Wye College Agricola Club Agricola Club Secretariat, 32 Mill Lane, Besthorpe, Attelborough, Norfolk NR17 2NL United Kingdom Tel: 01953 455997 Email: [email protected] Journal Editor (retiring) John Walters Email: [email protected] Production Editor Marie Selwood With help from Francis Huntington Siân Phelps Jane Reynolds Jane Walters wyeagricolaclub.org.uk i WYE 2020 – 2021 Contacts UK All queries (including membership): James Trounce Tel: +44 (0)1953 455997 Email: [email protected] Agricola Club Secretariat, 32 Mill Lane, Besthorpe, Attelborough, Norfolk NR17 2NL United Kingdom OVERSEAS Do get in touch with your named contact Australia Matthew Coleman, Parklands, 265 Thwaites Road, Yannathan, Victoria 3981 Email: [email protected] Peter Darby, Box 308, Lyndoch, Barossa Valley, SA 5351 Email: [email protected] Helen Day, PO Box 193 Kapunda SA 5373 Email: [email protected] Robert Lewis, 21 Peters Road, Seville East, Victoria 3139 Email: [email protected] Botswana Motshwari Obopile. Dept of Agricultural Research, Pb 0033, Gaborone France Tom Hickman, La Chambre Blanche, Lezele en Plouye, Huelgoat, Bretagne 29690 Kenya James Hutchings, P O Box 1877 Naivasha Email: [email protected] Malaw Stephen Carr, Private Bag 4, Zomba Email: [email protected] New Zealand John Varcoe, 154 Charles Road, Karaka, RD1 Papakura, 2580 Auckland Email: [email protected] Nigeria Christopher Akujuobi, Afribank Nigeria plc, N Chia Branch, 33 Hospital Road PMB 2002, Nchia-Eleone Southern Africa David Gooday, Lima Farm, PO Box 1288 Mbabane, H100 Swaziland Email: [email protected] Uganda John Magnay, 17 Akii Bua Road, Nakasero, P O Box 32041, Kampala Email: [email protected] USA Adrian Wadley, 1750 27th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122 - 4210 Email: [email protected] ii Photograph taken by Fiona Donnelly and posted on Our Place Wye iii WYE 2020 – 2021 Brian Lovelidge 83 Contents George Finch 85 President’s message 2021 1 Gerald Cousens 87 Chair’s report 3 Ian Emerson Currah 89 Keith Virgo 93 Editor’s page 5 Richard Pearce 95 Secretary’s report 7 Kevin Witherby 96 Wye College Agricola Club Stan Burrage 98 Minutes of 68th AGM 10 Peter Thompson 100 Wye College Agricola Club Barry Potter 102 Dinner and AGM Schedule of Events 13 Jeremy Selby 103 Wye College Agricola Club A thirst for knowledge and a Notice and agenda of 69th AGM 14 fascination for dairy cattle The Wye Heritage Centre: ‘Our past Doug Roberts 108 shapes our future’ 15 Life at Wye The redevelopment of the Wye How Wye College shaped my days College Campus 18 Sally Festing 114 Life after Wye The Public Inquiry From Wye to the NT via the CLA Introduction … and back John Walters 20 Dorothy Fairburn MBE 120 Interested parties submissions A life in four Acts Professor Chris Baines 21 Chris Mathias 124 Kit Wedd 26 Reflections on a career in applied Wye Alumni Letter 40 research Francis Huntington 42 Stephen Moss 132 Sally Leaver 43 ‘… And they’re off!’ Professor John Mansfield 46 The outcome: a summary of the William Derby 137 Public Inquiry Sally Iggulden 138 Professor John Mansfield 50 Lucy McFarlane 140 College closure Richard Phipps 141 Mike Perkins 144 College closure: the finances Keith Ottesen 145 Dr John Prescott 54 ... and John Walters tells Skilbeck’s Model – why and how Bob Davies’ story 146 it could not survive Features Professor Geoffrey R Dixon 58 News of members In praise of Tesco’s crisps Deaths 63 Professor Geoff Dixon 148 News 65 A presidential putsch Letters and emails 77 David Bennett 149 Obituaries My romance with the Field Marshall Anne Kendrick (née Morkill) 82 Professor Berkeley Hill 153 iv FEATURE Life’s greatest pleasure – flourishing College ‘stirs’ of the 60s and 70s fauna and fabulous flora? Various authors 211 Peter Newell 157 Michael Murray Tumblers Fruit-growing on the edge Michael Payne 218 of the Weald Wye Rustics cricket 2020 Philip Charlton 160 Dickon Turner 220 Forty years of urban wildlife Books Professor Chris Baines 168 The Cowslip Dell: A Life in the Wild Come with me to Madras – by David Allen 224 Oh, it’s by car, by the way! Echoes from Far Lands – Stories on Peter Siggers 173 Cultures, Farming and Life A ‘Modern Farmer’s Boy’ updated by Ridley Nelson 227 in 1944 Business Writing and Tips: For Easy John Hosking 176 and Effective Results The plot thickens ... by Robert Bullard 227 John Luckock 177 Agricola Club Accounts 229 The road not taken leads through Agricola Club Memorial Fund trees and forests Accounts 232 Richard Longhurst 180 Club Members’ Lists Lost in Norway Message from the Database Jonathan Hall 182 Administrator 235 Betteshanger revisited Email addresses 237 Dr Sue Atkinson 185 Overseas members 278 The Latin School – a microcosm Lost members 291 of Wye College Reply slips Paul Burnham 190 Agricola Club Reunion Frieda Schimmer, 100, still cooking and Dinner 2021 307 Barbara Butcher 192 News please 311 The ‘Prin’: Dunstan Skilbeck Application for membership 313 David Gooday 194 Change of address or email 315 Wye College and the Rural Community Wye Heritage application 317 Councils Committee members Alan Rogers 198 inside back cover An insider’s view of pig-farming in East Yorkshire: then and now Sally Osgerby 200 HRH Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother visits Wye College: for the fourth and final time Michael D Payne 204 On Your Farm – Wye College John Walters 209 v PRESIDENT’S REPORT President’s message 2021 Professor David Leaver (postgraduate 1964–67 and staff) – Agricola Club President. May I once again offer a very warm welcome to the 2021 Journal. I am writing this in January amid the maelstrom of Covid and lockdown, Brexit impacts, climate change and the Trump saga, all of which have been at the centre of media output for almost 12 months. Much of this continues to impact negatively on many of us, and for most people it is a rather depressing January to start the year, but I hope by the time of Journal publication that we will be mostly through the pandemic. I hope, therefore, you will be cheered by the excellent contents of this year’s Journal for which once again John Walters and his team deserve great credit, and many thanks to them from all of us. I have just listened to the Radio 4 Farming Today (see page 209) programme that featured across basic and applied sciences, economics Wye College, arranged through Chris Baines. and management, the environment and It presented a very honest reflection of Wye’s countryside management, with a close history and the contributions it has made interrelationship across departments, through its staff and alumni both in the UK disciplines and between students and staff. and overseas. It was an excellent programme, I remain convinced that, for many, this and each contributor gave a telling view of the collegiate approach to learning provided College’s uniqueness and its influence on the many students at both undergraduate lives and careers of its students. and postgraduate levels with future I have also had plenty of time during this opportunities and careers they may not have lockdown to reflect on the time I spent at Wye received in a larger university, although I as a postgraduate student in the 1960s, the fully accept that some students thrive better impact this had on me, and how it continues in small colleges and others develop better to influence my thoughts on all that is going in larger city universities. on at present. The impacts of the collegiate experience, I found it extremely beneficial to have both socially and academically, can be seen studied in Wye’s collegiate environment each year in the Journal where we hear about where fellow students from this country and the wide range of careers and interests of the overseas were studying a range of subjects Wye College alumni, all of which highlights the importance of retaining diversity in 1 WYE 2020 – 2021 the different types of higher education mergers is the difference in culture of small institutions in the sector. colleges and large universities. I was on the Unfortunately, in the 1990s and into the staff at Wye for the first two years after 2000s, a combination of factors led some of merger with Imperial College in 2000; it the rural and agriculturally-related colleges, quickly became apparent that the main including Wye College and Seale Hayne difference between the two institutions College, to merge with larger universities and was in the culture of how they operated. subsequently be closed. Imperial was also a college, but it was a large institution and management did not encourage the same supportive, challenging The impacts of the but friendly collegiate approach that had collegiate experience, been experienced previously by staff and students at Wye. The change of leadership both socially and that occurred at Imperial College following academically, can merger quickly led to a change in policy concerning the sustainability of Wye and its be seen each year in subsequent closure. the Journal where Today I also reflect on how the present crises relating to Covid and Brexit could have been we hear about the addressed more effectively by one of Wye’s wide range of careers great strengths in management teaching, and I think how many of the present and interests of the decision-makers in Government would Wye College alumni benefit from such training, especially in the simple basic necessities of business of having At that time, the downturn in applications a vision, a strategy, a plan and an ability nationally by students wishing to study to deliver that plan. The adoption of these agriculture and related subjects, and the management skills, instead of the short- increasing competitiveness in environmental term, knee-jerk reaction decision-making we subjects where Wye once had a lead, led to have continually experienced, would, I am a struggle to sustain student numbers at a sure, have left the country post-Covid in a time when an increase was required just to much better place than it is now.