The Hertford College Magazine 2016-17 Magazine College Hertford The The Hertford College Magazine 2016-17 No. 97 No. 97 Hertford College Magazine No. 97 2016-17 Editor: Kevin Hilliard Sub-editors: Jonathan White Design: www.dougdawson.co.uk Produced by: Development Office Hertford College Oxford OX1 3BW 01865 279428 [email protected] www.hertford.ox.ac.uk The Hertford College Magazine is published for members and friends of the college. The opinions expressed are those of the writers and not necessarily the official views of Hertford College. Hertford College is a registered charity in England and Wales, number 1137527. Contents | 3 Contents EDITOR’S NOTE ................................................................................................................................ 4 PRINCIPAL’S WELCOME ................................................................................................................. 6 HERTFORD HIGHLIGHTS ................................................................................................15 2016 John Donne Lecture: Trump, Brexit and the broken language of politics – Mark Thomson ......................................................................................16 The Restoration of the Hertford College Portraits – Christopher Mockler (1963) .........................................................................................................32 The Perils of Public Engagement – Alison Young ...............................................................36 Memories of Miles Vaughan Williams – Tom Cunnane .....................................................38 A Tribute to Geoffrey Ellis, 1940-2017 – Toby Barnard .......................................................42 A Tribute to Anne Holmes, 1929-2017 – Katherine Lunn-Rockliffe ................................46 Hertford Rowing 50 Years Ago – Adrian Oldknow (1964) ................................................48 A History of Hertford College ....................................................................................................52 HERTFORD RESEARCH, TEACHING, PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT ...............................55 Gone with the Wind: How a Seabird Reacts to Weather – Joe Wynn (2014) .............56 Forty years of teaching German Language and Literature – Kevin Hilliard ................58 HERTFORD YEAR .............................................................................................................61 Honorary Fellows ...........................................................................................................................62 Hertford Society – Robert Seymour (1985) ............................................................................64 The College Office –ynn L Featherstone, Registrar and Director of Admissions .....69 The Bursary – Jamie Clark, Bursar ............................................................................................ 71 The Library – Alice Roques (Librarian) and Emma Smith (Fellow Librarian) ................ 74 The Archive – Lucy Rutherford, Archivist ...............................................................................76 The Chapel – Mia Smith, Chaplain ...........................................................................................80 Development – Julia Thaxton, Director of Development .................................................82 Subjects and Research ................................................................................................................86 Student Life: ...................................................................................................................................108 JCR Annual Report – Ava Scott, JCR President ........................................................108 College Ball – Jei Diwakar, Hertford Ball President 2017 ..........................................111 HARTFest – Johanna Gewolker .......................................................................................113 Music – Faaris Zaki ...............................................................................................................114 Hertford Business and Economics Society .................................................................. 116 Sport – Annie Ault .................................................................................................................118 Rowing – Rosalind Martin ................................................................................................. 123 The Telethon – Adam Kellett ........................................................................................... 125 AFTER HERTFORD ........................................................................................................ 127 Interview with David Edelman (2007) .................................................................................... 128 Teach First – Rebecca Grant, Rebecca Carr, Archie Jones (2013) .................................131 Teaching in State Schools – Tomos Rees and Francis Martin (2012) .......................... 135 Marriages & Births .........................................................................................................................137 Obituaries ....................................................................................................................................... 138 Alumni News .................................................................................................................................. 153 2016-17 | Hertford College magazine 4 | Editor’s note Editor’s note The Editor thanks all those who have contributed to and advised on this year’s issue, especially Julia Thaxton and the team in the Development Office. Hertford College magazine | 2016-17 Editor’s note | 5 2016-17 | Hertford College magazine 6 | Principal’s welcome ime is definitely going faster. It seems Principal’s T only yesterday that I was writing this annual piece for the magazine. Perhaps Welcome we are living through such momentous times – a referendum, a general election, the impending shock of Brexit – that everything is speeding up. There is a wonderful scene in Catch-22 when one of the characters explains that he welcomes peeling potatoes because it’s so dull and boring that time slows down – and makes the gaps between combat missions last longer. I doubt the college, university and the country are going to have many potato-peeling moments any time soon: change is hurtling towards us, and it’s anything but boring. Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected electoral success, partly on his pledge to eliminate tuition fees, and the consequent hung parliament have suddenly put in doubt what seemed like an unassailable foundation of the financing of British Hertford College magazine | 2016-17 Principal’s welcome | 7 higher education. The Conservatives comes the potential shock of a loss of are keenly aware that they are losing income to support teaching, because the youth vote – and more sensitive to there is little chance of a financially hard- criticism about being the party of the pressed British government making good old. Thus when Lord Andrew Adonis (a pound for pound the loss of fee income Hertford conversationalist amongst his from student loans. Rather, it will be an other qualities), who initiated the fee opportunity to put universities on short regime at £3,000 back in 2004, says rations and further entrench the growing the current regime is ‘poisoned’ he has regulatory powers, some of which, like a hearing that only months ago seemed Prevent, directly threaten academic improbable. There is no market as hoped freedoms. Yet British universities generally, among universities who operate as a and Oxford in particular, are among the cartel, he alleges: students, with fees now most successful parts of the UK economy lifted to £9,250, leave university with more and society. than £50,000 of debt; and the interest Should we – could we – do more to rate, at 6.1 per cent, is usurious. He wants help ourselves, so that any change to to scrap the system. the regime aimed at producing more The Conservative defence is that fairness will not at the same time damage the system was designed to simulate a universities? While Oxford, and indeed graduate tax, that repayments only start Cambridge along with some of the for earnings over £21,000, that nearly top London universities regularly rank all high earners are graduates so that alongside Stanford, MIT, Harvard and Yale de facto they (and not low earners) are in the world top rankings, we don’t enjoy paying for their valuable education and the same standing in British society. While that nearly half of the debt will be written US universities are seen as the co-authors off – but that cuts little ice. The scale of of the US’s pre-eminence in frontier student debt and default rate are so high technologies and the US’s defence and that Labour has captured the youth vote; commercial strength, the same quality and the bidding war that led to the triple of research done in Oxford earns little lock on pensions is now going to open up of the same admiration. The aura of on tuition fees. the Bullingdon club, stylised Oxford And why not? As one commentator Union debates and decades of being wryly observes, the annual additional characterised as a scene in Brideshead cost of the triple lock, a difficult to justify Revisited or Downton Abbey seem financial concession to the elderly, now impossible to escape. To argue that Oxford runs at £12 billion a year. Scrapping is above anything else academically