EVENTS AND REUNIONS FOR 2 014 /15 ISSUE 14 MICHAELMAS 2014 GONVILLE & CAIUS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE Development Campaign Board Meeting . Thursday 2 October Caius Club London Dinner . Friday 3 October Michaelmas Full Term begins . Tuesday 7 October Caius Foundation Board Meeting . Wednesday 5 November New York Reception . Wednesday 5 November Patrons of the Caius Foundation Dinner . Wednesday 5 November Commemoration of Benefactors Lecture, Service & Feast . Sunday 16 November First Christmas Carol Service (6pm) . Wednesday 3 December Second Christmas Carol Service (4.30pm) . Thursday 4 December Michaelmas Full Term ends . Friday 5 December Varsity Rugby Match . Thursday 11 December Lent Full Term begins . Tuesday 13 January Development Campaign Board Meeting . Thursday 26 February Second Year Parents’ Hall . Thursday 12 & Friday 13 March Lent Full Term ends . Friday 13 March Telephone Campaign begins . Saturday 14 March MAs’ Dinner . Friday 20 March Annual Gathering (1972, 1973 & 1974) . Friday 27 March Hong Kong Reception . Monday 13 April Hong Kong Dinner for Members of the Court of Benefactors . Monday 13 April Singapore Reception . Thursday 16 April Easter Full Term begins . Tuesday 21 April Stephen Hawking Circle “50 Years a Fellow” Celebration . Saturday 30 May Easter Full Term ends . Friday 12 June May Week Party for Benefactors . Saturday 13 June Caius Club May Bumps Event . Saturday 13 June Graduation Lunch . Thursday 25 June Annual Gathering (up to & including 1963) . Tuesday 30 June Admissions Open Days . Thursday 2 & Friday 3 July Annual Gathering (2001, 2002 & 2003) . Saturday 19 September Michaelmas Full Term begins . Tuesday 6 October Commemoration of Benefactors Lecture, Service & Feast . Sunday 15 November ...always aCaian That Was The Life That Was Delivering George Editor: Mick Le Moignan Editorial Board: Dr Anne Lyon, Dr Jimmy Altham, James Howell “You Can ’t Unburn The Toast” Design Consultant: Tom Challis Artwork and production: Cambridge Marketing Limited A Master Remembered Gonville & Caius College Trinity Street Cambridge CB2 1TA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1223 3396 76 Email: [email protected] www.cai.cam.ac.u k/alumni Registered Charity No. 1137536 From the Director of Development ...Always a Caian 1 Our College enjoys celebrating the landmarks in its life. Every year, in late November, as required by our First Founder, Edmund Gonville, we remember all those whose benefactions have been essential to ensure the continued success of Caius down the centuries – and every year, the list grows longer. As I write, we are passing a milestone that not even our sharp-eyed mathematicians have drawn to my attention. Gonville obtained Letters Patent for his Hall on 28 January 13 48, so on Michaelmas Conten ts Eve, 28 September 201 4, the College’s age is 666 years and eight months. Two-thirds A of a millennium is an awe-inspiring period of time, but as we embark on our next D l a a n n W F e h third of a millennium, Caius is in great spirits, with good reason to be highly r i s t h e t optimistic about the future. 2 6 8 The second half of the twentieth century was a unique period in the College’s history, when government funding provided a major part of our running costs. Today, like other educational institutions in Britain, Caius is having to cope with a potentially catastrophic drop in government support. Instead of weakening us, it has made us stronger, because it has forced us to remember that membership of the Caian community is for life. Roots put down and friendships made here are being rekindled while sharing in the intellectual community of the College and renewing our T D Y a o a o commitment to ensure that future generations of Caians will benefit from the same m n L W C i a h h n a i g t l e unique opportunities. l i 10 16 20 s More than 25% of Caians now make donations to the College every year. This is the 10 16 20 College’s life-blood. Last year, Caius was the top Cambridge College, both in terms of the number of you who gave and the total funds donated. This loyalty and generosity sustains us through all the vagaries of changing government policies and the rollercoaster of the world economy. We cannot thank you enough for believing in the work of the College and supporting our appeals for teaching, buildings, bursaries and research, thereby helping to maintain Caius’ outstanding achievements in education and research. 2 That Was The Life That Was – David Frost (195 8) – remembered by Neil On a personal note, after more than thirteen years as Director of Development, I shall McKendrick (195 8) be relinquishing that full-time role from the end of this year, but will continue on a 4 Delivering George – interview with Sir Marcus Setchell (1961) Lida Kindersley of the Kindersley-Cardozo Workshop, with Dr Anne Lyon and Christopher Cheng, part-time basis to do everything in my power to ensure that the endowment, on 6 Balancing the Budget – Dr David Secher (197 3), Senior Bursar supervising as Alice Cheng’s grandson Oliver makes the first cut in the stone which Caius increasingly depends, will go on growing each year. The College has 8 Ladies Bountiful – Alice Cheng (201 3) – a new name on the Benefactors’ Wall that will bear Alice’s name on the invited me to continue to direct its major gifts fundraising. Therefore, I am delighted 10 “You Can’t Unburn the Toast!” – Professor Dino Giussani (199 6) Benefactors’ Wall. to say, I look forward to staying closely in touch with you. Floreat Collegium! 12 “Nobel Priz e... Nobel Priz e... ” – Professor Michael Levitt (197 0) 14 Shell Shock – Charles Myers (1891) by Professor John Mollon (199 6) 16 A Master Remembered – interview with Judith Chadwick & Joanna Batterham 18 Benefactors’ Day 2014 – The May Week Party Dr Anne Lyon ( 20 01) 20 Extensions of a Verdant Heart – by Dr Jimmy Altham (196 5) Fellow 22 CaiWorld – Funding the Joseph Needham Lectureship 24 Thanks to our Benefactors “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. ” 32 CaiNotes J a m e s Plutarch 36 A Trio for Rio? – by James Howell (2009) H o w e l l Cover photos, clockwise from bottom right: Alan Fersht,Yao Liang, Tom Challis, Alan Fersht, AP/Press Association Images, UNESCO 2 Once a Caian... ...Always a Caian 3 in 197 7. Described by many as the most love her?”, or the more obviously provocative So perhaps the most perceptive tribute momentous interview ever seen on question to Enoch Powell, asking whether he cited on his memorial service sheet came from television, it was a personal triumph for Frost would appoint a black secretary. Lord Birt, who wrote: “When you look at the and was seen by 45 million viewers. To The range of his interviewing was quite people whom David interviewed, there never outbid NBC for the chance to submit Nixon astonishing. has been, never will be, I suspect, anybody who to up to six hours of questioning, Frost had Who else would have access to both Idi will have his span… Anybody who wants to to raise much of the $600,000 himself. He Amin and Colonel Gaddafi, to both Robert understand the second half of the twentieth was later told that the LWT shares he sold Maxwell and Emil Savundra, to both Hilary century is going to have to look at David’s to part-finance the Nixon deal would have Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, to both Bobby interviews.” brought him £37 million when they were Kennedy and his assassin Sirhan Sirhan? Who As an historian, I found this a most finally sold. His reaction was “I would still else could persuade Bill Clinton and Tony Blair persuasive assessment because I suspect that have preferred to do the interview ”. His to be interviewed together, as well as the Frost archive will be accorded the preference was very understandable. Not separately? Who else would have access to significance and importance of one of the only did he die worth an alleged £200 Billy Graham and the Pope, to Prince Charles great eyewitness chronicles of the past million, but his career was also hugely and the deposed Shah of Persia, to Liberace century. Given that his record will be enhanced by Nixon’s electrifying public and Nelson Mandela, to Mohammed Ali, presented in a visual form, future historians admission of guilt in the Watergate affair. George Best and Elizabeth Taylor, to Bing will be able to see and hear the subjects they The subsequent Frost/Nixon film and the Crosby and Bob Hope, to Yoko Ono and all the are studying, rather than simply read what Frost/Nixon play would alone have made Beatles, severally and together? Very few they wrote or what contemporaries wrote him a rich man. They also made him one of celebrities of any consequence escaped his about them. As we slip deeper and deeper the most famous men in the world. His huge attention. into the digital age, Frost’s archive will Sir David Frost (195 8) – still a hint of the goalkeeper in the young TV presenter gamble had paid off in every possible way. Of greater importance, no one can deny assume a unique importance – unique for its His memorial service very properly paid the quality of the lengthy political interviews span and unique for the stature of its subjects tribute to the originality that marked so he conducted from the 1970s onwards. No and all the more compelling because of its much of his career.