THE MAGAZINE OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE ISSUE 29 | 2017 pelican Dr Jo Bailey Wells BISHOP OF DORKING Dr Aaron Rapport INVESTIGATING POLITICS Dr Sam Behjati RESEARCHING CHILDHOOD CANCER • 1 XX pelican FOREWORD AN INTRODUCTION FROM THE MASTER These are exciting times for Pelican Editor: Elizabeth Winter readers. I expect you will have seen the news of the election of Professor DR JO BAILEY WELLS DR AARON RAPPORT THE REVD JAMES BUXTON Christopher Kelly as the College’s new Managing Editor: Elizabeth By Dr Simon Heffer PAGE 12 PAGE 16 Master, who will take over when I Abusleme PAGE 4 stand down at the beginning of August next year. Christopher has been a core Editorial assistants: Jane member of the College’s Fellowship for Martin, Imogen Franklin and over twenty years, and through filling Lucy Sparke key posts (such as Senior Tutor and President) has contributed greatly to our community. This makes him extremely Design: Elizabeth Abusleme well-placed to lead the College for the coming decade, when changes and Photography: Phil Mynott, challenges in Higher Education will put a premium on strong and well-informed Damien Vickers, Ian Farrell, leadership of our institutions. Alistair Wilson, Jim Pascoe and Not just in leadership, but also physically and structurally, we are about to see Elizabeth Abusleme major changes in the College’s Old House. This summer we started our “Old House Project”, for renewal of the kitchens, restoration of the original Medieval DR SAM BEHJATI DR JAKE BRADLEY DR JO WILLMOTT dining hall and complete refurbishment of the ground floor under the Hall, all PAGE 20 PAGE 24 PAGE 28 the way from Trumpington Street to Free School Lane. This will result in some disruption, but through the project we are maintaining the essential catering services, as you will see if you (re)visit the College over the next 18 months. As usual, our Development team have prepared a feast for the eye and the mind in the 2017 issue of The Pelican. Their standards are always high, but this issue seems to me to be particularly stimulating. The lead article is an interview by Simon Heffer with Jo Bailey Wells, Corpus’s first female Bishop, as Suffragan in the Diocese of Guildford where another Corpuscle, Andrew Watson, is the Diocesan Bishop. You will find interviews by two recent students, Kenza Bryan and Alastair Benn, of Tim Sebastian and Jonathan Rugman, whom we have been lucky enough to have as Fellow Commoners in the College last year and this, respectively. You can get to know some of our Fellows, and learn about their important research, through profiles of Sam Behjati, David Blunt, Aaron Rapport, Jo Wilmott, Vickie Braithwaite, Rachel Adelstein and Jake Bradley. Then there is a delightful double act by our Parker Librarians, and a colourful presentation of Dave Barton and his gardening team. DR VICKIE BRAITHWAITE DR GWILYM DAVID BLUNT DR RACHEL ADELSTEIN TIM SEBASTIAN PAGE 32 PAGE 38 PAGE 42 By Kenza Bryan I am sure you will enjoy it all. The Development team of Liz Winter, Lucy Sparke, PAGE 46 Elizabeth Abusleme and Jane Martin and I send you best wishes for the coming year. Stuart Laing DR ALEX DEVINE AND JONATHAN RUGMAN HERMAN LAM DAVE BARTON DR ANNE2 • TheMCLAUGHLIN Pelican 2017 By Alastair Benn PAGE 62 PAGE 66 • 3 PAGE 50 PAGE 58 The Rt Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells DR JO BAILEY WELLS (m1984) BISHOP OF DORKING Interviewed By Dr Simon Heffer (m1979) ALTHOUGH JO BAILEY WELLS RESISTS BEING LABELLED A FEMINIST, SHE HAS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS FOUND HERSELF A PIONEER IN THE SPREAD OF EQUALITY BETWEEN THE SEXES. SHE WAS IN ONLY THE SECOND INTAKE OF WOMEN AT CORPUS WHEN SHE CAME UP IN 1984 (HER FATHER AND TWO UNCLES WERE CORPUS MEN: YET WHEN SHE APPLIED “I DIDN’T EVEN TELL MY FATHER I’D PUT CORPUS AS MY FIRST CHOICE. I LOVED THE FACT THAT IT WAS SMALL”). When she was ordained as a Church the Anglican Church presented some When I probe about the growth of of England priest in 1995 she was sort of obstacle to her. “I think it was her own faith, she says: “It was in my among the first generation of women an obstacle based on our history. Even teenage years that I found faith: it was in that calling. She then became the last autumn I was in Abu Dhabi for a something of an incremental process.” first female Dean in the UK, at Clare Christian-Muslim dialogue and very She says she took the invitation to be College. In 2013 she became Chaplain aware that the Muslims I was speaking presented for confirmation “seriously”. to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the to saw Britain as a Christian country: “I remember being in those classes, full first woman ever in that office. And which is to say that our political life, of questions, without the confidence when last year she was consecrated our social life, the way in which our to vocalise them and ask what I was Suffragan Bishop of Dorking – under society functions is seen by outsiders wondering about. But I do remember the Bishop of Guildford, Andrew as Christian. But most insiders would a conversation with the priest who Watson, another Corpus alumnus say that although Britain has an prepared us for confirmation, and (m1979) – she became only the tenth established church, it is a secular my saying that I wasn’t sure where woman in the Church’s history in the nation. And to the younger generation I was on much of it, but I wanted to episcopate, and the first from our the Church can very readily be seen keep going, and that was enough to College. Dr Wells grew up in a village as an institution that is outdated, convince him.” between Leeds and Bradford, where somewhat bureaucratic, overly her mother still lives. Did the family systematic, even about the deep She was propelled on by “a go to church every Sunday? “No,” she things of the heart. That is where the combination of the village, the church replies. “It was a sort of conventional clash comes.” and the community where I grew up, upbringing. I was baptised in the the family in which I grew up – I’ve village church. We probably went once She clarifies her criticism of the got parents and two older brothers all a month, so we were associated but institution as being in “administrative of whom would describe themselves not fanatical, shall we say? And the and cultural terms, but also in political as Christians – and then by several schools I went to mostly had a chapel terms. It’s precisely because the instrumental teachers.” But she says or a chaplain, but I wouldn’t have Church has been tied up with the State. that her brothers, influenced by the imagined that would have changed It’s a model of society that harks back Christian Union at their school, were my life.” to Constantine: when the Emperor the “most prominent” among all became Christian, the empire became these in influencing her faith. They “Even now, I would resist describing Christian. I don’t think that’s what had “made a stronger commitment myself as religious. I’m a Christian, Christian faith and life is about.” and became really excited about there’s a lot I believe, but the word being Christians when they were in ‘religious’ I associate with the sort of Does having the Head of State as Head their teens, and came back and fed outward, institutional frameworks of of the Church matter to her? “I am me all sorts of fascinating books that an established system, and I think for utterly delighted that the Queen is got me thinking and talking.” Her me the process of coming to faith was my supreme governor in the Church. parents, although they followed a about shedding some of that.” She takes that responsibility very “different model” of Christian faith, seriously. And I see many advantages were “encouraging and supportive” of I asked, when we met on a bleak to an established church. But I’m in their children in this journey. winter’s afternoon at her office in it because this is the Church where I her handsome residence just outside found faith, and I’ve learned to grow Dr Wells came up to Corpus to read Guildford, whether the institutions of where I’m planted.” natural sciences. She had been to Photo credit: Jim Pascoe photography 4 • The Pelican 2017 • 5 THE RT REVD DR JO BAILEY WELLS CHURCH OF ENGLAND “run off to a church on the edge of Her time there was a gift of room to town, St Matthew’s, one that was as think about the direction of her life. non-studenty as possible.” She liked She still wanted to change the world, the way it was full of young families, and in a direction she had learned in and she helped teach Sunday school. Transkei. “I was deeply touched by the quality of life in the spiritual, less As she prepared to leave Corpus material sense that I experienced I KNEW I WANTED TO she says she felt “really confused”. there,” she says, saying she noted on CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT I “I’d thoroughly enjoyed Corpus and her return home that “wealth doesn’t HADN’T A CLUE HOW. THERE Cambridge, but I had not enjoyed the seem to make anyone any happier”. WERE THREE VOCATIONS academic work, and had not done Her ambition then was to “right the THAT ATTRACTED ME: well as a result, and was wondering wrongs of the injustices between ‘‘ what on earth to do with my life.” the first and the third world.” She TEACHING, COUNSELLING She says that for her “the continent stayed on in Minnesota because AND SOCIAL WORK, BUT of Africa represented the call.