2019 DOWNING COLLEGE 2019 DOWNING DOWNING COLLEGE The Pillars of Downing Nathan Parker Commended Downing Alumni Photographic Competition Front cover: Downing in Spring Photograph by Neville Tait DOWNING COLLEGE 2019 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER MAGENTA NEWS COLLEGE RECORD After the Rain Nathan Parker – Highly Commended Downing Alumni Photographic Competition IN THIS ISSUE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE 2018–2019 5 PRESIDENT’S FOREWORD 7 ASSOCIATION NEWS 9 Next Year’s President 9 The Main Objects of the Association 11 Contact with the Association 11 The 2018 Annual General Meeting 12 The Alumni Student Fund 13 The Association Prize 14 Glynn Jones Scholarships for Business and Management Education 14 Downing Alumni Association Photographic Competition 15 Editorial acknowledgements 19 COLLEGE NEWS 20 The Master writes 20 The Senior Tutor writes 24 The Assistant Bursar’s report 26 The Director of Advancement’s report 27 The Heong Gallery: Looking to the Sky for Answers 29 Forthcoming events 30 Visiting Cambridge 31 FROM THE ARCHIVIST 33 The first ever Downing May Boat – 1864 33 Future archive projects: Can you help? 38 NEWS OF MEMBERS 39 I travel, therefore I am 39 Life on the road with the BBC 41 An entrepreneur’s tale 43 FOR THE RECORD 46 Obituaries 46 4 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 MAGENTA NEWS 2019 75 COLLEGE RECORD 2018–2019 149 THE FELLOWSHIP 149 NEWS OF THE FELLOWSHIP 158 John Hopkins – Obituary, memorial service and tributes 158 New Fellows 167 Reports from Fellows 168 MIDDLE COMBINATION ROOM 174 SPORTING ACTIVITY 175 Reports on Sports Clubs 175 Griffins Endowment Fund 183 Blues, Half-Blues and Colours 2018–19 184 REPORTS ON SOCIETIES 185 SCHOLARSHIPS, PRIZES AND AWARDS 2019 195 POSTGRADUATE DEGREES CONFERRED 2018–19 200 UNDERGRADUATE AND AFFILIATED ADMISSIONS 2018 205 GRADUATE ADMISSIONS 2018 209 Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Downing College or the Downing College Alumni Association. ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 5 DOWNING COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE 2018–2019 PRESIDENT G C Erangey MA LLM (UEM) (2009) B W Hunt MA MEd (Exeter) CMath FIMA J H Martin MA MRICS (1981) S E Gimson MA (1998) VICE PRESIDENTS P J Marchment MA MSci (2001) P Thomson MA J G Hicks MA FREng Ex-officio Committee Members F Weiss MA G B Williams BA PhD, Senior Tutor N Berger MA C M Middleton BA (UL), Director of Engagement and THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Development Operations The President R M Kirkley, Events Officer The Immediate Past President S Soleiman, JCR President J N Tait MA CEng FICE (to 15 February 2019) The President-elect C O’Connor, JCR President R J Bowring MA PhD LittD (from 16 February 2019) The Honorary Secretary & Editor A Bedorf MSc (Bonn), MCR President S Walker MA (to December 2018) The Assistant Secretary (Merchandise) JJ Longhorn BA (York) MPhil, MCR P R Whittington MA President (from January 2019) The Assistant Secretary (College Record) Z H Barber MA PhD Co-opted Committee Members The Honorary Treasurer K Dyer MA MB BChir DRCOG MRCGP D J Riddoch MA PhD A R Farmer MA PhD MIET Elected Committee Members K E Storey MA LLM K E Fish MA ACA CTA (2008) D G G Davies MA MA (Manchester) HONORARY AUDITORS PhD (Manchester) (1971) M J Mays MA PhD FRIC H Groom BA MSci MA PhD (2001) R J Richards MA PhD ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 7 PRESIDENT’S FOREWORD In the summer of 2009, at the College’s Donor Garden Party, I was approached by a smiling John Hicks (1955), the Association Secretary at the time, who tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was the chosen one. “No rush”, he said, I wasn’t really needed until September 2010, when he planned to step down. “It’s a great privilege and you only need to do as much as you have time for” he added, convincingly. It seemed a long way off, the sun was shining, the champagne was good and it seemed a rather nice way of filling a few odd hours in my retirement. Ten years on, I forgive him… He was of course right – it is a great privilege to be the Secretary and now President of the Downing College Alumni Association and it has been a wonderful way to occupy my retirement, though the concept of the odd hour was very wide of the mark! This year, the Association has been delighted to welcome the new Master, Alan Bookbinder, and his wife, Vicki, a highly talented designer, to the College. They have made an immediate impact in the Lodge with their open and welcoming approach and their willingness to engage with the Association. Vicki in particular has turned her talents to creating highly original designs for silk scarves that will be revealed to alumni later this year. Over the past 10 years, I have witnessed the extraordinary pace of change in the College. Initially, the fruits of the Catalysis campaign were in visible form – Griphon House, First Court and Battcock Lodge, the Heong Gallery, Chapel organ, car parks and the Cambridge Rowing Tank. More recently, funds have been increasingly used to more closely target the core work of the College through additional fellowships and support for students who now pay huge sums of money each year in fees. In my time, the most remarkable growth has been in the arts. It began when the Downing Dramatic Society started to make use of the excellent Howard Theatre facility and the skills of Steve Bennett (whose talents included script writing for Coronation Street and Emmerdale!). The annual Festival of New Writing, held at the Howard Theatre is the theatrical jewel in their crown and is now an established annual event in the Cambridge calendar. The Heong Gallery, which opened in February 2016, provides a focus for the College to develop strong links to artistic communities across Cambridge, the UK and the rest of the world. Finally, the recent appointment of David Lowe as Director of Music and the creation of the Downing Arts programme has led to the introduction of the “Downing Series” designed to utilise the many beautiful musical spaces in Downing and will feature “outstanding young professional artists in innovative programmes of many 8 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 musical styles”. I was delighted to attend an extraordinary concert on the occasion of the re-opening of the refurbished Music Room at the end of April. The song recital, given by the young baritone Gareth Brynmor John, winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, was breathtaking. Meanwhile, the Association’s Merchandise Working Group continues to support the Alumni Student Fund and I am delighted that, this year, Quentin Blake has offered us two new products – a delightful illustration entitled The Photograph depicting the Downing Griffin taking centre stage with a group of undergraduates for a College photograph and a signed limited edition print of one of the griffins in the wall hanging at the College. My thanks go to all those involved in our merchandise operation, particularly to Peter Whittington, our Assistant Secretary (Merchandise), and Kate Dyer, Chair of our Merchandise Working Group. My thanks as always also go to the Development Office for their constant support and to all those Officers of the Association who give their time to ensure that it continues with its objective to “concern itself with the welfare of the College and its members”. In particular, to our Secretary and Newsletter Editor, Simon Walker, and our Treasurer, David Riddoch, who ensure the smooth running of the Association, by putting in many hours. During the past year, the Development Office has also commissioned a survey on alumni’s views of this Newsletter. I have yet to see the results, but I predict that one will be that the President’s Foreword needs to be kept short, so readers will have to accept my snapshot of the past ten years and will be spared my full analysis of the College. In brief – Downing is thriving! Barrie Hunt (1966) ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER 2019 9 ASSOCIATION NEWS NEXT YEAR’S PRESIDENT Downing is not the kind of place you can just shrug off. Whether we like it or not, our undergraduate years have formed what we are now, and I would hope that most memories are pleasant enough to draw you back at some stage or other, if only out of curiosity to see whether it has changed as much as you have. Certainly, in my own case, although I was unaware of it at the time, it gave me plenty of space to do my own thing, to find out what really interested me, and to make the necessary mistakes. It turned out that much of my life was to be involved with Downing in some way or another: undergraduate 1965–1968, PhD graduate 1970–1973, Professorial Fellow 1985–2000. In 2000 I was lured away for a while to the Mastership of a College somewhere over the river, but Downing remains very much part of me. When asked to be President of the Association, I could find no adequate excuse. Those who knew me as an undergraduate 1965–68 apparently remember me either for a well-worn Spanish leather jacket, or for the fact that I was reading Japanese, although ‘reading’ in this case would be a gross exaggeration. Japanese is not intrinsically difficult (although it helps if you are Finnish or Korean) but its writing ‘system’ is of such complexity that the Basque Jesuit Francis Xavier who arrived in the mid sixteenth century was certain it had been designed by the Devil himself.