THE MAGAZINE OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE ISSUE 30 | 2018 pelican

Dr Richard Henderson Nobel Prize winner Sacha Woodward Hill General Counsel to Formula One Christopher Kelly Master of Corpus Christi College

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Editor Elizabeth Winter

Managing Editor Elizabeth Abusleme

Editorial Assistants Professor Christopher Kelly Dr Richard Henderson FRS Sacha Woodward Hill Jane Martin PAGE 4 PAGE 6 By Dr Simon Heffer PAGE 12 Lucy Sparke Somer Greene

Design Elizabeth Abusleme

Photography Elizabeth Abusleme Phil Mynott

Dr Rune Damgaard Professor Judy Hirst FRS The Corpus manuscripts PAGE 20 PAGE 26 PAGE 34

Revd Dr Andrew Davison Dr Melle Kromhout Dr Felicity Hill Michael Griffiths and PAGE 38 PAGE 46 PAGE 52 John Lucas PAGE 58

2 • The Pelican 2018 • 3 other college in Oxford and Cambridge. It is a rare and remarkable piece of world heritage. In short’, he concluded, ‘it is Professor Christopher Kelly something well worth boasting about.’ The Master’s wife, Ms Shawn Donnelley, 52nd Master of Corpus Christi College also knows the College well and her support for his candidacy was fundamental to his decision to stand. ‘The most When Christopher Kelly was elected important conversation about agreeing Master of Corpus, he vowed to ‘tell the to stand for the Mastership was the one I Corpus story’. This small and sixth oldest had with my wife,’ he told Fellows during of the Cambridge colleges is the only his election. Shawn is a Guild Fellow of one founded by the townspeople (the the College, a member of the University’s brethren and sisters of the Gilds of Corpus Guild of Benefactors and an experienced Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary). expert in philanthropy. She is President Corpus, uniquely for an ancient college, of Strategic Giving, a Chicago-based firm had neither a royal nor an ecclesiastical providing consultation on philanthropic founder. But the Corpus story is much giving. She serves on many boards in the larger than that. ‘It is the story’, Professor US, including those of the Art Institute of Professor Christopher Kelly and Dr Christopher Brookes (Senior Fellow) in the College Chapel before the admission ceremony. Kelly pointed out, ‘of a college that Chicago, Northwestern Hospital Memorial houses and cares for the Parker Library, Foundation, American Associates of the one of the country’s greatest heritage National Theatre (in London) and is a past treasures. It is the story of a small, chairman and current life trustee of the tightly-knit community rightly prized Goodman Theatre in Chicago. for its friendliness amongst students, Fellows and staff, and for its broad range Within weeks of Christopher being of achievement in matters cultural, admitted as Master, Shawn had organised a social, sporting and, above all, for its fancy dress Hallowe’en party at the recently commitment to excellence in teaching, renovated dining hall at Leckhampton learning and research.’ It is the story of for the families of Fellows and staff. Its a college where support is offered across With this track record, it is no surprise that The Master’s enthusiasm for the Parker promise immediately enlivened lunchtime the board to both undergraduates and the Master’s attention is sharply focused Library and his desire to see its treasures conversation; where does one get hold postgraduates, and where that clichéd on academic matters. The complex appreciated and understood by alumni of goth make-up/human-sized pumpkins/ claim of being a family matches up to and often troubled landscape currently and an international audience is obvious. white-haired wigs/horns/red cloaks/black reality. occupied by higher education in the UK Loans of manuscripts to museums and silk leggings and garters? The discussion demands an intricate understanding collections around the world will be co- rivalled the most esoteric of discourses: Christopher Kelly is no stranger to of the issues, the funding, politics and ordinated with curated viewings and one senior Fellow was heard asking Corpus. He was elected as a Fellow under people. Professor Kelly is keenly aware with publicity well in advance so that another; ‘So are you going as Garibaldi? Michael McCrum in 1994, having been a of the challenges the College faces in alumni and friends can visit in their own Because if you’re not then I am.’ graduate student at Trinity and Drapers’ the next decade. ‘I firmly believe’, he countries and cities. ‘Simply put’, he Research Fellow at Pembroke. He served Professor Christopher Kelly and Ms Shawn Donnelley. remarked, ‘that it is important for Corpus stated, ‘the Parker Library, alongside Under Professor Christopher Kelly’s as Senior Tutor from 2000 to 2004, and to promote academic excellence at all the chapel of King’s College, is the most Mastership, the College can look later President from 2016 to 2017. levels and to underwrite that success by important international cultural heritage forward to a flourishing new era of increased access and outreach initiatives, asset in Cambridge. This College glories His own academic career stands him sharply focused academic achievement and by securing additional support in one of the best collections in the (amongst both students and Fellows), in good stead for the challenges of the against the rising costs of undergraduate world of medieval manuscripts and early Mastership. As Professor of Classics and increased awareness and visibility of the and graduate education.’ printed books.’ Corpus is committed to treasures of the Parker Library, and ever Ancient History in the University (assigned protecting and preserving the Parker to the Faculty of Classics), Christopher stronger collegiate bonds within the ‘He is passionately committed to Corpus,’ Library, ‘but also to ensuring that its community of the College and its alumni. Kelly has a wide range of interests in the commented Dr Marina Frasca-Spada, collection is shared and enjoyed by a wide ancient world; these include government ‘Let’s remember’, he said recently at Corpus’s Senior Tutor. ‘For more than audience through its dedicated website, Admission of Scholars, ‘that this little and power, its use and abuse, the society, twenty years Christopher has been a the digitisation of its manuscripts, talks religion and culture of the Roman Empire College last year claimed a Nobel Prize major intellectual presence in College and lectures, and frequent loans to winner (Dr Richard Henderson), a Fellow from Augustus to Justinian, the rise of as a Fellow, as Director of Studies in museums around the world.’ , and Edward Gibbon and the of the Royal Society, three personal chairs, Classics, as a supervisor, as a member of three readerships and more starred firsts Grand Tour. His books include The End key College committees, as Senior Tutor ‘Alongside our small community and of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of than we have had in a generation. It’s not and as President. He is passionately our firm commitment to excellence a bad place to be right now.’ Rome, made especially famous by Prince committed to the welfare and academic in teaching, learning and research, Philip who was photographed clutching it success of both students and Fellows, the Parker Library is one of the most jealously as he boarded the royal train for and to the continued excellence of our distinctive and distinguishing features Follow the Master and his wife on Instagram @themastercorpus Christmas at Sandringham. collegiate University.’ of Corpus. It sets us apart from every The Master dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Hallowe’en party.

4 • The Pelican 2018 • 5 I have been very fortunate in my two days later. I had not realized At MRC-LMB, I joined what we called life and scientific career. I was born that the Cambridge PhD required “the chymotrypsin group”, led by into a normal working-class family in membership of a college. Since I knew David Blow, and helped to determine the borders of Scotland, where my nothing about the colleges, I wrote to the structure and understand the (m1966) father was a baker and my mother another Edinburgh physics graduate, catalytic mechanism of the enzyme Dr Richard Henderson had a variety of jobs. The educational Keith Moffat, who had graduated a chymotrypsin. system worked for me exactly as it year ahead of me and had also been Honorary Fellow and Nobel Prize winner was designed to do in the post-war directed to Perutz by Cochran. Keith expansion of secondary education. wrote back with a wonderful 4-page I went to four schools, each one letter giving a thumbnail sketch of the a step up from the previous one. positive and negative aspects of each The teachers were mostly good, of the then about 20 colleges. some excellent. The various exams, in Scotland the “quali”, that were Keith recommended Darwin and designed to tailor educational level Corpus Christi, largely because Corpus to academic ability placed me in the had just opened new postgraduate most academic stream at Hawick accommodation in 1964 in the George High School. I was academically able Thomson Building. I spent a year living and gradually assimilated knowledge, in the George Thomson building, and somehow appreciating the intrinsic later became a fellow at Darwin and thrill of learning abstract concepts, an Honorary Fellow at Corpus. Keith’s particularly in mathematics and letter said; “Corpus Christi has a truly science. After an undergraduate magnificent post-graduate hostel degree in physics at Edinburgh called Leckhampton, ultra-smooth, University, I made a major effort to full of interesting people, and much explore a variety of career options sought after. No molecular biologists before deciding on a PhD in biophysics. but plenty of chemists, an enlightened Fortunately, our physics professor in attitude towards research students Edinburgh, Bill Cochran, knew about – recommended. I see a lot of it as the MRC Laboratory of Molecular a number of my friends live there, Biology (MRC-LMB) because he had including two Edinburgh chemistry recently moved from Cambridge graduates from my year, Gavin Currie to Edinburgh, and recommended I and Ian Stenhouse. It’s a bit out of should write to Max Perutz. town but the setting more than makes up for the comparative isolation – a I came on the overnight train in gigantic garden with swimming pool, February 1966 to the Saturday rose garden, Henry Moore statue, morning student open day at the MRC- squash courts and playing fields – the LMB. I was interviewed by Max and lot.” Consequently, I applied and was John Kendrew, who had shared the accepted by Corpus as a graduate 1962 Chemistry Nobel prize for their student with a stipend from the work on haemoglobin and myoglobin, Medical Research Council. though I was not aware of this at the time, and heard an explanation of the power of X-ray crystallography by David Blow, who became my PhD supervisor 6 months later and had AT MRC-LMB, I JOINED himself been an undergraduate at Corpus in the 1950s. I was impressed WHAT WE CALLED “THE that there were more people hard CHYMOTRYPSIN GROUP”, at work on Saturday morning at the ‘‘ LED BY DAVID BLOW, AND MRC-LMB and having fun with their HELPED TO DETERMINE research than on a weekday afternoon THE STRUCTURE AND in any of the other places I had visited in my explorations of potential PhD UNDERSTAND THE projects. CATALYTIC MECHANISM OF THE ENZYME After my interview/visit to MRC-LMB, CHYMOTRYPSIN. I immediately wrote to Max Perutz to say that I would very much like come to MRC-LMB for a PhD and was accepted 6 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 7 DR RICHARD HENDERSON

George Thomson building at Leckhampton. Photo courtesy: MRC Laboratory of .

This was a particularly productive Frank Lee, who was an impressive and GP Thomson (1937 Nobel prize Cranmer Road after marrying Penny who made the journey south from period in the early years of very wise chairman of many Corpus in Physics for the experimental FitzGerald and starting a family with Edinburgh to Cambridge to pursue structural molecular biology: in committees, having had decades of discovery of the diffraction of daughter Jennifer. Leckhampton graduate work of one kind or 1966 the atomic structures of experience in government. He was electrons by crystals) and was was and still is a great place for a another in 1966, and Craig and I are only two proteins, myoglobin and also Vice Chairman of the Board of invited to high table in the 1980s by new arrival in Cambridge to join a FROM 1973 AND FOR THE still here. lysozyme, were known but by Governors of the United Cambridge then Master Michael McCrum but pre-existing community, and the NEXT 45 YEARS I PURSUED 1969 when I submitted my PhD Hospitals, and masterminded many declined to renew my association nearby housing for young families From 1973 and for the next 45 years MY SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS thesis there were nearly a dozen, developments at Addenbrookes with Corpus, instead becoming a reduces one of the main economic ‘‘ I pursued my scientific interests of which chymotrypsin was one of Hospital. These included the creation fellow at Darwin College, where I hurdles. AS A STRUCTURAL as a structural biologist working the first. By now in late 2018, the of a recreation centre for staff, later spent 30 years, including three with BIOLOGIST WORKING OUT out the structures of a number of atomic structures of over 140,000 named the Frank Lee Centre, which the heavy responsibility of being After my PhD I went to Yale for THE STRUCTURES OF A interesting biological molecules as macromolecules have now been provided superb leisure and fitness steward. three years and returned as a young NUMBER OF INTERESTING well as helping to develop more deposited in the Protein Data Bank facilities including a swimming pool, independent scientist to the MRC- powerful methods. It was a chance (PDB). This phenomenal explosion squash courts, tennis courts and During my graduate years in the LMB in 1973, only to find that Craig BIOLOGICAL MOLECULES meeting with Nigel Unwin, who has been driven by many technical most important, a general-purpose 1960s, I lived for 18 months in Mackay, who had been in the same AS WELL AS HELPING was another young independent advances and could never have room and bar. Now, 50 years later, I the George Thomson building at physics class as me at Edinburgh TO DEVELOP MORE scientist at MRC-LMB, after he been predicted 50 years ago. am still a member of the Frank Lee Leckhampton, then six months and had also come to Cambridge in POWERFUL METHODS. gave a talk about his work using Centre, which continues to fulfil its sharing a house with other graduate 1966 for a PhD in radio astronomy the electron microscope that At Corpus as a PhD student I would purpose as part of the Cambridge students at 6 Clarendon Street, with Martin Ryle, was now a fellow changed my own focus from using occasionally meet the Master, Sir Biomedical Campus. I also met then a year living in a Corpus flat on at Corpus. There were six of us X-ray diffraction to using electron 8 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 9 XX XX

Dr Henderson receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017. diffraction and imaging. We worked switched to working on membrane I realised he was absolutely right. One day in October a year ago, forward to getting back to the more of modern science and are now together for two years in 1974- proteins. We shared the Gregori Together with then Deputy Director I received a phone call at 10.15 normal pace of scientific research used as the central principle of an 1975. The results we obtained in Aminoff award of the Royal Swedish Hugh Pelham (who subsequently am from Gunnar von Heijne and as the scientific spotlight moves enormous array of tools. Against determining the first low-resolution Academy of Sciences in 1999. became Director in 2006-2018), the Chemistry Nobel Committee onwards to illuminate the impact this obviously increasing pace of structure of a membrane protein, we persuaded the MRC to build a of the Royal Swedish Academy of of other topics. Looking back on discovery and invention, it is hard bacteriorhodopsin, were an early Alongside my research activities, new laboratory building that was Sciences with the news that I would the last 100 years or so of scientific to imagine what further discoveries indication of the potential and power I also served as Director of the much bigger than the original 1960s share the 2017 Chemistry Nobel progress, what I find amazing is that and inventions will be made in the of using the electron microscope to MRC-LMB in 1996-2006. It was building even after addition of prize with Jacques Dubochet and the existence of X-rays or electrons next 100 years. Hopefully, Corpus determine the atomic structures Cesar Milstein (1984 Nobel prize in many extensions and assimilation Joachim Frank “for developing cryo- was only recently known then. will continue to play an important of biological macromolecules. Physiology or Medicine) who told of surrounding buildings. During my electron microscopy for the high- X-rays were discovered by Röntgen role in this continuing knowledge Our collaboration changed the me it was “my duty” to accept the term as MRC-LMB Director, I was resolution structure determination in 1895 (1901 Physics Nobel prize) revolution. trajectory of both of our researches position as an MRC Director; after 30 appointed as an Honorary Fellow of biomolecules in solution”. As a and the electron by JJ Thomson in in different ways; I switched to years of freedom to pursue research at Corpus and have been in regular consequence, the last year has been 1897 (1906 Physics Nobel prize). using electron microscopy and Nigel without any heavy administration, contact since then. a busy one for me but I’m looking Together, they underpin vast areas

10 • The Pelican 2018 • 11 Sacha Woodward Hill (m1987) General Counsel to Formula One Interviewed by Dr Simon Heffer (m1979)

It is about 40 minutes into an interview ask them if they’d be so kind as to put I loved. The Army tended to cluster in with Sacha Woodward Hill, General the race on. All the family were keen on communities, but we lived in a German Counsel to Formula One and for over motor racing. I do remember the 70s, village.” 20 years one of Bernie Ecclestone’s key the era of Lauda and Hunt, but it really lieutenants, when I feel I must ask the pierced my consciousness in the 1980s, She was in West Germany at the height obvious question: “What do you drive?” with Senna and Prost and Piquet and of the Cold War, but the atmosphere “You’ve got me there”, she chuckles. “I Mansell.” was “generally not” worrying. “The thing don’t drive. I’ve thought about it. But I was more worried about than the Cold there are very few moments when I have So when she decided she wanted to be War was terrorism. This was the time of said to myself: ‘It would be very good to an in-house lawyer, a job with F1 was the Hyde Park bombing, and I’ve never be able to drive at this moment.’” the obvious place to go. “My sister urged forgotten my Confirmation, in a church me to contact them,” she says. “At that at a barracks in Bielefeld; as we arrived Miss Woodward Hill may not have a stage Bernie Ecclestone was not the I was in the back of a car holding a Bible driving licence, but she has acquired such high-profile individual he subsequently and dressed for my confirmation, and a mastery of detail about the commercial became. I discovered his office address, there were soldiers with guns, and they empire that is F1 that, shortly before he and thought he would be the sort of searched the underside of the car. It was stepped down as the chief executive of person who would only be interested in rather incongruous, given the purpose of the business last year, Mr Ecclestone the most abbreviated of CVs. So I shrunk our visit.” publicly tipped her to succeed him. As my CV down to a couple of bullet points it is, she remains the chief lawyer of the and wrote a punchy covering letter and She spent only a short time in Germany business for its new owners, and we posted it to him. before going to boarding school. “What meet in their luxurious new offices in a I remember most about Germany was development just off Piccadilly Circus. “He rang me the next day and asked me a broadening of experiences; it was to go to his office at 2pm – so, having culturally different, and I enjoyed that. Some people drift into high-powered faked a dental appointment, I did. I I didn’t visit Berlin but I thought a lot jobs by accident, but as she explains to arrived at 2pm and at four minutes past about a partitioned city – it was such a me her present position came about two he asked me: ‘So when will you be crazy idea. It broadened my perception thanks to a piece of deliberate targeting. joining us?’ He never actually offered of politics.” “Formula One came about because me the job. He just assumed: why would I knew I wanted to move in-house,” I have asked for a job if I didn’t want she explains, having told me about her it? We fixed a start date but he never training with a leading firm of London wrote me a letter to confirm: so I was solicitors.” And it was my sister who slightly nervous when I resigned my job suggested to me ‘think of what interests that I might turn up and he wouldn’t you. Choose something you enjoy.’ I was remember hiring me. And that’s what he SACHA MAY NOT a Formula One fan, so that seemed an did on my first day – it was his idea of a HAVE A DRIVING obvious place to try. little joke – he screwed up his eyes when LICENCE, BUT SHE he saw me in reception and asked: ‘Who ‘‘ HAS ACQUIRED “It was one of those sports that was are you?’” always on in the background when I A MASTERY OF was at home on Sunday afternoons. My I ask Sacha about her childhood. “Home DETAIL ABOUT mother would only cook a Sunday lunch was in Kent for my early years, until I THE COMMERCIAL every second Sunday. The other one was was 11 or 12, where I grew up with my EMPIRE THAT IS F1. a grand prix lunch, which you ate on your parents and sister. Then my father took lap and which was self-service. And if we a job with the Ministry of Defence, so went on holiday, which was usually to we were then attached to the Army, at France, the first priority was to tour the which point we relocated to Germany. I area and find a bar with a television, and returned to boarding school. Germany

12 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 13 SACHA WOODWARD HILL FORMULA ONE

She flourished at school. “I was one “I never thought I should have gone to a of those at the top of the class. I was a women’s college. I didn’t regret it. It was general all-rounder academically, which just one of those things to manage. I did made it difficult to work out what my have a sense that women were still a bit path would be. My history teacher of an oddity. It seemed sometimes to presumed I’d pursue history and my work to your advantage. There seemed chemistry teacher presumed I’d pursue to be this notion that women were chemistry, and so on.” She also took strange creatures who needed hair part in speech and drama, and poetry dryers, and therefore they should be in recitals, and played the piano. the rooms that had the 13 amp plugs.”

“The school suggested in the early Nonetheless, it was by no means a 6th form that we should start having hostile environment. “I was made to feel Oxbridge classes. It didn’t have a great very welcome. I remember particularly tradition of sending girls to Oxbridge the porters. They were very paternal to – mine was a bit of a bumper year the female undergraduates: several of when they got six in. And it was skewed them have made an indelible mark on towards Oxford – they didn’t think about my memory. I took a little while to find Cambridge. They arranged an outing my feet. I think one thing I do regret is to Teddy Hall and I looked around and that I didn’t take a gap year. I didn’t know thought it was not for me. I said I was what I’d have done, but I think there was thinking about Durham, at which point some growing up I needed to do in my they panicked because they thought I first year that I would have preferred to would get in to Oxbridge; so they said do before I got there. I think I would have ‘What about Cambridge’? been slightly less of a child.”

“They rang around and eventually found Her intensive work regime of F1 had its out that a friend of a friend of a friend foundations at Corpus. She says she took knew the admissions tutor of Catz. So “very little” part in organised college they gave me a day off school to go on activities: “I had a go at rowing and soon my own, with a chum, and just go to realised that getting up at 6am was Cambridge for the day. We arrived at never going to do it for me. Socialising, Catz slightly early and decided just to friendships and cultural experiences cross the road and have a look round. were how I spent my free time. I used The thing I remember was stepping into to like the “come and sing” choirs, and I New Court and seeing all the window learned a few pieces of music that way. I boxes full of red pelargoniums and I was the least sporty person at that point; thought: ‘I could be happy here’. So I I think I got to 40 before I said to myself went to meet a very kind tutor in Catz, that there were a few things I hadn’t and then wandered around Cambridge.” done, so water-skiing and snow skiing I took up later.” She felt an attraction that Oxford had failed to have for her. “It wasn’t just She changed from Natural Sciences about the atmosphere, it was about the to Law in the second year. “I decided syllabus. At that stage I’d chosen sciences to change in my third term. I realised I and I wasn’t ready to pursue physics or had made a slightly immature decision from that, and decided that that was the decision.” She found a paid traineeship doing intellectual property – trademarks, chemistry on their own. The Natural to pursue sciences, largely because my subject I wanted to do.” with a firm of city solicitors, and did her brand infringement, which is very much Sciences tripos was very appealing, school had assumed I wouldn’t. Careers Law Society course at the former City what we do here at Formula 1.” One because it would give me more time to advice at school had been a little thin on She has never regretted giving up Polytechnic in Moorgate and joined the THE THING I of her first jobs was to deal with the pursue different disciplines and work the ground: I don’t remember having science. But did she see herself being a firm that had sponsored her. Initially REMEMBER WAS counterfeiters of a toy that had been barrister? “No. I didn’t even see myself she thought about doing family law – “I replicated and was being “knocked out” out what I wanted to study. Interestingly any. I once sat down with a teacher who STEPPING INTO NEW when I got there I worked out I wanted was supposed to give me some and she being a lawyer. For me it was very much wasn’t really thinking about corporate as the real thing. “I spent a week in a about having an interesting academic or commercial”. She was interested ‘‘ COURT AND SEEING shopping centre at Enfield surveying to study something other than science.” asked: ‘What does your father do? What does your mother do?’ And when I told discipline.” So how did she end up first as in criminology, “but particularly in ALL THE WINDOW complete strangers, and sneaking into She was in only the fourth year of women her she said ‘Maybe you should be a a solicitor, and then at F1? sentencing policy – why do we send BOXES FULL OF RED shops and taking surreptitious pictures to go to Corpus. Was it equal proportions diplomat.’ So I didn’t have a clear sense people to prison and does it work?” But PELARGONIUMS AND of displays. It was huge fun. of men and women by then? “No way. of purpose. I enjoyed science as an “It happened by accident. I graduated criminal law held no appeal. with no clear vision of what I was going I THOUGHT: ‘I COULD “Then I ended up working in insolvency, It was about 7 to 1. And I had been to a academic pursuit, but I had befriended BE HAPPY HERE’. very sheltered girls’ boarding school, so several law students and felt rather to do for the rest of my life, and an Once she had qualified, “I was surprised and I eventually qualified as an it was a bit of a culture shock. envious of what they were studying, overdraft. So I thought that if I did my by how much I enjoyed what I was insolvency lawyer. It sounds very narrow and the discussions that would come Law Society finals I could then make a doing. I started off in my initial training but it’s actually very broad, because a 14 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 15 SACHA WOODWARD HILL failing business may well be perfectly while waiting for someone to come in ideal chance to see businesses up close, viable if you can sort out its bank debt. and buy it. Today, a buyer is usually lined and I realised that working in a business It has staff, it has a building, it has unsold up: but I spent a year with a chap from was something I would rather do than stock, it has unfulfilled contracts; it might KPMG running a chain of nursing homes. work in a law firm.” Hence her letter to have an issue with its pension scheme. They were all eventually sold off.” Mr Ecclestone. You don’t need to be an expert in any of those areas: you just need to know What appealed to her was that “I was “I knew nothing of him before I met enough to navigate around. And if the dealing with a living, breathing business him: I think he only really came to public business is viable you’ve got to trade it and that was really interesting. It was an attention over the issues of the political donation he made to the Labour party. When I met him he was a big figure in the sport, but not in the country generally. He had great presence and was quite inscrutable.

“There was a formality about him: he was ‘Mr E’, not ‘Bernie’: it was many years before I called him ‘Bernie’. There was a reverence about dealing with him. We realised that the sport we worked in was one that he had more or less built single-handed: it was a remarkable feat. He is a person who inspires great loyalty in people who work for him. They want to deliver their best for him.”

She started off as one of F1’s three company lawyers: within three or four years she was F1’s senior lawyer. Was this a huge responsibility? “I never really thought that much about it. I was just very ambitious. The business was smaller than it is today. We have about 15 lawyers today and we’re recruiting more at the moment.”

Despite the reputation he has for being difficult, Mr Ecclestone posed no problems for his lawyer. “I established a good working relationship with him. He’s not the sort of person who would choose “He is the ultimate meritocrat. He Has it, I wondered, been a seven day to spend his time with lawyers. You need doesn’t care where you came from, a week job? “It can be. There have to be a particular sort of lawyer to work or where you went to school, or who been periods where I’ve had to re-set with him – someone who can enable his your parents are. All he cares about is and carve out some time. I think it’s ideas. He’s a very impatient person and whether you can get the job done and in my nature to push a bit too hard his mind moves very fast – you have to be competent. He allowed me to grow SHE STARTED OFF on occasions. Sometimes for reasons be able to keep up.” and develop in any way of which I was of self-preservation you need to look capable. AS ONE OF F1’S after yourself. You need to make time I ask her whether she could make him THREE COMPANY for yourself. Making space to do other laugh. “Probably the other way round. He ‘‘ “I think because he was a very important LAWYERS: WITHIN things is something I’ve made a very made me laugh. He has a very deadpan person in the sport some people were conscious effort to do.” sense of humour that doesn’t always THREE OR FOUR afraid to contradict him. I never took YEARS SHE WAS F1’S look good in print.” There were difficult that view. As a lawyer, it’s my job to Mr Ecclestone left in early 2017 when passages. “It could be exasperating. explain things and to let people know SENIOR LAWYER. the new owners came in. “There has And it could be exciting: or both at the where the risks and pitfalls are. He been a significant change here with a same time. I could tell when he wasn’t appreciated working with someone who new leadership team,” Miss Woodward in the building, because there was a buzz would speak to him on the level rather Hill says. “It’s been very difficult, I don’t and an energy that he brought to the than just nod and agree with him. If you deny it. I’m still adjusting, 12 months organisation that was absent if he was can’t do something, you think of a way on. The new owners had plans for the away travelling. of achieving the objective that will work.” ’’ business, and they thought this was the 16 • The Pelican 2018 • 17 right moment to appoint someone new to take the business forward. When I joined it was owner-managed, but then very quickly, after a series of deals, it wasn’t.”

Had she considered moving on when Mr Ecclestone left? “I didn’t think about it. If they’d wanted me to go because I was so closely associated with Bernie then I’d have been happy to step back. But they didn’t, and I saw that there was a business that needed to be stabilised, as we were undergoing a really tremendous change. I felt a duty to the business and to the people who work here to be part of that stabilising process. Very soon, I realised the new owners have very exciting plans to develop the business and take it to its next phase.”

I asked her to elaborate. “I think they want to connect to fans in a way we haven’t before. We were a very conventional business. The whole digital thing was untouched, and that’s part of what they’re building. As well as developing use of social media, they have set up a championship for people who play the F1 computer game.”

The sport has developed in more conventional ways too. “When I started it was about 15 races a year. Now it’s 21 or 22. There are other places that are keen to have a grand prix, but there’s a natural limit to how many races we can put on. We had a Fan Festival in Trafalgar Square last year, with F1 cars going up and down Whitehall. This year to a country, but generally I’d say you “I have joked about this internally in male dominated: but I don’t think it’s not being married, and I don’t regret we are holding them in Marseille, Berlin, don’t do any good by staying away.” this very debate about where you draw any more male dominated than any not having children. I’m a determined Shanghai and Miami. More needs to be She’s never said no to a suggestion the line,” she says, tactfully. other walk of life I have encountered. person, and I make things happen for done to engage the younger audience.” of a new venue. “There were one or It remains my view that in life women myself when I want them to. But it can two countries where it was vaguely Will she still be at F1 in a decade’s have to work twice as hard and be four be too intense sometimes, and my Does she like going to the races? “I mooted, but it never got to the point PEOPLE TALK ABOUT time? “I suspect not,” she says. “I times as good to achieve half as much mission now is to carve out more time don’t go. There was a period when I where I had to express my view.” think I am sort of reaching the point recognition. for other things. There are things we would go, though not to every race. But FORMULA 1 AS BEING where I realise there’s enough time to can give back, and I don’t think that it’s very disruptive of life: you don’t get Grands prix are held in China and Russia, MALE DOMINATED: have a second career in a completely “Women think differently from men. If giving back is something I have done to do much else. My job is best done both of which have recently been ‘‘ new area, perhaps with less focus on an exciting new job is advertised a man enough of. The change of ownership BUT I DON’T THINK from here.” criticised for human rights violations. IT’S ANY MORE business. That’s just stirring in my mind with 35 per cent of the qualifications and the change of leadership here Did they give her pause for thought? MALE DOMINATED at the moment.” I ask whether there will feel he can apply for it and wing the have caused me to reassess what is Despite its petrolhead connotations, “We don’t see ourselves as a political are any good causes that she has time rest. A woman may have 65 per cent next for me.” When her time comes the sport brings her little trouble organisation. We just want to bring a THAN ANY OTHER to support, and she replies “I’d like to but she will only be able to see the 35 to leave, the next institution Sacha with environmentalists – “going the great entertainment spectacle to as WALK OF LIFE I HAVE be doing more of that.” per cent she doesn’t have. It’s about Woodward Hill engages with will have maximum distance while using the big an audience as possible to as many ENCOUNTERED. confidence.” acquired a formidable grand prix minimum fuel is the whole point of countries as we can reach. The size of She says she’d like to do more work talent of its own. Formula 1” – but there have been Russia is such that it would be odd to “supporting girls”, as a mentor. “I I ask her whether her key role at F1 difficulties with human rights. “We ignore it.” So what if Kim Jong-un called don’t think we have an equal society. has meant a life of all work and no have to be mindful of the impact on and asked for a grand prix in Pyongyang? People talk about Formula 1 as being play. “Perhaps a little. I don’t regret human rights of our decision to go 18 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 19 XX Dr Rune Busk Damgaard Research Fellow in Molecular Biology

GROWING UP IN RURAL DENMARK, I WAS FASCINATED BY NATURE. EVERY CHANCE I GOT, I WOULD GO EXPLORING IN THE WOODS, GO FISHING ON THE MEADOWS, OR DIG FOR FOSSILS AT THE LIME PIT. IN MY TEENAGE YEARS, THIS FASCINATION MATERIALISED AS A KEEN INTEREST IN SCIENCE, PARTICULARLY BIOLOGY. AS THIS INTEREST ONLY GREW STRONGER IN SIXTH FORM COLLEGE, I DECIDED, THE FIRST EVER IN MY FAMILY, TO APPLY TO UNIVERSITY. IT WAS NOT IN MY CARDS TO BECOME AN ACADEMIC IN CAMBRIDGE, BUT THANKS TO SOME INCREDIBLE AND INSPIRATIONAL TEACHERS IN MY SCHOOL YEARS, I AM EXCITED AND THANKFUL THAT IT TURNED OUT THIS WAY.

I grew up in a small farming town in In Sixth Form College, my academic work? What goes wrong in these cells Southeast Denmark, surrounded by interest in the sciences was ignited. when we develop diseases? How are giant, industrial pig farms and wheat I loved it all – physics, chemistry, normal cells transformed to cancer fields as far as the eye can see. But mathematics. But my favourite subject cells? How does the immune system in between the bacon factories remained biology. Once again, an recognise and eliminate infections? and the cultivated, limy soil near incredible teacher, Lars Kliim, became What happens to the nerve cells in Zealand’s Baltic Sea coast, you can a great source of inspiration. Lars’ (in Alzheimer’s disease? Lars’ classes and still find the most beautiful meadows Denmark, we address our teachers mentorship really inspired me, and I with streams and rivers, wildflowers, by their first name) exciting biology was considering applying to university bees, and butterflies. I spent so many classes really piqued my interest in to study these concepts further. of my weekends and summers there modern molecular biology. I became However, I am not from an academic growing up, camping, canoeing, fascinated by DNA technology, family at all, so this was unchartered fishing, or finding strange insects. genetics, and , and I territory. Not to mention the magnificent wanted to understand how the cells in forests with the seemingly infinitely our body worked. I was truly amazed My careers advisor suggested I could tall beech wood trees where I built by these small and outrageously apply to either Biology or Medicine; hideouts and searched for owl complex machineries, hundreds of my grades were good, and I would pellets. I was so fascinated by the different types of them: blood cells, likely be accepted. I went to open beauty and mysteries of nature. nerve cells, liver cells, skin cells - all days at University of Copenhagen, And there was of course the thrill of similar yet so different. How do they but neither Biology nor Medicine discovery! I would often bring home all sorts of artefacts I had found: feathers, animal bones, stones and fossils, etc. This was not always my most applauded habit, as you might imagine. But this was where my interest in biology and science was first ignited, I think.

In school, this interest was fuelled by a couple of fantastic teachers. The local state school I attended was mediocre at the very best, but I was so fortunate to have a couple of very talented and passionate teachers with a keen interest in biology and nature as well. They went out of their way to nurture our curiosity. They would take us on ornithological expeditions (it’s an expedition if you have binoculars!) or take us to the nearest forest lake to find tadpoles or salamanders. It sounds banal, but their efforts really made a difference. East coast of Zealand, Denmark.

20 • The Pelican 2018 • 21 XX XX

were exactly what I wanted to do. Fortunately, I was accepted. I was over I spent eight fascinating and very the biochemical functions of the cell eminent danger. This starts an immune Biology seemed to have far too broad the moon! Yet, I quickly realised: I was enjoyable years at University of in response to the signal. For example, response and instructs other immune a scope, and I was not really sure how actually going to university. I had no Copenhagen; three years to complete sensing of the hormone insulin via the cells to combat the infection. But botany or freshwater ecology would idea what this would entail. Slowly, my my BSc, a further two years for my MSc, insulin receptor sends a biochemical THE MAIN QUESTION how is the information contained in help me address these questions and complacency was transformed into a and lastly three years to complete my signal through the cell that results MY CURRENT RESEARCH the signal, the cytokines, transferred concepts I was so fascinated by. On more tense and anxious feeling and PhD For my doctorate, I specialised in in an increased movement of sugar- AIMS TO ADDRESS IS via the cytokine receptors, through the other hand, Medicine appeared my heart started pounding. What on cell signalling, broadly speaking the transporting channels to the cell’s ‘‘ HOW CELLS TRANSFORM the cell, into the nucleus and to the concerned only with treating these earth had I gotten myself into? study of how cells communicate with surface. This results in increased sugar EXTERNAL SIGNALS INTO DNA where it changes the activity of diseases rather than understanding each other and respond to signals they transport into cells for storage of energy many hundreds of genes to start the their root cause. Despairingly flicking Before starting university, though, I sense or receive in their environment, after a meal. This ability to perceive INTERNAL, MOLECULAR immune response? through the university brochures, it had to put out a few fires (literally!). for example the presence of a and correctly respond to such signals SIGNALS. suddenly caught my eye: Molecular I had planned to take a gap year to hormone. forms the basis of most physiological When a cytokine binds its cognate Biomedicine, a new study programme (quite originally) work and travel. processes. The signalling systems receptor, this starts a molecular at University of Copenhagen focused However, I was drafted for national Cells have a myriad of receptors on are our body’s equivalent of modern relay through the cell’s cytoplasm. on understanding human disease at service (yes, this is still a thing in their surfaces. These are like small, communication technologies. Imagine into internal, molecular signals. How Small chemical modifications are the level of cells and molecules. This Denmark). So instead of travelling, molecular antennas through which what would happen if the internet and are the external signals conveyed passed from protein to protein, like was what I wanted to do. much to my initial dismay, I spent six the cells sense their environment and all telecommunication was shut off? through the cell to coordinate the batons on the running track at the months training and working as a fire receive signals from other cells. These Everything would be chaos. So, perhaps cell’s action in response to that signal? Olympics, conveying the signal from I study these processes mainly’’ in the Strongly encouraged and supported fighter and rescue worker in the Royal signals can be in the form of small not surprisingly, errors in cell signalling the antenna at the cell’s surface to by my family and teachers, I became Danish Emergency Management molecules, lipids, or proteins that processes are likely to, by analogy, immune system where I focus on the the DNA in the centre of the cell’s the first in my family to apply to Agency. Although this was not how the cells produce and send out into cause communication shutdown or communication between immune nucleus. These small modifications university. But they could not convince I had envisaged spending my gap their environment to communicate failure between cells, which leads to cells. The different cells of the immune can have various chemical natures; me to disregard my perhaps quite year, I had a good and educational to their neighbouring cells. When a cellular malfunctions and a range of system communicate with each other they can be inorganic phosphates, naïve impulse to deselect Biology time (retrospectively, at least). But signal molecule binds to its cognate diseases, such as diabetes in the case via signal molecules called cytokines aliphatic carbon compounds, or and Medicine. So, with exceptional most notably, I made an important antenna on a cell, this signal must of dysfunctional insulin signalling. that bind to specific antennas on the lipids. Hundreds of different types of determination – and a pinch of realisation: if I could overcome the be transformed from something cells. When, for instance, an immune chemical modifications of proteins can foolhardiness – I applied to only one fear of running into buildings fully that is sensed externally into a signal The main question my current cell detects an infection, this cell function in these relays. They serve as particular course at University of ablaze, I could overcome the anxiety that can be transmitted internally, research aims to address is how cells produces and sends out cytokines small tags – or molecular post-its – Copenhagen: Molecular Biomedicine. of going to university. through the cell membrane, to alter transform these external signals to tell other immune cells about the that come with an instruction; they

22 • The Pelican 2018 • 23 DR RUNE BUSK DAMGAARD MOLECULAR BIOLOGY can function as “on” or “off” switches cascades because it can form polymers; therefore interested in understanding on the proteins in these signalling eight distinct polymers to be exact. how ubiquitin modifications control cascades, but we do not understand Ubiquitin can therefore encode eight these activation processes as it may the function of most of these different instructions when attached provide fundamental insights into modifications or the instructions they to proteins as a molecular post- how diseases of the immune system, carry. it. In contrast, the vast majority of including autoimmune diseases and other modifications only encode one inflammatory disorders such as Crohn’s I am particularly interested in a type instruction. disease and rheumatoid arthritis, arise. of modification called ubiquitin (so named because it was found Modification of proteins with ubiquitin To pursue this line of research, I ubiquitously in all cells and tissues of (called ubiquitination) controls the very moved to Cambridge after my PhD to the body at its discovery in the mid- first steps in these signalling cascades work with Dr David Komander at the 1970’s). Ubiquitin is special among the from the cytokine receptors as well as Medical Research Council Laboratory chemical modifications conveying the other crucial signalling events during of Molecular Biology. Dr Komander is information in the cellular signalling activation of the immune system. I am a world-leading biochemist studying the basic chemical and physical properties of ubiquitin modifications. We have formed an interdisciplinary team that combines his biochemical and biophysical insights into ubiquitin modifications with my experience in cell biology and cell signalling to study the instructions that ubiquitin modifications carry and their importance in physiological models of the immune system. It remains very difficult to study the individual ubiquitin polymers as the experimental tools and methods available cannot readily distinguish between them. But based on Dr Komander’s previous work, we protein specifically in immune cells and Israel, we have also identified signalling in the development of these could design and perform experiments by advanced techniques for genetic patients with genetic mutations in diseases to better understand both to specifically address what the manipulation. But it was worth the OTULIN, which develop a disease and how they develop and how we may be function of one of the eight ubiquitin effort. The effects we discovered were symptoms almost indistinguishable able to treat or prevent them. polymers, termed M1-ubiquitin, is in extraordinary. Mice that lacked OTULIN from our genetically modified mice. the immune system. accumulated M1-ubiquitin polymers Importantly, even though the onset Research in Cambridge is thrilling (and in their cells (because OTULIN was of this severe immune disease is exhausting). For the last three years, Previous work in Dr Komander’s not there to disassemble them). This within the first weeks after birth, the Corpus has been a solid support, laboratory led to the discovery of an short-circuited the signal cascades identified treatment is very effective in fantastic community, and a welcome uncharacterised protein in human cells from the surface receptors and the the patients as well. break from long hours in the laboratory. that has a scissor-like activity, which immune cells spontaneously activated I strive to be involved in College life as can cut M1-ubiquitin polymers off and mounted immune responses even These results underscore the much as possible when experiments other proteins and disassemble the in the total absence of any infection. importance of correct regulation of allow. What I have found particularly polymers. Importantly, this protein is The mice could no longer control their M1-ubiquitin signals for human health enjoyable and attractive about the unable to do so for any of the other immune system and hence developed and disease and show the importance collegiate system is the close contact seven polymers. It is a molecular autoimmune and autoinflammatory and power of interdisciplinary with academics from other disciplines, scissor extremely specific for M1- diseases. This provided us with the research. But the question still and of course the incredibly bright and ubiquitin polymers. Our rationale was first evidence that M1-ubiquitin remains if dysregulation M1-ubiqiutin talented students. Teaching Corpus therefore to use this molecular scissor, polymers are potent, molecular “on” signals play a role in other diseases? students has been both challenging called OTULIN, as a proxy to study the signals in immune cells. Remarkably, My most recent results suggest that and rewarding. They are indeed role of M1-ubiquitin signals. Since we could dissect how the signalling they are involved in development of some of the best minds of their OTULIN cannot cut or disassemble any cascades were short-circuited and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and generation and they are not shy about other polymers, the effects we would identify a drug, Remicade, already liver cancer as well; two major sources questioning ideas and concepts during observe if we disabled OTULIN in our on the market, which we could of morbidity and mortality killing supervisions. I hope to be able to experimental immune system model use to treat the mice to inhibit the 25,000-30,000 people in the UK every support and encourage their learning, could only be caused by M1-ubiquitin immune activation and completely year (and with mortality rates still pique their curiosity, and offer them polymer signals. ameliorate their symptoms. Strikingly, rising). A better understanding of the just a fraction of the invaluable together with clinical geneticists mechanisms of disease development inspiration and mentorship for which It took a couple of years to generate from Addenbrooke’s Hospital and can have a drastic impact on patients I am so indebted to my own teachers. the model system: a mouse strain in the University of Birmingham, and in the future. I will continue my which we disabled the OTULIN scissor colleagues from the United States research on the role of M1-ubiquitin

24 • The Pelican 2018 • 25 Professor Judy Hirst Fellow in Chemistry and Dean of College

In July I was called to Carlton House the core of it and really understand Terrace to sign The Royal Society’s it. I don’t do superficial. It was the Charter Book. Perhaps the world’s periodic table that led me into greatest autograph book, the Charter chemistry; the simplicity and logical Book collects together the signatures order of it; the way it arises out of of the Fellows of the society, and quantum mechanics and an elegant therefore of many of the greatest set of equations, and can then be scientists of the modern era: from used to ‘explain everything’. So I Boyle, Newton and Hooke, who read chemistry at Oxford — a much signed in the 1660s as the society was more focussed endeavour than being founded at the dawn of experimental a Cambridge NatSci. Chemistry is science, to giants of the 20th century traditionally split into the disciplines like Rutherford, Turing, Sanger, of physical, inorganic and organic Florey and Djerassi, whose science chemistry, but for me a better has changed the modern world. As division is into chemists who want to a newly elected Fellow, I therefore understand things and chemists who found adding my signature rather want to make things. It’s not that intimidating — both at the time, and simple of course – but I’m the first as a concept — as well as (of course) kind. Synthetic chemistry, mostly an honour. And now here I am, FRS taught to me as ‘pushing arrows’ in at this half way point of my research a black art known as retrosynthesis, career, and asked to give you my take was the bane of my undergraduate on how it came about. life, especially the practical sessions (most memorably, the one that I became a scientist because I can’t made everyone smell of vomit). On resist meddling with things to find out the other hand, I could put physical how they work and what makes them chemistry and the ‘chemistry of tick. I like analysing stuff, spotting the elements’ together in a single, patterns and relationships, drawing beautiful, coherent construction: connections, stripping something start with the Schrödinger equation down to its basic parts to get to to define atomic energy levels, extend atomic orbitals into molecular ones by using group theory to describe bonding, then add statistical mechanics to move from the individual molecule to a population to capture thermodynamics and kinetics. Finally, I BECAME A couple this construction to a hefty SCIENTIST BECAUSE dose of experience and background I CAN’T RESIST knowledge (to provide a robust idea of what the correct answer should ‘‘ MEDDLING WITH look like) and it becomes possible THINGS TO FIND OUT to appreciate and predict the HOW THEY WORK personalities of the elements and AND WHAT MAKES their compounds — and really see THEM TICK. ‘why chemical reactions happen’. I specialised in electrochemistry for my final year project (a full year of research in Oxford, uncomplicated by exams). Electrochemists study ’’ reduction and oxidation (redox) 26 • The Pelican 2018 • 27 XX

sometimes does), be sure to behave I (of which more below). Thus began in exemplary fashion. a series of events that ended with me moving to Cambridge. I thereby After Oxford I moved to The Scripps became an independent scientist Research Institute in La Jolla, in the best possible way: I had the California (just north of Mexico) with good luck to be the right person in a Wellcome Trust Prize International the right place at the right time. Of (postdoctoral) Fellowship. Having the course, fully-funded programmes fellowship was great: there was no don’t come without strings: the MRC apparent limit to my travel budget, sets up specialist units to solve big and I could decide the directions of challenges that require long-term my project for myself. So I learnt investment and effort. Complex I is all about proteins: how to produce my big challenge, my career enzyme. and purify them, manipulate It’s huge, complicated, unstable and them by mutagenesis, and study uncooperative in every possible way. them by means other than fancy I’ve fought with it, cajoled it, hated electrochemistry. Now for the second it, and almost walked out on it on career-defining chance event (at numerous occasions. But it’s also as which I wasn’t even present). Fraser central to mammalian metabolism as found himself at a conference with its dysfunctions are to human disease, John Walker from Cambridge, who’d and a beautiful, intricate, energy- just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry transducing molecular machine. and was then in the process of setting up a new Medical Research Council unit Complex I is one of the largest to work on mitochondria. I imagine enzymes we have. It’s a megaDalton the two of them drinking pints at the assembly of 45 separate protein bar and John casually mentioning he chains (subunits), made up of almost was looking for someone to lead a 10,000 amino acids, in the general fully-funded programme on complex shape of an old boot (see figure). reactions: the addition and loss Back to the story, and the first of electronic component: apply a (exchange) of electrons. The project two career-defining chance events. Voltage and measure current, sweep used electrodes and lasers to induce Fraser Armstrong was appointed as the Voltage at different rates to access photoelectrochemical reactions in chemistry tutor at St John’s, my Oxford kinetics, add a substrate to an enzyme simple organic molecules, combined college, during my final year and I and drive electrocatalysis. My DPhil with numerical modelling to test met him at an after-dinner party, as thesis described the development of and define the reaction kinetics. It he exited the bathroom, pint in hand. ‘fast-scan protein voltammetry’ (up to was exciting the first time around, An auspicious start. I discovered 1000 V/s) together with numerical but then too much like a teaching Fraser was an electrochemist too, methods to model and interpret lab experiment — negligible risk of but working on redox enzymes: the results. We applied the method either failure or surprise. Research huge, complicated biological things to define the action of a ‘swinging isn’t like that. At least, not the that, since they didn’t feature on the carboxylate arm’ for proton-coupled sort I do. The resulting need for a Oxford chemistry course, weren’t electron transfer in a protein, a challenge set me off on a trajectory yet on my radar. In fact, redox prototype module for a proton from pure chemistry towards enzymes define regions of exquisite pump. This was the point I became and medicine, leaving chemistry, buried in their interiors, addicted to the adrenaline rush of me today, somewhat incongruously, and constitute some of the most research: the challenge, the thrill of as Professor of Biological Chemistry efficient energy-converting catalysts the chase, the excitement when it in the Department of Clinical known. Their size is initially off- works, the strategizing, fighting with Neurosciences. But modern putting but that’s simply a matter of it and outwitting it when it doesn’t — chemistry is like that: there’s lots focus — most of the protein structure all in order to conquer it and describe of exciting stuff happening at the (which we understand on a molecular it — and publish it to claim it. Fraser boundaries of it. I have my FRS (in level but usually don’t need to think taught me (amongst many other their words, not mine) for bringing about) is simply a scaffold, to hold, things) how to be a scientist and

“unrivalled physico-chemical construct and protect the active sites. gave me a scientific code of conduct: Complex I oxidises NADH inside the mitochondrion and reduces ubiquinone-10 (Q) to ubiquinol (QH2) in the incisiveness and rigour to achieving Anyway, the principle of Armstrong- give due credit to others, never cut membrane (two electrons are transferred). QH2 is recycled by complexes III and IV, and the two electrons ultimately understanding of highly complex electrochemistry is to dock a redox- corners or compromise for the sake used to reduce O2 to H2O. The energy from the NADH/Q reaction is used to pump four protons across the oxidation/reduction-driven energy active protein onto an electrode and of publication and, when the race for membrane. The resulting charge separation (proton motive force) drives the ATP synthase rotor to turn ADP into coupling mechanisms in biology”. then interrogate it as an unknown the prize gets nasty (as inevitably it ATP. Eight protons are transported to create three ATP molecules. ATP is the energy currency of the cell. Figure created from data by Hirst and coworkers (Zhu et al., Nature 2016) and Walker and coworkers (Zhou et al., eLife 2015).

28 • The Pelican 2018 • 29 One can’t happen without the other, and the energy is passed between them with almost complete efficiency — since the only thing it’s possible to do with perfect efficiency is nothing, this is as good as it gets! Anyway, underpinning all this mechanistic knowledge, providing an architecture and a framework for it, and showing us where (if not how) the chemistry happens, is the enzyme structure. Here’s the story of how we determined that. It’s not the most intellectually satisfying or challenging piece of research I’ve ever done — just the most famous.

When I started working on complex I the only way to determine the atomic structure of an enzyme was to crystallise it. To do this you prepare it in a pure and homogenous state (with all the molecules in identical configuration), put it in an appropriate solution condition (there are thousands of possibilities to test) and, ever so slowly, dehydrate the solution. Then you hope that, instead of just crashing out as you cross the solubility boundary, the molecules get together in an orderly fashion to form a crystal lattice. You then use X-ray crystallography to determine the structure. We started by trying to crystallise complex I prepared from bovine heart mitochondria by a method developed originally by John Walker. No crystals. Thus began a twelve year struggle in which we worked on the preparation, set up crystallisation trials, went back to the preparation — and so on. Still no crystals. This was both incredibly frustrating and also a problem, because careers in science depend on publications, and failing to get crystals isn’t publishable. Needless to say we were constantly diverted The foot of the boot is housed in into mitochondria, into a molecule charge separation. ATP is generated as into more interesting things. the mitochondrial inner membrane called NADH. NADH is a biologically- protons flow ‘downhill’ back across the However, at the point the first Titan (subunits in this domain cross the amenable form of H2, and, in membrane through the ATP synthase Krios electron cryomicroscope membrane, to transport protons from analogy to the oxidation of H2 by O2 rotor (John Walker’s enzyme), driving (cryoEM) arrived in Cambridge, at one side to the other) while the leg, in a hydrogen fuel cell to generate it like a turbine. I’m not going to get the MRC Laboratory of Molecular which sticks up into the inside of the electricity, NADH is oxidised by O2 to into the (rather esoteric) details of Biology, we had a superbly mitochondrion, contains all the redox ‘charge’ the mitochondrial battery. complex I mechanism. Suffice it to say optimised protein. So I asked machinery. The mitochondrion is the Complex I is the first of the three that we know a lot about the energy- Richard Henderson, LMB expert ‘battery’ of the cell where most of the respiratory complexes that catalyse generating redox chemistry, and a on cryoEM (and, coincidentally, ATP, the biological energy currency, is this process: they use the energy from fair bit about the energy-consuming Honorary Fellow at Corpus), if made. Metabolic processes channel NADH oxidation to pump protons proton transfers, but we have no idea we could have a try at getting our the energy we obtain from food ‘uphill’ across the membrane, creating about how the two are tied together. structure that way (see figure).

30 • The Pelican 2018 • 31 PROFESSOR JUDY HIRST

Of course there were teething individual amino acids by the shapes of the early successes for new- proteins suffer a diverse range from innocent variation. Extending complex I catalysis. Structure- troubles to overcome (including, on of their side chains. We’re busy generation cryoEM — it even made of neuromuscular diseases on a knowledge of complex I structure, based drug design, supported by one memorable occasion, Richard solving the structures of different an appearance in Stockholm when spectrum of severity from infant function and biology is the only cryoEM, can now be brought to declaring our enzyme unfit for catalytically-relevant states, and Richard won the Nobel Prize. death to late-onset blindness. way to close this gap. Furthermore, bear on these projects. In the purpose) but then it worked like a structures from bio-medically There’s no cure for any of them, but the central role of complex I in longer term, the research landscape dream. Our first paper, describing relevant models of mitochondrial So, what next? In the short to if the defect can be identified (by metabolism defines it as a powerful is liable to change without notice the architecture of the enzyme by disease. So, single-particle cryoEM medium term I’ve unfinished genome sequencing) it’s possible drug target. There’s increasing as new discoveries answer extant single-particle cryoEM, was out in was a fantastically lucky break for business with the chemistry of to avoid their further inheritance, focus on complex I-targeted questions and open new avenues Nature in less than a year. Two years me and it’s revolutionised complex complex I, most particularly its by ‘three-parent baby’ or embryo- drugs for ischaemia-reperfusion for exploration. The FRS brings new later we improved the resolution I research. On the other hand, elusive ‘coupling mechanism’. But screening technologies. The catch injury (heart attack and stroke), freedoms, status and responsibility and located all 45 subunits and most scientists make their own luck I’m also increasingly keen to apply is that, in around half of cases, we ameliorating oxidative stress in – and, I hope, opportunities. There’s of the amino acids. We now operate — I recognised the opportunity the knowledge we get from basic can’t identify the defect — either ageing-related diseases, and in no point in making too detailed a independently of the LMB and the and nailed it. The structure of research to medicine. People with it’s in an unrecognised protein, or forms of cancer, such as prostate plan. Let’s just wait and see. resolution is sufficient to identify mammalian complex I was one genetic mutations in complex I can’t be confidently distinguished cancer, which depend heavily on

32 • The Pelican 2018 • 33 CCCC MS 100: sixteenth-century transcripts of Corpus manuscripts at the British Library various medieval texts The Parker Library is the College’s greatest national heritage treasure. It is internationally known for its astonishing collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Until 19 February 2019, eleven of the most precious of these The most important text transcribed in this manuscript is Asser’s​ De rebus gestis can be seen at the British Library, as part of the exhibition Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms – Art, Word, War. The Corpus loan Ælfredi regis [The Achievements of King Alfred]. The text was copied for Matthew is the largest contribution of any institution to the exhibition. It includes the sixth-century Gospels of Saint Augustine Parker from an earlier manuscript acquired by Robert Cotton for his library. It was which was given by Pope Gregory the Great to Augustine in AD 597 as Augustine left Rome on a mission to convert completely destroyed in the fire of 1731. A Welshman from St David’s, Asser (died the pagan kingdoms of Britain to Christianity. 909) became Bishop of Sherborne. His account of Alfred the Great (ruled 871–899) is the earliest known account of an Anglo-Saxon king. The text divides into two sections: Other Corpus treasures on show include the magnificent image of King Æthelstan offering a book to Saint , the first discusses Alfred’s life up to 887, while the second is an approving discussion and the haunting polyphony of the Winchester Troper (the oldest large collection of two-part music in the West). of his rule. In Asser’s Life, the picture that emerges of Alfred is of a ruler keen to promote religion and learning in the language of the people: English. Asser describes Alongside the Corpus manuscripts, the exhibition includes books from the British Library’s own collection, such as the how Alfred’s mother once showed Alfred and his brothers a book of English poetry. beautifully illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels, Beowulf and ’s Ecclesiastical History. In addition, the world-famous She promised to give the book to whichever of them was able to memorise it the Domesday Book proudly shows its unrivalled depiction of the landscape of late Anglo-Saxon England, while the Codex fastest. Asser claims that ‘spurred on by these words, rather than by divine inspiration, Amiatinus, a giant Northumbrian Bible taken to Italy in 716, returns to England for the first time in 1,300 years. and attracted by the beauty of the initial letter in the book’, Alfred immediately took it away and learnt the poetry by heart. Somewhat less romantically, it is also Asser who Below is a journey through the eleven Corpus manuscripts on loan from the Parker Library. tells the famous story of Alfred burning the cakes. CCCC = Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS = manuscript CCCC MS 286: The Gospels of St Augustine CCCC MS 173: The Parker Chronicle The Parker Chronicle is fundamental to any understanding of Anglo-Saxon history. The The Gospels of St Augustine is one of the most famous manuscripts in the Parker Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – the earliest history written in English – is part of Alfred the Library. This small, and unutterably precious, book is said to have been given by Pope Great’s initiative to establish a local, English sense of identity through the recording Gregory the Great to St Augustine in AD 597; a parting gift as Augustine left Rome of significant events in the language of the people (so in English, not Latin). A core on a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain to Christianity. set of annals was composed which were then augmented variously over the years in The text is written in a clear and readable Italian uncial hand (those with some Latin different places. Every version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is therefore different and should not be afraid to try). The book was probably produced in a monastery in has its own complicated transmission history. The Parker Chronicle, also known as the Rome or in the great scriptorium at Monte Cassino. The Gospels of St Augustine is A-version, is the oldest manuscript surviving. It was started in the late ninth century the oldest surviving gospel book in Latin, and one of the oldest surviving books in and continued into the eleventh. It originated somewhere in , probably in Europe. It is also the earliest surviving gospel book with figure illumination: although Winchester, but had moved to the cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury by most of it has been lost, with only a picture of Luke as a scribe under an arcade, the end of the eleventh century. Although the Chronicle is the most famous part of and a page of gospel images in a grid. In the later Middle Ages, the Gospels was the manuscript, it also contains other material: important early texts of the Old English probably kept on the altar at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. In 1982, it was put in laws of Alfred the Great and the late seventh-century laws of his distant predecessor the place of ​honour between Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie during on the throne of Wessex, King ​Ine (died in or just after 726), as well as a list of bishops the first papal visit to England since the Reformation. It normally leaves the College – and popes. The volume was greatly valued by Matthew Parker who brought the list of securely chained to the Librarian – only for the enthronement of a new Archbishop archbishops of Canterbury up to date to include his own name. of Canterbury. CCCC MS 197B: The Northumbrian Gospels CCCC MS 144: The Corpus Glossary The Northumbrian Gospels is amongst the oldest decorated books made The Corpus Glossary, written in the early ninth century, contains some of in England. This manuscript is the surviving part of a lavish gospel book with the oldest words in the English language. A glossary is a list of terms in one elaborate decoration. The larger part was acquired in the early seventeenth language defined in a second language or “glossed” by synonyms (or at least century by the great collector, Sir Robert Cotton. The Cotton library was near-synonyms) in another language. The first part of the Corpus Glossary offers bequeathed to the nation by his grandson in 1702 (and formed the core of explanations of various Greek and Hebrew/biblical names. The second part what was later to become the British Library). The Cotton collection was badly offers Old English glosses (in effect, a vocabulary list in alphabetical order) for damaged by fire in 1731 and only charred fragments remain of Cotton’s part of over two thousand Latin words. It is an important record not only of Old English this gospel book. In the part of the book preserved in Corpus (unharmed and vocabulary, but also of the level of Latin education in Anglo-Saxon England. The safe in the Parker Library) the eagle symbol of St John survives. Both Matthew text is thought to have evolved from a lost anthology of English words originally Parker and Robert Cotton believed that this gospel book was once owned by put together in Canterbury to help the Mediterranean missionaries understand St . The later date of the manuscript rules this out: it the local language. seems to be from late seventh- or early eighth-century Northumbria, almost certainly from the island of Lindisfarne. It is also likely that Matthew Parker had his part of the manuscript rebound, displacing the illustration of the eagle from its original position so that it became the first, and visually dramatic, page of his part of the gospels.

34 • The Pelican 2018 • 35 CCCC MS 41: Old English Bede CCCC MS 383: Anglo-Saxon Laws This manuscript contains an Old English of Bede'sEcclesiastical History. The This late eleventh- or early twelfth-century manuscript, possibly from St Paul's Cathedral Venerable Bede was a monk at Jarrow (near the mouth of the River Tyne) in the late in London, contains a very early version of the Anglo-Saxon law codes and related sixth/early seventh century. He was one of the most important thinkers and writers texts. This manuscript is a legal ​encyclopaedia copied throughout by a single hand in early medieval Europe, and is the only English-born saint to have been declared in an easily legible script in dark brown-black ink. This manuscript contains the only a ‘Doctor of the Church’ (by Pope Leo XIII in 1899). Bede’s Ecclesiastical History surviving Old English version of the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum (a manual to (originally written in Latin) is a history of Christianity in England. It is a fundamental text guide the administration of a late Anglo-Saxon estate and the only systematic record of for English history and for understanding the formation of English national identity. the obligations and perquisites of its various tenants and workers written prior to the The translation was commissioned as another element in Alfred the Great’s campaign Norman Conquest) and the Gerefa (a discussion of the duties of an estate overseer in to translate into English (in Alfred’s own phrase) ‘those books most necessary for all the style of a colloquy based on classical models). Both texts are key to understanding to know’ and, as with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, to establish a sense of Englishness Anglo-Saxon economic history. The Rectitudines begins with a discussion of the duties through the use of language (English not Latin). MS 41 was written in the first half of and obligations of four different social ranks present on the estate; then turns to tenant the eleventh century probably somewhere in the south of England. The manuscript is beekeepers and both tenant and bound swineherds. It then runs through a series of large in format, written in grand round script, and was clearly intended to be a deluxe agricultural occupations from plough ‘follower’ through to cheese-wright, barley- book. It was given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop ​Leofric (1050–1072),­ and still contains keeper, beadle, forester and hedge-warden. At some point, the manuscript was in the the bilingual donation inscription warning anyone who attempted to remove it: ‘If hands of Robert Talbot, prebendary of Norwich (died 1558) and contains notes in his anyone should make off with this book from here, may he be subject to a curse.’ hand as well as that of Matthew Parker's secretary, John Joscelyn (1529–1603). CCCC MS 183: The Venerable Bede, Two Lives of St CCCC 201: Old English religious and legal texts Cuthbert This is a composite volume which can be divided chronologically into three parts, probably first bound together by Matthew Parker. The oldest sections, This is one of several manuscripts associated with King ​Æthelstan (924/25–939), written in the early eleventh century, contain a fragment of the Old​ English grandson of Alfred the Great. This is the only manuscript known to have been written Regularis concordia, the code of monastic observance, and some Old English in England in his reign (sometime between 934 and 939). Æthelstan is generally regarded as the first king of a unified England, his reign being marked by an increased religious poems, most notably Judgement Day II, a translation of The Venerable centralisation of government and much greater and systematic legal intervention. Bede’s De die iudicii. The second part of the volume contains a large number of He was also known as a learned collector of books and holy relics. Æthelstan seems sermons by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York (died 1023), as well as a collection of to have commissioned this book for presentation to the community of St Cuthbert, ecclesiastical material, mostly in the vernacular. The third part was written at which at this point was at Chester-le-Street, having fled Lindisfarne to escape Viking Exeter in the time of Bishop Leofric (1050–1072) and was probably once part of attacks, but not yet settled in at Durham. The presentation picture shows Æthelstan CCCC MS 196. This manuscript did not come to the College with the rest of the (with purple tunic, fashionable red hose, crown, yellow hair and beard) with bowed Parker collection in 1575. Instead it was one of the large number of books which head, presenting the book to St Cuthbert himself. Cuthbert, a seventh-century monk, Matthew Parker gave to his son John. It had arrived at Corpus by 1600, before bishop and hermit, was the most important medieval saint in northern England with John’s financial troubles that likely led to the majority of the books bequeathed a pilgrimage cult centred on his tomb in Durham Cathedral. MS 183 contains The to him by his father ending up in Trinity College through the gift of Thomas Nevile Venerable Bede’s two Lives of St Cuthbert, the first in prose and the second metrical, (Dean of Canterbury 1597–1615 and Master of Trinity 1593–1615). a mass and office for Cuthbert’s feast day, as well as lists of popes, bishops and kings, and a record of Æthelstan’s other gifts to the community. CCCC MS 23: Prudentius and Orosius CCCC MS 473: The Winchester Troper This small-sized book attests to the musical repertory of the Old Minster at MS 23 is one of the most richly illustrated books surviving from Anglo-Saxon Winchester in the eleventh century. It contains some of the oldest polyphonic England. It consists of two volumes bound together. The first is an elegantly music in the West and is of incalculable importance for understanding the history illustrated manuscript of works by the late fourth-century Christian poet​ of western melody. As well as 'tropes', musical settings of words like ‘Alleluia’ which Prudentius – one of the most popular poets (alongside Horace) in the Middle were added as embellishments to the standard chant for the liturgical texts, it also Ages. This manuscript presents Prudentius’ Psychomachia, a poem about the contains sequences and other music. It would have been used by a cantor, whose struggle between personifications of the vices and virtues for possession of the office it was to lead the music at mass and the divine office. There are many signs human soul. In the battle between virtue and vice, full weight is given to the that this manuscript was made for use in the Old Minster at Winchester, including power of Luxuria with her attendants Beauty and Pleasure, and her weapons texts for the feasts of the Winchester saints Swithhun, Æthelwold, of Beauvais, of rose petals and violets. Luxuria almost overcomes the army of Virtue, before Hædde (Hedda) and Birinus. It was perhaps for the personal use of the cantor, yielding to ultimate defeat. This copy was produced in England probably in the Wulfstan, a disciple of St Æthelwold, (963–984). In September late tenth century, perhaps at Canterbury, but a presentation inscription claims 2007, the College choir took this manuscript back to to sing a Malmesbury. The 89 delicate illustrations in coloured inks of red, brown, green Michaelmas mass. It is likely that the Winchester Troper had not been in Winchester and blue are likely to have their origin in a much older, fifth-century manuscript. since the sixteenth century, and that its music had not been sung in its original setting The second volume is a copy of the early fifth-century historian Orosius’Historia for over a thousand years. adversus paganos [A History against the pagans]. The two manuscripts were probably bound together by Matthew Parker.

36 • The Pelican 2018 • 37 The Revd Dr Andrew Davison (m2000) Fellow in Theology

Readers may be familiar with a set Susan declined to name the post of novels written by Susan Howatch, after herself, so it is the ‘Starbridge published in the late 1980s and Lectureship in Theology and Natural early 1990s. They are set in the Sciences’. I may well be the only cathedral city of Starbridge, and person in the world with a position while they focus on the spiritual named after a fictional place. struggles—and progress—of their characters, they are notable for the In the Faculty, I have a marvellously way in which the story of the Church expansive brief: to research, write, of England in the twentieth century and teach about anything that pans out in the background, across touches on the relation between the span of six books. theology or religion, on the one hand, and the natural sciences, on In a roundabout way, it was those the other. I also make contributions novels that brought me back to to other courses from time to time Corpus Christi for a third time in meaning, last year, that I could 2014. I had been an undergraduate honestly say that I was responsible at the College, and later a graduate. for love and desire in the Faculty I took up a fellowship in 2014, just of Divinity: not in toto, happily, but after I had been appointed to a in the form of a paper, devised by lecturership in the University. That Professor Janet Soskice of Jesus lectureship had been founded College entitled ‘Love and Desire in and endowed by Susan Howatch the Christian Tradition’. twenty years before. Her books had provided the funds which, out At the moment, a mainstay of my of her generosity, produced the undergraduate teaching is a final appointment that took me to the year paper that looks at what it Faculty of Divinity and, because of means to be a creature from a that, brought me back to Corpus. theological perspective, and more particularly what it means to be a human being, bearing in mind all we can learn from contemporary sciences. I have sections on evolution, on neuroscience, and IN THE FACULTY, I HAVE A on technology and transhumanism MARVELLOUSLY EXPANSIVE (human self-adaptation). I look at BRIEF: TO RESEARCH, creaturely inter-relation (symbiosis ‘‘ WRITE, AND TEACH ABOUT in biology is a particular interest ANYTHING THAT TOUCHES of mine) and end with a couple ON THE RELATION BETWEEN of lectures on the theological implications of life elsewhere in the THEOLOGY OR RELIGION, universe, which some students find ON THE ONE HAND, AND quite a challenge, although others THE NATURAL SCIENCES, ON seem to take it in their stride. THE OTHER. That question about extra- terrestrial life took me away from 38 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 39 THE REVD DR ANDREW DAVISON

Corpus for nine months in 2016-17, Christian Doctrine. I have noticed most spectacular developments pattern of much that I spend time a joy in the apple-ness of apples, to the Center of Theological Inquiry that publishers are more and more in all of evolutionary history—the thinking about. that the architecture of the 1920s in Princeton, New Jersey. I was a gravitating towards safe, descriptive emergence of mitochondria and of and 30s is so much just like it is, member of a team thinking about titles that show up well in Amazon chloroplasts—turn out to involve a Alongside work on scientific topics, that Bach’s music has Bach written the implications of life elsewhere searches. I have to supress my urge symbiosis of one organism within I have a sense that there is a string all over it. I think that was what in the cosmos, on a project partly to give books titles taken from lines another that became so definitive ALONGSIDE WORK ON of large-scale themes that I want pushed me towards thinking about funded by NASA. They thought of poetry. that we now talk, in each case, of SCIENTIFIC TOPICS, I HAVE to write on, each sitting at the finitude in that way: the finitude of they better have a few people there being only one organism, ‘‘ A SENSE THAT THERE IS A boundary between theology and characterfulness, a finitude we can thinking ahead about the ‘societal I have mentioned my interest in not two. To my surprise, almost no STRING OF LARGE-SCALE philosophy. My Cambridge PhD be grateful for. implications of astrobiology’, as the symbiosis in biology, and especially work has been done in theology gave me an opportunity to think project was called, in case evidence in mutualism, which is the name or philosophy to think through the THEMES THAT I WANT TO about the first, namely finitude, or That PhD brought me to Corpus for any such life turns up. Since we give to relationships between implications of this sort of shift in WORK ON, EACH SITTING what it means to be finite. Most a second time, starting in 2010. we now know that there might be creatures, of different species, our picture of biology. I organised AT THE BOUNDARY writing on finitude turns out really I say it brought me to Corpus but, sixteen billion billion Earth-like that are beneficial to both. I take a discussion on the theme in BETWEEN THEOLOGY AND to be about death: about having a in fact, it rarely did. I was teaching planets around Sun-like stars in the it to be one of biology’s most Boston last year, and I am currently finite span of existence, or at least in Oxford by then, at St Stephen’s PHILOSOPHY. observable universe, the likelihood startling recent discoveries to editing an edition of the journal of earthly existence. I wanted to House, one of the permanent has certainly shifted from the days appreciate just how constitutive Theology and Science, to encourage do something different, and think private halls, and I did the PhD part- when we wondered if we occupied these sorts of relationship are, colleagues from around the world instead mainly about the finitude of time. There was an expectation that the only habitable spot. I have a and how common: they are the to kick start a discussion. ‘Hey, being a particular sort of thing: the I would take a regular part in the book coming out on the topic in norm, not the exception. All sorts what about x?’, bringing together finitude of being this, not that. For life of the Cambridge Faculty (and I 2019. It will probably have the of creatures cannot survive without themes from science, theology and as long as I can remember, I’ve had a write that, as it happens, now being rather dull title of Astrobiology and the aid of another, and two of the philosophy, is probably the basic ’’ delight in the particularity of things: the ‘part-time degrees officer’ in 40 • The Pelican 2018 • 41 THE REVD DR ANDREW DAVISON

conviction lasted just over four weeks. It plunged me into a crisis of faith that lasted for much of the rest of my degree. If that wasn’t true, what else was also on shaky ground? This isn’t the place to record spiritual autobiography, but suffice to say that I came out of the other side of those rather dark years with my faith intact, if changed in the process, thanks both to the humane dignity of the college chapel at Merton, and to newly acquired Roman Catholic friends. They, introduced me to Thomas Aquinas, a thinker of such expansive interests and deep foundations that he seems to be able take anything in his stride. Few days go by, even now, when I do not read something by Aquinas, and marvel.

As the dust settled, I found that the sort of questions that had kept me awake in rather an anguished way were still keeping me awake, but now in fascination. I was lying awake thinking about theology, not about biochemistry. It looked like a sign. I asked the Diocese of York if they would talk to me about the priesthood. A year later, I was off to Westcott House and to Corpus.

Those intellectual questions, I should add, were not the only provocation for a change of tack. During my DPhil, I volunteered on the wards of Sobell House, the hospice in Oxford. It always turned out to be the most rewarding part of my week, however difficult it often also was. I took that to be another pointer towards a change of direction. I am not in full- time pastoral work anymore, but being a supervisor and a director of that Faculty). I was part of a lively under my belt already (in chemistry that led me to ordination, as much Yorkshire farming families generally studies is sometimes not a million academic life in Oxford already, and biochemistry respectively, at as vice versa. being quite reserved—but faith miles away. however, so I really only came to Merton College, Oxford), I came as there was, no less deep for being Cambridge to see my supervisor. All an affiliated student: fully a member EXPOSED TO SOME I grew up an Anglican, but in my undemonstrative. After Westcott, and that first stint the same, I am devoted to my old of Corpus, but housed at my SCIENTIFIC RIGOUR, THAT later teenage years I shook the at Corpus, I served a curacy in South college, and still am, so I was glad to theological college, and dispensed CONVICTION LASTED dust of the off The house church was wonderfully East London, in the parish of St be back at Corpus, however notional from the first year of the degree. my feet, and joined a charismatic friendly, and I am glad that I spent , Bellingham, just south of JUST OVER FOUR WEEKS. that might actually have been. ‘‘ evangelical house church. In a a good deal of time getting to know Catford, in the Borough of Lewisham. I am often asked how I came to IT PLUNGED ME INTO way that I now find horrendously the Bible, but theologically it did me It was quite a change from my I came to Corpus the first time switch from studying sciences to A CRISIS OF FAITH THAT dismissive, I had decided at the age few favours. I went up to university eleven years at university. For one as an undergraduate in 2000. I studying theology. ‘Training for LASTED FOR MUCH OF THE of sixteen that my rural Yorkshire in 1992, to read chemistry, thinking thing, the only people I knew with was training for the priesthood at ordination’ is the obvious answer, REST OF MY DEGREE. parish church was moribund. I that the world was made in six days, a degree living in the geographical Westcott House, and because I had but the answer lies partly in the was completely wrong: it wasn’t six thousand years ago. Exposed parish were me, the vicar, the vicar’s an undergraduate degree and a DPhil other direction; that it was theology moribund; it was just reserved— to some scientific rigour, that wife, and the Roman Catholic parish 42 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 43 priest. Much to my surprise, sex relationships. I think it played a good deal of my work there some part in derailing an attempt turned out to be with children. to kick the issue into the long I had never thought that I would grass. I hope so. If my writing be ‘cool’ enough for children’s and teaching can illustrate that work, but it turns out that isn’t an it is possible to be convinced of important criterion for success. that perspective and, indeed, to You just have to be willing to sit on be equally enthusiastic about the floor with them, and take their the ordination of women, and at questions seriously—and if there’s the same time be a Christian of one thing that eleven years at catholic outlook and hold entirely university might be hoped to do, traditional ideas about Christian it is to instil an instinct for taking doctrine, I would be glad. questions seriously. I was grateful that the children put me through Over the course of my life so my intellectual paces: the adults far, I have often had the chance hardly ever did, although the to reach back, and pick up an vicar was always keen on a lively earlier thread, to weave it back theological conversation. in later on. I’ve mentioned the constructive influence of Roman Today, my clerical life takes various Catholic friends in the 1990s; forms. I think that the bedrock has today, I am half way through ten to be work as part of a particular years on the Anglican–Roman community. It isn’t healthy to Catholic dialogue for England. That spend much time relating to may allow me to pay back a small central bodies, however necessary part of my debt to those friends, they may be. I am delighted that, and their tradition. Work at Sobell for me, that particular community House was another prod towards is St Bene’t’s in Cambridge, a what turned out to be a wonderful parish church so closely connected change of direction; a decade and to Corpus. Beyond that, I speak a half later, I was able to write a and preach around the country book on care for the dying with a fairly often, in churches and at physician, Sioned Evans. Merton festivals, and I contribute regularly Chapel had a huge influence on to the main Anglican newspaper me; while I was teaching at St in the UK, Church Times. In the Stephen’s House, I spent four years past, writing books for a popular as a part-time assistant chaplain readership has been an important at Merton. I trained at Westcott part of my sense of vocation House; I was later the tutor there as a priest—I would single out in Christian doctrine. Probably the Why Sacraments?—although I largest-scale weaving back in of all don’t have as much time for that has been the opportunity, with my as I used to. For the past few University of Cambridge position, years I have been a canon of St to make the natural sciences once Albans Cathedral: their ‘canon more an integral part of my life philosopher’. The idea is that I and studies. And most fortunate of contribute some teaching, and all is coming back to Corpus: I was advise the bishop and his staff. an undergraduate here, and later a PhD student; a vacancy for a For the past couple of years, I have fellow in theology when I received been serving on the science and my university appointment medicine panel among the groups allowed me to be a candidate that are advising the bishops of for a fellowship: a candidate, but the Church of England in the run there can be no expectations. I am up to a new teaching document delighted that my old College took on marriage and human sexuality. me on. It has been a remarkably I wrote a short book (Amazing happy return. Love) with some friends in 2016, to make a theological case for the value and dignity of same-

44 • The Pelican 2018 • 45 XX Dr Melle Kromhout Research Fellow in Music

AS THE SON OF A CELLIST AND A VIOLINIST, I WAS BORN AND RAISED WITH MUSIC; FROM THE CLASSICAL REPERTOIRE TO AVANT-GARDE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, FROM JAZZ TO VAUDEVILLE, FROM TANGO TO FILM MUSIC, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN AND BEYOND. I THEREFORE BELIEVE IN THE VIRTUE OF OPEN EARS THAT LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE OR ELITISM, BEYOND ARBITRARY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW, SERIOUS OR POPULAR, ART OR ENTERTAINMENT MUSIC.

Music might not be the ‘universal founding members of experimental thus became the first living being in language’ that some claim it to be rock group The Velvet Underground in the history of the world to hear his (because musical differences can be as New York in the late 1960s—sang the own voice in any other way than as pronounced and violent as linguistic following lines in the song ‘Praetorian the faint reverberations of an echo. ones), but as a cultural practice, it Underground,’ of his long out-of-print In his extensive oeuvre, German is shared by all of humanity. Hence, solo album Caribbean Sunset (1984): media philosopher Friedrich Kittler, the study of music touches upon the who provided key inspiration for my question what it means to be human The world heard Krakatoa research, theorized the tremendous and how being human becomes An arrogant attitude impact of the media technological meaningful. This is exactly what What’s left of Krakatoa revolution of the nineteenth I’m interested in: the point at which century—which not only included sound becomes meaningful as music. Was blown halfway across the world sound recording, but also telegraphy, Into the heart of music telephony, photography, film and the To begin this comprehensive overview Into the heart of men typewriter—on the way that human of my research in the world of sound beings make sense of the world. and music, I want to take us back to In the irreverent medium of a rock Following in this media theoretical 27 August 1883: an exceptional date song, Cale uses the unimaginably tradition, my work tries to further in the global history of sound. Early loud bang of Krakatoa’s eruption our understanding of the many ways on that day, the massive eruption as a metaphor for the drastic in which the volcanic eruption of of the Krakatoa-volcano in present- developments that affected “the technical media profoundly changed day Indonesia caused what records heart of music” from the late the domain of music. show to have been one of the loudest nineteenth century onward. By sounds in human history. In an article profoundly changing how we make on the event published in science music, how we listen to it, how we use magazine Nautilus in 2014, physics it, and where we encounter it, these writer Aatish Bhatia describes how changes indeed almost exploded the historical reports confirm that the entire concept of what we consider THE STUDY OF MUSIC shockwave caused by the eruption music to be. Although the historical TOUCHES UPON THE “was heard 1,300 miles away in the and conceptual causes for these Andaman and Nicobar islands [...]; QUESTION WHAT IT changes are many and complex— MEANS TO BE HUMAN 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and definitely not as instantaneous ‘‘ and Western Australia […]; and even as a volcanic eruption—I think that AND HOW BEING HUMAN 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean Cale’s metaphor of a bang that BECOMES MEANINGFUL. island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius.” reverberated around the world is Furthermore, Bhatia writes, the perfectly applicable to describe their sound instantly ruptured the ear most important root cause, which can drums of sailors over 40 miles from be summarized by just two words: the explosion, and even after it had sound recording. become inaudible to human ears, its My interest in this specific intersection of music and media goes back about pressure wave went on to circle the Six years before the Krakatoa earth four times. thirteen years, to the time when I exploded, Thomas Alva Edison first started working on my bachelor’’ entrusted his rendition of Mary Had thesis at the University of Amsterdam Almost exactly a hundred years later, a Little Lamb to tin foil wrapped Welsh singer, composer and musician in 2005. This study dealt with the around the metal cylinder of his harsh and confrontational early work John Cale—who, alongside Lou newly invented phonograph, and Reed, became famous as one of the of German ‘Industrial Music’ pioneers

46 • The Pelican 2018 • 47 DR MELLE KROMHOUT

or harmful as it is enriching or desirable. By studying the basic principles of sound recording, conducting close reading analyses of noise reduction-technologies and looking into the history of some of the more fundamental aspects of the physics of sound, the project ultimately turned from a study of the role of noise into an analysis of the way in which technical media changed the sound of music. In other words: I ended up tracing the impact of the metaphorical explosion of sound recording from the end of the nineteenth century onward.

Because my analysis of noise evolved into a conceptual analysis of sound reproduction itself, I realized that the ultimate goal of this project would be coming to grips with the effects of this explosion; to better understand the many ways in which sound technology not only changed the production, reception, distribution and consumption of music, but the very sound of music itself. Because all the transmission channels of recording, transmission and reproduction systems inevitably affect the signals they record, transmit and reproduce, sound technologies fundamentally shape the sounds they produce. Over the course of the twentieth century, this sound—in all its physical complexity—therefore increasingly became the focus of musical invention and development, thereby changing the way that music appeals to listeners, what they are drawn to, what they like. Einstürzende Neubauten, which I first German lyrics. It first opened my role of noise in recorded sound and the issue of noise emerges, as encountered through their eighth ears to all the noise that is music and music. As I wrote in the introduction philosopher Michel Serres writes, as At several instances throughout his album Silence Is Sexy, released in all the music that some people call to my dissertation, the most obvious “a black thing, an obscure process, or oeuvre, Kittler refers to this media 2000. Enticed by the experimental noise. problem with the study of noise is a confused cloud of signals—what we technological development as the sound and lyricism of that record, I the inherent plurality of the term. shall soon call a problem.” emergence of an ‘other music’ slowly worked my way back toward Why, I wondered, do people listen to Not only does it invoke a great AS I WROTE IN THE [eine andere Musik]. This ‘other their debut album Kollaps from 1981. this noise? What makes it appealing many academic disciplines—from From my initial interest in essentially INTRODUCTION TO MY music’ came into its own in the Whereas the work from 2000 might or musically attractive? Why are we musicology to physics and from aesthetic questions regarding the DISSERTATION, THE MOST West with the transition from our be classified as avant-garde pop or drawn to it? Why do we like it? These media studies to mathematics, to sonic and musical attraction of noise, age-old culture of musical trans- or ‘‘ OBVIOUS PROBLEM WITH rock music—certainly unconventional questions might sound, one could say name a few—but among those I began to assess the much more prescription - in the form of those and experimental, but not nearly as naively, simple, but their potential disciplines, its very definition is fundamental question as to how THE STUDY OF NOISE IS silent black lines and dots on white radical as what came before—their answers are not. I would spend notoriously unstable: noise is a and why, from its invention onward, THE INHERENT PLURALITY sheets of paper that are turned into earlier material is much less listener- over ten years to bring the project sonic object, a social nuisance, a technological sound reproduction OF THE TERM. actual sounding music by humans friendly: heavily dissonant layers of to a conclusion, ultimately as full- physical phenomenon, a therapeutic had been confronted with the with analogue musical instruments— manic screeching, drilling, banging time PhD Fellow at the University of background sound, a concept in introduction of noise, and how, in to a culture of direct technological and drumming on scrap metal, gut Amsterdam from 2012 to 2016. Over communication theory, a musical response to this, inventors, sound inscription, in which all sounds can be wrenching shouts and screams, tape the years, the project evolved into a genre, a legislative issue, an obstacle engineers and musicians developed captured and reproduced again and effects, untuned and distorted guitars; much broader attempt to understand in sound engineering. Throughout a refined sense for the many ways again and again, exactly as they are, topped off with cryptic, expressionist the formative, even fundamental all of these uses and definitions, in which noise can be as disturbing ’’ in full spectral complexity, regardless 48 • The Pelican 2018 • 49 DR MELLE KROMHOUT of their potential place or meaning Trippett. Here, I am tracing the field—I am pleased it has mellowed in the pre-established forms or themes explored in my dissertation in recent years. Nowadays, much structures of traditional music theory further back into the nineteenth to the benefit of both parties, the or history. I call this ‘other music,’ the (and, in part, eighteenth) century. exchange between musicology (or ‘music of the media age.’ I look at the development over the music studies) and sound studies course of the nineteenth century of is increasingly common. In my own By combining media theory with our contemporary concept of sound case as well, music might not always musicology and contemporary and hearing, especially focussing on be at the forefront of my day to day philosophy, I try to further this new physical representations such work, but it consistently forms its concept of an ‘other music’ and as the figure of the ‘sine wave’ as backdrop. develop a better understanding of an elementary building block of all “the song” that, as Einstürzende sounds, the corresponding idea of All the phonographs and gramophones, Neubauten frontman Blixa Bargeld sound as a ‘spectrum’ of frequencies, magnetic tape recorders and analogue- puts it, “sleeps in the machine.” In my and the image of the ‘waveform’ as to-digital converters, sine waves and dissertation, the analysis of the role of the privileged visual representation waveforms notwithstanding, in the noise in sound reproduction became for sound. In many ways, this end my work spirals back to the a way to better understand what project is therefore a ‘prequel’ to fall-out of the sonic eruption that it means for contemporary music my previous book: it traces some of changed the heart of music and the that most of its sounds are shaped the ground-breaking developments heart of men: the emergence of the by all those technical components in nineteenth-century acoustics ‘other music’ of the media age; of that affect the signal on its journey that would eventually be solidified an entirely new sound world that from a moment of origin to when in the hardware of technical sound is recorded, repeated, electrified, it reaches the ears of its listeners. media—from the stylus of Edison’s reversed, mixed, split apart and put Along the way, this also involved phonograph, shakenly etching sound back together. Even more so, I do issues that pre-date the invention of waves into tin foil, to the digital not just explore this particular sound sound recording and deal with the machines in our pockets that can world in my academic studies, but in development of our physical concept analyse, process and change entire my own musical practice as well. of sound in nineteenth century sound spectra almost in real-time. acoustics. After the completion of my As a failed violinist, a very limited PhD, these more historical questions From a distance, it might seem as pianist and an ‘okay’ singer, I became the focal point for my project if, from the earliest roots of my currently experience music as a in Cambridge—adding the history of noise-project in 2005 to my current living, breathing activity in the form science to my increasingly convoluted work on the history of scientific of improvised electronics. With my roster of academic disciplines. representations of sound, my duo ‘Glice,’ we build noisy, densely research gradually drifted further layered soundscapes that sometimes and further away from music proper; push against the outer limits of what and in some ways, this is true. some consider music to be. We Because of this, I sometimes hesitate always aim, however, to work with SOUND STUDIES to call myself a musicologist, as my (and not against) the ghost in the ARE INHERENTLY work is often far removed from machine; connecting instruments INTERDISCIPLINARY, traditional musicological practices. and effect pedals, turning knobs and Overall, I identify more strongly with pushing keys, manipulating voices ‘‘ MULTIFACETED AND the young and burgeoning field of and layering noises to connect FLUID, OFFERING REFUGE Sound Studies, which has become with our listeners and encourage TO ACADEMIC NOMADS an increasingly prominent voice in them to find sonic coherence and LIKE ME, WHO DO NOT debates on sound and music over musical meaning where one least FEEL AT HOME WITHIN the past decades. Sound Studies expects it. Beyond the academic are inherently interdisciplinary, restraints of language, interpretation, THE CONFINES OF multifaceted and fluid, offering analysis and understanding, in our TRADITIONAL ACADEMIC refuge to academic nomads like me, live performances and recordings, DISCIPLINES. who do not feel at home within the the eruption of the Krakatoa still confines of traditional academic reverberates, to reach the ears and disciplines. brains of listeners as something that might as well just be called: music. In the early days of this field, Even before defending my there sometimes was a tendency dissertation in March 2017, I joined to stay as far away from music as the Cambridge Faculty of Music as possible. Although such rivalry is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow’’ in understandable—given the need to the project Sound and Materialism establish the objects, methods and in the 19th century, run by Dr David theories that define a new academic

50 • The Pelican 2018 • 51 Dr Felicity Hill Research Fellow in Medieval Studies

BEFORE BEING OFFERED A RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES AT CORPUS IN 2016, I KNEW LITTLE ABOUT THE COLLEGE. BUT CORPUS HAS A GREAT TRADITION IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY. THE COLLEGE WAS FOUNDED IN 1352, A LITTLE AFTER THE FOCUS OF MY RESEARCH (THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY), YET THE PARKER LIBRARY LOOMS LARGE IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. IN FACT, I REALISED AFTER ARRIVING THAT THE SOURCE I CITED MOST OFTEN IN MY DOCTORAL THESIS WAS A CHRONICLE (MATTHEW PARIS’S CHRONICA MAJORA) PRINTED FROM MANUSCRIPTS WHICH SURVIVE IN THE PARKER LIBRARY (MSS 16I & II).

A huge amount of what I do is only reason I love working on the middle women at all levels of society, from possible as a result of the work of ages. It is necessary to be imaginative kings and emperors to peasants. Christopher Cheney, a professorial when analysing the lives of people Bishops used excommunication to fellow at Corpus for over thirty years. who lived seven or eight hundred govern their dioceses, while the pope So Corpus turned out to be a very years ago. Not having all the answers of course was able to excommunicate fitting place to turn my thesis into a is one of the most exciting things anyone in Christendom. Understanding book. Having the Parker as my ‘home’ about medieval history. the power and efficacy of library is an incredible privilege. excommunication brings us closer to My work looks at excommunication, understanding the authority of the After a false start at the University the medieval church’s most powerful medieval church. Fundamentally, of Manchester, where I applied for weapon. My book is a social history, however, I enjoy my research because a course I didn’t enjoy, I decided to exploring how people experienced it is about people – how they acted, stay there and start a BA in medieval life in medieval England by looking how they communicated, their studies. This meant that I could at excommunication’s effects on motives, their beliefs, their petty study history as well as literature individuals and communities. On the squabbles. and languages (and avoid the horrors one hand, excommunication was a of going through the UCAS system very serious matter – it cut people One of the most difficult parts of again). In the end, history quickly off from God, from the sacraments, my research is dealing with beliefs became my focus. I don’t think I and from the rest of the Christian and fears. But excommunication was knew what a PhD was when I went community. In a highly religious meant to be scary, so ascertaining to university, but I loved studying society, it is hard to overstate the whether or not the faithful were history. I moved to London to chase implications of being separated from afraid of it is fundamental to funding and supervisors I wanted the Church in this way. On the other assessing how well it worked. Miracle to work with, studying first at UCL hand, excommunication was not a stories used in preaching taught, for (MA) then at the University of East rare occurrence. It affected men and instance, that excommunication ‘kills Anglia (PhD). A one-year fellowship with sudden, bad and unexpected at the Institute of Historical Research death’, and that ‘excommunicates allowed me to write up my thesis. are eternally burned in the infernal fire, and are devoured and dissipated Undergraduates claiming that there IT IS NECESSARY TO BE by demons’. Excommunicates were are ‘no’ sources for the middle ages IMAGINATIVE WHEN condemned in a solemn ceremony will inevitably receive an exasperated during which bells were rung and rant from a medieval historian, but ANALYSING THE LIVES candles – the flames representing it is true that studying the period ‘‘ OF PEOPLE WHO the excommunicates – were thrown presents challenges. Though there is LIVED SEVEN OR EIGHT to the ground and stamped upon: a huge amount of material surviving HUNDRED YEARS AGO. ‘thus let the condemned souls from thirteenth-century England, it NOT HAVING ALL THE smoke and stink in hell’. The cheap can be patchy, and does not always tallow tapers would generate foul- provide the answers you’d like. It is also ANSWERS IS ONE OF THE smelling smoke, creating a vivid almost entirely in Latin, and much of MOST EXCITING THINGS impression of an afterlife in hell. At it remains only in manuscripts written ABOUT MEDIEVAL the same time, however, theologians in difficult-to-read scripts. But, while HISTORY. and canon lawyers stressed that this can certainly be frustrating, the excommunication was to be used challenges involved are part of the only after due process of law, and 52 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 53 DR FELICITY HILL

family members). A Cambridge college is a good place to imagine the effects of this. If an excommunicate attempted to dine in hall, everyone would have to get up and leave. If an excommunicate tried to say hello to someone walking through court, they would be blanked. The repercussions for a ruler were particularly severe: excommunication could be used as an excuse to rebel. King John, excommunicated by the pope, was forced to submit to his demands as his barons became increasingly mutinous. They even treated his rift with the church as permission to offer the French prince the English throne. The social and political consequences of excommunication could therefore be serious, but again churchmen undermined their own sanction. Orders to ostracise excommunicates were not always obeyed, even though excommunication was ‘spiritual leprosy’, i.e. contagious (though a communicator only incurred a lesser form). It was particularly damaging when churchmen used excommunication against one another. Who were people to believe when each side was denouncing the other as excommunicated? As Matthew Paris observed in 1251, no wonder the whole thing became ridiculous to the laity. Excommunication could still be hugely damaging, but was more dangerous for those who were already unpopular or vulnerable. The church had no trouble convincing excommunicates’ enemies to shun them, but their friends might ignore the church’s dictates. This shows the limited nature of ecclesiastical authority. The efficacy of excommunication was to a large that it was medicinal not punitive. than we might imagine. The church clergymen, and it is understandable dying excommunicated, people degree at the mercy of communal The purpose of excommunication used the sanction for a huge number that laypeople sometimes rejected suddenly deemed it safer to seek judgements. We can therefore was to get people to repent and of offences, and not all of them were all it. Perhaps my favourite response is absolution, even if their consciences see medieval people exercising discretion, deciding that churchmen seek absolution, not to curse them. that serious. In 1308, the Archbishop EXCOMMUNICATION from some burgesses in Dunstable and convictions had previously made There is an obvious tension here, of Canterbury condemned ‘the sons in a dispute with the local priory. them defiant. The trouble was that were being unreasonable, trusting and my research emphasises the of iniquity, haters of ecclesiastical CERTAINLY DID TERRIFY They defiantly exclaimed ‘we are that usually took longer than was their own judgement. However much difference between how the average privilege’, who deserved to have their MANY, BUT IT WAS excommunicates, and we would useful to the church, which of course clergy claimed to be speaking for person would have understood ‘detestable audacity and nefarious ‘‘ USED SO MUCH rather go to hell than pay your taxes’. desired a swift capitulation. God, it was clear to contemporaries that they were not infallible. excommunication and how medieval presumption’ remedied because they THAT IT SEEMS TO Others argued that they wouldn’t scholars thought about (and justified) had, ‘forgetful of their salvation, in HAVE BEEN LESS be going to hell at all – essentially As the word indicates, excommunication it. their savage cupidity and too great ‘God and I are cool, it’s you who also involved social exclusion. Faithful This did not mean that malice’, had the nerve to … uproot FRIGHTENING THAN are wrong’. This was in fact a sound Christians were not supposed to excommunication wasn’t a horrible Excommunication certainly did terrify some trees belonging to the church WE MIGHT IMAGINE. theological argument, though it converse with those who had been experience. Much of my work many, but it was used so much that it of Canterbury. Excommunication was could be used disingenuously. Still, expelled from the church (there focuses on the publicity given to seems to have been less frightening often used in the material interests of when it came to the prospect of were a few exceptions, such as close sentences. If you want everyone to 54 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 55 DR FELICITY HILL ostracise an excommunicate, you have to broadcast who they are and what they’ve done. So sentences of excommunication were publicised extensively. An average person might have their crimes broadcast in their own parish church and two or three nearby, on Sundays and feast days, but excommunications could be announced throughout an entire city, diocese, kingdom or even through the whole of Christendom. The content was designed to persuade communities to enforce the sentence, so could be extremely vitriolic. Pope Gregory IX’s excommunication of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1239, disseminated throughout Europe, was a complete character assassination. People complained about the bad press that accompanied excommunication more than any other aspect of the punishment. They frequently felt persecuted by uncompromising condemnations containing, they claimed, lies. The majority of people in this period could not read – excommunications were pronounced in English (or other vernaculars) not Latin, so that people understood, and were accompanied by a dramatic ceremony to catch their attention. This was a medieval method of mass communication.

This publicity was exploited to slander individuals and to condemn political enterprises. Designed to be broadcast widely and to influence public opinion, sentences of excommunication were a form of propaganda. King Edward I, for instance, fought against both the Scots and the Welsh during his reign and asked that both groups be excommunicated throughout his realm. The sentences against them excommunicates’ personalities and spread much more widely. It turn, provide welcome breaks from the day in the new year. A research fellowship were intended to garner support circumstances). What it certainly it was discussed and assessed by to day work of an historian – solitary at Corpus has allowed me to focus on for his wars amongst his English did was spread information about the wider populace. It is often hours spent in the library reading writing my book. It is with nerves and subjects more than to terrify the political events and causes to all assumed that mass communication and translating books. After almost excitement that I am preparing to Welsh or Scots. The alleged atrocities IT IS SOMETHING OF A levels of society, even if all citizens and the public sphere are modern a decade living in the big cities of take on a full teaching load alongside (mercilessly killing English women and CLICHÉ TO SAY THAT A did not believe what they were told. phenomena, but a detailed study Manchester and London, Cambridge my new research project exploring children, for example) transmitted in BENEFIT OF COLLEGE LIFE Medieval government was accessible of excommunication challenges this has been an adjustment. It has been medieval common knowledge. I have this way might be compared to WWI ‘‘ IS TALKING TO SCHOLARS only to a few. Aristocratic men, and idea. a beautiful place to continue my moved institution at every stage of my Hun posters. more locally still well-to-do men, were research. Leckhampton, right on career, and have been lucky to have FROM MANY OTHER the only ones who really needed to It is something of a cliché to say that the edge of the countryside, has in had the support of brilliant mentors, Excommunication was not necessarily DISCIPLINES, BUT I HAVE know what was going on, most of the a benefit of college life is talking to particular been a really lovely change colleagues and friends at each of an unfailingly powerful way of forcing ABSOLUTELY FOUND THIS time. But through excommunication, scholars from many other disciplines, and I will miss living here a lot. them along the way. I am extremely people to submit to the church’s TO BE TRUE. pronounced in local parish churches but I have absolutely found this to Cambridge will though, I suspect, feel grateful to Corpus and Cambridge for judgements (though nor was it a frequented by men, women and be true. Corpus lunches and dinners like a vast metropolis when I move up providing more, and I look forward to damp squib; a lot depended on the children of all classes, news was are always fun and stimulating, and to St Andrews to start a lectureship visiting from Scotland. 56 • The Pelican 2018 ’’ • 57 in triple bottom line accounting where share price may not be the (TBL) correct measure of intrinsic value. IT IS RATIONAL TO LW: “Value”, or even “Economic LW: Recently, Nobel Laureate Value Economics SEE ECONOMICS AS Value”, is notoriously difficult to Jean Tirole published a book titled measure, as the economic value of A NON-PRIVATIVE Economics for the Common Good, Michael Griffiths (m1957) and John Lucas (m1956) any action in the present can very ‘‘ ACTIVITY WHERE in which he touches upon similar much depend on the future. What CONSULTATION, subjects, such as the morality LIZ WINTER SPOKE TO ALUMNUS MICHAEL GRIFFITHS RECENTLY ABOUT HIS BOOK VALUE ECONOMICS WHICH are your thoughts on how to gauge PARTICIPATION of markets, and how to allocate HE CO-AUTHORED WITH JOHN LUCAS AND ASKED HIM WHAT INSPIRED THEM TO WRITE THE BOOK AND MORE economic value in these situations? AND SHARING resources in a way that serves IMPORTANTLY, TO EXPLAIN VALUE ECONOMICS. society. Do your ideas correspond MG: Our book “Ethical Economics” BECOME THE MEANS at all to those of Professor Tirole? published by Macmillans in 1996 FOR ECONOMIC proposed five rational principles MANAGEMENT. MG: Yes, there is a clear correspondence for economic activity, the last of between Jean Tiroles’ new agenda for which relates to the indeterminacy the role of economics in society and of economic outcomes to which you “Value Economics” suggestions for refer, and which require managerial new economic thinking. Jean Tirole’s competency and skills in forecasting - In this way, it is rational to see agenda covers global warming, results, risk management, and economics as a non-privative activity unemployment, the post 2008 measuring the profitability and where consultation; participation global financial order, the euro crisis, and sharing become the’’ means sustainability of a business the digital revolution, innovation, enterprise. for economic management, and and the balance between free introduces the concept of how all markets and regulation. In this list - The need to define the needs, stakeholders share in the distribution the measurement of economic wants, beliefs, and interests of of the “cooperators’ surplus”, which value does not occur. A key theme all the stakeholders in a business raises questions of how employees of Value Economics as we have said enterprise, which we call the might participate in decision making above is how we can measure value “alteritas” principle. ie recognition and ownership of the enterprise for in economics proposing that ECVAL of the objectives and values of the which they work. (NOPAT less cost of capital) becomes “Other”. the key metric for measuring the - Money as “encapsulated creation of value by economic - Business as a non- zero sum game choice” which enables consumer enterprises to get the balance right which requires that the privative preferences to be realised within the between total shareholder return interests of the stakeholders, confines of the demand and supply (TSR) and value (TSV), which focuses shareholders included, have to for actualising those preferences. on the intrinsic value of a business be modified in light of the desired Chapters 5 and 6 of “Value enterprise, and not only on the “economic returns” of all parties Economics” on Money and the market share price and EPS. involved in that business. Moneyed Society seek to address the issues involved in supplying LW: Do you still believe in capitalism the money for exercising consumer as a viable and worthy operating choice. system for a 21st century developed country? - Economics as an indeterminate LW: Your book Value Economics cost of capital, becomes the key process whose outcomes are MG: Yes, but with a greater emphasis by M Griffiths and J R Lucas has metric for measuring the creation not always predictable, however of the creation of triple bottom line recently been published by Palgrave of value by economic enterprises, important monetary and fiscal value, ie economic, environmental Macmillan to considerable interest which will supplement the market WE ARE PROPOSING policies are in determining supply and and social, and the way executives from the academic community. Can capitalisation value metric of total A CREATION OF demand and investment in business are rewarded for the creation of you explain value economics to me? shareholder return (TSR), which may VALUE APPROACH TO enterprises. The management of that value using the ECVAL metric, be different from total shareholder ‘‘ HOW WE SHOULD this indeterminate process requires and not only the market share price MG: Yes. We are proposing a value (TSV), ie the long term intrinsic MEASURE VALUE IN skills in a) measuring economic metric. “creation of value” approach to value of an economic enterprise. value at any one point in time and b) how we should measure “value” See Chapter 8 “Economic Value and ECONOMICS. forecasting its future value. We are Value Economics: The Ethical Implications in economics. We recommend Intrinsic Value”, which recognises proposing ECVAL as the key metric of Value for New Economic Thinking by M that “economic value” ECVAL, the three dimensional nature of for doing this, also for providing an Griffiths and J R Lucas. Publisher: Palgrave which we define as NOPAT (net value in business, ie economic, antidote to “market exuberance” Macmillan. operating profit after tax), less the environmental and social, reflected

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