHOOLS LIAISON & ACCESS Schools Liaison & Access The year 2010-11 has been one of continued growth for Merton’s Schools Liaison programme. By the end of the school year, the College will have been involved in 60 events for schools, an increase of more than a third on last year’s count. This is in addition to various stand-alone tours and the hosting of events organised by University departments. Many of these events are the result of contact with schools in our regional link areas of Wiltshire, Dorset and the London Borough of Merton. It has been a particular pleasure to revisit schools I saw last year, and to renew my acquaintance with the teachers – such continuity of contact is crucial to encouraging engagement with Oxford, and is a major advantage of the regional system. The last two years have seen a significant strengthening of the regional link, and we continue to work more widely as well, and this year I have made many visits to schools outside these areas. 2010-11 has also brought considerable change for universities nationally. Changes to the finance system have given renewed prominence to questions on the value of higher education and on fair access. There is also an increasing awareness of the importance of working with students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds at an early age, before preconceptions about Oxford set in and before they make crucial post-16 choices that may preclude them from applying to the most prestigious universities. This is not news at Merton, where we have worked with groups of 14to 15-year-olds for many years. We now run NEWS several Merton Taster Days in Hilary and Trinity Term each year, which allow groups of about ten GCSE students to visit Merton and find out more about life at Oxford. They are also encouraged to start thinking about their choices and academic study more generally. Oxford has an excellent network of outreach officers in the colleges, and our active collaboration allows us to run more ambitious programmes than would be possible individually. This year we have set up a programme of Oxford Taster Days. These operate on a similar principle to Merton’s Taster Days, but pooling the resources of several colleges allows more schools to benefit from a single event. About 600 students have visited through the programme so far, and Merton has been particularly active in running plenary sessions in the TS Eliot Theatre. We have also hosted collaborative academic Study Days for sixth-form students. Further initiatives are planned for the next academic year, and Merton’s enthusiastic involvement makes a clear statement about our continued commitment to fair access. We have also developed new initiatives for engaging with teachers. In March we hosted our first Teachers’ Lunch, with a particular focus on the Social Sciences at Merton. The relative informality of this event provided an excellent opportunity for teachers and advisers to speak to our tutors personally, and allowed both sides to learn more about our applicants’ experiences. We look forward to hosting more of these in the upcoming year. Ashley Walters Schools Liaison & Access Officer POSTMASTER | 2011 29 NEWS DEVELOPMENT Development Looking back over another exceptionally busy year 2010-11, two elements stand out: the arrival and introduction to Mertonians of the new Warden, Professor Sir Martin Taylor, as the 50th Warden of Merton; and the public launch of Merton’s 750th Anniversary Campaign Sustaining Excellence, with its precursor: the opening of the brand new TS Eliot Theatre. Once again record numbers of Mertonians have attended a broad range of events, which we very much hope cater for all tastes and for all ages. Sir Martin has been present at most of these, and has much enjoyed meeting the many different Mertonians. The 26 events were hosted at venues as diverse as the Corney and Barrow Wine Bar in Broadgate Circus, the Headquarters of the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace; the Links Club in Manhattan and 30 POSTMASTER | 2011 Drapers’ Hall in the City of London; PwC on the Embankment and the Vesper Club in Philadelphia; Freshfields in Fleet Street and a restaurant in the 5ième arrondissement in Paris – to name but a few. And we must not forget that Mertonians and their guests have especially enjoyed coming back to Merton itself to see each other and reunite with their Tutors – for special reunion Lunches and Dinners, for Gaudies, for meals at High Table and for the Merton Society Weekend. As the Merton Society and MC3 in the US and Canada broaden out to embrace the Lawyers’ Association, ‘Merton in the City’ and ‘Merton in Manhattan’, as Merton success in the Oxford Town and Gown 10k Road Race rivals with the success of the Merton Golfers in the Inter-Collegiate Golf Tournament, as alumni activities encompass the Friends of the Choir and the Friends of the Boat Club, we very much hope that there is something for everyone. Presentations and talks at these events – with Mertonians playing a major part – brought together stars of the police, the world of retail, of diplomacy, of academia and the law. Themes took us from ‘Zero Tolerance’ to ‘Loyalty Points’ and Shakespeare’s Othello. We are extremely grateful to all those who have spoken, who have hosted events at their companies, or sponsored events for us at special clubs and private venues. Thank you for your generosity. Without it we could not offer the programme that we do. In these events and others at home and abroad, we have made contact this year with over 1,000 alumni – or 20% of our total alumni base. And I am especially grateful, as I know you all are, to the indefatigable Helen Kingsley, our ever-smiling and ever- DEVELOPMENT efficient Alumni Relations Manager, who organises them all, in conjunction with the Merton Society, MC3 and the individual committees. Publications too have increased this year, as Matt Bowdler, formerly our Development Assistant, has become Publications and Web Officer. He now looks after the Merton website, and all our alumni publications, which includes the role of liaising with the Year Reps for their vital contributions to Postmaster. Mertonians are keen to know more about how the finances of the College work, and precisely how their donations are used and so we have produced the first Merton Donor Report. We have also received excellent feedback on the enhanced Newsletter. Because Matt has altered his role, Sarah-Louise Hood joined the team in January and is already giving much support to us all as Development Assistant. Another member of the team is Rob Moss, who looks after the database and is managing the transfer of alumni data to DARS, the University of Oxford’s Development and Alumni Relations Database. For some time now Mertonians have been asking us for an online networking function, which the DARS system will provide. Alongside Merton events and publications, we have continued with the Annual Fund, which is such a welcome addition to the annual Merton Budget. Each year the Annual Fund, made up of gifts below £25,000 and raising approximately £800,000 of donations per year, adds huge value to the College. Since the beginning of the quiet phase of the 750th Anniversary Campaign Sustaining Excellence, in August 2007, until the public launch of the Campaign in May 2011, Merton Annual Fund monies have brought in some £3 million or about 19% of the total. This unprecedented level of support, given by hundreds of donors world-wide, has allowed us to continue to fund a number of areas of College life which directly benefit current undergraduates and graduates, and it has had a real impact on many aspects of our activities. Not all of the money allocated last year for student support, (around £650,000) came from the Annual Fund. The College has, over the centuries, received benefactions in support of students in financial need, and we have also had several major gifts for student support over the last few years, some to fund the ever more important Graduate Scholarships. But the NEWS Annual Fund is a very important element of the College’s fundraising – we welcome participation at any level, whether a one-off or regular gift, big or small – every gift is significant. Within the Development Office, it is Daphne O’Connell who runs, with great efficiency and charisma, the Annual Fund and, as part of that, the annual Telephone Campaign. Indeed the Telethon, in which current students engage with alumni, has been very effective, not only in raising regular income, but also as a means of exchanging news and feedback on College events and publications. The students much enjoy speaking to Mertonians of all ages and hearing about how life was at the College during their time. This year, for the first ALUMNI AND MEMBERS OF THE CHOIR ENJOYING THE MC3 DINNER IN PHILADELPHIA POSTMASTER | 2011 31 NEWS DEVELOPMENT time, they are particularly looking forward to speaking to some of our Mertonians in the Americas. As part of the 750th Anniversary Campaign, we aim to have more than 30% of Mertonians giving on an annual basis to the College. This will be a great challenge, just as reaching our target of £30 million will be too, but we are clear about the direction the College must take to navigate the financial currents of the coming years. The success of our Campaign will keep us firmly on course. The 2010-11 year has been particularly exciting with respect to the Launch of the 750th Anniversary Campaign, Sustaining Excellence. Our goal was to reach 50% of the total £30 million before the Campaign Launch on 24th May. This we have done. Mertonians and Friends of the College have donated £15.75 million prior to the launch date. We are enormously grateful to all those from around the world who have helped us. We also give huge credit to the fundraising success of our previous Warden, Dame Professor Jessica Rawson, without whose leadership and expertise we would not have reached that target. But before the Campaign Launch, we formally opened the TS Eliot Theatre, the first major building project of the Campaign. TS Eliot’s widow, Valerie Eliot, as well 750TH ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN LAUNCH On Tuesday 24th May, Merton’s 750th Anniversary Campaign Sustaining Excellence was officially launched at a reception at Drapers’ Hall, in London, attended by nearly 300 Mertonians and friends of the College. We were privileged to host Professor Martin Rees, Lord Rees of Ludlow, the Astronomer Royal, who spoke on ‘The Future of Higher Education: whither Oxbridge?’. He announced that “even to an astronomer, three quarters of a millennium seems a long enough time to be worth celebrating”. In an illuminating overview of higher education, Lord Rees reminded us that the overall teaching budget for all universities in the UK is being cut from £3.5 billion to only £0.7 billion – by 80%, and that, in consequence, there is a near trebling in student fees. He emphasised too, and I quote: “Our ancient universities were established in order to pursue ‘education, religion, learning and research’ – that in modern terms, is their ‘mission statement’, and must never become a lost cause. These pursuits – whether in natural or social science, or in the humanities – have a value that transcends what can be measured in economic terms. And the experience that colleges offer their 32 POSTMASTER | 2011 as donors, Fellows, staff and students, attended the opening ceremony on Saturday 12th March and enjoyed readings of his poems. Thanks to the many gifts which have made this project possible, the College now has a tiered auditorium, providing versatile space for lectures, seminars and recitals. The complex also includes three seminar rooms which broaden the College’s offer to corporate clients. We are delighted that the College conference business has already seen an increase in business revenue, and this summer is on target to attain £0.5 million in revenue/income. We are very grateful to the more than a thousand Mertonians and Friends of students – is ever more precious – it’s something which can’t be replaced by any conceivable advance in distance learning. That is why all of us who work in colleges are so concerned that they should remain accessible to those who can benefit from them most – and who PROFESSOR MARTIN REES will, through their education, serve society best in their future careers. These are noble aims, which deserve support from philanthropy as well as from the public purse – that’s why I’m privileged to be here to wish a fair wind to Merton’s ambitious appeal.” DEVELOPMENT FELLOWS THE WARDEN SPEAKING AT THE OPENING OF THE T S ELIOT THEATRE the College who have donated since the beginning of the quiet phase of Sustaining Excellence in August 2007. During that period, with your support, we have endowed three existing Fellowships: the Mark Reynolds Fellowship in History, the Jessica Rawson Fellowship in Modern Asian History (three-quarters financed) and one Classics Fellowship; endowed the following new Fellowships: the Dr Peter J Braam Fellowship in Humanitarian Issues, the Peter Moores Junior Research Fellowship in Classical Archaeology and the Fitzjames Fellowship in Economics (three-quarters financed); raised £2.8 million for student support, including for new graduate scholarships; established the Choral Foundation; completed the following very necessary Capital Projects: the refurbishment of the College Lodge, the renewal of the Upper Library Lighting, the installation of new lighting and a sound system in the Chapel, the building of the TS Eliot Theatre. We have a great challenge ahead of us to raise the remaining £13 plus million over the next three and a half years to achieve our 750th Anniversary Campaign target of £30 million. But as we strive towards this goal, we remain convinced that more and more Mertonians will want to give back to their College. Their support, against the background of the huge reductions to the teaching budget and the increase in student fees, will ensure that young men and women are given the opportunity to enjoy and benefit from life at Merton just as they did. So, in the coming months we shall be focusing in particular on raising funds for Student Support (both undergraduate and graduate), as well as for a number of Fellowships: completing the Economics Fellowship and the Jessica Rawson Fellowship, and launching the fundraising for Chemistry, Philosophy and English. We owe much to the Old Members who serve on our various fundraising committees who are helping us so greatly at this time. In addition to our Campaign Board, co-chaired by Charles Manby and John Booth (both 1976), the Chairman’s Council and the Americas Capital Gifts Committee have been formed this year, the latter chaired by David Harvey (1957). The Americas Capital Gifts Committee will focus on the 750th Anniversary Campaign in the Americas, whereas MC3 itself will focus on the annual reunion and the Annual Fund. The help, advice and support of these committees are invaluable in enabling the College to achieve its Campaign goals. We are also hugely grateful to all those members of the Merton Society and MC3, as well as other alumni relations committees who help us run our events programme. We look forward to meeting many more of you in the course of the coming year both in the UK and overseas. Thank you all for your support. It is much appreciated. Christine Taylor Fellow and Development Director POSTMASTER | 2011 33 FELLOWS HAILS | DAVID AL-ATTAR Hail to New Fellows DAVID AL-ATTAR I joined Merton as a Junior Research Fellow in Geology in October 2010. Prior to this I was working towards a DPhil in Earth Science at Worcester College, Oxford. My first year at the college has been very enjoyable, and I have felt grateful to be able to live and work in such a friendly and stimulating environment. My research focuses on mathematical and computational problems in seismology and geophysics. The principal application of this work is in studies of the Earth’s interior. During my DPhil, I developed a number of methods for simulating seismic wave propagation in realistic models of the Earth. In addition, I have worked on the theory of seismic wave propagation in linear viscoelastic materials, and on the determination of hydrostatic equilibrium figures of rotating planets. During my time at Merton, I intend to apply and extend the methods developed during my DPhil to the construction of models of the Earth’s interior structure. In particular, I will use observations of the Earth’s free oscillations to investigate large-scale variations in density within the Earth. Reliable knowledge of such density variations is needed in addressing a number of current questions in geophysics, and is likely to play a key role in understanding the dynamics and evolution of the Earth. DR RODERICK CAMPBELL My first (and sadly, last) year at Merton has been a wonderful experience for myself and my family. We have grown attached to Oxford in a remarkably short time and will remember our time here fondly. For me in large measure my enjoyment has stemmed from the warmth and intellectual stimulation of my brilliant colleagues at Merton in its unique and beautiful surroundings. Before coming to Merton and after graduating from Harvard University, I held postdoctoral fellowships at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, and conducted a Luce-ACLS funded international collaboration at the Anyang Workstation, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in China. My research is focused on North China in late 2nd millennium BCE and employs the techniques of history, archaeology and epigraphy. My writing has included articles and book chapters on ancestors, sacrifice, the origins of Chinese civilization (co-authored, Antiquity 2009) and a new theoretical approach to the archaeology of socio-political complexity (Current Anthropology 2009). My nearly unfettered research time as a JRF at Merton has allowed me to finish an edited volume – Violence and Civilization: Studies of Social Violence in History and Prehistory (Joukowsky Institute Publications forthcoming 2011); write a book chapter on Shang animality, humanity and divinity; complete the data analysis and write an article based on my Chinese fieldwork (to appear in Antiquity), while applying for and receiving a Wenner-Gren International Collaboration grant to continue work in China. I am finishing a preliminary paper on the scale of Shang dynasty bronze casting and a book manuscript on the archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age. While at Merton I have had the enriching opportunity to act as college supervisor and teach several Chinese archaeology classes. I will deeply miss the many productive conversations with Dame Jessica Rawson and other faculty at the School of Archaeology as I take up an Assistant Professorship of Chinese Archaeology and History at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University this coming academic year. 34 POSTMASTER | 2011 HAILS | DR MARTINS PAPARINSKIS FELLOWS DR MARTINS PAPARINSKIS My first year as a Junior Research Fellow in Merton College has been a very rewarding one. I am privileged and humbled to be part of such an impressive intellectual community. Prior to coming to Merton I completed my DPhil at the Queen’s College in 2009, and spent 2009-10 at the New York University as a Hauser Research Scholar. I have varied research interests in the area of public international law. The focus of my research and publications is on the place of the international law on the protection of foreign investments in the international legal order. Investment protection law is largely expressed in the form of bilateral investment protection treaties; importantly, these treaties provide the foreign investor with a direct procedural right to take the host State to international arbitration. The relevance of investor-State treaty arbitration was not fully appreciated until the very end of the 1990s. The great quantitative increase in these arbitrations in recent years raises important legal questions both about the scope and content of international investment protection obligations and, more broadly, about the way in which traditional international law concepts of sources, interpretation and responsibility operate in this particular area. My research focuses precisely on these issues, exploring the recent practice both to explain the developments within investment protection law and tease out the implications for general international law. I have pursued a number of research projects during my first year at Merton. On the basis of my DPhil, I have prepared a monograph on the obligation to provide fair and equitable treatment for foreign investors that will be published by Oxford University Press in 2012. I have prepared a collection of documents on international investment protection that will be published by Hart Publishing. I have also worked on a number of articles and chapters that address different aspects of investment protection law from an international law perspective, ranging from procedural aspects and substantive obligations to certain meta-issues (e.g. sources and interpretation in investment law). One could not have wished for a better and more supportive research environment than the one provided by Merton. DR SYDNEY PENNER I joined Merton as a Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy in October 2010, after working on my PhD at Cornell University. I am honoured to be part of a college that has a philosophical history stretching from the Oxford Calculators in the 14th century to FH Bradley in the 19th. My research focuses on Francisco Suárez, a prominent but neglected figure in the more generally neglected tradition of scholastic philosophy in the late medieval and early modern period. Suárez was part of the Golden Age of Spain: the composer Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in the same year (1548) as Suárez, and Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, a year earlier. The flourishing of philosophical inquiry is less well known today than other aspects of the Golden Age, but in the 17th century Suárez’s fame as a philosopher ‘almost without equal’ extended throughout Europe and beyond. Suárez was a prodigious author: the standard – and incomplete – edition of his works runs to 26 large Latin volumes. He covers topics from metaphysics to ethics to political philosophy to theology. In my work to date, I focused on Suárez’s account of practical reason and action, looking at how he answers questions such as: What gives us reason to act? Which reasons are good reasons? What kinds of ends are there? What is happiness? Space does not allow more than the briefest of sketches of Suárez’s answers: Suárez thinks that our ultimate end is happiness. We have reason to act insofar as so acting brings us happiness. But Suárez does not think that happiness is simply a matter of satisfying whatever desires we might happen to have. The sort of creatures we are puts constraints on what will make us happy. We can be, and often are, wrong about what will make us happy. It is the task of ethics to help us get it right. I hope to use my time at Merton to expand my research into other areas of Suárez’s thought, as well as to learn more about his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries. POSTMASTER | 2011 35 FELLOWS HAILS | PETER SZANTO PETER SZANTO I joined Merton College as a Junior Research Fellow in October 2010 after having spent four years as a graduate student at Balliol and a further seven studying Sanskrit and Tibetan in Budapest. My area of research is late Buddhism in India and Tibet (roughly between 750 and 1300 CE) with a special focus on the issue of initiation in Tantric Buddhism. This – in many ways, unique – religion was once one of the most influential systems of beliefs in Asia, having spread from its humble beginnings in Central and Eastern India to China, Korea, Japan, Inner Asia, Siam, the Indonesian archipelago and Tibet. Yet, its original texts, predominantly in Sanskrit, constitute one of the least explored areas in South Asian studies in spite of the fact that the material to process is almost embarrassingly rich. The most important task in the field therefore is to produce reliable critical editions from which a detailed history of Tantric Buddhism could be written. This involves work with manuscripts and other primary sources, a task that can sometimes be tedious but is ultimately incomparably rewarding. During my three years I wish to edit several such texts accompanied by annotated translations and introductory studies. My Fellowship at Merton provided me with the most important things a young scholar in my position can hope for: an accepting, inspiring and incredibly learned community, generous support, and freedom to continue my research. One of the most humbling experiences was to discover that one of my ‘childhood heroes’, the explorer and scholar Marc Aurel Stein, was once a guest of the College and wrote one of the first books that awakened my interest in Asia in what is now the Music Room. I could not help but play with the idea that Buddhists would interpret this as a very auspicious sign. PROFESSOR KATHERINE WILLIS I joined the Merton Fellowship last October as a Professorial Fellow after being appointed to the new Tasso Leventis Chair in Biodiversity based in the department of Zoology. I ‘migrated’ from Jesus College where I was a Tutorial Fellow in Geography for six years. Merton is in fact the sixth Oxbridge college that I have had the pleasure to be associated with (there must be a record somewhere in here). In Cambridge I was at Corpus, Darwin and then Selwyn College and in Oxford at St Hugh’s, Jesus and now Merton. All the colleges have very distinctive characteristics and I am greatly enjoying my time at Merton thus far – although every time I move college it is rather depressing to become one of the most junior Fellows again – it feels a bit like a game of ‘snakes and ladders’ where I keep falling to the bottom of the ladder! I am a biological scientist by training and the main focus of my research is on biodiversity responses to environmental change and the dynamic processes of species and their interactions with their environment over a range of timescales. I run the Oxford Long-term Ecology Laboratory which is a hub of facilities and researchers in Oxford that use long-term ecological datasets (those spanning more than 50 years) to address questions relating to biodiversity changes through time. Research topics covered fall broadly into four categories: (i) reconstruction of biodiversity baselines and targets; (ii) examination of ecosystem resilience, variability and thresholds; (iii) understanding drivers and rates of change to ecosystem services and (iv) biodiversity beyond reserves. Projects currently underway include studies in South America, Africa (Congo basin, Botswana), Borneo, Galapagos, Hungary, India (Western Ghats), Lebanon, Madagascar, Mexico, Morocco, Mongolia, Romania, Slovenia, Tenerife and UK (oxlel.zoo.ox.ac.uk). Work in the lab is also focused on the development of web-based decision support tools to provide a measure of ecological and biodiversity value of landscapes outside of protected areas. I also hold an adjunct Professorship in Biology at the University of Bergen, Norway, and I am the Director of the recently established Oxford Martin School Biodiversity Institute: www.biodiversity. ox.ac.uk. 36 POSTMASTER | 2011 VIEW FROM THE TOP | MARK FIDDES FEATURES A View From the Top: Mark Fiddes OUR SERIES OF INTERVIEWS WITH MERTONIANS AT THE TOP OF THEIR PROFESSIONS CONTINUES MARK FIDDES (1979). MARK HAS BEEN A SENIOR CREATIVE BOTH IN THE UK WITH AND GLOBALLY FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND IS EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT DRAFTFCB. HE IS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR MERTON’S 750TH ANNIVERSARY LOGO. NOW POSTMASTER: What has changed since you started in advertising and marketing, and what has stayed the same? MARK FIDDES: Lunch, is the quick answer. We are much thinner as a profession thanks to a diet of Pret a Manger and one stiff recession every decade. Marketing spend is always the first budget line to get clobbered. The tectonic shift, however, is in media. The Economist recently calculated that we all have to process 30 times more messages every day than we did in 1980. Human beings are overloaded. When Bill Bernbach brought out his famous ‘Lemon’ POSTMASTER | 2011 37 FEATURES VIEW FROM THE TOP | MARK FIDDES its 100-year anniversary by reminding people what NIVEA was always good at – skincare. Like many companies in the skin business, they had become seduced by the myth of ‘impossible’ beauty, that ‘Because I’m worth it’ narcissism. So we reminded them of the simple truth that healthy skin brings people together. Now the ‘Feel Closer’ campaign is running in 80 countries, across all media from TV to the internet and awareness is up over 90%. Other campaigns I did my bit for include Tango (You know when you’ve been Tangoed), Royal Mail (If you mean it, write it), Finish (The Diamond Standard), Vanish (Trust pink, forget stains), Calgon (Washing machines live longer with Calgon), Jaguar (Gorgeous), Jamaica (Once you go, you know). campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle in the early Sixties, it was seen by virtually every car driver in the developed world. Those universal audiences don’t exist anymore. Whereas you could once speak to well over half the adult population during Coronation Street, you’re lucky now to reach one fifth. This is why there’s even more of a premium on ‘the big idea’ that engages people wherever they are. That’s the one aspect of advertising that has not changed over the 25 years I’ve been a creative. Which of your many successful advertising campaigns are you most proud of? It’s usually the last campaign because the scars of the battle are still fresh. Most recently, we helped NIVEA celebrate 38 POSTMASTER | 2011 Are there any campaigns you look back on and say ‘what was I thinking?’ Scores of them. How about the poster for The Spectator that purported to show US Secretary of State George Shultz’s bottom with a Princeton fraternity tiger tattoo on the right cheek? The headline read ‘Known for its revealing features’ but I had to get my mate to find a tattoo parlour in Soho that did tigers and then stand in as Shultz’s buttock double. Then there was the press ad that went out under my watch to celebrate Obama’s victory on behalf of Veet hair removal cream. The headline read ‘Goodbye Bush’ and, from a small space in the Sydney Telegraph, flew across every news site on the internet in hours. That took some explaining. What’s the one campaign you wish you had come up with? I admire the T-Mobile ‘Life’s for Sharing’ campaign which just picked up the British Television Advertising Grand Prix. The last execution had a procession of genuinely bemused passengers arriving at an airport to be greeted with an operatic chorus of singing trolley-dollies and security men. It was a tremendous production and a great example of advertising’s ability to ‘Enlarge, Enliven and Enlighten’ to quote Maggie Smith’s character in Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage. What’s the most challenging campaign you’ve run? It’s the fact that the challenges are everchanging that makes the advertising business fun. Mind you, the hardest part of any campaign today is to orchestrate the right messages along the multiplicity of media channels available. Have you ever been approached by an organisation that, for ethical or moral reasons, you felt you could not produce a campaign for? I’ve always refused to work for political parties, partly because the end result becomes little more than childish mudslinging that does no service to democratic pluralism, or advertising. We see a lot of campaigns these days that include a charity or education element to them. How important has the ethical side of marketing become? Good question. You can see two types of organisation using an ethical element to their campaigning today. There are those VIEW FROM THE TOP | MARK FIDDES their market share in the last two years. I am challenged by the fact that ‘Hyundai’ means ‘modern’ in at least five Asian languages. Like all ad agencies, however, we have to keep winning at new business. It sounds a bit Mad Men to say it, but agencies are like sharks. They have to keep eating to survive. like Innocent and Apple who project clear values of caring, sharing and growing as part of the DNA of their enterprise. Then there are those who use Corporate Social Responsibility credentials as a fig leaf to cover their vulnerabilities. I’m thinking right now of BP marketers who imagine that – a year on from the Deepwater disaster – showing a Paralympic runner Richard Whitehead in their ads will convince people the brand is making a positive difference. Yes, it’s a start, but one that will generate as much cynicism as empathy. How does an advertising agency keep up with the ever-changing pace of technology? You buy smaller agencies who do understand. You employ busloads of younger people for whom the technology is second nature. You stay inquisitive. You have children who live on Facebook and Twitter. With all of this, you try to find opportunities to push that technology further than anyone has done before. Remember too, people’s motivations change at a much slower pace. Understanding these beliefs and knowing how to engage and dialogue with them will always be more important than the latest platform or application. To borrow an expression once used of that quaint technology The Newspaper, they will end up around tomorrow’s digital fish and chips. With the way people consume media these days becoming ever-more fractured, has it become more difficult to target them? Yes, of course. But finer targeting also means more relevant messaging otherwise it’s just junk or spam. Last year we carried FELLOWS POSTER TO MARK THE OPENING OF THE LATEST DORCHESTER HOTEL AT COWORTH PARK out research across the world to find out how long people would give an advertiser before they mentally switch off. We surveyed over 2,000 people in their usage of every medium, from TV to radio, press, poster and the internet. We found that, on average, they will give you 6.5 seconds. We call this the 6.5 seconds that matter and we use this framework to ensure that initial message has enough impact to provoke deeper involvement. It’s not a philosophy but an operating principle. What challenges lie ahead for Draftfcb? Immediately, we are helping Coke in Atlanta with their Olympic investment. We want the campaign to increase participation in physical activities of all kinds in the run up to the Games. We have also just picked up a large assignment for Hyundai, the Korean car manufacturer who have doubled How does Draftfcb go about advertising itself? We’re awful at it. Think cobbler’s children’s shoes syndrome. The best way to stay top of mind is to win awards and earlier this year we received The Guardian Award for Best Consumer Campaign, voted by readers. Again, in common with most other ad agencies, we have a silly name that is hard to remember. Ours is a construct of Draft, named after the visionary Chicagoan Howard Draft, and Foote Cone and Belding (FCB), one of the oldest ad agencies in the business with over 130 years’ track record. My favourite FCB story is what happened when the Florida Orange Growers Association asked for a new press ad to double the consumption of Florida oranges. The agency founders went away to think about it. What they came back with was an alternative to an ad that had much greater longevity. We know it today as orange juice. Are there idiosyncracies specific to creative advertising in the UK? Some say the reason for the UK’s declining performance in the international Cannes Lions awards every year is down to our arrogance and insularity. There is some truth in the belief that a lot of what we do makes little sense to the rest of the world. I’m thinking particularly of the reliance on puns in headlines. Unless it’s a killer, leave POSTMASTER | 2011 39 FEATURES VIEW FROM THE TOP | MARK FIDDES it to the experts at the tabloid newspapers. We also like to write celebrities and comic caricatures from TV shows into our ads. This is just lazy and does not build longterm idea equity for a brand. You are a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Do you think advertising occasionally crosses into the territory of art? How long have you got? First, as a true enlightenment organisation the full name of the RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. So it has always viewed human progress as the indivisible contribution of all three activities. On the Art specifically, I’m with Proust who observed that, when one reaches a certain level of receptivity, there is as much to be learned from a soap advert as from the Pensées of Pascal. I also recall Nietzsche writing that ‘we have art in order that we don’t die of the truth’. In the age of Charles Saatchi, I would add that we have advertising in order that we don’t die of (modern) art. 40 POSTMASTER | 2011 Seriously, what makes my job as a Creative Director most satisfying is to work with experts – directors, photographers, typographers and designers – whose aesthetic sensitivity and skill can be breathtaking. ‘Nothing should be made by man’s labour that is not worth making.’ In this respect, I hope we are still followers of William Morris. Working in the creative sector, is it difficult to switch off? What do you do to help switch off? Mahler... Fulham Football Club... Running fairly slowly around London’s parks and commons. My greatest fortune in life was to marry una encantadora Catalana, Maribel, with whom I have two kinetic teenage boys, Alec and Sergi. How did Merton help you prepare for your career? Merton taught me the importance of curiosity and the humility never to assume you have the full picture. The study of philosophy helped me understand that framing a question provocatively will always guarantee a satisfactory answer. On a personal level, it gave me an odd resilience. Once you’ve tried defending Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia to JR Lucas, convincing a Top 100 CEO that he’s dead wrong is a piece of cake. What advice would you give to any Mertonian wishing to follow in your footsteps? Try to find an internship first and see what it’s like. You won’t make a lot of money. I remember doing a College careers talk on advertising a few years back with the legendary Adrian Vickers who founded our greatest UK agency AMV with fellow Mertonian David Abbott. A rather selfassured fellow at the back asked why on earth he should join Mr Vickers’s ad agency on £18,000 a year when Lehman Brothers had just offered him £35,000 plus bonus. “Think of it this way,” returned the suave and imperturbable Vickers, “it’s a bit like being a student for the rest of your life.” Perfect message... perfect targeting... brilliant advertising. ESSAY | SCENES FROM A PGCE – GABRIELLA GRUDER-PONI Scenes From a PGCE Two months into a PGCE in English, I noticed that the Year 9 students in my school, considered one of the best in the county, had trouble with basic vocabulary: ‘envy,’ ‘lament,’ ‘fiend,’ ‘distinguish,’ ‘negative’ and ‘eternal’ were Greek to them; no wonder they found reading frustrating. So I brought from home a stack of vocabulary books that I had used in middle school. With their witty exercises on usage and notes on etymology, these books had awakened in me a love for the English language. In the spirit of sharing a good book, I lent one of the volumes to the convenor of my PGCE. A few months later, instead of returning the book to me, Mr F— summoned me to his office. “Why did you lend this book to me?” he demanded. “I thought you would be interested.” Far from being interested, he was outraged. The book was ‘dreadful’ and ‘frightening.’ Wouldn’t learning new words make the students better readers and writers? Not at all; the books were ‘boring’ and ‘dangerous’ because they did not include all possible definitions of the words. Hoping to placate him, I said, “If you don’t want me to use them, I won’t.” “Oh, you certainly won’t,” he exclaimed. “They’ll never need those words!” I left the interview with those words ringing in my ears. Never need words like ‘assail,’ ‘assimilate’ or ‘mishap.’ Why not? Didn’t he expect them to read or to write when they left school? I began to suspect that my students’ ignorance might be a consequence of attitudes like those of Mr F—. One of his objections to learning vocabulary was that it would take up valuable class time. If one hour a week on vocabulary was too much, what, then, was there time for in school? Year 6: Literacy Hour The students read a biography on the website biography.com and then gave one-minute presentations on what they had learned. Unfortunately the website, sponsored by a television station, directs the reader to profiles of entertainment celebrities. So the students spent half an hour madly clicking from one celebrity to another. One of the few students who didn’t choose a pop star was a boy from Sudan who had been a refugee for most of his life. He chose Nelson Mandela. Maybe because Liban was shy about speaking in public, or maybe because English was his third language, he gave a confused [and rambling] presentation. “He was very brave,” he kept repeating, without saying why Mandela had spent decades in prison. I was sure the teacher would pick up where Liban left off. I remember well the homilies my primary school teachers in the US and in Italy gave on exemplary lives, on civil rights workers, [anti-fascists,] and people who had sheltered Jews in the Second World War. I was very moved by these stories, and often we students came back the next day with our own tales, having quizzed parents and grandparents. But this teacher said nothing more about Nelson Mandela. Instead she stood up and gave her own presentation — on Sean Connery. Year 8: Text Types The class was broken into pairs; each pair received an envelope containing pieces of paper with the names of different ‘text FEATURES types’ written on them. The students then had to tell each other the order of the planets following the conventions of a randomly selected ‘text type.’ For an hour the children said things like, “Add Mercury to Venus and stir” (recipe) or “Great pass from Earth to Mars!” (rugby commentary) or “Turn left at Jupiter and go straight until you reach Saturn” (travel directions). Text Message The year before I enrolled in the PGCE there had been a small scandal in the press surrounding a student who text-messaged an essay to her teacher. It was agreed that those who criticised the students were old fogies. By contrast Mr F— encouraged us to come up with ‘creative’ ways to integrate mobile phones and computer games into lessons. A-level class The students drew illustrated maps of the places described in the book they were reading. In another lesson, the teacher picked objects out of a bag and asked her students to explain their significance in the book; then she covered all the objects with a cloth and asked the students to make a list of as many objects as they could remember. Two overriding themes emerge in this sample of characteristic lessons. First, there’s the pursuit of topicality: “Students are interested in mobile phones and celebrities; therefore, we’ll give them lessons about mobile phones and celebrities.” There was no notion that education ought to expand one’s horizons, or that students might enjoy being introduced to new ideas. The teachers were fatalists: the students are as they are, and we’re not going to change them. But their fatalism was self-righteous rather than regretful. Once I prepared a worksheet on POSTMASTER | 2011 41 FEATURES ESSAY | SCENES FROM A PGCE – GABRIELLA GRUDER-PONI paragraph structure for my Year 8 students, which included a paragraph on Leonardo da Vinci. The teacher objected that Katherine, the weakest student in an outstanding class, “won’t have heard of the 1500s or of Leonardo.” To me that seemed an excellent reason to introduce Leonardo; for the teacher, it was self-evidently a reason not to do so. His own handouts for the class concerned hair care and school policy on stationery. I began to wonder if the real reason for the banishment from the classroom of anything that smacked of culture was the lack of interest not among students but among teachers. For the students, especially the younger ones, regularly showed themselves to be curious about subjects other than gadgets and celebrities. The second theme is an absolute lack of faith in words. Pictures, objects, roleplays: these were considered memorable and compelling. But not words. Methods that didn’t involve words were approvingly called ‘learning by doing.’ Clearly, a lecture on knitting or gymnastics would not get one very far, but what does ‘learning by doing’ mean in the study of English, a subject that consists entirely of words? How can one ‘do’ English without reading, writing, and discussing? The assumption that students were beyond the reach of all but the simplest words and sentences informed every lesson. I was often asked, for example, how the students would understand what I was teaching them; at first I would regularly answer, “I would explain it, like this … And if they didn’t understand, I would explain it another way, like this …” But I soon realised that my supervisors were sceptical of any teaching that involved explanations; when they spoke to students they gave instructions, never explanations. 42 POSTMASTER | 2011 STUDENTS AT THE BBS ACADEMY, NEW YORK In May I met with the parents of my Year 7 students in routine parent-teacher conferences. My supervising teacher, Ms E—, sat next to me and occasionally intervened. This was my second placement, so parents often turned to Ms E—, knowing that I had been teaching their children only for a few weeks. I had prepared reading lists for Year 7, and planned to say to almost every parent, “Nothing will improve your child’s writing skills more than reading. Here’s a list of books he or she might enjoy”. I did this with the first family, and they seemed appreciative. But after they left, Ms E— said to me, “Don’t give that list out to anyone else.” I was too shocked to dissemble. “Why not?” She couldn’t possibly have objected to the content of the list, which featured titles such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Anne of Green Gables. “This is a comprehensive school, and these are working class families. These people don’t go to the library regularly. Don’t give them the list.” Well, if that’s the case, I’d be happy to give them an excuse to go to the library, I thought. But I knew it was pointless to argue. I did, however, manage to get permission to offer reading suggestions to students, if they approached me individually. Over the next few days a steady trickle of students came up to ask for the list. The parent-teacher conference was a revelation, because I saw that some of these supposedly bovine parents were sceptical about what was going on in school. Turning to Ms E—, they said: “Couldn’t you assign more homework? His little brother, who’s seven years old, gets more homework than he does.” “She’s starting to read books like Black Beauty and Tom Sawyer...” (“Those are on my list!” I thought to myself.) “... by Jane Austen, which is the most challenging book she’s read so far.” “... I mean when I was her age we were reading the Iliad. I guess times have changed.” ESSAY | SCENES FROM A PGCE – GABRIELLA GRUDER-PONI Four years will pass before these children are asked to read a book cover to cover in school, four delicate years between childhood and adolescence, when a child’s natural curiosity must become habitual if it is to survive. I was hopeful for some of my youngest students, especially after hearing their parents. But maybe I shouldn’t have been: years of academic deprivation take their toll; the saddest thing was to see how indolent and incurious many of the older students were. As horses that worked in coal mines for years would go blind for lack of visual stimulation, so young people lose their thirst for knowledge for lack of intellectual sustenance and stimulation. Every time I suggested teaching a topic that couldn’t be called hard but that might begin to make up for years of wasted time, I was told it was impossible, because this was a comprehensive school, these students weren’t like me or the people with whom I had gone to school. A school that takes all kinds shouldn’t be able to argue that its students are special, and have to be treated like invalids. The professionals who supervised me subscribed to two contradictory beliefs: that Epilogue In the end I flunked the PGCE. I had been encouraged to withdraw, but I was stubborn, and I wanted to gather material for my article, however painful and humiliating the process might be. And I wanted to teach. Looking back, I think Mr F— decided all the way back in November, when I lent him the Wordly Wise books, that I wouldn’t pass the course. However much I tried to conform, to dumb down and be obsequious, it was to no avail; I had revealed my true colours in the autumn, and nothing I did would convince my supervisors that I wasn’t play-acting. A week after flunking the PGCE I went back to New York, and started teaching at a summer school I had found on the internet. I had no idea what to expect when Dr Kim interviewed me. The school, housed on the second floor of a commercial building in the borough of Queens, was not yet in session, and the small, windowless classrooms, furnished only with deskchairs and a whiteboard, offered no clues. As soon as I started teaching, however, I knew things would be very different from the PGCE. The students were all children of immigrants, and none of them spoke English at home, so there was no question about learning vocabulary: Mrs Kim, the headmaster’s wife, handed out xeroxed pages from the vocabulary books I had used in middle school every week, and every week the students were quizzed on the previous week’s words. I introduced lessons on etymology, and had the students write sentences using their new words, which we critiqued for usage. Mrs Kim herself spoke little English, but she would occasionally give me tips on particular students. Refreshingly, she would say, “He lazy. Push him,” gesturing with her hands. FEATURES they had nothing to teach the students, no knowledge to impart; and that the students’ origins were their destiny. I’m convinced of the contrary: I’m sure I have a great deal to teach my students, but I do so in the expectation that one day they will be my intellectual equals. This is a drastically abridged version of an article that appeared in the September 2009 issue of The Reader magazine. The full version can be found online at http://thereaderonline. co.uk/2009/09/17/the-reader-gets-angry/ or readergetsangry.notlong.com/. The students themselves were the biggest revelation. They were lively and funny, and their curiosity, having been encouraged, was boundless. My younger students in Britain had been lively and funny too, and many were, in spite of their teachers, curious. But I listened to them with a tragic sense of being forbidden to communicate with them, knowing that I was being observed at every moment. Now at last I could talk to my students, nurture their interests, and share with them my own enthusiasms. It was a great relief to do this, and even more, to see the children get excited about (for example) Greek mythology, the Flushing Remonstrance, or Blake’s poem ‘The Poison Tree.’ And finally I could place real demands on my students without fear of reprisal from above. When I asked to teach Tom Sawyer, Dr Kim did not hesitate to order a class set of books. When I nervously inquired whether I could assign reading for homework, or have the students write essays in class, he seemed amused and perplexed, as if thinking, “What else would one do?” Slowly I began to recover from the PGCE, to unlearn my reflexive fears and to regain faith in myself and in education. Now that I teach in a regular school I know that BBS is no exception; what happened there is what happens every day in a good school. But after the PGCE it seemed like nothing short of a miracle to be allowed to teach, and to see my students grow and learn. Gabriella Gruder-Poni (2001) Gabriella welcomes contact from anyone wishing to discuss the issues raised in her article. You can contact her at gabriella.gruder-poni@merton. oxon.net POSTMASTER | 2011 43 FEATURES MERTONIANS IN | LITERATURE Mertonians in... Literature MERTON IS STEEPED IN LITERARY HISTORY. IT IS SAID TO BE THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE TABLE ON WHICH ASLAN WAS SLAIN ON IN THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE AND ALSO OF THE ENTS IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Many written works by Mertonians can now be found in the Bodleian Library, founded, of course, by another Mertonian, Sir Thomas Bodley. Max Beerbohm, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, TS Eliot, Louis MacNeice and JRR Tolkien have all added to the rich story of Merton literature. Postmaster has collected the thoughts from a handful of contemporary Merton writers who continue in their footsteps. MICHAEL RIDPATH (1979) They say second books are difficult, but I found planning the second book in my series about Magnus, my Icelandic detective, fairly straightforward. The premise is that a group of Icelanders decide to take revenge on those whom they hold responsible for the kreppa, their word for the credit crunch, which crushed their country. My editor liked the idea, but suggested that I needed to add a touch of myth and superstition. Myth and superstition? To the credit crunch? A problem. After some frantic head scratching and speed reading, I booked myself a return ticket to Iceland and borrowed a copy of The Saga of the People of Eyri from the London Library. This saga deals with the experiences of a group of touchy Vikings who arrived in the Snaefells Peninsula in western Iceland at the turn of the tenth century. 44 POSTMASTER | 2011 One story captured my imagination. Two berserkers had been brought from Sweden to Iceland as slaves. They proved difficult to control. Eventually, their master, a local farmer, told them to cut a path through the lava field between two farms. They drove themselves into a berserk frenzy and cut the path. When they had finished they were exhausted and the farmer had no difficulty running them both through with a spear. I reread the saga on the plane, hired a car at Keflavík airport and drove north for about three hours, until I spied the snow-covered dome of the Snaefells Glacier. I drove up through a mountain pass, and pulled over to the side of the road. Beneath me stretched the Berserkjahraun, or Berserkers’ Lava Field, a frozen river of grey stone, nibbled at by mosses of russet, yellow and lime green. Close up, the folds of frozen lava reared up into twisted sculptures of stone horses and warriors. I found a faded wooden sign pointing to the Berserkjagata. Sure enough, this was a narrow path only a few inches wide cut through the lava. I followed it for a quarter of a mile until I came to a depression in the ground and a low broad cairn. Inside this, 19th-century archaeologists had found two skeletons – not especially tall, but very broad – which had been buried there a thousand years before. I flew home and began typing. Chapter one of 66° North is about the demonstration outside the Icelandic Parliament in the winter of 2008. But chapter two begins with two small boys, one of whom is Magnus’s grandfather, playing berserkers in a lava field on the Snaefells Peninsula. Michael Ridpath’s two Icelandic novels are Where The Shadows Lie and 66° North. HECTOR MACDONALD (1992) My writing career wasn’t planned. I didn’t pen short stories or poems as a teenager, I didn’t read English Literature, and I never sought work experience in a commissioning editor’s office. I was a biologist at Oxford, and a strategy consultant thereafter. But I’ve always loved reading novels, and it struck me during a boring patch at work that I MERTONIANS IN | LITERATURE HECTOR MACDONALD might be able to write one. Astonishingly, that first attempt became a bestseller, The Mind Game, translated into 18 languages by the time I was 26. Wow, this is easy, I thought. If that’s what I can do (and earn!) when I know nothing at all about writing, just think what literary masterpieces I’ll be capable of with a little craft and experience. It didn’t quite work out like that. My second and third novels were published to a resounding silence from most critics and booksellers. This turns out to be a common pattern for writers of ‘big’ first novels. Luckily I still had my business career, for which I am particularly grateful now that the publishing industry is tearing itself apart in a ‘perfect storm’ of economic, technological and structural change. Heaven knows how most writers are coping financially as contracts are cancelled, terms changed, stock remaindered, and new works by veteran authors shunned in favour of celeb ‘autobiographies’ and TV tie-ins. But in all the technological upheaval I have found an even more exciting opportunity: I now edit www.BookDrum. com, a crowd-sourced multi-media website that collates pictures, music, video, maps and background information to add a new illustrative dimension to books as diverse as The Interpretation of Dreams, Brighton Rock and Siddhartha. Book Drum is already much loved by teachers and students in the US, and it offers scholars and authors an unprecedented opportunity to annotate, illustrate and continuously update their own books. It’s a thrilling new development in publishing, and we hope soon to produce fully enhanced e-books, complete with interactive maps, TV footage, relevant songs and photographs all built into the text. Publishing is a precarious business… but these days it certainly isn’t dull. LORNA FERGUSSON (1980) I arrived in 1980, when Merton first accepted women. I was Scottish, my friend Catherine Reilly, a brilliant bibliographer who later won the Library Association’s Besterman Medal, was Mancunian. I’d never drunk Pimms in my life before I arrived here. All round culture shock. During my studies, I found myself both fulfilled and frustrated, particularly by assumptions that I would go on to teach. How could I reconcile my love of literary criticism with my desire to be creative, to be my own person? Reader, I managed it. I still live in Oxford, never having tired of its beauty and its cultural history. I did end up teaching FEATURES literature, and after publishing my novel, The Chase, with Bloomsbury, I’ve been involved in creative writing teaching too. Three decades ago, there was Arvon and there was Malcolm Bradbury’s Creative Writing MA at UEA – but not much else. Now, literary conferences, festivals and courses burgeon up and down the land: there seems to be an incredible hunger in people for self-expression and for some way of validating their desire for self-expression. You can argue that much of it is solipsistic and unrealistic in its expectations. You can argue that writing can’t be taught (and I won’t get into that debate at present!) – but we are in the midst of a revolution in the publishing world which is part-daunting, part-exciting. Writers can find their own way to readers, through social media, through print on demand, through the Kindle. I’ve taught for the Writers’ Conference at the University of Winchester and for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. Two years ago, I set up fictionfire, LORNA FERGUSSON POSTMASTER | 2011 45 FEATURES MERTONIANS IN | LITERATURE offering day courses, mentoring and editing services. So the skills I gained as a student, skills of analysis and critical reading, have proved immensely useful when it comes to helping new writers explore their potential. I believe in being eclectic, drawing on whatever example is relevant to illustrate a point. If I’m drawing a plot-graph, I’ll use King Lear or Great Expectations. If I want to show how effective it is to start in medias res, I’ll use Paradise Lost. But I’m just as likely to use Stephen King or Lee Child. It’s a delight to see how people react to texts from the canon they might well have seen as unapproachable before. When they hear Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale, they realise the art of the perfectly-formed short story has always been with us. A good yarn is a good yarn, whether it’s medieval or modern. I intend to develop fictionfire: more workshops, perhaps e-books and online courses. All of this is immensely fulfilling. But one problem continues: how to balance nurturing the creativity of others with finding time for my own writing! RICHARD LEE (1984) I love literary societies, and belong to several. They’re a way of bringing likeminded people together, a way of asserting some solidarity in a world that mostly seems interested in other stuff. They’re rarely ‘cosy’. Indeed they’re probably the quickest way of finding a like-minded person who completely disagrees with you. But that’s part of the fun. Now that’s set to change. Or if not change exactly, to play itself out on a different, far bigger stage. Where previously you published learned journals for the paid-up few (1,200 in our case), now you can publish 46 POSTMASTER | 2011 free-to-view for many times that number – daily. In the past you were limited by copy dates, printer and distribution delays. Now you can publish every day of the year: the news can be new. Typically that news gets tweeted and re-tweeted, so it also spreads quickly. And of course membership is now global. If you wake in the night and wander down to the computer you’ll find scores of new messages from different time-zones. The problems of this are as immense as the opportunity. Nowadays if I write a review the chances are I not only know the author, but probably ‘spoke’ with them recently. Twitter is more intimate than email; like being in the same room at a party, you have the opportunity to ignore, say hello, or make contact – you’ve ‘seen’ them, and they you. This exerts a pressure. Your review, article, or choice of promotion is intimate now in a way not dissimilar to the coteries of old. Similar pressure comes from the publishers, agents, publicists – and implicitly from other writers in the same area. So, literary societies today are interconnected and intimate; and at the same time, have massive exposure and potential influence. It’s a very exciting time! MARC MORRIS (1998) Being a writer is a lonely old business, so it’s always nice to be asked to come and give a talk. Once every month or so I find myself speaking to a school or local history society about some aspect of the Middle Ages. Also, when a new book comes out, my diary starts to fill up with literary festivals – usually I’m awarded the prestigious Tuesday morning slot. These, too, can be very enjoyable, offering the chance to spot bona fide celebrities and partake of their backstage privileges (once I had a dressing room with light bulbs around the mirror). The downside with literary festivals is the occasional audience member who attends with the intention of picking a fight. My last book, for example, A Great and Terrible King, was a biography of Edward I, one of the most controversial figures in British history, and for some people, the mere fact of my having written it appears to have made me president of his appreciation society. At one particular provincial festival, a woman sat in the front row, tutting loudly throughout, upset because my take on Scottish history differed substantially from that of Mel Gibson. Did I not realise, she MERTONIANS IN | LITERATURE asked me during the questions, that Edward I could have picked Robert Bruce to be king of Scotland in 1291, thus avoiding all the subsequent wars? No amount of argument on my part could persuade her that the Robert Bruce in question was not in fact the legendary Scottish patriot, but his namesake grandfather, a notorious English quisling. Of course, one tries to be as polite as possible in such circumstances, though I sometimes wish I had the gumption to say “Excuse me, but this is what I do for a living, day in, day out.” Instead I invite them to chat about it at the book-signing afterwards. A sale is a sale, after all. ROGER GARFITT (1963) One of the pleasures of bringing out a memoir is that old friends reappear from nowhere. I’ve just had a letter from Christopher Walker, who was an art student at the Ruskin when I met him, and for the last 40 years has been drawing and writing in Ireland. It was Chris who took us out to Northmoor when I was starting to write myself and we didn’t have two pennies to rub together. Chris had been haymaking for George Lucas and knew he was living alone in his old stone farmhouse. Could he let us have a couple of rooms? “I dunno,” George said, “my house isn’t really fitted up for livin’ in.” But we managed perfectly well, drawing our water from the cold tap in the bathroom and cooking on Calor Gas rings. Each morning I would walk around the fields, the uncut hedges so alive with birds it was like walking in the margins of a medieval manuscript. I would come back to the oval of a gate-legged table and the unlined pages of the artist’s sketchbook I used for writing because they gave me a free space where I could try out FEATURES phrases without them being marshalled into any order. I had sworn never to accept a line unless it was better than I thought I could write and I would work for days before I found a phrase that had the right tension, a combination of inevitability and surprise. I would build up from there, finding other phrases that seemed to grow out of that rhythm, to belong to that movement across the page – just the same scrying of silence I am having to bend to now that the memoir is out and I’m back to writing poetry. ROGER GARFITT (SECOND LEFT), HIS WIFE PRISCILLA AND FRIENDS, ON HIS WEDDING IN 1972, OUTSIDE CHRISTOPHER WALKER’S FARMHOUSE POSTMASTER | 2011 47 FEATURES MERTON CITIES | PARIS Merton Cities: Paris MERTONIANS HAVE MADE MANY OF THE FINEST CITIES IN THE WORLD THEIR HOME. TO TAP INTO THIS PRIVILEGED MINE OF INFORMATION, POSTMASTER TALKS TO CAROL PEARSON (2000) TO UNCOVER THE BEST KEPT SECRETS OF PARIS. Where is the best place to eat/drink? It could take a while to answer this question! Paris really is a treat for food lovers and there are so many places to choose from. For a simple snack, I’d recommend stopping for a platter of cheese and meats and a carafe 48 POSTMASTER | 2011 of good French red at one of the brasseries on the slopes of Montmartre, or along the Seine (La Palette on the Rue de Seine is a favourite with the locals of the St Germain de Près crowd). One all-time classic among Parisians and the expats is the library-styled Le Fumoir, just behind the Louvre and, if you fancy trying Corsican, then A Casaluna, hidden in the backstreets round Palais Royale is a great find. On a cold winter’s day, try the eccentric but cosy Le Gros Minet, in Les Halles area, or Les Galopins near to Bastille for some very good traditional French food. For those not on a limited budget, La Closerie de Lilas in the 6th arrondissement, famed for having hosted among others Stein, Hemingway, and Picasso in the past, is an excellent choice for some fabulous bistro food and old-world Paris ambiance. If you feel like really splashing out, try the Sunday brunch at the stunning Hotel Crillon, a palace originally commissioned by Louis XV, which overlooks the Place de la Concorde. Go with an empty stomach, because the food is copious and excellent. MERTON CITIES | PARIS What is the best way to spend a morning in Paris? Take it easy. Paris is not a city that should be rushed. Start out with a croissant, coffee and a newspaper in a café. Then a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens, taking in the Luxembourg Palace and the fountains is always a great way to start the day. The gardens are always a bit quieter before lunchtime. … an afternoon? Depending on your frame of mind, you could head to one of the many museums or exhibitions. The Musée d’Orsay, in the magnificent former train station, has an extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works. The Musée Picasso, housed in a 17th-century mansion, is really worth a visit for its collection as well as for the impressive backdrop. The Musée Rodin and its gardens are often overlooked, but should be on the list if you have time. If you want to get a real taste of city life, it’s best to avoid the Champs Élysées, and instead take a velib’ (the bicycles for hire) or walk around the different districts of the city. The Marais area (east of the Pompidou) offers some wonderful architecture, and in the Grand Boulevards area you can discover the historic galleries and passages from the 18th and 19th centuries and their quirky boutiques. For more sporting types, take in some fabulous views and the bridges rollerblading along the quais of the Seine. Stopping for a macaroon and hot chocolate at Angelinas on the Rue de Rivoli, or one of the famous Ladurée cafés is a must. Plan ahead though, as you will probably have to queue on the weekend. … an evening? If you’re looking to keep it simple: drinks and dinner in a light-hearted ambiance head over to the lively Rue Montorgueil area. Café Etienne Marcel does some great cocktails. The rue Montorgeuil and perpendicular rue Tiquetone offer some very good restaurants with a wider variety of cuisine. To try something a bit different, La Bellevilloise in the 20th arrondissement is a bar and restaurant with a stage that often hosts eclectic musicians. The Jazz bars situated near Châtelet, the Duc Du Lombard or the Sunset Sunrise are two low-key clubs popular for their good range of concerts. If your French is up to scratch, get tickets to one of the theatres on Rue Caumartin. Otherwise there is normally something on at Salle Pleyel and the Opera Houses. Where is the best view? While most would head to the Eiffel Tower, there are several other options to get a good view with fewer queues and spending less money. The Montparnasse Tower, one of the tallest skyscrapers in France, is a good choice for those who want an easy trip – you can go to the bar on the 56th floor and get a drink while taking in the landscape, great for sunset views of the city. If you’re willing to put in a bit more effort, climbing the steps up to the very top of the Sacre Coeur is really worth it. Other places to try: top of the Pompidou Centre, the top of the Arc de Triomphe FEATURES You may be jostling among the masses, but the gardens are kept in magnificent condition and are still breathtaking. The Château de Versailles is always a good option for visiting both the palace itself as well as its gardens. You can easily spend a very full day, taking a boat on the Grand Canal, exploring Marie Antoinette’s hamlet built in the style of a Norman village, the Groves, the Ballroom and the Colonnade. Try to book tickets in advance to avoid queuing. Alternatively, the lesser-known 14thcentury Château de Vincennes to the east of the city has been open to the public for the past few years. Nearby, at the Vincennes park, you can join the families and couples boating on the lake. What is Paris’ best kept secret? Its parks. Aside from the well-known parks (the Tuilleries, Luxembourg, Place de Vosges to name but a few), Paris doesn’t have a great reputation for its green spaces. But there are several treasures not so frequently visited by the tourists where you’ll find the Parisians congregate in all seasons, for meeting friends, playing with their children, reading a book or simply taking a nap under a tree. The Butte Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement is a favourite with the locals, as its unusual composition, featuring cliffs, a grotto, and lake with exceptional panoramic views over Paris make this a popular place for walks and a picnic. What is a good day trip from Paris? Art lovers should definitely head to Giverny, a few hours west of Paris, where Monet spent the final 43 years of his life and where he drew the famous Japanese bridge series. POSTMASTER | 2011 49 FEATURES HAITI ELECTIONS 2010-11 Haiti Elections AN ELECTORAL PREPARATION FIELD VISIT TO PORT DE PAIX (GEORGE ZACHARIAH KNEELING FRONT RIGHT) On 12th January 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti, killing approximately 222,000. This disaster, the worst in the Western Hemisphere, struck the poorest country of the region. The earthquake also brought increased political uncertainty to Haiti, a country that had already had repeated political crises and faced many governance challenges including corruption and organised crime. 50 POSTMASTER | 2011 The country was to have held parliamentary elections in February 2010 and presidential elections later in the year. With the end of their mandates on 10th May, all the members of the National Assembly and one third of the Senate gave up their seats. The elections were to be the second set since the appointed 2004-06 Interim Government. Following the earthquake, many asked whether elections could be held: as well as destroying infrastructure, the earthquake killed a third of civil servants. There are normally three critical areas to assess when considering elections in countries experiencing major shocks (disasters, civil war, etc.): constitutionality and timing of elections; legitimacy and willingness of institutions and parties; and strength and capacity of institutions. Despite the many challenges, for its reconstruction, the country needed a new government with democratic legitimacy and for its legal and constitutional processes to be respected. President René Préval asked the United Nations (UN) and Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretaries General to advise whether elections could be held in 2010. Following their favourable findings, President Préval agreed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections. Regarding legitimacy and willingness, most of the opposition parties and candidates contested the independence and therefore the legitimacy of the government-appointed Provisional Electoral Council (PEC), which was responsible for organising the elections. Their criticism of the Government and the PEC created what the OAS observers later termed a ‘toxic environment’ prior to the first round. On 20th November 2010, citizens voted without incident in most polling centres. In a few areas, there were problems and allegations of fraud. At midday, 14 of the 19 presidential candidates alleged that there had been widespread fraud and called for the elections to be annulled. The following day, two of the 14 (Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat), who believed themselves to be the front runners, retracted their demand. HAITI ELECTIONS On 7th December, the PEC announced that presidential candidates Mirlande Manigat from the opposition and Jude Celestin from Inite (the President’s party) had qualified for the run-off election. This led to three days of widespread violent popular protests, because many believed that Inite and the PEC had committed fraud to rob presidential candidate and popular musician Michel Martelly of second place. The country found itself in a political crisis. At the same time, a cholera epidemic broke out in the north of the country which eventually reached Port au Prince, exacerbating the crisis. President Préval invited the OAS to investigate. The OAS reported that all sides had committed fraud, but, having removed the fraudulent figures from the count, advised that Manigat and Martelly should be in the second round. The Government and PEC did not accept this immediately, despite united international support for the OAS findings. The international community had to play the role of a legitimating body, because the competing political camps had grievously damaged the Government and the electoral commission’s credibility. Eventually, the PEC adopted the OAS findings and implemented its suggested procedural improvements. The second round on 20th March went smoothly. Reassured by the international involvement, the opposition parties and candidates supported the process, in contrast to the first round. When countries need support, they often draw upon the assistance of organisations to which they belong to reinforce national institutions and build their capacity. The UN stabilisation mission from the Department FEATURES DEVASTATION CAUSED BY THE EARTHQUAKE @ UNICEF SVERIGE of Peacekeeping Operations and the UN Development Programme provided technical, logistical and security assistance to Haitian institutions and the OAS fielded an electoral observation mission. Many countries provided substantial financial and technical support. Despite the rocky process, Haiti transferred power democratically from one elected government to another and had its first ever run-off election for President. Haitians elected Michel Martelly, of the Peasants’ Response party, as President, and representatives of other parties to Parliament. Haiti faces many challenges ahead, but has taken an important step to consolidate its democratic system. This is a significant achievement for a country that suffered a severe tragedy so recently. George Zachariah was a UN Political Affairs Officer in Haiti. He now works in New York for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, having spent the last six years with the UN in Haiti, the Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the UN’s official position. George Zachariah (1991) POSTMASTER | 2011 51 FEATURES FOR GOODNESS SHAKES For Goodness Shakes When I left Merton, I wanted to learn about business so I joined L’Oréal, the French cosmetics and beauty care firm. I moved around between marketing, supply chain and finance and was there for seven years in total, which was probably about two years too long. It’d been pretty exciting in the first few years – learning new things, travelling a bit and even occasionally meeting models – but towards the end, things had stagnated and I was really bored. I remember waking up thinking “Oh no, not work again”. I used to look at my fellow passengers on the tube in London, and so many looked like unhappy prisoners. I thought that there has to be more to life than this, so I quit without another job lined up. After travelling for a couple of months, I came back to the UK with my future still undecided. As a pleasant distraction from the looming question of “what next?”, I spent most of my time on sports, having always been keen on long-distance cycling and running. In longer races, I found that the sports nutrition products I used didn’t quite hit the spot. The only products available seemed to be marketed towards bodybuilders, or looked and tasted terrible, so I consulted with a nutritionist and developed products for my own use. I was happy with them, and gave them to friends who also enjoyed them and started to buy them off me. At the time, I was sharing a flat with an old colleague from L’Oréal. He was looking for a change too, so we agreed to set up in business together. Our objective was to provide better sports nutrition products 52 POSTMASTER | 2011 – products that had proven performance benefits, but also tasted good and were easy to use. Our first product was the sports recovery drink ‘For Goodness Shakes’. If consumed directly after training/racing, it helps you rehydrate, refuel and rebuild so that you can train harder tomorrow. Retail sales of the brand are now £5 million, and we have a team of 12. We’re still very much a small company but are now certainly a bit further on our journey. It seems like it was only yesterday we started up, but so much has happened since. After my ‘education’ at L’Oréal, I thought this would be easy. How wrong I was! There is such a developed infrastructure in a big company that cushions and protects you. Because of our size, we don’t have that luxury and one of our frustrations has been how hard it is to find good people to help run the business. Despite the many attractions, it can be difficult to persuade people to join a smaller business. Negotiating with your biggest customers feels like a game of chess with particularly high stakes. You find yourself up against big competitors, looking for a repeat of David vs Goliath. In a smaller organisation you have much more responsibility – the buck really does stop with you. You have your staff, shareholders and business partners counting on you – not to mention your wife and child back at home! I recall one terrible setback at the beginning. We had made all our business plans and were ready to go but the factory who had agreed to manufacture our products called us up and said they wanted to meet. Although they bought us a very nice lunch, something in their tone made us nervous – and, sure enough, the champagne wasn’t to celebrate our new deal. It was a “Sorry we’re dumping you... it’s not you, it’s us... we need some space” lunch. I think most of us have probably delivered or received that lunch in different circumstances, but it was the first time I’d seen it done in business. We had to go back to the drawing board, and soon found someone else who could manufacture for us. Today I can find myself switching roles between strategist, accountant, salesman, scientific advisor and legal counsel within the space of one morning. It’s certainly more varied, challenging and rewarding than what I did before. I enjoy the adventure, and have no regrets about leaving the boredom behind. I’m glad I made the switch to running my own business as I enjoy being master of my own destiny, and smile at how unemployable (for anybody else) I’ve probably become. I’ve learnt far more doing this than I ever would have done working for someone else. I feel immensely proud when I see our products being used. I’ve followed people round the supermarket when I’ve seen them put our products in their trolley. I’m always surprised and touched when people write to us to tell us how important our products are to them. I wouldn’t say everything has gone smoothly, or to plan, but we appear to be creating something of value. For Goodness Shakes is already the UK’s number one sports recovery brand, and we have a new range of products to bring to the market later this year. Stuart Jeffreys (1990) WOMEN’S RUGBY WORLD CUP 2010 FEATURES Women’s Rugby World Cup 2010 For Mother’s Day 2009 I was handed a permission slip from my husband and two boys. With my two broken hands I could just about hold the slip and read “This permission slip gives you all the support you need to compete in the 2010 Rugby World Cup, including time away from us and all the babysitting you need”. This probably sounds strange to other people but for me it was the best present I could have. I came to Merton in 1996 as an exchange student from Uppsala University, Sweden, which led to a DPhil at the Department of Biochemistry 1997-2001. During my time at Merton I gained four rugby Blues, including one as Blues’ Captain. We won all our Varsity matches and also won the BUSA final at Twickenham 1999. The research at Oxford was fun and went well but in my spare time I really lived for rugby. In 1998, as a fairly inexperienced fly-half, I represented Sweden in my first World Cup – an incredible experience, but was it one that I would have again? The road back was not straightforward. Sweden was left out of the World Cup for 12 years because of our international ranking. In 2009, however, a qualification system was put in place for emerging rugby nations. The 2009 European Championship was the final qualifying tournament, scheduled that year to take place in Stockholm. Victory over Spain, Italy and Germany was required – a real challenge, as Spain and Italy, in particular, have women’s rugby traditions strong enough to see them seriously challenge the more traditional ‘Home Nations’. So at 36 years of age, married with two children, I was now captain of Sweden and was about to experience a week I will never forget. Italy went down first – an incredibly high work rate and the gods of rugby smiling on our ‘dummy-switch-miss’ move in the last minute saw us snatch the game. Spain next in Game 2. We played smart and hard, aiming to stay in their half of the pitch. The game was extremely tight and with two minutes left I kicked for our winger to chase down a ball. The defender made a mistake and we scythed through for a try that won us the game, putting us out of reach of Germany. After 12 years, we were returning to the World Cup 2010. When the final whistle blew, the loudspeakers were blasting out our theme song for the week: ‘Fairytale’ (Eurovision song contest winner that year). A fairytale end to the game, and a magic moment that I relive every time I hear the song. The week of the qualifiers, however, didn’t end as sweet. Only a few minutes into Game 3 against Germany I broke and dislocated the thumb of my right hand. Having already broken a bone in my left hand against Italy ULRIKA REPRESENTING HER CLUB SIDE IN GOTHENBURG I was now sitting in hospital with two broken hands. My poor husband James (Hall, Wolfson 1993-96, Merton 1996-99) is incredibly supportive with my rugby and I would not have been able to do all the training needed and play all those games without the sacrifices he has made. But meeting me after my hospital visit with both hands bandaged, even his patience was stretched. Anyone who has ever taken care of two small children can probably imagine how good I would be at the job with two broken hands. This is why the permission slip a few weeks later from my three boys was worth more than any diamond. The 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England was a dream. The whole tournament was very professional and well organised. The rugby was fantastic. A world apart from 12 years earlier when we had last been to a world cup. We had worked very hard to get to the World Cup and we had worked even harder preparing for it. We did play some of our best rugby ever (coming close to an upset defeat of France), but it wasn’t enough and the other results didn’t go our way. It was a great experience for us individually and for Swedish rugby, and most of all it was great to see how much women’s rugby has developed and how professional it has become. I retired as promised from International Rugby 15s after the World Cup. However, I still need to speak to James about the 2016 Olympics (Rugby 7s has just been made an Olympic Sport). Wish me luck in getting another permission slip. Ulrika Andersson-Hall (1997) POSTMASTER | 2011 53 FEATURES AWARDS OF THE VICTORIA CROSS Awards of the Victoria Cross Carrying out some gentle research on the history of the Victoria Cross for a talk to be given to the Heritage Group of our local branch of the University of the Third Age (U3A), I visited the new Ashcroft Gallery on the fourth floor of the Imperial War Museum. There one can find, beautifully arranged, an impressive display of Victoria and George Crosses from the collections of the Ashcroft Trust and that of the Museum itself. Complementing the display is a book entitled Extraordinary Heroes, which describes the feats of bravery that led to the awards made to 80 of the recipients. Two of that number were Merton men: John Randle and Leonard Cheshire. Both were born in 1917 and they knew each 54 POSTMASTER | 2011 other as contemporaries and friends as they pursued their studies at Merton immediately before the war, but their paths diverged once war broke out. ‘Jack’ Randle became an infantryman, commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment, and was awarded the Victoria Cross in May 1944 for several outstanding acts of courage in the course of closequarters fighting with the Japanese in Burma. In the end, he sacrificed his own life to minimise casualties among his men and the award of his VC was posthumous. He is regarded by many as having been among the bravest of the brave and it is recorded that Leonard Cheshire wept on receiving news of his death. Cheshire himself, having been a member of the University Air Squadron when at Merton, joined the RAF with a permanent commission in June 1939. He became a legend in Bomber Command, flying over 100 missions, and being decorated with the DSO and two bars and the DFC. At one time he commanded the famous Dambusters squadron but is best remembered as a pioneer of the pathfinders’ strategy. It is not surprising that his award of the Victoria Cross was made on the basis of a period of consistent gallantry rather than for a single act of bravery. Somewhere within the 150 years of the existence of the Victoria Cross, there may be other Merton names: it would be good to know. Alastair Porter (1949) MERTON HISTORY | LOST MERTON 8 FEATURES Lost, Little Known and Unbuilt Merton 8 The restorations of Edward Blore, 1835-44 and William Butterfield, 1848-64 On 25 April 1835, according to the College Register, the Bursar was instructed ‘to see Mr Blore with reference to a plan for the restoration of the Front of the College’. Edward Blore (1787-1879) had come to prominence as an antiquarian artist and architect when, in 1816, he had produced plans for enlarging Abbotsford for Sir Walter Scott (Plate 1). The latter had found Blore ‘a very fine young man, modest, simple and unaffected in his manners, as well as a most capital artist’.1 Blore was later to work at Peterborough, Ripon, Norwich and Ely cathedrals, Hampton Court, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. He was surveyor of Westminster Abbey from 1827 to 1849. Plate 1 Edward Blore, 1868, by George Koberwein. On 1 February, 1838, the College further resolved that ‘Mr Plowman be directed to re-front with Bath stone the tower and gateway towards the street according to an estimate furnished by him and the plans and drawings of Mr Blower (sic)’2 (Plate 2). Happily, the Register sometimes also records some more fleeting College affairs. In 1840, for example, it was resolved “in celebration of HM’s marriage (Queen Victoria to Prince Albert) all the resident members and the servants be entertained at the expense of the college”. Evidently satisfied with his work on the Front of the College, it was resolved on 7 June 1843 that “Mr Blore be directed to prepare forthwith the detailed drawings and estimates of the works . . . he proposes to undertake in the Ante-Chapel . . . also other works in the Chapel he would recommend” (Plates 3a-d). While engaged in designing the major parts of the proposed restoration, Blore found time to make sketches of details of some of the mediaeval fabric. He drew some of the grotesques on the exterior of the Chapel and more importantly the discarded stalls of Warden FitzJames of the 1490s. These were to disappear shortly afterwards3 (Plates 4 and 5). Although Blore’s proposals for the Ante-Chapel, which involved the removal of the tower ceiling to reveal the fine wooden vault Plate 2 Restoration of the north front, Edward Blore, 1838. Watercolour by J M W Turner (Tate Gallery). POSTMASTER | 2011 55 FEATURES MERTON HISTORY | LOST MERTON 8 c. b. a. above, the construction of the bell ringers’ gallery, supported by four fan vaults, were all executed, his plans for re-roofing the chapel, a new screen and reredos were not. Why was this so? In 1833, Tractarianism, the Oxford Movement, had been launched with John Keble’s Assize Sermon in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. Although originally centred on Oriel College, Merton was to be much influenced by this High Church Movement. John Henry Newman, later a Cardinal, was Vice Principal of St Alban Hall (1825) and Henry Manning, also later a Cardinal, was a fellow of Merton (1832-3). In The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), John Ruskin had pronounced Perpendicular Gothic 56 POSTMASTER | 2011 Plate 3 Designs, 1843, for: a. the Ante-Chapel; b. and c. the Chapel; d. Screens with alternatives. Only a. was implemented. d. MERTON HISTORY | LOST MERTON 8 ‘detestable’ and ‘early Decorated the safest choice’ for tasteful construction. Rather later, in 1879, Sir George Gilbert Scott, who was later to work at Merton, declared he had ‘from a very careful consideration of the ancient churches of Germany, France and England, been led to fix the period 1270-1300 as the period at which the most perfect ecclesiastical architecture is to be found.4 Merton College Chapel, built 129094, is thus at the heart of this brief peak period of perfection! Although doctrinally Tractarianism was centred on Oxford, the practical architecture required for the implementation of the return of the church to pre-Reformation practices, was led by the Camden, later the Ecclesiological Society, at Cambridge. In 1844, their journal, the Ecclesiologist, thundered that Edward Blore was ‘entirely unacquainted with the true spirit of Pointed Architecture (and is) manifestly unfit for the charge of any works at Westminster (Abbey)’. Clearly late Decorated/Perpendicular Gothic was becoming beyond the pale. The College dealt with the matter summarily on 29 May 1844. It resolved that ‘Mr Blore’s charges £145.16 be paid, also for his plans for the alteration of the Chapel. Further consideration of the improvement of the Chapel be postponed for the present; £257 be paid to Messrs Locking and Nesham for work on transepts and tower; £5.5 to Mr Blore for recent survey of the works in Chapel be paid’. Then, after a decent period for reflection, on 26 October 1848 the College decided: ‘that William Butterfield be invited to visit the College with a view to giving his advice as to the restoration of the College Chapel’. Sir Gilbert Scott was to describe Butterfield as ‘the architect of the High FEATURES Church party’. Edward Blore’s days at Merton were done but his pleasing AnteChapel roof and his attractive north front of the College splendidly remain today. Notes: 1 2 3 4 DNB, 2004. This is evidently a somewhat ‘plummy’ version of ‘Blore’! See The Merton Gatehouse, Alan Bott, Postmaster 2000, 50-55. The only other known drawing of these stalls was made by J C Buckler in 1824. (British Library Additional MS 36376). Copies of all his Merton drawings are in the College Library. G G Scott, Personal and Professional Recollections, 1879, 124. Note: All the drawings by Edward Blore (with the exception of Plate 3d, which is in the College Archives) are deposited in British Library Additional MSS 42027 ff. 8-11 and 36374 ff 72, and 125 b. Copies of all these are now placed in the College Archives, where other original drawings and plans by Blore are already deposited. Alan Bott (1953), Bodley Fellow Plate 4 Sketch of grotesques, numbered 1 - 15 north transept and 1 - 11 south transept. Plate 5 Sketch of stalls of Warden FitzJames, c.1490, in the Ante-Chapel, 1843. POSTMASTER | 2011 57 FEATURES MERTON HISTORY | ROBERT GILBERT, WARDEN OF MERTON 1417-21 Robert Gilbert, Warden of Merton 1417-21 Pictorial representations are known for only six of Merton’s 20 medieval Wardens, namely Mr Peter Abingdon (Warden 126486), John Bloxham (1275-87), Robert Gilbert (1417-21), Henry Sever (145671) Richard Fitzjames (1483-1507), and John Chambers (1525-44). Four Wardens appear on items belonging to the College: Abingdon on a seal, Bloxham and Fitzjames on manuscripts, and Sever on a brass in the chapel.1 Chambers can be seen in the magnificent portrait of Henry VIII and the Barber-Surgeons by Hans Holbein the Younger (1541), at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.2 Gilbert’s portrait, however, is in the unexpected location of an obscure Oxfordshire country church. How is this to be explained? The answer lies in the conjunction of a successful late-medieval clerical career with probably a local initiative in church building. Robert Gilbert was born in the early 1380s and came to Merton as a Fellow in 1398, almost certainly to work for an MA with the College’s financial support.3 He had presumably studied for his BA in one of Oxford’s 120 or so academic halls.4 Gilbert’s election was a considerable achievement as there were only seven secular colleges and correspondingly few fellowships. He left in 1402, but soon returned to Oxford and for two years rented a room at Exeter College while he taught in the University and studied theology. He was ordained priest in 1403, and was awarded a doctorate in theology by 1413. At this time the English Church, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel, was concerned about the continuing influence in Oxford of the philosopher and heretical theologian John Wyclif, a former Fellow of Merton HORLEY CHURCH, SHOWING THE NORTH AISLE WHICH WAS REBUILT IN THE EARLY 15TH CENTURY 58 POSTMASTER | 2011 MERTON HISTORY | ROBERT GILBERT, WARDEN OF MERTON 1417-21 FEATURES MASTER ROBERT GILBERT, PROBABLY 1420S, IN HORLEY CHURCH, OXFORDSHIRE DETAIL OF PORTRAIT OF ROBERT GILBERT and Master of Balliol. Wyclif had died in 1384 having repudiated the authority of the Pope and the clerical hierarchy, denied fundamental Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation and purgatory, and having advocated disendowment of the Church.5 In the early 14th century there were still Masters in Oxford, including some Fellows of Merton, who were impressed by Wyclif’s logic and sometimes sympathetic to his theological ideas.6 Gilbert was clearly a leading opponent of Wycliffism and benefited accordingly. Around 1409 he was appointed to a University committee to examine works by Wyclif and list his errors, a task that led eventually to a visitation of the University by Archbishop Arundel in 1411. In 1414, after Lollards (followers of Wyclif) led by Sir John Oldcastle had attempted to assassinate King Henry V, Gilbert was one of two commissaries (deputies) appointed by the Bishop of Lincoln to make another visitation of Oxford University. In 1417 Robert Gilbert moved onto an international stage when he attended the Council of Constance. Convened in 1414 to end the ‘great schism’ in the Western Church, the Council had so far brought about the removal of two of three rival popes. It was also concerned with combating Wycliffite heresy; it is possible that Gilbert became a delegate because of his experience in this field. In the late Middle Ages, promising graduate clergy and theologians were routinely supported and rewarded with important church posts (usually served by deputies) and with benefices, mostly ones POSTMASTER | 2011 59 FEATURES MERTON HISTORY | ROBERT GILBERT, WARDEN OF MERTON 1417-21 that lacked ‘cure of souls’. As a rising talent, Robert Gilbert attracted numerous such rewards. His departure from Merton in 1402 occurred because he had been presented to a rectory (in Cheshire), a position incompatible with his fellowship. In 1411 he was appointed Precentor of Lincoln Cathedral. And by 1417 he had attracted the support of both Henry V and Arundel’s successor as archbishop, Henry Chichele. Gilbert was appointed Dean of the Chapel Royal in 1416 or 1417; and in 1417, while he was at Constance, he was selected by Chichele, who had the final choice, as Warden of Merton. Gilbert was about 35 years old. Later in 1417 he accompanied Henry V to Normandy as part of the royal household.7 In 1420, while still Warden, Robert Gilbert received more yet benefices, from the Bishop of Lincoln. He exchanged the precentorship of Lincoln Cathedral for a prebendal estate (estate attached to a cathedral canonry) in Huntingdonshire, only to relinquish it soon afterwards for another prebendal estate that had become available by the death of its holder. The second estate was that of Sutton-cumBuckingham.8 Its assets included the rectory estate associated with King’s Sutton church in Northamptonshire, about three miles south-east of Banbury in Oxfordshire, and an associated manor and great tithes (e.g. corn, hay) at Horley and Hornton, villages respectively three and four miles northwest of Banbury.9 There were also chapels at Horley and Hornton, which were served by a curate appointed by the vicar of King’s Sutton. It was at Horley chapel that Gilbert was to leave a memorial. In 1420 Horley ‘chapel’ was a large church built of golden Hornton stone.10 60 POSTMASTER | 2011 Dedicated to the 7th-century saint Etheldreda, it consisted of a long chancel, a spacious nave with tall arcades, aisles, and a western tower. Early in the 15th century the north wall of the north aisle was rebuilt. The reason for this is unclear, though it was perhaps required for structural reasons. The rebuilding included new up-to-date windows and stained glass. Sections of the original glass survive in the heads of two windows.11 One shows Henry Rumworth, a former Fellow of The Queen’s College and holder of the prebendal estate from 1412 to 1420, who is described as Archdeacon of Canterbury. The other, in a different style, shows Robert Gilbert. He wears a ruby robe, blue mantle, and black doctor’s ‘pileus’ (felt hat). Behind him is the inscription ‘Magister Roberus Gylbard’ (sic). Rumworth’s portrait probably dates from 1416 to 1420, when he served as archdeacon, and Gilbert’s portrait possibly dates from 1420 to 1426, before he became Dean of York in the latter year.12 It seems likely that Rumworth and Gilbert were commemorated in Horley chapel because as estate-holders they contributed to the rebuilding and glazing of the north aisle wall. Robert Gilbert resigned as Warden of Merton in 1421 and continued his career in the Church. He suffered a setback in 1432 when he was replaced as Dean of the Chapel Royal on the initiative of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. But in 1436, thanks to support from Cardinal Henry Beaufort, he was appointed Bishop of London. Gilbert worked conscientiously in his diocese and attended Parliament regularly, though he never achieved a prominent position in national public life. His work as bishop reflected the more positive side of his character. As an opponent of Wyclif and recipient of ecclesiastical posts and benefices, Gilbert supported the structure and workings of the late medieval Church; and back in 1417, while Warden of Merton, Gilbert had defended the practice of awarding benefices to university graduates at a meeting of the Southern Convocation (Church assembly). But as a bishop in the Church led by Henry Chichele he appears to have supported the archbishop’s desire to have ‘an active pastoral clergy’, including able graduates who would propagate correct doctrine through preaching.13 Robert Gilbert died in 1448 and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. His tomb no longer survives, but his image remains clear and bright in the quiet provincial village of Horley, deep in north Oxfordshire. JRL Highfield (1948) RB Peberdy (1975) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 G.H. Martin and J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton College, Oxford (1997), Plates 1(b), 8, 12, II. The painting is a preparatory ‘cartoon’. Inf. from website of the Royal College of Surgeons (June 2011). Unless noted otherwise, biographical information is based on ‘Gilbert, Robert’ by Irene Zadnik in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed online). See also Martin and Highfield, History of Merton College, p. 120. For a summary see ‘Academic Halls’ in C. Hibbert and E. Hibbert (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Oxford (1988), pp. 3-6. For a summary of Wyclif’s theology see R. Rex, The Lollards (2002), chap. 2. Remainder of para. based on J.I. Catto, ‘Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356–1430’ in idem. and T.A.R. Evans (eds.), The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 2, Late Medieval Oxford (1992), esp. pp. 225-54. A.B. Emden (ed.), Biographical Register of the Members of the University of Oxford to 1500, vol. 2 (1958), p. 767. J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541, vol. 1, Lincoln Diocese (accessed via ‘British History Online’ website). Remainder of para. based on Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, vol. 9, pp. 127, 132. Ibid., pp. 134-35. Description of glass based on Peter A. Newton, The County of Oxford: A Catalogue of Medieval Stained Glass (Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, vol. 1, 1979), pp. 113-15. It is possible that Gilbert’s portrait dates from slightly later, but must have been inserted by 1436; Newton, County of Oxford, p. 114. cf. Catto, ‘Wyclif and Wycliffism’, pp. 253 (including quotation), 259. MERTON HISTORY | LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL FEATURES Lord Randolph Churchill, Viscount Goschen and Sir Max Beerbohm On 20th December 1886, Lord Randolph Churchill (Merton, 1867) wrote from Windsor Castle a letter to the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, threatening his resignation. Churchill was then Chancellor of the Exchequer and somewhat uncharacteristically had proposed some unpopular economies, especially on naval and military expenditure. Churchill evidently had expected to win his way by this stratagem but Salisbury called his bluff and replaced him as Chancellor with GJ Goschen, a financier of European repute. Somewhat ruefully, Churchill later wrote “All great men make mistakes; Napoleon forgot Blucher; I forgot Goschen.” Max Beerbohm (Merton, 1890) mischievously later noted that Goschen was chiefly remembered for having been forgotten by Lord Randolph Churchill. To be just, however, it may also be recalled that Viscount Goschen was to become Chancellor of Oxford University in 1903. I acquired Max’s ‘Mr GJ Goschen’ about 25 years ago. I have just acquired F C Gould’s ‘Lord Randolph Churchill on the Benches’, which seems perfectly to catch the bemused and tragic mood of December 1886. Having been, at 37 years old, the youngest Chancellor since Pitt the Younger, Randolph Churchill never returned to such public prominence and died nine years later. Randolph Churchill had rooms as an undergraduate in the 1860s on the ‘Lord Randolph Churchill on the Benches’, Truth, December 1886, by Sir Francis Carruthers Gould. south side of Mob Quad, below the Old Library. These were to be occupied in the 1890s by Max Beerbohm. In a letter to Professor HW Garrod of 28th October 1952, Max enquired “whether a narrow side desk on which ‘Randolph S Churchill’ was untidily but deeply incised, is still there”. Regrettably it is not. In 1942, the College had elected Winston, the elder son of Lord Randolph Churchill, as an Honorary Fellow. Alan Bott (1953) Bodley Fellow ‘Mr G J Goschen’, c.1890, by Sir Max Beerbohm. POSTMASTER | 2011 61 BOOK REVIEWS DOWDING & CHURCHILL | JACK DIXON DOWDING & CHURCHILL: THE DARK SIDE OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN BY JACK DIXON (PEN & SWORD MILITARY, 2008) In November 1940 the Air Ministry summarily removed Dowding from his command. Seventy years on, Jack Dixon still bitterly resents this injustice. He loathes the superior attitude of the Air Ministry towards Fighter Command. His book is one great roar against the wickedness of it all. Neutral he is not. Let’s take one sentence at random: “Lifted above compunction by the vision of calamity impending, the iconoclast of Bentley Park (Dowding) demolished, with what sometimes seemed unholy glee, the heirophants of Whitehall 62 POSTMASTER | 2011 used the pious evasion to cloak official reluctance to surrender to Dowding’s logic.” There are legions of tangy adjectives, partisan adverbs and judgmental nouns rioting through the text. This makes for a rollicking good read but the key question is: ‘Is Dixon’s anger justified?’ The evidence suggests that it is. The battle of Britain was one of the key engagements of the Second World War. German victory in the battle would have forever ruled out the chance of an attack on the Reich from the west and, presumably, given the Reich access to the resources of the British Empire. German errors contributed to the Luftwaffe’s defeat but so too did actions taken by Britain. Three of these factors are directly associated with Dowding. The first was one of strategic imagination. Dowding recognised that what Baldwin had said was not necessarily true. It did not have to be the case that: “the bomber will always get through”. Air power had a defensive as well as an attack role. With Britain on the back foot in 1940 it was this defensive function that was indispensible. The second was a development of the first. In the years immediately before the war Dowding backed research and development of radar. The string of radar stations gave the RAF a key intelligence advantage over the Luftwaffe, to quote Wing Commander Max Aitken: “Radar really won the Battle of Britain...We wasted no petrol, no energy, no time.” Thirdly, Dowding followed his logic through. He refused to commit further planes to France. The RAF were often losing as many as 25 Hurricanes a day when factories were producing only four or five. Dowding’s refusal was backed by a threat to resign. Given Churchill’s romantic but wasteful commitment of troops to the defence of Brittany after Dunkirk fell, Dowding’s threat was most prudent. Dowding told Halifax that when he heard of the Fall of France: “I went onto my knees and thanked God.” The evidence in Dowding’s favour is compelling. Whenever there is a giant brought down by lesser men we will find plots, jealousies, insecurities and puddingheaded bureaucracy. Dixon chronicles these as he sees them, though inevitably his mapping of the detail is less cogent than the central and undeniable case for Dowding’s defence. Such defenestrations are more likely to be the effect of a number of random actions, petty grudges and backstabbings that than of a single, co-ordinated conspiracy. Altogether it is energising to have such a spirited defence of so distinguished a warrior. Dixon rightly characterises Dowding’s gaze as “penetrating and whole”. He builds his defence on the fact that Dowding recognised, both before and during the conflict, the sine qua non of maintaining the security of the base, the inviolability of Britain. Peter Truesdale (1976) MEMOIRS OF A DERVISH: SUFIS, MYSTICS AND THE SIXTIES | ROBERT IRWIN MEMOIRS OF A DERVISH: SUFIS, MYSTICS AND THE SIXTIES BY ROBERT IRWIN (PROFILE BOOKS, 2011) There was always a slight worry among the Sixties’ generation that someone might be having a more interesting time than you. My contemporary Robert Irwin clearly was. While most of us, like him, were pondering the Meaning of Life over mugs of Blend 37, Robert, with the aid of LSD, was observing the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganeesha “sitting on my ceiling and handing me down a cigarette”. Most of us were smugly chalking up an encounter with a geographically convenient St Hilda’s girl, while Robert had friends like Anne, who “when a Moroccan military commander in the Sahara had tried to rape her... had stabbed him in the balls”, or Kittoo, who once exorcised a launderette in Walton Street using a Tibetan ritual knife. And while most of us were glumly plodding to the one lecture a week we attended, Robert “scoured the lecture lists for esoteric subjects”. The clear winner was a Buddhist expert who, beside his cardboard coffin, mesmerised his class with his views on the relationship between pot, lightning and space. Robert wasn’t interested in the Mysticism Lite many of us dabbled in. During his first year at Merton he had determined to become a Muslim saint, and this book is a wonderfully witty and wellwritten chronicle of this spiritual odyssey. He sets off for Algeria, and the zawiya, a sort of Sufi saint seminary at Mostaganem, pausing briefly in Paris to send home a couple of posters of Francoise Hardy (presumably a sort of insurance if the saint thing didn’t work out). At the zawiya he is introduced to ritual ablution and rhythmic chanting by Abdullah Faid; “he had an ingenuous, childlike face (but Ralph Davis at Merton had taught me to be wary of seemingly childlike intelligences).” It is a fascinating, critical insight into Sufism, set to the soundtrack of Donovan, Dylan and the Beach Boys. The two worlds are constantly entwined, as Irwin lurches from one to another – at one moment uncomfortably gawky as he dances at an Eights Week ball, only to experience, back in Algeria, the swooning, ecstatic rapture of the Dervish melboos. And that’s the charm of the book – Irwin’s capacity to live simultaneously in two so dissonant universes. There’s a passage where he describes getting a fit of the Goon Show giggles during BOOK REVIEWS the ritual incantation of ‘Yellow Teeth, Yellow Teeth’, chanted a thousand times, until he realises that this is not a Muslim preoccupation with oral hygiene, but the repetition of Yo Latif, one of the names of Allah. On his birthday, he bunks off up to the top of the minaret for a crafty two tins of Nestle condensed milk. Instructed that at the moment of sexual ecstasy he should exclaim bismillah (in the name of God) he ponders how well this would go down with his wife. Ultimately, a doomed love affair, the rancid and brutal politics of Algeria and Irwin’s ever-present self-doubt about his fitness for sainthood combine to bring him home. He gives the definitive lie to the view that if you could remember the Sixties you weren’t there, with an account of a methedrine high which is clinically lucid – “I was my perfect companion, for in the palace of mirrors within my head there were a thousand of me. And the ‘me’ was brilliant, for it was obvious to me how time, consciousness and spirituality all connected.” In an elegiac coda, Irwin describes his turmoil over the totalitarian face of Islam, with its judicial amputations, stonings, and women “dressed as bin bags”; and how he “fell to earth” under the “vast gravitational pull of the everyday, or work, and of marriage.” This is a book which makes me regret that I did not know my contemporary better. My life would have been much the richer for it and, certainly, my Sixties more exciting. David Jessel (1964) POSTMASTER | 2011 63 BOOK REVIEWS TOMFOOLERY | THOMAS BRAUN TOMFOOLERY BY THOMAS BRAUN (ANTONY ROWE) My brother Thomas Braun produced comparatively few learned works. Copies of his entire output of ‘serious’ publications – just over 100 of them, together with half a dozen interesting pieces that he left unpublished – can be found in box files that I have deposited in Merton Library. By contrast, Tom was a prolific author of occasional verses and other less serious, though not less ‘learned’, writings. “It isn’t that I spend time writing it when I ought to be writing for you,” he wrote to the editor for one of his more serious pieces, “but that it comes all too naturally without the expenditure of time.” After Tom 64 POSTMASTER | 2011 died in 2008, many people asked if there was a collection of the occasional verses, and when I gave a note to the 400 people at the memorial service inviting them to send me samples, Tim Heald, a friend of Tom’s through Balliol and the Arnold and Brakenbury Society, offered to help me produce an anthology. Tim is a professional writer who does this kind of thing as well as publishing detective novels, royal biographies and the like. A few years ago Tom commented that he was glad to say that his Complete Works were unlikely ever to be published. Even so, I found he had begun to assemble a collection in a couple of ring binders, which became the basis of the anthology. Then there were the pieces that Mertonians kindly sent me. And as I worked through the mass of papers that Tom left behind, I found more and more, especially familiar earlier items. I still remember him singing his versions of Jerusalem (was it builded here? No, it was built in Palestine!) and All things bright and beautiful (“Some things are not so wonderful: why must he make them all?” with examples) during a family holiday in the Alps. So I was delighted to find the original texts of these verses, and even of a related Oxford Union speech. Altogether I have found well over 700 different pieces. Tim and I had fun chortling over the selection, though whittling it down to the present 140 items wasn’t easy. We tried to reflect as many aspects of Tom’s life and character as we could: Merton and Balliol, Oxford, England and Germany, Greece, and the world, ancient and modern. The translations of German poetry, many of which were published in the Oxford Magazine were new to me and a revelation. Tom’s love of Merton is evident (see the Senior Common Room hymn – ‘Forgive O Lord the bribes he took/Unto our founder dear…’), as is that of Balliol (‘Admired by some, by other men abhorr’d/ Hail pungent College on the plangent Broad…’), of books and of Oxford (see A Warning to Readers, first published in Postmaster in 1969, with a terrifying description of Bodley’s Librarian, or the spoof Oxford Gazette announcing of the Bod’s closure), of English literature (see his versions of Pride and Prejudice in the style of Hiawatha and vice versa), of the Bible (‘Have one God at most: that’s more/Than many bishops bargain for’), and, of course, of classics (for example, Eh-Wa-Au-WauAooow). I hope all this whets the appetite. All good Mertonians should buy this book and give copies to their friends! Tomfoolery: occasional writings by Thomas Braun is published by Antony Rowe Publishing, ISBN 978-1-907571084, RRP £17.00. You can buy it: ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ direct from the publishers at www.cpibookdelivery.com/ book/9781907571084/Tomfoolery for the RRP plus £2.95 p&p by ordering it from any good bookshop for the RRP, postage free online from Amazon.co.uk for £16.15, postage free from other online sellers for even less direct from me. I have some copies that I can sell for £15.00 if you arrange to meet me in London. This has the advantage that nothing has to be paid to the middlemen, so that the entire purchase price will go towards making a profit, which is to go to Merton’s Thomas Braun Classical World Travel Fund. Christopher Braun IN THE BEGINNING | THE CHOIR MUSIC REVIEW Music Review IN THE BEGINNING BY THE CHOIR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD (DELPHIAN RECORDS, 2011) Over the Easter vacation the College Choir recorded its debut CD for Delphian Records. The chapel has long been a popular recording venue for many wellknown choirs, and it’s exciting that the resident choir can now begin to build a discography of its own. The disc, called In the beginning, is framed with large-scale pieces.’ Opening the disc is Gabriel Jackson’s setting of the Prologue from St John’s gospel, commissioned for the College Choir in 2009 by the Reverend Nicholas Fisher, and closing the programme is Aaron Copland’s virtuoso setting of Genesis, in which the choir is joined by mezzo soprano Beth Baxter. Three contrasting settings of ‘When David heard’ (Gombert, Weelkes and Whitacre) and the ‘Nunc Dimittis’ (Palestrina, Holst and Lukaszewski) complete the programme. The CD will be launched on Wednesday 26th October following the live broadcast of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3 at 3.30pm. Please check the Merton website for details of how to purchase the disc after this date. CHOIR RECORDING SESSION IN MERTON CHAPEL POSTMASTER | 2011 65 RECORDS MERTON COLLEGE 2010-11 | THE VISITOR Records Merton College 2010-11 THE VISITOR The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury WARDEN Martin Taylor, MA (PhD Lond) FRS FELLOWS Ian Abel, DPhil (BA Camb) Culham Junior Research Fellow in Physics David Al-Attar, MSc Junior Research Fellow in Geology Judith Patricia Armitage, MA (BSc, PhD Lond) Professor of Biochemistry Rhiannon Ash, MA, DPhil (MA Toronto) Tutor in Classics Douglas John Bamber, MIH Domestic Bursar Alan James Barr, (BA, MSci, PhD Camb) Tutor in Physics Giles Bergel, (BA Newc; MA, PhD Lond) JPR Lyell Research Fellow in the History of the Early Modern Printed Book James Jeffrey Binney, MA, DPhil (MA Cantab) FRS Professor in Physics Kathryn Lee Blackmon, MA (BS Clemson; MBA, PhD North Carolina) Tutor in Management Studies Richard Callaghan, MA (BSc (Hons), PhD Melbourne) Official Fellow, University Lecturer (non-medical) in Clinical Laboratory Services, Senior Treasurer of the Amalgamated Clubs Roderick Bruce Campbell, (BA Victoria; MA British Columbia; PhD Harvard) Paul Francis John Chamberlain, MA (BA, MD Dublin) FRCS(C), FACOG Official Fellow, University Lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology Mindy Chen-Wishart, MA (BA (Hons), LLB, LLM, Otago) Tutor in Law Kieran Clarke MA (BSc Flinders, PhD Queensland) Research Fellow in Physiological Biochemistry and Research Convenor, Garden Master Artur Konrad Ekert, MA, DPhil (MSc Cracow) Professor of Physics David Gordon Ellis Norbrook, MA, DPhil (MA Aberd) Merton Professor of English Literature Gail Fine, MA (BA Michigan; MA, PhD Harvard) Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy 66 POSTMASTER | 2011 Jonathan Flint, BA, BM, BCh, MRCPsych, CCST Michael Davys Professor of Neuroscience Karl Gerth, (BA Grinnell, PhD Harvard) Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History, Tutor in History John Stuart Gjers Gloag, MRICS Fellow, Land Agent & Estates Bursar Guy Manning Goodwin, BM, BCh, MA, DPhil, FRCPsych WA Handley Professor of Psychiatry Véronique Gouverneur, MA (Licence en Sciences Chimiques, PhD Louvain) Professor of Chemistry and Tutor in Organic Chemistry Daniel Grimley, (BA, MPhil, PhD Camb) Tutor in Music Matthew Grimley, MA, DPhil Mark Reynolds Fellow, Tutor in History Timothy Charles Guilford, MA, DPhil Professor of Animal Behaviour and Tutor in Zoology Steven John Gunn, MA, DPhil Tutor in History, Sub-Warden Kirstin Gwyer, BA(Hons), MSt, DPhil Junior Research Fellow in Modern Languages Peter William Harold Holland, MA (PhD Lond; DSc Reading), FRS Linacre Professor of Zoology Simon Martin Hooker, MA, DPhil Professor of Atomic & Laser Physics and Tutor in Physics, Senior Treasurer of the JCR Luuk Huitink, DPhil, MSt (MA Amsterdam) Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek Simon Matthew Jones, MA, DPhil (BA, MA Durh; PhD Cantab) Research Fellow and Chaplain, Steward of Common Room Michael Keith, BA, DPhil Research Fellow in Anthropology Irene Stavros Lemos, MA, DPhil Reader in Classical Archaeology Ian Maclachlan, MA, DPhil Tutor in French Rachel Mairs, MA (BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD Camb) Junior Research Fellow in Literae Humaniores Richard Anthony McCabe, MA, FBA (MA Dublin; MA, PhD Cantab) Professor of English Language and Literature and Tutor in English Katherine Anne McClune, BA (Hons), DPhil Fitzjames Research Fellow in Old & Middle English Robert Metcalfe, (BA, MSc Swansea; MSc LSE; PhD ICL) Fitzjames Research Fellow in the Economics of the Environment Anthony Philip Monaco, MA (AB Princeton; MD, PhD Harvard) FMedSci Professorial Fellow Alan David Morrison, MA, DPhil (MSc Lond) Professor of Finance and Tutor in Management Studies, Principal of the Postmasters James Peter Neary, DPhil, (MA UCD) FBA Professor of Economics Béla Novák, (MSc, PhD, Dr Habil, DSc TU Budapest; CSc DSc Hungarian Academy of Science) Professor of Integrative Systems Biology Chih-Hao Luke Ong, MA (MA Cantab; PhD Lond) Professor and MERTON COLLEGE 2010-11 | SUPERNUMERARY FELLOWS Tutor in Computer Science Christoph Ortner, MSc, DPhil Research Fellow and RCUK Academic Fellow in Solid Mechanics and the Mathematics of Materials Martins Paparinskis, MA, MPhil, MJur, DPhil (LLB Latvia) Junior Research Fellow in Law Alison Parkin, MChem, DPhil Junior Research Fellow in Chemistry David James Paterson, MA, DPhil, (MSc, DSc Western Australia), FIBiol Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology and Tutor in Preclinical Medicine, Dean of Graduates Jennifer Payne, MA (MA Cantab) Reader in Corporate Finance Law, Tutor in Law and Travers Smith University Lecturer in Corporate Finance Law Sydney Penner, (BA Yale; MA, PhD Cornell) Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy Sarah Percy, MPhil, DPhil Tutor in International Relations Jonathan Ralph Warburg Prag, MA (PhD Lond) Tutor in Ancient History Christopher Thomas Rodgers, MChem, DPhil Junior Research Fellow in Chemistry Suzanne Romaine, MA (AB Bryn Mawr; MLitt Edin; PhD Birm) Merton Professor of English Language David Rueda, MA (MSc Lond; MA, PhD Cornell) Professor of Comparative Politics and Tutor in Politics Alexander Schekochihin, (BSci MIPT; PhD Princeton) Tutor in Physics Alexander David Scott, (BA, PhD Cantab) Professor and Tutor in Mathematics Timothy Peter Softley, MA (PhD S’ton) Professor of Chemical Physics and Tutor in Physical Chemistry Péter-Dániel Szántó, (Diploma Budapest) Junior Research Fellow in Oriental Studies Jane Christine Holmes Taylor, (BA Hons Bris) Development Director Jonathan William Thacker, MA (BA Lond; PhD Cantab) Tutor in Spanish, Secretary of the Harmsworth Trust Patricia Thornton, (BA Swarthmore; MA Washington; PhD Berkeley) Tutor in the Politics of China Ulrike Luise Tillmann, MA (BA Brandeis, PhD Stanford, Habil Bonn) FRS Professor in Mathematics Joshua Sol Schelly Walden, (AB Berkeley; MA, MPhil, PhD Columbia) Junior Research Fellow in Music Julia Caroline Walworth, MA (BA Swarthmore; MA, PhD Yale) Research Fellow and Librarian Trudy Alexandra Watt, MA, DPhil (BA Open, MSc Sheff Hallam) Senior Tutor RECORDS Clifford Ronald Webb, MA (MLitt Edin) Finance Bursar, Computer Officer Sir Ralph Wedgwood Bt, MA (MPhil Lond; MA, PhD Cornell) Professor and Tutor in Philosophy Michael Hilton Whitworth, MA, DPhil Tutor in English Andrew Wiles, MA, DSc (PhD Camb) FRS Katherine Willis, MA (BSc Southampton; PhD Camb) Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity Simon Wren-Lewis (MA Cantab; MSc Lond) Tutor in Economics Boris Zilber, MA (MSc, CandSc Novosibirsk; DSc Leningrad) Professor of Mathematical Logic SUPERNUMERARY FELLOWS Oliver Beckstein, (Diplom, DPhil Erlangan-Nürnberg) Andrea Cavalleri, (Laurea, PhD Pavia) Vincenzo Cerundolo, MA, MD, PhD, FRCPath, FMedSci Simon Draper, MBioch, DPhil Andrew John King, MA Status (BSc, PhD Lond), FMedSci Julian Knight, MA, MBChB, DPhil, FRCP Francis Platt, MA Status (BSc Lond; PhD Bath), FMedSci EMERITUS FELLOWS John Michael Baker, MA, DPhil David Bostock, BPhil, MA Michael George Bowler, MA (BSc, PhD Bris) John Carey, MA, DPhil, FBA, FRSL John James Coulton, MA (MA, PhD Cantab) Michael Simpson Dunnill, MA (MD Bris), FRCP, FRCPath Mark Everitt, MA Michael Graham Gelder, MA, DM, FRCP, FRCPsych, FMedSci John Roger Loxdale Highfield, MA, DPhil, FSA Robert Basil Champneys Hodgson, MA Olwen Hufton, DBE, MA (BA, MA Harvard; PhD Lond), DLitt, FRHistS, FBA Henry John Franklin Jones, MA Vijay Ramchandra Joshi, MA John Randolph Lucas, MA, FBA Robert McCredie May, Lord May of Oxford, OM, AC, Kt, MA (BSc, PhD Sydney), FRS Eric Arthur Newsholme, MA, DSc (PhD, ScD Cantab)† Donald Edward Olleson, MA, DPhil Courtenay Stanley Goss Phillips, MA, DSc Sir Gyorgy Karoly Radda, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS POSTMASTER | 2011 67 RECORDS MERTON COLLEGE 2010-11 | HONORARY FELLOWS Nicholas James Richardson, BPhil, MA, DPhil, FSA Henry Shue, (AB Davidson College; MA, PhD Princeton) Philip John Waller, MA Christopher John Hamilton Watson, MA, DPhil James Anthony Dominic Welsh, MA, DPhil David Charles Witt, MA HONORARY FELLOWS Anatole Abragam, DPhil, HonDSc, For Mem RS† Sir Robert Andrew, MA, FRSA Sir Christopher (John) Ball, MA, Hon DLitt (CNAA) Sir Roger (Gilbert) Bannister, CBE, MA, MSc, DM, FRCP The Hon Sir Jack Beatson, DCL, (LLD Cantab), FBA Julian Blackwell, DL Sir John Boardman, MA, (MA Cantab) FBA, Hon RA, FSA Thomas Frank Brenchley, CMG, MA, DPhil (BA, BSc (Hons) Open)† William Peter Cooke, CBE, MA Sir Howard (John) Davies, MA (MS Stanford) Christopher Martin Dobson, DPhil, ScD, FRS, FMedSci David Francis Kerr Finlay, OBE, CFA The Rt Hon Sir Martin (John) Gilbert, CBE, MA, DLitt, FRSL Stuart Henry McPhail Hall, MA, DPhil Adam John Hart-Davis, BA (DPhil York), FRSA Laszlo Istvan Heltay, MLitt (MA Budapest) Sir (Charles) Antony (Richard) Hoare, MA, FRS Jonathan Alan Hodgkin, MA (MA, PhD Cantab), FRS Sir Maurice (Arthur Eric) Hodgson, MA, BSc, FEng, FIChemE, CChem, FRSC David Robert Holmes, MA Sir James Clarke Holt, MA, DPhil, FSA, FBA James Wyndham John Hughes-Hallett, BA, FCA Sir Jeremy Isaacs, MA, FRSA Sir Alec (John) Jeffreys, MA, DPhil, (DUniv Open), FRS Vassos Karageorghis, DLitt, (PhD Lond), FSA, FBA Sir Ian Kershaw, DPhil, FRHistS, FBA Sir Anthony (James) Leggett, MA, DPhil, FRS Anastasios Leventis, CBE, OFR The Hon Sir Brian (Henry) Leveson, MA (LLD Liv) Richard Charles Levin, LittB, Hon DCL, (BA Stanford; PhD Yale) Sir Callum McCarthy, BA (PhD Stirling; MS Stanford) HIH Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, Hon DCL The Rt Hon Sir (Arthur) Michael Palliser, GCMG, PC, MA Robert Owen Paxton, MA (PhD Harvard) Timothy Dewe Phillips, CBE, MA 68 POSTMASTER | 2011 Martha Piper, (BSc Michigan; MA Connecticutt; PhD McGill) DSc (Hons), LLD (Hons) Jessica Mary Rawson, DBE, MA, DLitt (MA, LittD, Cantab) FBA Martin Peter Read CBE, DPhil Sir Rex (Edward) Richards, MA, DPhil, DSc, FRS, FBA, FRSC, FRIC Sir Howard Stringer, MA Sir Peter (Hannay Bailey) Tapsell, MA, MP Mark John Thompson, BA, FRTS, FRSA Sir Richard Hughes Trainor KBE, MA, DPhil, FRHistS The Hon Sir John Wallace QC, MA Peter Warry, MA (LLB Lond; PhD Rdg) FREng Guy Howard Weston, BA Sir Andrew (John) Wiles, MA, DSc, (PhD Cantab), FRS Robert Joseph Paton Williams, MBE, MA, DPhil, FRS The Rt Revd Dr Nicholas Thomas Wright, MA, DPhil, DD Lord Wright of Richmond (Patrick Richard Henry Wright), GCMG, MA BODLEY FELLOWS Richard Bellerby Allan, MA, FCA Alan John Bott, OBE, MA, FSA John Samuel Christopher Eidinow, MA (Dip Law City Univ; Barrister Middle Temple) Dean Prosser Gifford, MA (BA, PhD Yale; LLB Harvard) David Harvey, MA, DPhil Robert MacLaren, MB, ChB, DPhil, FRCOphth, FRCS Robert Gould McKelvey, MA (BA Wesleyan) Peter Phillips, Reed Rubin Director of Music Reed Rubin, BA David William Swarbrick, MA Adrian Vickers, MA WYLIOT FELLOWS John Booth, BA, MA Peter Braam, MA, DPhil (BSc, MSc Utrecht) Charles Manby, MA, (MBA Insead), FRS VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWS DURING THE YEAR Paul Bradshaw, University of Notre Dame (Trinity Term 2011) Lorenzo Campagna, University of Messina, Sicily (Hilary Term 2011) Sally Leys, University of Alberta (Michaelmas Term 2010) MERTON COLLEGE 2010-11 | REED RUBIN DIRECTORS OF MUSIC Christophe Pichon, Institute of Astrophysics, Paris (Michaelmas Term 2010) Gordon Teskey, Harvard University (Trinity Term 2011) REED RUBIN DIRECTORS OF MUSIC ELECTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS To an Official Fellowship as the Senior Tutor with effect from 1 September 2011 Dr Catherine Paxton, MA, DPhil To an Official Fellowship as a Tutor in Mathematics with effect from 1 October 2011 Dr Minhyong Kim, (BS Seoul; PhD Yale) Benjamin Nicholas Peter Phillips LECTURERS Stipendiary Lecturers: Ms Jennifer Altehenger Dr Corine Besson Dr Jane Collier Mr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne Dr Josie Von Zitewitz Professor Andy King Dr Michael Laidlaw Mr Robert MacLaren Mr Roy Norton Dr Christoph Ortner Mr Dirk Schlueter Dr David Staunton Ms Renee Williams RECORDS History Philosophy Clinical Medicine Law Russian Neuroscience Inorganic Chemistry Human Anatomy Spanish Mathematics Mathematics Biochemistry French Non-Stipendiary Lecturers: Mr John Eidinow Ms Ellen Feingold Dr Alex Feldman Mr Daniel Gerrard Dr Tom Hart Dr Neil Herring Mr Travers McLeod Dr Paul McMillan Dr Christopher Ramsey Dr Golo Schmidt Dr Alice Stainer Mr Sam Vinko Dr Mary Whitby Classics History English History Biological Sciences Medicine Politics Physics Physics German English Physics Classical Greek Joint-Joint: Dr Emma Bond Dr Helen Fronius Dr David Groiser Italian German German To an Official Fellowship as a Departmental Lecturer in English with effect from 1 October 2011 Dr Thomas MacFaul, DPhil (BA Camb) To a Research Fellowship with effect from 1 October 2011 Dr Emily Holmes, BA Hons (MA Uppsala; DClinPsych Lond; PhD Camb) To a Fitzjames Research Fellowship in Philosophy with effect from 1 October 2011 Dr Nicholas Jones (BA, MA Leeds; PhD Lond) To a Fitzjames Research Fellowship in Old & Middle English with effect from 1 October 2011 Ms Aisling Byrne (BA Dub; MPhil, PhD Camb) To a Peter J Braam Junior Research Fellowship in Global Wellbeing with effect from 1 October 2011 Mrs Julia Amos, MPhil, DPhil To Junior Research Fellowships with effect from 1 October 2011 Dr Michele Ceriotti (BSc, MSc Milano-Bicocca; Phd ETH Zurich) Mr Patrick Lantschner, BA MSt Miss Bridget Penman, BA FELLOWS’ HONOURS AND APPOINTMENTS Professor Judith Armitage has been elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, as well as becoming a Fellow of both the American Academy of Microbiology and the Society of Biology. She has also been made Head of Section Faculty of 1000 and appointed Associate Head of Biochemistry Department. Professor Andrew King has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He has also been appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for Deafness Research UK, as a Review Editor for the Journal of Physiology and appointed as a Member of the Wellcome Trust’s Basic Science Interview Committee. POSTMASTER | 2011 69 RECORDS MERTON COLLEGE 2010-11 | DEATHS OF FELLOWS Dr Daniel Grimley has been appointed as the first ever international scholar-in-residence at the 2011 Bard Music Festival in New York State. Professor Peter Holland has been elected to Membership of the International Advisory Board for European Marine Biological Resource Centre. He also served as a member of the International Jury for the Francqui Prize in Biomedical Sciences. The Revd Dr Simon Jones has been appointed as a member of the Church of England Liturgical Commission. Dr Rachel Mairs has been awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. Professor Lord Robert May of Oxford was awarded the Dirac Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales. Professor Richard McCabe has been awarded a major Leverhulme Fellowship for three years to write a monograph on literary patronage in the Early Modern period. Professor Bela Novák has become Advisory Board member for both the Biochemistry Institute and the Plant Biology Institute at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Professor David Paterson is now Editor-in-Chief at The Journal of Physiology. He has also been made a Member of the national Research Excellence Framework Panel (REF). 70 POSTMASTER | 2011 Dr Jonathan Prag was appointed as ‘Chercheur associé’, of the French CNRS-funded research group ANHIMA (Anthropologie et histoire des mondes anciens). Professor Sir Rick Trainor has been awarded a KBE for his services to higher education. He was also presented with a Europe Leadership Award by CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education). Dr Joshua Walden has been appointed as the Andrew W Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at John Hopkins University and also as the Vladimir and Pearl Heifetz Memorial Fellowship at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Professor Simon Wren-Lewis has been appointed to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Advisory Panel of economic and financial experts. DEATHS OF FELLOWS Anatole Abragam, DPhil, HonDSc, For Mem RS Thomas Frank Brenchley, CMG, MA, DPhil (BA, BSc (Hons) Open) Eric Arthur Newsholme, MA, DSc (PhD, ScD Cantab) NEW STUDENTS | UNDERGRADUATES RECORDS New Students 2010 College, Mr A Oulsnam, Simon Langston Boys’ School, Miss M W Sall, Roskide Katedralskole Undergraduates HISTORY & ECONOMICS Mr J C Austin, Longsands Community College ANCIENT & MODERN HISTORY Mr C M Jones, Royal Grammar School HISTORY & ENGLISH Miss C E Hull, Theale Green School, Mr A O’Flaherty, Dulwich College BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES Miss S Harrison, Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Miss D King, Presdales School, Miss L Paris, Denstone College, Miss P J M Schuijt, Vossius Gymnasium CHEMISTRY Mr A Bajjon, King Edward VI Camp Hill Boys School, Mr J J Coward, Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, Mr K Davis, Heathside School, Miss K R Fisher, Westcliff High School for Girls, Mr M B Geeson, Dubai College, Miss S Wehlin, Malmo Borgaskol CLASSICS Miss E Arkell, Strodes College, Miss E E M Moyse, Wellington College, Miss H B M Polonsky, Perse School for Girls, Miss A Ventress, King’s School, Canterbury, Mr A Woolley, Christ’s Hospital COMPUTER SCIENCE Mr P L Gerrard, King George V College ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT Mr J J J Kaikkonen, Turun Normaalikoulu, Miss P Koulia, English School, Cyprus, Mr I Peer, International School of Brussels, Mr H Y L Wong, French International School ENGLISH Miss A C Bartlett, Newent School, Miss A E Graebe, Sussex Downs College, Mr R P Hill, Nottingham High School, Miss P F C Hudson, Hills Road VI Form College, Miss C W Livingstone, Aquinas College, Miss R E Tye, Collyers VI Form College ENGLISH & MODERN LANGUAGES Miss E Slattery, Archbishop Blanch School HISTORY Mr J Carver, King Edward VI Grammar School, Mr D Crowe, North Berwick High School, Miss J Furness, Newstead Wood School, Mr L Gelezauskas, Kaunas Jesuit Gymnasium, Mr D McKinnon, Wellington HISTORY & POLITICS Miss A E Giesen, Werner Heisenberg Gymnasium, Mr M H G Schmidbaur, Hockerill Anglo European College LAW Miss S J Love, Bingley Grammar School, MR W Tan, Anglo Chinese School, Miss F Zafar, Heckmondwike Grammar School LAW with LAW STUDIES IN EUROPE Mr O P Hayward, King’s School, Mr O E Lloyd, Tonypandy Comprehensive School, Mr G Hogan, Hutcheson’s Grammar School MATHEMATICS Mr D Harper, Ormskirk School, Mr H G Heaton, Beverley Grammar VI Form College, Mr C L Lake, Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, Mr P Mahony, St Andrews Catholic School, Mr B Sampson, Watford Grammar School MATHEMATICS & COMPUTER SCIENCE Mr S O Jauncey, Victoria College MATHEMATICS & PHILOSOPHY Mr T Codrington, Marlborough College MATHEMATICS & STATISTICS Miss G Tiao, Harvard, Mr M Marowka, Community High School No.14, Wroclaw MEDICINE Mr N Black, Royal Grammar School, Miss F T R Edwards, Fishguard High School, Miss C M Lloyd, Builth Wells High School, Mr G Lockett, St Olave’s Grammar School, Miss R M Mitchell, Highfields School, Miss J Odone, Carnial Vaughan Memorial School MODERN LANGUAGES Miss K Crean, American Community School, Miss N R Dockray, POSTMASTER | 2011 71 RECORDS NEW STUDENTS | GRADUATES Alleyn’s School, Mr L E Ellmers, Sutton Valance School, Miss D Gudmunsen, Nottingham High School for Girls, Miss S-J Legge, Hedingham School, Miss L Zhou, School of St Helen & St Katherine MUSIC Miss C Robinson, Taunton’s College, Miss A M Steppler, Henrietta Barnett School, Miss M Willcock, Latymer School PHILOSOPHY & MODERN LANGUAGES Mr F W V Hendry, Southend High School for Boys, Miss L H D Simmons, College de Sevres Mahindra United World College of India, Mr K Ljungstrom Kahn, Saltsjobadens Samskola, Mr J Sumner, Bishops Stortford High School, Miss J J Tyrell, Peter Symonds College, Mr J W Wilson, Montgomery Bell Academy PHYSICS Mr W R Bennett, Hymers College, Mr J T P Burr, All Saints RC School, Mr M W Constable, Chellaston School, Mr R D Fern, King’s School, Mr A Geraldini, New School, Mr R Gonsalves, City of London School, Mr L Hughes, Royal Grammar School, Mr L I McClymont, Altrincham Boys’ Grammar School PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS & ECONOMICS Mr J Brown, University College School, Miss A Dulnik, Miss Porter’s School, Mr J Engelhardt, Salem College, Miss A Jhunjhunwala, Graduates DPHIL Mr A P Stiles, Sydney, (Ancient History), Mr A A Ginalis, Vienna, (Archaeology), Mr M T Lloyd, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, (Archaeology), Miss K M Johnson, British Columbia, (Organic Chemistry), Ms J Lam, MIT, (Physical & Theoretical Chemistry), Miss K Dultiz, Potsdam, (Physical & Theoretical Chemistry), Mr E D’Osualdo, Udine, (Computer Science), Mr N L de Silva, Toronto, (Computer Science), Dr S R De Silva, St John’s Cambridge/ Keble, Oxford, (DTC: Biomedical & Clinical Sciences), Dr N M Oliveira, Lisbon, DTC: Systems Biology), Mr F C Chow, Toronto/ St Hilda’s, Oxford, (Economics), Ms E Hodges, Exeter/King’s, London, (English), Mr K J Lewis, Cardiff, (History), Mr H A Omar, Magdalen, Oxford, (History), Mr B Stevens, Trinity, Cambridge, (Mathematics), Mr F Simkievich, Queen Mary & Westfield/Imperial, (Mathematics), Dr C Marletto, Politecnico di Torino, (Mathematics), Dr R Banerjee, Trinity, Oxford/LSH&TM/RCP, (Cardiovascular Medicine), Ms Z Dedeic, College of the Atlantic, Maine/Chicago, (Clinical Medicine), Dr G Disanto, Siena, (Clinical Neurology), Miss Y Li, York/Edinburgh, (Experimental Psychology), Miss J Steinberg, St Hilda’s, Oxford, (Genomic Medicine & Statistics), Dr S A Aslam, Southampton, (Ophthalmology), Mr Z Padamsey, Toronto/ Somerville, Oxford, (Pharmacology), Mr P D Fineran, Magdalen, Oxford, (Pharmacology), Mr J E Brooker, Oriel, Oxford, (Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics), Ms C J Huang, MIT, (Public Health), Mr N 72 POSTMASTER | 2011 E Myers, Columbia/Ludwig Maximilians, (Wellcome Trust 4-year DPhil in Neuroscience), Ms E E Goodwin, St John’s, Cambridge/ King’s, London, (Medieval & Modern Languages), Miss P A J Souleau, Sorbonne, (Medieval & Modern Languages), Mr H J Hope, Hoschschule fur Musik Franz Liszt Weirmar/Friedrich-Schiller/St Hilda’s, Oxford, (Music), Ms S Lane Smith, Manchester/St Edmund Hall, Oxford, (Philosophy), Mr V Khanna, Delhi/Stuttgart, (Atomic & Laser Physics), Mr L Z Liu, Harvard, (Atomic & Laser Physics), Mr D L Stuart, WA Nedlands, (Atomic & Laser Physics), Mr J S Moeller, St Anne’s, Oxford, (Condensed Matter Physics), Mr R R F Machinek, Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische, (Condensed Matter Physics), Mr F K D Kahlhoefer, Ruprecht-Karls, Heidelberg/St Catharine’s, Cambridge, (Theoretical Physics), Mr E W Hardy, University College, Oxford, (Theoretical Physics), Mr Y Tao, Peking/Churchill, Cambridge, (Politics), Mr D J Lavenda, Kenyon/UCL, (Politics), Mr J W Christensen, Reading/York, (Politics), Miss M Ghoul, American University of Beirut/Imperial, (Zoology) MSC Mr C Snoeck, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, (Archaeological Science), Mr M H Jones, Victoria, BC/Sussex, (Biology – Integrative BioSci), Mr F G K Amo, Wheaton College, Comparative Social Policy, Mr A R D Chappel, Sydney/New South Wales, (Environmental Change & Management), Mr H R Barmeier, Princeton, (Environmental Change & Management), Mr S Z L Ng, National University Singapore, (Law & Finance), Mr A M Hassanali, Nairobi, (Law & NEW STUDENTS | READMISSIONS Finance), Ms I Khazanchi, Delhi, (Mathematical & Computational Finance), Mr M Pitz, Munich, (Mathematics & Foundations of Computer Science), Ms C Rovi, Conservatorio Superior Vitoria/ Open/Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, (Mathematics & Foundations of Computer Science), Miss A Cramer, Ben Gurion, (Neuroscience), Ms A Sato, Hawaii at Manoa, (Modern Japanese Studies), Miss G Huang, Shanghai International Studies University, (Financial Economics), Miss S Qiao, Capital University of Economics & Business, (Financial Economics), Miss Y Shen, Beijing Foreign Studies, (Financial Economics), Miss H Han, Chicago, (Financial Economics), Mr A Kanani, Islamic Azad/Iran/Oxford Brookes, (Major Programme Management), Mr S Lewis, Southern California, (Major Programme Management), Mr P M Lahsen, Chile/ Miami, (Major Programme Management), Mr A Volanakis, Crete, (Biochemistry), Mr C-J Lu, UCL/Imperial, (Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics) MST Miss Y-C Kim, Seoul National, (Greek &/or Roman History), Miss C S Dann, Glasgow, (Modern Languages), Miss K Gedgaudaite, UCL, (Modern Languages), Mr L J Lewis, Salford, (Music), Ms E Mowforth, Victoria University of Manchester, (Music), Mr B C Reece, Oklahoma Baptist, (Ancient Philosophy) MPHIL Miss A S Brandt, Harvard, (Development Studies), Miss Y Tao, Robinson, Cambridge, (Economics), Mr P T Lofquist, UCL, (Economics), Mr A Brassil, Sydney, (Economics), Mr C Gray, Sheffield, (Modern British & European History), Miss A E Miles, George Washington, (International Relations), Miss S R Bathurst, St John’s, Cambridge, (Modern Chinese Studies), Mr O B Farid, North Texas/William & Mary, (European Politics & Society), Ms M Bierbaum, Konstanz, (European Politics & Society) RECORDS BCL Mr K Z von Csefalvay-Bartal, University College, Oxford/Cardiff, Miss A L Irving, Otago, Mr S Pibworth, Birmingham M JURIS Mr M Micciche, Milan, Miss E Siskou, Thrace/Luxembourg VISITING STUDENTS Mlle A R E Jatteau, Ecole Normale Superieure, (Classics), Miss L Arnolds, Konstanz, (Diploma in Legal Studies), Mr B Levy, Ecole Normale Superieure, (Philosophy) READMISSIONS DPHIL Miss E Hartrich (History), Miss K P Claiden-Yardley (History), Mr T E Hudson (Mathematics) MPHIL Mr J J Monahan (Economics), Mr C M G Wai (Economics), Ms E S Bauer (Modern Chinese Studies), Mr W A Kane (Modern Chinese Studies) MSC Mr T D Woodhouse (Computer Science) MST Miss E McCausland (English), Mr W C J Beharrell (English) SECOND BM Mr K Gananandan, Miss P Irayanar, Miss V H C Ormerod, Miss A L Pouncey, Miss J E Brice BPHIL Mr M J Dascal, McGill, Mr R Duda, Nottingham RETURNERS DPHIL Miss A G E Hood (Archaeological Science), Mr G N Kalani (Economics), Mr L A Hill-Cawthorne (Law), Mr A C Beard (Medieval & Modern Languages) Mr A S Cichy (Music), Mr Y Ohta (Philosophy), Mr S M Moore (Politics) MBA Mr N Smith, Virginia/Spain, Mr A Rivers, Wilfrid Laurier, Mr H B Thorbergsson, Iceland MSC Ms L L Fraser (Comparative Social Policy), Mr M Kleiman-Weiner (Experimental Psychology) EMBA Dr G H Bourhill, Strathclyde, Dr A C Carr, Dundee/Glasgow MPHIL Ms C E Goss (Law), Mr A D Dyson (Law) POSTMASTER | 2011 73 RECORDS PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS | SCHOOLS RESULTS Public Examination Results & Prizes Schools Results 2011 ANCIENT & MODERN HISTORY Class I: Mr R Day Class II: Miss A Salvage (i) BIOCHEMISTRY PTII Class I: Mr Y Dong, Ms R Price Class II: Miss S Gilbert (i), Miss K Pates (i) BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES Class II: Miss C Leatherland (i), Miss V McCormick (i), Mr S Murrant (i) FRENCH & GERMAN Class I: Miss S Boraston FRENCH & SPANISH Class II: Miss H Hasan (i) HISTORY Class I: Class II: Miss L Astbury, Mr S Gray, Mr J Nation, Miss C Price Mr C Bowland (i), Miss C Holliss (i), Miss K Summers (i), Miss S Thurston (i), Miss A Turner (i) CHEMISTRY Class I: Mr N Gunn, Mr J McMillan, Miss M O Duill, Mr L Wong Class II: Mr B Hellier (i), Mr C Jorgensen (ii) Class III: Miss H Lee HISTORY & ENGLISH Class II: Miss J Turner (i) CLASSICS & SPANISH (4) Class I: Miss I Sutton HISTORY & SPANISH Class II: Miss S Wilson (i) CLASSICS & SPANISH (5) Class I: Mr M Rabone LAW Class I: Class II: CLASSICS & ORIENTAL STUDIES Class II: Miss H Walsh (i) COMPUTER SCIENCE Class II: Mr R Aldred (i) ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT Class I: Mr Y Chen, Mr A Linsley Class II: Miss C Fehst (i), Mr S Fuchs (i), Miss N Shah (i) ENGLISH Class I: Class II: Mr N Allsopp Miss E Barker (i), Mr B Jackson (i), Miss V Parkinson (i), Miss F Prowting (i) ENGLISH & FRENCH Class I: Miss M Burr, Miss L Ehrenhofer 74 POSTMASTER | 2011 HISTORY & FRENCH Class I: Mr A Sampson Mr M A Abdul Rahim Mr J Borbora (i), Mr N Langen (i), Miss S McAvoy (i), Mr R Miller (i), Miss C Sage (i) LAW WITH LAW STUDIES IN EUROPE Class II: Mr L Wells (i) LITERAE HUMANIORES I Class I: Mr T Sherwin, Miss K Watson MATHEMATICS (3) Class I: Miss X Chen Class II: Miss R Collins (i) MATHEMATICS (4) Class I: Mr C Tomer, Mr E Devane MATHEMATICS & STATISTICS (4) Class I: Miss L McLelland, Mr H Thorogood UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS & PRIZES | COLLEGE AWARDS & PROMOTIONS Class II: Miss T Sahyoun (i), Mr C Xu (ii) MEDICAL SCIENCES Class II: Miss K Al-Hourani (i), Mr C Damant (i), Miss R Joseph (i), Mr A Maynard (i), Miss J Poole (i) MUSIC Class II: Miss N Tyrwhitt-Drake (i) PPE Class II: Miss R Birchall (i), Mr P Bryant (i), Mr M Eager (i), Mr C Mockford (i), Miss H Simms (i), Mr B Skliar-Ward (i) RECORDS PHYSICS (3) Class I: Miss S Weatherhead PHYSICS (4) Class I: Mr M Adcock, Mr H Beeson, Mr T Gillam, Mr M Martin, Mr R Pendray Class II: Mr J Leeuwenburgh (i), Mr C Park (i), Mr R Tovey (i) SPANISH & RUSSIAN (COURSE B) Class II: Mr T Barrett (i) Undergraduate Awards & Prizes College Awards & Promotions RENEWALS POSTMASTERSHIPS For a third year: Miss S N Weatherhead (Physics) Mr L Wells (Law with LSE) For a second year: Miss K Al-Hourani (Medicine) Mr A Artley (Classics) Mr H Beeson (Physics) Miss S Boraston (Modern Languages) Mr E Devane (Mathematics) Mr T Gillam (Physics) Mr M Martin (Physics) Mr M R Rabone (Classics & Modern Languages) Mr T Sherwin (Classics) Miss I Sutton (Classics & Modern Languages) Miss H Walsh (Classics & Oriental Studies) Miss K Watson (Classics) EXHIBITIONS For a third year: Mr M A Abdul Rahim (Law) Mr T Barrett (Modern Languages) Miss E Drabkin-Reiter (Law) Mr S Fuchs (Economics & Management) Miss C Sage (Law) Mr R Tovey (Physics) For a second year: Mr N Allsopp (English) Miss E Barker (English) Mr P Bryant (PPE) Mr C Bowland (History) Miss L Ehrenhofer (English & Modern Languages) Miss C Fehst (Economics & Management) Miss W C Fu (Physics) Mr S Kolli (Mathematics & Philosophy) Mr A Linsley (Economics & Management) Miss C Parker (Modern Languages) Mr C Parker (Mathematics & Philosophy) Miss S Robinson-Caturla (History & Modern Languages) Mr A Sampson (History & Modern Languages) PROMOTIONS POSTMASTERSHIPS Mr N Allsopp (English) Miss E Barker (English) POSTMASTER | 2011 75 RECORDS UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS & PRIZES | COLLEGE PRIZES Mr T Chachamu (Mathematics) Miss X Chen (Mathematics) Mr L Collins (Chemistry) Mr R Day (History) Mr M Fox (Physics) Mr S Gray (History) Mr B Green (Mathematics) Mr N Gunn (Chemistry) Miss C Holliss (History) Mr R Jeffrey (Physics) Mr P Kaufman (Chemistry) Mr M LeDoux (Classics) Mr J H C McMillan (Chemistry) Mr X Meng (Mathematics) Miss M O Duill (Chemistry) Mr J Nation (History) Mr J Neuhaus (Chemistry) Mr R Pendray (Physics) Miss C Price (History) Mr M Raymond (Mathematics & Computer Science) Mr S Sanmugarajah (Physics) Mr J Sharman (Mathematics) Miss S Thurston (History) Mr J Warriner (English) Mr L W K Wong (Chemistry) EXHIBITIONS Mr L Bosko (Mathematics & Computer Science) Mr B Challen (Chemistry) Miss M Foord-Weston (Biological Sciences) Miss K Light (Modern Languages & Linguistics) Mr O Lloyd (Law) Mr D Main (Chemistry) Mr A Malik (Medicine) Mr J Gibson (Physics) Miss T Goodchild (Mathematics & Philosophy) Mr C Grant (Mathematics & Philosophy) Miss H Guggiari (Mathematics) Mr S Hall (Classics) Mr T Khotavivattana (Chemistry) Mr R Knight (Modern Languages) Mr F Lang (Physics) 76 POSTMASTER | 2011 Mr A Learoyd (History & Politics) Mr M Lee (History) Mr C Lester (Mathematics) Mr O Mason (Chemistry) Miss C Meehan (Modern Languages) Mr R Millar (Physics) Mr C Sandford (Chemistry) Miss E Sands (History) Miss E Tann (Mathematics) Mr L Wallrich (PPE) Mr B Walpole (Mathematics & Philosophy) Miss Z Zhou (Chemistry) There were in all 41 Postmasters and 49 Exhibitioners at the end of the year. College Prizes Members of the College who had achieved First Classes in Schools or Mods, or Distinctions in Prelims, Law Moderations or the First BM, were given College book prizes. Members of the College who had been awarded University prizes were given College book prizes. Fowler Prizes for good work in Collections were awarded to: Mr A Abdul Rahim (2) Mr N Allsopp Miss F Austin (2) Mr A Bajjon (2) Mr T Barrett Mr W Bennett Mr N Black (2) Miss S Boraston (3) Mr J Brown Mr J Burr (2) Mr B Challen (2) Mr Y Chen Mr L Collins (2) Mr M Constable Miss K Crean Mr D Crowe Mr K Davis Mr R Day Miss N Dockray (2) Miss L Ehrenhofer (2) Miss C Fehst Mr R Fern (2) Mr T Foster Mr M Fox (2) Miss R Fu Mr S Fuchs Mr M Geeson Mr A Geraldini (2) Miss T Goodchild Miss E Graham Mr C Grant Miss D Gudmunsen (2) Miss H Guggiari Mr S Hall (2) Mr D Harper (2) Miss S Harrison UNIVERSITY PRIZES Miss H Hasan Miss C Holliss Miss P Hudson Miss C Hull Mr R Jeffrey Mr J Kaikkonen (3) Mr P Kaufman (2) Mr T Khotavivattana (2) Miss P Koulia (2) Mr C Lake (2) Mr F Lang (2) Mr K Ljundstrom Kahn Mr O Lloyd Mr P Mahony (2) Mr M Marowka (2) Miss C Mason (2) Mr O Mason (2) Miss S McAvoy Mr L McClymont Miss R Mitchell Mr T Moorthy Mr S Murrant Mr J Neuhaus (2) Miss S Norman Mr A Oulsnam Mr I Peer (3) Miss C Price (2) Mr M Rabone (3) Miss C Sage (2) Miss A Salvage Mr A Sampson Mr C Sanford (2) Miss E Sands Mr S Sanmugarajah (2) Mr M Schmidbaur (2) Miss N Shah (2) Mr T Sherwin Mr J Sumner Miss I Sutton (3) Mr W Tan Miss E Tann Miss S Thurston Mr A Turnbull (3) Miss A Turner Miss H Walsh Mr J Warriner (3) Miss K Watson (2) Miss S Wood (3) Mr A Woolley (2) Miss L Zhou (2) Miss Z Zhou RECORDS Other College prizes were awarded as follows: Mr S Gray, Conrad Russell Prize (joint award) Mr S Hall, Professor Passmore Edwards Prize in Classics (joint award) Mr O Hayward, F E Smith Memorial Mooting Prize (joint 2nd) Mr G Hogan, F E Smith Memorial Mooting Prize (1st ) Miss R Joseph, William Harvey Anatomy prize: for the best performance at first class level in the Anatomy exam Mr O Lloyd, Norton Rose Prize for the best performance in Law Mods by a Merton student Miss S Love, F E Smith Memorial Mooting Prize (joint 2nd) Mr F McIntosh, Professor Passmore Edwards Prize in Classics (joint award) Miss C Prize, Conrad Russell Prize (joint award) Mr J Sumner, Sam McNaughton Prize Miss S Thurston, Conrad Russell Prize (joint award) University Prizes Mr O Lloyd, University Prize for Criminal Law Moderations Paper Mr S Hall, Harold Lister Sunderland Prize 2011, Second Proxime Mr J Harrison, Commendation for Practical Work in the Part A Physics Examination Miss S Harrison, Wilder Penfield Prize Mr T Khotavivattana, Eisai Prize: 2nd Prize for performance in Chemistry Part 1A Mr F Lang, Commendation for Practical Work in the Part A Physics Examination Mr O Lloyd, Slaughter and May Prize for the best peformance in Criminal Law Moderations Miss S Norman, Eric Newsholme Prize Mr P Parameshway, Chancellow’s Latin Verse Prize 2011 – Proxime Accessit Miss R Price, Wilder Penfield Prize Mr C Sandford, Eisai Prize: 4th Prize for performance in Chemistry Part IA Miss L Serocold, C E Stevens and Charles Oldham Scholarship Miss I Sutton, Ramon Silva Prize for Spoken Spanish POSTMASTER | 2011 77 RECORDS DEGREE Graduate Degrees, Awards and Prizes The following graduates completed during the year 2010-11: DPHIL Dr J R Arnold (Cardiovascular Medicine), Mr R P Bazzani (Clinical Laboratory Sciences), Mr K H Benam (Clinical Medicine), Mr M L Blow (Theoretical Physics), Ms M E Brook (Modern Languages), Mr T Chantavat (Astrophysics), Ms X Chen (Chinese Studies), Mr N T Crump (Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry), Ms M Fiascaris (Physics: Particle & Nuclear), Ms C J Frieman (European Archaeology), Mr K Fujimoto (Philosophy), Mr A Genot (Condensed Matter Physics), Mr M M Hanna (Music), Ms M M Hipp (Clinical Medicine), Mr S Jacob (Clinical Neurology), Mr F Jaoui (Economics), Mr D A King (Classical Languages & Literature), Mr G B S Lim (Cardiovascular Medicine), Mr C Loenarz (Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry), Ms C E Oon (Medicine, Medical Oncology), Ms L K Nunns (Classics), Ms S Promel (Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry), Mr O RiveroArias (Public Health), Mr M N Shabalin (Japanese Studies), Mr B Sheard (Atomic & Laser Physics), Mr E So (Physical & Theoretical Chemistry), Ms E J Toomey (Management Studies), Mr J E Upcher (Law), Mr D A Wilkinson (Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry) EMBA Mr O Obineke, Mr R Pinkerton BPHIL Ms S Malik, Mr A Salam MPHIL Ms S Divald (European Politics & Society), Mr G Morello (Modern Chinese Studies), Mr L A Hill-Cawthorne (Law), Mr L Hopkins (Greek and/or Roman History – Distinction), Mr V Petrov (Modern British and European History – Distinction), Mr M Uy (Musicology), Mr I Zurimendi (Economics) MLITT Mr U Carrillo Cabrera (Social Policy & Social Work) 78 POSTMASTER | 2011 MPHIL QUALIFYING EXAMINATION Ms S Bathurst (Modern Chinese Studies), Ms E Bauer (Modern Chinese Studies), Ms A Brandt (Development Studies), Mr A Brassil (Economics), Mr O Farid (European Politics & Society – Partial Pass), Mr C Gray (Modern British & European History), Mr W Kane (Modern Chinese Studies), Mr P Lofquist (Economics), Ms A Miles (International Relations), Mr J Monahan (Economics), Ms E Mowforth (Music Composition), Ms Y Tao (Economics – Partial Pass), Mr C M Wai (Economics) MSC Mr A Hassanali (Law & Finance), Mr I Khazanchi (Mathematical & Computational Finance), Mr S Ng (Law & Finance – Distinction) MST Mr W Beharrell (English 1550-1700), Ms K Gedgaudaite (Modern Languages – Distinction), Ms Y-C Kim (Greek and/or Roman History), Ms E McCausland (English 650-1550 – Distinction), Mr B Reece (Ancient Philosophy – Distinction) 2ND BM Ms G Baines, Mr D Chandrasekharan (Distinction), Dr C Davison (Distinction), Ms H Gresty, Mr O Khalin, Mr L Lewis (Music Composition), Mr R Ma BCL Ms A Irving (Distinction), Mr S Pibworth (Distinction), Mr K von Csefalvay-Bartal MJURIS Mr M Micciche, Ms E Siskou DIPLOMA Ms L Arnolds (Legal Studies – Distinction) DEGREE Graduate members of the College who were awarded University Prizes were as follows: Mr D Chandrasekhran, Radcliffe Infirmary Essay Prize in Surgery 2011 Ms A Irving, Vinerian Scholarship Proxime Accessit Ms A Irving, Law Faculty Prize in Criminal Justice and Human Rights Ms A Irving, Law Faculty Prize in Medical Law and Ethics Mr S Ng, Allen and Overy Prize in Corporate Insolvency Law RECORDS Mr S Ng, Law Faculty Prize in Principles of Financial Regulation Mr S Ng, Overall Best Performance in MSc Law and Finance Ms S Ng, First Principles of Financial Economics Mr S Ng, Law and Economics of Corporate Transactions Mr K von Csefalvay-Bartal, Allen and Overy Prize in Transnational Commercial Law Other College Prizes were awarded as follows: Mr J Waterlow, The Rajiv Kapur prize for graduate research in History POSTMASTER | 2011 79 RECORDS COLLEGE STAFF College Staff Name Position Mrs K Adamczyk Mrs SA Allen Mrs J Ashford Miss J Baker Mr SG Barber Mr AS Batey Miss H Bednarczyk Miss SL Bird Ms L Bond Mr S Bowdery Mr MR Bowdler Mr C Bridgman Mr D Brown Mr D S Brundell Miss R Bryant Miss NA Bushnell Mr RL Butler Mrs RM Butler Mr WJ Carr Housekeeping Supervisor Hall Assistant Administrative Assistant Cleaner Second Chef Lodge Porter Lodge Porter Chef de Partie Assistant Warden’s Secretary Deputy IT Manager Publications & Web Officer Chef de Partie Third Chef Chef de Partie Domestic Bursar’s Secretary Bar Assistant Steward Chef de Partie Asst Accommodation & Conference Porter Hall Assistant Cleaner Cleaner SCR Assistant Cleaner General Support Assistant College Plumber Scout Mrs Z Clark Miss M Cwyl Mrs H D’Arcy Mr G da Assumpcao Mrs R da Silva Mr D Dobson Mr A Doman Mrs AM Donnelly Mr M dos Santos de Oliveira Miss JM Durkin Mr M Furse Miss I Gaweda Mrs J Gerhardi 80 Cleaner Housekeeper Senior Gardener Cleaner Admissions Officer POSTMASTER | 2011 First Appointed 01/11/2007 07/07/1998 26/02/2007 02/01/2004 01/11/1999 14/04/2001 04/01/2011 08/10/2001 03/10/2000 01/04/2011 02/01/2008 29/09/2003 02/01/2007 13/11/2000 13/09/2010 22/09/2008 26/02/1979 08/05/1981 14/01/2009 13/11/2000 01/12/2009 13/04/2004 07/03/2011 11/01/2011 04/01/1999 27/02/2006 22/07/1996 05/01/2011 02/06/1986 02/01/2007 01/12/2009 02/01/1991 Name Position Mr PJ Goodhall Mr DJ Grainger Mr PJ Guildea Ms ST Hague Mrs C Haines Mr DN Haines Mr E Hamdi Miss G Hanson Mrs MN Harris Miss N Harrison Mr CR Hedges Mr DA Hedges Dr P Hoffman Miss S Hood Mrs C Hume Mrs A Jas Mr MD Jeffs Mr JC Jones Miss A Joseph Mr CD Joyce Mr A Kaseer Mr R Kendall Mr KB Keogh Mr A Kessler Mrs HJ Kingsley Miss J Kirby Mr I Knight Scout Head Butler Lodge Porter Accommodation Manager College Nurse Kitchen Porter Hall Supervisor Gardener Bursary Clerk Estates Administrator Maintenance Assistant Bar Manager Library Assistant Development Assistant Chef de Partie Cleaner Surveyor Caretaker/Cleaner Cleaner Kitchen Porter Kitchen Porter Lodge Porter Head Porter Catering Assistant Alumni Relations Manager Fellows’ Secretary Accommodation & Conference Porter Library Assistant Warden’s Secretary Assistant Librarian Academic Administrator Groundsman Pavilion Catering Assistant Mr GM Krispijn Miss L Lawrence Mrs C Lewis Miss V Lill Mr JS Lisle Mrs NK Lisle First Appointed 24/11/1988 31/08/1988 22/09/1989 02/02/2009 27/09/2010 20/08/2001 27/01/2006 28/03/2011 16/05/2001 23/07/2007 01/04/1988 12/10/1987 14/01/2011 21/03/2011 01/08/1996 04/01/2011 12/02/1979 22/07/2002 04/01/2011 29/07/2002 14/02/2005 24/11/2008 21/08/1992 15/10/2007 09/09/2002 06/08/1990 13/07/2009 22/10/2003 01/09/2003 07/05/2002 16/01/2006 17/10/1988 01/10/1996 RECORDS COLLEGE STAFF Name Position First Appointed Mr P Macallister Mrs AS Mahmood Mrs NS Mahmood Ms C Massey Mr JP McVeigh Miss A Miech Miss M Miesiac Miss J Morley Mrs CP Morton Mr RJ Moss Mrs G Norridge Mrs DL O’Connell Miss MK Panasewicz Mr J Parkinson Mr J Pawlowski Mr DJ Pike Mrs M Ponting Mrs LJ Pullen Mr JA Reid Miss L Reveley Mr SL Richards Mr AJ Richardson Commis Chef Cleaner Cleaner Conference Manager Hallman/Storeman Cleaner Cleaner Hall Supervisor Estates Secretary Database Officer Payroll/Personnel Administrator Fundraising Officer SCR Assistant Lodge Porter Caretaker Lecture Theatre Supervisor Catering Assistant Scout Archivist Bursary Clerk Lodge Porter Deputy Head Porter 22/10/2007 30/04/2002 23/04/2001 05/01/2009 15/10/1990 01/02/2007 01/05/2008 14/03/1994 18/09/2000 09/02/2009 25/06/2007 20/10/2008 15/09/2008 18/04/2011 24/10/2005 22/06/2010 29/10/2007 19/10/1998 02/12/2002 11/02/2002 07/10/1985 04/01/2005 Name Position First Appointed Miss L Savin Miss J Selmoser Mr CE Shackell Mrs M Skalik Mrs K Stepien Mr M Teixeira Mr JE Tomkins Mrs CL Turner Miss K Tworkowska Mr DW Tyrrell Mr A Urquhart Mr IR Walker Mrs LS Walsh Mr A Walters Mr M Wender Miss E Wesolowska Mr RJ Wiggins Mr R Williams Mr S Williams Mrs K Wolinska Mrs L Wycherley Mrs HL Young Head Gardener Cleaner Accountant Assistant Head Butler Cleaner Cleaner Assistant Groundsman Cleaner SCR Assistant Gardener Lodge Porter Lodge Porter Sub Warden’s Secretary Schools Liaison & Access Officer Head Chef Cleaner Decorator Lodge Porter IT Manager Cleaner Library Assistant Bursary Clerk 07/10/2002 01/11/2008 20/01/2003 10/08/2005 02/10/2006 04/01/2011 11/08/1997 27/03/2000 15/11/2010 01/02/2010 06/08/2007 19/07/2010 16/11/1987 22/06/2009 20/09/1999 15/01/2010 16/03/1987 31/03/2008 17/07/2000 10/01/2011 24/02/2003 02/06/2003 POSTMASTER | 2011 81 PUBLICATIONS FELLOWS Publications Fellows Sourjik, V & JP Armitage (2010) ‘Spatial organization in bacterial chemotaxis’, EMBO J 29: 2724-2733 Porter, SL, GH Wadhams & JP Armitage (2011) ‘Signal processing in complex chemotaxis pathways’ Nature Revs Microbiol 9:153-65 Hamadeh, A, MAJ Roberts, E August, PE McSharry, PK Maini, JP Armitage & A Papachristodoulou (2011) ‘Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network’ PLoS Comp Biol 7(5): e1001130. Delalez, N, MJ Leake, GH Wadhams, RM Berry & JP Armitage (2010) ‘Dynamics of protein turnover in the functioning rotor of the bacterial flagellar motor’ PNAS 107:11347-51 Scott, KA, SL Porter, EAL Bagg, R Hamer, JL Hill, D Wilkinson & JP Armitage (2010) ‘Phosphotransfer and localization specificity of Rhodobacter sphaeroides CheAs is critical for chemotaxis’ Mol Micro 76: 318–330 Barr, AJ, P Konar, K Matchev, MPark, CG Lester & TJ Khoo, ‘A storm in a ‘T’ cup: transverse projections and massconstraining variables’, arXiv:1105.2977 Barr, AJ (ed.) (2011) ATLAS Collaboration ‘Search for squarks and gluinos using final states with jets and missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector in 公s = 7 TeV protonproton collisions’, Physics Letters B701:186-203 Barr, AJ (2011) ‘Search for supersymmetry using final states with one lepton, jets, and missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector in sqrt{s} = 7 TeV pp collisions’ ATLAS Collaboration, Physical Review Letters 106, 131802 Barr, AJ (2010) ‘Performance of the ATLAS Detector using First Collision Data’, ATLAS Collaboration, Journal of High Energy Physics 1009:056 Kunz, MW, AA Schekochihin, SC Cowley, JJ Binney & JS Sanders (2011) ‘A thermally stable heating mechanism for the intracluster medium: turbulence, magnetic fields and plasma instabilities’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 410, 2446 82 POSTMASTER | 2011 Bostock, D (2010) ‘Whitehead and Russell on Points’, Philosophia Mathematica 18 1:52 Bostock, D (2011) ‘Note on Heterologocality’ Analysis 71 252-259 Carey, J, (2010) Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes and Aphrodite, text with introduction and commentary (Cambridge) Chen-Wishart, M (2010) Contract and Reciprocity: The Hochelega Annual Lectures of the Hong Kong University Law Faculty Chen-Wishart, M (2010) Contract Law, 3rd edition (Oxford University Press) Chen-Wishart, M (2010) ‘Transparency and Fairness in Bank Charges’ Law Quarterly Review 126 157-162 Chen-Wishart, M (2010) ‘A Bird in the Hand: Consideration and One-Sided Contract Modifications’ Contract Formation and Parties eds. AS Burrows and E Peel (Oxford University Press) Atherton, HJ, MS Dodd, LC Heather, MA Schroeder, JL Griffin, GK Radda, K Clarke & DJ Tyler (2011) ‘Role of pyruvate dehydrogenase inhibition in the development of hypertrophy in the hyperthyroid rat heart: A combined magnetic resonance imaging and hyperpolariszed magnetic resonance spectroscopy study’ Circulation 123: 2552-2561. Edwards, LM, AJ Murray, CJ Holloway, EE Carter, GJ Kemp, I Codreanu, H Brooker, DJ Tyler, PA Robbins & K Clarke (2010) ‘Short-term consumption of a high-fat diet impairs whole-body efficiency and cognitive function in sedentary men’ FASEB J 25: 1088-1096. Formenti F, D Constantin-Teodosiu, Y Emmanuel, J Cheeseman, KL Dorrington, LM Edwards, SM Humphreys, TRJ Lappin, MF McMullin, CJ McNamara, W Mills, JA Murphy, DF O’Connor, MJ Percy, PJ Ratcliffe, TG Smith, M Treacy, KN Frayn, PL Greenhaff, F Karpe, K Clarke & PA Robbins (2010) ‘Regulation of human metabolism by hypoxia-inducible factor’ PNAS 107: 12722–12727. Heather LC, CA Carr, DJ Stuckey, S Pope, KJ Morten, EE Carter, LM Edwards & K Clarke (2010) ‘Critical role of complex III in the early metabolic changes following myocardial infarction’ Cardiovasc Res 85: 127-36. Holloway CJ, HE Montgomery, AJ Murray, LE Cochlin, I Codreanu, N Hopwood, AW Johnson, OJ Rider, DZ-H Levett, DJ Tyler, JM Francis, S Neubauer, MPW Grocott, K Clarke & Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research Group (2011) ‘Cardiac response to hypobaric hypoxia: persistent changes in cardiac mass, function, and energy metabolism after a trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp’ FASEB J. 25: 792-6 FELLOWS Biswas, S, MD Dicks, CA Long, EJ Remarque, L Siani, S Colloca, MG Cottingham, AA Holder, SC Gilbert, AV Hill & SJ Draper (2011) ‘Transgene Optimization, Immunogenicity and In Vitro Efficacy of Viral Vectored Vaccines Expressing Two Alleles of Plasmodium falciparum AMA1’ PLoS ONE 6:e20977 Douglas, AD, L Andrews, SJ Draper, K Bojang, P Milligan, SC Gilbert, EB Imoukhuede & AV Hill (2011) ‘Substantially Reduced Pre-patent Parasite Multiplication Rates Are Associated With Naturally Acquired Immunity to Plasmodium falciparum’ J Infect Dis 203:1337-40 Douglas, AD, SC de Cassan, MD Dicks, SC Gilbert, AV Hill & SJ Draper (2010) ‘Tailoring subunit vaccine immunogenicity: Maximizing antibody and T cell responses by using combinations of adenovirus, poxvirus and protein-adjuvant vaccines against Plasmodium falciparum MSP1’ Vaccine 28:7167-78 Draper, SJ, S Biswas, AJ Spencer, EJ Remarque, S Capone, M Naddeo, MDJ Dicks, BW Faber, SC de Cassan, A Folgori, A Nicosia, SC Gilbert, & AVS Hill (2010) ‘Enhancing blood-stage malaria subunit vaccine immunogenicity in rhesus macaques by combining adenovirus, poxvirus, and protein-in-adjuvant vaccines’ J Immunol 185:7583-95 Goodman, AL, C Epp, D Moss, AA Holder, JM Wilson, GP Gao, CA Long, EJ Remarque, AW Thomas, V Ammendola, S Colloca, MD Dicks, S Biswas, D Seibel, LM van Duivenvoorde, SC Gilbert, AV Hill, & SJ Draper (2010) ‘New candidate vaccines against blood-stage Plasmodium falciparum malaria: primeboost immunization regimens incorporating human and simian adenoviral vectors and poxviral vectors expressing an optimized antigen based on merozoite surface protein 1’ Infect Immun 78:4601-12. Dunnill, MS, (2010) ‘Victor Horsley (1857-1916) in World War I, Journal of Medical Biography 18: 186-193 Grimley, D (2010) Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism (Boydell) Grimley, M, (2011) ‘The Dog that Didn’t Bark: The Failure of Disestablishment since 1927’ The Established Church: Past, Present, Future eds. M Chapman, J Maltby & W Whyte (T&T Clark) Gunn, SJ (2010), ‘Archery practice in early Tudor England’, Past and Present 209, 53-81 Loenarz, C, ML Coleman, A Boleininger, B Schierwater, PWH Holland, PJ Ratcliff & CJ Schofield (2010) ‘The hypoxiainducible transcription factor pathway regulates oxygen sensing PUBLICATIONS in the simplest animal, Trichoplax adhaerens’ EMBO Reports 12: 63-70 Li, G & PWH Holland (2010) ‘The origin and evolution of ARGFX homeobox loci in mammalian radiation’ BMC Evol Biol 10:182 Butts, T, PWH Holland & DEK Ferrier (2010) ‘Ancient homeobox gene loss and the evolution of chordate brain and pharynx development: deductions from amphioxus gene expression’ Proc Roy Soc B 277:3381-89 Mulley, JF & PWH Holland (2010) ‘Parallel retention of Pdx2 genes in cartilaginous fish and coelacanths’ Molec Biol Evol 27:2386-91 Zhong, Y & PWH Holland (2011) ‘The dynamics of vertebrate homeobox gene evolution: gain and loss of genes in mouse and human lineages’ BMC Evol Biol 11:169 Schnupp J, I Nelken, & A King (2010) Auditory Neuroscience: Making Sense of Sound (MIT Press) King, AJ, & JC Middlebrooks (2011) ‘Cortical representation of auditory space’, The Auditory Cortex, eds. JA Winer & CE Schreiner (Springer) Walker, KMM, JK Bizley, AJ King & JWH Schnupp (2011) ‘Cortical encoding of pitch: recent results and open questions’ Hearing Research King, AJ, FR Nodal, & VM Bajo (2011) ‘Neural circuits underlying adaptation and learning in the perception of auditory space’ Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Rabinowitz, NC, BD Willmore BD, JWH Schnupp, & AJ King (2011) ‘Contrast gain control in auditory cortex’ Neuron Wicks K & JC Knight (2011) ‘Transcriptional repression and DNA looping associated with a novel regulatory element in the final exon of the lymphotoxin beta gene’ Genes and Immunity 12:126-135 Fairfax P, E Davenport, S Makino, AVS Hill, OF Vannberg & Knight JC (2011) ‘A common haplotype of the tumour necrosis factor receptor 2 gene modulates endotoxin tolerance’ Journal of Immunology 186:3058-3065 Maugeri N, J Radhakrishnan & JC Knight (2010) ‘Genetic determinants of HSP70 gene expression following heat shock’ Human Molecular Genetics 19:4939-4947 Ramagopalan SV, Heger A, Berlanga AJ, Maugeri NJ, Lincoln MR, Handunnetthi L, Orton S, Handel AE, Watson CT, Morahan JM, Giovannoni G, Ponting CP, Ebers GC, & Knight JC (2010) ‘A ChIP-seq defined genome-wide map of vitamin D receptor POSTMASTER | 2011 83 PUBLICATIONS FELLOWS binding: associations with disease and evolution’ Genome Research 20:1352-1360 Fairfax BP, F Vannberg, J Radhakrishnan, H Hakonarson, BJ Keating, AVS Hill & JC Knight (2010) ‘An integrated expression phenotype mapping approach defines common variants in LEP, ALOX15 and CAPNS1 associated with induction of IL-6’ Human Molecular Genetics 19:720-730 Maclachlan, IG (2011) ‘Blanchot and the Romantic Imagination’, Blanchot Romantique: A Collection of Essays, eds. J McKeane & H Opelz (Peter Lang) Gaston, S & IG Maclachlan (eds.) (2011) Reading Derrida’s ‘Of Grammatology’ (Continuum) Mairs, R (2011) ‘Translator, Traditor: The Interpreter as Traitor in Classical Tradition’ Greece & Rome 58:64-81 Mairs, R (2011) ‘Acrostich Inscriptions at Kalabsha (Roman Talmis): Cultural Identities and Literary Games’ Chronique d’Égypte 86:251-267 Mairs, R (2011) ‘The Places in Between: Model and Metaphor in the Archaeology of Hellenistic Arachosia’ From Pella to Gandhara: Hybridisation and Identity in the Art and Architecture of the Hellenistic East eds. A Kouremenos, S Chandrasekaran & R Rossi (Oxford: BAR) Mairs, R (2011) The Archaeology of the Hellenistic Far East: A Survey. Bactria, Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, c. 300 BC – AD 100 (British Archaeological Reports International Series 2196) Oxford: BAR May, RM (2010) ‘Tropical Arthropod Species: More or Fewer’ Science 329 41-42 Haldane A & RM May (2011) ‘Systemic Risk in Banking Ecosystems’ Nature 469 351-355 Haldana, A & RM May (2011) ‘The birds and the bees, and the big banks’ Financial Times, 21st February May, RM (2010) ‘Ecological Science and Tomorrow’s World’ Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 365 41-47 May, RM & N Arinaminpathy (2010) ‘The Dynamics of Model Banking Systems’ J. Roy. Soc. Interface 7 823-838 McCabe, RA (2011) The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser (Oxford University Press), xxiii + 805pp McCabe, RA (2011) ‘Edmund Spenser’, The Cambridge Companion to English Poets, ed. C Rawson (Cambridge University Press) 53-71 84 POSTMASTER | 2011 Metcalfe, R, N Powdthavee & P Dolan (2011) ‘Destruction and distress: using a quasi-experiment to show the effects of the September 11 attacks on subjective well-being in the UK’ Economic Journal 121: F81-F103 Dolan, P, R Layard & R Metcalfe (2011) Recommendations of subjective wellbeing measures for the Office of National Statistics, Report for the ONS Eliott, A, P Dolan, I Vlaev, C Adriaenssens & R Metcalfe (2010) Transforming financial behaviour, Report for the Consumer Financial Education Body Brandler, WM, TS Scerri, S Paracchini, AP Morris, SM Ring, AJ Richardson, JB Talcott, J Stein, & AP Monaco (2011) ‘PCSK6 is associated with handedness in individuals with dyslexia’, Human Molecular Genetics 20 (3):608-614 Novák, B, PK Vinod, P Freire & O Kapuy (2010) ‘Systems-level feedbacks in cell cycle control’ Biochem Soc. Trans. Novák B, O Kapuy, MR Domingo-Sananes & JJ Tyson (2010) ‘Regulated protein kinases and phosphatases in cell cycle decisions’ Curr Opin Cell Biol. Domingo-Sananes, MR & B Novák (2010) ‘Different effects of redundant feedback loops on a bistable switch’ Chaos Vinod, PK, P Freire, A Rattani, A Ciliberto, F Uhlmann & B Novák (2011) ‘Computational modelling of mitotic exit in budding yeast: the role of separase and Cdc14 endocycles’ Journal of Royal Society Interface He, E, O Kapuy, RA Oliveira, F Uhlmann, JJ Tyson & B Novák (2011) ‘System-level feedbacks make the anaphase switch irreversible’ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Healy, AJ, HA Reeve, A Parkin & KA Vincent (2011) ‘Electrically conducting particle networks in polymer electrolyte as threedimensional electrodes for hydrogenase electrocatalysis’ Electrochim. Acta In Press Lee, C-Y, GP Stevenson, A Parkin, MM Roessler, RE Baker, K Gillow, DJ Gavaghan, FA Armstrong & AM Bond (2011) ‘Theoretical and experimental investigation of surfaceconfined two-center metalloproteins by large-amplitude Fourier transformed ac voltammetry’ Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 656:293-303 Wait, AF, A Parkin, GM Morley, L dos Santos & FA Armstrong (2010) ‘Characteristics of enzyme-based hydrogen fuel cells using an oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase as the anodic catalyst’ Journal of Physical Chemistry C 114:12003-9 FELLOWS Lukey, MJ, A Parkin, MM Roessler, BJ Murphy, J Harmer, T Palmer, F Sargent & FA Armstrong (2010) ‘How Escherichia coli is equipped to oxidize hydrogen under different redox conditions’ JBC 285:3928-38 Basnayake, SD, JA Hyam, EA Pereira, PM Schweder, J-S Brittain, TZ Aziz, AL Green, & DJ Paterson (2011) ‘Identifying cardiovascular neurocircuity involved in the exercise pressor reflex in humans using functional neurosurgery’ J. Appl. Physiol. 110:881-891 Herring, N, CW Lee, N Sunderland, K Wright, & DJ Paterson (2011) ‘Pravastatin normalizes peripheral cardiac sympathetic hyperactivity in the spontaneously hypertensive rat’ J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol. 50(1):99-106 Hunter, P, B Smaill, N Smith, & DJ Paterson (2011) ‘The heart physiome project’ WIREs System Biology and Medicine In press Payne, J & L Gullifer (2011) Corporate Finance Law: Principles and Policy (Hart Publishing) Payne, J (2011) ‘Schemes of Arrangement, takeovers and Minority Shareholder Protection’, Journal of Corporate Law Studies 67-97 Payne J (2011) ‘Minority Shareholder Protection in Takeovers: A UK Perspective’, European Company and Financial Review Prag, JRW (2011) ‘Provincia Sicilia: between Roman and local in the third century BC’, De Fronteras a provincias. Interacción e integración en Occidente (ss.III-I aC), ed. E García Riaza (Palma de Mallorca: Ediciones Universitat de les Illes Balears) Prag, JRW (2011) ‘Troops and commanders: auxilia externa under the Roman Republic’, Truppe e Comandanti nel mondo antico, eds. D Bonanno, R Marino & D Motta (Palermo) = ⌷⬙, Quaderni di storia antica, n.s. 2 (2010). Prag, JRW (2011) ‘Siculo-Punic Coinage and Siculo-Punic Interactions’ Meetings between Cultures in the Ancient Mediterranean. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Rome 22-26 Sept. 2008, ed. M Dalla Riva. Prag, JRW (2010) ‘Sicilia Romana tributim discripta’, Le tribù romane. Atti della XVIe Rencontre sur l’épigraphie (Bari 8-10 ottobre 2009), ed. M Silvestrini (Bari: Edipuglia). Romaine, S (2010) ‘19th century key words, key semantic domains and affect: “In the rich vocabulary of Love ‘Most dearest’ be a true superlative”’, Studia Neophilologica 82:12-48. Romaine, S (2011) ‘Identity and multilingualism’, Bilingual PUBLICATIONS youth: Spanish in English-speaking societies eds. K Potowski & J Rothman, Chapter 1. 7-30 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins) Highcock, EG, M Barnes, AA Schekochihin, FI Parra, CM Roach & SC Cowley (2010) ‘Transport bifurcation in a rotating tokamak plasma’, Physical Review Letters 105, 215003 Uzdensky, DA, NF Loureiro & AA Schekochihin (2010) ‘Fast magnetic reconnection in the plasmoid-dominated regime’, Physical Review Letters 105, 235002 Nazarenko, SV & AA Schekochihin (2011) ‘Critical balance in magnetohydrodynamic, rotating and stratified turbulence: towards a universal scaling conjecture’, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 677, 134 Rosin, MS, AA Schekochihin, F Rincon & SC Cowley (2011) ‘A nonlinear theory of the parallel firehose and gyrothermal instabilities in a weakly collisional plasma’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 413, 7 Kunz, MW, AA Schekochihin, SC Cowley, JJ Binney & JS Sanders (2011) ‘A thermally stable heating mechanism for the intracluster medium: turbulence, magnetic fields and plasma instabilities’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 410, 2446 Scott, AD (2011), ‘Szemerédi’s Regularity Lemma for matrices and sparse graphs’, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing 20: 455-466 Bollobás, B & AD Scott (2011), ‘Intersections of graphs’, J. Graph Theory 66: 261-282 Loebl, M, B Reed, S Thomassé, AD Scott & AG Thomason (2010), ‘Almost all H-free graphs have the Erdős-Hajnal property’, in An Irregular Mind (Szemerédi is 70), Bolyai Soc. Math. Stud., 21, Springer, Berlin, 405-414 Bollobás, B & AD Scott (2010), ‘Max k-cut and judicious k-partitions’, Discrete Math. 310: 2126-2139 Fey, M & AD Scott, (2011) ‘The minimal covering set in large tournaments’, Social Choice and Welfare Shue, H (2010) ‘Deadly Delays, Saving Opportunities: Creating A More Dangerous World?’, Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, eds. SM Gardiner, S Caney, D Jamieson, and H Shue (Oxford University Press), 146-62 Shue, H (2011) ‘Civilian Protection and Force Protection’, Ethics, Law and Strategy, ed. D Whetham (Palgrave Macmillan), 135-47 Shue, H (2011) ‘Human Rights, Climate Change, and the Trillionth Ton’, The Ethics of Global Climate Change, ed. DG Arnold (Cambridge University Press), 292-314 POSTMASTER | 2011 85 PUBLICATIONS GRADUATES Shue, H (2011) ‘Target-selection Norms, Torture Norms, and Growing US Permissiveness’, The Changing Character of War, ed. H Strachan & S Scheipers (Oxford University Press, 2011), 464-83 Shue, H (2011) ‘Face Reality? After You! - A Call for Leadership on Climate Change’, Ethics & International Affairs 25:1, 17-26 Walden, JS, (2010) ‘Performing the Rural: Sonic Signifiers in Early Twentieth-Century Violin Playing’ Before and After Music ed. L Navickaitė-Martinelli. Vilnius/Helsinki: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and Umweb, International Semiotics Institute Walden JS, (2010) ‘Recent Research on Musical Performance and Sound Recording’ Musica Humana 2.1 (Spring): 89-98 Walworth, J & D d’Avray (2010) ‘The Council of Trent and Print Culture. Documents in the Archive of the Congregatio Concilii’ in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 121, 2, 189-204 Warry, P (2010) ‘Legionary Tile Production in Britain’, Britannia Warry, P (2011) ‘Chapter 10: The Ceramic Building Material’, Silchester: the City in Transition: the Mid-Roman Occupation of Insula IX, c.AD125-250/300. A Report on Excavation undertaken since 1997 MG Fulford & A Clarke, Britannia Monograph No.25 Wedgwood, R (2011) ‘Gandalf’s Solution to the Newcomb Problem’ Synthese, Online First (15 March): 1-33. Wedgwood, R (2010) ‘The Nature of Normativity: Reply to Holton, Railton, and Lenman’ Philosophical Studies 151 (3): 479-491. Wedgwood, R (2010). ‘The Moral Evil Demons’ Disagreement eds. R Feldman and T Warfield (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Whitworth, MH (2011) ‘Natural Science’, T. S. Eliot in Context ed. J Harding (Cambridge University Press) Whitworth, MH (2011) ‘“Within the ray of light” and without: The New Physics and Modernist Simultaneity’, Restoring the Mystery of the Rainbow: Literature’s Refraction of Science eds. V Tinkler-Villani and CC Barfoot (Rodopi) Whitworth, MH (2011) ‘The Use of Science in Hugh MacDiarmid’s Later Poetry’, The Edinburgh Companion to Hugh MacDiarmid eds. M Palmer McCulloch and S Lyall (Edinburgh University Press) Wren-Lewis, S (2010), ‘Macroeconomic Policy in light of the credit crunch: the return of counter-cyclical fiscal policy?’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy vol 26 71-86 Leith, C and S Wren-Lewis (2011), ‘Discretionary Policy in a Monetary Union with Sovereign Debt’, European Economic Review vol 55 93-117 Wright, P (2011) ‘Memories of 1971; A Historic Year in the Emirates’, Royal Society of Asian Affairs Graduates Validation on Clinical Data’, NeuroImage 55 1009-1019 Bishop, CA et al. (2011) ‘Jenkinson and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Accounting for changes in data and labeling protocol: improving atlas-based hippocampal segmentation’, The Organization on Human Brain Mapping, Quebec Tziortzi, AC, G Douaud, P Shotbolt, CA Bishop et al. (2010) ‘A combined diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and [11C]-(+)-PHNO positron emission tomography (PET) study to quantify dopamine D3/D2 receptors in pallidum’ Neuroreceptor Mapping Congress, Glasgow Bishop, CA et al. (2010) ‘Evaluation of hippocampal segmentation methods for healthy and pathological subjects’, Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine, Leipzig Bishop, CA et al. (2010) ‘Evaluation of four hippocampal segmentation methods for healthy and pathological subjects’, Agarwal, S et al. (2010) ‘Revisiting Date and Party Hubs: Novel Approaches to Role Assignment in Protein Interaction Networks’, PLoS Computational Biology 6(6):e1000817 Auger, P (2010), ‘The Natural History of The Silkewormes, and Their Flies’, CahiersÉlisabéthains 78 39-45 Auger, P (2010), ‘Recreation and William Alexander’s DoomesDay (1637)’, Scottish Literary Review 2.2 1-21 Bajlekov, SI et al. (2011). ‘Simulation of free-electron lasers seeded with broadband radiation’, Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams 14, 060711 Barmeier, H (2010) ‘Resilient Urban Community Gardening Programs in the United States and Municipal-Third Sector Adaptive Co-Governance’, Presented at the Second Annual European Sustainable Food Planning Conference Bishop, CA et al. (2011) ‘Novel Fast Marching for Automated Segmentation of the Hippocampus (FMASH): Method and 86 POSTMASTER | 2011 GRADUATES The Organization on Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona Brandler, WM, TS Scerri, S Paracchini, AP Morris, SM Ring, AJ Richardson, JB Talcott, J Stein, & AP Monaco (2011) ‘PCSK6 is associated with handedness in individuals with dyslexia’, Human Molecular Genetics 20 (3):608-614 Brook, M (2011) ‘Keeping the myth alive: the myth of August the Strong in the GDR’, Austausch 1 Dedeic, Z et al. (2011) ‘Emerin inhibits Lmo7 binding to the Pax3 and MyoD promoters and expression of myoblast proliferation gene’ J Cell Sci 124, 1691-1702 Disanto, G et al. ‘The emerging role of vitamin D binding protein in multiple sclerosis’ J Neurol. 258(3):353-358 Disanto, G et al. (2011) ‘HLA-DRB1 confers increased risk of pediatric-onset MS in children with acquired demyelination’ Neurology 76(9):781-786 Disanto, G et al. (2011) ‘Estrogen-vitamin D interaction in multiple sclerosis’ Fertil Steril. 95(1):e3; author reply e4 Disanto, G et al. (2011) ‘Season of birth and anorexia nervosa’ Br J Psychiatry 198(5):404-405 Disanto, G et al. (2010) ‘Heterogeneity in multiple sclerosis: scratching the surface of a complex disease’ Autoimmune Dis. 932351 Vinod, PK, P Freire et al. (2011) ‘Computational modelling of mitotic exit in budding yeast – the role of separase and Cdc14 endocycles’, J R Soc. Interface, doi:10.1098/rsif.2010.0612 (published online) Freire, P, Zhang T (2011) ‘Two legs are better than one’, Cell Cycle 10(8):1189-90 (published online) Ginalis, A, ‘The Northern Sporades. An important junction of the Aegean trading routes’, Graeco-Arabica Ginalis, A, ‘A comparison of maritime traditions in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean’, Graeco-Arabica 12 Ginalis, A, ‘The provincial harbours of Hellas and Thessaly in the Byzantine period. The question of Roman heritage and its importance for Byzantium’, Skyllis 10 Gould, IC et al. (2011) ‘Indexing the graded allocation of visuospatial attention using anticipatory alpha oscillations’, J Neurophysiology 105(3):1318-26 Heise, V et al. (2011) ‘The APOE varepsilon4 allele modulates brain white matter integrity in healthy adults’, Molecular Psychiatry Higgins, C (2011), ‘Archives, Oral History and Australian Refugee Policy’, Circa: the Journal of Professional Historians vol. 2, 69-73 PUBLICATIONS Hinch, AG et al., ‘The landscape of recombination in African Americans’, Nature Hirschfeld, M (2011) ‘Croatian cinematic identity: A Balkan entity or a European individual?’, Studies in Eastern European Cinema vol. 2:1 21–36. Hopkinson, MN (2011) et al. ‘AuI/AuIII Catalysis: An Alternative Approach for C-C Oxidative Coupling’, Chem. Eur. J. DOI: 10.1002/chem.201100736 Hollingworth, C, A Hazari, MN Hopkinson et al. (2011) ‘Palladium-Catalyzed Allylic Fluorination’, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 50, 2613-2617 Li, L, MN Hopkinson et al. ‘Convergent 18F Radiosynthesis: A New Dimension for Radiolabelling’, Chem. Sci. 2, 123-131 Hopkinson, MN et al. (2010) ‘Gold Catalysis and Fluorine’, Isr. J. Chem. 50, 675-690 Hopkinson, MN et al. (2010) ‘Gold-Catalyzed Cascade Cyclization-Oxidative Alkynylation of Allenoates’, Org. Lett. 12, 4904-4907 Huang, C & M Baum ‘A rational basis for the chemoprevention of prostate cancer’, American Journal of Bioethics In press Baum, M & C Huang (2011) ‘Is diminished free will legally relevant and is enhanced free will possible?’, AJOB Neuroscience 2(3):59-61 Jones, SM et al. ‘Validation of a norovirus multiplex real-time RTPCR assay for the detection of norovirus GI and GII from faeces samples’, Br J Biomed Sci 68(3); 116-119 Frandsen, MT, F Kahlhoefer et al. ‘On the DAMA and CoGeNT Modulations’, arXiv:1105.3734 Bezrukov, F, F Kahlhoefer et al. (2011) ‘Interplay between scintillation and ionization in liquid xenon Dark Matter searches’, arXiv:1011.3990. Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics O’Sullivan, MC, JK Sprafke, DV Kondratuk et al. (2011) ‘Vernier templating and synthesis of a 12-porphyrin nano-ring’, Nature 2011, 469, 72-75 Ladwig III, WC (2011) ‘Looking East 2 (East Asia/Australasia)’, A Handbook of India’s International Relations ed. David Scott (London: Routledge) Ladwig III, WC (2010) ‘India and Military Power Projection: Will the Land of Gandhi Become a Conventional Great Power?’, Asian Survey vol. 50, no. 6 POSTMASTER | 2011 87 PUBLICATIONS GRADUATES Erickson, AS, WC Ladwig III & JD Mikolay (2010) ‘Diego Garcia and America’s Emerging Indian Ocean Strategy’, Asian Security vol. 6, no. 3 Lancaster, T, JS Möller et al. (2011) ‘Observation of a level crossing in a molecular nanomagnet using implanted muons’, J. Phys. Condens. Matter 23 242201 doi: 10.1088/09538984/23/24/242201 Prodi, E (2011) ‘Note a P.Oxy. 2459 (Eur. frr. 540-540b K.)’, Eikasmos 22 Prodi, E (2011) ‘Bacchylides’, ‘Lyric (Greek)’, ‘Pindar’, ‘Sappho’ and ‘Stesichorus’, The Virgil Encyclopedia eds. R Thomas & JM Ziolkowski (Wiley and Blackwell: Malden) Rabinowitz, NC et al. (2011) ‘Control in Auditory Cortex’, Neuron 70, 1178-1191 Ong, C-HL, & SJ Ramsay (2011) ‘Verifying higher-order functional programs with pattern-matching algebraic data types’ Proceedings of the 38th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages (Austin, Texas, USA, ACM)587-598 Sengupta, S (2011) ‘Defending “Differentiation”: India’s Foreign Policy on Climate Change from Rio to Copenhagen’, India’s Foreign Policy and National Security, Vol.1 eds. K Bajpai & HV Pant (Oxford University Press: New Delhi/Oxford) Sengupta, S (2011) ‘International climate negotiations and India’s role’, A Handbook on Climate Change and India: Development, Politics and Governance ed. N Dubash (Oxford University Press: New Delhi/Oxford) 88 POSTMASTER | 2011 Sherlock, BE et al. (2011) ‘Time-averaged adiabatic ring potential for ultracold atoms’, Phys. Rev. A 83, 043408 de Silva, N (2010) ‘A Concise, Elementary Proof of Arzelà’s Bounded Convergence Theorem’ Am Mathematical Monthly Stephenson A (2011) ‘Kant on Non-Veridical Experience’, Kant Yearbook 3 1-22 Goris, T AF Wait et al. (2011) ‘A Unique Iron-Sulfur Cluster is Crucial for Oxygen Tolerance of a [NiFe]-Hydrogenase’, Nature Chemical Biology doi:10.1038/nchembio.555 Wait, AF et al. (2011) ‘Formaldehyde-A Rapid and Reversible Inhibitor of Hydrogen Production by [FeFe]Hydrogenases’, Journal of the American Chemical Society 133, (5), 1282-1285 Wait, AF et al. (2010) ‘Characteristics of Enzyme-Based Hydrogen Fuel Cells Using an Oxygen-Tolerant Hydrogenase as the Anodic Catalyst’, Journal of Physical Chemistry C 114, (27), 1200312009 Olteanu, D & J Závodný (2011) ‘On Factorisation of Provenance Polynomials’, Proc. 3rd USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP), Heraklion, Crete Zocco, A & A Schekochihin ‘Reduced fluid-kinetic equations for low-frequency dynamics, magnetic reconnection and electron heating in low-beta plasmas’ arXiv:1104.4622v1 [physics.plasm-ph] MERTON SOCIETY MERTONIANS The Merton Society The Society’s year started in October with a drinks party in the City of London, held in freezing conditions on the open terrace of a wine bar in Broadgate. Mertonians, however, are not easily deterred and a hardy group of about 25 Mertonians braved the cold for an enjoyable gathering. Our annual London dinner at the Royal Society in November provided the opportunity for the Society to welcome the newly installed Warden and Lady Taylor. The presence of the new Warden was a compelling attraction, and 140 Mertonians and guests gathered in Carlton House Terrace. This was an appropriate setting for Sir Martin, himself a Past Vice President of the Royal Society. In his address he noted some significant numbers: the Royal Society celebrated its 350th anniversary in 2010, and Sir Martin spoke of his pleasure on learning that he was to become the 50th Warden, as Merton approaches its own 750th anniversary. The Warden was welcomed by Sir Brian Leveson (1967), presiding over his first event since assuming the Presidency of the Society. For the Society’s weekend in College on 2nd-3rd July, proceedings opened with the Warden’s Strawberry Tea, with the College and gardens resplendent in bright sunshine. We then moved to the TS Eliot Theatre, where new ground was broken as we welcomed the Shakespeare Schools Festival and a group of talented young actors from Penketh High School, near Warrington, who performed a 30-minute version of Othello, remarkably condensing Shakespeare’s play to achieve brevity without sacrificing either JO (1985) AND DECLAN WOODS AT THE T S ELIOT THEATRE OPENING intensity or vitality. Their performance was followed and complemented by Professor Richard McCabe whose analysis added immeasurably to our understanding and appreciation (firing this writer, at least, with an unaccustomed enthusiasm to revisit the original play). We are indebted to Professor McCabe, and to the Warden and Lady Taylor, whose encouragement played an important part in bringing this project to Merton. At dinner in Hall, Oliver Miles (1956) spoke about the situation in Libya and shared some reflections on his own experience as ambassador to Libya, including his departure in 1984 following the breaking off of diplomatic relations on the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Then on Sunday morning we returned to the TS Eliot Theatre where Professor Henry Mayr-Harting (1954) gave a captivating illustrated talk on art and power under the Ottonian Emperors, not only enlightening us as to the distinction between the rule of the Ottonian Emperors around the turn of the first millennium, and the Ottoman Empire several centuries later, but also impressing the audience with the wealth of understanding that can be drawn from observation of the art of the period. POSTMASTER | 2011 89 MERTONIANS MERTON SOCIETY FELLOWS, JONATHAN THACKER AND ALAN BARR AT THE 750TH ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN LAUNCH Looking ahead, we are planning a London drinks party on Thursday 13th October, at The Bunghole in Holborn, to which all Mertonians are welcome, particularly those who have recently graduated and are new to the Society’s events. Then on 18th November our London dinner will be held in the Middle Temple Hall. The Development Office will keep you fully informed, and the Alumni & Friends section of the college Merton Society Council President Sir Brian Leveson (1967) Vice Presidents Dame Jessica Rawson (1994) Mrs Judith Roberts AM Vickers (1958) Chairman SAL Tross Youle (1974) Secretary RB Peberdy (1975) 90 POSTMASTER | 2011 website is regularly updated with the latest news about future events. We are grateful to all of you who support our events, and we welcome your comments and your ideas for future Society events. The Society owes everything to those who help to run its programmes and I would like to thank the Development Office team of Christine Taylor, Helen Kingsley, Matt Bowdler, Daphne O’Connell, Rob Moss and Sarah Hood, our President Sir Brian Leveson, Secretary Robert Peberdy, Treasurer Cliff Webb, golf Chairman Tom Hennessy, year representatives’ leader Anna Smith and her team, our Council members, and the heads of the JCR and MCR. We are immensely grateful to our new Warden, who in the short time since his installation has already given such enthusiastic encouragement and support to our events, and we thank all of the College staff who look after us so well whenever we return to Merton. We give thanks too to Sir Michael Jenkins and Adrian Vickers, who stepped down last year after sterling service as, respectively, President and Chairman of the Society. They both deserve our enduring Treasurer CR Webb (1967), Bursar Past Presidents Sir Michael Jenkins OBE (1951) Sir Jeremy Isaacs (1951) Sir Robert Scott (1963) Lord Wright of Richmond GCMG (1951) WP Cooke CBE (1952) DW Swarbrick (1945) Sir Maurice Hodgson (1938) ED RANALLO (1967) AND RICHARD BOATS appreciation and gratitude for all that they have done for the Society over many years. Before closing I would draw your attention to the Society’s Compassionate Fund, which exists to offer assistance to Mertonians or their close relatives who find themselves in straitened circumstances. If you know of a case for consideration, do please contact the Development Office. Simon Tross Youle (1974) Council AJ Barr (2007, Fellow), JDS Booth (1976), AJ Bott (1953), RTF Crothers (1993), CAC Jenkins (1977), CL Jolly (1998), The Revd Dr Simon Jones (Chaplain), JAD Lamming (2004), RG McKelvey (1959), RMA Medill (1952), RO Miles (1956), PJ Parsons (1958), AL Smith (1991), Prof BN Winston (1960), HJ Woods (1983) and NL Wynn-Evans (1992) MC3 MC3 Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, was the setting for the MC3 Annual Meeting and Reunion over the April 1 weekend. This visit to the ‘Athens of America’ followed previous meetings in New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and Chicago. Mertonians welcomed the new Warden, Sir Martin Taylor and were delighted that he was accompanied by his gracious wife, Sharon. In a weekend of highlights, we were also privileged, thanks to the generosity of Reed Rubin, to greet the Merton choir and enjoy their inaugural appearances in the United States as they began a tour of well received concerts from Philadelphia to New York. The weekend began on Friday evening with a reception and dinner at the Vesper Boat House on Boathouse Row on the banks of the Schuylkill River. The venerable Boat House was bursting at the seams with over 100 in attendance. There were just a few short remarks but lovely choir performances both before and after dinner. Very few of those in attendance had heard the choir before and the wonder and delight were palpable. The Warden circulated bravely through the throng and met a great many old Mertonians and new friends. The annual meeting on Saturday morning was held in the elegant and historic former Board Room of the Pennsylvania Railroad. KATIE SHEEHAN (2002) AND CORY WAY (2003) MERTONIANS According to our custom, Board members, other Mertonians and significant others joined the meeting. The agenda was packed with meeting formalities, financial reports and plans for the future. In a noteworthy recognition of the enormous success of MC3 as it approached its third decade, it was decided that a committee of young alumni seasoned with a few middle-agers would conduct a serious analysis of how the institution should grow and thrive. Neil Brown agreed to serve as the chair of this important initiative. A deadline of 2014 for their report was set firmly in place. The financial report from Bob McKelvey showed that in 2010 MC3 received total contributions of $1.6 million from 130 of the approximately 800 Mertonians in the Americas. Major gifts support student scholarships ($1,045,000), the TS Eliot Theatre ($315,000) and the Jessica Rawson Fellowship ($136,000) plus approximately eight other projects. The MC3 portfolio enjoyed another successful year with a return of 12.8% building upon the 2009 return of 23.5% thereby erasing the decline during the 200708 financial crisis. The permanent portfolio value is $1.65 million. (This does not include funds earmarked for transmission to Merton in the near term.) This endowment supports the Permanent Programs MC3 has committed to fund each year including the Simms Bursaries (hardship aid), the Americas Scholar (a graduate scholarship), the Darden Junior Fellowship, and the Burwell Grant for Chinese Studies. The Warden and other representatives then provided an overview of Merton as its 750th anniversary approaches. Among other initiatives a £30 million capital campaign is under way to coincide with the historic POSTMASTER | 2011 91 MERTONIANS MC3 HELEN AND REG HALL (1954) AND HERMAN (1971) AND ALISON WILTON-SIEGEL anniversary. An Americas Campaign Committee, chaired by David Harvey, 1957, was announced as in formation. (Now completed and including Nicholas Allard, Marla Allard, Susan Cullman, David Hamer, Reginald Hall, Frank Keefe, John Kirby, Robert McKelvey, Peter Palmer, Dan Seymour, and Katie Sheehan.) After the meeting, Mertonians spread out to sample Philadelphia cuisine. We were all hampered in this quest by the refusal of our event chairman, Ed Ranallo, to divulge his favorite venue for the famous Philadelphia Cheese Steak on the dubious ground that it was all a matter of taste. We carried on with the extensive list of area restaurants he did provide. The most popular choice appeared to be the Oyster House for a bivalve feast. Following lunch, the Mertonians reconvened for a bus tour of 92 POSTMASTER | 2011 historic Philadelphia, complete with guides in 18th-century garb, to visit Independence Hall and the Old City. Later Saturday afternoon, the Merton choir gave its first formal concert at the elegant Old St Peter’s Church. A large crowd of Philadelphians joined Mertonians to applaud a splendid concert of ancient and modern music. Dinner Saturday was at the reunion headquarters for the weekend, the Philadelphia landmark, the Union League. Approximately 85 Mertonians and partners attended the reception and dinner that featured the Warden’s lively description of events at Merton during his inaugural year and the changes coming to the British educational system as a result of the increasing fiscal constraints on government support of higher education. JOHN KIRBY (1962) On Sunday morning we had a privately guided tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, concluding with a light luncheon on the museum’s balcony. Many Mertonians, including the Warden, stayed on both at the Museum and in Philadelphia but the meeting was officially at an end. Committee chair, Ed Ranallo and committee members, Charles Scudder and Craig Smith were warmly thanked for their work in organizing this splendid program. John J Kirby Jr (1962) MERTON IN THE CITY Merton in the City The third meeting of Merton in the City was held on 9th June at the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers near Embankment. We were informed and entertained by Alan Giles (1972) as our guest speaker who spoke to the intriguing title: ‘Never mind the quality, feel the loyalty points’. Alan provided both a brief retrospective of his own career in retail, together with a thoughtful analysis of the current and future challenges facing the sector. Alan began by taking us on a whistlestop tour through his fascinating and wideranging career, starting from unpromising beginnings (for a retailer) as a Physics undergraduate. He provided examples of his varied experience, from imposing his taste on the nation’s women as an ‘electrical beauty’ buyer through to meeting the Queen in his role as Managing Director at Waterstones. In his role as Chief Executive of the HMV Group, Alan described the lows of renegotiating his banking agreements together with the highs of a Stock Exchange flotation. Latterly in his career, Alan was able to draw on his experience as Chairman of Fat Face, Non-Executive Director at Rentokil Initial, Non-Executive Board Member at the Office of Fair Trading and Tutor on the MBA programme at Oxford. Alan devoted the majority of his speech to the current and future issues facing retailing, emphasising the important role that the retail industry plays in the UK economy. In terms of the overall context of retailing, Alan reminded us of the importance of this highly successful sector which represents 8% of UK GDP and 11% of UK employees. He started talking about the move from provision of goods to provision of services. Companies such as Dixons and Boots Opticians were quoted as examples of companies successfully moving more towards the potentially higher margin, less competitive services area. One of the key players in the UK retail sector, Tesco, accounts for £1 of every £7 spent in the UK market. Alan noted that ‘services’ would contribute some 15% to Tesco Group profits this year; indeed Tesco’s ‘Finest’ and ‘Value’ brands were used to market their broadband offerings. The talk highlighted the growing realisation of the responsibility to society of the retail sector. Marks & Spencer set a benchmark with their Plan A campaign in 2007 which contained 100 commitments, of which 62 are described as having now been delivered. Alan emphasised that this initiative was clearly not born out of altruism given that it had generated some £50 million profit this year! He noted that the sector faces very significant sustainability issues, ranging from the refrigeration and building/ decommissioning challenges of retail sites to the intensive use of fertilisers and water for products such as cotton. He also saw retailers as being in the firing line, bearing some of the brunt of society’s broader concerns on issues such as binge drinking and obesity. On another issue, low-cost sourcing had been shown to have its social responsibility challenges and Alan MERTONIANS commented on the difficulties for retailers in successfully ‘policing’ factories. Another issue which was touched upon was multi-channel retailing where nearly a quarter of UK sales were online and, perhaps more surprisingly, where the UK had the highest per capita spend online in the world. However the choice was not a straightforward one; research suggested that the most valuable customers are those who use all main channels, and that customers move backwards and forwards between channels so rendering the current delineation increasingly irrelevant. Loyalty cards were in the title of the speech and were discussed in some detail and, in particular, the insights that retailers obtain from these types of scheme. Tesco Clubcard was launched in 1995 and now some 80% of Tesco transactions are made using this card. Research suggests that the take-up rates on offers made via the Clubcard range between 20% and 50%, compared to a miserly average 2% for direct mailing. Alan noted some of the concerns raised regarding the increasingly ubiquitous loyalty card, both in terms of the extent of potential invasion of privacy but also moves towards customer-specific pricing where different prices are charged to different groups. In one retail chain in the United States, analysis indicates that the majority of discounts go to only 30% of the customers. We moved on to the issue of how the modern world of retail provides consumer empowerment; a world where smartphones allow consumers to search prices in store via the barcode and where retailer websites operated by the likes of ASOS and Mothercare seek to attract and retain customers by encouraging them POSTMASTER | 2011 93 MERTONIANS GOLF SOCIETY (respectively) to discuss fashion trends and issues for expectant and new mothers. Alan finished with a somewhat sobering take on the question “What will the high street look like in 2025?” His answer was that we will need to work hard to avoid town centre wastelands; stores will need a real sense of local identity together with easy access and retailers will need to provide a ‘breathtaking instore experience.’ The audience thoroughly enjoyed the balance Alan struck between serious messages regarding the retail sector and some entertaining anecdotes – some of us who ‘enjoyed’ the TV advert Alan showed for the unlamented Do-it-All retail chain were struck by how much advertising had moved on since the 1980s. The evening was wrapped up with a spirited question and answer session, followed by drinks and canapés courtesy of our hosts. Richard Weaver (1983) Merton Golf Society I am very happy to report that the College Golf Society is in good health, and even happier to report that our Merton College team are the reigning champions for 2011-12 in the University Inter-Collegiate Tournament – more details later. Our year began on 24th September, again at Frilford Heath Golf Club, on a welcome fine day with the course in good condition and a reasonable field of 21 players, including guests, who continued to produce improving scores, which has been a feature of our outings over the past couple of years as we have become better acquainted with the perils offered by the Red course. The morning’s 18-hole Stableford was won by Mike Renton (1956) with 35 points. Runner-up with 33 points was Mike Jenkins, who over the years has tended to pick up prizes. The nine-hole afternoon greensome competition with prizes of Merton mugs was won by Richard Allen and Roger Gould (both 1959) with a high score of 18 points. Seventeen of us including wives and guests and our two loyal supporters Christine Taylor and Helen Kingsley from the Development Office, 94 POSTMASTER | 2011 retired to the College in the evening for our customary reception and dinner. Although March this year was a fine and dry month, there was a forecast of heavy rain for our Spring meeting on Friday 18th March. Rain it did with a vengeance, but our golfers battled on manfully. Mark Price (1964), who has been showing improving form of late, took the honours with a score of 37 points in the morning’s Stableford – a very creditable performance in the conditions. Bill Ford (1975), recently TOM HENNESSY (53) RECEIVES THE CUP FROM ST PETER’S FELLOW OLIVER NOBEL-WOOD. ALSO, (LEFT TO RIGHT) RICHARD ALLAN (1959), MARK PRICE (1964) AND ADRIAN VICKERS (1958) GOLF SOCIETY TIM PHILLIPS (1960) ROGER GOULD (1959) AND RICHARD ALLAN (1959) returned from a golfing holiday in Florida, was second with 33. Fortunately the rain stopped at lunchtime and fine spring weather returned, encouraging Brian Roberts-Ray (1956) to win the mugs. The latter’s kitchen must be taking on a distinctly Mertonian hue – he always seems to be collecting College mugs in the afternoon competitions. Thirteen of us enjoyed our usual reception and dinner in College. The 14th Inter-Collegiate Competition was held on 8th April, played on the Red and Blue courses at Frilford Heath, with 144 competitors from 17 colleges. I was delighted to be able to field a full team of ten nominated players plus two reserves. The weather was lovely and both courses were in first-class condition, and perhaps at their most benign having been prepared for the PGA European Challenge Competition the following week, with the rough cut back etc. Happily our team took to their tasks with enthusiasm and no little skill, providing a score of 205 points which represented the total of the best six scores returned, giving us a commanding lead over strong teams from Christ Church and Pembroke (199 each). Our hero figures were Paul Chamberlain (Fellow) 38 points, Nick Silk (1960) 35, Bill Ford 34, John Gloag (Fellow) 34, David Holmes (1966) 34 and John Mitchell (1955) 30. The others MERTONIANS in the team were Adrian Vickers (1958), Mark Price, Michael Edwards (1956) and Ed Martley (1975), with reserves Jim Mackie (1955) and Richard Allan. We didn’t achieve any of the individual prizes but it was a splendid and consistent team effort, reflecting the hard work we have been putting in over the years at Frilford. Hertford proved the most convivial and generous hosts at a reception and dinner, where I was happy and proud to receive the cup supported by Messrs Vickers, Allan and Price and of course our number one supporter Helen. A very satisfactory result overall, I believe. We have of course featured well in the competition before, having been joint first once, second three times and third twice. All in all a good and most enjoyable year, and there is room for both future success and expansion. We will continue to take part in these three annual events – so if you haven’t already done so, why not join us? Tom Hennessy (1953) POSTMASTER | 2011 95 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | UP TO 1948 News of Old Members Up to 1948 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: MICHAEL MILLARD 35 Armorial Road, Coventry, Warwickshire, CV3 6GH Tel: 02476 414776 The reward of being a year correspondent is the pleasure of reading so many (51) interesting letters. The frustration is that of being able to pass on only a little of the information received. A strong thread through many of this year’s letters is the fondness for the College that many of us have. My wife Elizabeth and I spent a delightful evening at the home of Guy (1948) and Mary Harris in the company of David (1947) and Rosemary Tristram. Guy writes that he progresses from integer to statistic but not yet a cipher. David spent about 20 years with Guinness in Ireland before returning to England. He has since been running a plant nursery: he produces quite exciting hybrids. John Barnes (1942) writes to say that he gave up as a gliding instructor at the age of 70. At some time he represented England against Scotland in fencing. He finally stopped work in the medical profession at the age of 77. He comments that the NHS would be brilliant if patients would stop interrupting the smooth flow of the paperwork. Trevor Fletcher’s (1940) letter emphasises contrasts: between putting his music recordings into a box the size of a lady’s handbag which will hold the recordings of a lifetime and the dozen or so 78s he played in College on a hand-cranked machine; that today’s undergraduates face financial worries whereas his two scholarships (Postmaster and State) left him with none; that Merton taught him that a university was not just for getting a degree. James Midwood (1947) and his wife enjoy cruising; in fact they and I were on the same ship this year but did not meet. He plans a visit to Newfoundland this year to stay with his brother-in-law Jim Greene (1949). When home, he is treasurer of his parish church. His grandchildren give him pleasure but he comments that they appear to face a depressing future, though perhaps our grandparents thought likewise. Philip Blakeley (1937) and his wife find their travelling is limited but they went on a cruise last year and are contemplating another. 96 POSTMASTER | 2011 Francis Cory-Wright (1947) writes from Little Gaddesden with a copy of a newsletter of the Dacorum Heritage Trust of which he is a founding director; lots of archaeological work in Hertfordshire which, as an Old Albanian, I found interesting. Lawrence Lyle (1941), since retiring from school teaching, has been Tours Officer of the Historical Association and has for many years been closely concerned with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. He and his wife hope to complete a final book on Canterbury for the History Press. He is also an Honorary Steward of the Cathedral. John Byrt (1947) retired from the Bench in 1999 and since then has been the legal member of the ABTA tribunal. He is also a trustee of the Cotswold Community Trust which provides a home and education for malfunctioning or abused boys aged 8-16. Like many of us, he is glad to be alive and well. Brian Campbell (1947) enjoys retirement, still plays the trumpet, and is still Vice-President of the Royal National College for the Blind. I am sorry to say that I received a letter from David Taylor telling me that his father Christopher Taylor (1940) died peacefully on 11th January 2011. There were two Old Mertonians at the funeral and all the flowers were chosen in Merton colours. I also had a letter from Adele Crowder, the widow of Christopher Crowder (1941), of whom there is an obituary elsewhere in Postmaster. Michael Hinton (1945) spent 35 years school teaching and then ten years as a Church of England priest. In 2008 he produced ‘The 100-minute Bible’. He is still in touch with Leonard Allinson (1944) and John Owens (1944). Leonard Allinson is gardening keenly with results that are pleasing both to the eye and to the palate. He writes that he is in touch with John Owens and Michael Hinton but problems of hearing discourage him from attending Merton gatherings. Ralph Thornton (1942) retired after 41 years at Warwick School. He regrets that all his close friends at Merton are no more. Hilary Rubenstein (1944) is happy and in good health. He is still in touch with Anthony Curtis (1944), Shanker Bajpai (1941), and Roger Bannister (1950). Anthony Curtis writes briefly to say that he knows nothing of the ‘lost boys’. For one who lives so far away NEWS | UP TO 1948 Shanker Bajpai communicates with an unexpectedly large number of Mertonians; the list includes Digby Neave (1948), Michael Briggs (1944), Charles Hennessy (1947), Hilary Rubenstein and Anthony Curtis. It has been difficult to pick out salient details of his own two brilliant careers in his Government’s service and in academia. My taste for trivia leads me to mention that his elder son was educated at Stowe and Loughborough and is an American whereas his younger son was educated in America but is a British citizen. Gerald Winzer (1947) recalls experiences in India before coming up to Merton and reminds me of our latest meeting at a Gaudy some years ago. John Sassoon (1947) clearly had a most interesting career in Africa. At one time he was given a tie by Milton Obote to which he was not entitled but which he was commanded to wear on certain occasions. Mark Lowth (1944) wrote with memories of Brian Chapple and two names on the missing list. He makes the interesting comment that his grandchildren consider him seriously crazy; the reason being that they learnt that on leaving the army he refused offers at both Oxford and Cambridge. Food for thought surely? Thomas Shiner (1943), like Mark Lowth, did not return to Merton after War Service. Brian Chapple (1948) tells us that after a career in education and time spent in municipal work he is now one of the first Honorary Aldermen of Solihull Borough. Cataract operations have improved his vision of his bridge hands but do not seem to have improved his play. Harry Corben (1944), though in College for only a few months, recalls interesting details of the College and Oxford in 1945. Later he became a Board member of Merton College in Merton. Gerald Dearden (1941) writes that although he and his wife are largely immobilised, they enjoy the help and company of their son and daughter. Their grandchildren, all at university, find it difficult to believe accounts of wartime life at Merton. Michael Keating-Hill (1940) reports he is still in touch with Maurice Hodgson (1938), Michael Palliser (1940) and David Swarbrick (1945). His present interests are economics, gardening, wine and ornithology. In a brief note Lionel Stevens (1948) mentions occasional phone conversations with David Swarbrick. John McOmie (1943) says that since last year he and his wife are content to lead a quiet life. Many of us will sympathise with his comment that Richmond Hill (Bristol) seems to get a little steeper every year. OLD MEMBERS Alan Longmore (1947) writes that he and his wife live a quiet life visited by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; contentment fails to produce news: but he exchanges letters with Peter Croft (1947). Philip Holden (1943) is now alone and learning to walk again after a stroke but four out of his five children are at hand to help out. Of his 11 grandchildren, two are at university. He supports the Bournemouth Orchestra and the Dartmouth Yacht Club and attends naval gatherings. Nicholas Jaco (1938) writes from Ontario where he spends his summer fishing and painting: he celebrated his 90th birthday motoring round Skye and the highlands and then round his native Cornwall. Gordon Wallace (1944) recalls being taught by Medawar, Florey and Chain. After a career in pathology, retirement has been spent mainly camping or caravanning in Scotland. But now hill walking is at an end and as a widower his ‘activities’ are confined to bowls, bridge and the Telegraph crossword. Christopher Middleton (1948) is still writing and publishing poetry. At the International Poetry Festival in Istanbul he found himself reciting poems amid a vociferous crowd of trippers on a Bosphorus ferry boat. Ronald Russell (1943) values his memories of Merton. It is 17 years since he was lecturing in Cambridge for the extra-mural department but he and Jill continue to represent UK interest on the Advisory Board of the Monroe Institute which is involved in the investigation of human consciousness; in recent years he has edited two books dealing with this work. Ian Bucklow (1943) writes that after retirement in 1990 he joined the Materials Science Department at Cambridge where he still has a corner of a lab and half an office. He finds cycling up Cambridge’s only hill increasingly difficult. Hubert Gale (1945) was at one time a lecturer in Safety and Radiation Protection at Nottingham University: I guess he may have interesting opinions about recent events. At present he helps out at a coffee room attached to a city centre church. Lionel Lewis (1946) is still working, with his son, in the family business of picture framing: the Ashmolean and Christ Church are among their regular customers. He is in touch, sometimes by meeting, sometimes by cards, with John Rhodes (1946), Ken Poole (1947) and with Geoffrey Kidson (1946), who has also written. I have also had a long and interesting letter about his past career from Hans Andersson (1947). The most interesting event POSTMASTER | 2011 97 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1949 in his recent days has been an invitation from the Warden to the launch of the 750th Anniversary Campaign. Sadly two of our number write to say they are unwell: namely John Jones (1942) and Ian Young (1947). Ian adds that he is well cared for. Christopher Rose-Innes (1943) tells me that he keeps well and is still sculpting. Michael Woods (1944) describes his present life as being ‘without noise, without bustle, without fame’ though both letters and crosswords have appeared in Oxford Today over the years. John Rhodes reports general good health: after retiring as a clergyman he spent some years giving holiday cover but now only reads the lesson occasionally. Again Frank Palmer (1948) remains in good health though his wife is not one hundred percent. Nigel Sanders (1948) and his wife have moved to a ‘retirement village’ which is very good. He reflects that 60 years from Merton he is once again in a ‘one age group’ community: but now those looking after him are now a generation or two below instead of the reverse. Ralph Feltham (1940) is currently giving advice to a European Government on the training of young diplomats. He was also pleased to have the eighth edition of his Diplomatic Handbook translated into Albanian: bringing the total number of translations to a satisfactory ten. Roger Highfield (1948) writes that he has celebrated his 89th birthday. He tells me that Michael Wood (as in Kibworth) is now an honorary Mertonian. Klaver Toalster (1948) reports the reception of one excellent jar of marmalade on visiting Duncan Cloud (1948) and another one on visiting a bridge player whom he originally met via the computer. After a visit to Spain he is now hooked on the Basque language. David Morris-Marsham (1948) has recently visited Egypt which was delightfully free of tourists, for the simple reason that the revolution had just taken place. He has returned. On a chance meeting in Front Quad last year I was talking to a College Fellow, just a little younger than me, and he expressed the opinion that retirement was an occupation for ‘the younger man’. 98 POSTMASTER | 2011 1949 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ALASTAIR PORTER 4 Savill Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 2NX Tel: 01444 482001. Email: [email protected] Given our age group, it is sadly almost an annual duty to report the death of at least one of our number, and this year we mourn the loss of Roger Titheridge, a distinguished QC and a very supportive Mertonian. A tribute to Roger appears elsewhere in these pages. On a happier note, it is always a pleasure to hear from members living overseas, since we cannot expect to meet up with them very often. That may be less true of Ian Macpherson since he now has grandparental reasons to travel to the UK from Hong Kong from time to time. Ian reflects that living in Hong Kong can arouse a feeling of being surrounded by other countries’ disasters – floods in Australia, earthquakes in New Zealand and China, and then the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. He expresses his admiration for the fortitude of those most affected, and the Japanese in particular. Hugh Sackett, although based in the USA, spends much of his time in Greece, and was in touch after two months in Crete. He still lectures at Groton MA on the archaeology of Greece and the Aegean but spends six months a year on field work – mostly in Palaikastro on the east coast of Greece – and strives to keep up with the publications programme connected with his work. He did manage to return to Merton for the opening of the TS Eliot Theatre since he and his two Mertonian brothers had endowed a seat in memory of their father AB Sackett who was a friend of Eliot’s 90plus years ago. Jack Dixon, writing from Canada, is also very active, having travelled for a family birthday party to rural Manitoba where the temperature at the time was -30°C and he tried his hand at ice fishing. Jack was sad to report the demise of the Air Cadet Foundation which he established in 2008 with high hopes that were never fulfilled. He is working on his next book on Disobeying Orders in War and would be happy to receive any appropriate contributions. Back in the UK, Ian Skeet reports that he is well but without news and Robert Andrew reports only pride in a second set of twin grandchildren. Dan McNicol is happy to record that his church has at last been blessed with a new minister after two years without one – a problem that seems to cross national and denominational boundaries. John Lowis rejoices in at last finding time to travel, and NEWS | 1952 is looking forward to a trip to St Petersburg – a city that assuredly will live up to his expectations. Hugh Podger has also joined the travellers and enjoyed an extensive tour of the Far East, but has returned to his considerable involvement in church duties, which now include membership of the Winchester Bishop’s Council. Hugh is a regular at the Merton London dinner where we meet regularly and hope to do so again (with other forty-niners?) on 18th November. Hal Miller has retired from the RFU Council on the basis of anno domini and has turned his attention to the charity world by becoming a Trustee of Age Concern in Bromyard, which he describes as a ‘surprisingly deprived area’. He confesses to some disillusionment with the way in which the charitable sector operates but is happier to report his pro-planet initiative in installing solar photovoltaic panels at home. Charities – mostly of a small and relatively anonymous nature that deserve support – have Tony Price’s attention along with his garden, which keeps him busy and healthy. As befits a successful novelist, he endorses the observation of the old Turk in Candide that work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty. As for myself (Alastair Porter), a great deal of my time seems to disappear in supporting our local U3A – the University of the Third Age, for those who have not found one of its 800 branches. There is always a role there awaiting anyone who is prepared to offer to research and present a subject of general interest such as the story of the Victoria Cross, my most recent offering, which can be found on page 54 of Postmaster. 1952 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ROGER MEDILL 4 The Lennards, South Cerney, Cirencester, GL7 5UX Tel: 01285 862862 An interesting letter from Tony Bailey spoke of a visit to Merton by a 36-year old Francis Kilvert, mentioned in his diary. He enjoyed “the famous terrace walk upon the old city walls” and admired “the celebrated lime avenue”, but his idyllic Merton garden moment was shattered by a noisy company of men and boys using willow wands to ‘beat the bounds’. Does this still happen? I looked it up in Brewer, who records “in a few parishes on Ascension Day.” Tony’s latest book Velazquez and the surrender of Breda is OLD MEMBERS out later this year. He encountered Jeremy Isaacs (1951), Alan Brownjohn (1950) and Edmund Ions (1953) in lively form at a memorial occasion in May. He also keeps in touch with Cy Fox, the world Vorticist expert, who in his latest card to me described himself as ‘the wandering Fox’, having sold his house and not yet ‘gone to earth’. Peter and Julia Cooke came to lunch with us recently and Patrick and Virginia Wright (1951), on a West Country tour to visit friends, dropped in to tea. I envied them their planned Hellenic cruise together, with my 55-year-old memories of acting as courier on several Hellenic air cruises to Athens, Rhodes and Crete. Thirty passengers on our Viking aircraft, flying at eight thousand feet, with four stops for fuel… those were the days! I keep in regular touch with Colin Allinson (1953), and Hugh and Georgina Seymour-Davies, whose latest travels have been to Vietnam and Turkey, the latter “offering a bridge between Europe and Asia, carrying the major trade routes and providing the battlegrounds… Urfa grew rich as the hinge between the Persian and Byzantine empires.” Jack and Judy Justice recently returned to Santa Fe (I like their address: Coyote Pass Road) from a trip to Italy where they enjoyed a week in Rome followed by the “splendid hospitality of Jeremy and Gilliam Isaacs at their holiday home in Umbria.” From Carter Revard, Professor Emeritus of English in Arts and Sciences, I have receieved what I can best describe as an exuberant gallimaufry, positively bubbling over the scholarly reference, conjecture and critique. The origins of language, medieval history, significance of poetry and many other topics spring forth, agreeably spiced throughout with wit and humour. The four-week course for international writers at the Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland, to which Carter has been invited will evidently be a lively affair, as well as giving him an opportunity to complete a collection of his poems entitled From the Extinct Volcano, a Bird of Paradise. A surprising title, but I can vouch wholeheartedly for the quality of Carter’s verse. He also mentions attending the golden wedding anniversary of Tony and Sylvia Marland, along with Ian McMichael, Cedric Andrews, Gordon Whittle, Stuart McGregor and Ray Quinlan. Finally, a sad memory came through contact with Paul Curtis Hayward (1978), son of William, a fellow English student with me, scholar, poet, novelist, described by his Tutor as a born literary critic. He took his own life at the age of 37. His sons, Paul and Michael, were pupils at my school, Rendcomb College. POSTMASTER | 2011 99 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1953 1953 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: TOM HENNESSY 25 Church Cottages, Faringdon Road, Tubney, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX13 5QJ Email: [email protected] Another year has passed and it seems that most of our 1953 matriculands are coping well with life’s vicissitudes in various parts of the world. None more so than David Ellison who wrote from Christchurch, New Zealand about the frightening experience of the first earthquake at 4.35 am on 4th September 2010, later to be faced with a much bigger one this year. His letter enclosed a newspaper cutting of an interview he gave about a charitable trust which he set up following a stroke 15 years ago. This – the David Ellison Charitable Trust – is now valued at $3 million and supports various causes throughout the world. He says the inspiration came from another Mertonian, Leonard Cheshire VC (1936), one of his war heroes. I am sure we all wish him well and continued success. Our ‘Mad Cyclist’ Peter Dalton reports that he has had his troubles, particularly when a post-operative infection kept him in hospital for more than three weeks. But now, after physiotherapy, he is back on the bike, riding one-handed through his beloved lanes around Ashby-de-la-Zouch in anticipation of eventually resuming his Merton-bound trips. The Midlands debating group, i.e. Peter and Ray Peacock and Pamela, Pauline Fletcher and Colin Battell, still lunch together regularly and put the world to rights. Nearer home, I learn from John Shore in Abingdon that he has been living in the same house and attending the same church for 35 years, and looks forward to his forthcoming golden wedding celebration. He has recently achieved a boyhood ambition of sailing through the Panama Canal, and has finally given up ‘amdram’, but can still be found singing with a choir in Witney and will no doubt be taking part in the Boat Club activities this summer. Alan Bott expressed his delight in discovering Edward Blore’s drawing (c. 1840) of the Chapel restoration, which is described elsewhere. He will be giving a NADFAS lecture tour in New Zealand in March 2012, which includes one in Christchurch arranged by David Ellison, the Canon Almoner, and Peter Beck (1966), the Dean, for the restoration of the cathedral spire after earthquake damage. 100 POSTMASTER | 2011 John Roberts (JCQ) writes from Chelsea, saying that there is ‘life in us old dogs yet’. He made a trip to Moscow to celebrate the 80th birthday gala, at the Bolshoi, of Gennady Rozhdestvensky, a former chief conductor of the BBSO, who has done much to promote British music in Russia, including the complete Vaughan Williams symphonic cycle. While there, John translated some children’s poems, which lack of space prevents me from including here. He is currently, at the request of the Chelsea Society, preparing an article on a neighbourhood literary and musical salon frequented by Artur Rubinstein, Henry James, Diaghilev, Boris Chaliapin, Pablo Casals and others. So there is indeed plenty of life in this old canine. Bill McCulloh, writing from Gambier, Ohio, says that his brother was delighted to hear of the appointment of our new Warden whom he had encountered while teaching maths at the University of Illinois. Now himself retired from academia, Bill is preparing to be a heavy lifter at the forthcoming extensive exhibition of his wife Pat’s paintings and prints. Our near neighbour, Tony Verdin, continues to live an active life. With Araminta he has made visits to Oman and South Africa, and France (twice). The last was a short visit to Araminta’s holiday home in the South of France, which was bought by her father many years ago and into which my brother Charles Hennessy (1947) and others helped him to move. Tony shows great spirit and is now looking forward to this year’s Merton Society Weekend. We have been very happy to continue to maintain contact with many Merton friends. Mike Jenkins and Jackie have stayed with us during some of the golf meetings and we are looking forward to visiting them in Sevenoaks in June. Edmund Ions has been over from St Gallen and we are still waiting to hear him a give a recital when he eventually passes his Upper Mountain Yodelling Certificate B, Grade 4. Christopher Thomson and Daphne came for a couple of days last summer, when with other friends we visited Kelmscott Manor, not far from here, in beautiful weather. They also enjoyed catching up with Rod Reynolds and Luisa while on a visit to Lisbon – Rod has now sold his cork farms and retired to the coast. We met Roger Medill (1952) with mutual friends to sample the delights of the Bay Tree in Burford, where he gave us news of Colin Allinson. More recently we were delighted to be visited by Peter Cooke (1952) and Julia, who were just about to go on a Swan Hellenic cruise with Patrick Wright (1951) and Virginia. NEWS | 1954 We have just heard a most interesting lecture in the impressive TS Eliot Theatre to mark the donation of the Sandy Irvine (1921) archive to the College by the Irvine family. The lecture was given by his great-niece and biographer Julie Summers. We were struck by the likeness of the photographs of Sandy Irvine to his nephew Andrew Irvine who came up with us in 1953, sparking happy memories. 1954 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: DICK LLOYD 2 Brook Cottages, Sherford, Kingsbridge, Devon, TQ7 2AX Tel: 01548 531068 Fax: 01548 531951 Email: [email protected] In view of the opening comments of my 2010 report, perhaps I should begin by saying that even I have now accepted email. I have had a good response this year and I am pleased that a few of you have livened up your current news with anecdotes from your life after Merton. David Barber, writing in April, says that the climate in Vermont went from deep snow to mud, so I hope he is now basking in some sunshine. Adrian Esdaile will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination as a Church of England priest next year. He has been assiduously devoting his energies to courses in Art History, which has involved travel to several European Centres of Art. He is currently writing a dissertation on Illuminated Manuscripts with a focus on the Book of Hours 1400-1550. John Garrard also has a half a century achievement, as a professor, and is now Emeritus in Russian Studies at the University of Arizona. I have his (and his wife’s) very well researched book on Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent and very much enjoyed it. John has also had his earlier book on the life and fate of Vassily Grossman, chief correspondent for the Red Army during WWII, entitled The Bones of Berlicher, translated into Italian and Spanish. He is intrigued by the Spanish interest, but maybe it is the Communist connection. The book was named the recipient of the 2009 Giovanni Comisso Prize for the best biography printed in Italian – another for my reading list. Reg Hall is full of praise for hip replacement surgery in the UK rather than the US and, with two new hips dating from 1999 and OLD MEMBERS 2003, I can confirm this! He has also sent me some reminiscences concerning his life working for multinational companies, when he needed to investigate sources for seaweed that was converted to gum for the processed food industry. The trail led him to the Philippines, which he was advised against visiting because of the presence of guerrillas: Communist, Islamic and opportunist. Travelling in an Indonesian Air Force plane over the Sulu Sea, he queried why the pilot was plotting a roundabout route through the islands and the reply was that the guerrillas were well armed and would love to bag an Air Force plane. They finally landed and were accompanied around some malodorous warehouses by a gang of teenage soldiers, but he survived. He came back realising how the other half lived and that there was no shortage of seaweed. Mike Jordan, who commutes between homes in London, Paris and the South of France, is still engaged in promoting his considerable knowledge and experience of banking. He is currently advising the Vietnamese Central Bank on updating their banking systems, a project financed by Swiss Aid. Henry Mayr-Harting has published a book, one of a series by Pearson Education, entitled Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1066-1272. This was a work which he was commissioned to do and, somewhat tardy in its execution, he received an ultimatum in 2007 to complete it, which he finally achieved in 2010; as he puts it himself: “The last and the least of the apostles.” Robin Purdue, who has not communicated for some time, has made up for this slight deficiency by sending me an hilarious account of the floating of a Dutch barge from Holland to the UK, which he had decided to add to his existing cruising fleet of two narrow boats. For this he hired the services of a supposedly experienced skipper and engineer. They succeeded in getting the barge out of Holland and as far as Dunkirk by hugging the coast but then they hit fog. They got hopelessly lost, and terrifyingly fogbound, and ended up back in Dunkirk grounded on a sandbank. They sought aid from a tug company who failed to shift it, and the ‘skipper’ having proved worse than useless, Robin decided to trail Dunkirk himself, becoming, in his own words, more and more dishevelled. He acquired the name le vieux pecheur and, at one stage, being taken as a fraternal delegate from England by the striking French dockers resulted in warm welcomes and many handshakes. Finally he found a guy with a tracked excavator who succeeded in digging the old barge out and refloating it at 3 o’clock in the morning, when the tide was just right. Robin cruised the barge on the Thames for POSTMASTER | 2011 101 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1954 some time, enabling him to revisit Merton from the river, and now it is in France available for cruising. For anyone interested, contact Robin at [email protected]. Ted Mullins, despite deteriorating eyesight, still amazingly manages to continue his work as an author and will publish shortly yet another book on historical France. The book is entitled Roman Provence, and if it is as good as his previous works, which I am sure that it will be, it will be well worth reading. The research for this book involved frequent forays into forests in search of lost temples and lunches in the shade of aqueducts, accompanied by his wife, Anne, and their golden retriever, who he says would win a world record for swimming under more Roman bridges than any other canine. Mike Rines has also been involved in literary pursuits, editing and publishing a book entitled Sown with Corn; a novel written by Frank Binder, a former master at Scarborough School for Boys, where Mike underwent his pre-Oxford education. Binder had lectured at Bonn University during the rise of the Nazis and, because the hero of the book is a student there, it is clearly semiautobiographical. Professor Ian Kershaw, an old Mertonian who wrote the two-volume massive biography of Hitler, says that the book might offer insights into the rise of the Nazis, thus avoiding the reading of extensive non-fictional literature on the subject. I have read the book and found it so intriguing that I could not put it down until I had finished it. Anyone interested to buy a copy can contact Mike on [email protected]. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in WWII history. David Watson has celebrated 40 years as a Reader at the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. His wife, Pam, has happily survived a very serious illness with much support from family and friends, and they are getting back to their remarkable joint work on prison visits. Peter Westwood is another with some fascinating recollection of his early days as a District Officer in Fiji. He was due to sail out there in October 1957 when, visiting Crown Agents simply to find out about baggage, he was suddenly informed that he must be ready to fly within a few days. He did so in First Class on a Qantas Super Constellation four-engined turbo-prop, only to find no one expected his arrival. He was posted to an Indian sugar cane area in the Northern territory, where a DO was urgently needed. One of his duties was to sit as a magistrate, settling disputes over boundaries and family quarrels, well aware that the wily Indian lawyers knew 102 POSTMASTER | 2011 much more about the local law than he did. He assiduously studied the local language, preferring that to joining in the exclusively allwhite social round, and it stood him in good stead. District Officers were accorded the status of a Chief and when he arrived to visit a village on official business there would be a lot of ceremonial speech-making, the speaker being obliged to hold a special whale’s tooth accompanied by the passing round of a locally prepared drink called ‘Yangona’, made from the crushed root of the plant mixed with water out of a long bamboo. The Fijians were devout Christians and Peter was accorded a place of honour in the front of the church, and on one occasion, to his total surprise and consternation, the minister announced that, as District Officer, he would preach the sermon! He somehow got through it, with his limited Fijian, and was congratulated afterwards on the fact that he had preached the shortest sermon that the congregation had ever heard. I haven’t really any news this year, so I will recall one of my early forays as a young and inexperienced export salesman. Due to my having acquired a limited knowledge of Spanish, I was sent out to Peru, Bolivia and Chile in 1959. After a 42-hour flight in a KLM Super Constellation (first class, of course), there was nobody to meet me at Lima airport and no hotel reservation. The agent turned out to be a general trading company with no interest whatsoever in my visit, so I ended up having a flaming row with the Managing Director and got some action at least. When my boss in London received my report, he wrote a furious letter to them and the reply came back: “What do you expect when you send an immature young schoolboy out here?” However, I cashed in my direct air ticket from Lima to La Paz, travelled in an unpressurised Dakota to Cuzco, visited Machu Picchu over the weekend and continued my trip to La Paz by train, crossing Lake Titicaca in an old paddle steamer built in Hull in 1905 and assembled on site after being carried up to the lake in pieces by pack mules. All at business expense! I have heard from quite a number of other ’54 vintage folk, including David Gilchrist, Gerard Greene, Mike Jordan, John Parr, John Wells and John Wallace, and would like to thank them for keeping in touch. NEWS | 1955 OLD MEMBERS 1955 1956 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: JOHN MITCHELL OBE The Hedges, Church Road, Fernhurst, Haslemere, Surrey, GU27 3HZ Tel: 01428 652113 Email: [email protected] YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: RICHARD KENYON Four Winds, Dalehouse Lane, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, CV8 2JZ Tel: 02476 419622 Email: [email protected] I am indebted to the pair of old faithfuls who wrote in reply to mine. Hopefully, 1955 will do better next year. David Clayton ‘quietly boasts’ of the publication in 2011 of the second book he has written since his retirement from a Burnley headship, Lost Farms of Brinscall Moors, which deals with the farms’ declines in the late 19th century and the most interesting walks. In 1971, he had written an academic book, Britain and the Eastern Question, Missalonghi to Gallipoli, so this recent book was hobby as distinct from work-based. Indeed, retirement has allowed time for the exercise of two passions, long-distance walking and singing, the former in the company of Mertonian Paul Jennings (1960) in the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. Singing has had its delights too, including two splendid concerts in Merton Chapel in 2008 and in 2009 given by the chamber choir from Bolton (the Brixi Singers), whose Chairman and leading bass David is. He is greatly looking forward to the choral perfomances in the Chapel during July’s Merton Society Weekend. Dermot Killingley returned to Vienna in November 2010 to give a lecture to the Di Nobili Research Institute, meet colleagues in Indology Department and go to two operas. In May this year, he attended an organ recital in aid of the S. Y. Killingley Memorial Trust, which gives grants to people following part-time courses (www.skytrust.org.uk), raising £500 for the Trust. On a completely different level, your correspondent has had a good golfing year, leavened, inter alia, by a glorious trip to Melbourne and Sydney for the last two Ashes Tests, during which I caught up with John Adams and his wife Jo. John is in remarkably fine shape, though Jo says he could take more exercise. In addition to their fine hospitality at their home overlooking the Harbour, they took me to the Primary Club Breakfast on the first morning of the Sydney Test. I can say that John has changed less in 55 years than anyone I have met – and that is a good thing! Do you recall JRR Tolkien (1945)? Tim Brennand tells me that three years ago they moved from the Middle Earth of mid-Suffolk to Ceredigion, which both sounds and feels like Tolkien country. Having been based in Aspall Cyder country for 37 years, albeit with lengthy postings in Holland, Nigeria and China, they found the move to Wales a quite major upheaval. However the new culture, new language, new topography, new geology and new music proved a refreshing experience, an antidote in fact to the almost imperceptible growing sedimentation of years. He wonders what news of John Adams (1955), John Cooke (1955) with whom he helped install a pink tailor’s dummy (the Oxford Mail described it as ‘a sort of Haberdasher’s Venus de Milo’) on the cupola at Queen’s, John Newbold (1954) and Peter Westwood (1954). Ian Hodson and Edith (both aged 75) celebrated their golden wedding with a lunch at the National Railway Museum and a boat trip on the Peak Forest Canal. This year’s rail plans include touring Switzerland, and a journey from Holland to Sweden. The main significance of all this, he supposes, is that they can happily cope at our age – so far. The grandchildren are now frighteningly old and university looms. He watches with horror the erection of huge financial obstacles in their paths and doubts that he is alone in giving priority to the family’s educational needs over the funding problems of Merton and Oxford, however grateful one may feel to the College and the University. John Isherwood compares medical treatment in UK and the USA. His son who lives in Iowa fell in an icy multi-storey car park but, without benefit of our NHS, for ambulance to A&E, one night in hospital and the operation to set the ankle with a plate and screws, was presented with a bill for $36,500, with subsequent bills for check-ups, a second op to remove the screws and physio. He even had to pay extra for crutches. As this happened at the time Obama was meeting fierce opposition to his Health Bill, it really registered with them how lucky we are to have the NHS. By coincidence, their son’s godfather, Peter Heap, broke his ankle two weeks later and he had nothing but praise for the way the NHS looked after him. POSTMASTER | 2011 103 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1957 possible for Jan to recover at home. She now carries the X-rays of her bionic ankle in her passport in case of problems with airport security. University looms for us too. Our eldest grandson lives with us while he does his International Baccalaureate. He says he has come to the UK because he prefers the education and wants to go to university here. I suspect that the real reason may be that he can take his driving test in June when he reaches 17, a year earlier than at home in Italy. 1957 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: GRAHAM BYRNE HILL 26 Lawn Crescent, Kew Gardens, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3NS Email: [email protected] JAY KEYSER (SECOND FROM RIGHT) AND THE AARDVARK JAZZ ORCHESTRA @ KATE MATESON Jay Keyser reports the publication of his latest book, Mens et Mania, ‘the MIT nobody knows’ and is working on another, tentatively entitled Looking for Me. He has been this year to China and Spain and in October is off to Peru to visit Machu Picchu. He blogs on www.travelreluctantly.blogspot.com. Somehow he finds time to play in the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra – a winner of the 2000 Independent Music Awards. He is second from the right in the picture. When he is not playing avant garde jazz, he plays Dixieland in the New Liberty Jazz Band. Inspired by the recent King James Bible challenge, Mike Renton performed a ‘hymnathon’ to raise money for the Southdown Church and Community Partnership redevelopment fund. Based on a Methodist initiative, it has been working since 1998 to provide caring support to their local community of Southdown and Whiteway in Bath. On Sunday 8th May, Mike played all the hymns, carols and religious songs he knew (290 and counting) on the keyboard at Nexus (Walcot) Methodist Church. I shared some experiences with Ian and John. In December my wife fell on the stairs and broke her ankle badly. This led to a similar operation and a month’s stay in hospital. We were really impressed by the surgical, in-patient and aftercare service. The NHS provided a wheelchair, a ramp and all sorts of other equipment to make it 104 POSTMASTER | 2011 Erich Gruen is officially retired from the University of California (Berkeley), but continues with seven PhD students and the chairing of the Jewish Studies programme. His publications this year include: Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton UP) and Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean (Getty Research Institute). Six years after the death of his wife, Joan, he is delighted to announce his recent marriage to Anne Hasse, “thus bringing back light once more into my life”. Graham Cansdale’s Celtic-style CD, which was produced for a street children’s project in DR Congo, and was flagged in the last Postmaster, has raised £1,000 for the project. For further detail you may google “congochildrentrust”. Other Celtic-style, Christian music of his is also available online. David Harvey honours our year as the Senior Citizen on the 750th Campaign Board and as Chairman of Merton College’s USA Appeal. Michael Leach will be returning shortly to the vicinity of the North Pole to observe polar bears. More prosaically, as constituency database manager, he has transformed the political fortunes of his local MP, Grant Shapps. The database is one of the largest of its kind and has helped transform a marginal into a seat with a very large majority. Ian Spurr has sprouted a new life as an organiser of local charity events: for example, Ian Spurr’s Big Curry 2010 on behalf of ABF The Soldiers Charity. He has been much encouraged and motivated by “support and generosity of ordinary folk for the sacrifices of our armed forces”. NEWS | 1958 Ian has, regretfully, sailed the Atlantic and Caribbean for the last time, with Robin Wilshaw’s sale of the yacht. He recalls a memorable trip with Simon Jones (also 1957). Sadly, Simon died recently after a long illness. Peter Koe has been blessed by the need to visit numerous children and grandchildren who are scattered across the world. At home he plays much table tennis and bridge. James Steadman continues vigorously to sing and act and to volunteer at Shaw’s Corner. Graham Byrne Hill maintains his involvement with the politics of the EU’s institutional development. He is active in think tanks. History doesn’t rest and the EU is no exception. It has radically reconfigured itself in the last ten years and is far from finding stability. 1958 YEAR REPRESENTATIVES: BRYAN LEWIS 2 Bell Close, Ratby, Leicestershire, LE6 0NU Tel: 0116 239 5319 Email: [email protected] and PETER PARSONS Ashton House, Downside Road, Winchester, Hampshire, SO22 5LT Tel: 09162 865069 Email: [email protected] One would almost think that most 1958 Mertonians have taken a vow of silence so very few have been the responses to the annual requests for printable news – which is not to imply that members have taken out super-injunctions. I can report, however, that Peter Parsons with his wife, Jane, emailed about the holiday they had enjoyed in Syria very shortly before the outbreak of ‘disturbances’ there. Peter says – and he is well-travelled – Syria is the most fascinating country they have ever visited, thoroughly deserving the epithet ‘the cradle of civilisation’. Whilst those of us in England reflect on summer warmth in April and, in the south and east of England, the drought which is a worrying feature, Andrew Hyslop emailed from Calgary in April: “as we climb out of one of the worst winters ever – two and a half feet of snow dumped on us last weekend, after only slightly less during the previous week.” In New Hampshire, John Simms says “cumulatively, this winter, we had about 10 feet of snow. With 4 feet on the ground, when it snows again you have to lift the shovelfuls at least four feet high and that’s hard work with the heavy stuff – but it’s good to prove to yourself that you can still do it!” OLD MEMBERS Seemingly indefatigable actor Oliver Ford Davies was recently on tour with the highly acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre production of Goodnight Mister Tom promoted in pre-performance billing as ‘Starring Oliver Ford Davies (Star Wars I, II, III, Mrs Brown) in the title role’. So much for his much praised performances of Polonius and Holofernes with the RSC and King Lear with the Almeida! Oliver says “Star Wars will haunt me for evermore.” I was unable to go to a performance in the Theatre Royal, Nottingham but I asked Oliver if he had played there before. He hadn’t but he said he realised that on his rare visits “I saw three great stars, Donald Wolfit, Margot Fonteyn and Ken Dodd – not, alas, all in the same production.” Now he is preparing to play the Jacobean, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes in a new play at the RSC marking the 1611 translation of the Bible. Andrewes “prayed five hours every morning, mostly in tears, and preached lengthy sermons of great obscurity.” There is another Merton connection: “The play features our own Sir Henry Savile who held translators’ meetings of Acts and the Gospels in the Warden’s Lodgings.” 1959 YEAR REPRESENTATIVES: ROGER GOULD 4 The Park, Grasscroft, Oldham, Lancashire, OL4 4ES Tel: 01457 876422 Email: [email protected] and DAVID SHIPP Higher Dale Cottage, 6 Dale Lane, Delph, Oldham, Lancashire, OL3 5HY Tel: 01457 875171 Email: [email protected] News is rather thin this year, no doubt partly because most of us are retired but we suspect mainly because, as we write, it is a mere 18 months or so since our very well-attended 50th Anniversary weekend and only four months before our next Gaudy. We expect another good turn-out, which will provide us with a further opportunity to catch up with one another. However, we have heard from a couple of people in foreign parts: Peter Hayward wrote “Greetings from Baku on the shores of the Caspian Sea where some say history all began and [that it] was the original Garden of Eden. I had thought last summer that I had retired from this globe-trotting but as you can see I still cannot resist the opportunity to visit far flung places I have never been to POSTMASTER | 2011 105 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1960 and the Caucasus is one such. I certainly plan to make the Gaudy in September. Rather remarkably considering my peripatetic life style I have never missed one.” Ian McReath wrote from Brazil: “I have finally retired and, after a few disorganised months, have returned to doing what I like doing, i.e. practically nothing. Our university has excellent programs for over 70s, so participation in these occupies a few hours weekly. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend the Gaudy, but best wishes to all friends from the 1959 intake. If anyone decides to attend the World Cup here, they’d have a fine welcome, though my English is steadily getting less perfect.” John Howe has written to say that he and his wife enjoyed an idyllic holiday on the Isles of Scilly where one of their grandsons is under chef in the best hotel in the Isles. One of their granddaughters has been staying with them for two years to do A levels, and is returning to France for university. John has been elected Chairman of his parish council yet again. David Shipp and Bill Woods recently visited Frank Usher in Weybridge. Frank has not been too well but was in good spirits and has not lost his gift as a raconteur. David and his wife recently visited their younger son who is a mid-career health manager doing two years VSO in Cambodia We have also heard briefly from Alan Drinkwater, Martin Hawkins, John Latham and Peter Moyes (now an octogenarian!), all of whom plan to attend the Gaudy (as we do), and from Graham Boulton (now a grandparent) who is unable to do so. We continue to be active in our local Saddleworth community in various ways. Both of us are currently helping to man the booking office for its week-long Festival of the Arts at the beginning of June and plan to attend many of the events. 1960 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: KEITH PICKERING 24 Woodfield Road, Ealing, London, W5 1SH Tel: 020 8998 2614 Email: [email protected] Keith Aspinall is alive and, as he says, one year older. He is looking forward to September as it will be the first time that he will be able to attend a Gaudy with his brother, John, who was up at Merton from 1957 to 1961. 106 POSTMASTER | 2011 Geoffrey Copland is particularly busy with charities and universities. Changes to higher education funding are causing much work for universities, including their governing bodies, several of which he is engaged with at present in various ways. He looks forward to being at the Gaudy. Leslie Epstein reports that his new novel Liebestod; Opera Buffa with Leib Goldhorn was published by Norton in February 2011. His play San Remo Drive, adapted by him from his novel of the same name, was performed in Los Angeles in July this year. Apart from his literary activity five grandchildren continue to make life fun. Bruce Gilbert enjoyed the Anniversary Lunch. Unfortunately he is unlikely to be able to attend the Gaudy as it coincides with a grand family get together to celebrate his 70th birthday. John Hartnett has nothing to report but hopes to be at the Gaudy. Stephen Hazell enjoyed the Lunch and is looking forward to the Gaudy. He has been busy examining in the UK recently and hopes there will be an overseas tour later this year. Arthur Hepher has nothing to report but if recently pressing family commitments permit hopes to be at the Gaudy Alan Heppenstall is still Chairman of Cumbria Tourist Guides which is about to have a large increase in members following a Blue Badge guiding course currently drawing to its close, for which he has been helping with some of the training. Mike Hind notes that one set of distant memories of the anniversary year we celebrated recently is of college personalities of the day (some were recalled at the Lunch) flitting through the illuminated lime trees on a June night to deliver lines from Yeats’s The Player Queen and Büchner’s Leonce and Lena. This was Ian Donaldson’s Floats garden production of that summer, memorable for its lovely setting and beguiling music from Pulcinella, but hardly for the fame of the plays themselves: you’ve a bit more chance of seeing the German play but Yeats’s drama still awaits its 21st century production. I also remember well our younger first year tutors – Stephen Medcalf, Tony Nuttall, and others. Presentday news: he keeps keep busy by teaching English to international students at Exeter University, and besides reading, walk, travel and theatre-going, activities momentarily restricted by a recent hip operation, but not he hopes set aside for long. Alan Hopkinson is planning on being at the Gaudy. With his wife Anne he attended a reception for the OU Vice-Chancellor at the Wilshire Country Club in LA. Professor Hamilton is an enthusiast and, Cantabridgian though he be, was able to confess to NEWS | 1960 a certain glee at the whipping the Dark Blues gave the Light Blues in the 2011 Boat Race. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nick Rawlins, was also there, and was married in All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Montecito (Santa Barbara, California) which is Alan’s church. In December he became one of the first 25 Certified Specialists in Asset Recovery in the United States, these being specialists in the tracking and recovery of assets which have been transformed and moved around the globe to avoid detection and evade attempts to recover them to satisfy major civil judgments and criminal restitution orders. Shortly after his certification he addressed the Channel Counties Chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners on ‘Freeze and Seize’ procedures under California’s Aggravated White Collar Crime Enhancement Act. He is busy with a number of high profile fraud cases, one involving the splendidly-named three Korean gentlemen Oh, Noh and Soh. He recently celebrated the 50th birthday of one of his stepchildren and has been brought up short realising that his own son reaches 50 in 2014. He is pursuing a personal mantra of “Fitter at 70 than at 40” and plans to keep his children on their toes. Grandchildren, of whom he shares 12 with Anne, ranging from 1 to 27, are a different matter. As a small personal vanity he plans to be sworn in as a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court, achieving that milestone before he reaches 70. With luck, he will be sworn in by another Oxonian: either Stephen Breyer (Magdalen 1959) or Elena Kagan (Worcester 1981.) Not bad to have two of the nine is it? David Howe is in good order and has downsized to be nearer his family by relocating to Staffordshire. Alan Keat has nothing to report but aims to be at the Gaudy. Roger Laughton has nothing to report but aims to be at the Gaudy despite returning from a Spanish walking holiday earlier the same day. Chuck Lister has nothing to report but hopes to be at the Gaudy. He and your Year Representative, accompanied by wives, will have executed an Anglo-American Lunch together in the summer between the time of writing this and the Gaudy. Richard Mulgan is in good form but the journey from Australia to Oxford is a little too far for him to make the Gaudy. Keith Pickering is now as recovered as he is ever likely to be from his back operation and has been cleared to return to the golf course. He thoroughly enjoyed catching up with many of his Merton correspondents at the Anniversary Lunch and would like as OLD MEMBERS always to thank everyone who kindly takes the time to respond to his annual request for news for Postmaster. David Price is now well settled in Dorset, is up to six grandchildren and has the Gaudy date in his diary. Martin Scott continues his interest in mountaineering and was invited to climb la Grande Casse, the highest peak in the Alps of the Vanoise, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first ascent by the Englishman William Matthews, accompanied by French climbers dressed as the original ascensionists. He has also been inspired by Peter Fattorini’s impressive ride in the 2009 Etape du Tour to enter in for the 2011 Etape as its date coincides with Martin’s 70th birthday. Peter has kindly been giving him some tips on how to survive this rather gruelling ride. Nick Silk is in good form, enjoyed the Lunch and is looking forward to the Gaudy. Richard Thompson has had a grandson born late last year and has entered into the babysitting stakes. He and his wife Jane aim to visit as many capitals of Europe as they can while there is still strength in their bodies. He in common with your Year Representative was delighted to catch up with John Wood at the Lunch, Mr Wood having kept an unconscionably low profile for the preceding 40 years. Philip Webb has published his analysis of Zamenhof’s Esperanto Old Testament on the Internet and that task behind him has now turned his attention to Cymraeg – yr hen iaith ei famau – of which he learned a lot at age 14, but then had to put aside for approaching O-levels etc. He has no present plan to learn Estonian, the language of his grandfather. Mike Williams celebrated his wife, Rosemary’s, 70th birthday last December and is happy that his daughter in Switzerland, Amanda, seems to be on the mend. He looks forward to being at the Gaudy. Brian Winston should be reporting the publication of two books but is not as quick as he used to be. The feature documentary he wrote and co-produced on the pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty (whose Nanook of the North, 1922, is conventionally the first documentary) has been released and is making its slow way round the festival circuit. The worst thing about the last year is that, post our Jubilee celebrations, all contact with Merton and Mertonians is sicklied o’er by the pall of half a century of passed time. Jonathan Wright has nothing to report but enjoyed the Jubilee Lunch and is looking forward to the Gaudy. POSTMASTER | 2011 107 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1961 1961 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: BOB MACHIN 125 West Bay Road, Bridport, Dorset, DT6 4EQ Tel: 01308 423475 Email: [email protected] 1962 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: TIM ARCHER High Chimneys, Petches Bridge, Great Bardfield, Essex, CM7 4QN Tel: 01371 810473 Email: [email protected] Martin Hall was a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London and is working on a book Caffaro, Genoa and the twelfth century Crusades, and on the poetry of John of Garland. Paddy Millard has finally stepped down as Chief Executive of the charity TaxHelp for Older People after ten years of setting it up. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in 2008 in recognition of his services to taxation and an MBE in 2010 in recognition of his services to charity. 1963 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: PETER SMITH 62 Old park Road, Roundhay, Leeds, LS8 1JB Tel: 0113 266 5966 Email: [email protected] Last year in Postmaster, mention was made of Roger Garfitt’s forthcoming book, A Horseman’s World (Cape, May 2011), in which mention is made of John Arrowsmith, Peter Hay and Derek Hughes. A recent Saga review notes ‘A book long in the making has also been long in the living, from Garfitt’s first years in Norfolk in the mid-Forties, then headlong into the Sixties as a horseman, poet, dropout and – no other word for it – madman. His survival of a fine madness makes a fine memoir.’ A Guardian review notes that ‘this is one of the finest first-hand accounts of madness…. it is a superb achievement’. Is it worth going mad in order to have something interesting to say? This book is one of a trio of books by 1960s Mertonians published in the same month, the others being The Fetish Room by Redmond O’Hanlon (1965) and Memoirs of a Dervish by Robert Irwin (1964). A great decade and the best music. 108 POSTMASTER | 2011 Separately in February on Caribbean holidays, and demonstrating their usual qualities of coordination, David Pennock and Peter Smith visited former diplomat Peter Laurie (and his wife Pam and six dogs) at his home in Barbados. Royally entertained, they learned of Peter Laurie’s happy life and recent books on Rum Shops, Caribbean cooking, children’s stories, award-winning drama, and as a regular and respected newspaper columnist on social affairs. His necessary afternoon nap is something he claims he learned initially at Merton and has merely continued. Stuart Cropper writes: “We are carrying much as we have done for the last 30 years, going to the USA six or seven times a year. We have just opened a new shop in Dallas and we have been going down to Texas twice a year. It’s a really nice place provided you stay away from politics! We still enjoy the time we spend at our little house in the Hudson Valley. We are only about 65 miles from New York City and the trains to get there run past the end of our street. Stanley Williams came to visit us there a couple of years ago.” Welcome news from Adrian Bullock. “I have retired from teaching publishing at Oxford Brookes, which I did for 20 years, and now run my own company – Oxford Publishing Consultancy – which pretty much does what it says on the tin. I canoe quite a bit (I am half way down the Thames, with the intention of ending up at the Barrier in due course), travel a lot, and enjoy living in Oxford, where I am a supernumerary fellow of Harris Manchester College.” Adrian also commented on last year’s entry about the death some years ago of Malcolm Skey. “Who could ever forget Malcolm with his whistle, as he walked rapidly through College on a mission to somewhere? I remember one spectacular evening when he put on a concert in Rose Lane, and whistled the first movement of a Brandenburg Concerto, accompanied at the piano by Steven Rawles.” Rick Allen claims to have no newsworthy news. “My genteel (i.e. idle) retirement is occasionally punctuated by reviews and conference papers on 19th-century literature but (between Test matches) I’m actually relishing reading more widely than ever before.” A number of others in the year also write to say that they have nothing new to tell anyone, so thanks especially to John Sturgeon, Graham Lane and Robert Freedman for advising that they are at least alive and well. As a result of Roger Garfitt’s book, Robert has been in touch with Roger for the first time in 45 years, not least to confirm the memorable event with Ted Hughes at the Oxford Poetry Society. NEWS | 1964 Gordon Whatley, still academically active at City University New York, continues to pursue the lives of saints (but not the life of a saint), and spent some time studying documents in the British Library and at Durham Cathedral. With his daughter now living and working in London, he has even more reason to return to the UK from home in Connecticut. Guy English remains at sea as the Commodore of Restronguet Sailing Club, involved in running international events like the Little America’s Cup, improving each year in the Pilot Gig races (average age of his crew now 71), as well as learning to hang slates and achieve carbon neutrality. His great sailing trip last year from the Caribbean to Turkey successfully over, George Whitfield is now coasting locally. He recently met with Charles Tong, another deep sea sailor, to share nautical experiences, as well as to note that he acts as a timekeeper for the Thames Head of the River race. Not content with the water, George has also taken to the air again in a Chipmunk T-10, to attempt the aerobatics he once pursued in the University Air Squadron. “I can only report that the two aerobatic manoeuvers I performed, not to mention the final landing, demonstrated the deterioration of the decades.” John Wormald lives bilingually in Chichester and Burgundy, pursuing semi-retirement, letting his automotive consulting business run down gradually, although graciously accepting invitations to do any interesting work or to give presentations or speeches in attractive locations. He maintains an active interest in the environmental and energy scenes, with their implications for transportation and the automotive industry, and is sporadically working on a new book on these matters. Now retired from the world of education, Peter Livsey is able to pursue his continuing interest in history, particularly local history. His latest research at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle on Tyne has resulted in an e-book entitled Napoleonic Encounters – The Waldies of Forth House, Newcastle (www. tynebridgepublishing.co.uk) which has some gripping material about the Battle of Waterloo. Richard James has been noticed successfully writing a letter to the Guardian on a matter of theological and scientific difficulty, whereas Peter Smith’s letter in the Observer was merely to draw attention to the sad loss of educational opportunities for young people with the closures of field study and outdoor centres as a result of financial cuts. OLD MEMBERS For Bob Scott 2011 is the Year of the Knife, with a successful spinal operation already and a double hip replacement yet to come. Despite the (temporary) immobility, “life is good”, although the Honorary Degrees have now dried up. Grandchildren in Uruguay and Spain provide much pleasure, as does wheelchair priority at airports. Saturday afternoon cricket still keeps Dick Durden Smith busy, but he also remains dramatically active, for example appearing in an Ibsen play at the National. When the new TS Eliot Theatre was opened at College in March, he read some Eliot poems in front of Eliot’s widow, “which was rather scary.” 1964 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: RICHARD BURNS 31 Saxe Coburg Place, Edinburgh, EH3 5BP Email: [email protected] Most of the British respondents to my enquiries seem to be living quietly, the majority having (more or less) retired. Andy Curtis is one who has not, but he prefers to emphasise his family life and his membership of the Friends of Merton Choir, whose performances he has found ‘terrific’. Another who is still active is Robert Irwin; his recently published autobiographical work Memoirs of a Dervish includes a description of his time at Merton which evoked many memories of that time (though his dating of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds to 1969 seemed to me to be three years too late). Memoirs of a Dervish is reviewed on page 63 of Postmaster. David Whiteley and his wife Margaret celebrated their ruby wedding this March, after David had retired from the IT industry in November, the last 26 years of which were spent with the Halifax Building Society, now sadly subsumed in the Lloyds Banking Group. He is an enthusiastic attender of the Merton Society weekend each June. John Whitworth, living in Canterbury, is still writing poetry and getting it published, despite the bankruptcy of his publisher. Robert Bradshaw contentedly reports that there has been “nothing earth-shattering in the world of Bradshaw in the last year”, which contrasts sharply with Tony Webster’s near fatal cycling collision with a lorry in Normandy in October 2009. Happily the excellence of France’s emergency services and the ICU in Le Havre resulted in his successful ‘reanimation’ as the French medics described it, POSTMASTER | 2011 109 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1965 but his cycling days are done. To compensate, he has taken up the tenor sax in place of the clarinet and seeks to improve his French via the Open University. I myself am quite busy with some investment trust directorships and voluntary activities, including being on the Court of the University of Dundee and being a Trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland. Similar themes come from my overseas correspondents, but with less emphasis on retirement. Mike Robson, now an emeritus Professor at the University of Bordeaux, has found cycling in Aquitaine less dangerous than Tony’s experience in Normandy, and is also studying a language – in his case, Basque. From the USA, Will Risser reports he is finishing as a Professor of Paediatrics in Texas and moving to Portland, Oregon to be near his daughter and grandchildren. Craig Smith is a member of MC3, Merton’s US charitable fundraising entity, and is looking forward to welcoming the Warden to Philadelphia this summer. After 35 years in the housing development industry, he is now running a Quaker non-profit affordable housing business. Moving to warmer climes, Manou Bheenick is in his second term as Governor of the Bank of Mauritius after a career of public service which started in academia. He then moved to the Mauritian Government economic service, UNIDO in Vienna and consultancies with the World Bank and the IMF before switching to politics, first as an MP and then as Minister of Finance and subsequently Minister of Economic Development and Regional Integration. In Australia, Trevor Lund retired four years ago from the University of Canberra, where he had taught electronics, finishing as Head of Network Engineering. He now lives with his Czech wife Marie (a 1968 refugee from her home country) almost on the beach some 300km south of Sydney. During his career he worked for four years in Hong Kong and had four sabbaticals in Germany and Spain. He manages to return to Europe for a couple of months most years. One who has definitely not retired is Eric Colvin. After 22 years as Professor of Law at Bond University in Queensland, he is about to move to Vanuatu to be Professor of Law at the University of the South Pacific and Director of its Vanuatu campus. Vanuatu was the setting for the musical South Pacific and Port Vila, where Eric will be based, is ‘generally regarded’ (his words) as the prettiest town in the South Pacific and is a popular destination for cruise ships. Eric 110 POSTMASTER | 2011 reports that the local beer is excellent. “Divers, yachties, cruisers and other Mertonian travellers” are invited to contact Eric when passing through. Anyone who would like a fuller description of this island paradise (and indeed the University of the South Pacific) is welcome to email me and I will forward his full report. 1965 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: PETER ROBINSON Vallecito, 5 Fir Tree Close, Coppenhall, Stafford, ST 18 9BZ Tel: 01785 254273 Email: [email protected] John Dryden reports that the past year has been a quiet one in terms of activity to report. He stays mainly in London, with occasional stays at his place in France. He has done a couple of conferences, and peer reviewed some research papers on economic and science and technology subjects, but not much else related to his former career at the OECD in Paris. The main point is that he has cancer again, and is having chemotherapy. The treatment, which is taking place in France, started at the beginning of the year, and will continue until the end of June, after which time he expects to be OK. John is in touch with our contemporary David Stirzaker, and he also keeps in touch with former Merton mathematician Teng Teng Xu, (2002), who worked as a trainee with John at the OECD in Paris. Paul Everson continues with academic research and publication. The principal result this year has been a study of a ‘lost place’ in Lincolnshire called Little Sturton (near Horncastle) which involved him in recording and analysis of the field remains of a medieval village and a 16th-century house and gardens that succeeded it. The study was published as a series of papers making up a whole volume of the journal Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. In Paul’s family it has been a year (all of a sudden) to celebrate and anticipate grandchildren. Their eldest, John, and his wife, had the first, named William, in October; their daughter Kate delivered a son, named Thomas, in May; and next son Tom and his partner are expecting a child in November. Greg Ingram reports that he continues as President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a private operating foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts that produces research, training and NEWS | 1966 publications on the use, taxation and regulation of land. He and his wife Lee are fine and now claim seven grandchildren, the oldest of whom is a bit over four, which makes for spirited family gatherings. David Mumford writes to say that he is still continuing in deepest Angus with the Scottish Episcopal Church. Peter Robinson has continued HR consulting, alongside some mentoring, coaching and English Language tutoring for two charities in Stafford. He has qualified as a tutor in English as a Second or Foreign Language (Cambridge CELTA), to help him in these roles. He visited Arequipa, Peru with his wife Roxana this Easter, and is looking forward to visiting Languedoc and Roussillon this summer. The big event of the family year has been the birth of Sebastian to daughter Sophie and husband Michael. Roger Witcomb says he has to confess that his intention of retiring in order to teach his two grandchildren bad habits seems to have fallen by the wayside, as he has just been appointed Chairman of the Competition Commission, with the job of guiding it through an ‘institutional reform’ process that is likely to lead to a merger with the Office of Fair Trading. So at least two more years of full time employment are before him, but it’s an excellent organisation and he is very excited by the prospect. 1966 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: DAVID HOLMES 20 Goodby Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8NJ Tel: 0121 249 9714 Email: [email protected] John Baird and his wife recently enjoyed a visit to the Galapagos Islands with Steve James (1964) and his wife Ann, and have now recovered. John Dainton writes, “I confess in the last couple of years I have been a bit too decoupled from Merton through unfortunate circumstances – my wife Josephine was diagnosed with a particularly severe and advanced cancer and died last June. So I have been putting my life back together slowly, and thinking about what and how to live out my life given how much she and I enjoyed a super life together, and my obsession with Physics.” “Despite my setback, I am making some progress in my research, which I realise is something that I am fortunate to have, and which I owe to Merton in my formative years. We have gone from strength to strength, developing new research lines and playing a central OLD MEMBERS role in our projects in Particle Physics at CERN and elsewhere. I suppose also my grumpiness here is showing through when I say that, despite the oddities of the goings-on in the UK research councils, one can still stand up for the very best science and get funding from alternative sources, some overseas. So one feels that one can survive yet another round of bureaucratic fad in the UK and go on delivering the very best science.” Chip Filson continues as President of Callahan & Associates, founded in 1985 to serve the cooperative credit union system. There are 7,442 credit unions with over $951 billion in assets. They will soon be the second largest depository financial system, after banks, in the US. Cooperatives focus first on what is in their members’ interest. As a result they came through the economic turmoil in relatively good standing. The firm’s most recent efforts were to launch a new networked business model with credit unions that provides private loans (as opposed to government loans) for college education. The program has relationships with some of the leading universities including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, and Emory among others. Over 20,000 students have borrowed a total of $400 million just three years after launch. Callahans continues its role as the leading provider of credit union data and analysis while also beginning an intergenerational transfer of leadership. In other words, he is hoping to retire in the not too distant future! Melvyn Hilbrown is struggling with government cuts in business support, which will probably put him in semi-retirement by the end of the year. Ian Kershaw was awarded an honorary degree of DLitt by Oxford University at the June 2010 Encaenia, and has a book to be published in August 2011 by Penguin called The End. Hitler’s Germany, 1944-45. Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham is enjoying his time on the opposition backbenches and writes for newspapers and websites on international, EU and security affairs following his eight years at the Foreign Office under the Blair government. He regularly chats to fellow Mertonian MPs, Peter Tapsell (1950), whose office is next to his and Ed Vaizey (1986). He is working on a book on sex slave trafficking. Robert Venables has two recent publications, The Taxation of Foundations and The Taxation of Trusts 2010. Robert has fixed his retirement for 2030. POSTMASTER | 2011 111 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1967 1967 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: RORY KHILKOFF-BOULDING Beggars’ Well, Baker’s Lane, Dallington, East Sussex, TN21 9JU Tel: 01435 830859 Email: [email protected] John Macfarlane writes: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated (Postmaster 2010, p158, In Memoriam). In fact I am fit, happy and hopefully fairly healthy, having retired and moved to the northern Lake District in December 2008. Prior to that I was a respiratory physician at Nottingham University Hospitals and chairman of the British Thoracic Society, and I continue as Honorary Professor at Nottingham University and Visiting Professor at Manchester University. Retirement is recommended (!) and has meant more time for travel, walking, intermittent trail running, nature and photography in a really lovely part of England, whilst continuing my interest in medical history. Both our sons went to Oxford, but visits to Oxford are now unfortunately infrequent”. 1968 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: IAN MCBRAYNE 44 Parkland Road, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 9AP Tel: 020 8504 2491 Email: [email protected] By the stage in life which this year group has reached, as David Pelteret commented, “if any of us are doing something that is uncharacteristic of our earlier existence, it is likely to be a sign of gross immaturity, considerable dissatisfaction with a life lived, or an indication of mental deterioration and premature senescence”. So, he suggested, most of us will have been doing ‘more of the same’. True, though some of us have managed new twists on old themes. Some have taken their activities to a higher level. Our congratulations to Alan Sked on his professorship at the London School of Economics and to Russell Poole on becoming a distinguished professor at the University of Western Ontario. Alan’s Radetzky: Imperial Victor and Military Genius, trailed here last year, has now been published, while Russell fulfilled 40 years of good intentions last summer by visiting L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the only authenticated Viking site in North America. 112 POSTMASTER | 2011 David himself now serves Oxford University in three ways: by proof-reading for the University Press (and straying beyond his brief into the suggestion of improvements); by acting as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary; and by contributing on Anglo-Saxon history and allied subjects to the Oxford History of the Middle Ages. Another with an enhanced role in his very different field is Simon Orebi Gann, whose portfolio has been expanded by appointment as a director of Aspen Technology, a leading American software company. Julian Leslie is completing 25 years as professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, having been in Northern Ireland since completing his DPhil in 1974. He has kept in touch with ‘fellow ex-inmates of Dulwich College’, Stewart Morgan and Michael Goldstein. Michael has been a professor (of mathematical statistics at Durham University) for almost as long as Julian and is reported to be ‘exactly the same as ever’. Having offspring now based in each other’s areas has increased opportunities for Julian and Michael to meet. Julian has postgraduate students working near Boston and so has also had opportunities to meet Peter Palmer, who lives in Belmont, Mass. Stewart was another who contacted me, to report a 60th birthday treat, visiting Venice and fulfilling a lifelong ambition by returning on the Orient Express. He feared an ersatz experience but in fact encountered an extraordinary dedication to authenticity and felt truly transported back in sumptuous style to a bygone age, a reverie abruptly ended by arriving at Victoria station in the evening rush hour. Some of us are no longer working. Steve Drinkwater’s retirement finds him doing lots of walking, especially in mountains, and leading walking holidays in the UK for HF Holidays. All good and enjoyable, he says. My own retirement is very pleasurable too, though my duties as a churchwarden and chair of school governors, and my involvement with a study group at the Museum of London in Docklands, not to mention natural lethargy, all lead to a less outdoor existence than Steve’s. Nicholas Richardson, on the other hand, reported that he was about to set off on a sponsored walk across Crete in aid of the British School at Athens; we trust it went well. Paul Engeham returned to the Falkland Islands, 29 years after the conflict, with his captain from HMS Glamorgan to help dedicate a new Welsh granite memorial to the men killed and buried at sea off the islands. Moving ceremonies on shore and afloat were NEWS | 1969 attended by numerous islanders. He found a vibrant, young and passionately British community, worried by a new Argentine economic blockade. He also again found dramatic scenery, wind, sheep, seals and penguins aplenty. At home yet equally adventurous in his way (foolhardy, according to his son who helped him) was Scirard Lancelyn Green, who spent MICHAEL LOWE AND ONE OF HIS many days in the MAGNIFICENT LUTES freezing conditions of November completing a belfry extension and adding extra bells to his carillon. He also spent an interesting couple of days in Copenhagen servicing the only set of tubular tower chimes in Denmark, and sang nine Messiahs in a year as well as some interesting new works. Still on a musical theme, Michael Lowe considers himself very fortunate still to be doing the same as when he first left Merton, building lutes. In the 40 years since he built his second lute, much of it on a workbench which he had introduced into his room in 58 Holywell Street, he has reached his 163rd and hopes that his lute-making has improved a little. He says that is for the future to judge over the two to three centuries that an instrument should last. He still has a full order book and hopes to continue making lutes until prevented by the dilapidation of age. David Bell (Prof) and Chris Simmons (Revd Canon) met briefly this year in Dave’s native, Chris’s adopted and God’s own county. Regrettably, the season was inappropriate for a re-run of the memorable Conker Society Inter-Planetary Championship Final of 1970, when Merton triumphed over Jupiter. All present agreed that the years had treated them kindly; on the basis of past performance, they expect to meet again sometime in 2036. Alan Harland reports, perhaps in slightly more serious vein, on another meeting, a wonderful weekend College reunion in Philadelphia in OLD MEMBERS April, attended by alumni and guests from the NE United States, featuring performances by the College choir and welcoming the new Warden. Events included a formal dinner at the Philadelphia Union League and a private tour of the Philadelphia Art Museum. A College reunion of a different kind was the subject of Steve Powell’s report. He was father of the bride at a wedding in Merton Chapel last September which was very much a Merton affair: his daughter Louise and her husband Paul Boswell (both 2001), the best man and three of the four bridesmaids all attended Merton. It was an enjoyable day, even though one of the vintage doubledecker buses developed a puncture on the way to the reception. Most of the news came by email, but I enjoyed a long telephone conversation with James Miller, whose mobility is somewhat improved since last year and whose general enthusiasm continues unabated. Others who made contact but claimed to have nothing sufficiently newsworthy to share are Peter Bibby, Jim Buckee, Colin Bundy, Robert Dunn, Lou Henderson, James HughesHallett, Chris Laidlaw and Danny Lawrence. In the light of all this, I would venture to rewrite David Pelteret’s comments a little: no gross immaturity, but just enough continuing zest for youthful indiscretion; no deep dissatisfaction, but a clear feeling that life still has more to offer; no mental deterioration, but for some the beginnings of a more relaxed approach; and yes, reassuringly, plenty ‘more of the same’. Not a bad record as we collect our Senior Railcards and move on. 1969 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: CHARLES GRIFFITH La Commanderie, Malmort, 37510 Bléré, France Tel: 0033 2 4723 5443 Email: [email protected] Duncan Campbell-Smith’s latest book Masters of the Post – An Authorised History of the Royal Mail will hit the bookstands in November 2011. He swears that the Directors, who commissioned the book, were impressed by the fact that he had been a Postmaster at one stage of his life – si non è vero, è bene trovato. Tony Hansen retired from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 2005, but continues to follow his Merton tutor’s advice to do something useful with physics. He runs the company that manufactures his invention: the aethalometer, an instrument to POSTMASTER | 2011 113 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1970 measure black-carbon particles suspended in the atmosphere, now used by governments and scientists, quite literally from Pole to Pole. Ian Rattray writes from Sydney, Australia, where a twoyear adventure, starting in 1977, turned into a permanent move. Recently retired from the IT industry, he and Lynn hope to spend more time in Europe. They have promised to include Merton and also my corner of France on the itinerary. Jeremy Cook, with disarming but unjustified modesty, says that his career as a researcher and teacher in visual neuroscience and medical embryology at UCL does not warrant comment. The internet tells a different story: fascinating stuff about spatial regularity among retinal neurons, plus a lot of positive comments from his students . He claims to be retiring soon, but this will be a gradual process. Science and music (the violin for Jeremy and the viola for Rosemary) should occupy the next phase of life. “May their age be lengthened” as the Arabs say. Charles Griffith covers a fairly wide spread of the Arabian Gulf, North Africa and some mining/energy subjects in sub-Saharan Africa from his large house in France. Corruption is becoming almost as much a priority as fraud. A side-interest is local Arab politics, in this new era, particularly the Shia community of Eastern Saudi Arabia. Retirement is not on the agenda, as far as he knows. 1970 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: NICK SKINNER Copthorne, The Close, Lancing BN15 8EE Tel: 01903 767072 Email: [email protected] This last period has been a time of anniversaries for the 1970 Merton cohort. In September 2010, some 18 of us gathered for an excellent and much appreciated Gaudy, and we were able to exchange news of happenings over the remarkable 40 years since we first met each other as bright-eyed young students at Merton. Also this year many of us have reached our 60th birthdays (whilst not regarding ourselves as senior citizens!). Most respondents have been silent on this matter but Laurence Campbell reports that he, Geoff Ellis, Peter Moizer and other halves are planning to celebrate the year in which they turn 60, “taking in the best of Lakeland fare and fitting in some contemplation at the lofty and famous Black Sail Hut, which has no modern conveniences”. 114 POSTMASTER | 2011 Retirement from full-time paid employment is becoming an increasingly common item of news. Mick Polley writes that “retirement is proving congenial but busy, as Di and I are now managers of the Taunton Parish Church Book and Gift Shop.” Tony Woodruff emails from Canada to report that he has recently stepped back from full-time work heading up a company distributing gas fires and high-efficiency wood-burning products across the US, Canada and Australia, and after a period of travel in Central America with his wife Peggy has “joined the Board of a charity called The Water School, which has a simple, inexpensive, sustainable system for providing clean drinking water, sanitation and improved hygiene to folks in the tropics. We currently have projects working in Uganda, Kenya and Haiti.” Tony Sharp continues to be very active battlefield guiding for school parties and umpiring matches in the English Hockey League. Tony and Catherine have also acquired a cat “pedigree Russian Blue called Kaz (short for Warwick Kazimov, his pedigree name)”. Some correspondents continue to flourish in employment, and John Crabtree “remains active in the study of the politics of the Andean countries of Latin America” with publications this year on both Bolivian and Peruvian politics. John teaches at the Latin American Centre in Oxford, as well as at the University’s Department of Continuing Education, and is region head for Latin America at Oxford Analytica. For myself, Nick Skinner, the year has been very busy (hopefully successfully) completing my BA in Fine Art (Painting). I am writing this report (June 2011) on the eve of my Graduation Show. Many thanks to all who responded to my request for news – it is very much appreciated. NEWS | 1973 JONATHAN MADDEN, HIS WIFE VERA AND THEIR NEW BABY BOY, CHARLIE 1971 Rick Trainor has been awarded a KBE for his services to higher education. Jonathan Madden and his wife Vera have a new baby boy, Charlie, born on 2nd October 2010. Martin Read has been awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the public sector and to business. 1973 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: GARY BACKLER 23 Baronsfield Road, Twickenham, Middlesex, TW1 2QT Tel: 020 8891 0883 Email: [email protected] Graham Andrews writes that the 1973 maths and medics group (John Myatt, David Melville, Bill Souster, Rob Lewis, Roger Urwin and himself) all met at the All Souls memorial service at Merton, along with the parents of Paul Schofield and Clive Hendrie’s father. The news since last year is that Bill Souster has started a new job as Syndicate Actuary at Hardy Underwriting and Graham got married last September in Devon. Paul Blustein continues to write on international economic issues, as a Nonresident Fellow of the Brookings Institution. He OLD MEMBERS has moved with his family to Kamakura, Japan, a town 50 minutes southwest of Tokyo by train, which was essentially the capital of the country about 800 years ago. He reports that they certainly felt the big earthquake, but except for a couple of scares on the day, were not otherwise much affected. By the end of May, the power outages had stopped, and the supermarket shelves were full again. However, anticipating difficulties in the availability of air-conditioning during the Japanese summer, he was happy to be contemplating a long research trip to the US, Canada and Europe from mid-June to mid-August. From the English Department at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, John Bowers writes supportively as the Year Representative for 1973 Rhodes Scholars in The American Oxonian. As a Tolkien and Chaucer scholar, John has just had his first article accepted for publication in Tolkien Studies. Inspired by the example of a medievalist who wrote novels, he has just published his own debut novel, End of Story. His first customer for the novel in England was none other than Terry Jones, a fellow Chaucerian but perhaps better known from Monty Python. Simon Pallett continues as Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Newcastle University, a position he has held since 2005. Gary Backler has taken early retirement from the Department for Transport, and is now pursuing a range of non-executive, consultancy and research interests. He has been appointed as a Visiting Research Fellow in the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. 1974 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: MIKE HAWKINS 908 Hunting Ridge Road, Martinsville, VA 24112, USA 1975 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ROBERT PEBERDY 38 Randolph Street, Oxford, OX4 1XZ Tel: 01865 798107 Email: [email protected] Mertonians will have noticed that recently there have been important visitations to the UK from the USA. For example, in spring 2011 Her POSTMASTER | 2011 115 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1975 Majesty the Queen was visited by a Mr and Mrs Obama from Washington, DC. A little earlier, on 23rd October 2010, Professor Stephen Oppenheimer from Baltimore, accompanied by his wife Susan, visited Oxford to receive the University’s degree of Doctor of Science in honour of his medical research. Professor Oppenheimer was escorted by a detachment drawn from the US Air Force, though unusually for such occasions the men with black glasses, guns and big black limousines remained unobtrusive. For other 1975 Mertonians, life has been more sedentary STEPHEN OPPENHEIMER though not undemanding. Cardiac surgeon Arif Ahsan, in Nottingham, regularly works night shifts because keyhole surgery for blocked arteries has been made a 24/7 service. He is uneasy about the prospect of yet more NHS reforms. In Arizona the legal firm run by Glenn Bacal, which specialises in intellectual property, flourishes despite difficult economic conditions. Sadly, his basset hound Merton died four years ago. He now has two dogs with poodle bloodlines, and suspects that his choice was influenced by the late Mr Barton’s affection for poodles. Brian Bramson was awarded the degree of Master of Mathematics by ‘the other place’ 42 years after completing Part III of the Mathematical tripos, and has also been elected a Companion of Honour of the Royal Aero Club. He continues research into relativity, quantum mechanics, singularity removal and finite self-energies. Alan Dolton, a commentator on tax cases for LexisNexis, has also contributed to Simon’s Taxes, an encyclopedia named after Sir John Simon. Away from his desk, he won two silver medals in 2011 in veterans’ athletics races. The Guildhall Library in London has published a new edition of The City of London and its Livery Companies: A History of Survival by Ian Doolittle. To mark its publication the author gave a talk entitled ‘Why does the City of London govern only the Square Mile?’ He continues to prepare a calendar of Fire Court Decrees 116 POSTMASTER | 2011 resulting from the Great Fire of 1666. Bill Ford, manager of Tata-owned steel companies, reports that China and India remain ‘the powerhouses of growth’ while the UK is ‘flat’. The highlight of his year, however, was helping Merton to win the University Alumni golf tournament in April 2011. Musician Stephen Gardiner now dwells at Bexhill, Sussex, and continues to transcribe music into braille. Recent commissions have included Symphony no. 104, the ‘London’, by echt-Ollesonian composer Haydn. Another famous feature of Bexhill is the modernist De La Warr Pavilion of 1935, which was designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, originally as a social centre. It is now an arts centre, though Postmaster’s correspondent finds much of the exhibited work disappointing. Aficionados of Parliament on TV may have noticed Dorian Gerhold sitting bewigged and gowned in the House of Commons. As a regular duty clerk, his responsibilities include advising the Speaker, keeping a record of business and decisions, and enforcing time limits. Fans of his historical writings will be excited to hear that another book is close to completion. In June 2011 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Visitor of Merton, appeared to express scepticism about the value of the ‘Big Society’ concept. For reassurance, His Grace might perhaps visit Gordon Jeanes in Wandsworth. Not only is he a busy parish priest with a flourishing church and school, he is an active trustee of ‘Wandsworth Mind’, a mentalhealth charity which provides a drop-in centre and other valuable support. Chris Lewis has become President of the Haskins Society, an international organisation dedicated to the study of Viking, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman history (named in honour of Charles Homer Haskins, 1870-1937). Now based in Massachusetts, it organises an annual conference and publishes a journal. The Great Thespian of Congleton, Chris Mann, has recently revived his classic role of René in ‘Allo ‘Allo! and has played a dame in the pantomime Babes in the Wood. He was also nominated for a regional drama award and enjoyed attending the awards ceremony at the Blackpool Hilton. Ed Martley lately organised an AGM in the Oxford University Convocation House at the Bodleian Library for the Thames Valley Branch of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, though as Chairman he resisted the temptation to hold forth from the Vice-Chancellor’s chair. He admires Thomas Bodley as a shrewd Mertonian for his pioneering use of a ‘challenge grant’ in the 17th century. Nicholas Mays, who does occupy a chair as Professor of Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and NEWS | 1976 Tropical Medicine, has also become Director of a collaborative research unit concerned with ‘policy innovation research’ and continues to manage independent research evaluating the impact of major reforms on the NHS. Tom Millest has left the Metropolitan Police Service after 30 years’ service and has joined the Parole Board which assesses prisoners for possible release. The work involves reviewing dossiers and sitting on panels. He visits about 25 prisons and finds the work ‘fascinating, rewarding and quite challenging’. Physicist Ed Myers reports from Tallahassee that Florida’s public universities continue to suffer financially as a result of the recession and the state’s ‘anti-tax, small-government sentiment’. Faculty pay has been frozen for several years and benefits have been cut. He continues, nonetheless, to undertake research on precision atomic mass measurement. In October 2010 Robert Peberdy was a speaker at the biennial Rye Medieval Conference, which examined transport and trade. None of the audience noticed that the event was substantially a Mertonian occasion: the programme organiser was Michael Hicks (1971), and the other speakers included David Pelteret (1968) and John Hare (Visiting Schoolmaster, 1996). Afterwards, visitors to Rye might have overheard a vigorous conversation in the town’s dark streets about strange characters called Braun and Barton. Robert Peberdy was made redundant from the Victoria County History by Oxfordshire County Council in spring 2011. Congratulations are due to Robert Pitkethly, Fellow of St Peter’s College, who married Revd Dr Elizabeth Chevill in London in July 2011. Crispin Poyser, a Principal Clerk at the House of Commons, continues to supervise several select committees. Up in Yorkshire Malcolm Price continues to lecture in education at Leeds Trinity College and York St John University. He was surprised to hear of the pessimistic assessment of science teaching in primary schools made by Lord Rees at the launch of Merton’s 750th Anniversary campaign in May 2011. By contrast, he considers that science teaching at primary level is stronger than ever before. In May 2010 David Salter, alas, lost his post in the cabinet of Plymouth City Council as member responsible for Adult Health and Social Care, despite having an excellent record. During three years in office he helped to raise the Council’s performance in social care from ‘one star’ to equal best in the South-West (as assessed by the Care Quality Commission). Neil Smith is currently Master of the masonic lodge in Shaftesbury, Dorset (but Mertonians are asked to keep this secret). OLD MEMBERS On 4th December 2010, Brian Bramson and Robert Peberdy were among the Mertonians who attended a party at Balliol College to launch Tomfoolery, an entertaining collection of occasional writings by the late Tom Braun (1959). It is rumoured that Mertonians have also been commemorating Mr Braun’s memory with an appropriate brand of Penfolds wine. For more information on Tomfoolery, See Book Reviews, page 64. 1976 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: JOHN GARDNER The Orchard House, Witherslack, Cumbria LA11 6RS Tel: 015395 52232 Email: [email protected] That year being famous for its sunshine, many of the 1976 intake were reminded by May’s good weather to send an update. Several are teaching or conducting research. Married to Felicity (St Hilda’s, 1979) and living in Oxford, Richard Dendy is active at Warwick University’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics and at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, where he leads research teams and publishes steadily. He serves on two non-departmental public bodies: the MoD’s Nuclear Research Advisory Council, which has oversight of programmes at Aldermaston, and the FCO’s Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, which grants Marshall scholarships for US postgraduate students in the UK. Christopher Duggan teaches at the University of Reading as Head of the School of Literature and Languages, currently working on 19th- and 20th-century Italy. Having completed a history of Italy from the French Revolution to the present, he is now writing a book about Italian fascism as seen through the diaries, letters and memoirs of ordinary people. Jonathan Flint, a Merton fellow and Michael Davys Professor of Neuroscience, writes en route to China from a meeting ‘in Milan on rat genetics’. He is running global studies to better understand the causes of depression, both environmental and genetic. Robert Hannah has been at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand since leaving Merton, teaching Classical Archaeology and Greek. He gained a personal chair in 2006 and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2008. His current research is about time in antiquity, and will see him surveying Greek temples in the Mediterranean for the next three years. Married to Pat, who he met in Oxford, they have two children. Astrophysicist Nigel POSTMASTER | 2011 117 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1976 Metcalfe, at Durham University since the 1980s and married to Katherine for 20 years, is on the Science Council for the new PanSTARRS telescope project in Hawaii. Last year he was one of the Durham science team whose film Cosmic Origins beat Disney to win a Silicon Valley award for best 3D movie. Following a PhD at MIT and spells at Harvard and Columbia, Dan Raff has been on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania since 1994, holding appointments at the Wharton School, history department and law school. He remains a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Boston and in a current project is helping to write a history of the OUP. Adrian Schweitzer teaches Classics and Maths at Tonbridge School, as well as coaching and playing hockey. His three children are at university and with Carolyn he recently enjoyed a sabbatical term in Italy after 15 years running a boarding house. Recently returned to teaching chemistry after ‘rather too long as an IT consultant’, Jonathan Stephenson is growing vegetables and making music via his site jazzharmony.com. Mike Taylor, former Principal Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at National Museums Scotland and currently a research associate there working on fossil marine reptiles and the history of palaeontology, lives with Helen in his native town Penicuik, Midlothian. He is also an honorary research fellow at the Department of Museum Studies at Leicester University. Acceptable faces of capitalism include Chris Coombe, in Abu Dhabi since 2008 working for Abu Dhabi Government investment companies, who this year became CEO of a joint venture providing currency and commodity risk management solutions in the region. Lapsed lefty David Douglas runs equity capital markets for Standard Chartered and helps keep Cathay Pacific in business by commuting between Hong Kong and Paris, in addition to seeing his 15-year-old at Ampleforth. Rob Hain, having retired as Chief Executive of Invesco Perpetual in 2005, is Chairman of asset management group City Financial and a non-executive director of several other companies. Rob and Tracy, an interior designer, live in London while their daughters Iska and Kayla live in the United States and Canada respectively. After tours of duty in investment banking and with the Strategic Rail Authority following a stellar career in the Navy, including commanding nuclear submarines, David Humphrey is with Standard Bank in Johannesburg. Charles Manby works for Goldman Sachs. Married to Nicky, girlfriend from Merton years, they have three grown-up children. With John Booth he is co118 POSTMASTER | 2011 chairing the Merton 750th Anniversary Campaign. Ian McVeigh, one of the many Merton historians, is a director at Jupiter Asset Management. His daughter is reading History at Nottingham. Peter Bernie has lived near Chester since the 1980s, bringing up three daughters and working as a finance director in marine insurance, recently with Liverpool & London and presently as consultant to The Strike Club. Since 2000 John Bland has been a director of Global Integration, a specialist HR consultancy for international companies. Following an M&A career with Blue Circle and Mayflower, erstwhile JCR President Neil Craggs is a strategy consultant living in Buckinghamshire with Fran (St Anne’s, 1976) and children Juliet and Matt, now at Keble. Serial marketing director John Gardner is doing his thing on the interweb with financial services and shopping sites. Wife Tracey and daughters Joanna and Carla want to see their names in print and so – because he can – they are. After 30 years with Whitbread, most recently involving ‘a bit a travelling’ as European Quality Manager, master brewer Jeremy Horton recently declined the offer of a posting to Moscow in favour of warmer climes (Lancashire) and is now semi-retired doing Quality Project work in the food and drink sectors. Geoff Lee has worked in the biomedical industry since leaving Merton and lives in Macclesfield where he and Jane recently celebrated their 28th anniversary. Keen gardeners, they have renovated a ruin near Albi. Son Alex qualified in Medicine at Manchester and daughter Joanna is at St Andrews. Laurence Ormerod lives in Cumbria with Gill and children Holly and Tom. He is running and sailing whenever possible and consulting in business development and strategy for technology and start-up companies in the energy sector. Dan Rickman recently joined data solutions integrator Detica. Wife Jill is a professor of psychiatry at UCL and they have two grown-up children. Following a mid-life MA in Humanities he is currently completing a course on Jewish and Muslim perceptions of the other. Rod Roberts-Dear returned with Clare to bring up Max, Harry and Bruno in the UK after 12 years in Switzerland and Germany with Inchcape and Continental, settling in the Midlands as a principal at Ricardo Strategy Consulting. Next up, the lawyers. District judge Robin Barraclough sits in his home town Huddersfield and celebrates his silver wedding anniversary with Andrea this month. A football fan, his only regret is not being Mancunian. Simon Congdon, partner at Holman Fenwick NEWS | 1977 Willan for 20 years, specialises in international litigation and asset recovery. Much of his spare time is taken up running groups at St Helen’s church, Bishopsgate. After Merton, Tim Matthews joined Canadian firm Stewart McKelvey where as a partner he specialises in estate planning, tax, and estate litigation. His voice is heard in Nova Scotia not just as a choral singer and tenor soloist but as past Director and Chairman of Symphony Nova Scotia and present Chair of Scotia Festival of Music, a classical chamber music society. No surprise to those who saw his magic act, David Owen QC deals with tricky international disputes, arbitration and mediation from 20 Essex Street chambers. Closer to home, his son is at Wadham, daughter at St Andrews and wife Philippa is a London guide. David Pitman specialises in patent litigation as a partner at boutique intellectual property law firm Fulwider Patton in Los Angeles. Married for 18 years to Tamara Parsons, they have two daughters in high school. Antony Townsend writes from Leamington Spa, where he runs the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Father of six, he sings in London and Warwick when time permits. A documentary editor for the last 20 years for the BBC, Channel 4 and other broadcasters, Toby Farrell lives with wife and son in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire. Guy Montgomery is teaching tai chi and making cheese in central Portugal. He lives on an organic smallholding with his Italian consort Mariluz, their small daughters Iris and Ruby, donkey Reynolds and a flock of goats and sheep. Peter Truesdale was re-elected last year to Lambeth Council to serve his fifth term as member for Bishop’s Ward. Bob Cotton was recently created an honorary canon of Guildford Cathedral and elected to the Archbishops’ Council. Having spent 15 years as the parish priest in Guildford looking after a leaky listed church, he is also well-qualified in building maintenance. Charles Wookey is Assistant General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and was heavily involved in the organisation of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK last year. Finally, Postmaster has been promised photographs next time, including one of this year’s class who is currently training as a belly-dancer. You know who you are. OLD MEMBERS 1977 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: EDMUND WRIGHT Cedar Cottage, Graham Road, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 9JQ Email: [email protected] Richard Humes is still living in the Lake Geneva region and has recently retired from his banking career to pursue personal interests. These include travel, writing, mountaineering, and being a parttime student again. Fortunately, he says, the academic pressure is off this time round, which is a good thing after 25-plus years of brain degeneration, not helped by an over-enthusiastic immersion in the local wine-drinking culture. Thankfully Lynda is just about managing to cope with the challenge of having him around during the day: he doubts anyone else could. After leaving Merton Ashley Knowles took an MSc in Operational Research and subsequently gravitated towards financial modelling and business planning. He has been involved in some large property developments and has had clients in hospitality, telecoms, and broadcast services. He now lives in Sussex with his wife and one daughter, two dogs, and a multitude of uninvited rabbits. Of more interest to crossword solvers may be that he is ‘Boatman’ in The Guardian, where he has been teasing the readership for the last few years. Since last year’s report, Steve Lichfield has completed an MSc in Renewable Energy and Sustainability at Reading University, followed by a qualification in energy management from the Energy Institute in London, and is currently researching best-fit employment opportunities in the areas of low-carbon building, renewables and sustainability. He is always happy to chat about this rapidly changing area and the increasing impact it is having in all areas of life and work; please look him up on LinkedIn if interested. Steve’s older daughter is now a sculpture student in London, while the younger is working for her A Levels. And finally for this year, Hugh Scott-Barrett reports that that he has been appointed a non-executive director of Goodwood Estate Company Limited. POSTMASTER | 2011 119 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1979 1978 1979 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: MARK DAVISON 37 Connaught Square, London, W2 2HL Tel: 020 7402 6991 Email: [email protected] YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: NOEL PRIVETT Litchen House, 27 London Street, Whitchurch, Hampshire, RG28 7LH Tel: 01256 892514 Email: [email protected] It was great to get some new reports this year and further news from returning correspondents. Chris Effendowicz admits that he has “never communicated with my old college before”. He continues: “I am, and have been for 23 years, the managing director of a small, very old, soap manufacturing business in Lancashire still surviving where virtually no low tech industries remain in this country. Other than that, I am a Buddhist in the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO, now renamed the Triratna Buddhist Community) and live with my partner, Rachel, in a leafy part of north Manchester.” From Manchester to Monaco, where Ivor Alex has been living for the last 13 years. He has an executive search company with several overseas offices. The website link is www.normanalex. com. Nick Comninos is currently based in Greece and works in the family business which is “mainly a shipping company but is linked to a lot of other investments. For example, we keep a close eye on green technologies and are already active in the offshore windfarm service sector. We are also quite youth friendly and have recently run a successful intern week in Athens for a few students and are quite active in merchant marine cadet training.” Continuing the theme of messages from warmer climes, Victor Mallet reports from Spain that he is still with the Financial Times after 25 years. “Currently Madrid correspondent, after five years in Hong Kong as columnist, leader-writer and Asia editor. Madrid is landlocked, but I also write about sailing and yachts for the paper.” And finally from Martin Glenn “I’m the CEO of BirdsEye-Iglo frozen foods group which I’ve done since the end of 2006. I’ve recently moved to Richmond-on-Thames and bought a boat which my kids have named ‘Captain Birdseye’.” Pencil in 22nd September next year for the Gaudy; I hope to see many of you there. 120 POSTMASTER | 2011 There seems to be a theme of ennui running (trickling?) through this year’s 1979 submission. Everyone must be turning 50 about now, which might explain it. Mike Ryan says his life has gone on pretty much as last year. His family is all well but has been a bit tense with both boys doing exams in the summer just passed. Lancaster RGS still commands a good deal of his time but he’s found a few more little jobs with AQA to keep him out of mischief. Chris Short lives in Worcester and is married to Jo. They have two children; Will, who is at Durham, and Francesca who is still at school. Chris is on the board of a UK listed group, which he confesses “is a bit dull really”. He also occasionally sees Mick Friswell, who he thinks is a Professor at Swansea. Mark McBride (known as Mark Dyer in 1979) isn’t sure anybody would be interested in his teaching job in “a very mundane school” in Somerset. He tells me that other than the fact that it is full of perfectly decent and ordinary kids getting perfectly ordinary grades, it is also the only place he’s worked where anyone has ever been remotely impressed that he went to Oxford. He says: “‘Why are you working here if you went to Oxford?’ is a common refrain. The other day, one student announced that it was ‘cool’ that I had been to Oxford. So for a brief moment in time, I was cool. Never happened before, probably never will again.” Jonathan Weaver reports that “sadly not much has changed” in the past year, and then contradicts himself with the momentous news that he’s added two cats to the household. Life, he says, continues to be good, so no reason to complain. Mark Fiddes tells me that his news is also “pretty normal”. He has just created the relaunch of the Nivea brand globally to celebrate their 100 year anniversary and is working on the Merton 750th birthday. You can read an interview with Mark on page 37. He says he hopes that one of our year has decided to do a solo rocket flight to Venus or retrain as a Mullah in Pakistan. By curious and serendipitous coincidence, Nicholas Horton reports that he has been doing some very exciting things fomenting NEWS | 1980 insurrection in North Africa by the power of dreams from his bed in Dartmouth and that he is also learning to speak two languages at once. Apart from that, he says, it has been a quiet year, having also published three novellas and a collection of caustic short stories called Short Tories and other diminished creatures. Alas, I fear that the only fiction here is Nick’s entire story, save the bit about having a bed in Dartmouth. (He goes on to say that he does, occasionally, do something of great interest and value, but without being too specific just what that might be.) Some of our cadre, however, do appear to have been busy writing. Armand D’Angour, who is still teaching Classics at Jesus College, Oxford, has “finally completed” his academic book The Greeks and the New: Novelty in ancient Greek imagination and experience (CUP, 2011), and has since accepted a commission to write a business version – Eureka! Seven key principles of innovation from ancient Greece – which he naturally hopes will become a bestseller in airport bookshops worldwide (neck and neck with Mike Ridpath’s latest thriller). Speaking of which, Michael Ridpath has a new novel out. 66° North was published in the UK in May and is the second in the series about Magnus, an Icelandic detective. A group of Icelanders meet during the pots-and-pans revolution in Reykjavik in January 2009. They decide to take revenge on the people they believe are responsible for the credit crunch in their country. Magnus must figure out who they are and what they plan to do next. I read the first in the series, Where the Shadows Lie, and liked it so much that I bought the new one. I promise to read it as soon as I’ve finished Michael McIntyre’s autobiography. There is more information on Michael’s book on page 44. Patrick Shorrock works in the human resources department of the Archbishops’ Council, and has recently successfully completed his studies for an Advanced Certificate in Employment Law. He sings with the London Gay Men’s Chorus, and has performed with them in Barcelona, Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Helsinki and Turin, as well as at Cadogan Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican Centre, and the South Bank Centre. He has recently found fame as one of the oral history exhibits at the newly opened galleries at the Museum of London. Steven Thomas reports from his long-time home in Tokyo, where he lives with his wife Mayumi, that daily life has gradually been settling down after the 11th March earthquake and tsunami OLD MEMBERS and subsequent radiation scares, although the future outlook for Japan remains very much unclear. Sky Foerster, who describes himself as “one of those US Air Force types that came up in ‘79 to do a DPhil,” retired from the Air Force in 1997, ran an educational non-profit for a dozen years, and is now back teaching at the US Air Force Academy Department of Political Science as the Brent Scowcroft Professor for National Security Studies. The young children whom he says his doctoral supervisor wished at the time that he didn’t have are now in their 30s and doing well in San Francisco. Sky’s connection with Oxford remains largely that he sits on one of the Marshall Scholarship selection committees, so he continues to “try and send Oxford some of the former colony’s finest.” Roger Pearse is still freelancing in the IT industry. His other main activity has been commissioning translations of ancient texts, some of which he is editing for publication. By the time you read this he hopes to have the first of these out and producing a return. Frank Dean has made some very pertinent discoveries this last year in the field of chemical sensing. Geoff Bones on the other hand brings us right back down to earth. He says he has “not a lot to report” except that he’s changed jobs and now works for a “little diamond of a company” in Cambridge, called Red Gate. It’s a longer commute – about 10 miles – which he took to be the excuse he needed to go and learn to ride a motorbike. And best of all, he says, his older son, Chris, has finally graduated and is now a man of independent means. Speaking of Geoff and earth, you may recall that he issued a challenge to all Mertonians in the last issue of Postmaster to trump his two-and-an-half pound cauliflower. Alas, no one appears to have taken up the filthy gardening gauntlet. However, I did accidentally grow the world’s smallest carrot. I put some seeds in a pot (I liked the pot but didn’t have the most appropriate seeds). Nothing happened; winter came and went. And then, a tiny carrot appeared. Which was delicious. My other news – even more interesting than the carrot – is that I am now working in the third sector, as chief communications officer for Sue Ryder. The family is well: Claire is still governor of two schools amongst other things, and our children are thriving. Esther is at Exeter reading English, Florence is back at Cambridge doing her PGCE, to enable her to become a primary school teacher, Jonah has completed his AS levels and Reuben is at secondary school and mercifully fairly exam free at the moment. POSTMASTER | 2011 121 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1982 1980 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: NATALIE MILLER Dukes Farm, 39 Queen Street, Geddington, Northants, NN14 1AZ Tel: 01536 741704 Email: [email protected] 1981 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: GRAHAM DWYER 115 Lake Cook Drive, Alexandria, VA 22304, USA Tel: +1 703 664 0179 Email: [email protected] Many thanks to everyone who contacted me during my second year as Year Representative. It was great hearing from all of you, so please do keep your news coming in through the coming year. Mike Below is lead systems designer for Metapack, a software supplier providing multi-carrier shipping systems to companies dispatching items (largely) on the business-to-consumer model. He married Rachel back in 1995 and has two children, Claire (12) and Jonathan (9). In his spare time, Mike is involved with the local church (St Peter’s, Berkhamsted) where he runs the bellringing and recently started helping out with the local Cub Pack after a gap of about 15 years. Belated congratulations to Jonathan Lord who was elected as Conservative MP for Woking in May 2010 and lives in Surrey with his wife Caroline and their son and daughter. His Private Member’s Bill to improve safety at sports grounds has passed all its Commons stages and is likely to become law later this year. In the Commons, he frequently runs into another 1981 Mertonian, Jesse Norman, who, as I reported last year, was also elected as Conservative MP (for Hereford and South Herefordshire). In the past 12 months, Jesse has been elected by fellow MPs to the Treasury Select Committee and published a book, The Big Society (University of Buckingham Press, 2010). I was particularly pleased to hear from my tutorial partner, Nicki Paxman, who is still at the BBC, producing Radio 4’s Front Row, and living in north London with partner and son, age 9, who, she reports, is coming along nicely with his music. The last year has been eventful for Peter Phillips who reports that in October he moved to the ‘dark side’, or rather the light (blue) side, when he started at Cambridge University Press as its Chief 122 POSTMASTER | 2011 Operating Officer. This has involved lots of business opportunities and travel to places across six continents. He has found particular joy, though, being involved with prize-winning books – from The Letters of Samuel Beckett (CUP, 2009) to Monopoles and Three Manifolds (CUP, 2008) by his friend and former tutorial partner Peter Kronheimer (currently William Casper Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University). He finds the challenge of the world’s oldest publisher getting to grips with the transition from print to digital is exciting and testing. Ben Summerskill OBE has been Chief Executive of Stonewall, Europe’s largest gay equality organisation, since 2003. The charity is now working with British employers – from Goldman Sachs and IBM to all the armed services and MI5 –- of 5.5 million people, supporting the recruitment and retention of gay staff. And last, but not least, some happy news from Patrick Turner, who has returned to Britain, after a spell in the USA, and remarried. He writes: “My last entry in Postmaster was an obituary of my first wife, Rachel Charrett (Merton, 1983), who died of breast cancer in 2004, leaving behind three children: Samuel, Isaac and Flora. We had married in 1992 and enjoyed very nearly 12 years together. She died a remarkably courageous and good death, and was very much at peace.” Since then, Patrick has continued to work in Government – principally the Ministry of Defence, helping to lead work in 200507 to support decisions by the last Government on updating the UK’s nuclear deterrent, then led a team in the Cabinet Office to write the first UK National Security Strategy. After almost three years working in the Embassy in Washington ‘improving my American’, he is now back in the UK, working with the Army at its main headquarters in Andover. During his spell in Washington, he met and married (all during 2009) Therese Dymond, from Virginia. “During my time in Washington I also took the opportunity to defect from Anglicanism to Catholicism – a decision I have not regretted so far, not least since a nun at Church introduced me to my wife,” he writes. Therese is expecting a baby in the autumn, “so bankruptcy beckons with even more inevitability than before,” he says. I am sure all from 1981 would want to wish them the best of luck! NEWS | 1983 1982 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: NICK WELLER 12 North Ash, Hawthorn Close, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 2BW Tel: 01403 269883 Email: [email protected] Thinking particularly this year of everyone whose children have had major exams – quite a few I know. Paul Collier is now looking after the Copleston Centre Church in Peckham, an Ecumenical Partnership between Hanover Chapel United Reformed Church and St Saviour’s Church of England Parish, which includes a very active community centre. Paul is taking part in the 2011 London Triathlon, raising money for the church roof. Paul is also still playing in the Morley Big Band. Andrew Corrie has been pottering along, his year reminding him of young Albert’s trip to Blackpool. Congratulations to Simon Crutchley on the birth of Hugo Stafford, born 23rd February. Simon is now teaching at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, University of London. Janet Edwards (Makower) has been arranging Federal Loans for US students at Edinburgh College of Art (merging with the University of Edinburgh on 1st August 2011). John Holland has been kept busy by his children, but has still found time to study. He finished a Maths degree with the Open University last year, and is now working towards an MSc in Systems Thinking. John is still working for UK Borders Agency, and was recently sent to man the border control during the strike in June. It was an interesting experience being on the other side from travellers. John meets up regularly with Richard Ryder, James Thickett, Stephen Walsh, David Holbrook, Chris Edwards and David Parkinson. Michael Jary is a Non-Executive Director of Nationwide Building Society. Christopher Johnson has been inducted into the American College of Surgeons and is now a Fellow of the American College of Surgery. Christopher has also been enjoying time on the beach with his daughter, Alexandra Natalia Johnson, who is two and due to begin nursery school in Bermuda. Peter Moger is now Canon Precentor at York Minster. Peter has been appointed Chair of the Academic Board of the Guild of OLD MEMBERS Church Musicians and has been made an Honorary Fellow of the Guild. Peter Roberts has been appointed as Headmaster of King’s School, Canterbury. I have had quite a quiet year with not much change. 1983 Year Representative: Meriel Cowan 40 Ash Grove, Headington, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX3 9JL Tel: 01865 762458 Email: [email protected] It is 25 years since most of us sat our finals, and when I see stressed finalists in my GP consulting room it makes me feel very old! Congratulations to Andrew and Philippa Baker who are celebrating their Silver Wedding Anniversary in July this year. Their four sons, the Fabulous Baker Boys, keep them on their toes. Andrew continues in practice at the Bar and Philippa teaches at their local infants’ school and a local nursery as well. Richard Baxter is a tax consultant in the City. He travels a lot, but still finds time to watch his sons play cricket. His wife Kerstin, who is German, has taken up cricket coaching; I was very impressed to hear this! They have been based in Croydon for some years. It was lovely to speak to Paul Chavasse recently. Paul is on the board of Rathbones and commutes to London frequently, though he is based in the Liverpool office and lives with Sonia and their three children in Cheshire. He has recently been in touch with Charles Lonsdale (1984) who is currently HM Ambassador to Armenia and is getting married there shortly. The Chavasse family are meeting up with Susan and Michael Roller and their children in the Channel Islands later this month. Ernest Cheung writes from Hong Kong that he has moved to new Chambers, and now has a great view of Victoria Harbour. James Collings is now a board director of Schroders Private Bank, subsidiary of the Schroders Group. “Not the best time to be announcing one is a bank director”, he says wryly. His daughter Fran (14) has been selected to represent Great Britain at water polo, which is a fantastic achievement. Bromsgrove School, where Chris Edwards continues as Headmaster, is flourishing with “heaps of new buildings, a new Foundation for bursaries, and no end of international initiatives”. The school is very lucky to have him if his blog is anything to go POSTMASTER | 2011 123 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1984 by – very much more entertaining than anything coming out of my children’s schools! Chris reports that Everton coming seventh has been a source of great comfort to him. Michael Everett and Sarah Crofts live in Balham, not at all far from Walter de Merton’s priory. They have two children, Belinda (7) and Honor (5). Michael practises in shipping and leasing taxation with KPMG in Canary Wharf. Sarah is active in the domestic arts and community. “We are moving into central Cambridge over the summer”, Frances Harris (née Mortimer) tells me. “My husband Steve is getting ordained in July at Ely Cathedral, and then going to a curacy in Trumpington on the edge of Cambridge.” Frances continues to lead the rehabilitation team in the cochlear implant department at Addenbrookes Hospital. She adds that she is going to swim a mile outdoors this summer to raise funds for the MS Society. It doesn’t seem very long ago that Bridget (1982) and Michael Jager brought their baby daughter Evie to a gaudy; she is now a student at York University. When both their daughters have flown the nest, Michael and Bridget hope to plan a sabbatical year. I met Matthew Kempshall and his wife taking their beautiful new baby for a first trip out by the river at Sandford-on-Thames on a sunny spring day a few weeks ago. Matthew is on sabbatical leave from Wadham where he teaches History. Daniel Seymour was back in touch with me when he was visiting the UK with his son Jamie. Between us we failed to meet up but hope to if he is back later in the year. He is still working in finance in New York. Simon and I are still in same house, same jobs. We had a wonderful family road trip last summer driving round Europe for six weeks with our three boys. We were still on excellent terms by the end of it. Highlights were a beautiful flat where we stayed in Venice where gondoliers floated under the balcony singing; and a house on the rocky coast of an island off Croatia. I’d love to repeat it. 1984 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: DAVID CLARK 19 Willowdene Court, Brentwood, Essex, CM14 5ET Email: [email protected] I was delighted with the response to my rather plaintive follow-up email message requesting contributions for this year’s piece – thank 124 POSTMASTER | 2011 you everyone! It was especially pleasing to hear from some of you for the first time, and so it is with news of those people that I shall start. Richard Parr emailed from San Diego, where he’s been living since 2005, having moved to the US in 1992. He works as a requirements analyst/data modeller working in healthcare IT. He writes that San Diego is “the only place I know where the local TV channels tell you about the weather in other cities, just to gloat”. Another long-distance email arrived from Karen Small (née Reynolds) who is currently Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Flinders University in South Australia. She and her family (husband Sandy and children Oliver and Emily) moved Down Under in 1997. In 2010, Karen spent four months on sabbatical at the University of Sussex and later in the year was awarded the title of ‘Australian Professional Engineer of the Year’ at the annual Australian Engineering Excellence Awards. So, congratulations Karen! The final first-time contributor was Charles Lonsdale, who has also been spending time abroad in his role as the British Ambassador in Armenia. He will be leaving there at the end of 2011 after four fascinating years but will be keeping up his connections with the country having married his Armenian fiancée, Maria Sadoyan, in June this year. At the time of writing, Charles is still waiting to hear to which country he will be posted next. As well as these new contributors, it was good to have updates from some previous correspondents. Andrew Williams had a second play performed at Warwick Arts Centre at the Spring Meeting of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Called Daniel Mercy, the play concerns institutional cover-ups of child abuse cases and the difficulties facing anyone who raises concerns over such matters. In recent years, Jonathan Ockenden has moved from the Treasury through the Commonwealth Secretariat to become the UK representative on the board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the international financial institution established to support countries in the transition from communism and central planning to democracy and a market economy). Stephen Ashworth writes that his three-year term as Associate Dean for Admissions in the Faculty of Science at UEA is coming to an end this year. He has recently visited South Africa where he took part in a Science Festival and toured round some schools giving demonstration lectures. Andrew Phillips is still working for the Duchy of Cornwall, focusing on finance, sustainability and IT. One of his current roles is NEWS | 1985 as a director of a joint venture that is building a biogas plant for the Duchy’s development at Poundbury in Dorchester, which will make the development carbon-neutral. On the home front, he and his family still live in Wells and he notes that “all three of our daughters are at secondary school, with the eldest learning to drive and looking at universities, which is all rather scary”. Francis Marsland continues to live in Zürich and works in Zug for Biogen Idec (a global biotechnology business) as Chief International Counsel and Site Head of the International Headquarters. He spends the rest of his time ferrying his two sons between ice hockey matches. Philippa Whipple reports that the Merton Lawyers Association had a very successful evening last November looking at zero tolerance policing strategies with Bernard Hogan-Howe (an old Mertonian and former Chief Constable of Merseyside). This year’s meeting will take place at Slaughter and May in London on 22nd November and will look at managing risk on the release of offenders and mental health patients. The speakers will be Sir David Latham, Chairman of the Parole Board and Professor Guy Goodwin, former Mertonian and Professor of Psychiatry. Philippa further reports that Eleanor Grey became a QC this year. Congratulations Eleanor! Finally, some news from your year rep. Last August, I marked ten years of working for Argenta, a company that I joined at its inception in 2000. Outside work, I have enjoyed travelling to various school sports grounds in Essex supporting my son in his rugby matches and have recently taken on the role of Secretary for the mid-Essex Branch of the Gideons. Please keep in touch – news is welcomed at any time of the year. 1985 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: BEN PRYNN 143 John Ruskin Street, London, SE5 0PQ Tel: 020 7703 8645 Email: [email protected] One theme of the year for the Class of 1985 seems to be moving on to new jobs after a long period of stability. After 21 years at Deloitte Consulting, Adam Broun changed jobs last year, joining Credit Suisse as their Head of IT Strategy. He is still commuting between his home near Boston and the office in New York, and enjoying the new challenge. He reports that his family is well and his son Daniel turned 13 this year. This side of the Atlantic, Jo Woods (née Brindley) is finally OLD MEMBERS leaving the BBC and heading to Boston Consulting group as Head of Finance. She will continue to be based in London and is looking forward to the change. Mark Medish has joined APCO Worldwide, the public affairs firm, as executive vice-president and managing director of its international advisory service Global Political Strategies. He is based in Washington, DC. Mark and his two oldest sons, Vadim (17) and Nikolai (14), visited Merton in July 2010. Not everybody is changing their occupation. After 25 years of ups and downs, Jonny Morris is happy to report he is still an active Trades Unionist and Labour Party stalwart, currently organising campaigns and elections in Plymouth, with occasional forays into the Tory wasteland of Devon. He says he loves to write scurrilous verse for which people pay and he benefits hugely from the support of his wife and cat. Madeleine Barrows reports she is enjoying a busy and varied job working as Communications Officer for the Academy of Social Science, where she is editing the Making the Case for the Social Sciences series of booklets showcasing the impact of social science research. She is also still editing Catholic Ancestor, a journal for the Catholic Family History Society. Despite her four children occupying much of her time she managed to complete the London Marathon, an ambition held since 1990, and also passed Grade 7 piano. Mark Bevir is Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. In 2010, he published The State as Cultural Practice (Oxford University Press) and Democratic Governance (Princeton University Press) and in 2011 is planning to publish The Making of British Socialism (Princeton University Press), which some of his contemporaries may recognise as a very belated and heavily revised derivation of his Oxford DPhil. Last but by no means least, the big event in Chris Hehir’s life last year was the arrival of his first daughter, Lily Yolanda on 28th December. Despite the inevitable sleep deprivation, Chris still found the time and energy to be appointed a Crown Court Recorder. 1986 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ADRIAN JUDGE The Old Vicarage, 5 Fairmead, Cam, Dursley, Gloucestershire, GL11 5JR Tel: 01453 544182 Email: [email protected] POSTMASTER | 2011 125 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1989 1988 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: TIM GARDENER 7 Carlyn Drive, Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, SO53 2DJ Tel: 02380 275831 Email: [email protected] 1988 has been unreported for a little while, so here is the first trickle of news. Helen Hackett (née Cobb) reports that her children are now aged 15 and 12. She is a Professor of English at UCL and her fourth book, Shakespeare and Elizabeth: The Meeting of Two Myths was published in 2009. She recently spent a sunny spring day in Oxford and enjoyed a nostalgic stroll around Merton, including the Chapel, where her marriage took place in 1990. Suzanne Fagence Cooper and John Cooper (1989) are now living in Yorkshire. Suzanne’s latest book, The Model Wife: Effie Gray, Ruskin and Millais is coming out in paperback later this summer. They have two daughters. Julie Potter writes that she has been the Head of the History Department at Marlborough College in Wiltshire for the past four years. She will be taking up a new role as a Deputy Head at Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire in September. Terrence Pivia is an Associate Professor in Cell Biology at the School of Medical Sciences at RMIT University in Melbourne. His research is in the area of skin cancer, photobiology, cancer metabolism and polycystic ovarian syndrome and he has published over 40 papers and 80 conference abstracts. Apart from lecturing and research, he is involved in international student marketing and visits South East Asia twice a year to attend student marketing events for RMIT University. Terrence is married to Kerri and they have one son, Stephen, who is in year 11 at school. Tim Gardener is now living in Hampshire with his wife Kate and their two-year-old daughter. He is working in public sector management consultancy, currently tackling the problems of the NHS in the South Central region, which are mostly insoluble. 1989 YEAR-REPRESENTATIVES: MATTHEW GRIMLEY Email: [email protected] and TOM PEDRICK Email: [email protected] 126 POSTMASTER | 2011 A poor effort from your year reps this year. We hope to be more organised and persuasive next year, or you could always send in some news unprompted… John Cooper and his wife Suzanne (1988) both celebrated their 40th birthdays by bringing out major books – Suzanne’s The Model Wife: The Passionate Lives of Effie, Ruskin and Millais (Duckworth) and John’s The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I (Faber). Cat Harris and her husband Ben had a baby girl, Jessica Alice Byram-Wigfield, on 4th October 2010 weighing 7lb 9oz. Cat is still working for the FSA predominantly as a lawyer and part-time as an executive coach. Max Kelly married Donna North on the South coast on a sun-kissed day in June. The reception was at his family home in Warsash, with guests partying late into the night around the swimming pool just like they used to do at university. Best man Richard McGuire pointed out that his speech was payback for the time some years ago when Max was his best man but didn’t actually make it to the wedding ceremony or reception. Myles Ogilvie and his wife Tamsin have had a daughter, Phoebe, a sister for Rufus (3). Myles is now working for Barclays Wealth and will happily look after your money as long as you have enormous amounts of it. Tom Pedrick has joined the international development consulting practice at PwC, and by the time this is printed will be glad if he hasn’t been sent to DR Congo to reform one of the world’s more challenging police forces. William Redgrave and his family have moved to La Coruna in Spain, from where he continues to practise as a Jersey advocate. Jonny Woodward started a new Associate Professorship at the University of Tokyo in April, and has also been performing with his group Melted. 1990 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: CHRISTINE BARRIE 15 Badminton Close, Cambridge, CB4 3NW Tel: 01223 501598 Email: [email protected] and CLAIRE WEBSTER 16 Kingsgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9PD Tel: 01962 863237 Email: [email protected] NEWS | 1991 In early April this year (while on a skiing holiday in Aspen, USA, with Mertonian Max Kelly) Tom Elliott became engaged to his partner Elise Mooney. He comments that they have done things around the wrong way, however, as they already have a daughter, Ava, who was born in January 2010. No wedding date has yet been set. Helen Hulme and Leo Zeef now have a baby son, Joe Kenneth Zeef, also born in January 2010. Philip Wilson recently left Salisbury Playhouse, where he has been the Artistic Director since Summer 2007. During the past four years, he has programmed eight seasons of plays, and directed 13 productions – ranging from revivals of English classics such as Private Lives, The Constant Wife and The Winslow Boy to contemporary plays including Blackbird and Faith Healer, as well as his own adaptation of JL Carr’s A Month in the Country. He has now returned to London and to freelancing; his future projects include a double-bill of The Importance of Being Earnest and Travesties at Birmingham Old Rep. Philip is delighted still to be working in the theatre, 20 years after his days as President of Merton Floats. Steven Brown was promoted in October 2010 to full Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick. Jayne Joyce (née Douglas) reports that their youngest, Daisy, has turned three and started part-time at nursery school. Jayne is marking this milestone by taking another set of professional exams (every time she does this she says “never again”). She asks whether she is going to be Merton’s first IBCLC – prize to anyone who knows what that means!? Claire Webster (née Farrow) is teaching Classics back at St Swithun’s School, Winchester, where she first taught 15 years ago. Alison Reid is making the leap to self-employment this summer as a career change coach and training consultant. At time of writing, her business, Beyond Bounds, was not yet live, but you’ll be able to find her from around August 2011 at www.beyondbounds.co.uk. She is still living in Teddington, south-west London, with her South African partner, Bryan, who is also starting a business as a tai chi instructor and coach so she reckons the next couple of years will be a bit of a rollercoaster. Christine Barrie (née Wiggins) is now Scientific Administrator for the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. She is still working part-time as her son is only 8, and she rather enjoys leaving the office at 3pm to collect him from school. OLD MEMBERS 1991 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ANNA SMITH (Chairman of the Year Representatives) c/o The Development Office, Merton College, Oxford, OX1 4JD 1992 YEAR REPRESENTATIVES: ANDREW DAVISON Westcott House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge, CB5 8BP Email: [email protected] Jeff Childers is working on an edition and translation of some ancient Syriac patristic texts. He has made two research trips this spring: to the newly refurbished Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) and to St Catharine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai in Egypt. His trip to Egypt occurred just a few days after President Mubarak’s resignation, providing a rare and fascinating opportunity to witness and interact with the people in Cairo during the very early days of what they kept referring to as the January 25 Revolution. A side note, his daughter Rebekah travelled with him in order to conduct research related for her university senior thesis. She conducted interviews of monks at St Catharine’s in order to collect data for a project on sacred space. The research will result in multiple volumes in the Leuven series, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Mark Freeman is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow, and divides his time between Glasgow and London. He continues to publish widely on modern British history, and is the co-author of a forthcoming book, Shareholder Democracies? Corporate Governance in Britain and Ireland before 1850, which will be published by the University of Chicago Press. Hector Macdonald got engaged this year. He will marry Kate Kendall in the summer. Anna Watts and her husband Jason are comfortably settled in the Dutch university system. Their daughter Aeryn Ursula Farquhar was born in August 2010, rendering life both more chaotic and more fun! Whether they can learn Dutch fast enough to keep up with her remains an open question. Rachael Ball married Matthew Maunder in August 2010. They are still living in Dubai, and Rachael continues to work for an Abu Dhabi government organisation – the Media Zone Authority. POSTMASTER | 2011 127 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1993 William Barry and his family left Paris last summer (where he had been serving as the NASA European Representative) and moved back to the USA. They settled in Annapolis, Maryland, which is in commuting distance to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. While in the process of moving he was offered the position of NASA Chief Historian and very happily accepted that job. Together with his small staff, he operates a little NASA history publication operation (they hire historians under contract to do most of the writing), they answer questions about NASA history (both internally and from the public), and do their best to preserve NASA history and stimulate interest in it. For anyone with an interest, a good starting point is their extensive web presence at: www.history.nasa.gov. Rebecca Eastmond (née Shaw) married Matthew (Christ Church, 1992) in 2002 and they now have Arthur who starts big school in September and Isabel who was born in January 2010. Both are generally charming children and Giles Richardson is a suitably indulgent godfather to Arthur. In 2008, Rebecca moved from heading up the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts to advise JP Morgan’s private bank clients on their giving and is now enjoying her new role as EMEA Head of Philanthropic Services. Isobel Griffiths married Kenneth AJ Tune (Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1989) at Wesley’s chapel in London in August 2009. Isobel and Ken are delighted to be able to announce the birth of their daughter Rebecca Josephine Violetta Tune on 14th October 2010. Steve Maxwell lives outside San Francisco and manages Google’s customised learning and development group. He enjoys playing with his son Felix (2). The family’s latest adventures include growing vegetables and camping. 1993 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: JOANNA COOKE Email: [email protected] This year it’s an alphabetical review but backwards to make it (a tiny bit) interesting. Jonathan Young married Debbie in March 2011 and is now working as a statistician at the Department for Education in London. 128 POSTMASTER | 2011 Liz Truss was elected as MP for South West Norfolk. She is a Conservative MP – but luckily it’s a coalition government so hopefully the fact she was an avid LibDem back at college isn’t too awkward. Helen Tesh is still in Kent, still teaching music and is now also working as head of year to help new pupils settle into senior school. Jeremy Stammers lives in Putney and recently joined the college team in a 10k run. He is very keen that next year there be more runners from the 90s as most of the runners this year were from the MCR. Malcolm Smith regrets that due to retirement from practice he has nothing interesting to report. Charley Smith now lives in Birmingham and has given birth to a son, Austin. She describes him as ‘her best work’ but I for one don’t remember Charley doing any other work… or is that unfair? Alan Renwick (who many of you will remember working nonstop) published a book in January called A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform. This meant a busy time during the referendum campaign, when he spent a lot of time “pointing out all the nonsense that both of the campaigns were producing”. Jim Ratzer reports that daughter Sophie was born last September, as a younger sister to Hugo. Surprisingly, Jim has no high jinx to report, claiming: “I lead a boring life nowadays”. Clive Norton still works in the ski industry and confessed that he no longer smokes a pipe, thus proving that while the rest of us are getting older, Clive is more youthful each year. Matt Nelson has been turned into an (albeit tall and happy) emotional wreck by the birth of his first daughter – Amy Elizabeth. Unsurprisingly, she is in the 99.5 percentile for height at birth – all the points to Matt’s wife SJ. Anna Jones is still the Librarian at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and is now also a Tutor (which in Cambridge terms is a pastoral role). Her domestic project for this year is to refurbish the garden pond. Jamie Inman thinks he is above Postmaster updates but unluckily for him I know his news. He has finally bought a flat with the exceptional Kate, a radio journalist. They live in North London and own (to the delight of small children) a wormery. Leanda Fauset (née Cooksey) has moved to Geneva with her family. By the time you read this she will doubtless own two ski chalets and have made the down payment on a private jet. NEWS | 1995 Naomi Drewitt has moved to a new job in the Department of Health and she is now Deputy Secretary to the Board. Tania Davison (née Abrahams) gave birth to a son, Malakai, in September 2010. Tania did the Blenheim triathlon without me this year (I used the ‘just had a baby’ excuse) and we would love fellow class of 1993ers to join us next year. Laura Davies (née Williams) is married to Charles and they live in London. They have one daughter, Cordelia and both work in high-flying jobs in the Foreign Office. Ben Curthoys has started a business selling box-office ticketing software and recently sold its first live ticket. All those in need of such a system should visit www.monadsoftware.com. Rhona Cox has just emigrated to Gothenburg where she will continue to work for AstraZeneca and (this is out of date but important news) she married Alexander Cameron (St John’s, 1993) in 2006. I am still on the edge of collapse after daughter three, Annie, was born in March. My husband Rob seems to think that having three girls is great; he has no idea what teenage drama lies in store. Sian Clarke (née Davies) lives near Hampton Court with husband Mark and their two children Megan and Ben. Sian is as glam as ever and returns to work teaching French in September. Emma Cayley still has two children and one husband. She says she is slightly closer to middle age than at the last update and has no current plans for any more children or husbands. I think that’s all. If you’re annoyed at not being mentioned, please email me. 1995 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: TAMZEN ISACSSON Tel: 0046 87 549415 Email: [email protected] Following last year’s bumper edition for the 1995 year, it was still good to hear from some new people this year. Lissy Lovett is living in South London and works as the Programme Manager for Stagetext where she organises captioned performances (similar to TV subtitles) in theatres across the UK. Lucy Tallents is a post-doc with the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) in Oxford. She has developed a new postgraduate diploma for wildlife conservation professionals in OLD MEMBERS biodiverse but poorly-resourced countries, and is now designing online courses in between teaching trips to Malaysia. After six years at eBay with the recent two leading the Fashion category for Europe, Xin He is taking a well-deserved break from the life of commuting/computer gazing to relax and travel. She is most likely on a long-distance bus bumping through the Gobi desert in Northwest China as you read this. We are looking forward to welcoming her to Stockholm again in July. Alex Campbell is living in North London and is working transatlantically for PensionsFirst, a provider of risk management software for defined benefit pension schemes. Alex writes that the past year’s exciting (but exhausting) event was the birth of Seth, a little brother to his beautiful daughter Yasmin (3). Claire Jones has been working as an actuarial consultant since she left Merton in 1999 and has been a partner at LCP in Winchester since 2007. In recent years she has become heavily involved in environmental issues, mainly on a voluntary basis, and is currently chair of Winchester Action on Climate Change. She is about to change career direction this summer and is leaving LCP to start an MSc in Sustainability (Ecological Economics) at Leeds University in September. Gill Cowen has an update for us from Australia. She has married her fiancé Tim who is a civil and mining engineer. They had a fabulous day and are planning to honeymoon mid-year in the Kimberleys (NW WA). Noel Cross was promoted this year at LJMU to become undergraduate Criminal Justice Leader. He is currently writing his second book for Pearson Longman, due to be published in January 201. Noel and his wife Helen are expecting their first child in September. Christine Carey has a new job as the Customer and Insight Manager at Emerald Publishing Ltd, which is a scholarly publisher of Business, Management and Social Science research based in Bingley. She married Jonathan Pickup in June. Patrick Long still works for Lazard, the investment bank, where he specialises in real estate. James Mendelsohn is still living in Leeds and teaching Business Law at the University of Huddersfield. On the baby front we have yet more updates for this year. Kate Ledlie (née O’ Meara) had a son (William) last year. Felicity and Adrian Bingham write that they are well and that their second daughter Thea was born in August last year. Joanne Richmond also had a second child in 2010 called Edward Samuel. POSTMASTER | 2011 129 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 1996 We also have an update from Jonathan and Jane Legg. They have two boys (Will and George) and Jane is taking a career break to look after them. Jonathan is a partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, specialising in tax. They live in Cobham in ‘norf Surrey’. Helen Wain (née Bray) married Nick in 2008. They have a son, Toby (13 months) and a second baby due in December. They live in Clifton-on-Teme, a tiny village just outside Worcester, and when Helen is not on maternity leave, which she says doesn’t seem very often at the moment, she is a Sergeant with West Mercia Police. Tamzen Isacsson was promoted to Head of Broadcast Media at the official media company for the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. I will be enjoying yet more extended Swedish parental leave soon though, as Joachim and I are expecting our second child, a little boy, in August. 1996 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: MARIA PRETZLER Top Floor Flat, 23 The Grove, Uplands, Swansea, Wales, SA2 0QT Email: [email protected] Lisa de Poerck (née Carter) and her husband Bruno had a baby boy Theo Sebastien in July 2010. Lisa says that she is thoroughly enjoying being at home with the little one, and she is already getting him hooked on Greek myths! Sam Kessler’s son Kit was born in August 2010. Thomas Au and Miki Kato wrote from Hong Kong – some of you might not know that they got married back in 2003. Thomas is a judge of the High Court of Hong Kong and in summer 2011 Miki finishes a degree in interior design. Rufus Frowde got married to Polly Barclay in October 2010. The wedding was at the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, where he has been the organist for the last eight years. He also reports that his playing and the back of his head also featured in the 2010 Queen’s Christmas message. 1997 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: CATHERINE SANGSTER Email: [email protected] 130 POSTMASTER | 2011 1998 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ALEX EDMANS 1919 Chestnut Street, Apt 1124, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA Tel: +1 215 893 1280 Email: [email protected] Adrian Barnes and Zoe Barnes (neé Moore) have both moved to Scotland (near Edinburgh). Adrian is still working as an environmental consultant and Zoe is now working as renewable energy consultant. On 17th March, Mark Eminson and Elise received the gift of twins, Beatrice and Joseph. He hopes that, in a year’s time when his family moves, that the Church of England still has some decentsized vicarages! Cristian Gazdac was appointed in the Romanian government team of experts to evaluate and recover smuggled high-valued artefacts. His 7-year old son Mark-Anthony played his first official football game, for the U9 team of the club that represented Romania in Champions League. In a friendly game he replaced Cristian for the last 10 minutes of the game. Ben Garner has finally left squash for the ‘real world’ and is doing strategic analysis for Connections Academy, a fast-growing online education company. Jonathan Home was appointed as Assistant Professor of Quantum Optics and Photonics at the ETH Zürich. He moved to Zurich with his wife Yuki Iida in August 2010. Edwin Northover married Kitty Hung (Hertford 1998) in Merton Chapel on 7th EDWIN NORTHOVER AND HIS WIFE August 2010 (see photo). KITTY IN FELLOWS GARDEN NEWS | 1999 Many Mertonians who matriculated in 1997 and 1998 were present; several playing important roles in the service which they naturally undertook with aplomb (including but not limited to Revd Mark Eminson (1998) who gave a sermon liberally scattered with quotes from another Merton alumnus, Mandell Creighton). Despite an inauspiciously wet start to the day, the sun came out when it mattered and both Merton and the bride looked glorious. Since then, Edwin and Kitty have spent their time working and commuting between London and Hong Kong and leaving a depressingly large carbon footprint in their wake. 1999 YEAR REPRESENTATIVES: ANDREW TUSTIAN 30 Cottage Place, Apt#2, Tarrytown, NY 10591, USA Email: [email protected] and JOHN CORCORAN 57 Charles Street, Oxford OX4 3AU Email: [email protected] The steady stream of 1999’s Mertonians walking down the aisle continues as weddings once again feature heavily in this year’s report. Greg Brown and Naomi Law married in Knowle in July 2010. Kieran Fenby-Hulse (née Hulse) entered into a civil partnership with Guy, his partner of four years, on 29th April 2011. The blessing of their union took place in the scenic surroundings of Newmiller Dam in Wakefield. The City of Bradford Brass Band played for their service and the evening consisted of a northern buffet, raffle and a gender illusionist. Perhaps the day’s defining moment was their first dance: The Conga. Why not include everyone? At present Kieran works for Bradford University as a Research and Knowledge Transfer Support Officer and Guy as a store manager for Barnardos. John Corcoran and Emily Jenkins (2004) celebrated their wedding at Merton College and Lains Barn, Wantage on 30th April 2011; no guests were harmed during the day’s events that included two separate drinks receptions and a high-tempo barn dance. Vanessa Bloor and Chris Sherriff married on 21st May 2011. Nick Seaman and Gemma Wilson were joined in matrimony on 11th June at St Luke’s Church, Grayshott before moving on to Cain Manor for their reception, the “biggest ushers ever seen” ensuring OLD MEMBERS that events ran smoothly throughout. By the time Postmaster goes to press Katherine Sharrocks and William (Liam) Kelly (2000) should have joined these happy couples, having set their wedding date for 25th June 2011 in Llanon and Aberaeron. Whilst not quite married, Caroline Ovadia and Ross Worrall have taken the first step by announcing their engagement this year. All these weddings are now bearing fruit, with eight births to announce. Susanna Kessler (née Ross) and her husband Sam (1996) welcomed Christopher (Kit) into their family on 17th August 2010. Emma Dedman gave birth to her son, Benjamin Frederick, on 29th August 2011. Patrick Tampkins and his wife Katie celebrated the arrival of their second daughter, Lucy Diana, on 10th January 2011. Rosalind Taylor-Hook (née Hook) gave birth to Miranda Josephine on 5th February. Kate Garcia (née Marten) is very much enjoying being a mummy to her son Carlos John. He was born on 28th February 2011 weighing in at a healthy 9lb 4oz. This year she also became a chartered tax advisor to complement her role as a solicitor. In March, Helen Mallalieu and her husband Steve Eldridge gave their son Oliver a sister, Charlotte Rose Eldridge. Veronika Hrbata (née Cerna) and her husband Michal were joined on 12th March 2011 by their daughter Julia Anna, who has now reportedly taken control of most of the household planning. Andrew Tustian has also entered parenthood. On 20th May 2011 his wife Elisa gave birth to a boy in the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York (home of the Headless Horseman). Born late on a Friday, Charles Michael was disappointed to learn that there was no Bop on that night. After 12 years of postgraduate training Lisa Wong finally finished with her residency in June, and entered private practice in comprehensive ophthalmology near Denver in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. She would, perhaps unwisely, welcome any visiting Mertonians. Nathaniel Coleman continues with his philosophical studies at the University of Michigan. His intellectual fervour has been aroused by David Lammy’s comments in the Houses of Parliament that Oxford University continues to struggle to recruit ‘British black Caribbean’ students as undergraduates, not least as he is one of the ‘three students in the last decade’ who have been singled out as recent alumni of Merton College. To this end, he feels compelled to contribute to public debate on the matter and has written a paper, Changing the white Oxbridge lightbulb, which is available on request from [email protected]. POSTMASTER | 2011 131 OLD MEMBERS NEWS | 2002 2000 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: PETER COUSINS 14 Rydal Avenue, Frizinghall, Bradford, BD9 4LS Email: [email protected] After a few relatively quiet years, 2011 sees a bumper crop of news, on the back of a Gaudy in March that 35 people from our year group attended. Weddings abound, while the arrival of children and career progression again feature prominently. Thanks as always to all who contributed, and special thanks to Alex Perry who tracked down some of this news for me. Aurélien Berra’s French translation of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published by Slatkine and Champion in 2009. In the same year his first son, Ulysse, was born. (Perhaps an inheritance from his father’s linguistic talents, he was heard substituting “au revoir” for “bye bye” on his first visit to England.) Aurélien continues to devote his scholarly attentions to Greek philology and the digital humanities. Lucy and Ben Brayford had their first child, Jonathan, on 1st June 2010. Mike Buckworth left Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP at the start of the year to set up his own law firm, Buckworth Solicitors (www.buckworthsolicitors.co.uk) based in Mayfair. The firm focuses on corporate and shareholder matters (including intellectual property issues, compliance and transaction structuring), mainly for small and medium enterprises – and promises an Old Mertonian discount to anyone in need of legal advice reading this! Peter Cousins said adiós to Colombia in December 2010 and headed straight to Bordeaux, in an attempt to patch up his (very patchy) French. Catherine Davison left for Livingstone, Zambia, in March for a three-month medical elective. A happy couple from our year group, Adam and Ros Gamsa (née Gill) tied the knot in Winchester in April. Rosemary Golding has succeeding in breaking into both the academy and the property market, working for the Open University within six miles of Carfax, on Boars Hill, and living on the Abingdon Road. Clare Harding (née Beach) is still living down under, in Melbourne, and working in strategy at the Victorian health 132 POSTMASTER | 2011 department. She and her husband Matthew have their first baby due in September. Malte Herwig produced a biography of the poet Peter Handke last year (Master of Twilight – Meister der Dämmerung), successfully selling around 10,000 copies. Brad John-Davis has been on the move, returning from Peru in 2008, where he worked in luxury tourism, setting off again for Kenya 12 months later. However, the birth of his son Noah brought him and his fiancée Kerry Arnold back to the UK in mid-2010; he works in the travel technology industry. Alex Perry plans to marry his fiancée, Rachael, in July 2011, many years after meeting her doing charity work in Lourdes. He has also been studying for an MBA at London Business School, where he has finally achieved some academic respectability by being named on the Dean’s List. His efforts will be rewarded in August when he starts a new career in strategy consulting. Although their son, Laurence, is expected to start school in the autumn, Tom Skinner and his wife Chrissy will be kept busy with their second child, Rosa Eleanor Skinner, born 9th August 2011. Following their wedding in June 2008, another couple from 2000 Mark Tiner and Nadza Tokaca had a baby girl, Hana, on 31st March this year. At the time of writing, James Viles is preparing to get married to Chio Verastegui, whom he met at INSEAD. They are due to tie the knot in Mexico in June, although they call Sydney home. 2002 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: BEN ZURAWEL 4 Stonebow Avenue, Solihull, West Midlands, B91 3UP Email: [email protected] Since our last update, Daniel Lloyd married Alex (née Vinall). Daniel reports that Alex (Wadham, 2002) is due to finish a DPhil in modern German literature in Michaelmas 2011 and then to take up a post as a college lecturer at St Edmund Hall. Daniel himself surely wins a prize for the most complicated sounding employment history: having been ordained to the diaconate of the Church of England in July 2010, on 6th June 2011 he was ordained to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, established by HH Benedict XVI for Anglican clergy who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. Daniel has returned to serve churches in Oxford NEWS | 2003 after a brief sojourn in Milton Keynes, and hopes, ‘deo volente’ to be ordained into the priesthood in 2012. Frances Clemson became Frances Clemson Cload on 7th May 2011 in a ceremony at St Michael and All Angels, Exeter, where she married Dominic Coad, who like her is completing a doctorate in theology at the University of Exeter. Unfortunately, it’s not all good news: Frances reports that by the time this goes to press, she will have gone ‘over to the dark side’ as a research associate at a higher education institution in the Fens. Other recent marriages include Mel Orchard to David McCabe (2001) in Salisbury on 23rd July 2011, and David Gillbe to fellow Curlew Rowing Club committee member Elizabeth Wallen the following weekend. From marriages to births: Sam Carter and Angela were delighted, on 1st March 2011, to announce the arrival of the 8lb 15oz Isaac Samuel Cato Carter at the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath. Thierry and Antonia Richards (née Farmer) welcomed 7.7lb Isabella Aya Rochfort Richards into the world on 14th July 2011. Witnessing a birth of a different kind, Naomi Pendle has spent much of the last year working in education development in the world’s newest country, South Sudan. Other far-flung Mertonians from 2002 include Mark Brighouse, a solicitor in Dubai, and Oscar Scafidi, a teacher in Angola, who continue their tradition of bonkers holidays having recently taken a stroll along the Pamir highway between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Considered one of the world’s most dangerous roads, it was, by all accounts, a walk in the park compared to Tajik Air. In other news, Daniel and Rachel Rees (née King) report that they have moved out to work in New York and are expecting to stay for a year. Also in America have been Elena Piskounova, Carlos LastraAnadon and Krizia Li, who have all spent the last year completing studies at Harvard: Elena a PhD (during the course of which she became engaged to Stephen Curtis), Carlos at the Kennedy School of Government, and Krizia at the Business School. This year saw our first gaudy: a sizeable proportion of the year enjoyed excellent food, a new Warden and a return to the dulcet tones of Dave the Bar: almost without exception they also managed to stay vertical for the entire evening. The coming year will be the tenth anniversary of our meeting one another in Freshers’ week: doesn’t time fly? OLD MEMBERS 2003 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: NIK ALATORTSEV Email: [email protected] 2005 YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: KRISHNA OMKAR Email: [email protected] POSTMASTER | 2011 133 IN MEMORIAM EMERITUS FELLOW In Memoriam Emeritus Fellow Eric Arthur Newsholme was born in Liverpool, England on 19th May 1935 and died in Torquay, South Devon on 17th March 2011. He was brought up in the Liverpool suburb of West Derby and it was during this period he started his lifelong devotion to Liverpool Football Club. Eric moved south in 1955, to attend university in Cambridge and later to start his professional research career in Oxford. He was appointed to a university lectureship at Merton College in 1973 and remained associated with the College until his retirement from university life. Over 50 PhD students and a similar number of postdoctoral scientists received research training in Eric’s lab which was located in the Department of Biochemistry. Past members of the Eric Newsholme laboratory now have their own labs in the UK, Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. Eric published over 300 original research papers, numerous reviews and book chapters: many biochemists will recall how textbooks written by Eric (e.g. Regulation in Metabolism by EA Newsholme and C Start (1973) and Biochemistry for the Medical Sciences by EA Newsholme and AR Leech (1983) provided them with much of their knowledge of intermediary metabolism and metabolic control. To quote Professor Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, UK: “It was his Regulation in Metabolism textbook that so excited me that I gave up medicine for biochemistry. It was a great book – masterful, creative and accessible. Everyone who read it recognised it as a classic.” However, it was not entirely one way: for example, Eric found it very touching when a senior Oxford clinician told him that there was not a day on the wards when he did not call to mind the biochemistry that Eric had taught him as an undergraduate at Oxford. Eric recently updated Biochemistry for the Medical Sciences to become the textbook Functional Biochemistry in Health and Disease with Tony Leech (2010) which was written to enlighten a new generation of medical and health science students to the beauty and relevance of biochemistry. Eric had the pleasure of presenting a copy of the latter textbook to his granddaughter Sinead, who is currently studying medicine in UCD Dublin, in May 2010. Eric Newsholme read Natural Sciences at Magdalen College, 134 POSTMASTER | 2011 University of Cambridge and, following his undergraduate degree, completed a PhD in Biochemistry under the supervision of Sir Philip Randle. Eric published his first full paper in the Biochemical Journal in 1961 (on the regulation of glucose uptake by muscle) with Philip Randle. This was the first of over 100 papers Eric published in the Biochemical Journal, and about 20 of these have gone on to be recognised as seminal papers by the research community. During his PhD, Eric published four more papers on the metabolism of fatty acids, ketone bodies, glucose and pyruvate by muscle, two of which were published in Nature in 1962 and 1963 and two in the Biochemical Journal in 1964. These papers expanded on the data published by Randle, Garland, Hales and Newsholme in The Lancet in 1963 (‘The glucose fatty-acid cycle: its role in insulin sensitivity and the metabolic disturbances of diabetes mellitus’), and each contributed to, and added substantial support for, the so-called ‘Randle hypothesis’ or ‘Randle cycle’, a regulatory mechanism still hotly debated today, given its relevance to diet, obesity and Type 2 diabetes [1]. In Eric’s subsequent career as an independent scientist, he set out to make major research contributions to at least three research areas: mechanisms of metabolic regulation in muscle, metabolic adaptations to exercise, and nutrient control of immune cell function. Perhaps Eric’s key contribution was to bring to each of these topics a desire to provide quantitative descriptions of complex metabolic pathways, and to consider metabolic control in terms of the biochemistry and physiology of the whole organism, not just the cell/tissue in which the study was conducted. In many respects, this makes Eric Newsholme a forefather of the re-emergent field of Systems Biology [1]. Eric perhaps made his most significant impact through undergraduate teaching, textbooks, articles in sports magazines and personal interest in the biochemistry of exercise. (He took up marathon running in his mid-30s and successfully completed around 40 marathons, passing on his enthusiasm for this sport to his wife.) As a consequence, he has contributed to a greater appreciation of energy metabolism by scientist and sportsman alike. His final project, uncompleted, was a major text on the scientific basis for outstanding human physical performance in football. In all his activities he was supported by his wife, Pauline, whom he married in 1959. His wife, his son Philip and daughters Glenda and Clare survive him. Philip Newsholme and Lindy Castell [1] Past times ‘Reflections of a metabolic biochemist: Eric Arthur Newsholme’ The Biochemist October 2006 HONORARY FELLOW Honorary Fellow Anatole Abragam, who passed away on 8th June 2011, was widely regarded as a pioneer in his chosen field of nuclear magnetic resonance. Born in Russia in 1914, Abragam’s family emigrated to France a decade later. He was educated at the Sorbonne between 1933 and 1936, before serving during the Second World War. After the War he returned to Paris to continue his education at the École Supérieure d’Electricité. In 1947 he came to Oxford and obtained his PhD at Jesus College. He returned to France to take up the position of Professor of Nuclear Magnetism at the Collège de France, remaining there until 1980. Working with the newly established Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, he founded a magnetic resonance laboratory and, in 1965, became Director of Physics . He was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1973, was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and made an Honorary Fellow at both Merton and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford, in 1976. His contributions to both nuclear magnetic resonance and the electron paramagnetic resonance won him international awards, notably the 13th Lorentz medal in 1982. 1936 Thomas (Frank) Brenchley passed away on 7th July 2011. A full obituary will appear in the next Postmaster. We were sad to learn from his son, Christopher, that James (Austin) Heady had passed away in November 2004. Dr Heady was born in 1917 in China, where his parents were working as missionaries. He remained there until he was nine years old, when he came to England to continue his education. He came up to Merton in 1936 to read Mathematics where he achieved a Second Class degree. He also represented the College at rugby. On leaving Merton he served as a Commander in the Royal Artillery and then the 8th Army. He also held the post of treasurer with the Queen’s Royal Regiment, before being invalided out in 1944. He took up the position of Research Assistant at Lockheed Hydraulic Brakes in 1945, but only remained there for a year. IN MEMORIAM During this time he married Alison Reynolds, with whom he would have two sons and two daughters. His career took a defining turn as he moved to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, to work in the Department of Statistics. After five years at St Bartholomew’s he continued his role as a Statistician at the Social Medical Research Unit, where he continued to work until 1975, becoming Assistant Director in 1963. His work at the Unit was invaluable, undertaking major statistical studies in areas such as infant mortality and cardiovascular disease, which saw him working with the World Health Organisation. In 1975 the Unit was closed and Dr Heady continued his important work at the Royal Free School of Medicine, where he was later appointed as a Visiting Fellow. He continued his close working relationship with WHO, becoming a consultant with them after his official retirement in 1982, and regularly travelled around the world teaching and advising on statistics and research methods. He was a prominent member of the Royal Statistical Society. Elected as a Fellow in 1946, he was a member of Council between 1961 and 1970, and was an Honorary Secretary from 1964 to 1970. He also played an equally important role at the Society for Social Medicine, becoming Chairman in 1984 and an Honorary Member a year later. Michael John Ottaway passed away on 21st September 2010. I really got to know Michael when I started to regularly attend St Peter’s Wolvercote after leaving school in 1956. I then worked closely with him in the parish and was one of his wardens when he retired. Michael was a Merton Scholar, trained at Cuddesdon theological college and was ordained priest in 1942. Initially he served his curacy in Kettering and then moved to Kibworth as his father’s curate when Canon Ottaway’s sight was beginning to fail. In 1948 his father died and was succeeded by Revd Paul Rebbeck, a former curate of his and previously vicar of Wolvercote. The vacancy at Wolvercote was in turn filled by Michael. Wolvercote, as with Kibworth, is a Merton College living and at that time only Merton scholars could be appointed. On retiring from Wolvercote in 1983 he came to live in Seaforth and received a permission to officiate in this diocese. Before referring to his parish ministry, I should mention his ministry in other fields. He was very keen on the theatre and he resurrected and was a leading light of St Peter’s Players in Wolvercote. POSTMASTER | 2011 135 IN MEMORIAM 1936 Michael and I acted on a number of occasions together. It was through St Peter’s Players that Michael and Glenys met. They married in 1956 and on his retirement said that he attributed 75% of any success he may have had in Wolvercote to the contribution of his wife. It was through Michael inviting me to produce a short play for the vicarage summer fete in 1959 with the children of the choir that the North Oxford Youth Theatre was born and still thrives today. He was very much part of developing the Wolvercote Boys Club from an old farmhouse to brand new premises; it too still thrives. He was a scout leader in Wolvercote for many years and countless young people benefited from his leadership. Like my father, he had a love of gardening. I recall my father and Michael walking around our garden discussing the various plants and flowers. And father saying to Michael, “I’m afraid I don’t come to church very much but I feel near to God in my garden” and Michael replying “Then I am sure this is where you should be.’’ He also enjoyed wine-making and travelling. He was a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Barbers – one of the oldest of the City livery companies, which celebrated its 700th anniversary in 2008. His uncle, father and two brothers were all Masters of the company and four nephews, a niece, cousin and great-nephew are all liverymen and a further eight family members (including Helen and Frances) are freemen. By any standard that is an amazing family connection with a livery company. The livery companies of the City of London contribute many millions of pounds to charitable causes every year, which would have particularly appealed to Michael. When Michael retired and moved here, he became chairman of the Seaford branch of Cruse and then undertook training and became an active counsellor himself. He took up watercolour painting, joined classes, took part in local exhibitions, and produced some lovely images of this church. For many years his artwork featured on their Christmas cards. Michael also had a good singing voice. Having sung with the Bach Choir in Oxford, he and Glenys joined the Seaford Choral Society of which he became chairman. He was a very practical man. As well as being good with a saw, a drill and a wallpaper brush, he occasionally exhibited other less predictable talents. There was the time when Glenys tripped down some steps and put her shoulder out. Michael grasped both her shoulders firmly, did a nifty push and squeeze, and the shoulder went back in. 136 POSTMASTER | 2011 Both Helen and Frances say he was a non-judgemental father – very accepting of them as individuals and committed to giving them the freedom to choose their own paths. They always felt they had his unconditional love and support. As Glenys says, “He was always a good companion and my best friend.” Michael was licensed to Wolvercote by Bishop Kirk in 1949, to a large vicarage and huge garden. The bishop said that on a stipend of £500 a year he might find it difficult to afford a gardener. In today’s church, priests come and stay for a few years and then move on. I doubt we will see again the likes of Michael serving his parish diligently and faithfully with real commitment over 34 years. He had all the values of a traditional English vicar, with no ambition for moving up the ecclesiastical ladder of hierarchy. But don’t let that for one moment imply that he had no ambition or forward thinking. Michael was one of the first vicars in Oxford to introduce Christian stewardship in 1959; he was at the forefront of restoring the Eucharist as the central part of family worship, building a central altar. He was supportive of women’s ministry. Just after the first seven women were ordained in the USA, one of them, Karen Sheldon, worshipped with us for two years and Michael, with the bishop’s permission, got her involved and asked her to preach. He introduced regular services for the sick in Wolvercote and on retirement developed them here at Blachington. He didn’t want to talk about miracles of healing, preferring to suggest that the miracle for him was being able to help people perhaps in small ways both spiritually as well as physically. Michael was a very good training priest and curates were regularly sent to Wolvercote to serve their curacy. Through all this, his one firm foundation was his pastoral work: his mission to strengthen the links between the church and the local community, keeping in touch with those on the fringe, regularly knocking on doors. In 1956 he organised a major mission with the Mirfield Fathers led by Father Augustine Hoey over several days with processions through the parish. He admitted that some accused him of never being satisfied. He was not complacent and always felt he could go further, and take the church to the people. I recall one of our regular vicar/wardens meetings over afternoon tea. Michael announced he was going to retire. My fellow churchwarden said: “You can’t do that, you’re not allowed to.” Well, of course, he did retire and we entered an interregnum. 1938 We two wardens drew up the draft parish profile and we based the section on ‘what qualities do we want our new vicar to have’ on the qualities we saw in Michael. We sent it to the bishop and archdeacon for approval; the bishop sent us a message saying: “Are the people of Wolvercote really wanting Jesus?” Yes, we laughed at that, but life at St Peter’s was great fun with Michael, and we had a growing church. On occasions we must have been quite a handful, but it was the love we all had for him and the way he worked with us pastorally that enabled us to enjoy ourselves and keep the faith. I remember being on sidesperson duty at the Sunday Eucharist when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, arrived; his son was warden of St Edward’s just down Woodstock Road. I went into the vestry and said to Michael: “The Archbishop of Canterbury is in the congregation.” “Oh Peter, don’t be silly, you’ll tell me next the queen is there.” Anyhow, after the service as people left the church, Michael said to him: “Thank you for coming, Your Grace. We hope to see you again here sometime.” To which the Archbishop replied: “I doubt it.” Michael, together with Bill Fosdike, then vicar of Summertown, and the URC Minister, Donald Norwood, were instrumental in forming the ecumenical parish of Wolvercote with Summertown. Here was a faithful servant of Christ, a man of prayer, carrying out and fulfilling the Lord’s work in Wolvercote and latterly here in Blachington, with no fuss or great drama, and in whatever he did, wherever he went, taking the church to the people. When he retired, he said to me that he didn’t think he had empowered the lay enough during his ministry. I assured him he had. Proof of that was having built up and handed on a strong church, which sustained itself during the interregnum and continued to grow after he retired. A church now so busy that we are building an extension and re-ordering the interior. At Harvest Festival, I thought about Michael and how pleased he would have been to see St Peter’s full and with lots of families and children. Father Brian Cook told me that Michael’s death was the most peaceful and tranquil he had witnessed. Michael was conscious during the last rites and slipped peacefully away shortly after with Glenys holding his hand. The two most important commandments the Lord left us with are: ‘Love one another as I have loved you’ and ‘Go forth and make disciples’. These Michael carried out to the full in a truly remarkable, long and faithful ministry. I owe my lasting faith to Michael. There will be many others like me, I am sure. IN MEMORIAM Equally, I am sure that as the Lord received him into his arms, at peace and at rest, he would have said: “Thank you, Michael. You did well, you did very well.” Peter Bridges 1938 Frank Featherstone Bonsall was born in Crouch End, London on 31st March 1920 and died in Harrogate on 22nd February 2011. He was the second of two sons of Wilfred Cook Bonsall and Sarah (Frank) Bonsall, both formerly from North Yorkshire. Frank devoted his life to mathematics, making numerous original contributions to the field of functional analysis and supervising many graduate students, some of whom went on to distinguished mathematical careers in their own right (ten appear in the ‘Mathematics Genealogy Project’). These students were fortunate in their choice of supervisor: Frank insisted on ‘mathematical understanding’, and he made the case for this in one of the few of his many publications that are accessible to non-mathematicians (‘A down-to-earth view of Mathematics’, American Mathematical Monthly, 89: 8-15, 1982). Good mathematics, he insisted, required live mathematicians with fresh ideas, not computers. That paper is not only imbued with good sense but also with humour, and those who knew him will easily recall his inimitable chuckle. Frank’s colleague and friend PR Halmos, in his memoir I want to be a mathematician: an automathography, recalled Frank introducing him with the words: “Professor Halmos may look like one mathematician, but in reality he is an equivalence class and has worked in several fields, including algebraic logic and ergodic theory; this afternoon his representative from Hilbert space will speak to us”. Frank might almost have been introducing himself. In his own, private, memoir, Frank traces his devotion to mathematics back to his primary education at Fretherne House Preparatory School in Welwyn Garden City, where the family had moved in 1923. But it may have come earlier: his mother was an early female graduate of Leeds University and a teacher, and his father was a senior accountant in the City with an enormous facility with numbers. Frank progressed to Bishops Stortford College (1933-38), where he distinguished himself academically, and then to Merton in 1938 to study mathematics. He was elected to an Honorary Postmastership and a Commoner’s Exhibition at the end of his first year. Among his teachers at Oxford were JHC Whitehead POSTMASTER | 2011 137 IN MEMORIAM 1938 and EC Titchmarsh, and it was the latter’s Theory of Functions that accompanied Frank when his academic career was interrupted by a sixyear stint in the Royal Engineers during WWII. The last two years in the RE were spent in India, testing military equipment and whence he emerged in 1946 with the rank of major, the battered textbook and a publication in the British Medical FRANK BONSALL, ON HIS Journal. ELECTION TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY After his return to IN 1970 Oxford, Frank graduated with first-class honours but, perhaps more importantly, it was there and then that he met and married a fellow mathematician, Gillian (Jill) Patrick, who became his lifelong companion in all things. Together they travelled widely, not only for academic reasons (he took up visiting faculty positions at Oklahoma A&M, Yale and the Tata Institute in India) but also in search of altitude, for both were keen mountaineers. Frank climbed all the Munros, peaks in Scotland over 3,000 feet high named for their identifier, Sir Hugh Munro, in the 19th century. Dissatisfied with Munro’s intuitive approach to the identification of peaks, Frank developed a more rigorous method, published in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal in 1973 and 1974, that almost perfectly mapped to Munro’s list, but had the satisfactory result of excluding some that Frank regarded as mere bumps while adding others that he thought were very fine mountains. Frank’s revised method influenced subsequent revisions to the definitive list. Frank was a keen gardener; he and Jill developed impressive gardens at their successive houses in Morpeth, Edinburgh and Harrogate. Many of us were privileged to enjoy those gardens and to partake in their sublime joint composition, the gooseberry pie, with Frank on secateurs and Jill on rolling pin. Among Frank’s many other interests were cricket (he was a staunch supporter of 138 POSTMASTER | 2011 the Yorkshire team), fishing, for which he amassed a wonderful collection of split-cane fly rods (from which his nephews were later to benefit), and the building of very precise dry stone walls. Some of the latter still stand in the Lake District after more than 70 years. Jill survives Frank and continues to live in Harrogate. With his career interrupted by war service, Frank skipped the usual research apprenticeship and instead took up a temporary lectureship at Edinburgh (1947-48). This was followed by a lectureship at King’s College, Newcastle, where he later became Professor (1959-65). He returned to occupy the new McLaurin Chair of Mathematics at Edinburgh in 1965 and remained there until his retirement in 1984, when he became Professor Emeritus. He received the DSc from Oxford in 1964 and was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1966) and the Royal Society (1970). He was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 1966 and he became an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds in 1984 when he and Jill retired to Harrogate. In 1990, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of York. In addition to Jill, Frank is survived by his brother, Arthur Bonsall, MA (Cantab), CBE, KCMG, former Director of GCHQ. Robert W Bonsall and Peter W Bonsall Alan Victor (Lennox) Mills passed away on 1st October, 2010. He was born in Ottawa in 1918 and studied at Bishop’s University, Montreal. He came to Merton in 1938, as his father had in 1909 and his brother was also to do in 1948. He was only at Merton for a year, before the War brought an end to his studies, but during this time he represented the College at both skiing and golf. He was enlisted into the Black Watch of Canada, fighting in Northern Europe, and was wounded whilst serving in Holland. He returned to Montreal and studied for his BCL at McGill University. In 1942 he married Elspeth Maclean. On graduating from McGill he took up a position as Trust Supervisor at the Royal Trust Company in Montreal. He performed a number of roles at the company, rising to Corporate Secretary before his retirement in 1979. He was a keen family man and a keen golfer. He was for a time captain at the Royal Montreal Golf Club. 1939 Edward Ronald Weismiller passed away in Washington DC on 25th August, 2010. He arrived at Merton as a Rhodes Scholar in 1938, having already received a BA from Cornell University. World War II brought an abrupt halt to his DPhil work at Merton and he was repatriated to the US. He earned his MA at Harvard University, where he also taught. It was a period that further informed his already burgeoning talent for poetry. It was when he met and married Frances Power, who was also a promising poet, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. In 1943 he was recruited into counterespionage, much to the astonishment of his friends and colleagues, and took a commission in the US Marines. He was trained by MI5 and MI6 before being sent into Europe, where he ultimately became responsible for counterespionage in the American Zone of occupied Germany. He was awarded a Bronze Star and the Medaille de la Reconnaissance Française. After the War he was invited to join the newly formed CIA but, in the wake of some success with his first two volumes of poetry, The Deer Come Down and The Faultless Shore, he chose to work on his first novel, The Serpent Sleeping, a story of spy hunting set in the landscape of World War II Europe. In 1948 he returned to Merton to complete his DPhil. On returning to the US in 1950, he took up a position at Pomona College in California. There he taught English, with a particular emphasis on the work of John Milton. 1968 saw him move to Washington DC. Initially he had planned merely to undertake some research but stayed to teach English at George Washington University. He remained Professor of English until his retirement in 1980. His third volume of poetry The Branch of Fire was published in 1979 and he was invited in that same year to read some of his work at the Library of Congress. After his retirement, Edward maintained his literary output, contributing to the Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry, editing the Variorum Milton series and, in 2002, publishing his fourth and final collection of poems, Walking Toward the Sun. Its publication formed a pleasing moment of symmetry as it was published as part of the Yale Younger Poet series, the same series that had published his first volume of works some 66 years earlier. IN MEMORIAM 1939 Alan George Gale passed away on 11th July, 2011. He came up to Merton in 1939 but, like many of his generation, had his studies disrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1941 he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in India and Burma, where he served until 1946, becoming a Regimental Sergeant Major. He returned to Merton to complete his studies and gained a Second in History, followed by a DipEd in 1949. Whilst at Merton he was awarded a Postmastership and was also Secretary of the Mayflies. His first position in a long and distinguished career in education came at Bablake School, Coventry. He started as an Assistant Master and became Head of History in 1961. He took up the same position at Ilminster Grammar School in 1966 before becoming Head of Careers at Holyrood School, in Chard, Somerset, in 1972. He remained there until his retirement in 1980. The Revd Prebendary John Graham (Gerard) Charles Irvine passed away on 13th January, 2011. The eldest of five children, his childhood was spent in England, India and Northern Ireland, thanks to his father’s career in the armed forces. He did not, however, wish to follow in his father’s footsteps and from a very early age knew he wanted to be an Anglican priest. He came up to Merton in 1939 to read Literae Humaniores, achieving a Second. He followed this with a First in Theology. As well as two degrees, he also found the time to act, including an appearance in Peter Brook’s first film, A Sentimental Journey, published a collection of poems and wrote for the Daily Telegraph. He also made a number of strong lifelong friendships that included the writer Iris Murdoch. After a brief time at St Stephen’s House, his first curacy was at Holy Trinity in Knowle between 1945 and 1948. He then moved to St Mary and St Chad, Longton, in the Potteries, where he remained for three years. 1951 saw him move to London, first to St Thomas, Regent Street, then as London Diocesan Home Missioner in charge of Holy Angels, Cranford. During his early years in London he spent much time in the company of high church intellectuals including fellow Merton alumnus, T S Eliot, John Betjeman and Rose Macaulay, who would become one of his closest friends. POSTMASTER | 2011 139 IN MEMORIAM 1940 He was an extremely popular figure in London, evidenced by his being mentioned in several biographies, including those of Princess Andrew of Greece and Philip Larkin. He balanced his much admired theological intellect with his interest in all things literary, writing for the TLS and The Observer. After Cranford came St Cuthbert and St Matthias in Kensington in 1961, and then St Matthew’s, near Westminster Abbey. In 1977, his character was severely tested when St Matthew’s was destroyed in an arson attack. However, rather than mourn the loss of the old building, he threw himself into the rebuilding project that saw a magnificent new church in the baroque style emerge from the former’s ashes. Irvine’s final church was to be St Michael and All Angels in Brighton, where he spent his final years with his sister Rosemary. The Revd Canon John Cyril Sladden passed away on 13th March, 2011. He came up to Merton in 1939 to read Chemistry. He put his studies to great use during World War II, working as a Chemist for the Ministry of Supply. When the war ended he spent a further three years studying at Wycliffe Hall, where he achieved a First in Theology, before he was ordained as a deacon in 1948. Also that year he married Annie Jones. In 1949 he was ordained as a priest and became the curate at St Oswald, Oswestry. Three years later he became a Lecturer and Chaplain at St Aidan’s College in Birkenhead. After that he became Rector of Todwick and the Ordinands’ Secretary for the Sheffield Diocese between 1953 and 1959. In 1959 he became Vicar of St Oswald’s in Lower Peover, Cheshire, where he remained for many years. In 1980 he was made an Honorary Canon of Chester and became Rural Dean of Knutsford. That year also saw the publication of his book Boniface of Devon, Apostle of Germany. 1940 Wilfrid Edward King was born in 1921, second son of William Wilfrid King, a gynaecologist in Sheffield. He was educated at Stonyhurst and Merton. In his first term at Oxford, aged 18, he volunteered for the Manchester Regiment, where he led a machine gun platoon, and served in Burma and India. He was awarded the Military Cross for his role at Kohima in Burma. Despite the personal 140 POSTMASTER | 2011 courage, leadership, determination and enthusiasm commended in the MC citation, the war was traumatic for him and he almost never spoke about it. He continued to have nightmares about the war (and university Finals!) into old age. After the war, Wilfrid returned to Merton to read Greats, and played some rugby and rowed. His knowledge of Classics gained at school and university stayed with him always, and heavily influenced his outlook on life. His career was with a steel trading company, Harlow and Jones. In the 1950s and early 1960s his work took him to China, Russia, Africa and South America, and he developed considerable expertise in finance and shipping law. He kept fit cycling, walking and playing weekly squash well into his 50s, and used to sail with his children in Cornwall where he had a holiday home. Wilfrid had had a practical bent and loved to work with his hands: growing vegetables, repairing anything broken, even building a boundary wall 200 ft long and 6 ft high in his garden. He was always interested in developments in technology, from bringing back tiny radios from China in the 1950s, to acquiring the latest camera. He emailed, used the internet and texted in his 80s. An active retirement saw him developing his practical skills further, studying furniture restoration and French polishing at the London College of Furniture, passing City and Guilds examinations in 1982 and 1984, and running a small business in furniture restoration. He also travelled, including visiting his children in New Zealand and the USA. He took part in village life, and enjoyed walking both in Buckinghamshire and Cornwall. Wilfrid died on 3rd May 2011, just short of his 90th birthday. He is survived by his wife Noreen whom he married in 1951, their four children and seven grandchildren. Rosanna King Christopher Taylor passed away earlier this year. He read Literae Humaniores at Merton, achieving a Second Class degree. He was a keen sportsman, representing the College at squash and cricket, and the University at Chess. He was also President of the JCR. He started work at ICI in 1944, where he undertook a number of commercial and managerial responsibilities. In 1967 he moved to Nalfoc Ltd (which would later become Nalco), a subsidiary of ICI where he eventually became Assistant General Manager before his retirement in 1984. He was also Trustee of the company pension scheme. 1941 In 1948 he married Margaret Chant. Together they had three sons and one daughter. 1941 Christopher Crowder died on February 11th 2011 at Kingston, aged 88. The third son of Bertram and Marion Crowder, he was born in Weybridge; the Crowder family were a legal dynasty and his mother’s Edinburgh family included farmers, artists and soldiers. In 1951 he married Adele Jeffares, the sister of Derry Jeffares, his friend at Oriel; their three children and five grandchildren all live in Canada. Chris went to a prep school near Amesbury and to Haileybury, where he became Head of School and Captain of the First Fifteen. He was selected to play rugby for Oxford, but after being badly concussed he turned to hockey, which he later played for Aberdeen University. He was a good cricketer, tennis and squash player, and became a member of Vincent’s. He continued to play aggressive squash until his fifties, and then gardened, sawed trees and cleared snow for exercise until the week he died. He won an open scholarship to Oxford in 1941, and went up to Merton College on a deferred call-up programme which allowed both academic and OTC work. In 1943 he was commissioned into the 83rd Regiment of Field Artillery, following his father’s choice of unit in WW1. The regiment of 25 pounders fought from Normandy through to Belgium, Holland and Germany, suffering some losses; Chris became Regimental Survey Officer, scouting ahead for gun sites on a motor bike or a jeep and more than once encountering Germans doing the same thing. Before demobilisation, he trained as a pilot to work as an Air Observation Post. He returned to Merton, receiving a First Class degree in History in 1947. In overcrowded post-war Oxford, Chris lived for a time in Merton with the family of Idris Deane Jones, who had been his tutor. He also, like a character in a farce, lived behind a screen in Professor Garrod’s dining-room; his rent was paid by walking Garrod’s dog, Mud. Professor Garrod had great affection for John Heath, Terence O’Brien, Christopher and Joe Dean, all close friends at Merton. He wrote to John in 1945: “anyway I am too glad for words to think that you and Terence and Eustace, and Christopher Crowder have got safe through this western war; and I only hope that the eastern one will be over before you get to it”. Sociability replaced IN MEMORIAM soldiering, as Christopher presided over the Merton JCR, played hockey and tennis and joined Merton Floats. He played Julius Caesar in a field marshal’s uniform, and Coward’s Private Lives in a blue silk dressing gown, and danced to ‘In the Mood’. Having been influenced by his regimental chaplain, an Anglican monk, Christopher spent two terms at Wells Theological College determining whether he wanted a clerical career. Opting for a secular life, he returned to Merton, got a Harmsworth scholarship, and worked on the ‘English Nation at the Council of Constance’ under the supervision of Professor E. Jacobs. Only this year his DPhil thesis was described as ‘the best conciliar source in English’. In 1950 Chris was appointed as a history lecturer in King’s College in Aberdeen University, and in 1953 he joined the faculty of The Queen’s University in Belfast as Lecturer in Palaeography and Diplomatic. In 1966 he moved as a professor to Queen’s University, Kingston, teaching, researching and administering there and in the Herstmonceux Castle campus of Queen’s until and after retirement. He published several books including Unity, Heresy and Reform 1378-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism and articles in French, German and English historical journals. In collaboration with the late Dr Edgar Graves of Hamilton College, at Clinton, New York, he worked on English legal cases before the Rota in Rome, and finished a complex article on a dispute between the dioceses of Winchester and Canterbury in January. Throughout his life, Christopher generously gave time and resources to charity (he was described by a friend as being a true Scot in his blend of great generosity and parsimony). He was a regular prison visitor, served on several charitable boards such as that on youth employment, and for several years chaired the board of the John Howard Society in Kingston. He was also involved in academic Christian organisations, in the work of his various parishes, and in local activities such as designing a war memorial in Amherstview last year. Entertaining his friends gave Chris great enjoyment, particularly at his house in the village of Ledenon in Languedoc and his farm at Wilton in Ontario. His family and friends on two continents are grateful for his good, kind, loving and tolerant life, for his intelligence and wide knowledge, and for his occasionally acerbic wit. Adele Crowder POSTMASTER | 2011 141 IN MEMORIAM 1943 1943 Gerald Augustus Secrett passed away on 13th October, 2010. He attended Merton as a Signals Cadet during the Second World War. He was a Commander in the Royal Corps of Signals and served in South East Asia and India. He worked for many years in horticulture, becoming Director of Horticulture at the NFU between 1973 and 1980. He also took on a number of volunteer positions, helping those less fortunate than himself. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and his son, Nicholas. 1945 John (Jack) Richard Noel Phipps, who died on 6th August, 2010, played a formidable role in supporting the accessibility of the arts across the UK. Born in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, he was initially educated in South Africa and served briefly in the South African army during the War. He came to Merton in 1945 and read History, as well as representing the University at Hockey. However, music was his passion and after brief stints at the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Associated Newspapers, he found himself at Harold Holt Ltd in 1954. Under the wing of Ian Hunter, he thrived at the artist management agency, working closely with such eminent musicians as Daniel Barenboim and Yehudi Menuhin. He also played a prominent role in helping Hunter establish the Edinburgh and Bath festivals. He moved on in 1965 to form his own agency with his wife Sue looking after, amongst others, Benjamin Britten and Jessye Norman. In 1970 he was approached to help restructure and revitalise the Dramatic and Lyric Theatres Association national touring scheme. This role became the Touring Director for the Arts Council and later the Regional Director. During this period he was central to the establishment of English National Opera North, the touring programme of the Royal Shakespeare Company and moving the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet to become the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Arts Council Touring and its ever expanding regional department thrived under Jack’s leadership. He briefly moved away from the Arts Council to manage the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk, which had been initiated by Britten. This was not a success, partly because 142 POSTMASTER | 2011 the composer died in 1976, so Jack transferred his energies to becoming Director of the Theatre Royal, Bath. 1986 saw a return to the Arts Council, where he remained until his retirement in 1992. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. Colin Stevens was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Staffordshire, in 1927 and subsequently attended the local grammar school, along with his brother, Gerald, and Glyn Evans, a friend who lived close by. Gerald, to whom Colin was very attached, was killed during the World War II naval battle of Cape Matapan, an event which deeply affected Colin. However, Glyn remained a lifelong friend who, we are pleased to say, is with us today. Colin was a keen runner and rock climber in his youth and, together with Glyn and other school friends, greatly enjoyed climbing and walking holidays in the Pennines and Lake District. Colin’s father was Head of Maths at the grammar school and he was naturally delighted when Colin gained a scholarship to read Maths at Merton College. Because of the subject he had chosen he was allowed to take up his place before the end of the war and he subsequently graduated with a First Class degree. By this time, the war was over but Colin was commissioned into the Navy for his National Service and became an officer in the Naval Meteorological Service. Following his naval service, Colin joined ICI, near Bracknell, as a statistician and during his years there struck up a fruitful working relationship with Jeff Harrison, later Professor Jeff Harrison, which culminated in the publication of some papers on a new technique of processing sequences of data and predicting future values. This Bayesian forecasting technique dealt with the tricky topic of prediction in the face of many different types of uncertainty, and a major stir was caused at the Royal Statistical Society in 1971 when the pair of them presented what famously became known as the Harrison-Stevens algorithm to an audience of the nation’s best statisticians. While he was at ICI, Colin also met Margaret and they eventually married in 1970 and bought a house in Maidenhead. By this time, Colin had left ICI in order to pursue a freelance career to sell his statistical expertise. It is probably fair to say that the task of being a salesman for his ideas did not come naturally to Colin and this phase of his life was not an unqualified success. In 1977 he joined Ferranti to work on mathematical problems in Defence and he later moved to Marconi, in Watford, to work within their underwater systems division. 1946 In 1989, a couple of years after his formal retirement, Colin and Margaret, and their cat and dog, all moved to Tenerife, where they found a climate that was kinder to Colin’s lungs, which had been adversely affected by decades of chain-smoking. Colin and Margaret had enormous concerns about whether the cat and dog could survive the traumas of the journey to Tenerife, but when they were finally released from their travel crates they just looked around their new home and took up residence as if they had always been there. Colin and Margaret were the two that felt rather traumatised. In the early years of his retirement, Colin continued to do a little freelance work in collaboration with John Moon, his former boss at Ferranti. John and Julie Moon became comparatively frequent visitors to Colin and Margaret in Tenerife. After 16 years in Tenerife, Margaret unfortunately became ill and died. By this time, Colin was not able to look after himself and, despite the kind administrations of a large Canarian family with whom he and Margaret had formed a close friendship, Colin decided that his best course of action was to sell his house in Tenerife and move to a care home in England. This is how he came to spend the last five years of his life at Andover Nursing Home. Colin became somewhat reclusive in his later years and unfortunately lost contact with most of his former friends and colleagues. However, he maintained his friendship with his former neighbours in Maidenhead, with John and Julie, and with Glyn, to whose house he was able to make several visits. In addition, or maybe in compensation, Colin formed close attachments to Adriana, a friend from Andover, and also to some of the care staff, especially Anita, Alfie and Kerrie. To the end he remained mentally very alert and one could not fail to be impressed by his memory and his knowledge of 20th-century history. In the last few years Colin’s eyesight became progressively worse and he sought solace in listening to classical music. When he chose to, Colin could be very witty company and it is for his wit and intellect that he shall be remembered. Julie Moon 1946 William Jasper Gilmer passed away on 21st January, 2011. He was a US Army student at Merton during Hilary Term of 1946. After returning to the US he continued his studies at both Columbia University and the University of Tennessee. He spent IN MEMORIAM his career working as a psychologist, mainly working for social service agencies assisting youth and rehabilitation programmes. He retired on his 65th birthday and continued to help out with the local Presbyterian Church. He was an avid gardener and also enjoyed baking bread and making pies. Married for 55 years to Miriam, until her death in 2006, he was devoted to his large family. Between 1957 and 1959, as a young psychiatrist he toured 40 of the states of America, visiting universities, mental hospitals, and health bodies. He carried with him a film of his patients tearing down the high prison fences that had surrounded the exercise courts of the two hospitals of which he had been in charge since 1955. This provided graphic illustration of revolutionary changes in mental health care, based partly on new drug treatments, but in this case particularly on the concept of group therapy within a supportive community. These changes created a moment in which many who had been confined as a result of mental illness might be offered greater freedom and the prospect of self-discovery and rehabilitation within a humane society. Bertram Maurice Mandelbrote was born in Cape Town on 22nd October 1923, and lived most of his early life in a house called ‘Merton’, named for his father’s college. He was the only son and eldest of three children of Harry Mandelbrote, lecturer in and subsequently professor of history at the University of Cape Town, and his wife, Ann (née Sachs). Mandelbrote flourished academically at the South African College School, and developed his lifelong love of sunshine, swimming, rugby and cricket. From SACS, he moved in 1940 to the University of Cape Town, where he qualified as a doctor and volunteered for the medical officers’ ambulance reserve. In 1946, he left South Africa, effectively for good, in order to take up a place as a Rhodes Scholar at Merton. There, he completed two years of research for an MSc in neurology and biochemistry, working on the metabolism of copper, and learned to live in barely heated rooms during the months of ice and snow that marked the beginning of 1947. Mandelbrote persuaded the Rhodes Trustees to allow him a further year of funding to train as a hospital physician. He soon decided that he wished to specialise as a psychiatrist. Initially at the Maudsley, Mandelbrote moved through the ranks from Junior to Senior Registrar. An interest in psychosomatic aspects of ill-health led to a Dominion Provincial Research Fellowship at POSTMASTER | 2011 143 IN MEMORIAM 1946 McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in 1952-53. Following his return, Mandelbrote moved in 1954 to Warlingham Park Hospital in Surrey, where he was assistant to TP Rees, one of the pioneers of the relaxation of the restrictive management of mental illness and advocate of community care. With Rees’s encouragement, he applied at the age of 31 for the position of Physician Superintendant of the twin mental hospitals at Horton Road and Coney Hill in Gloucester. Horton Road and Coney Hill were both former county asylums, in which patients who had often been confined against their will were held in segregated and locked wards. They had recently been cited in the press as being among the five worst hospitals in Britain. Mandelbrote’s response was active and immediate, driving the conversion from closed-door to open-door hospitals within six months, and carrying most of an initially hostile staff with him through daily meetings. New outpatient clinics were developed elsewhere in Gloucestershire and nurses trained to act as social workers to support community psychiatric care. County officials and local grandees were co-opted to serve on the hospitals’ league of friends, helping to combat prejudice against patients and their integration into the community. As a result, the number of patients within the hospitals themselves fell rapidly, whereas day patients and outpatient referrals grew. Other innovations included the growing use of occupational therapy and the creation of a unit to treat alcoholism. Mandelbrote’s rapid success at Gloucester led to many invitations to lecture at home and abroad, offers of academic jobs, and the chance, in 1959, to return to Oxford as Physician Superintendant of another former county asylum, Littlemore Hospital. Although the situation at Littlemore was not quite so repressive, Mandelbrote again presided over a rapid transition to an open-door community. On the Phoenix Unit, which he established with Dr Ben Pomryn, what Mandelbrote later called ‘a therapeutic community proper’ was developed, in which treatment focused on daily group meetings, sometimes involving over 100 patients and staff, and on the provision of continuity of care under a single consultant for each patient. To assist in the transition from hospital to community, Mandelbrote worked closely with a league of friends to establish a system of group homes and hostels. Patients from former locked units built the hospital’s social club and others worked for the local authority, the Post Office, and local employers interested in providing 144 POSTMASTER | 2011 opportunities for occupational therapy. Mandelbrote served as a clinical lecturer in psychiatry at Oxford University from 1961. During the early 1970s, Mandelbrote responded to growing evidence of mental health problems associated with drug use in the Oxfordshire community by setting up a clinic to treat drug addiction. With assistance from local charities, the Ley Community was established as a separate, residential programme for the drug-free rehabilitation of substance misusers in 1974. It was honoured by a Centre for Social Justice Award in July 2010. Much of Mandelbrote’s work during the 1970s and 1980s related to the provision of an environment in which drug users, often with a past history of criminal conviction, could overcome their addiction and embark on creative lives. Despite a serious car accident in December 1987, Mandelbrote continued his work in the assessment of drug addiction and in forensic psychiatry almost until his death. He remained active also in the training of occupational therapists, advising the new School of Health and Social Care at Oxford Brookes University and serving as chair of the Casson Trust. He married Kathleen Joyce Howard on 24th November 1949, and died one day after thier 61st wedding anniversary, at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, on 25th November 2010. He is survived by his wife and two sons. Bertram Maurice Mandelbrote, FRCP, FRCPsych, pioneer in the development of the therapeutic community and of social psychiatry. Born 22nd October 1923, died 25th November 2010. Scott Mandelbrote Andrew Morris Moodie passed away on 13th July, 2011. He came to Merton in 1946 to undertake a one-year Colonial Service Course, having already gained a degree from St Andrews University. In that short time he represented the College at tennis and rugby, and the University at boxing. Between St Andrews and Merton he served with the Northumberland Fusiliers and the Durham Light Infantry. After Merton, he worked for the Colonial Service in Nigeria until 1957. A successful career in industry followed, including positions at the Birfield Group, GKN (which took over Birfield’s operations) and Tunnel Cement. This successful phase of his career, spanning 1957-73, resulted in him being awarded an MBE. He then took up the position of Bursar at Worcester College, where he was made an Emeritus Fellow, until his retirement in 1983. 1947 1947 Professor Kenneth Stevens, a distinguished theoretical physicist who spent most of his career at the University of Nottingham, died on 16th July 2010 at the age of 87. He began his research in magnetism at Oxford with a PhD thesis under the supervision of Professor MHL Pryce and his subsequent postdoctoral position was in Pryce’s Theoretical Physics Group. The thesis explained, in a mathematical tour de force, how exchange interactions cause ‘motional’ narrowing of magnetic resonance lines. His landmark paper dealing with a quantum mechanical formulation of the magnetism of rare earth ions remains a heavily cited article nearly 60 years after its publication. The operators which he introduced to understand the properties of these materials still bear his name, the so-called ‘Stevens Operators’. His work was highly influential in helping experimentalists to understand paramagnetic resonance, and his joint papers with his Oxford collaborators, Sir Roger Elliott and the late Professor Brebis Bleaney, on this topic are still regularly cited by researchers. He was co-author with Professor Sir Nevill Mott (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1977) of a paper on the band structure of transition metals and, later in his career, made important contributions to the problem of intermediate valence and to understanding the speed at which a quantum particle tunnels through a potential barrier. Ken Stevens played a leading administrative role at the University of Nottingham, serving as Dean of Science (196568) and Head of the Department of Physics (1975-78). Shortly after coming to Nottingham he helped to design and commission a new building which has housed the Department of Physics since 1964. Many KENNETH STEVENS of his PhD students and IN MEMORIAM postdoctoral assistants have gained senior academic appointments in universities in the UK and abroad. Kenneth William Harry Stevens was educated at Magdalen College School and at Jesus and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with an interruption for war service at the Admiralty on the development of radar (1942-45). From 1949 to 1953, he held research fellowships at Oxford and Harvard. He was appointed to a readership at Nottingham in 1953 and promoted to a Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1958. In recognition of his research on the theory of magnetism, he was awarded the Maxwell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 1968. He was a member of the Commission on Magnetism of the International Union of Physics and Applied Physics from 1984 to 1987. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, he made regular visits to IBM’s research laboratory in up-state New York. He retired in 1987, when he became Emeritus Professor at Nottingham. Ken excelled at tennis and was a keen hill walker and musician. He is survived by his wife Audrey, their son, Richard and daughter, Judith. Laurence Eaves, with the assistance of Professor Sir Roger Elliott 1948 Shortly before going to press we learned of the death of Ernst Anselm Joachim Honigmann. A full obituary will appear in next year’s Postmaster. 1949 Roger Noel Titheridge passed away on 10th November, 2010. He came up to Merton in 1949 to read History, in which he achieved a Second, and stayed on to also read Jurisprudence, again achieving a Second. At Merton he was an Exhibitioner, as well as being President of the Bodley Club. There followed a long and notable career as a Silk at Gray’s Inn. Initially he worked as a Barrister. In 1973, a year after becoming a Recorder of the Crown Court, he was sworn in as a QC. In 1977 he was made Head of Chambers at One Paper Buildings. In 1984 he became a Deputy High Court Judge and a year later was made Master of the Bench at Gray’s Inn. In 1989 he was appointed as a Leader on the Western Circuit. POSTMASTER | 2011 145 IN MEMORIAM 1950 He retired in 2003, after nearly 50 years at the Bar, having built a reputation for being an exceptional barrister, as well as being widely respected for his generosity and humanity. He spent much of his retirement exploring the world on cruise holidays. 1950 Stephen Lake Gawith passed away on 12th March, 2011. Born in South Africa, he came to Merton in 1950 to read Jurisprudence and was a keen rower, representing the College on numerous occasions. He was called to the Bar in 1954 and worked at Lincoln’s Inn for four years. He returned to South Africa in 1958 to work as a solicitor at the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He moved on to become a Partner at Deneys Reitz law firm, where he worked until 1972. He married Patricia Jacobs, with whom he had one son and two daughters, in 1961 but they divorced in 1971. Stephen decided on a change of pace the following year and began farming in Rosetta, Natal. In 1982 he remarried, to Susan James. It was with great sadness that we learned that Ian Ninian Marshall had passed away. He initially read Maths at Merton, achieving a First in his Maths Mods, before switching to read PPE, where he gained a Second Class degree in 1953. He was awarded a Postmastership, represented the University at swimming and captained the University chess club. In 1954 he attended Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, leaving in 1959 as a Bachelor of Medicine. He worked extensively as a psychiatrist, eventually settling at the Bowden House Clinic, a private practice in Harrow, in 1972. In 1977 he married Danah Zohar, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, and with whom he also wrote a number of books including Spiritual Capital, The Quantum Self and Who’s Afraid of Schrodinger’s Cat? Peter Roberts-Wray came to Merton in 1950, following a tradition established by his father (1920) and his elder brother Chris (1949). He read Law, but devoted much energy to rowing – this in the heyday of Merton’s supremacy on the river. He rowed in the Merton 1st VIII in 1951 and 1952, and won a Trial Cap in 1951, narrowly missing selection for the 1952 Boat Race. After Merton he took a teaching post at Northcliffe School, Bognor Regis. In 1962, the school was obliged to move from 146 POSTMASTER | 2011 Bognor Regis to a new location near Southampton, and Peter was appointed Headmaster to relaunch the school. He started with just 17 pupils, but such were his drive and his gifts that when he retired from Northcliffe in 1984 the school had more than 200 pupils. His distinction as a headmaster was recognised by the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS) who elected him ViceChairman in 1977. He also served on IAPS Council between 1975 and 1977, and again from 1983-1984. He had a passion for mountaineering and after his retirement it surprised no one when he went to live in the Lake District. In 1993, he returned to live on the Sussex coast – a stone’s throw from where he started his distinguished teaching career. He is survived by his wife Pam, a son, a daughter and five grandchildren. Brian Roberts-Wray (1956) 1951 Thomas (Tim) William Baker-Jones passed away on 17th December, 2010. He was born in Quetta, in what is now Pakistan in 1933, whilst his father was serving in the Royal Artillery. He came up to Merton in 1951 to read History and achieved a Second. He was a member of the College’s Church Society and a keen rugby player. After graduating he spent three years’ National Service in the Royal Navy. Most of his time was spent in the Far East and he rose to the position of Acting SubLieutenant RNVR. On returning to England in 1956, he took up a position at British Petroleum. He began working in distribution before moving on to a position in negotiation. Unfortunately he was forced to take early retirement due to increasing difficulties with deafness. He did, however, find a TIM BAKER-JONES AT THE 2010 new position as Archivist for MERTON SOCIETY WEEKEND 1952 WH Smith in 1973. These fascinating archives, so carefully looked after by Tim, can now be found at the University of Reading. He returned to live in Oxford late in life and many will remember him as a regular attendee at Gaudies and Merton Society weekends. 1952 Peter Michael Brown passed away on 10th January, 2011. He read Literae Humaniores at Merton, coming up in 1952. He was awarded a Postmastership and was also Craven Scholar. He served his time in National Service, between 1956 and 1958 with the Intelligence Corps. After National Service he joined the Humanity Department at Glasgow University. In 1960 he became a Lecturer in Humanity and spent many years teaching at the university, later becoming a Research Fellow. He is survived by his wife Glenys, a son, a daughter and two grandchildren. 1955 Edward (Reynolds) Price passed away on 20th January 2011. He came up to Merton for a BLitt as a Rhodes Scholar, having already gained his degree from Duke University, North Carolina. He studied the works of Milton, which he would later teach, and developed a formative friendship with his tutor WH Auden. He returned to Duke University as an Instructor in English Literature from 195862, becoming an Assistant Professor in 1963 and then an Associate Professor in 1968. When joining the university he had REYNOLDS PRICE been advised that the IN MEMORIAM position was a fixed three-year term and that there was no question of extension. Less than 20 years later he held the position of James B Duke Professor of English. He will be best remembered as a novelist and dramatist; one of a ‘golden generation’ of American novelists that included Gore Vidal and Truman Capote. His first novel A Long and Happy Life, published in 1962, won the William Faulkner award for a notable first novel and catapulted him to overnight fame. The novel was printed in its entirety by Harper magazine. In all, he wrote 39 books, including the memoir Ardent Spirits, which covered his time at Merton and his return to North Carolina. His achievements were recognised with an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his services to Duke University with its highest honour, the University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service, awarded in 1987. A professorship in creative writing was established in his name in 2008. In 1984 he was diagnosed with cancer of the spine. Undergoing radiotherapy he was cured of the cancer, but the treatment damaged his nervous system and left him paraplegic. He would recount these events in a book entitled A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing in 1994. His disability did not slow down his work; indeed, he became more productive than ever, and in 1986 his novel Kate Vaiden won the national Book Critics Circle prize for fiction. 1957 Iain Murray Grant passed away on 27th February, 2011. He came up to Merton to read Mathematics in 1957 and also represented the College at rugby and swimming. He married Margo Kingston in 1964, with whom he had one son. 1959 Shortly before going to press we learned of the death of David Norman Miller. A full obituary will appear in next year’s Postmaster. 1961 John Waterhouse, who died in Edinburgh in December from a rare bone marrow dysfunction, was working full time as a leading inspector of social services in Scotland and singing with the Royal POSTMASTER | 2011 147 IN MEMORIAM 1963 Scottish National Orchestra Chorus until seven weeks before his death. John was energetic, resourceful, involved – and seemingly set for a long, happy retirement. John graduated in Modern Languages from Merton in 1964 and then took a postgraduate qualification in social work at the University of Bristol. Following a period as a probation officer in Inner London, he moved to Scotland in 1972 as a lecturer in the then Department of JOHN WATERHOUSE Social Work at the University of Edinburgh. His experience provided him with the background to become a key member of the Howard League campaigning for reform of custodial sentences in Scotland. With his wife Lorraine, now Professor of Social Work at the University of Edinburgh, they made a formidable team. In 1984 John moved across to the Scottish Office with responsibility for policy development in criminal justice social work. As a civil servant he framed the first-ever national Scottish standards for supervising offenders. Fortunately, his gift for English made complex reports clear and elegant. During the final part of his career, now with the Scottish Government, he toured the country inspecting local authority social services departments. His commitment to the Western Isles and his desire to support rural services there became well known. John was a fine modern linguist, who as an undergraduate was said to ruffle his tutors with his spoken German. He happily presented professional papers in German on either side of the North Sea. He was also an accomplished pianist who at home enjoyed playing Bach, Beethoven and the Blues. He sang baritone with the Kinghorn Singers and the Edinburgh International Festival Chorus. John’s illness took everyone by surprise, but the dignity and courage with which he faced it did not. His funeral, in St Mary’s Cathedral, was attended by more than 300 people – an indication of the esteem in which he was held. David Waterhouse 148 POSTMASTER | 2011 1963 We were sad to learn that Samuel (Desmond) Hunter Lapsley had passed away a few years ago. 1967 – Apology Postmaster wishes to apologise for reporting in last year’s In Memoriam section that Professor John Thomson Macfarlane had passed away. We are extremely glad to be able to report that Professor Macfarlane has been in contact with us and is alive and well. Professor Macfarlane has provided updated news, which can be read on page 112. We also wish to thank him for his good humour in the face of our very serious error. We are deeply sorry for any confusion and distress the article may have caused to Professor Macfarlane, his family, friends and colleagues. 1976 Anthony Robert Hall, who attended Merton between 1976 and 1977, sadly passed away in February of this year. 1980 Mark Philip Lawrence passed away suddenly on 21st August, 2010. He came to Merton in 1980 to read Chemistry and left with a Second Class degree and later successfully read for a DPhil at Oxford University. He was also awarded a cricketing Blue and captained the University side, famously catching Gordon Greenidge in a tour game against the West Indies that briefly left them 0 for 1. Mark started out working for Linklaters, before moving on to work as Investment Controller at venture capitalists 3i. In 2006 he founded Carbon Limiting Technologies. The company was formed to help support new clean technology ventures, turning them into viable commercial businesses. Mark’s particular acumen lay in the areas of fundraising, organisational design and management team development. He was keen to educate businesses and industry on the benefits of smart energy use and promoting the innovators developing the products that could provide them. Mark was also a passionate cricketer. He was a regular and very popular first team player for his local club in Lindfield, Sussex, and 1983 as Chairman of the club sought to improve facilities, particularly for young players. A memorial match was played at Ardingley College in order to raise funds for a science scholarship in his name at the school. It is testament to Mark’s character that the famous Bunbury cricket team turned out to play in the match and featured such modern cricketing legends as Darren Gough and Phil Tufnell. Mark is survived by his wife, Heather, who he married in Merton Chapel, two sons and a daughter. 1983 Christopher Maynard Booth passed away on 7th August 2010. I first met Chris in 1989, when I started work at the same research labs as him. He avoided me at first, which seemed odd. It turned out that he had a history of girlfriends called Gill/Gillian, and when he heard that there was a new graduate called Gillian he hid in his office for months when I was around! He turned out to be right to fear that he’d finally met his match – though it was his secretary who made the push to get us together. She would sidle up to me and say “That Chris really fancies you”, then go to him and tell him “That Gillian thinks you’re a bit of alright”. And to begin with, it wasn’t even true! But we did get together, on May Day 1990 in Oxford where I was studying for my doctorate. There was an IRA CHRISTOPHER BOOTH IN MEMORIAM bomb scare and we had to walk around Oxford for hours before the all clear was given and we were allowed back to my college, Balliol. (We used to argue as to which was the older college – each convinced that we were right.) What initially attracted me was his intelligence, his sense of humour (dreadful puns!), his kindness, inquisitiveness and (not least) his excellent cooking. In 1993 we got married in Upstate New York in the courthouse at Fort Edward. We first had to convince the judge that we weren’t wanting to emigrate to the USA! We chose the location to be close to Christopher’s cousin and godmother. After his mother died she was like a surrogate mother to him. My family and our close friends came over to join us and it was a really happy day. I want to tell you a bit about the Chris I knew. He has lots of interests and threw himself into them wholeheartedly: - Archery – he shot for the University and made close friends for life. - The guitar – he wanted to be able to play Bach’s lute suites on the guitar, and kept going until he could. - Sign language – he was fascinated with the fact that it was a language in the same way as French and German, and went to evening classes to learn it to understand better first-hand how a spatial language works. - Photography – when I first knew him he used to take dreadful photos. I gave him a digital camera for his 40th birthday and regretted it ever since! It became an all-consuming hobby. But it did mean that he was always willing to go out for trips/away on holiday – so long as he could bring a camera with him. - Librivox – an online community who record books to put into the public domain. Chris threw himself into the Love Letters of Elisabeth and Robert Browning, and I think that maybe recording Robert brought out his romantic side. In September 2009, Chris was made redundant from his job. He was as happy as I’ve ever seen him – full of plans for finding out what he wanted to do with the next stage of his career. He decided to use the redundancy money to support himself while he tried to find a way to make his hobbies pay. In the meantime he happily volunteered to be a ‘house husband’ and support me in my career. But in August 2009 he had already started having trouble swallowing. The doctors could find nothing wrong, and suggested it was acid reflux. We had a last foreign holiday that October in Malta POSTMASTER | 2011 149 IN MEMORIAM 1985 (an island which he loved and wanted eventually to retire to), but his swallowing problems were becoming more and more severe. He was finally diagnosed in December 2009 with inoperable oesophageal cancer – just two days before Christmas. Chris faced his diagnosis and prognosis with immense courage and openness. This was partly his scientific mind – always wanting to understand what was happening. He found the chemo very difficult, but was determined “not to be miserable for the rest of his life”. He kept on doing the things he enjoyed – the theatre, concerts, visiting castles/stately homes, meeting friends for coffee, having Saturday lunch at our favourite pub. He had a good month in June 2010 when he was in partial remission. We had a lovely and very happy holiday in Wales. But things started to get worse in July, and in the end he went downhill very rapidly. He died in August. I will always remember Christopher as a thoroughly kind and decent man. He believed strongly in fairness and justice. He was open to new experiences, and keen to share them with others. He was extremely supportive of me. And we made a good team together. Gillian Booth 1985 Richard Arthur Hall, who came up to Merton in 1985 to read English, sadly passed away in August 2010. 1990 Shortly before going to press we learned of the death of Timothy Paul Edwards Cole. A full obituary will appear in next year’s Postmaster. 150 POSTMASTER | 2011 HELEN BROUGH College Staff Adapted from the Address given by the Chaplain at the Memorial Service for Helen Brough. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Those words of the great medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich, meant so much to Helen, and I think it’s probably true to say that they greatly influenced the way in which she tried to live her life. That she could say these words in good times and in bad, to others as well as to herself, is eloquent testimony to the strength of the faith that sustained her. Helen was unfailingly generous, caring, and compassionate; a mother, sister, wife, aunt and friend, whom we were privileged to know. There is no doubt that we are all better people for having known her, and that transformative experience can be a source of encouragement as we discover how, in many different ways, Helen lives on in us. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” That Helen should have taken such a positive statement as a motto for life was in no way an expression of a naïve optimism that was disconnected from reality. Helen was firmly rooted in the reality of family life while at home and she was also rooted in the reality of life while at work; for 20 years as College Nurse at Merton, and also for part of that time as nurse at Brasenose and Lincoln. COLLEGE STAFF At Merton, if a member of the community had a bereavement, Helen would always send a card, on the front of which was the image of the Virgin and Child, which can be seen in the centre of the window above the altar in the Chapel. Helen often told me that this was her favourite window in the Chapel, the image so elegant and graceful. But to my mind, this 15th century depiction of a mother and her son appealed to Helen not simply because of its aesthetic beauty, but also because she found in it inspiration and encouragement, a model of how to care for others. In the window the mother cradles the child in her arms, and holds him close to herself. In the warmth, humanity, skill and judgement which Helen brought to her role, she was undoubtedly a mother, giving herself unstintingly to the students who needed her help: knocking on their doors and getting them out of bed to make sure they didn’t miss a morning exam, visiting them in hospital, taking them into her own home at times of particular stress and anxiety, providing cups of tea and a confidential listening ear day in and day out. Helen was very much the College Nurse and, although she spent most of her time with students, she was also there for staff and Fellows and, on one occasion, was even called upon to tend to a tutor’s injured dog! But it wasn’t all tea and sympathy. Helen also knew how to be firm, in a gentle and encouraging way, and was happy to reprimand a student for not wearing a cycle helmet, or tell a member of staff to give up smoking or encourage the Chaplain to exercise more and eat less! Back in the east window, the mother holds the child in such a way that he is able to look out, and we can see his face. In whatever way Helen tried to help people, her ultimate objective was to enable them to fulfil their potential as human beings, men and women of priceless value and worth, created in the image and likeness of God. Helen’s success in achieving this objective has been very movingly expressed in one of the many tributes which the family and College received, this one written by a recent Merton graduate: “The best thing I can say about Helen is that for all my time at Merton she was a wonderful friend. When I came to the college I was unwell and unhappy, my first visit to her was because I was not eating well and knew that things could easily go downhill. She offered me wonderful warmth, sympathy and understanding as well as every practical support she could think of… What was so special about Helen was the way that she made sure I knew that it was I who would overcome my barriers. She was always happy to help, IN MEMORIAM but also showed me that the things I needed were ones I already possessed. She had a real healing gift… I feel privileged to have known Helen and I doubt I would have done so well without her, at Oxford or afterwards, but her skill as a healer was in helping me to grow in myself… Healer, confidant, companion and friend, endless source of aspirin, plasters and tea, someone to turn to, someone to ask, someone who cared. I will miss her.” May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ grant Helen an eternal dwelling place in the kingdom of his Son, and as the darkness of present grief slowly gives way to the dawning light of future hope, may we find comfort in believing that, for Helen, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Simon Jones, Chaplain POSTMASTER | 2011 151 CALENDAR Forthcoming Events Further details of all forthcoming events are available from Helen Kingsley, Alumni Relations Manager, Development Office. We add events to the schedule throughout the year and regularly update the Merton website with information as it becomes available. www.merton.ox.ac.uk 2011 SEPTEMBER 16-18 Oxford University Alumni Weekend, Meeting Minds – 21st century challenges 23 Merton Golfing Society Autumn Meeting at Frilford Heath Golf Club 24 Gaudy for the years 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961 OCTOBER 13 London Drinks Party at The Bunghole (Davy’s Wine Bar), a short walk from Holborn Tube Station. tbc Meeting of the Merton in Manhattan Association followed by drinks reception NOVEMBER 18 Merton Society London Dinner at Middle Temple, London. (Guest speaker, historian Michael Wood) 22 Merton Lawyers’ Association at Slaughter and May, 1 Bunhill Row 26-27 Advent Services 2012 MARCH 16 Merton Golfing Society Spring Meeting at Frilford Heath Golf Club 17 Gaudy for the years up to and including 1956 tbc Inter-Collegiate Golf Tournament, Prize-giving and Dinner 31 Passiontide at Merton APRIL 1 13-16 152 Passiontide at Merton MC3 and Oxford University North American Reunion in New York POSTMASTER | 2011 MAY 13 14 tbc 26 JUNE tbc 23-24 Merton Team at the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign Town and Gown 10km Fun Run Merton Society London Lecture, Speaker Sir Martin Gilbert Founders’ Society Meeting and lunch Merton College Boat Club dinner Merton in the City Association Meeting Merton Floats Merton Society Weekend SEPTEMBER 14-16 Oxford University Alumni Weekend 21 Merton Golfing Society Autumn Meeting at Frilford Heath Golf Club 22 Gaudy for the years 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981 tbc Meeting of the Merton in Manhattan Association followed by drinks reception OCTOBER tbc London Drinks Party 20 Golden Jubilee Celebration Lunch for all Mertonians who matriculated in 1962 NOVEMBER tbc Merton Society London Dinner tbc Merton Lawyers’ Association DECEMBER 1-2 Advent Services