Cross Keys 2018

The completion of the Perrodo Project The courage of Christopher Maude Chavasse, first Master of St Peter’s Henry Mayr-Harting

Hats off to Roger Allen Our very best wishes to Dr Roger Allen on the eve of his retirement

CROSS KEYS ST PETER’S COLLEGE / 2018

CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

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CROSS KEYS

MARK DAMAZER, CBE MASTER

A WORD FROM

THE MASTER

ST PETER’S COLLEGE / AUTUMN 2018

A word from the Master

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Development news

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Update from the Bursar

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Cover story: The completion of the Perrodo Project

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Feature: European security: Evolving threats and how to respond

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Feature: Afua Hirsch on her new book

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Feature: Jon Earnshaw on mentoring 100 students

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Interview with Max Hill QC

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Feature: Making the Draupner wave

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Feature: An early modern collage: The tragic case of the glued butterfly wings

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A day in the life of Daniel Pugh-Bevan

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College history: An Indian delight

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Feature: The courage of Christopher Maude Chavasse, first Master of St Peter’s

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Sport report

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Graduate seminars

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GSO report

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Music: Candide 33 Music feature: Hats off to Roger Allen

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2018: A year in pictures

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A walk around the quad with Catherine

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The opinions expressed are those of the writers and not necessarily the official views of St Peter’s College, Oxford.

Editor: Kathryn Worthington, Development Communications and Marketing Officer

The Editor thanks all who have contributed and advised on this year’s issue. Please send all feedback to: kathryn.worthington@spc.ox.ac.uk

Printing: Windrush Group Ltd

Design: Windrush Group Ltd

Cover image: Hubert Perrodo Building

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PHOTO CREDITS: St Peter’s College Contents (second from top), pp. 24-27, p. 29 Sam Cornish Contents (third from top), p. 33 Fran Monks p. 7 (top and bottom).

Urszula Soltys pp. 12-13 S. Yan and Q. Ma p. 19 Sarah Casey / CC BY-SA 4.0 p. 21 Courtesy of authors p. 10, p. 15 (right), p. 17, pp. 18-19, p. 30, p. 31, pp. 34-35 All other images: Edmund Blok

The physical transformation of the centre of the college is done, philanthropically funded by the Perrodo family, and this edition of Cross Keys properly dwells on that achievement.

All that remains are for Fellows, staff and students to be able to hear each other in Hall without needing throat lozenges at the end of the evening, or ear trumpets during a Hall meal or event. So the last piece of the project is underway – the installation of acoustic panelling and the renovation of the Hall ceiling, with a change of colour to turtledove, which, I have learnt, is the name of a grey/blue of some sort.

We are taking the opportunity to modernise the lighting and changing a little further some of the iconography.

I will write more about that in the next College Record – but it is good to show all who use the Hall a greater range of those who are associated with St Peter’s.

Hamish de Nett, entering his final year here, reflects in this edition on diversity in Oxford from a different perspective.

Bernstein’s Candide – which was one of the few student productions to be staged at the Playhouse this last academic year. The best students at St Peter’s are great jugglers – managing their time to do many things in addition to their main activity – studying. Emily GerardPearce gives a student’s eye view of how to manage to keep an academic focus while taking advantage of the great range of activities that Oxford can offer.

Two of our most prominent alumni are featured. Sir Julian King writes about security and is guaranteed to be a quiz question (Who was the last British EU Commissioner?), and Max Hill QC is interviewed by one of our law students about his former role as the government’s independent adviser on terrorism. Max has now been appointed Director of Public Prosecutions.

So out of the fire into the fire.

Please enjoy this smorgasbord of St Peter’s life. We are proud of our engagement with alumni and want you to feel part of this vibrant place.

We are a young college, but still have plenty of history to mull over and celebrate. The Chavasse family, who started it all, is recalled through our Emeritus Professor (and former Oxford Regius Professor) Henry Mayr-Harting, who writes about St Peters’ first Master, Christopher Chavasse. Henry himself celebrated 50 years at St Peter’s this summer. Two other Fellows feature, Professors Grootenboer and Adcock, who write about their very different work – a reflection of the college’s academic eclecticism.

We are a little older than Henry and next year we will mark both our 90th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of the admission of women students to the college. I hope many of you will use this as an excuse to come back to New Inn Hall Street and have a look around.

It is apposite that in the year of the retirement of our much loved Music Fellow, Dr Roger Allen, some of his students have written about their production of Leonard

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MONICA POPA DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

DEVELOPMENT

NEWS I wish to extend a big welcome from the St Peter’s Development and Alumni Relations team to all alumni and friends of the college.

Having joined the St Peter’s community in January of this year, I have been the lucky beneficiary of a great warm welcome. This has served as a wonderful introduction to St Peter’s for someone who was only familiar with the college from days as a Lincoln undergraduate, attending tutorials with Dr Henrietta Leyser for the History Special Subject finals paper.

How things have changed since then! The college is virtually unrecognisable since the completion of the Perrodo Project, the redesigned entrance, the landscaping of Linton and Hannington Quads and the brand new Hubert Perrodo Building. The latter has been recognised most recently by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for architectural innovation in combining student accommodation with open study spaces, the seamless blending of interiors and exteriors and the creation of outstanding, previously unseen views of the college from the top floor.

The physical fabric of St Peter’s has been transformed and the beautiful setting provides the perfect backdrop to life in college. As I write this, with Trinity Term in full swing, the grass lawn of Chavasse Quad alternates between an outdoor library extension and the playground for the occasional game of croquet or after-hours ball game. With the students entering exam season, criss-crossing the quads in sub-fusc with white and pink carnations, I am relieved that the days of ‘gobbets’ are far behind and ahead lie challenges of a very different kind.

The main focus for us in the Development Office remains in securing the financial future of the college and enhancing provisions for support so that our students can achieve their best and make the most of their short and intense time here. In this respect, we have you, our alumni, to thank. Year after year you have responded promptly and generously to our appeals whether they have been for student, academic support or simply the college’s areas of greatest need, such as critical building

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Below: View of Chavasse and Hannington Quads from the top of the Hubert Perrodo Building

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Right: Students in the new landscaped Hannington Quad Bottom: View of Castle Hill House from Castle Mound on New Road

Looking ahead to next year, we will be celebrating 90 years since the college’s foundation as well as 40 years since the admission of women undergraduates.

repairs. This year St Peter’s has been ranked 8th out of the 38 Oxford colleges in terms of both our alumni participation and the number of alumni who have made a gift to college. The impact of your generosity is evident in the number of regular donations, your participation in ‘class gifts’ and your willingness to pick up the phone and spend valuable time speaking to one of our students during the annual Telethon. Thank you to each and every one of you!

Looking ahead to next year, we will be celebrating 90 years since the college’s foundation as well as 40 years since the admission of women undergraduates. We are planning an exciting programme of events including a Women’s Gaudy in March and, for the first time, an Alumni Gala Event in September. This has been in response to so many of our alumni returning for their Gaudies who let us know that they wish to celebrate by putting on their dancing shoes! Challenge accepted.

Keep an eye on our website and your inboxes as we will be sending news and updates throughout the year with details of the range of celebrations planned.

Although we are busy planning the 90th Anniversary, this doesn’t mean that we have been less active this year. In fact, 2018 marked two international University alumni events: the first one took place in Rome in March and was followed by the North American Alumni Reunion in San Francisco in April. We are grateful to all of you who attended University and specific St Peter’s events and owe a special thank you to our alumni who hosted us. In Rome, Michele Von Buren (History, 1984) opened the doors of her remarkable modern art gallery to alumni and language students on their year abroad. In New York, Patrick Turner (French, 1978) again extended his incredible generosity by hosting a dinner for alumni and friends. In San Francisco, Sir Michael Moritz (Christ Church) and Ms Harriet Heyman, great friends and benefactors of both the University and the college welcomed an enthusiastic gathering of St Peter’s alumni into their home.

college’s greatest opportunity to provide high standard, affordable student accommodation in central Oxford and will form one of our most ambitious projects to date. The campaign for the redevelopment of the site, which will be launched next year, will require significant philanthropic support to reach the £15 million goal needed for construction. We are confident and hopeful that you will be inspired by the project and support us in our vision to house more of our students in college accommodation for the duration of their years of study.

2018, the college has expanded its foothold in central Oxford with the purchase of Castle Hill House, the former Conservative Association, which is adjacent to Canal House. The redevelopment of the site will be the

I will end here by thanking you once again and I look forward to meeting and working with you in the forthcoming years!

The spirit of St Peter’s, the friendliness and the life-long ties which extend across continents were felt in the ease of new friendships formed and old friendships rekindled.

As we look forward to our 90th Anniversary, a new phase in the college’s expansion begins. As of March

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JAMES GRAHAM BURSAR

UPDATE FROM

THE BURSAR Another full, purposeful and busy year at St Peter’s to reflect on with many of the projects and initiatives described last year progressed or completed, as well as new ones started.

It is also my last as Bursar.

I informed the college’s Governing Body (GB) at the end of Hilary Term that I would leave at the end of December 2018 – a difficult decision after five very interesting, rewarding and enjoyable years at St Peter’s.

The college has achieved much during this time and feels a more confident and purposeful place. It is certainly larger and richer. Since our financial year end in July 2013, the net assets of the college have doubled.

We have acquired new property and land for the first time in decades: the head lease for the 3, 5, 7 New Inn Hall Street properties, and also the freehold of Castle Hill House (the former Conservative Club building and land) on New Road, where we plan to build new student accommodation. The second phase of the Perrodo Project finished on budget and in time for the official opening of the Hubert Perrodo Building by the Chancellor of the

University, Lord Patten on 13 March 2018. We are now enjoying the wonderful summer displays in the Linton, Hannington and Chavasse quads, together with the front garden and entrance to the college.

We are very pleased with the Hubert Perrodo Building and were thrilled to win a 2018 RIBA Regional Award (South of England) for the Building and the project as a whole. We also won a prestigious British Association of Landscaping Industries (BALI) Award for the Phase One landscaping to add to the Oxford Preservation Trust (OPT) Award we had already won. We were also asked to submit Phase Two for the OPT Awards 2018. We would like to extend our profound thanks to the

Below: The Conservative Club on New Road

Opposite page: Completion of the Perrodo Project

Perrodo family for their wonderful generosity and support.

Mound. The relationship between the two will be important.

The 3, 5, 7 New Inn Hall Street properties are held as investments within our endowment, producing rental income. They are adjacent to the Chavasse Building, so in due course, we may review their use with a view to converting them to office space or student rooms (subject to gaining the necessary permissions).

This connection between the main college site and Castle Hill House is also a critical aspect of the design, both physically and in its use and behaviour. Bulwarks Lane will have to be crossed and we have already started conversations with our neighbours, Nuffield College, and with the City Council Planning Department, who share our concerns about security and antisocial behaviour. The project will take some three to four years in total. By the end of December 2018, we plan to have completed the high-level design of the building based on our overall requirements and the findings of the various surveys: topological, archaeological, arboricultural, engineering and so on. By the end of December 2019, we plan to have completed all the design work, the extensive consultations required for this more public building, and to have

Castle Hill House is going to be another very exciting project and will address a strategic aim of the college: to increase the number of students we can accommodate.

We are currently one of only six colleges that cannot house all its second years and we know that this is one of the most important factors prospective applicants consider when choosing their college. We also know that having to enter the tricky waters of the private rental market in Oxford is a stressful experience and one that comes very soon for students in their first year.

been granted planning permission, enabling us to appoint a main contractor for the work. Before we make that critical go/no-go decision we need to have raised sufficient funds through our Development Office, amounting to roughly £7.5m out of a total cost of £15m. The Master, Director of Development, College Accountant and I will be working over the long vacation to redirect the campaign towards this target.

I encourage you to visit the college to see all these fine developments made possible by the Perrodo family, and to visit the website where progress on the Castle Hill House development will be reported.

The architects, Design Engine, won the competition for the Castle Hill House Project. We had strong submissions from four architectural practices but the GB, after a full discussion, felt that Design Engine had again stood out from the field.

As before, the college is looking for a distinctive development which meets our three principal criteria: utility, functionality and aesthetics. Castle Hill House will be a much more visible building than our recent projects and will form an important part of the public realm on New Road, which itself has an increased profile due to the recently opened Westgate shopping centre. The building, like Castle House, will be visible from the road as well as from the Castle

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ST PETER’S COLLEGE, OXFORD: THE HUBERT PERRODO BUILDING RICHARD ROSE-CASEMORE FOUNDING DIRECTOR AT DESIGN ENGINE

The architect’s brief for the Perrodo Project was to help make St Peter’s College a better place to study, teach and live by improving its public spaces and learning environment.

Design Engine’s proposals included the formation of two new and distinct quads: Hannington and Chavasse.

We also proposed a new four-storey pavilion building comprising six new study bedrooms, a roof level seminar room and a ground floor study and event space. The wider Perrodo Project also includes the refurbishment of the three existing seminar spaces in the listed Chavasse Building and improvements to Hannington Hall.

Our aim was to improve the utility, capacity and aesthetics of the college by making the most of the existing buildings and introducing changes which represented both improvement and value for money.

These improvements also benefit the general life and well-being of the college throughout the year, providing flexibility for occasions such as degree days and admissions.

The college was keen to maintain and improve the architectural and design integrity of its existing building stock and to ensure the new interventions have their

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own identity, but also fit into the overall aesthetic, vision and needs of the college. This aim was achieved through the integration of buildings and open spaces through the new landscaping. The landscaping works to the remodelled Hannington and Chavasse Quads sit alongside the earlier Phase One works to Linton Quad, creating a harmonious relationship between buildings and landscape.

A tortuous ramp system previously dominated the Chavasse Quad as a result of a significant level change.

The new ramped access is re-orientated to improve the relationship between the two quads and seating along the ramp provides sunny spots to sit while maintaining privacy to the ground floor of New Building.

The new building is a four-storey pavilion with a setback upper floor to allow for a roof terrace. The height and arrangement of functions are intended to replicate those of the Chavasse Building, with communal spaces on the ground floor opening onto the re-landscaped quad with private study rooms above.

Opposite page: Work on the Hubert Perrodo Building in progress

Below: François Perrodo (Physics, 1996) at the opening of the Hubert Perrodo Building

Below: Students Bottom: The Perrodo enjoying the new study Family at the opening spaces of the Hubert Perrodo Building

Unifying the complexity of the brief within this historic but tight site was an exciting challenge. Working closely with the local planning authorities, we were able to satisfy the planning demands of this beautiful city while maximising the potential of the site. The new building needed a presence of its own while respecting its neighbours.

We hope we have designed a building which is contemporary in nature but which achieves the same richness of façade evident in the surrounding quad.

Overall, we hope to have continued the tradition of quality architecture within St Peter’s College.

RICHARD JAMES, PROJECT ARCHITECT, DESIGN ENGINE

This division in the uses on different floors could present an incoherent façade, but the ‘veil’ or screen applied to the façade helps unify the whole while giving coherence to the different levels. An open filigree of square section ceramic rods make up the primary façade and makes reference to the stone tracery evident in a number of existing buildings on site. The ceramic has a natural finish chosen to match the texture and tone of the stone. The ceramic is layered in front of a bronzecoloured metal cladding which has been chosen to match the colour of the existing brick buildings. The relationship between the two materials changes with each perspective, giving the façade a kinetic quality.

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AN OASIS WITHIN

Opposite page: Linton Quad in the summer

Top right: Students enjoying the sunshine on the Chavasse Quad

Below: Top left: Planting on the Linton Quad

Bottom left and right: students enjoying the new ‘garden room’ in the Hannington Quad

GUILLAUME BALTZ BRADLEY-HOLE SCHOENAICH LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS

LANDSCAPING THE LINTON, HANNINGTON AND CHAVASSE QUADS St Peter’s College commissioned Bradley-Hole Schoenaich Landscape to design green, seasonal and welcoming garden quads. The brief was to create a link between the Hannigton and Chavasse Quads, while making spaces for students and other college members to meet, unwind, smell the flowers and sit on the grass.

Linton Quad is framed by different buildings spanning three different centuries, but the layout by Allies and Morrison Architects has given a sense of unity to the square. After much contemplation and extensive consultation, the college agreed to remove the old tree, while the

students wished to keep as much of the lawn as possible. The resulting work makes the quad appear much larger, letting in the sun and revealing the façade of the Chapel.

Care was taken over the selection of the right stone and the new materials used are rich in colour, texture and contrast. Sand, limestone, gravel and stainless steel provided the ground against which the planting is set in front of the fine buildings.

To ensure continuity, the same materials were used for both the Hannington and Chavasse Quads.

Two new materials were added for the garden space at Hannington Quad: a pale buff brick and a fine natural aggregate. These materials

provide a stable surface for walking, while their porous quality contributes to a sustainable drainage system.

Linton Quad’s lawn is edged with a herbaceous border that shades the scented plants set against the northfacing building. At the Chavasse Quad, the planting needs to fulfil a number of roles, as well as being lush and seasonal. The raised bed on the side of the New Building required a strong planting concept to provide privacy for ground floor bedrooms without obstructing the light. The planting consists of a continuous evergreen base of cloud pruned hebe (a shrub that flowers throughout the summer). We have planted five umbrella-shaped cornelian cherry

trees within the shrubs. Their sculptural arrangement of stems and foliage obscures the ramp. These trees have beautiful bright yellow flowers in the spring, red fruits in late summer, and in autumn beautiful hues of red and orange.

The first tier of the Chavasse Building is covered with climbing hydrangeas, which emphasize the rhythm of the restored arched windows.

The design of Hannington Quad represented more of a challenge.

Buildings that create a curious geometry frame the space: in particular, the staircase tower of New Building, which juts out into the quad. Because of the well-used route between the staircase and the Dining

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Hall entrance, a lawn was unsuitable.

Instead, a calm seating area where students and other college members can meet was decided. Based on this idea, a circular ‘garden room’ has been created, planted with an evergreen yew hedge which encloses a curved stone bench. The ground in this area has been surfaced with a sandy aggregate. This allows air and water to get to the roots of the tree while contrasting with the stone and defining the circular space.

A mature handkerchief tree (davidia involucrata) is planted asymmetrically within the circle providing shade.

It replaces two linden trees, which needed removing as their roots were lifting the old paving and interfering with the drains. The new tree, with its

remarkable handkerchief-like flowers and glorious autumn colour, has been given a much more prominent position, creating a focus for Hannington Quad without obscuring buildings.

A large herbaceous border flanks the northern façade of the Chapel.

It is backed by espalier pear trees, complementing the pleached apple trees on the other side of the Chapel.

The border is planted with only white flower varieties, in contrast to the border in Linton Quad which is more colourful. These bright herbaceous border plants are visible from New Inn Hall Street, from which a glimpse into the college’s courtyard suggests an oasis within.

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EUROPEAN SECURITY: SIR JULIAN KING (PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY, 1982), EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR THE SECURITY UNION, DISCUSSES SECURITY POST-BREXIT

EVOLVING THREATS AND HOW TO RESPOND their attacks simply because the UK has left the EU.

Einstein once said, ‘I never think of the future – it comes soon enough’. Whatever else Brexit might bring, we need to think ahead now about how to keep Europe safe in the face of some serious threats.

In less than a year, I expect to walk out of my Brussels office for the final time as the last European Commissioner from the UK. Britain will move on after 46 years of membership and will forge a new and different path in the world, as indeed will the rest of Europe.

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But I don’t expect to be the last Commissioner for the Security Union.

Following the UK’s exit on 29th March 2019, the threats from terrorism, cyber and serious organised crime will still exist, they will still affect all of us, and they will still be best tackled by working together.

In my view, there is and will be a strong case for finding a way to continue the closest possible cooperation between Britain and the EU on security matters post-Brexit.

For while internal security remains, first and foremost, a national matter for which governments are responsible, our response needs to be joined-up and cross-border. The criminals and malicious actors we face are ruthless and calculating and if they spot a gap in our security, they will move rapidly to exploit it.

They do not care about national borders. They will not stop or alter

And as we consider the future, we must take into account the changing nature of the security threats we face. Cyber attacks are becoming more frequent and more significant in scope and impact. There is a rapid increase in cybercrime, combined with politically-motivated cyber-enabled threats ranging from demonstrations of state power to election manipulation, to the deliberate spreading of disinformation and fake news. At the same time, we have seen the rise of ‘low-tech’ terrorism like vehicle ramming with a series of attacks on public spaces, often fuelled by online terrorist propaganda.

As we consider the future, we must take into account the changing nature of the security threats we face.

We are adapting to the shifting security picture with a reinforced plan to counter chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.

On cyber, we have a comprehensive blueprint to respond rapidly to major cyber-attacks and are putting in place the structures and procedures to back it up.

The EU police agency, Europol, provides significant operational support to those who have suffered attacks; its cybersecurity unit is an internationally recognised centre of excellence.

And we are encouraging the private sector, who own most of the cyber threat surface, to take action to maintain our collective online security.

We have proposed a new cybercertification scheme so that you can know that the digital devices you are buying are ‘cyber secure’, wherever you are within the EU’s single market.

And we are investing in security and cyber research and development.

The EU, working with Member States’ authorities, has taken a number of steps to counter these threats.

We are working with internet companies to get terrorist content taken off their platforms.

We are closing down the space in which terrorists operate, making it harder for them to get access to money, firearms and explosives.

Most recently, we brought forward a set of proposals to tackle disinformation and fake news online, including an EU-wide Code of Practice for online platforms.

We are improving our information sharing systems to support police and border guards in assessing and investigating threats.

We are providing funding, so that local and city authorities can take steps against low-tech terrorism, better protecting public spaces without changing their open character.

Looking ahead, I can see five trends in the way we work collectively on these issues which will continue and develop into the future.

First, I think we will continue to see greater pooling of resources and expertise at EU level, given the complexity of some of the challenges we face. Our European agencies, such as Europol, will play a key role here in supporting the work of

Member States and helping to plug some of the gaps.

Second, we will continue to see more frequent and systematic sharing of information to help security agencies and the police in their work. All those involved in fighting these threats know this is key.

Besides encouraging such information sharing, we must provide the IT infrastructure to enable it. Last December, we put forward proposals to make our EU-wide information systems for security, border and migration interoperable. That is to make sure police and border guards have the information they need, when they need it, in order to do their jobs better.

The third trend is a new way of working with strengthened cooperation across all levels: local, regional, national and European; but also between policymakers, researchers and frontline practitioners.

Take the challenge of countering radicalisation in Europe. This problem cannot be tackled by governments alone. Much of the most effective work is done at the local level, by teachers, social services and probation officers. The EU can offer support by fostering the exchange of best practice and lessons learned, and by funding such cooperation.

Likewise, when it comes to protecting public spaces, it is national, local or city authorities who best know the situation on the ground and how to keep their citizens safe. But the EU can support, help them cooperate, and share the best examples of what works well, for example, by bringing together representatives from all these levels, as we did for the first time in March.

Opposite page: Sir Julian King

Fourth, we need to invest in research to stay ahead of those looking to attack us. Since 2007, the EU has provided some €2.2 billion for over 400 projects, representing around 50% of public funding for security research.

A further €1 billion will be spent on security research from 2018 to 2020 under the Horizon 2020 work programme. On cybersecurity, we are also working with the private sector in a €1.8 billion partnership to develop new technology – a partnership which we intend to extend and develop. We will also soon be launching a network of national European research and competence centres, with a European centre as a hub to help drive research and develop new cybersecurity technologies.

And fifth, we need to make sure the EU continues to provide the right framework, as well as the tools, to support national authorities in their work to keep citizens safe. We need effective ways to cooperate with our current and future partners outside the EU, recognising that there is a shared self-interest in the closest possible cooperation against common threats, whether that is terrorism, cyber or serious organised crime.

How the UK plays into all of this post-Brexit will need to be worked through. However, security and safety will remain a top priority for citizens all across Europe. As someone said, the UK is leaving the EU, not Europe. We will all still face the same threats – and we will still be stronger countering them by working together.

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BRIT(ISH) AFUA HIRSCH (PPE, 1997) ON RACE, IDENTITY, BELONGING, AND HER NEW BOOK

It all began for me, you could say, in 1944, the year my grandfather, the son of a cocoa farmer from a village in Ghana, arrived as an undergraduate at Cambridge.

He was one of a handful of Africans, selected from each British colony, to receive an Oxbridge education, intended to prepare him to return to the Gold Coast, as it then was, as an administrator in the British colonial system of indirect rule.

Letters my grandfather sent to his college, still held in the archive, reveal his love of literature, his joy at being able to experience new sports, like hockey and swimming, but also the cultural shock of arriving in wartime England, autumnal chills setting in. And, most poignantly for me, his correspondence reveals the pressure he felt, and a sense that, were he to fall short in his own academic performance, it would cast a shadow not just on his family, his village or even his country, but the ability of his entire race.

‘I will always cherish pleasant memories of the College, its dons and its beautiful surroundings,’ he wrote, in a final farewell to his college, after what he felt were disappointing results in his finals. ‘I am looking forward to the time when some of my pupils will come up and redeem the good name of Africa.’

My grandfather’s words resonated with me because, while my life would have been unrecognisable to the young undergraduate of 1944, the pressures I have often felt are hauntingly similar. Our approach to diversity in Britain is such that,

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as a person of colour, my role (in current affairs TV debates, for example) is often to be the token representative of all that is not white, male, heterosexual or able bodied (I only fulfil two of these criteria, which is apparently enough).

One’s presence is questioned (how did you get the job here, anyway?

I have been asked, with some surprise, at every workplace I have entered), one’s mistakes highly visible. Proof that this brave new world of multiculturalism, diversity, and ‘BAME‘ opportunities is working out, it so often feels, depends on the success or failure of each of my performances.

I wrote my book Brit(ish) to unpick experiences I have lived but often struggled to find the language or framework to understand and analyse. As someone born in 1981, making me a millennial by just a few months, racism and prejudice has not manifested in violent threats and overt discrimination in my lifetime, as it has for so many people from visible minorities born just a decade earlier. I have lived, as the academic Edward De Bonilla has called it, in the ‘era of ‘racism without racists’, of ‘colour-blind racism’, of ‘racism with a smiling face’.

But racism with a smiling face, and colour-blind racism, is the story of my life. I remember very clearly a warm autumn day, sitting under the shade of a horse chestnut tree, baked by the long weeks of the summer holiday, with my school friends, aged fourteen. One girl looked at me, a slight tone of pity in her voice, and said, ‘Don’t worry,

Af, we don’t see you as black.’ The others concurred. I remember their faces; kind, accommodating, distancing themselves proudly from any possibility that they could be accused of being racist, and at the same time willing to overlook the problem my very existence created.

This act of kindness is one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to me. It taught me that being black is bad. It taught me that seeing race has sinister consequences. It implied that with recognition, racism inevitably follows.

So much so, it’s better to pretend there are no black people at all.

It ‘othered’ me out of blackness, a denial, on the condition that I abandoned any attempt to be proud of my black heritage, to forge any sense of community with those who shared its history and culture. It felt like my friends were erasing my very identity, all the while claiming to be doing me a favour.

I relive this experience every single time someone tells me that they do not see race. ‘I don’t see race’ has become a popular claim among often well-intentioned people, who wish to distance themselves from a history of racial prejudice – a history which almost everyone in mainstream society condemns. It’s a laudable sentiment, but deeply flawed for two reasons.

The first is that it mischaracterises perceptions of race as a personal choice so that one can either choose to or choose not to be racist. People who choose to be racist exist.

Almost all of us condemn them. But

I wrote my book Brit(ish) to unpick experiences I have lived but often struggled to find the language or framework to understand and analyse.

race as I describe it is not a set of personal characteristics. Instead, it is a system, profoundly embedded in British history, with intergenerational implications for opportunity, advantage and access to resources, which remain highly significant today.

Closely related is the second problem with ‘not seeing race’.

Choosing not to see does nothing to address those historic patterns.

It reflects a decision to simply close one’s eyes to a reality that objectively exists. It is like saying ‘I don’t see history’, ‘I don’t see culture’, or ‘I don’t see injustice’ – the appeal of which is obvious, as are the consequences.

I am not a historian. I am a student of contemporary Britain. It’s a society whose intransigence is hard to understand without first painting a picture of the erasure that has become our common normality. We choose not to acknowledge the role of the transatlantic slave trade in forming British identities, industries, multiculturalism, and even food tastes today. We prefer instead to celebrate this trade’s abolition, which remains a frequent source of selfcongratulation.

The tendency to take the easy path, and avoid the more painful yet essential questions about Britain past, present and future, has created, I argue, fragility.

British identities are struggling to withstand the realities of globalised flows of labour and capital. British political debate is failing to resist the pull of populist rhetoric that harnesses resentment towards visible minorities as a scapegoat for far more complex failures of government policy. British institutions are even struggling to treat British people with basic humanity and due process – as the recent Windrush scandal so devastatingly revealed.

Brit(ish) addresses these questions of identity. I wrote it because of patterns I witnessed in my professional experience as a barrister, a journalist and a writer, that I found impossible to ignore.

But I also wrote it because when I was a child, I knew nothing of race, of British history, of the baggage that surrounds our view of heritage and identity, yet this baggage found me: in the way people saw me, in the questions they asked me, and ultimately, in a reluctance to claim the British identity that logically should have been my own. I sought to understand these phenomena so that I could make sense of my own life. In doing so, I hope to have started a wider conversation that is long overdue.

We avoid a frank discussion about the British Empire, the ideology that underpinned it, the consequence of that ideology, the education system, propaganda and censorship that accompanied it, on generations who are still alive today.

Instead, we prefer to celebrate the Commonwealth, replete with euphemisms about a ‘shared history’ with countries that were subjugated

by Britain on the basis, in many cases, of their supposed racial or cultural inferiority.

CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

13

Below: A cake to celebrate the 100th student coaching session

MENTORING 100 STUDENTS

JON EARNSHAW (GEOLOGY, 1979) ON GIVING BACK BY HELPING CURRENT STUDENTS DECIDE WHAT TO DO NEXT

Your phone rings, you answer, and at the other end is a student from St Peter’s College: ‘Hello.

Thank you for offering to talk to me about your work. I really appreciate it.’

In 2015, following a career change, I decided I wanted to give something back to St Peter’s. In my previous job, I was responsible for building capability for the finance organisation in BP’s Upstream Business. Part of my role involved recruiting students and supporting them to develop throughout their careers. I particularly enjoyed coaching individuals. This included helping them clarify what they wanted in their career, but also to understand the needs of the organisation and the opportunities that exist.

Students are faced with significant career decisions during the relatively short time spent at university.

Should they continue in academia? Should they go into

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business? If so, what type of business? There is pressure from friends, family, tutors and employers which can be motivating, but also confusing. This is an area where I have both the skills and experience which could be beneficial, so I contacted the Development Team at St Peter’s.

At that time, the JCR Business Society were trying to build a connection with alumni to inspire and assist current students in their career aspirations. When I offered to run a career coaching day with one-hour slots, they were enthusiastic. We were surprised at the level of demand for this initial offering, so we expanded the first session to cover 12 students over two days. The feedback given by students from the sessions has been overwhelmingly positive, so I have continued providing two days of coaching each term. Demand continues to be strong and the sessions book up within 30 minutes of becoming available. We celebrated the 100th student coaching session last term with a cake provided by the Development Team.

The confidential sessions are one-to-one, for one hour.

The content is defined by the student. Sometimes they

are clear about what they want to discuss, such as help with preparation of an application. But it is more common that they are not. I have heard the phrase ‘I don’t know what I want to do next’ more than once.

I am not a careers adviser. Instead, the purpose of the coaching sessions I provide is to help the individual to work out what is important to them, to clarify their objectives, and work out how they can make progress.

My goal is to help the individual to get to a better place by the end of the session and to achieve that by using a coaching approach, by listening and asking questions.

A recurring theme during the sessions is a need to find out more about particular jobs or careers. Students frequently say, ‘I’m interested in this, but I’d like to know more about it.’ If the students could access the knowledge held by alumni, one conversation with someone familiar in that area could make a difference and help them to move forward.

St Peter’s alumni are active in many areas of business and academia and collectively possess knowledge covering a fantastic range of work experiences. Are you willing to share your experiences to help a student decide what to do next?

If you are prepared to have a conversation with a St Peter’s student about your work, please contact the Development Office. There is no expectation on either side that the conversation would have any subsequent follow-up or commitment. The Development Office keeps a list of alumni who have offered to participate, and they manage the link between the alumni and students.

E: development.office@spc.ox.ac.uk

Students are faced with significant career decisions during the relatively short time spent at university. Should they continue in academia? Should they go into business? If so, what type of business? There is pressure from friends, family, tutors and employers which can be motivating, but also confusing.

This is an area where I have both the skills and experience which could be beneficial, so I contacted the Development Team at St Peter’s.

CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

15

IN CONVERSATION WITH:

MAX HILL QC THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

KATHRYN MCALLISTER (JURISPRUDENCE, 2016) DISCUSSES TERRORISM LEGISLATION, A CAREER IN LAW AND AN APPEARANCE ON CHANNEL 4’S THE TRIAL WITH FELLOW PETERITE MAX HILL QC (JURISPRUDENCE, 1983)

 Describe the state of UK terrorism legislation.

Our terrorism legislation by-andlarge is fit for purpose, relevant, and practical. Although we have a number of new terrorism offences passed by Parliament since 2000, anyone who practises in this area knows general crime statutes and common law offences are just as useful in prosecuting terrorist cases as the bespoke new legislation. There is a mixture of solutions available to prosecutors, and it is important to use them all. Parliament should not rush to legislate every time something happens.

 Legislation such as the Investigatory Powers Act (commonly known as ‘The Snooper’s Charter’) has been a source of controversy. Do you think this makes the UK a world leader, or is it a major cause for concern?

I would say the UK currently is a leader within the European Union on the imperative of maintaining national security, balanced by the need to uphold the fundamental rights of every citizen. The UK is also a leader worldwide in applying those twin principles. Partly through our comparatively long experience of terrorism, we now have an intelligence and security framework that always strives to come up with new solutions. There has been considerable criticism of the Investigatory Powers Act and there are ongoing difficulties in implementing the new regime.

They will continue to play out through

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our appellate courts and through the European Court. But I don’t subscribe to the notion the UK has suddenly gone too far. I think the Investigatory Powers regime comes from an understandable place but has not yet fully developed in terms of the early jurisprudence defining its terms. To a degree, we will have to wait and see where we are in a year or two’s time.

 We have recently seen individuals such as Lauren Southern banned from the UK under terrorism legislation for handing out leaflets reading ‘Allah is gay’ and ‘Allah is trans’ in Luton. Whatever the motive, what do you think of this decision?

The use of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (which provides specific powers to stop, question, search, and if necessary, detain a person at ports, airports and international railway stations) is inevitably prone to intense discussion and scrutiny. The Southern case is one of many examples. However, its use must always be necessary and proportionate. Given it is part of our terrorism legislation, it must relate only to cases correctly so described.

I have agreed to look at the Southern case to analyse what happened. If it transpires this was an inappropriate use of the Schedule 7 legislation, I will say so, but I have not reached that conclusion yet. Where Schedule 7 has its purpose in dealing with the risk of international terrorism, and in particular so-called Islamist terrorism, it also applies in non-Islamist cases.

That includes far and extreme right wing ideology-based cases.

 The balance between national security and freedom of speech and privacy is immeasurably difficult to draw. In which direction do you see the UK moving in future years?

I hope the UK maintains a steady balance between security and rights. The crop of terrorist attacks throughout 2017 has made terrorism a more newsworthy subject than anything else, with the exception of Brexit. Intense scrutiny follows, and where there is heightened emotion, there is a temptation to legislate out of a perceived problem. Where we would fall into error, in my view, is by impeding online communications to such an extent it can no longer be said that every citizen has a right to communicate in private and in public.

 There appears to be a question mark over whether we need special legislation to combat terrorism.

What are your thoughts?

If like me, you’re one of the few people who has routinely prosecuted terrorism cases at all levels, you appreciate how far-sighted Parliament has been in coming up with apt descriptions for core criminal activity. Just because in a modern era there are new names for groups who perpetrate terrorism, or new communication methods for the way they go about their criminal activity, it does not follow that you need to take a blank sheet and legislate all over again. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Occasionally, there is a new spoke in the wheel which requires fresh legislation.

 In your research for the ‘Building Bridges’ report, you spoke to numerous members of the Muslim community to gauge their perceptions of terrorism legislation in the UK. What did you learn from this experience?

The first lesson was how important it is for someone like me to get out from behind the desk in London and be prepared to go around the country. I found once people appreciated that I am neither a government minister nor a police officer, they were willing to speak and share their views. It is important to point out that when I hold meetings, it represents engagement without necessarily meaning endorsement.

The dynamic is slightly different for someone who is employed within government. Although I am sometimes criticised for meeting with individuals or organisations whom the government would not meet, or who in certain sections of the media are regarded as being ‘extremist’, if you don’t show up to listen, you are unlikely to learn.

 Do you have any particular career highlights as a barrister?

Upon leaving St. Peter’s in 1986, I knew I wanted to be an advocate.

I also knew if I was going to be a professional lawyer, it would be in the field of criminal law. But I had no expectation the last thirty years would have been spent doing the casework that came my way. Looking back, I have worked on many major cases. I will never forget the legal proceedings around the London bombings of 7th July 2005 and also acting as the Lead Counsel for the Metropolitan Police throughout the 7/7 inquests. Equally, the eventual successful prosecution of Damilola Taylor’s killers will never leave me. There have been other cases involving, for example, the Real IRA mainland campaign in 2001, the ricin conspiracy in 2003, the Al-Qaeda-era cases, and the so-called Islamic State cases. It has been a great surprise and a matter of luck I have been able to do them all.

 Last year you appeared in Channel 4’s documentary The Trial as Lead Counsel for the prosecution. Did this experience teach you anything about juries you did not already know?

I hesitated for a long time before agreeing to go on camera. But the fact that the project involved a real effort to represent Crown Court proceedings accurately was an encouragement. The filming was conducted straight through, completed within nine days, with no second takes, no rehearsal, no script, and no access to the jury.

Most importantly, the fact the jury were real people, not celebrities or actors, and the programme makers were going to record their every move and discussion within their jury room, gave an unprecedented opportunity for me, as well as the viewer, to understand how evidence and witnesses impact on a real jury.

 In the show, the jury was hung.

However, the viewers were told that in the fictional case, the defendant was actually guilty. Given the jury were not sure enough to convict, do you think their decision was desirable to the public?

Had I been on that jury, I would probably have either acquitted or been unable to decide. People have come up to me since the series was screened to say their own ability to serve on a jury has been cast into doubt. That is a shame because there are cases where the ‘right answer’ is not clear from the evidence presented in court. Where I parted company with the film makers was in their decision to then screen the ‘true outcome’ in a final episode. That never happens in a real scenario.

I and the other legal professionals

were concerned that this would place the jury in an invidious position, having been shown to be either right or wrong according to how they voted on camera in the jury room. To our disquiet, social media during the screening demonstrated considerable hostility to individual jurors, which I thought to be extremely unfair. It seemed to me that they did their best based on the evidence presented to them.

Ultimately, you can ask no more of someone serving on a jury.

 You graduated from St. Peter’s in 1986. Is there anything which makes you particularly proud to be an alumnus of the college?

Many things! Being awarded a scholarship to read law still ranks as arguably my best academic achievement. Going to somewhere like St. Peter’s, when neither of my parents even went to university, was really quite something. On arrival in 1983, the welcome from the college and the students who became my friends was like coming home. The proof of that is I still have a circle of friends, not all of them lawyers, which I made in the 1980s. But why St. Peter’s rather than any other college?

The atmosphere, the friendliness and support that came from the community, really sets you up for adult life. I am grateful to St. Peter’s for all of that, and also grateful to Peter Haywood who was the Tutor in Jurisprudence. He was very accommodating towards a student who was confident law was the right subject, but who also intended to have the best time possible in three years. As I am sure my fellow lawyers in those years would confirm, there was a lot of hard play as well as just a little hard work!

CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

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MAKING THE DRAUPNER WAVE

Figure 1: The Draupner Platform in the North Sea. The structure is a light jacket which has minimal impact on the waves measured Figure 2: The Draupner Wave and surrounding wave. Raw data as measured from the Draupner platform

PROFESSOR THOMAS ADCOCK TUTOR IN ENGINEERING SCIENCE

The ocean covers 70% of the Earth’s surface. Humans want to use this space. We want to move things across it; put platforms in it; live next to it, but not let it flood us; use it for renewable energy; extract hydrocarbons and precious metals from it; and many other things. From an engineering perspective, the key issue is that it is an extremely hostile environment. It is the job of ‘metocean’ engineers to understand this environment so that we can make the right design choices. In many parts of the ocean, loading from waves is the dominant environmental load (by ’waves’ I mean waves generated by wind, not tsunamis). There are continual disputes about the largest measured wave, but in locations such as ‘West of Shetland’, the waves we design our structures for, are typically larger than 35m – comfortably higher than any building in St Peter’s.

One area of my work is understanding what are sometimes called ‘freak’ or ‘rogue’ waves. These are waves that are much bigger than the waves which surround them. For example, we would normally think of a 10m wave where most waves are 2m as a ‘freak’. A 35m wave where most waves are 25m on the other hand would not be. There are a lot of unhelpful definitions of these in the literature. Taking the usual definition of a ‘freak wave’ we would, if our standard models are correct, expect to see one about once every couple of hours. Clearly, this frequent occurrence is not very ‘freakish’.

Therefore, I prefer to think of a ‘freak’ wave’ as one which does not fit our standard models.

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Fig. 1

THE DRAUPNER WAVE On 1 January 1995, there was a severe (but not unusual) storm raging in the North Sea. The height of the water was measured by a downward pointing laser at the Draupner platform (Figure 1). At a little past 3pm, the time series shown in Figure 2 was observed. We believe this is a high-quality observation due to the occurrence of minor damage to the underside of the platform. Clearly, a very large wave had caused this damage.

There is no need to point out where in the time series the wave that interests us is. The Draupner wave (or New Year wave) was 25.6m high, and its crest was 18.6m above the mean water level. A wave this big is expected about once every five years at this location. The interesting thing was that it occurred in a sea state where most of the waves are much smaller. Our models predict that a wave of this type occurs less than once in every 10 waves. But while it is interesting statistically, we cannot really say much from just one wave.

However, the measurement has some very odd features. The first is to do with wave breaking. Most of us are familiar with waves breaking near the seashore, but waves also break offshore. If this were a ‘normal’ wave, it would have been too steep to exist. Instead, like other waves, it would have broken. The other odd feature is more technical. The waves in the ocean have a whole range of frequencies. If we have just two frequencies, the waves interact with each other, producing another wave at a frequency that is the difference between the two. Importantly, the size of the wave is dependent on the direction in which the two interacting frequencies are travelling in.

If we make the assumption that most of the energy is travelling in one main direction, then we predict the low-frequency waves during the Draupner time series to be as shown by the red line in Figure 3.

Aside from the giant wave, this is a reasonable argument. However, with the big wave, our prediction looks completely wrong. This theory predicts a decrease in the water level, whereas what we have is an increase.

Thus as well as being a statistical outlier, the Draupner wave has some features that our standard models are getting wrong. This corresponds with my understanding of what a ‘freak’ wave should be.

Fig. 2

Figure 3: Low passed filtered data from the Draupner event. The giant wave occurred at time t = 0. Red is a low pass filtered prediction of what the waves should have been assuming the energy had a standard deviation of 20° around a mean wave direction (i.e. mostly going in the same direction)

Figure 4: Top: initial conditions for numerical simulations of crossing sea case. Bottom: our numerical recreation of the Draupner wave Figure 5: The FloWave basin in Edinburgh doing its `party-piece’ of ring a jet of water straight up into the air

This was certainly the closest thing I have had to a ‘eureka moment’ in my career.

Fig. 3

There has been a lot of interest in the Draupner wave since it came to the public’s attention. It is mentioned in hundreds if not thousands of papers, many solely discussing the 20 minute record shown in Figure 2. Scientists are curious about such events, while engineers worry that there is something we are missing that could eventually lead to the loss of an oil platform.

CROSSING WAVES THEORY I always encourage my graduate students to look at videos of waves on YouTube. One evening I came across a video from The Deadliest Catch, a documentary television series. It shows a large fishing ship off Alaska in a storm. The ship is travelling head-on into the waves (the standard procedure) when suddenly a wave strikes the ship from a completely different direction.

This got me thinking: what would be the consequence if this was how the Draupner wave had formed? Could it have formed by a wave travelling in a completely different direction to all the others?

The above thoughts and calculations took a couple of hours. It took a lot longer to find supporting evidence and convincing the community is still a work in progress.

MAKING THE WAVE Although I and my Oxford colleagues believed my simple calculations were correct, to convince the world, we needed more evidence. We first turned to friends at City University in London, Dr Shiqiang Yan and Professor Qingwei Ma, who have a high fidelity numerical model which can simulate very steep waves.

We worked with them to do some simulations which confirmed my predictions. Figure 4 shows one of the simulations when the energy was mainly going in one direction.

Numerical simulations are extremely valuable but we also wanted to make the wave with real water.

To do this we went to the FloWave facility at the University of Edinburgh (see Figure 5). This round facility was ideal for making waves travelling in multiple directions. Again we found

Fig. 4 that we could not make a wave big enough when all the energy was going in one direction.

DISCUSSION We will never know for sure what happened at the Draupner platform on 1 January 1995 but there is a lot of evidence that it occurred as the result of two waves, which were going in different directions, colliding.

The loads measured on the platform also seem to support this hypothesis.

But even if we accept the hypothesis that the wave was the result of two waves with very different directions, questions remain. Why would you get just one wave going in a completely different direction to all the others?

This is what seemed to hit the fishing boat off Alaska and mariners tell tales of such things. Nothing in our current understanding of wave physics would explain why this would happen and ultimately allow us to be able to predict when and where such events are likely.

A little maths and I realised that this would explain the set-up that was observed. If the energy is going in very different directions, the lowfrequency waves predicted are positive, not negative. Further, waves can be steeper if the wave is the sum of two waves going in different directions. Therefore, we can make bigger waves without them breaking.

Fig. 5 CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

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AN EARLY MODERN COLLAGE: THE TRAGIC CASE OF THE GLUED BUTTERFLY WINGS

Opposite page: Elias van den Broeck’s painting hangs in the Still Life Room at the Ashmolean Museum

Below: Ashmolean Museum Entrance

Van den Broeck’s style of rendering insects and animals is simply magnificent. reinforced by the reflection of light on the tip of the prickly thorns. Yet for all its virtuosity, this image does not reveal at first sight Van den Broeck’s most innovative and breathtakingly original gesture. By means of a finishing touch, he glued butterfly wings to his canvas, deliberately blending the pictorial with the real, a move that would only be equalled in 20th century cubist collage.

DR HANNEKE GROOTENBOER, FELLOW OF ST PETER’S COLLEGE, IS PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ART. HERE SHE TELLS US OF A PAINTING THAT CAUGHT HER EYE IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

In the Still Life Room in the Ashmolean Museum hangs an image of a nocturnal nature scene. The artist is the Dutch painter Elias van den Broeck.

His painting depicts a snake with jaws open, slithering from behind a large thistle to devour a grasshopper, while a mouse hides near some mushrooms, snails slowly leave a silvery path, and moths flutter around the thistle’s flower.

Probably painted in the 1690s, the painting carries the false signature of the famous forest painter Rachel Ruysch. The work, Still Life with Snake, is a pictorial tour-de-force: the pregnant moment of the snake as he is about to strike is dramatically lit as though by the flashlight of a 1950s camera. Evidently, this scenario has been entirely dreamt up by Van den Broeck. He may have observed many of the creatures in the flesh (perhaps creeping through the woods in the night’s darkest hours carrying a lantern), but had almost certainly never witnessed the scene he created.

This brilliant idea cost Van den Broeck his reputation.

The councillors of his native city of Antwerp, having discovered this bizarre merging of the real with the painted, accused him of cheating. After all, parts of the scene ‘in’ the painting had not been painted by his hand. This was, apparently, unforgivable. The argument was made in Van den Broeck’s favour that real butterfly wings more accurately show their typical patterns, and that they would survive any painted ones.

The last part of the argument proved to be untrue by the painting itself. Having turned to dust, the only thing left of the delicate butterfly wings are pale spots on the canvas. The councillors remained unmoved, and Van den Broeck was forced to leave the city. He never fully recovered from his brilliant streak. Starting anew in Amsterdam as a foreigner, he quarrelled with a generous patron who got so fed up with him that he could no longer bear the sight of his forest pieces. Although the patron had paid a steep price for the paintings, out of frustration he sold them to collectors for next to nothing.

Van den Broeck’s market value crashed so spectacularly that he lost the will to live, and ended his days by sitting in his flower garden staring at darting butterflies (or so I like to imagine). Looking closely at his forest piece today, I cannot help but hear the fluttering sound of the lost wings carrying the butterflies in their journey towards the light.

Van den Broeck’s style of rendering insects and animals is simply magnificent. The species presented here are all meticulously painted in extreme detail as if he carefully studied them under a magnifying glass. The waxy leaves of the thistle show how they might feel, a tactility further

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CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

21

ST PETER’S COLLEGE:

Opposite page: Open day for prospective students, June 2018

Below: Daniel speaking at the St Peter's College Foundation School Ambassador Project Launch

Diversity among applicants has increased since regional provision began.

A HOME FOR ALL

to challenge some of the deepseated myths associated with Oxford.

We know everybody involved wants the best for young people. However, it is easy to forget that the seemingly unreachable Oxford is not at the top of the agenda for schools with Ofsted banging at the door, where attendance is below the national average, and where the crisis of retaining teaching staff looms.

DANIEL PUGH-BEVAN (MUSIC, 2013), A FORMER ST PETER’S STUDENT, GIVES AN INSIGHT INTO OUTREACH AND HIS ROLE AS SCHOOLS LIAISON OFFICER

Before graduating from St Peter’s, I attended a comprehensive school in a decaying seaside town in South Wales. I literally stumbled across St Peter’s, having visited Oxford a few times with my parents.

Waltham Forest. This sensible way of working was created so that every single school in the United Kingdom is provided with a direct link to an Oxford College. Very few universities attempt to deliver support that covers the breadth of the country.

It was a lucky find. Until then, Oxford had seemed to me to be all of the things I now battle daily.

Over a number of years, the college has aimed to provide enrichment activities that teachers believe their pupils will benefit from the most.

This ranges from question and answer panels with current or former students, to large-scale events involving academic staff. Where it can, the college also provides support across the regions we work in. In recent years, the college and University have embraced

Since 2010, each college has worked with specific regions in the UK to reach out to those less likely to apply and encourage them to consider Oxford. St Peter’s has regional responsibility for working with the young people of Enfield, the Isle of Man, Merseyside, North Wales, and

technological advances to engage with young people at a distance.

Diversity among applicants has increased since regional provision began. Progress has been steady, but slow. Significant changes in national policy, the cost of living and of transport, and a rise in unconditional offers from other universities have all affected the increase.

The rise in the number of unconditional offers made by other universities has had an interesting effect on how talented young people make decisions about their destination beyond school. When a university makes unconditional

offers on a large scale, it can cause a decrease in attainment in the nearby local authority Unconditional offers can mean offer holders spend their time in school without the pressure of attaining their examinations because entrance requirements do not exist for them. In addition, many of the young people receiving such offers decide to take them because a local university enables a young person to live at home while studying.

We are living within an age where the independence granted by a university education is being lost because of the costs of tuition fees and the cost of living in some areas of the UK, particularly the South East.

I believe we need to cultivate a better relationship with teachers before we see real change at Oxford.

The Sutton Trust reports that 43% of teachers in state schools would rarely or never advise their bright students to apply to Oxford or Cambridge University (The Sutton Trust, 2016).

Of the teachers who indirectly discourage applications to Oxford, a large majority believe their pupils wouldn’t ‘fit in’ or their students

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are not talented enough to make a competitive application. Teachers interact more with talented young people than the University does.

Therefore, we need to challenge misconceptions about Oxford headon so those who influence these views are able to advise effectively.

St Peter’s College is among the first in Oxford to pilot different ways of indirectly working with young people by targeting their teachers. Thanks to the support of the St Peter’s College Foundation, we have piloted a scheme which pairs teachers from across England with the college’s academics. The aim is to give teachers an opportunity to return to their area of expertise, and for both the college and the schools to better understand each other.

One teacher participating in the scheme has said of it: ‘My subject knowledge, and therefore my teaching has improved. I have recognised students with the potential to study at Oxford and have had positive discussions with them about working toward this goal.’

There is no doubt that much more can be done directly with young people. But our first step is to ensure our work is not undone once they leave our outreach sessions.

Teachers need reassurance that they can support their brightest students, knowing they will be directing them towards a supportive and enriching environment. It is our job to ensure the message is heard.

Teachers regularly tell me that they are not resourced to support their high achievers with preparation for admissions tests and academic interviews. This year, in the run-up to the admissions deadline, we will work with three groups of young people to develop a programme of work which will support them. I am very grateful that this programme has been made possible through a donation from a former student of St Peter’s College.

I can’t think of another college that is working with students in this way. We can truly say that this outreach work is innovative and daring.

From my own experience as a student at St Peter’s, to find a part of Oxford where you are nurtured at face value and encouraged to succeed is a wonderful thing. To now be part of making that mission more public has been its own reward.

By engaging further with teachers, we want to become better equipped CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

23

Below: Ceremonial Cover (Rumal) — Ten Avatars of Vishnu (Dasavataras)

Next page: Reference letter by Sir Maurice Hallett

As College Archivist, I spend a lot of time, as you might expect, dealing with paper and digital files that spend their days either in specially designed acid free boxes or on the college’s network of servers.

AN INDIAN DELIGHT

But one aspect of my job that gets me away from such things, and out of my office into all corners of St Peter’s, is the conservation, cataloguing and display of the works of art that adorn the college’s walls and rooms.

Like all Oxford colleges, St Peter’s is home to a surprisingly diverse range of artworks. We may not be able to lay claim to such oddities as Merton’s huge jasper vase given by Tsar Alexander I, or to a 15m long history of the college in abstract glass, such as the one recently installed at St John’s, but there are some treasures which help make St Peter’s a truly special place to study, live and work.

After many years hidden away, a St Peter’s treasure has recently resurfaced, thanks to a project that has been a feature of my life at college since I first arrived back in May 2015. The project in question concerns the college chattels, which our statutes state should be properly catalogued (and this inventory routinely checked). The best time to do this work, it turns out, is over the long vacation, when term is a distant memory and most of the

Page 27, top: Raymond Vernède (1905–2003)

Page 27, bottom: Rumal depicting Vishnu and Lakshmi on a lotus flower, c. 1800

college Fellows are away on well-deserved leave. This period of quiet allows me to check everything is where it is supposed to be without causing any disturbance.

The long vacation is also a very good time for doing some research on items about which little or no information survives. The informality of early college governance/ administration, plus the absence of a professional archivist until 2013, means it is often quite difficult to establish with certainty where a particular item in the chattel collection came from, who made it, or what precisely it is.

I came across a number of such items during my first summer on the job. Stacked away in storage, I found seven framed works of silk embroidery, which, apart from containing very obvious Indian motifs, were otherwise unlabelled. Not knowing exactly what I was looking at, I brought them back to my room for further examination at least, that was my intention.

Two years and a whole host of events soon passed by, including an entire year given over to the Chavasses in World War I commemorations (see Cross Keys magazine 2017). During this time, the embroideries sat where I left them. Only in the long vacation of 2017 did I finally have the chance to look at them for any length of time.

THE UNUSUAL STORY OF A REDISCOVERED ST PETER’S TREASURE DR RICHARD ALLEN, COLLEGE ARCHIVIST

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But even if my interest was now renewed, I still had two basic questions to answer: what were the items, and how did St Peter’s come to have them?

Rather frustratingly, the archives, for once, provided little help. Despite a thorough search, I was unable to locate any written record relating to the embroideries. Having exhausted the most immediate avenues of enquiry, I did what I frequently do when needing inspiration: I turned to my wife, Mikal, for help. Her father had served as Consul General for the US State Department in Mumbai in the 1990s, and her parents’ house is home to a wide range of textiles collected during their travels, including many from India. I therefore sent her a picture of one of the more distinctive pieces with a simple question: any ideas?

No sooner had the email left my inbox than I received one in return with a link to the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The link contained a photo and information about a piece that looked almost identical to the piece I had sitting in my office. In the accompanying description, I read ‘Ceremonial Cover (Rumal) – Ten Avatars of Vishnu (Dasavataras) – Himachal Pradesh, India – 18th/19th century’. The plot, needless to say, immediately thickened.

Armed with this point of reference, I turned from one constant source of help (Mikal) to another (Google), but the latter was only of so much assistance. After all, if I was now able to find out something about the origins of such ceremonial coverings, I did not know whether the St Peter’s examples were of any particular significance. I also still did not have any idea how the college had come to acquire these pieces.

For help with the first problem, I turned to the Eastern Art Department at the Ashmolean.

Staff there confirmed the college was the proud owner of seven rumals, known as Chamba rumals after the former princely state (now modern day Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) in which they were produced. They suggested I contact Rosemary Crill at the V&A Museum, who is a worldleading expert on Indian textiles.

As it turned out, the collection of St Peter’s rumals is one of the largest in the UK (second only to that at the V&A). It also contains a number of exceptional examples of this

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particular art form, with the earliest piece (which depicts vignettes of courtly life) dating from the late 18th century.

Having been in storage for most of their life at St Peter’s (no one, not even Billy Watson, can remember seeing them hung anywhere), it seems only right they should be put on public display. Fortunately, the fantastic work made possible by the Perrodo Project has given the college plenty of new blank walls to fill.

With one problem solved, a slightly more challenging one remained: how exactly had St Peter’s come to acquire the rumals in the first place? Since neither Mikal nor Google would be of help in this respect, I turned to that other great fount of knowledge, which has more often than not pointed me in the right direction: high table.

As anyone reading this magazine will know, what makes the Oxford system so special is that a college is like a university in miniature. Colleagues from across academic disciplines, and across generations, regularly come together for all sorts of reasons. Lunch is no exception to this rule, so when the opportunity presented itself, I began to tell anyone who would listen about my discovery. It took a few goes, but eventually, someone mentioned that one of our former Bursars had had some connection to India, or so he thought.

This time, the archives came into their own. I immediately dug out all the

historic files on our Bursars for the period up to the 1970s. A few minutes’ searching, my eyes soon alighted upon the magic words ‘Indian Civil Service’ (ICS), which appeared in a reference letter. It was written by Sir Maurice Hallett (1883–1969), a senior figure in the ICS, who had ended his career as Governor of the United Provinces (1939–1945). The subject of the reference?

Raymond Vernède (1905–2003), who was Bursar at St Peter’s from 1957 to 1970.

Like many of his contemporaries, Raymond Vernède (pronounced Ver-nade) joined the ICS from Oxford, where he had been a student at Hertford (History, 1924). His father, Arthur, had also served in the ICS. Raymond had further entrenched his British India links with his marriage in 1937 to Nancy Mary Kendall, second daughter of Sir Charles Kendall, a senior judge in Allahabad (today part of Uttar Pradesh). It was in the districts of Uttar Pradesh that Raymond spent much of his career. Shortly before Indian independence, he was Deputy Commissioner (1941–1945) of the Himalayan District of Garhwal (in the modern state of Uttarakhand) which at one time formed part of the princely state of Chamba. There was, of course, still no concrete proof it was he who had acquired and then bequeathed the rumals to the college. But if it was not he, then the coincidence was one for the ages.

The pieces, however, require some conservation work.

They must be reframed, not only to replace the current glazing with museum quality glass which blocks out almost all harmful UV light, but also because one of the pieces has been framed the wrong way around! The piece contains some text, which was only finally deciphered by one of our Junior Research Fellows, Dr Christopher V Jones, and Dr Mallica Landrus of the Ashmolean when they worked out it was back to front. By the time this magazine is published, however, you should be able to come to college and see, if not all, then at least some of its ‘latest’ treasures proudly on display.

As for Raymond Vernède, he lived until 2003, and spent his retirement writing novels and short stories based on his experiences in India, copies of which can be found in the college library. His ostensible gift to St Peter’s can rightly be called one of its treasures, and its new public profile should hopefully serve to remind both visitors and members of St Peter’s that there is often much more to this college than meets the eye.

With all the pieces of the puzzle seemingly now in place, the final question came to be what to do with the rumals.

Having been in storage for most of their life at St Peter’s (no one, not even Billy Watson, can remember seeing them hung anywhere), it seems only right they should be put on public display. Fortunately, the fantastic work made possible by the Perrodo Project has given the college plenty of new blank walls to fill.

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THE COURAGE OF CHRISTOPHER MAUDE CHAVASSE, FIRST MASTER OF ST PETER’S HENRY MAYR-HARTING EMERITUS REGIUS PROFESSOR, TAUGHT MEDIEVAL HISTORY AT ST PETER’S COLLEGE FROM 1968-1997

an award for bravery in 1917 – the Military Cross (MC), not the Victoria Cross. Nonetheless, one could be no slouch to be awarded the MC. Thanks to the help of Dr Richard Allen, our Archivist, I can quote the citation of Christopher’s MC as it appeared in the London Gazette of 25 August 1917:

During the course of 2017, Noel Chavasse has been much celebrated and honoured for his stupendous courage during the First World War. He was a rare example of someone who was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) with Bar (i.e., twice over in 1917), and the only one who had this double award in that war. A fine stone memorial to him, commemorating this fact, has just been laid in front of the St Peter’s iron gates on New Inn Hall Street.

There have also been moving tributes paid to him in college.

However, there needs now to be a balancing up between Noel and his twin brother, Christopher, our first Master. Christopher also received

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The Revd Christopher Maude Chavasse (a chaplain): For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. His fearlessness and untiring efforts in attending to the wounded were magnificent.

Although continually under fire, he volunteered on every possible occasion to search and bring in the wounded. No danger appeared to be too great for him to face, and he inspired others to greater effort by his splendid example.

If you have read the citation for Noel Chavasse’s VC, you will know how strikingly similar the two citations are. In fact, one begins to wonder whether it was only a matter of fate as to whether one was in the position to be awarded a VC or ‘only’ an MC. There is not necessarily a distinction between grades of courage here. Who can doubt that had Christopher been placed in the same circumstances as his twin brother, he would have shown the same courage?

Noel died a heroic death aged 32, while Christopher survived to become the first Master of his father’s foundation, St Peter’s Hall, in 1928. He would become Bishop of Rochester in 1940 and die of lung cancer in 1962, aged 77.

I heard him speak at the Oxford Union in 1956 when I was an undergraduate, long before I had any connection with St Peter’s. At the time, I was not particularly impressed by him. But to read Eric Smith’s account of Christopher’s years as Master in his book, St Peter’s, The Founding of an Oxford College (Colin Smythe, 1978) is to be deeply impressed by Chavasse’s courage.

Eric Smith was appointed Tutor in History by Christopher Chavasse in 1929. He was one of the founding Fellows and knew Chavasse intimately from the start of his Mastership. I would be Eric’s colleague for the last three years of his Fellowship before he retired in 1971.

If one flicks casually through his book, it could look as dry as dust.

However, it is anything but. It has a hero and a villain: the villain is the Revd Percy Warrington, Secretary to the Evangelical Trusts (the funds which made up the majority of the foundation of the college); the hero is Christopher Chavasse.

Opposite page: Christopher Maude Chavasse (1884-1962) before 1914, during his rugby days

Below: Chavasse Family c. 1897

What emerges clearly from Smith’s account is the tremendous moral courage needed and shown by Christopher Chavasse in the first two or three years of his Mastership.

Even before the Hall opened, Chavasse was under pressure from Warrington’s criticisms. Early in 1930, Warrington, along with the Martyrs Memorial Trust (which he controlled), in effect declared war on Chavasse.

From then on, throughout 1930 and 1931, Warrington constantly threatened to withhold funds; openly insulted Chavasse; sought to remove Chavasse from the Mastership and pressurized him to resign from it. He attacked from one angle and then from another. He talked Chavasse down to his Trusts, to the Trustees and Benefactors of the Hall, and even to the Press. Throughout all this, Chavasse, though hurt and defending himself from appalling personal attacks, never retaliated, never lost his cool, always recognized Warrington’s invaluable contribution to the Hall and always kept his course. He would not resign, because what he was engaged in, he said, was honouring his father’s vision in founding the college. Indeed his salary was halved when he resigned the Rectorship of St Aldate’s, in order to become Master of St Peter’s.

No danger appeared to be too great for him to face, and he inspired others to greater effort by his splendid example.

constantly to demonstrate to the University that his was no sectarian institution, and had no religious tests for entry. Hence, if Chavasse had been turned out and someone more to Warrington’s taste had been put in, St Peter’s would never have got anywhere, at least within Oxford University.

How much are physical and moral courage related to each other? I do not know. But I cannot believe that physical courage is irrelevant to moral courage, or that Chavasse’s physical courage did not in some way lie at the basis of his moral courage. Moral courage may even

be the higher form of that virtue because it is harder to be certain that one has taken one’s stand on the right ground.

We may wholeheartedly and rightly admire Noel, the son of our Founder, and his great courage. But without the courage of his twin, Christopher Maude Chavasse, we would not be here at all.

The issue was that Warrington, a diehard conservative evangelical, thought that Chavasse, a liberal evangelical, was not remaining true to his evangelical idealism. He felt that Chavasse was taking too few evangelical undergraduates and too many Anglo-Catholics.

His Trusts, he said, were shocked to learn that on some undergraduates’ walls, there were pictures of ‘dancing girls’ and, even worse, crucifixes! But Warrington did not understand Chavasse’s dilemma. On the one hand, his money came from conservative evangelicals; on the other, he had CROSS KEYS / AUTUMN 2018

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EMILY GERARD-PEARSE (BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 2015) ON PLAYING UNIVERSITY HOCKEY, BALANCING SPORT AND ACADEMIA, AND THE SPORTSWOMEN WHO INSPIRE HER.

SPORT

REPORT

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Sport has always been such an important part of my life and I feel privileged to have represented both Oxford University Hockey Club and St Peter’s hockey throughout my degree.

Despite being a considerable time commitment, I have loved every minute of University hockey. Playing has ensured I stay fit (tricky when Peter’s bar is famously the best in Oxford and Gloucester Green pizza is only four pounds), satisfied my competitive nature and, most importantly, allowed me to make the most incredible friends. I am now training for the London Marathon with a fellow Peterite to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK. I am excited by this huge challenge, although the thought of running over 26 miles is a little daunting!

The balance of playing a university sport and completing your degree can be quite overwhelming when you first arrive at Oxford but you quickly become accustomed to it. Time management is key (as well as the odd late night in the library) but as with all things you are passionate about, you happily make time for it. If anything, you work better as you can’t afford to spend hours in the library.

The tutors at Peter’s recognise that playing university sport is a huge commitment and, thankfully, they are very supportive and encouraging about it.

Where does my inspiration come from? We live in a society full of amazing sportswomen and I am inspired

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by their ability, dedication and courage every single day.

St Peter’s is bursting with brilliant sportswomen. The netball team has become hugely popular and they have had lots of success this year with the team having high hopes for Cuppers next term, having just missed being promoted. Rowing has had an equally impressive year with over 30 female Peterites in St Peter’s Boat Club.

Individually, Maddie Burnell (History of Art, 2015) has no end of sporting talent, representing the University in both hockey and netball; Lucy Harper (Biological Sciences, 2016) continues to out-skill her opponents on the football field; Katie Abell (Medicine, 2015) has done a wonderful job of Captaining the University Blues Squash Team; Miwa Sykes (Geography, 2015) has won four out of four Varsity Matches against Cambridge and Ellie Harrison (Biological Sciences, 2017) has been awarded a well-deserved Blue as a fresher.

I could go on as there are so many outstanding sportswomen in Peter’s! I am truly grateful to be surrounded by such incredible sportswomen who continue to inspire me every day.

GRADUATE SEMINARS

FOUR MCR MEMBERS TALK ABOUT THE GRADUATE SEMINARS Isuru Goonatilake, MCR President (Zoology, 2014)

Genevieve Martin (DPhil Clinical Medicine, 2015)

MCR students have taken part in four Graduate Seminars so far this year.

Each hour-long seminar consists of two graduate presentations, which are usually from completely different academic fields.

This gives the MCR an insight into what their peers do when they are working. It is a fascinating way to see the breadth and depth of the kinds of cutting-edge and world-leading research being carried out by members of our very own common room. The real beauty of this is that you get a diverse range of complex topics presented in an engaging and easily digestible way. Where else does a political scientist and an expert on diabetes find themselves sharing a stage?

I study the immune system in people recently infected with HIV. We think this early stage of infection could be an opportunity to therapeutically target the immune response, helping to clear the virus from the body. Therefore, it is vital for achieving a cure. The college community forms such an important part of my day-to-day life, but it is rare to be working in the same fields of research. The Graduate Seminar was a great chance to share my field of work with my fellow MCR members.

Thomas Kaiser (Medicine, 2017)

Mikhail Nakonechnyi (DPhil History, 2017)

I am a medicinal chemist who designs new medicines for viral infections, cancer and degenerative neurological disease. One of the frightening things happening this century is that new medical research is becoming increasingly expensive while producing fewer new drugs. My work bridges synthetic chemistry, molecular biology and artificial intelligence, with the aim of creating new approaches to accelerate drug discovery and development. St Peter’s Graduate Seminar was a wonderful showcase in which to present the ideas and early success we have achieved with this new approach. The college community here is especially intellectually diverse, and the opportunity to discuss new ideas and new collaborations is wonderful.

My research project concerns the fundamental issue of Soviet labour camps official mortality statistics’ reliability. Participation in St Peter’s Graduate Seminar was simultaneously useful and thought-provoking on several levels. Firstly, my research employs quantitative methods and our college is famous for its expertise in statistics (I received useful input from trained statisticians in the audience). Secondly, this opportunity helped me to enhance my skills as a presenter. It also allowed me to practise my English in a lively Q&A session after the presentation, which is always useful for a non-English speaker.

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HAMISH DE NETT (THEOLOGY AND ORIENTAL STUDIES, 2016), JCR REP FOR GENDER, SEXUALITY AND ORIENTATION (GSO) WELFARE.

GSO

REPORT

CANDIDE

JONNY DANCIGER (MUSIC, 2015) TALKS OF HIS AMBITIOUS PRODUCTION OF VOLTAIRE’S SATIRE, WHICH HE STAGED WITH FELLOW PETERITE JOE DAVIES (MST MUSIC, 2012)

OXFORD IS A WONDERFULLY ACCEPTING CITY

BUT THERE IS STILL MORE TO DO Coming to Oxford as a queer person is a liberating experience.

I had never before come across an environment that celebrates queer culture in the way Oxford does and, for the most part, it is a wonderfully accepting city. Sadly, the story is not the same either nationally or internationally. Indeed Oxford has many issues of its own. In the UK and the West, queer issues are increasingly seen as a ‘closed case’ or a ‘job well done.’ This was seen, for example, in 2017 when countries such as Austria, Germany and Malta passed equal marriage bills to minimal UK media coverage. Instead, Adele missing concert dates grabbed the headlines. Legislative equality is not the same as societal equality.

That is where my role comes in.

The role of GSO Rep is first and foremost a welfare one. I have undergone 30 hours of training and receive fortnightly supervisions so I can support my peers in the most effective way possible. A lot of queer people come to Oxford from unaccepting home situations. For many, their arrival at university marks the first time they have been able to truly be themselves. It is such an honour to be able to support people through that process. The welfare element is not only one-on-one

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support. There is also a strong social element. I organise regular Queer Teas where we get together and have a catch up over worrying amounts of carbs and chocolate. Every year, we collaborate with the Entz Rep to have a Queer Bop during Hilary term.

This is a great opportunity for all Peterites to celebrate and participate in queer culture. Oxford has a very active LGBTQ+ Society and at the start of the year, St Peter’s hosted their weekly Tuesday Drinks. These events allow students from across the University (queer or not) to meet up, make new friends and catch up with old ones. The events proved very successful with over a hundred people attending. The money raised from the events help to fund the LGBTQ+ Society welfare events.

At the top of my agenda for change this year has been the college’s flag policy. In February, the majority of Oxford colleges fly the pride flag for the duration of the month to mark LGBTQ History Month. St Peter’s did fly the flag, but it was tucked away next to the JCR. I brought forward a motion and now the pride flag will be flown from a new flagpole visible from outside the college for the duration of February. The transgender flag will fly during Transgender Awareness Week in November. This is to highlight the

particular struggle of transgender people (a 2011 survey found that 41% had attempted to take their lives). In the meantime, we have been flying bunting outside the front of the Porter’s lodge. I’m so grateful to the support I have received from all common rooms in initiating this change.

As well as being GSO Rep, I am also President of the Boat Club. Sport has often been a precarious part of life for queer people. The environment at St Peter’s, however, is welcoming and supportive. Many of the St Peter’s sports teams have taken up the ‘Rainbow Laces’ initiative to show their support for queer issues.

This position is vitally important and it is incredibly touching that my peers have entrusted me with it. I have made friends in many unsuspecting places and learnt a lot more about myself and the world around me.

While much still needs to be done for queer issues in Oxford, nationally and internationally, it is pleasing to see the direction the world is going in. It is also exciting to find out where we may one day end up.

Last November, Joe Davies and I had the opportunity to stage a production of Bernstein’s Candide at the Oxford Playhouse.

With a company in excess of 75, a 600 seat theatre, running time of almost three hours, and a budget equivalent to our student debt, this was one of the most ambitious projects most of us had ever undertaken. Thanks to the incredible support of the college, University dramatic societies, and cast and crew, we were able to bring our vision to life on stage.

Knowing that I wanted to get involved in student drama, I was admittedly nervous about starting at Oxford. I had the impression that, since Oxford does not have a centralised theatre or funding body, the drama scene would be smaller and harder to crack. It was a relief to find I was wrong. The range of student drama here is vast, and there are numerous colleges and funding bodies looking to support theatre at a myriad of locations. I have found that any group of people with enough determination can seize the opportunity to stage their own show, on their own terms.

The student community is incredibly supportive, with more experienced thespians always happy to help newcomers. I was extremely lucky in meeting James Watt (English, 2013) in freshers’ week (now establishing

himself as a director in the professional world).

He encouraged me to get involved in the St Peter’s Drama Cuppers team. He also gave me a role in his production of Hamlet at the O’Reilly Theatre at Keble College.

After seeing James in action, I knew I wanted to try my own hand at directing. James helped me assemble an allPeter’s production team, headed

by John Paul (Music, 2014), to stage Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur at the Michael Pilch Studio in Hilary term of my first year. I immediately got hooked on production roles. Having just acted in the past, the idea you could be given a theatre as your own blank canvas was new and exciting.

As a composer and sound designer, I have been fortunate to be able to keep my theatrical interests close to my degree. The Music Faculty encourage extra-curricular projects that work creatively alongside the areas covered by your course. Joe Davies and I also received a huge amount of support from Dr Roger Allen (Tutor in Music). He helped us to structure our academic term and put college funding in place, making the staging of Candide possible. Joe had already been doing amazing things in Oxford as an orchestral conductor by establishing his own ensemble and conducting the OU Chorus. We had been talking for a long time about bringing our orchestral and theatrical worlds together with one large project.

Candide was the perfect choice.

Voltaire’s satire lends itself to a playful and stylised theatrical interpretation while still exploring darker themes of morality.

Additionally, Bernstein’s music for the production is full of character

with theatrical opportunities embedded into every corner of the orchestration. With a band of 14, a cast of 25, a growing production team and increasingly ambitious design concepts, it became clear we needed a venue that had the technical capacity, scale and reputation to support a project of this magnitude. The Oxford Playhouse (which accepts one or two student production bids for each term) proved the ideal place. In addition to its professional technical capabilities, the staff at the Playhouse happily pass on their knowledge and advice to the student teams. This support helped us to realise our design concept.

As a philosophical satire, Candide’s narrative, which sees a lederhosenwearing naïve youth face all manner of misfortunes, must be placed within a framework that allows the events to have meaning – despite their absurdity. We realised that the more we focused on the narrator (Voltaire) as an absurd character, the more the events made sense as part of his imagined world. Voltaire became the orchestrator of a self-conscious production, making the chorus constantly reassemble the set into a wide variety of locations and objects.

The set, made from a selection of various blocks seemingly made from pages of the book, admittedly was not very light. I must express my complete admiration for the cast for producing incredible vocal and theatrical performances while maintaining an endless stream of choreographed heavy lifting.

St Peter’s has always been a fantastic college at supporting the arts, and there are some really exciting productions in the pipeline. A year after Candide, Georgie Botham (English, 2017) and an assortment of other Peterites are staging Brecht’s Threepenny Opera at the Playhouse from 17th - 20th October 2018. Georgie has a unique theatrical style and the creative concepts behind the production are daring and exciting. Whether you are a seasoned theatregoer or just curious to see St Peter’s students’ creative projects realised on a grand scale, this production is not one to miss.

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HATS OFF TO ROGER ALLEN OUR VERY BEST WISHES TO DR ROGER ALLEN ON THE EVE OF HIS RETIREMENT MATTHEW THOMSON (MUSIC, 2008) During his seventeen years at St Peter’s, Dr Roger Allen has worn many hats: acting as Music Tutor, Director of Music, and Dean.

I have known him for ten of those years, successively as my undergraduate tutor, director of music, graduate college adviser and colleague teaching music at St Peter’s. He has fulfilled each of these roles in his own inimitable way: with care, humour, and kindness.

As an undergraduate, Roger’s office seemed to embody the experience of St Peter’s music students. It always contained small things that spoke of Roger and his students’ affection for him, from the Wagner action figure (still in its box) to the model trains and buses.

Throughout my time at the college, it has become more representative still, with the wall above the piano slowly filling with photos of successive years of students. One of the pictures that didn’t make it onto the wall was Roger’s first ‘selfie’, preserved here for posterity. Saturated with memories of being gathered around the piano for music analysis tutorials or, perhaps less willingly, for keyboard skills practice, it is a space which speaks volumes of Roger’s commitment to teaching, and of his pride in his students’ achievements.

For many years, as Director of Music, Roger’s other natural habitat in

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college was the Chapel. He realised some huge and very successful projects in his years as director, from the biennial performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion to the two recordings he made with the choir. But the core of Roger’s activity in the chapel was found as much in Thursday evensong as in the big events. The summer residencies in Liverpool Cathedral always seemed very significant moments to me, as much for the social time spent together as for the services.

Roger did not always join the choir on foreign tours, especially when going to a place that he deemed ‘too hot’. There were notable exceptions, though, including both Germany and Dublin. The image of Roger on a Viking-themed amphibious vehicle tour around Dublin will never leave me, and now, hopefully, will never leave you.

Roger has one of those faces that always has the possibility of a smile resting close under its surface. The upward twist of the mouth that brings lightness to a meeting that

has gone on too long, or a sense of fun to the tutorial you had fully intended to be bored by (or ‘by which you had fully intended to be bored’ if Roger has anything to do with it).

His delightfully wry sense of humour has permeated all the roles in which I have known him. When work was returned with his red scrawl on it, I always felt it my first job to search through for quips, ranging from the subtle to the less so. Less obvious, perhaps, is Roger’s love for the hidden joke that reveals itself slowly.

He is always storing up material for a future joke, be it a story in the

Opposite page: Roger on a Vikingthemed amphibious vehicle tour

Below bottom: Roger’s carrying out the washing up

Below top: Roger's first selfie

Roger has one of those faces that always has the possibility of a smile resting close under its surface.

student press written by one of his students about cut-price vodka, or the many choice words and images revealed during the great choir mailing list debacle of 2013.

Aside from these specific instances, one of the more regular expressions of Roger’s character is found in the cheerful irreverence with which his passion for the humorous and silly parts of life shine through in unexpected situations.

Almost as soon as I arrived at Oxford, Roger informed me of his passion for the TV series The Last of the Summer Wine, filmed only a few miles from where I grew up. We were once in the middle of a very long day of interviewing candidates to read music at St Peter’s. As we began another interview, I realised I was being stared at from the side of the mug of tea Roger had just handed me by the inimitable figure of the character Nora Batty, brandishing her yard brush. Whether the candidate noticed, I’ve never asked, but it certainly refreshed my afternoon.

Aside from Roger’s humour, one of his defining characteristics as a tutor was his kindness and willingness to spend time with his students. One of the constants of every music student’s experience at St Peter’s was the two dinners at Roger’s house that bookended our time at college.

Within a few weeks of starting at St Peter’s, freshers were always invited

by Roger and his wonderful wife Pamela up to their house. As Roger would be the first to point out, he is not well known for his skills in the cookery department, so Pamela would provide something delicious to welcome the students. Nonetheless, Roger certainly didn’t get away

with doing nothing. About halfway through the evening he would don his marigolds and Yorkshire Tea apron (photographic evidence provided) and be banished to the kitchen to carry out the washing up.

One of the wonders of Roger and Pamela’s house that wouldn’t usually be revealed to freshers at this dinner was their garden. This polychrome oasis of calm was reserved instead

for students’ third year when we were invited to Sunday lunch on the day before the beginning of our final exams. However, the tour of the garden did not only entail admiring Roger and Pamela’s green fingers.

With a little encouragement, Roger could usually be persuaded to show us the shed that contained his model trains!

Once the rigours of finals were past, Roger (and in more recent years Pamela) would take us all for a walk

in the Malvern Hills to celebrate. For some unlucky students, these ramblings were made more difficult by the alcoholbased celebrations that had inevitably occurred the previous evening. Despite these encumbrances, everyone always seems to have made it to the top. Exertions completed, we would retire to the joys of a pub lunch and Malvern’s excellent second-hand bookshop. For me, it was this day of escape from Oxford that really brought home that finals were finished, that we had all made it to the end of our degree and reached our goal.

This year, this annual day out took an unexpected turn, at least for Roger: it was our turn to take the lead. Roger thought he would simply be taking this year’s finalists for another one of his Malvern walks. But unbeknownst to him, a crowd of his former students gathered to join the walk, surprising him at the train station.

Aside from these specific acts of kindness, Roger is always ready with a listening ear, a cup of his trademark Yorkshire Tea, and occasionally (or not so occasionally) a Belgian bun.

For me, what has been at the heart of Roger’s service to St Peter’s is a great love and care for the college, for the choir, for scholarship, but most importantly for his students. I count myself very lucky to have been one of those students, and latterly his colleague over the past ten years.

I look forward to the next ten of academic and musical collaboration.

I’m sure all of his students would want to join me in sending our deepest thanks, our love, and our very best wishes for his retirement.

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2018: A YEAR IN PICTURES

INTRODUCING

CATHERINE

A WALK AROUND THE QUAD WITH COLLEGE REGISTRAR CATHERINE WHALLEY

Engineering Dinner, Mar 2018 Helen Lewis and Polly Toynbee Helen Lewis - Brexit, the left and feminism, May 2018 Howard Society Lunch, Sept 2017

Gaudy 1990–1994, Mar 2018

Where did you work before St Peter’s?

I joined St Peter’s in September 2017 after nine years working in the central office of the University of Oxford.

After leaving Robinson College, Cambridge in 1997, I was a secondary school music teacher for four years but then decided to pursue a career outside education.

However, I promptly got a job at the Royal College of Music, and then moved gradually westwards back to Oxford (where I grew up) and never left education after all!

Can you describe your job using five words?

No. I’d just say it is varied. For example, in one day I might be taking the minutes of the Governing Body (GB), making arrangements for the recruitment of new members of academic staff, helping individual students in challenging situations, arranging a formal dinner and reading the end-of-term reports that tutors write about each of the college’s undergraduate students.

Summer Eights, May 2018 Talk with comedian David Mitchell, Oct 2017

What do you most enjoy about your job?

Law Society Dinner, June 2018

Advent Carol Service, Nov 2017

Making a difference for individual students and members of academic staff particularly when they have a problem which I can help to solve. In my most recent role at the University, I was responsible for various policy areas relating to teaching and education.

The work I did there had an impact on thousands of students and hundreds of members of staff but at a great distance. Now what I do arguably has an impact on fewer people in total, but I can see and feel the positive impact.

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Opening of the Hubert Perrodo Building, Mar 2018

What would you say are the biggest challenges of being a College Registrar?

I think the biggest challenge at the moment is getting familiar with all the things which you learn in a job like this over time, but which can’t easily be shared in a handover. I was really lucky to have a handover period with the retiring Registrar, Olivia Henley, but even so, there are a lot of things you just have to pick up as you go along.

What is the best thing about working in an Oxford college?

Aside from getting to know and support individual students and members of academic staff, I have to say it is the marvellous food.

In my old jobs, my lunchbreak consisted of a quick trip to the canteen, which sometimes resulted in me eating a sandwich at my desk, and sometimes not even that. Now I go to lunch every day. I almost always see someone I need to catch up with, so it is productive as well as pleasant.

What is your favourite part of the college?

I love walking into college in the morning and hearing the sound of organ practice emanating from the Chapel. I’m enjoying college in the summer. For the first four months I was here, my office windows were boarded up while the Matthews roof was replaced, so it is a delight to experience natural light again after that.

What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

I’m a musician. As a student in Cambridge, I played the french horn as much as I could, and I still enjoy playing.

I travel to London regularly to play in a really good amateur chamber orchestra, the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra. Apart from that, my husband and I have an allotment (raspberry jam has become a speciality of mine) and a daughter who is starting school in September.

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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY 2018 10th October St Peter’s Presents: John Humphrys in association with Oxford University Media Society 17th October City Drinks in London 3rd November Remembering Dr Mark Whittow: Historian and Fellow 17th November Professor Gustav Born Memorial Service & Concert 19th November St Peter’s Presents: Richard Deverell Director of Royal Botanic Gardens 25th November Advent Carol Service

30th March Women’s Gaudy Celebrating 40 years of women at St Peter’s 7th April Oxford and Cambridge Boat Races 10th – 13th April Meeting Minds: North America Alumni Weekend Boston, Toronto and Washington 11th May JCR Ball 27th May – 1st June Eights Week May Family Day (date to be confirmed) 23rd June Benefactors Service

27th November Oxmas Drinks

20th September 1969, 1959 and 1964 Anniversary Dinner 1970 – 1974 Gaudy

6th December The Varsity Match

20th – 22nd September Meeting Minds: Oxford Alumni Weekend

2019

Celebrating 90 years of St Peter’s and 40 years of St Peter’s women

21st September Alumni Gala Event 22nd September Howard Society Lunch

22nd – 24th March Meeting Minds: Tokyo Alumni Weekend 29th March Gaudy 1995 – 1997

Our events calendar is always subject to additions.

Please visit www.spc.ox.ac.uk for the most up-to-date details about upcoming events.

For further information about any of these events or to book a place, please contact Development and Alumni Relations Office: development.office@spc.ox.ac.uk +44(o)1865 614984 We look forward to seeing you back at St Peter’s!

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