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The Pembrokian Issue No. 26, January 2005 News from the Development Office, Pembroke College, Oxford
A Pembroke Christmas Carol Report by Adam Kybird and Phillipa Jose One autumnal afternoon, a couple of gifted third years were sat around in the JCR enjoying a well earned rest from the pressures of their final year, when it suddenly dawned upon them that Christmas at Pembroke has been somewhat lacking in recent years. So they decided to put on a pantomime,. The idea was quickly taken up by many and soon the writing juices started to flow. After five weeks of 'intensive' writing, acting, singing, dancing and prop making, the pantomime was performed to, lets face it, rave reviews. Over one hundred and fifty people ventured out into the night to watch some of the college's most unlikely stars take to the stage. A Christmas Carol was chosen to be our guide; however we did adapt the Dickensian tale to incorporate both a modern and Pembrokian twist. Scenes were set in 'Ye Olde Len's' with Richard Joyce doing a particularly apt portrayal of our favourite bar tender. Sian Deason
shone as Jan, who appeared in our Pembroke Twelve Days of Christmas scene. The star of the show was undoubtedly Dominic Hammond, whose portrayal of Bursar Scrooge will no doubt go down in history as one of the funniest yet heartfelt portrayals of a Dickensian character in modern theatre. Other highlights were Matthew Lees and Richard Brixey as the Ugly Sisters, Laura Trott as the Fairy Godmother and Farzad Saadat as Tiny Tim. However it was John Church, our very own Bursar, whose cameo as Jacob Marley that earned the biggest cheer of the night. It was a hugely successful event and we would like to take this opportunity to thank those without whom it would not have taken place. So much of the work took place behind the scenes, both on the night and in the weeks running up to the performance,
our unsung heroes were Owen Davies, Katherine Adlington, Sinead Gallagher, Holly Morgan, Steve Rhodes and Robin Gregory. The pantomime was such a success that we hope it becomes an annual Pembroke festive event. What made the night really special was the way in which the whole college, staff and students, supported and encouraged this new idea. Thank you all for your goodwill!
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Pembroke Ball
Johnson's Dictionary
Global Challenge
The Pembroke Ball will take place on the 29th of April 2005. The theme will be 'The Last Night of Pompeii' and it promises to be one of the most memorable nights of the year. We would very much like to encourage alumni to attend. For tickets and enquires please contact Laura Trott: I au r a t rott@pmh.ox.ae.uk
A three-day conference, for enthusiasts as well as academics is being held at Pembroke on the 26-28th August 2005, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of one' of the most influential English dictionaries. As an undergraduate at Pembroke, Johnson (according to Boswell) 'gave the first impression of that...extensive reading in which he had indulged himself', thereby laying some of the foundations which would later contribute to the breadth of reference in his Dictionary. This conference aims to include diverse and extensive views of Johnson's lexicographical achievement. The after-dinner speaker at Saturday's Gala Dinner will be Ned Sherrin.
As you may have read in the previous Pembrokian, Rachel Morgan (1988), Julian Colls (1992) and Stephen Wotton (1993) are currently sailing around the world the wrong way, taking part in the Global Challenge 2004-5. Julian and Stephens' crew, Team SAIC La Jolla, are currently in 9th place. Rachel's, Spirit of Sark, is currently in first and was the first yacht around Cape Horn. She writes "I was on watch when we actually went around it, it was daylight which we hadn't initially expected and we must have been one of the few boats to actually see it for any length of time. Lots of boats headed directly south whereas we sailed quite close to it. It really is everything you imagine it to be - grim, beautiful - the end of the world!" For more information, please visit wwvv.globalchallenge2004.com
The Teasel Club The Teasel Club are organising a Dinner in February 2005, to which all former Teasel Club members are invited. If you were in the Teasel Club but do not receive details, please get in touch with the Development Office (see the back page for contact details) in the New Year.
Congratulations Two Pembrok ian's were honoured at the recent Royal Society Anniversary Day. Sir John Krebs ( 1%1) ga the Croonian Lecture (the Soci • premier biological prize leetu year, and was presented with the corresponding award. And my former pupil, Martin Taylor FRS (1970), now Professor of Pure Mathematics at Manchester University, was installed as Physical Secretary of the Royal Society, one of the 5 major officeholders. He will hold this post for 5 years. Ian Grant (Emeritus Fellow) Foundation Fellow Abdullah Saleh has been appointed as a member of the Regulatory Council of the DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) Financial Services Authority (DFSA). The DFSA is the independent regulatory authority of the DIFC, responsible for the regulation of all financial and ancillary services performed in or from the Centre. The DFSA has been created using principle-based legislation modeled closely on that used in London and other major financial centres. Its regulatory regime will operate to standardes that meet or exceed those in the world's modern financial centres.
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For more information, please contact Angela Gustafkson (se ack page for contact details) or vi IN NI . p tu b.o v.acuk/p col lege/johnson_itlex
*4. Double Header, the Pembroke Steed \
ecember 2004, by Dick Williamson (1952) We were e second race at Exeter with so 12 runners including substanti opposition. It was hard to fancy Double Header. The bookies were not much impressed making him 33/1 and the price hardly moved. Christian Williams was riding for us for the first time. The pace was on the slow side so he was able to keep his place and use his good stride. Three hurdles from home he pecked on landing and lost some ground — was he getting tired? No, with two to go he was up there again. He lost a length or so at this jump but at the last there were three in a line — two of the fancied runners and our boy. Again he made an indifferent jump but Christian began to ride him and he was soon back with the others. On the line I thought that he had just been caught by one of the others. "Photograph" called the Judge and the commentator gave no opinion. After what seemed a very long pause, came the Judge "First number six, second number five ..." For a second I couldn't remember
his number — but it was six! The rest is a daze. One moment I was on my own by the rails and then surrounded by everyone. I remember Christian saying when he dismounted that he was sorry that he had not given him a more powerful ride as he was still feeling his shoulder — he had only just begun riding again after breaking a collarbone. "He hardly knows he's been in a race —just look at him!". Photographers arrived and we posed for the usual pictures — perhaps they will show my tears! Then there was a nice lady leading me to another nice lady who presented me with a decanter. More photos. I have no idea who either of them was. For the record, the starting price was 33/1 and the Tote paid £48.30 for a win and £5.10 for a place. What next? Well, he will not run again until January but the Exeter race was a heat for a final which takes place at Sandown on Saturday, 12th March. As a winner, he automatically qualifies. We shall see.
Post-graduate Pembroke by Chris Watkins, MCR President Being a graduate student at Pembroke is about as surreal an experience as can be found in the great universities of the world. With more than thirty five nations represented in a community of about a hundred, everyone is in a minority group. It is an unsettling experience when you first arrive, feeling hypereducated and full of your own success at being admitted, to realise that if you don't know at least two languages (and maybe four) you are out of the ordinary. A couple of weeks ago we held a 'soiree' in our common room, giving members a chance to read their poetry, play their music and tell their stories. I think it's fair to say that we heard as much Spanish, German and Russian as we did English, and even the English was delivered in accents from Arkansas to Australia, New York to Nova Scotia. The internationalism also affects what can be talked about. Pop-culture (with the possible exception of the eighties, which seem to have been the same everywhere) is rarely common ground. International politics, 'high' culture, and cross-cultural issues such as the environment and religion, become the mainstay of dinner-table debate, whether you can keep up or not. There is an expert on everything somewhere in the MCR, and the knowledge that it is almost never you is strangely liberating. Once you get the first stupid questions out of the way (no, there is no such language as Swiss) you learn to go with it and learn. Within a month you are reading magazines you had never heard of to keep up with the progress of Berlusconi or the Boston Red Sox. Its heady stuff and it's a strong argument for the relevance of a collegiate experience to postgraduate life. After all, when most of your degree takes place in a library or laboratory, often in private research, your college is your world.
The Master leads members of the MCR on a trek through the English countryside (Katy Beebe, A DPhil student from the US, pictured in the foreground). Photo by MCR Photographer Eric Sumburg (2004) About a quarter of the college, and about a third of the university, are undertaking postgraduate degrees, and the university are pushing the colleges to raise the proportion of international graduate students significantly. Maintaining the sense of collegiality that Pembroke prides itself on is complicated by the lack of accommodation. Our members spend their Pembroke years in private houses all over Oxford, so when we gather in that magnificent Pembroke hall to recognise our achievements, we are building community even as we celebrate it. We gathered there last Friday, and there was a lot to talk about in any language. The entire Pembroke athletics team is made up of Pembroke graduates, as is most of Oxford's women's boxing team and representatives of the Oxford rugby, cycling, ice hockey, big band, debating, rowing and track and field elites to name a few. Add to that about four academic articles appearing in refereed journals each term (on subjects as diverse as
Aids treatment and medieval travelogues) and you begin to get a sense of just how important a welcoming and supportive college is to the average Pembroke graduate. We toasted all this and more beneath the great dark beams of our hall on Friday, and graduates of all ages danced late and hard afterwards in the Middle Common Room (some aspects of student life are universal). Some of us staggered out to represent the college at various sports the next morning. Others were at the library and laboratory doors when they opened at nine. I think all of us had been reminded that in a university that isn't always good at giving its postgraduates a collegiate experience in more than name, we had fallen on rich soil at Pembroke. As one of our older members boasted to me after the traditional sconcing of 'the Master of the best college in Oxford'; 'what Pembroke needs, money can buy. What we have can't be bought.' Salud, chin chin and cheers to that.
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Recent Development Office Functions 50th Anniversary Dinner (Class of 1954), Friday 6th August Those matriculating in 1954 celebrated their 50th anniversary at Pembroke with drinks on the Chapel Quad lawn followed by a dinner in the Hall. Guests included the Master, Giles Henderson, and Honorary Fellow Sir Roger Bannister. the On Saturday, those who were able enjoyed a lunch party at Gos and Diana Home's house. The dinner for 1955 matriculands will be held on Friday 1st April 2005.
Society Dinner and Activity Day, Friday 24th and Saturday 25th September Around 90 members and Fellows attended this year's Society Dinner. A large group from the early 1970s turned out to fill High Table and give their support to this year's speaker, Sir Peter Ricketts (1971) (shown below with Dennis Richards (1974)). As the Master was in the United States, he was represented by Ken Mayhew (Fellow in Economics). The morning options for the Activity Day were an organ recital in the Chapel by Edmund (1997), Aldhouse a talk by Sir Roger Bannister (Honorary Fellow and Former Master) on his trophies and a lecture by Dr Ben Davis (Fellow in Organic Chemistry) entitled "Life is Sweet: The Science of Sugars". The afternoon options were just as enticing with Nigel (1958), Wickens by accompanied former Organ Scholar Lionel Pike (1959), giving a recital of French Songs, Tim (husband Walker
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of Jill Humphries (1984)) giving a tour of the Botanic Garden and, with what proved the most popular choice of the six, Dr Chris Melchert (Fellow in Arabic) giving a lecture entitled "The Islamic Tradition and Why so Many Muslims are Angry". The dates for next year's Society Dinner and Activity Day will be Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September.
US Events, 20th, 21st, 23rd and 25th September Giles Henderson (The Master), John Church (The Bursar) and Angela Gustafsson (2001) (CoDirector of Development) travelled to the US for several events in September. The Washington DC event was held at the historic Prospect House in the Georgetown area, which had been generously loaned to the College by Foundation Fellow Abdullah Saleh, on September 20th (with speaker Senator Lugar (1954) (pictured), who had returned to Pembroke for his 50th anniversary dinner only the month before). There was a Chicago event on September 23rd a San Francisco event on September 25th, and a last minute gathering was also arranged for Boston on the 21st. Photo by Ingrid Li (2001), Washington Reception
Escape Bar and Art Event, Thursday 11th November Andrea Paterson and Tanya Lay (both 1993)
Rob Evans (1986), Richard Baty (1989) and Peter Lovett (1986)
Adam Heald-Barraclough, Selina Datta and Sarah Doe (all 2001) Hosted by Helen Cardrick (1988) at her bar in Herne Hill (visit www.escapebarandart.com for more information), this gathering was aimed at Pembroke's more recent graduates, those matriculating from 1986. Around 35 members, including current students, attended this lively event and enjoyed the
buffet and open wine and beer bar. There was also a DJ and, later, live jazz, from the Belly Beats Band. This event was a great success and we hope to hold more in the future. Helen is happy for us to return to Escape Bar so we will be back soon!
Edinburgh Reception, Tuesday 23rd November Sir Rocco Forte (1963) kindly opened his Balmoral Hotel to us so that we might hold a strategic planning session, drinks reception and dinner for friends and alumni. The representatives who travelled from Pembroke to attend were Giles Henderson (the Master), John Church (the Bursar), Angela Gustafsson (Co-Director of Development), Joanne Bowley (Development Office Manager) and John Barlow (1952). A wide range of years were represented, from Simon Coke (1953) to Neil Laird and Robert Smith (both 1971) to Martin Geddes and Liz Kendall (both 1989). Attendees also included Emeritus Fellow Piers Mackesy and Honorary Fellow Lord Abernethy (1958) (both shown right).
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Water and the Spirit A Workshop at the Vatican Babies are 75% water, men 64%, and women 58%
by Rev. Dr. John Cluyssavgis (1980) An invitation to attend a unique workshop on water conflicts and spiritual transformation at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican City was not easy to decline. I have been involved in church circles on various levels since graduating from Pembroke in 1983, and my more recent work on environmental issues, particularly as these were addressed in and informed by religious communities, has led to numerous engagements and gatherings. But this conference differed. It was organized by Oregon State University through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We depend on water for so much: cleansing, nourishment, cooking, recreation, and aesthetic pleasure. We use water for agriculture, industry, transportation, vacationing, and religious ritual. Water is the basic structure of the planet and a raw material of creation. The equilibrium of water systems everywhere is finely tuned, in our bodies as in our foods. Babies are 75% water, men 64%, and women 58%. Nevertheless, because water is omnipresent, so are the contaminants. Press reports of international waters often focus on conflict. Yet water also induces
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cooperation, as is evident in diverse regions, from the Jordan (Arabs and Israelis) to the Indus (Indians and Pakistanis) to the Kura-Araks (Georgians, Armenians, and Azeris). Local, regional, and international politics of water include discussion about economy, trade, migration, and privatization. Here is a resource — actually, we should think of it as source — on which we all depend, and for which there is little guidance in international law. Prevailing wisdom in both the science and the policy of water resources seems not to provide the foundation for a response to the underlying ethical questions. This workshop (October 13-15, 2004) brought together a small, yet select group of scientists, theologians, and leaders from throughout the world to reflect on whether and to consider ways in which the spiritual world possesses and may propose tools or approaches to help bolster the difficult dynamics of international environmental negotiations. Religious representatives from diverse faith communities deliberated on how addressing the ethical core of negotiations might supplement the more common inducements to cooperate promoted by economic development, ecosystem protection, and environmental security. In chairing the opening session, I became immediately aware of the existing tension between scientists and theologians. However, the focus on the global concerns about water served to diffuse age-old suspicions between reason and religion, enabling the lowering of defenses on both sides, and encouraging discussion on water as fundamental and inalienable right for all people and all creatures. Like the air that we breathe, water is a heritage, not a commodity. Its supply is not infinite; unlike oil, water has no substitute. "Water stress" and "water poverty" are growing in frequency and in intensity. In a very real sense, there are two things that can today motivate people like no others: the environment and religion. Science offers us the information about depletion and pollution, as well as about the consequences of our conduct. Religion can offer wisdom about how to live — and how to keep hope alive — in the world today.
Johnson v. Jones, Faulkner v. Jones, and Pembroke College: The Admission of Women In opening arguments in August, 1992, I told the presiding federal district judge in South Carolina, the Honorable C. Weston Houck, that my clients as women were seeking admission to The Citadel under the same law as African-Americans sought admission to the University of Alabama exactly 30 years ago to the day. I stated that the students and administration at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, the legislative bodies in the State, 16,000 alumni, and most of the general population in the State were resisting the admission of women into that public college with the same defiance with which George Wallace stood in the school house door. The parallels were simple and dramatic. Women were being denied the same public educational opportunities enjoyed by men in South Carolina. A companion case which I filed the following year for another client, Faulkner v. Jones [The Citadel], would even more forcefully illustrate the battle which Shannon Faulkner on behalf of all women in America was to wage for the next six years under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Citadel was founded in 1842, for the most part to suppress slave uprisings in Charleston, and had for 150 years admitted only males. The defense played heavily on tradition to keep it all-male. Later in the day at the hearing in August, 1992, when I heard a former attorney general of the United States, Griffin Bell, use "tradition" as a justification to keep women out of The Citadel, I told the judge that I knew of another ancient college, an English college I attended on the GI bill, that had only recently admitted women. It had had a long tradition of being all-male, yet its finest traditions had somehow managed to survive. "They seem to be doing well enough with the women there now," I told the court, "after about 368 years of no-girls-allowed." Thus the admission of women into Pembroke College helped to put a major defense argument to the side in what many may still see as a silly fight in U.S. courts over an inevitable result.
by Robert Black (1969), shown above with sons John and Will, the day the court ordered The Citadel to admit Shannon Faulkner, August 12, 1993 Yet, I am told that the women first admitted to Pembroke did not endure silent treatments, isolation, obscenities being yelled at them, death threats, spitting, cat-calls, hostile letters from all over the world, name-calling, and so on. No law enforcement agency comparable to U.S. Marshalls were ordered by the court to be on campus, as they were for Shannon Faulkner at The Citadel. A British agency like the FBI was not involved. Shannon Faulkner put up with all of this before dropping out of The Citadel from exhaustion only days after the same federal court judge ordered The Citadel to admit her. Her case for women rights in public education stands as a modest book-end to Brown v. Board of Education, one of the most significant cases in American jurisprudence, and her ordeals remind me how lucky we Americans are to have once enjoyed the civility of the dreaming spires.
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Memories of 1979 - 25 Years of Females at Pembroke
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The 1979 Matriculation Photograph
In 1979, twenty-six undergraduates, exactly one quarter of the intake, became the first female undergraduates to attend Pembroke. JCR President Aman Rai (1977) wrote, in his report for the 1979 College Record, "This Michaelmas saw a change in Pembroke college — women (at last) ... For the first time, the J.C.R. held a disco for members of the college only, and it was a great success — especially for second year undergraduates wishing to get to know the freshwomen." Linda Rawlinson (Harris) (1979) was chosen to write a piece from the women's view point, also for the 1979 College Record. She found "It became clear to me that I was going to be treated as a novelty at Pembroke, at least for a while. Drinks were bought, doors held open and offers of coffee showered upon me." Peter Wynne Davies (1974) says "I was the JCR Secretary in 1976 during the great debate about whether the college should admit women. I seem to recall that the SCR were uncertain because they thought the expense of installing mirrors everywhere would be prohibitive." Kevin Brennan (1979) believes "The most immediate impact of women was the civilising effect they had on the place. The college authorities realised they could no longer get away with the medieval facilities." Simon Oldfield (1979) concurs, saying "On coming to College, all the first intake of women were allocated exclusive staircases with higher levels of personal comfort and hygiene ... By which I mean central heating and bathrooms within a quarter of a mile." Jane Carter (1979) writes "That criteria went in the second year; the room I chose to occupy required a dash down three flights of stairs and a corridor to the nearest toilet"! When Angela Dalrymple (1981) came to Pembroke a couple of years later, she says "under staircase 13 where my room was, my parents were horrified to see that there were still open communal showers, and my cleaning lady regaled me with tales of how the male students at the top of staircase 8 who had no loos on their floor, used to fill empty coke and beer bottles with you know what, and store them till the end of term for their scout to find!". Maxine Phillips (1979) remembers "one occasion when I heard a stream of liquid falling to the Quad below" from a neighbour's window, in the early hours of the morning, adding "and I don't think he was emptying the kettle"! In theory, the women were to be housed separately from the men, and were all allocated rooms in the Macmillan Building or on Staircase 12. Simon Oldfield writes "One of the new arrivals was called Lindsay and was allocated to the exclusively female staircase. Now we know that Oxonian academics lived a pretty sheltered life in those days, but perhaps even they should have noticed the incongruity in that Lindsay was a strapping six footer; with an even more impressive beard". Also, Jane Carter found that "Despite the policy on concentrating us women together, my neighbour turned out to be third year drunken Scottish classicist Andy — well that was what I was warned. Andy, though undeniably Scottish, was probably not more often to be found drunk than many others, and he was a great neighbour, full of seasoned wisdom on student life ... Influenced or not by the presence of female freshers all around him, Andy's room was the central gathering point for his crowd of friends."
Simon Oldfield writes "I do remember a six a side mixed rugby tournament in my second year, at the encouragement of Liz Luck 0980) who was the first female secretary of the College Rugby team. All the men had their laces tied together to reduce their mobility I seem to remember." Maxine Phillips says "Another early memory is the crush we all had on Andy Devenport (1977), the Captain of the Boat Club. But the only thing the male oarsmen seemed to be interested in was recruiting anyone under 8 stone to train as a cox." Angela Dalrymple writes that, although she was in the 3rd year of women intake, "there was only 1 woman to every 4 men, so all of us girls were invited to every Dean's Lunch and formal dinner going, which was wonderful!" Jane Carter talks of Gwyllam in the lodge. "I remember him particularly on the first Valentine's day, when the porters' lodge was literally inundated with bouquets, shaking his head and remarking (with a twinkle in his eye) that things would never be the same." With only 25 years of females at Pembroke, there are already over 85 Pembrokian couples - that we are aware of... Kevin Brennan writes "Of course going coeducational also meant going co-habitational for some, and in the JCR we forced the Governing Body to face the reality of the birds and the bees ... We commissioned the brilliant medic Graham Lennox (1978), to write a report on the need for condom machines in college. Given that this was the era before AIDs was identified we were ahead of our time." Simon Oldfield recalls "One of the most keenly attended and debated JCR meetings was the one where a JCR sub committee reported on their findings regarding the need and location for condom machines in the college ... They discounted the traditional Oxford method of the Bollinger cork as unreliable, both in supply and effectiveness, though they recognised the positive environmental aspects of something that could be reused." As Kevin Brennan remembers it, "one senior don remarked 'well alright, as long as you don't put it up in the
Porter's Lodge. " Kevin Brennan continues"Women were soon playing their full role in the social, sporting, political and academic life of the college. I met one of them in the Porter's Lodge on her first day in October 1980, and offered to carry her bags up to my room. I'd heard she was a fanatical Labour Party member from Ken Mayhew, and was deliberately waiting to recruit her to the cause. Maria Eagle is still my close friend, and is of course MP for Liverpool Garston and a minister in the Department of Work and Pensions." Angela Dalrymple (1981) writes "I was the first female JCR President, and when I made my first address to the SCR Committee in what was then the Weatherly Room, many dons were totally surprised to find a lady addressing them. There was even talk of having to change the rules to allow me in to have a drink at the SCR (or one of its offshoots?) from memory!" The Pembroke Men's 1st VIII has been Head of the River three times, first in 1872, then in 1995 and, most recently in 2003. The Pembroke Women's 1st VIII, Head of the River in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, is already one headship in front. In the 1979 College Record, Linda Rawlinson writes "it was evident that our Women's Eight had amused great interest, as reflected by the bulging boathouse. In fact this atmosphere was part of a general improvement in 'College Spirit' talked about by second years and above." Simon Oldfield says "I would like to think that around the time I was at College marked the start of the rise and rise of the College's reputation as a sporting success. While there, the mens first boat got back into the first division of Eights for the first time in ages, the hockey team were very successful and progress was made in many other sports from athletics to squash. There were therefore a number of Bump Suppers to attend and after one particularly lively one for the Women first eight (I think) a new 'Edict on Sconcing' was published by Godfrey Bond, then Dean. This stated that as well as the challenge having to be put to High Table in writing (either in Latin or Greek naturally), the drink could only be in beer; nothing stronger, and that as there was the right of reply in kind if the sconce was successfully consumed, `no Gentleman, or Lady, i.e. no member of Pembroke College, would consider it appropriate to challenge a Lady, or accept a challenge from a Lady' (or words to that effect)." In the Master's Notes from the 1980 College Record, Sir Geoffrey Arthur writes "It occurs to me, as I look back over these notes, that I have not once mentioned the women in the College. This in itself bears witness to the degree to which their presence has so quickly been accepted as normal." Graham Collingridge (1976) agrees, emailing "RE: the arrival of women — I was there when it happened, and have no recollection whatsoever of anything of note!"
The Pembroke Hockey Team of 1982 is infiltrated by a lone female Photo kindly lent by Kate Hall-Tipping (1979)
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It gives me pleasure to have recently endowed a modest prize which takes its name from my deceased uncle (the brother of my mother) John Picot who died almost exactly one year ago. When I was at Pembroke 1966-1969 the world was arguably a little more carefree. While I know, and John Eekelaar may attest, I was not the most assiduous undergraduate in the college or in the university. The only plea in mitigation I can make is that translating Gaius and Justinian from Latin to English was a task I found considerably more difficult than did those of my colleagues who had had a proper Classical education. That said, I was very conscious of what a privilege it was to be an undergraduate at Pembroke and it seemed to me three years at university existed for education in its widest sense. I can remember for example attending a seminar All Souls of all rarefied academies locales where an eminent American political scientist argued with a number of people: including Peter Whalley, a good friend of mine who was the P.P.E. scholar in my year and is now a Professor and head of the Sociology Faculty at the Loyola University in Chicago. We argued about whether the existence of the Common Market, as it then was, meant that the nation state would gradually finish in importance. The topic is still of interest and concern today. I also recall that in those days Dame Helen Gardiner, perhaps the world's leading authority on the poet John Donne, lectured; and I had the good fortune with colleagues of my year to hear John Eekelaar give what I think was the first lecture ever delivered by an Oxford Don on the subject of family law. If memory a charming if slightly serves he made self conscious joke about being a conservative entitled to make jokes about sex.
I owe so much to the college in general and to John Eekelaar (right) in particular. I have a debt of gratitude not readily discharged by the paucity of essays I wrote for him between 1966 and 1969. The Picot prize is open to members of the J.C.R. or the M.C.R. It is not a prize relating to high scholarly achievement in a man or woman's own discipline nor is it a travelling scholarship. Rather in an appropriate case the prizes' funds will be available for any individual who wants to undertake some educational activity not on all fours with the subject or subjects that he or she is currently studying for a first or masters degree in. For example, someone reading chemistry might decide that it would be helpful and useful to have a grasp of the German language. Or a lawyer planning perhaps to specialise in environmental law might wish to undertake a course or attend a seminar to do with environmental matters. These are no more than examples. My aim, if it does not sound too pompous; and pomposity is a prevalent disease amongst male middle aged lawyers (!) my purpose is to try to make a modest contribution to education within a college that I owe so much to in general and to John Eekelaar in particular. I have a debt of gratitude not readily discharged by the paucity of essays I wrote for him between 1966 and 1969. My deceased uncle was, like me, a student at Victoria College, Jersey which has sent a number of people to Pembroke over the centuries. He, in common with about 20,000 Jersey men and women, was occupied by the Germans from May 1940 until May 1945 when the Royal Navy liberated the island. The sea was always very important to John Picot, he wanted to join the Royal Navy but was told he was too old in 1946 but was allowed to join a merchant marine line particularly as one of his cousins had been drowned when the relevant ship of the same line was torpedoed and sunk. I remember him telling me that he spent two or three years going round the Persian Gulf effectively as first mate being in charge of the vessel because his captain had a greater enthusiasm for successive bottles of whiskey than for charts and for navigational aids. Returning to Jersey he joined and eventually became Managing Director of a company called Jaffe & Co. Jaffe had the agency for Martel brandy
and also wine from Bordeaux sold by negociants called Barton and Gustier. In 1971 I took 6 months off from legal studies to go to Bordeaux and do some reading and write a (absolutely appalling) first novel. John effected an introduction to Mr. Ronald Barton who in those days was the owner of the Chateaux Langoa. He was an immensely courteous Irishman and the most delightful of conversationalists. Through his good offices I was able to visit arguably the most famous sweet white wine Chateaux in the world Chateaux Yquem; and even taste some of the precious wine which is more or less the colour but of course not the taste of golden syrup. My successor as J.C.R. President Oz Clarke probably waxes lyrical about this wine. Tragically my uncle's two sons, Nigel and Robert, predeceased him, they were haemophiliacs. I like to feel that in some small way this prize will give pleasure and educational opportunity to current members of the college and perhaps others in future years. I am pretty confident that will be something my uncle would have approved of. Perhaps I may conclude on a light hearted note which is that Picot is a Norman name and I know from the books that when William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in loot he then advanced relatively cautiously on London. Having secured the support of London and having been crowned in Westminster Abbey he then dispatched his Barons to various parts to deal with those of the Saxons who were still being difficult. Perhaps predictably, Cambridge was cutting up rough and a Baron Picot was sent to deal with them. From every point of view it is perhaps appropriate therefore that this prize has been donated to Pembroke College Oxford and not the light blue city... Richard de Ste Croix is the founder of Good Solutions Solicitors (London) and is the Liberal Democrat PPC for the Fareham constituency
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Pembrokian Profil Matthew Stibbe (1988) "You're that computer chappy
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said my neighbour at the dean's dinner early in my first year at Pembroke. I later realised that the distinguished gentleman to my right was, in fact, the dean himself, Godfrey Bond. I was on my best behaviour and a little overawed and I can't remember my stumbling answer. Although I had gone up to Pembroke to read history, lots of people thought of me as 'that computer chappy'. It was an oddity and a virtue that Pembroke allowed me to pursue my career as a computer games designer even while I was studying for my degree. In 1989, when I first arrived, I had a mobile phone. I had an Apple Macintosh. I had a laser printer. Since then, of course, things have changed. Going back for a gaudy this year, my room had a computer network socket. I am a governor at a local nursery school and there are more computers in its classrooms than there were in the whole of Pembroke back in my day (a phrase I never thought I'd use). As for mobile phones: they give them away in packets of cornflakes now. I got started with computers in my year off when I designed a space empire game, called Imperium, in which the player tried to become the ruler of the known universe. It was a natural subject for an eighteen yearold in Thatcher's Britain. Electronic Arts bought the design and I worked with a programmer and an artist during my first eighteen months at Oxford to finish the game. So, just as others joined the Union, enjoyed sports or became actors, I made computer games. However, running a one-man business from my college room caused some odd moments. Persuading British Telecom to install a phone line in my room was like climbing a small mountain. Persuading the bursar to let me have a phone was Everest. The college
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did set some boundaries. While I got permission to go to London to collect a 'young entrepreneur of the year award,' I wasn't allowed to go off to a weeklong conference in Los Angeles during term time. There was the small question of my academic studies and the big question of my lack of progress with them. In my last year I was working on my second game. It was a military and political simulation of the Vietnam War and I was coding it myself for PC and Macintosh. Although I had learned to program during my year off, I was never very good at it. The looming terror of finals was nothing compared to the looming release date that my publishers insisted on. The tyranny of my producer was the worst thing of all. I remember one particularly anxious moment when he kidnapped me and kept me in the company's offices in Surrey for a long weekend while I fixed a number of last-minute bugs. For some reason the North Vietnamese Army kept running for the Cambodian border. With finals just three months away, I wanted to join them. I'm curious about how things work. Designing a historical game is like building a train set. You can move the track around and see what happens to the train. It's an analytical process: deciding the relative importance of different factors and modelling their interrelation over time. For example, in the Vietnam game I had to create a mathematical model which
tracked presidential popularity in relation to success (or otherwise) in the war. It included factors like the level of military commitment, the stability of the South Vietnamese government and cumulative casualty figures. It generally resulted in the player rapidly losing popularity in his second term as war leader. The formula is available to President Bush for a modest fee. When I tried to apply this kind of systems analysis to my history studies it didn't work so well. It gave me a lofty, deterministic view of the past. My essays were overly theoretical; well argued but not grounded in fact. "Please try to include at least one date in your essays," pleaded my tutor. More time in the library would have helped too. Most of my business activities went on behind closed doors. For most people, the `computer chappy' was someone they could turn to when the disc containing their only copy of a PhD thesis was corrupted (this happened twice), when they wanted someone to lay out a magazine on a laser printer (nine issues of Isis, two of Pembroke's magazine) or, more importantly, when they wanted a poster for an MCR toga party. Despite a poor showing in mods and the justifiable concerns of my tutors I somehow managed to bluster my way through finals and got a reasonable degree. Borrowing an idea from Proust about the relationship between smell and memory, I aroma-coded my revision notes. Each subject had a different smell which I applied using pungent aromatherapy oils and a pipette. Putting a drop of the appropriate oil on my cuff during the exam brought all my revision for that subject back to me. To this day, I can't smell bitter orange without thinking of William the Conqueror and the thought of Darwin, Ruskin or William Morris makes me think of lavender. I must be the only person in the world who suffers from historical synaesthesia. Pembroke gave me the remarkable opportunity to create two computer games and gain the experience that would help me start my own 'real' computer games company after I left. However, ten years later I decided that I had had enough of running a business. It had grown to sixty five staff and its size brought a long tail
To this day, I can't smell bitter orange without thinking of William the Conqueror of bureaucracy and aggravation. I realised that dealing with management lawyers, accountants, big media companies and banks all day was not what I wanted to do at all. I simply wasn't having fun. It turned out that the thing I most wanted was what I had had at Oxford: work that was intellectually demanding; personal responsibility for everything I did from start to finish and control over my time so that so that work, hobbies and social life were a pleasant mix not separate compartments. Whether the work was computer sims or history essays, this is how I had lived for three happy years at Pembroke. So I sold my share of the business to my management team in 2000 and, after a sabbatical, I became an accidental journalist when the editor friend of a business magazine asked me to write a couple of articles about the dot.com boom. My journalistic adventure has since taken me to Houston to fly NASA's Space Shuttle simulator, to Stratford-upon-Avon to tread the boards of the RSC's Swan Theatre and to Surrey to visit McLaren's Formula One car factory. I try to write about subjects that fascinate me and this is what unites an otherwise random collection of work. Freelance writing has similarities to college life. There is the weekly round of research and deadlines. The tutorial system is a good model for interviews where my knowledge is minimal and my long-suffering interviewee (or tutor) knows a lot. Instead of my tutor asking for more dates, fact checkers at American magazines want two independently-verifiable sources for every fact or assertion and I'm still fixing people's computer problems, although now I do it through a regular column for Microsoft's website. I used to think that Pembroke just gave me the opportunity to start my own business but since I became a writer and reverted, in some ways, to a student-like existence, I realise that it was more than just a business incubator. The imprint runs deeper. My ambition satiated, I found seeds of curiosity and a template for a different way of life in my memories of Pembroke. Just when I needed it, I rediscovered something valuable and important: my independence. Now all I need is toga parties. Matthew Stibbe writes for Wired, Director and other leading magazines as well as corporate clients including Microsoft and KPMG. He's on the internet at www.stibbe.net.
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The Ups and Downs of Retirement by Dr Zbigniew Pelczynski
Dr. Pelczynski at the Rhodes Scholars' Dinner in July 2003, with Vincent Ham (1974) and Mr. and Mrs. David Finegold (1985) I retired from Pembroke as fellow and lecturer in politics at the end of September 1993. Last September, just over 10 years later, proved to be the highwater mark of my retirement. (so far!) On Tuesday 14th September, in Warsaw, with a throng of alumni, helpers, sponsors and friends - and a few VIPs - I celebrated the 10th anniversary of the School for Young Leaders of Civil Society which I founded, with George Soros's money and Oxford's inspiration, and which is still going strong.The idea was to give very able young Poles a chance to learn most of the skills which Oxford undergraduates learn through college sport, music, theatre, academic clubs, JCRs, the Oxford Union, OUSU and the hundreds of university sport clubs and societies registered with the Proctors. Polish higher education institutions, like their equivalents elsewhere in East-Central Europe, have an excessively academic, narrow character. They are, put unkindly, "degree factories" where all that counts is lectures, seminars, end-of-semester exams and the final MA examination which includes a short thesis (nowadays, alas! increasingly bought from someone else on the internet). I sounded out some universities but they were not in the least interested in supporting a broader, extra-
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curricular, social skills-oriented approach.to education. So I went independent and set up a non-governmental nonprofit organisation of my own called "School for Leaders Association" which delivers leadership courses for public spirited men and women aged 20-27 (recently raised to 35). We run one longish summer school per year and various shorter, introductory or specialist courses. When Poland was applying to join the EU, we went down in age to high-school pupils, hoping to turn into champions of Polish entry. Through a tight programme of training, based on small groups and very interactive and practical, a working day lasting from 7.30 am to 10.30 pm (less a 2-hour lunch break), carried on for at least 14 days, produces in most of them an amazing transformation.They not only learn skills they had little practice in, they become self-confident, ambitious and eager to put their new talents to good social use. (Some go into business, which is fine by me, or into civil service or academia, which is not; neither offers much scope for leadership in Poland.) The main things they learn are the following: project preparation and management, teamwork and leadership, change management and
Global Opportunity Fund to run an "Academy for Practical I founded the School for Democracy and Political Leadership in Ukraine" based in The historic and quite amazing events taking place Young Leaders of Civil Society, Warsaw. in Kiev, where a true Ukrainian civil society is being born with George Soros's money make the SLA hope that our GOF bid will be successful. Incidentally, news has reached us that some of the leading and Oxford's inspiration organisers of Kiev and Lviv demonstrations are alumni of our motivation. negotiations, presentations and public speaking, Oxford-style debating (though not quite up to the Union standard!), PR, promotional campaigns and lobbying, and when an election or referendum is on the horizon - western electioneering techniques. ( A few groups of alumni came to Britain to help in elections and introduced door-to-door canvassing, hitherto unknown and now a standard in Polish elections.) Tom Herman (1971) came one year to lend a hand and organise a US-style presidential campaign in which would-be Bill Clinton thoroughly whacked would-be Senator Dole; Tom was very impressed. So was Tessa Jowell who, still then a promising Labour backbencher, came one summer to take part in a 3-day seminar on British party politics. After the success in Poland came other countries, east and south. In Poland and outside the training was extended to Ukraine, Belarus, Russia/Kaliningrad and Serbia/ Montenegro. (Sadly, no luck with Slovakia and the Baltic states though William Altman (1980), then President of the US-Baltic Foundation, tried to help). We did a count for the 10th anniversary and believe that over 3,000 Poles and othe assorted East-Europeans have benefitted in some way from the School for Leaders' courses. Apart from a token admission fee, the would-be young leaders pay nothing though the cost of a 2-week summer school is about 1,000 GBP. Where has the cash come from? Well, I discovered that I was not only a visionary and organiser, but also quite a good fundraiser. At first things were easy: the initial money came from George Soros's Open Society Institute and the Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw which I helped him set up even before Communism collapsed. Foreign government aid programmes, western embassies and other international foundations helped quite a bit. Then came a down: Poland was perceived a success in transformation, member of NATO and on the way to the EU, and funding began to dry-out. 3-4 years ago I thought I would have to shut up shop, but new sponsors came to the rescue. One of them was Ian ,Cormack (1966) who had put some of his previously fabulous Citibank earnings into a charitable trust and kindly funded 5 scholarships over a most agreeable Kensington dinner. A small British family foundation - Gibson Charitable Trust - which had through me supported Polish scholars in Britain for some time, agreed to switch the sponsorship to young Polish leaders. Then things picked up again: a consortium of prestigious Western firms operating in Poland decided that the School for Leaders was worth supporting and has been doing it steadily. The Prudential has been particularly generous. The year 2005 is looking very promising. The SLA has got funds to organise its 13th Polish summer school, is about to start on a Westminster Foundation for Democracy sponsored school for local community leaders in Belarus, has been promised FCO funding for a second Belarus leaders' school and has just applied for a big grant from the FCO's
late 1990s Ukrainian summer schools. The early years of my involvement in Poland - just before and just after retirement (1989-1993), when democracy was being reborn there - were intellectually challenging but far less successful. For two years I was one of two western advisers attached to the Constitutional Committee of the Polish Sejm (Lower House of Parlaiment). Every second week I flew to Warsaw to attend the Committee's meeting. After an agonizingly slow process, sidetracked by a heated electoral system controversy, the constitutional draft (with a modest input from myself) was ready, but by then the parliament which had commissioned it was so discredited that draft was not even put to the vote. It needed 3 more years and 2 more constitutional committees and a referendum to produce an acceptable document. But at least I came to know the key political players in Poland, both from the Solidarity and the ex-Communist camp. They became welcome speakers at our successive summer schools. In 1992-93 I became the right-hand man of a young ex-opposition politician, head of a public administration office, who had the clear sense of the need to replace the outdated and inappropriate machinery of central government, still essentially Communist though new men were at the helm, with institutions akind to Western democracy. For a year we met regularly and hammered out reforms which (with not a little help from me) often bore a surprising resemblance to Whitehall. I had tremendous fun conducting a virtual PPE seminar on the office of the prime minister, the cabinet secretariat, the structure of ministerial departments, and so on, conscious that all that was for real, not just an intellectual exercise. Alas!, the government of which my boss was a minister was so rickety (7 coalition parties out of some 20 represented in parliament) that it collapsed after less than a year, leaving us stranded with eleven bills, ready to go to parliament for approval, but destined instead for the wastepaper basket. That was the low-point of my retirement, mercifully redeamed in less than one year by the successful founding of the School for Leaders. The successes have had a price: endless trips to the east, carting heavy luggage, hours hanging about Paddington and Heathrow, neglect of the family, the old lovely Cotswolds house and garden which was once meant to be a show-piece. My wife Denise imagined something quite different when I was leaving Pembroke and supposedly settling down in Bartonon-the-Heath. One day, in exasperation, she cried: "This thing has taken hold of you like a monster!" (The "thing" of course was Poland, and Eastern Europe, and helping democracy to take root after 45 years of Communism.) Being a wonderful wife she forgave me in the end, and even has been helping with odds and ends of my work. So has my son Jan without whose computer skills and support I would have been in deep s..t. God bless them both. Zbigniew Pelczynski, Warsaw, 2 November 2004
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The Development Office The tiller is now being held jointly by coDirectors, Angela Gustafsson, graduate of Harvard and Pembroke (2001) and Rob Dauncey, who joined us in June from Oriel. John Barlow (1952) has now assumed a parttime role from home, visiting Pembrokians, assisting with campaigns, developing the legacy programme in the USA, whilst contributing to the production of our regular publications. If you are on email, you may wish to join our email mailing list, to which Joanne Bowley sends news from the College about once a month. Please email Joanne to join.
Contacting the Development Office
Diary Dates All dates correct as of December 2004 but may be subject to change (The Master will be visiting Hong Kong in April 2005, dates to be announced) Friday 1st April
1955 Golden Jubilee
Friday 15th April
Gaudy Years 1991 -3
Thursday 28th April
Media Reception
Friday 29th April
Pembroke Ball (see page 2)
Saturday 28th May
Garden Party
Friday 24th June
Gaudy Years 1985-7
Friday 16th Sept.
Gaudy Years 1994-6
Friday 23rd Sept.
Society Dinner
Rob Dauncey Co-Director of Development Tel: (01865) 276417 Email: Rob.Dauncey@pmb.ox.ac.uk
Saturday 24th Sept.
Angela Gustafsson (Koester) (2001) Co-Director of Development Tel: (01865) 276501 Email: Angela.Gustafsson@pmb.ox.ac.uk
Careers Database and Email Mailing List
Joanne Bowley Development Office Manager Tel: (01865) 276478 Fax: (01865) 276482 Email: Joanne.Bowley@pmb.o x. a c. u k John Barlow (1952) Tel: (01865) 276473 Email: John.Barlow@pmb.ox.ac.uk Write to us at: Development Office Pembroke College Oxford, 1 1DW 1
Pembroke website: www.pmb.ox.ac.uk
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Activity Day
We would like to build up a definitive list of alumni who are happy to be contacted by current students and recent graduates looking for advice about different careers. If you would like to be included, please let us have details of the area of expertise on which you can advise and how you would like to be contacted. We are also planning to set up a Pembroke 'Careers Service' email mailing list. The proposal is that current students and recent graduates could request to be included and would receive emails featuring job opportunities and job profiles, as notified and written by other Pembroke graduates. Of course, for this to succeed we need the interest of both those who would provide the information and those who would receive it. The careers email mailing list will be given a trial run in January.