THE EDITOR’S JOTTINGS For years, the Porters on duty at the Gatehouse have fielded the same question asked by Castlemen who have returned to visit. It’s a question to which the answer has been the same for forty years, but now the answer is different. The question asked for so long has been: ‘‘Is John still here?’’ College Steward John Atkin MBE has retired. Not completely, since he will still be looking after affairs at the Tuesday and Thursday evening formals for about a year to ease the transition, for both him and the College, after over 49 years. I have been editing Castellum for around 20 years and in that time I have lost count of the number of helpful nuggets of information which John has provided to help make the magazine more interesting, relevant, or become – sometimes, too – the purveyor of bad news. John is sure to have an opinion about one article in this edition, which is the one from Miles Enstone about spooky goings on in the Senate Suite bedroom, a room beyond the Senate Lounge which is no longer let and was used for meetings previously and is now no more than a store room. The writer tells me the experiences he relates dates back to 1992 and it would be good to know if anyone else had similar or different experiences in the same room, or indeed elsewhere in the Castle. The main article this year is the story of the Pilgrim Trust, a plaque to which is just outside the Fonteyn Doors at the entrance to the Great Hall. The Trust was founded in 1931 and the grant to save Durham Castle from falling in the River Wear was its first major expenditure. Georgina Nayler, the Director of the Pilgrim Trust, tells the story inside and Curator Richard Brickstock has provided two of the original colour posters used to raise money in the 1930’s. Castellum is being mailed again this year by an external mailing house in Seaham which reduces costs, and saves lugging boxes of some 3,500 copies of the magazine into and out of the College office. In fact, if you receive your copy by post then your magazine has gone from the printers in Gateshead direct to the mailing house in Seaham to your own address, and has never been to Durham at all. Unlike you! Perhaps you will be able to make a return visit to Durham in 2009. Alex J. Nelson Chester-le-Street, December 2008
Rail tickets for the Reunion Tickets from and to any British Railway Station on the National Rail network may be obtained from Chester-le-Street Station on
0191 387 1387 or book on-line: www.nationalrail.com Oyster Cards supplied for travel in London
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