The Cantuarian 2018

THE

CANTUARIAN 2018

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Cover art: Emily Coleman 2

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King’s Week Drama

CONTENTS Tea with the Beadle Mabel Pickering 6 No Place Like Home Alexia Botros 10 Set Free Florence Taylor 16 memento mori Serena Brunswig 22 Reasons to be Cheerful Andy Coulson 26 A Dream Year Charlie Watson 30 Words of Wisdom Common Room 34 Being President George Reid 36 Barred from Life Anonymous 38 A King’s Ransom Joshua Platt 44 100 Years: OKS War Poetry Peter Henderson 48 The Clews Brothers Patrick, Hugo & Angus Clews 52 The Only Son Nia Zhangaskina 56 King’s in Pictures Matt McCardle 60 Chasing Dreams Mattie Butler 62 A Few Good Women Fatima Mansoor 64 Star Prize Fede Elias 66 The Secret of Dark Entry Melissa But 70 The Good Fight Mark Cunningham 72 A Long Way Home Jim Dickson 78 Deep Wonder Doreen McVeigh 82 Deep Sea Smokers Tim Waite 86 Far and Away Clive Nuttman 90 King’s Week Equestrian Matt McCardle 94 China Girl Amy Hinshelwood 96 Eastern Promise Geoff Cocksworth 98 Sweet Treats Candy Woodgate 108 Reaching Out Eleanor Scott (St. Anselm’s) 110 Founded on Charity Ferren Winarto 114 Charging Ahead Elias Boehmer 116 Genius at Work Jean Dumrongjaroen 120 Take a Break Charles Griffin 122 Geology Rocks! Sophie Gamble 124 Double Vision Honor Dwerryhouse 128 Twin Sets Twins of King’s 130 In Pictures: King’s Week 2018 Matt McCardle 136

CONTRIBUTORS Editor Anthony Lyons Photographer Matt Mcardle Designer Cobweb Creative Archivist Peter Henderson Printer Lavenham Press Advisors Ed Barlow, Holly Barton, Will Flint Three Wise Men Ian MacEwan, Kieran Orwin, Peter Roberts Cobweb Creative yvonne@cobwebcreative.org www.cobwebcreative.org @cobwebcreative Lavenham Press 01787 247436 www.lavenhampress.com Matt Mcardle Photography mattmcardle13@mac.com The Cantuarian info@cantuarian.co.uk

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editorial A Dream Year (Page 30)

Welcome to the second ‘new’ Cantuarian, which takes a school magazine’s usual fare for granted, and instead shines light on the hidden stuff that makes King’s unique.

Barred from Life (Page 38)

mind-bending spells in the frigid depths, and that the Library is home to an expert on pollination who knows Africa like the back of his garden, but everyone has watched the sky with our resident stargazer from Physics, who here lauds a lady who reached the celestial heights of her chosen science and is now astronomical royalty. Hoping to print some timely life advice, at least for the 6a leavers who this year fly the nest on Independence Day, we asked the Common Room for some weighty words of wisdom. Most were too humble to respond, and the advice of others was unprintable, but we did manage to scrape together enough bon mots for a brace of pages.

Pupils remain, as they should, at the heart of the following pages. One explains how she was humbled into teaching refugees in the holidays, another how she is glad to be alive given the perilous lives of her Kazakhstani ancestry, and a third confesses regretting her doomed attempt to become the next Darcy Bussell. Some prefer to explore their rich learning experience and environment, by championing a favourite subject, investigating the school’s haunted history or It’s (sometimes) good to know what happens to examining cathedral objets d’art, but others go out pupils when they leave, so we caught up with three to meet local geniuses – a German jeweller with OKS who have pushed themselves the skills of a Japanese swordto the limit by studying in China maker, an inventor who looks (where the first-born of King’s is like solving the world’s energy ‘But amongst all right now being built), or playing crisis, and a whizzbang banker this edification, professional rugby or entering turned Tibetan nun. student politics. They will all celebration and go far, or further. And we must There is also an interview with congratulation we not forget our parents, many of the Beadle by the Captain whom have telling tales to tell. of School; a report on our encounter the minds One shows, with compelling partnerships with other Kent data, where mankind is on her schools; a tribute to OKS who of ghosts.’ rocky road to bliss – the news is fell 100 years ago and another pretty good – and another, who to the King’s girls who cracked knows more about swords than Jon Snow, explains the glass ceiling; a study of the socio-psychological how Uma Thurman in yellow leather is in fact the significance of being a twin; and a reflection on reincarnation of a medieval nun. the school’s present status as a charity after 1400 years. Just for fun we asked several pairs of twins But amongst all this edification, celebration and to dish the dirt on each other, and sent a ribald wag congratulation we encounter the minds of ghosts. from the Fifth Form onto the streets of Canterbury The magazine also tells the tragic tale of a boy of to check out the cafés. (One of them gets 10 out King’s age who recently lost his life to crime before of 10.) he became a man, and through their tender verse we remember those from the school whose And what about their teachers? Few of our readers futures ended abruptly a hundred years ago. know that Maths, Biology and Chemistry harbour hardened (not-so-ancient) mariners who’ve spent Anthony Lyons Editor The Cantuarian

Set Free (Page 16) 4

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Tea with the Beadle (Page 6)

No Place Like Home (Page 10)

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tea

with The

Beadle

Mabel Pickering (6a MR) discovers the beadle-eyed man in the bowler hat (or panama) - over afternoon tea, of course.

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he Beadle, aka Mike Holden, is a Kentish man born and bred who cherishes roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and motor-racing. He is also a secret follower of Love Island. He epitomises the ethos of King’s, reigns supreme on Green Court and has impeccable sartorial taste.

I am looking at uniforms, I’m also making sure people are happy. Shells, for example, find it very difficult to find their way about at first, so early in the Autumn Term I make sure everyone is in the right place and there are no lost and anxious souls. I keep an eye on everything. And meeting and greeting perspective parents on behalf of the Headman is nearly as big a job as looking after you lot. I really enjoy meeting new people. It’s a huge part of what I do now.’

My own first impression of King’s came from The Beadle. I was a small pre-Shell moving from London when, at Mint Yard for the first time, I was greeted What about the by a grinning man in a ‘Although The Beadle has tradition of Beadle? bowler hat. Wearing my enriched my experience Mr. Holden took over favourite waistcoat and of King’s so far, I realised from Alan Booth black velvet Dr. Martens about 10 years ago, with red laces, I beamed I knew very little about and I asked whether back at him and knew him: he was, after all, an his predecessor had we would develop a enigma.’ passed on any tips and tight bond. Since then tricks. ‘He said it could The Beadle and I have shared daily morning catch-ups, and every be a lonely job but I don’t feel alone. There Saturday he is the most loyal cheerleader of is a great bunch of pupils here. We have a happy environment and that’s the most the girls’ hockey team. important thing. We’re a happy family at When I was a Shell we read aloud together King’s.’ I asked nevertheless whether The the names of the fallen on Remembrance Beadle should have a professional partner. ‘I Sunday, and now I am in 6a our next like to be my own person. I answer to Mrs. adventure will be taking the Purples’ Guest Worthington and the Headman and I like it Supper by storm. Although The Beadle like that. If there was another Beadle there has enriched my experience of King’s so would be delegation of work, which could be far, when I was asked to write this article I tricky. I like being my own man.’ (In other realised I knew very little about him: he was, words, as you suspected, The Beadle is at after all, an enigma. Until now. In Lattergate heart an autocratic dictator.) With regard Board Room, surrounded by tea, coffee and to the tradition, The Beadle understandably cakes (a ploy to lull Mr. Holden into a relaxed knows little, since Canon Wilkinson restate), I had the honour of an exclusive invented the post in the Nineties, Mr. Holden’s predecessor did the job for 25 interview. years and before that no Beadle had been at We began with a day in the life of The Beadle. King’s for several hundred years. Mr. Holden His prime objective is to be outside for every says his approach to the job is different lesson change. ‘I keep an eye on things, from Booth’s. ‘Alan was an army man, who make sure people’s uniform is up to scratch combined the role with being RSM of the wherever possible, keep things flowing and CCF, and he took a military approach. I don’t see that pupils get to lessons on time. While come from a military background and

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find interacting personally with pupils is the way to get the best out of them.’

‘The Beadle is an almighty, omniscient being, somehow managing to exert authority while being a friend of the King’s community.’

What’s good about being The Beadle? ‘I talk to many different people on many different levels. I like to think I’m friends with everybody, top to bottom. That’s the aim anyway. In my previous life I worked outside and I still love being outside. I couldn’t work in an office. So this is ideal.’ The ‘previous life’ was farming so it’s no surprise to find his chief hobby is gardening. After studying horticulture at university, he became a fully-fledged farmer, in what was once the Garden of England. Raised on a farm in East Kent, he continued the family tradition, despite his dabbling at first in catering. The Beadle was an aspiring chef as a boarder in the days when Kent College was single-sex, with barrack-room dorms and high levels of testosterone. I asked if he was naughty at school. The Beadle giggled. ‘Turn off the recorder. I went to school to enjoy myself.’

I asked what would happen if this personification of King’s were to retire. The Beadle chuckled and said, ‘I don’t know what will happen if I retire. King’s will have to make its own decisions.’ (One of The Beadle’s plans for the future is jumping out of a plane at 15,000 feet.) I tried saying he is irreplaceable, but he said King’s had coped for quite a while without him. About the present Headmaster the Beadle said, ‘He’s one of the best guys I’ve worked with and I say that from the bottom of my heart.’

‘I make sure everyone is in the right place and there are no lost and anxious souls.’

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I asked him to reveal one secret about the school.

‘There is a tunnel under Lardergate that goes through to the cathedral. Under Green Court there were air raid shelters during the war and the ground is humpy bumpy due to their collapse.’ I wondered if the tunnel is still there. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t want pupils trying to find it.’ (First to find the tunnel gets to skydive with The Beadle.)

‘We decided that without a bowler hat The Beadle wouldn’t be The Beadle, and that the option of a boater for the pupils should be reintroduced.’

Much like Dumbledore, The Beadle is an almighty, omniscient being. Somehow managing to exert authority while being a friend of the King’s community, he is respected and revered. When our time was nearly up, we decided that without a bowler hat The Beadle wouldn’t be The Beadle, and that the option of a boater for the pupils should be reintroduced.

Next time you pass The Beadle with your shirt tucked in or your brooch properly pinned, compliment his tie, enquire about his hero, Churchill, and go for a hifive with the man.

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‘The mother couldn’t do much to help and wanted to learn Turkish to keep them in the classroom. At once I volunteered to come to their home every day after school.’

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No PLace Like Home By explaining her decision to teach Syrian refugees near her home in Turkey, Alexia Botros (6b BR) reminds us that round every corner there is education available beyond the classroom.

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never thought a kid would prefer cucumber to chocolate. And not just one kid, but a whole bunch of them. I worked with such Syrian children last year, when they were living in refugee camps in Turkey.

And since then things haven’t changed.

The tent reeked of sweat and urine. We sat in a circle on a carpet over concrete. There was no furniture except a blaring TV and a blowing fan to keep down the outside temperature of 35 degrees. The women offered us tea that we couldn’t refuse and I gulped it down, hoping the water was potable. They refilled the cup instantly.

While riding in While the children were our luxurious car mesmerised by a loud through the streets Arabic cartoon on TV, of our Turkish Riviera Mrs Canan started hometown, we were chatting with the adults annoyed by insistent and translating their Syrian kids jumping out conversation. One man at traffic lights to wipe was complaining about the windshield and worsening conditions beg for money. We felt because The Turkish Red threatened and locked Crescent Movement the doors. Other cars was going to stop were doing the same. cash aid to refugees I had heard about without official rented the irritating influx accommodation. This of refugees to our meant all 30 families in region but it suddenly the camp would lose dawned on me that their monthly 30-dollar these school-aged allowance. Mrs Canan children must have also told me that a lack of been desperate if they home addresses meant spent all day pestering most kids had a hard strangers for pennies. I time being registered became curious about for school because the Syrian refugees and government required discovered that Turkey complex bureaucratic is the largest host procedures for which country, sheltering they had neither the over 3.5 million. In necessary language ‘It suddenly dawned on me that these school-aged time I came across skills nor the means children must have been desperate if they spent all the Maya Association, of transport to visit day pestering strangers for pennies.’ which is a lead government offices. provider of aid, and Even when they had asked them if I could help. both, their camps were too far away from the nearest school.

Mrs Canan asked the children to name their biggest wish.

On my first day, Mrs Canan, a volunteer, took me to a They all shouted the same thing. To go to school. camp to see if I could handle the conditions. They were an attack on all my senses. I was expecting habitable But there was no bus service to the village public school and it tents like those used by the UN refugee agency was too far to walk. Lessons were also in Turkish but because (UNHCR). But all I saw were rows of plastic sheets the camps were isolated the children were unable to mingle flapping about on metallic skeletons. A herd of smiling with locals and learn the language. The year before, the Maya children surrounded the car and women who heard the Association collected enough money to pay for a bus to take shrieks came out of their tents. They spoke with Mrs. children to assimilation classes but they had to fight for the Canan in Arabic and invited us inside. The kids led the limited seats. One of the aims of the Maya Association is to way and took off their rubber sliders. We followed suit. provide education and I noticed that even spending ten

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‘I was expecting habitable tents but all I saw were rows of plastic sheets flapping about on metallic skeletons’

minutes with these children made them ecstatic, so I was determined to play my part. When we said thanks for the tea and got up to leave, one of the kids ran to the entrance to find our shoes in the pile of slippers and put them in front of the tent, and the other children escorted us to the car. I kept wondering how children growing up in this misery could be so cheerful. Most of the girls hugged me before I left.

We visited a family of five girls and one boy who luckily lived in a farmhouse provided by the owner of the land in return for the husband and wife working on the farm. Although the conditions were much better because they actually had concrete instead of plastic for walls, they had just a sofa for two next to the entrance outside and mats for beds lined up in the only two rooms of the house. The family had just been reunited after two years when the mother and youngest son were finally able to cross the border. The mother told us Heya, the eldest, cried every day during the two years they were apart. She was the one most traumatised by fleeing her war-torn country without her mother. The other four girls seemed less affected, probably because they weren’t mature enough to understand. Because their house was close to the village school, the three eldest girls

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‘Most kids had a hard time being registered for school because the government required complex bureaucratic procedures.’

– Heya, Ruba and Shem, aged 8, 6 and 4 – had started school one month before but they had problems adapting and thought of dropping out for several reasons, such as lacking the language and being victims of discrimination.

The most eager to continue school was Heya, who was sad not to understand her homework. The mother couldn’t do much to help and wanted to learn Turkish to keep them in the classroom. At once I volunteered to come to their home every day after school.

The next day I gathered old toys and board games my brother and I no longer used, and went to their house. When they saw me arrive, the children beamed with pleasure and their mother whispered prayers of gratitude. When they saw the toys and games the children were curious but having no idea how to play each one took a piece from the monopoly box and started running around. The mother served

‘I noticed that even spending ten minutes with these children made them ecstatic, so I was determined to play my part.’ me coffee and cucumbers. I struggled with the homework because they did not know Turkish and I did not know Arabic, but using Google Translate we managed to finish.

The next day I was determined to give them a better snack than cucumbers so I stopped by a corner shop to buy chocolate, cookies and crisps. Their eyes showed excitement when I gave them their treats, but after a decent pause they left them in a corner and pulled out more cucumbers.

‘I kept wondering how children growing up in this misery could be so cheerful.’

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Millie Crook: ‘Freddie Fragmentation’ CANTUARIAN | 2018

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Set

Free

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‘She decided to leave her job and pursue a spiritual path...’

Florence Roberts (6b LX) speaks to Emma

Slade about her charity, and how she came to be the only Western woman to be ordained a Buddhist nun in Bhutan

I

was recently lucky enough to sit down for a cup of tea in Chums with a former high-flying financial analyst who worked for HSBC before becoming a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. Emma Slade was on a business trip to Jakarta when she was taken hostage in her hotel room. In her book Set Free Emma says:

‘Oh God, please don’t kill me.’

The man with the gun pushed me down onto the carpet. I tried to cower to make my body curl smaller, instinctively covering my head.

‘Oh God, please don’t kill me.’ My words clung to my teeth and now my whole body was so cold. All I had left were these words.

‘Please. Jesus. God. Please.’

I wanted to live and I knew it with absolute certainty.

‘I don’t want to die.’ 

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Luckily she was unharmed but during the following weeks trauma set in and her view of life changed profoundly. Having taught yoga for eleven years and practised Buddhism for eight, she decided to leave her job and explore a spiritual path through her curiosity about Buddhism and meditation.

‘She went to buy her Tibetan robes in a local shop, shaved off her hair and gave up her possessions.’

During October 2011 Emma found herself in Bhutan, where she met a Buddhist monk who would soon become her Lama (a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism).

She felt a need to go back to him eight weeks later and, after a few months of his teaching, in August 2012 things were starting to shift. She explains how one day her Lama told her to change her style of dress and she asked him what on Earth he meant. ‘I was thinking, oh my goodness, I think he’s telling me to give up my lifestyle! He actually was, and this was him telling me to become a nun.’ Emma says, ‘It wasn’t my idea; in fact, we had never discussed it. It had never even crossed my mind they would allow me to become a nun. I thought I had already blocked out that opportunity.’

This was because she knew her previous lifestyle would be frowned on by Tibetan Buddhism culture: she had a job; she was a Western, white woman; and she had a son. But her Lama had seen something special in her during her practices. So one day that was it: ‘No sex, no alcohol and that was that.’ She went to buy her Tibetan robes in a local shop, shaved off her hair and gave up her possessions.

Although facing many challenges in her path as the first Western Buddhist nun, Emma has made a huge difference to Bhutan’s struggles as a small, undeveloped country. In February 2015 she set up a charity called Opening your Heart to Bhutan. This is now a UK charity that brings joy to children with special needs and the opportunity to build meaningful lives within their communities. Through simple, practical acts of compassion, the charity provides access to medical care, disability aids and basic amenities in the isolated rural East of Bhutan. It also empowers disabled young

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people by helping them gain access to education and training. No one is paid to run the charity and costs are kept low to maximize funds going straight to those most in need.

A girl Emma met inspired her to begin this charity, but she says, ‘When I started I didn’t realise I was going to form a charity. I just thought here’s a need and a situation that really moved my heart.’ The girl was living in Emma’s local village and had cerebral palsy. She lived in one room and had no access to special care or assistance. Emma says, ‘She had a really big effect on me and that’s when I thought okay, I really need to do my best here, and not just a bit. I need to go out of my way.’

When the charity first began the funds were able to mend broken roofs, buy sleeping bags for children and bedding for others without, and provide footwear. Now, thanks to many generous funds, the charity has built two schools, and in 2015 a playground for a primary school of 104 children in Meretsemo. In 2016 it built a female boarding house for the girls of Draktscho’s disabled vocational training school in Kaglung. An art camp, a school bus and pathways were also funded in 2017 as well as training for more prosthetic technicians.

Before this initiative, only three people in Bhutan were able to fit prosthetic limbs, and even then the limbs were hampered by ungainly hinge joints that prevented their young recipients from running or playing sport.

Emma believes it is important to ‘repair any ill feeling or damage that you’ve done to anybody before it’s too late’ and says, ‘Part of being peaceful is knowing your own values and living by them.’

The charity has also built two big schools in West and East Bhutan, and has plans for many future projects, towards which it ensures 94p in every pound of donations is invested. To help with fundraising, Emma has written an autobiography called Set Free about her journey to become a Buddhist Nun (£10 a copy). If you would like to find out more about the charity you can visit Emma’s website or contact her directly.

Dodging some animated Shells, while flinging her robe over her shoulder she whispered, ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend what I have done as a route for life. I think they were exceptional circumstances. I mean, what on earth was I thinking?’

We finished our tea, and Chums started to fill with King’s life. When we rose, Emma gave me a few tips on living a more serene life in the modern world. First, think of others more than yourself. She said, ‘You’re always thinking about yourself in a pull-push way. You’re either wanting things for yourself or you’re trying to avoid things. That’s very tiring.’ By thinking of others Emma says you can reduce the stress you feel about your own actions. Second, ‘Know how much you need of anything and know when you’ve got it.’ In other words, to be content you must understand what you need mentally and physically to be satisfied in what you achieve. Last,

‘No one is paid to run the charity and costs are kept low.’

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Emma Slade founded the charity Opening Your Heart To Bhutan, which helps rural children with disabilities in Bhutan. The charity provides access to safe medical care, disability aids, basic amenities and education. In 2016, Emma was presented with a Points Of Light award from the Prime Minister and invited to meet Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who met some of the children who had been helped by the charity during their visit to Bhutan. Emma lives in Whitstable and has visited King’s many times.

Her book, Set Free, A Life-Changing Journey from Banking to Buddhism in Bhutan (Summersdale Publishers) is available now.

For more information on Emma’s charity, go to www.openingyourhearttobhutan.com

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memento mori On a walk round Canterbury Cathedral Serena Brunswig (6b KD) meditates on memento mori, objets d’art evoking the brevity of life.

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he Latin phrase memento mori, meaning wanted to end up being pitch-forked into flames depicted so ‘remember your death’, is used as a noun to vividly on the walls of their local place of worship. So the use refer to objects and works of art that remind of memento mori to remind people they would die, and either us of our inevitable mortality: Death comes for us all; spend eternity in paradise or in a fiery pit of suffering, made even for kings he comes. Although this caution seems them stay in line. rather sinister, it was used widely, especially But I soon realized there in the Roman Catholic is another way of looking Church, to encourage at memento mori, Christian virtue. It and this explains why emerged in the Roman Christians nowadays, Empire when heroic and in the past, were generals would hear not against the idea as it whispered on their I originally was. This return from battle to is because memento remind them that, even mori can also bring though they felt on top hope. Since earthly life of the world at that is temporary, suffering moment, such earthly is also temporary, and glory could not last. It one can look forward to was then taken up by eternal bliss in heaven.

Medieval Christianity This can be harder to and became a popular understand for those of theme in religious art, us who are not religious music and literature, and who don’t believe which is when we first in Hell or Heaven, but see art in churches the actual existence sporting skulls. And of Heaven or Hell is certain orders of irrelevant when ordinary monks, such as the people who suffer Capuchins, had crypts daily have something decorated almost to to look forward to that the brim with the makes their pain more bones of their past bearable. members. Famously, ‘The use of memento mori to remind people they the Santa Maria memento mori being would die, and either spend eternity in paradise or in della Concezione dei a Catholic tradition a fiery pit of suffering, made them stay in line.’

Cappuccini boasts the explains why there inscription ‘What you aren’t many examples are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.’ left in Canterbury Cathedral, but there are still some. A good way to represent death is through tombs, such as the one My first thought about memento mori was that it occupied by Henry Chichele (1364-1443). Here there are was how the Catholic Church controlled people. And two different portrayals of the body: the one on the bottom it is true that in the Middle Ages the most powerful is carved into a frail, nude figure that conveys the imminent institution was the Church, united across kingdoms lifelessness of the earthly body. On top, and nearer heaven, even when the kings were at war, because everyone is a depiction of the body once it has risen to be with God, belonged. Members of the Church could read and and the figure no longer looks like a corpse but is colourfully write, unlike most people, and this gave them control dressed in luxurious robes and a gold hat, hands together in over the masses, who had an understandable tendency prayer. This hopeful use of memento mori reminds people to believe what they were told. If people didn’t abide that, even though the body will remain on earth after death by the Church’s laws they were excommunicated, and rot, the spirit will rise in glory and live forever – if one is a which meant they would go straight to Hell, and no one good Christian, that is.

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‘This hopeful use of memento mori reminds people that, even though the body will remain on earth after death and rot, the spirit will rise in glory and live forever.’

Another remarkable tomb in Canterbury Cathedral contains Dean Charles Fotherby. This one is covered in stone bones, particularly skulls, which are arrestingly naturalistic; luckily Canterbury isn’t like Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, and the bones here are not real. But I can’t help feeling a shiver when I look at this tomb. The Chichele tomb makes the body risen in glory appealing, but this one is just plain anatomy that does not make me look forward to what comes after death. It just creeps me out, and looks very much like the Church scaring people into proper worship, which isn’t that surprising when we consider that the Church bullied its way to power and provoked Martin Luther to kick off the Reformation. In the Catholic Church only the clergy had the authority to interpret scripture, and they quoted passages from the Bible to justify hanging bodies outside cathedrals, apparently to raise people’s hopes about life after death, but really to scare people out of questioning the authority of the Church.

In the end religion has two sides, the spiritual and the political, and even though the spiritual side is what counts, the institution of the Church exists to deliver the good news. The Church does have a humane purpose: for example, it can provide support for the less fortunate by setting up food halls and schools. But the Church is also made up of human beings who are always fallible and often selfish, some of whom want more and more power and less and less responsibility, and have brought their darkness upon us. So in its double-sidedness the momento mori is more than just a warning or a consolation; it is an index of the Church itself.

‘Luckily Canterbury isn’t like Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, and the bones here are not real. But I can’t help feeling a shiver when I look at this tomb.’

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‘In its doublesidedness the momento mori is more than just a warning or a consolation; it is an index of the Church itself.’

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‘95.4% of Kenya’s young people aged over 12 are upbeat about their future’ 26

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Reasons

to be

Cheerful Andy Coulson, father of Harvey (OKS) and Monty (6b LN), suggests that things are not as bad as the media would have us believe.

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ho is more likely to be optimistic about the wrote some of the funniest and most romantic TV future – a 15-year-old living in the slums of shows and movies ever, including Four Weddings Nairobi or someone born on the same day and a Funeral, Love Actually and Mr Bean. Curtis but raised in Canterbury? Defining, let alone finding, likens our obsession with negativity to the tortoise true happiness is a distinctly personal pursuit but the and the hare. Bad news hops ahead, grabbing all the statistics seem pretty clear. According to the pollsters headlines and attention. Meanwhile, human spirit Ipsos, 95.4% of Kenya’s young people aged over 12 and good news inch along, barely noticed. But, in are upbeat about their future. In the UK the number fact, this progress is a juggernaut not a tortoise and is 77.5%, making our young people is, he argues, ‘unstoppable’. more miserable than not only their ‘We’re just incapable of Kenyan counterparts, but also those focusing on the positive or The data appears to be on Curtis’s in Mexico, China, Nigeria and India. side. In his book Factfulness, world appreciating the breathhealth guru Hans Rosling brilliantly taking and exponential So why the long faces? The progress that surrounds us does in the doom-mongers and experts (I know – who believes explains why things are better than every single day.’ them anymore?) put it down most of us believe them to be. to the widening gap between Rosling carried out a number of Western youngsters and their politicians. But in surveys with different groups in different countries. the more optimistic countries that’s been the case He asked a range of multiple-choice questions, for generations and, frankly, most young Africans including: or Indians still dream of a political system with our relatively low levels of corruption. Others say it’s 1 How did the number of deaths per year from a symptom of the loneliness epidemic sweeping natural disasters change over the last century: developed nations, or a legacy of the financial crisis. a) More than doubled The truth may be more straightforward: that in the b) Remained about the same affluent West we’re just incapable of focusing on c) Decreased to less than half? the positive or appreciating the breath-taking and exponential progress that surrounds us every single 2 What percentage of the world’s one-year-old day – incapable as politicians, business leaders, children are vaccinated against measles: parents, teachers and as students; that we should all, to use a technical a) 20% b) 50% c) 80%? term, cheer the hell up.

Rosling also asked these questions to a number of chimpanzees in his local zoo. Only 12% of one human Richard Curtis, group questioned, from Rosling’s home country, creator of Comic Sweden, were able to answer the first question Relief and one of correctly. This compared to 33% of chimps, who the great blokes answered by picking up a banana with either A, B or of our age, has C written on it. Interestingly, young Swedish people his own theory. were even more pessimistic than Brits in the Ipsos He believes that survey. Out of another group – European journalists the ‘romanticism – only 6% were able to answer the second question of bad things’ is correctly. Across the board, in all the groups Rosling to blame. It’s why, questioned, the majority got the answers to these when he wasn’t and other basic factual questions about their world busy raising £1bn wrong. The answers in both cases above, by the way, for charity, he is c).  Richard Curtis

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‘We would all beat the chimps in the test if we simply worked on the basis that in most areas of global health, wealth and social change things are getting better, not worse.’

Rosling argues that three factors are to blame for this astonishing ignorance. First, our natural instinct as human beings is to focus on the negative or threatening – useful when we were at daily risk from predators, but not so much now. Second, education systems rely on outdated data, mainly contained in the fading pages of textbooks. Third, the media have a bias towards ‘bad news’. He uses extensive coverage of shark attacks as evidence of news focusing on infinitesimal risks while progress that saves the lives of millions goes largely unreported.

He also argues that we would all beat the chimps in the test if we simply worked on the basis that in most areas of global health, wealth and social change things are getting better, not worse. Bad things continue to happen, of course, not least cancer, which claimed Rosling’s life before his book was published. But the tortoise is definitely getting faster. What it badly needs is a better communications campaign.

A good first step would be to hire Max Roser, a research fellow in Economics at Oxford University. Roser’s passion for bringing to life global statistics in visually engaging ways is outstanding: visit his website www. ourworldindata.org. Roser’s graphs show, in a stunningly simple fashion, how incomes are growing in all parts of the world, global poverty is declining rapidly and the poorest countries are growing the fastest.

On the subject of global violence, Roser’s analysis is in line with the author and psychologist Professor Steven Pinker, who says: ‘Violence has been in decline over long stretches of time and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.’ Pinker has a long list of other reasons to be cheerful, including that we are: ■■ 96% less likely to be killed in a car crash than in 1920 ■■ 88% less likely to be mowed down in the street by a car than in 1925 ■■ 99% less likely to die in a plane crash than in 1970 ■■ 95% less likely to be killed at work than in 1910 ■■ 89% less likely to die in an ‘act of God’, including droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, volcanoes, earthquakes and landslides than in 1900 and ■■ 97% less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning than in 1900

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‘Our natural instinct as human beings is to focus on the negative.’

‘Should our leaders be doing more to highlight the progress we are making?’

So, should our leaders be doing more to highlight the progress we are making?

Indeed, should we expect them to do so?

Not an easy argument when there are far more votes in short-term scaremongering than there are, or are ever likely to be, in long-term-trend cheerleading.

And those with a fact-based outlook are now beginning to leverage its power. Roser is using the largely negative platform of Twitter to give his positive data away for free. He’s not alone in trying to mitigate against the misery. And he understands that a more accurate conversation might serve to inspire and excite even more progress.

More significantly, the device that 2.5 billion human beings now carry in their hands is a vault of easily verifiable evidence that the world really is a better place. Too many bad What’s more probable is that technology, not things still happen, yes, but they are easily outnumbered by the politicians, will bring good. us to our sanguine ‘The device that 2.5 billion senses. Tech may be human beings now carry in There has been a seen by many as the their hands is a vault of easily recent move to make bringer of all things verifiable evidence that the those in schools and bad – not only taking our jobs but slowly world really is a better place.’ workplaces more mindful. A laudable erasing human spirit idea.

But perhaps Hans Rosling’s legacy will and turning us into automatons incapable of also make us a bit more factful and a bit raising a smile, let alone a revolution. There more grateful. may be some truth in this, but tech is also rocket-fuelling the pace of positive change across the world.

‘We may be living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.’

Steven Pinker

By Rose Lincoln / Harvard University

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ADream

Year After winning his chosen place at university Charlie Watson OKS went off to play for Saracens, who recently won the Premiership Shield.

G

rowing up I played for Canterbury Rugby Club Juniors through all the age groups and got picked up by Kent County Rugby aged 12. I must confess I did not enjoy county rugby because I was a lot smaller and weaker than everybody else and it was dominated by West Kent players: there were so many of them that Tonbridge Juddians players used to arrive at training in a minibus.

‘Being paid to play a sport which you love at the best club in the world is an absolute dream.’

After a few years in the county set up I was selected for the Saracens Kent Elite. This was the toughest stage in my rugby development and all I can remember is full contact sessions in the rain. However, after two years in the SKE I was selected to join the Saracens Junior Academy, aged 15. This was a very enjoyable experience, and I am grateful to have been part of such a great junior academy.

Being part of the academy included training from 6:30 to 9:15 every Monday night at Allianz Park, Barnet, North London. I would finish lessons at 4:00 and run to the car. (I live closer to France than I do Allianz Park.) Huge thanks go to my dad, who drove me every Monday night and never complained. I would also do gym with Saracens every Thursday night at Christchurch University sports centre.

Throughout my first three years in the academy I played as a fly half, and never really excelled, often not starting or even making the team.

But in my final year, and with the U18 academy league about 

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‘Saracens is a great club and all the coaches work hard to drive us players; it is a great environment to be part of, especially since all the players train together.’ to begin, the starting Inside Centre got injured and I was asked to fill in. At the end of the academy league I was offered a full-time contract at Saracens.

I was very surprised to receive a contract and was planning to go to university straight after school so in a sense it put a spanner in the works. It also did not help that I had booked a five-week holiday to New Zealand, which I would have to cancel so that I could go to preseason training. I managed to defer my university place and signed the contract, which was a great moment of excitement for me but less so for my mum, who still has not forgiven me for losing all the money for the New Zealand trip. Being paid to play a sport which you love at the best club in the world is an absolute dream.

Pre-season was hell, but at the same time I loved it. There is nothing better than working hard and playing in the hot sun. I trained in the 32

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gym six times a week and gained 10kg by the start of the season. It is quite magical how a proper diet and getting the right amount of sleep can get such physical results. Twice a day I would be drinking ‘super-mass’ protein shakes, each with 850 calories, containing one scoop of protein, two scoops of mass gainer, one banana, peanut butter, honey and creatine.

After pre-season I joined my loan club, Old Albanians, a National 2 rugby team. The purpose of this is to ensure younger players at the club get enough match time. My week combines training at Saracens five days with my loan club on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Saracens is a great club and all the coaches work hard to drive us players; it is a great environment to be part of, especially since all the players train together. You learn very quickly who to avoid in sessions. I live in a house with seven other players, which in three words is fun, messy and hazardous.

‘I managed to defer my university place and signed the contract, which was a great moment of excitement for me.’

‘Pre-season was hell, but at the same time I loved it.’

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Words of wisdom We wrote to members of the Common Room: ‘You retire from teaching tomorrow and your distraught pupils ask you for one final piece of wisdom. What would it be?’ We received the following replies:

Love whatever you do and life is a doddle.

s; e succes s i l a u s Vi and how underst here to get t ere you from wh ieve you are; bel there; can get . practise

nerds.

Be nice to ’ll One day you e. work for on

There are seve ral great lies of histor y: • ‘I’ll pay you later…’

• ‘I’ll look af ter it…’

• ‘I can keep a secret…’

• ‘With respec t...’

• ‘It’s not you . It’s me.’

and Laugh more worry less.

Enjoying your youth does not mean wasting it.

Don’t g ive a present you would n ot want to receive yoursel f.

Find something yo u enjoy doing, becaus e happiness cannot be measured in monetary terms. Th ere is no such thing as enough money.

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If they gossip to you they gossip about you.

Living is e reading. Th t , rest is jus Don’t email history. sage. text or mes ter.

Write a let g hopin y l l a I’m re one hits some ’ by y All en ‘Repl h ent w accid g to this. ndin respo

Don’t take any thing too seriously unless that t hing could eat you .

Be kind. e dies Everyon ing regrett to love, failure . not work

Live by what you wish to see written on your gravestone.

and Be careful ince you tolerant s roved are often p ou judge wrong if y . too quickly

Never be afraid to be yourself; you are living in a world of acceptance.

If you f ind yoursel f drinki ng alone at home, somethi ng is wrong .

Reme old p mber th e ro must verb: ma n w time ait long hill on top o f open with mou th befo re r duck flie oast s in.

Learn t Run Parkrun. o k yoursel now f, b yoursel e f, your accept Always buy if yoursel round, even f, It’s OK p and oth to others skim ers change no your will ac on theirs. cept There is mind ev en if you, to etting g t n i you’ve o o p . believe ou can’t y ; d e d s s e Sleep ei somethi str ght hing, ng h o everyt ours a n d for yea ight. rs. can at but you y. least tr rá!

e !Que será s

g is Teachin those not for ’t, who can those but for but who can ot to. choose n

Do yoga.

Good ta ste is true cl ass.

Nothing looks more foolish than a man wearing nothing but his socks.

Learn t o laugh at your self.

Don’t give banter if you can’t take it. a Reading is can habit. One d n i always f else to something regular do, so make d. time to rea

It take s courag e to say ‘I d on’t know’ a nd it’s perfect ly accepta ble to do s o.

Don’t eat anything tha t dreams.

Go easy on the wicked because they are miserable.

Never sa y i in writi t ng unless y ou are prep ared to stand by it in co urt.

ho Anyone w s describe s ve as a themsel er er’ rath ‘travell t ouris ’ than a ‘t y a is simpl urist. cheap to

It’s not about the tak ing part. It ’s about the win ning.

Everybody lies; get over it.

Assembl ies and reli gious services may put you off religio n for life, bu t don’t give up on it.

Never post anything online your mum shouldn’t see.

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Being

I

never thought I’d get involved in student politics. The closest I’d come to activism was introducing football at King’s in the Autumn Term.

To those in the real world, student politics provoke sighs of cynicism and images of millennials moaning. But at Newcastle Univerity I saw an opportunity to deliver real change that every student would see and feel.

I spotted five areas of university life I wanted to improve: affordability, the ability to wordprocess exams, having better external speakers, improving ease of access to mental and physical health services, and improving student employability. After a campaign broadcast in which I emerged from the tunnel of St. James’ Park football stadium, and a launch at Newcastle’s finest club, Soho Rooms, I defeated three other candidates for President in 2017. It was a fantastic moment for my team.

President George Reid OKS thought student politics was a noisy waste of time, until he became president of the Student Union at Newcastle University.

Collecting NUSU’s award for Student Union of the Year

This was easy in the end, because the Vice Chancellor was always keen to hear, and where possible to act for, the student voice. Whilst we had to be respectful, good-humoured and understanding of constraints on the university, it was my role to hold the university to account and not to be afraid to dig deeper when issues affected students.

It was my seriousness, I think, that helped maintain respect between union and university because when I spoke out I had always read the relevant papers.

My favourite part of the job was being spokesperson for students in the community.

Newcastle is renowned for great nightlife that delivers millions of pounds to the local community and brings in thousands of students from across the world. The North East also has low house prices, which means students are able to live in more affluent areas than their southern counterparts.

When I came into office, residents in the area of A Student Union is run by Jesmond were angry about half a dozen elected, fullstudent noise and litter, and time sabbatical officers I was made aware of this with different portfolios. frustration when I was invited These include sport, welfare to address the Jesmond and education. My role as President was to oversee each of these Residents Association for fifteen minutes. After an hour on stage, and portfolios, whilst representing the 28,000 Newcastle University the kind of heckling reserved for an amateur comedian, I realised this students in Newcastle, London, Singapore would not be an easy issue to resolve! But by and Malaysia. Our sabbatical officer team was the end of the year, after concerted effort by the ‘I spotted five areas of supported by permanent staff, such as a Chief union and university, noise and litter incidents university life I wanted to Executive and a Director of Finance. were down. I sadly never returned to the JRA to improve: affordability, word- share the good news.

The role was diverse, with every day throwing processing exams, better up a new challenge against my manifesto The job created some challenging situations, external speakers, access commitments. Broadly speaking, it was my job such as being a contact point for the media. to mental and physical to represent any and every Newcastle student to Over the year I had to brief the Financial Times, the university, media and community. This wide health services, and student BBC and ITV as well as local newspapers and remit meant that on one day I could be arguing other media on issues ranging from burglaries employability.’ over university finances, and on another I could to industrial action by lecturers. I always be talking to police about increased drug use. In enjoyed the task of forging an appropriate line some student unions university management generates contempt, of argument. There were, of course, difficult times. In February and but at Newcastle the two parties always got on and I thought it March 2018 lecturers across the country took industrial action for ten vital to maintain good relations if real changes were to be made. working days over pension reform. Many lectures were cancelled, 36

CANTUARIAN | 2018

Meeting with the leader of the Newcastle University Islamic Society to celebrate keeping a prayer space

and I was expected to express solidarity with those on the picket line but, unlike my counterparts across the country, I didn’t. I felt it was more useful to manage the impact of strike action, and I was not convinced by the trade union’s arguments for the strikes.

Invited to explain my position to students and staff, I was shouted at by both groups on a public stage.

But the sweet moments far outweighed the sour. I delivered an honorary degree speech for a local hero, named Tom Caulker, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a similar award to Dr. Martin Luther King. I was humbled that my speech was heard by other degree recipients, including the

writer, Malorie Blackman, and a friend of Dr. King, Andrew Young, and a cell mate of Nelson Mandela, Archie Sibeko, who sadly died recently. I also worked closely with the university Islamic Society to protect a Muslim prayer space that was due to be changed; I delivered an affordability initiative that saved students over £500,000; I lobbied Newcastle City Council for safety restrictions on a student-used road; and during my year in charge we were named Student Union of the Year in the North of England. The experience put me, a recent graduate, into a position of responsibility where my judgements carried weight in a big institution and inevitably I learnt a few key things about politics.

I learned the importance of detailed facts and figures when composing a compelling argument. I also discovered the value of anticipating opposition arguments so that, before speaking on any issue, I had a 360-degree view. Because my days were spent talking with students, police officers, CEOs of local businesses and university management, I learnt that emotional intelligence and adopting the appropriate tone are essential for any negotiating process. Finally, I learned the importance of asking questions over making statements.

At the beginning of my presidency, I was tempted to show off my understanding of an issue by making a comment but I found that it was far more effective to ask questions. This showed I had considered the issue widely and sincerely, and often the issue simply unravelled without further involvement.

It was a dramatic, entertaining and hugely enjoyable year of my life. Before my election I thoughts student politics were a noisy and ineffective endeavour, but I left my role thinking quite the opposite – that student politics can be a vehicle to create real change for thousands of people, even if it means not playing football in the Autumn Term!

e House e Speaker of th Dinner with th ow rc Be hn Jo of Commons,

Launc hin afford g the £3 m ability e initiati al deal, pa costs rt of a ve tha by ov n tc er half a milli ut student on po unds

‘I learnt that emotional intelligence and adopting the appropriate tone are essential for any negotiating process.’

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37

BARRED FROM

LIFE

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Not long ago the gang culture of London ensnared another bright boy. At the age of 15 he murdered a close acquaintance in cold blood with a handgun, and will now spend 25 years behind bars. Blending narration with the boy’s own words, his lawyer, who knows The King’s School, tells the boy’s story.

For legal reasons we have concealed the identity of both lawyer and client. We’ve called the boy Rick.

Before you ask, he knows about The Cantuarian and wants you to read this.

T

his is the story of Rick. It is based on truth, but the names and some of the details have been changed to protect those mentioned. It is a reflection on life as a child, in prison. Some of the narrative is taken verbatim from Rick.

His dad had disappeared just after he was born. He floated between grandfathers, neither really able to have him.

But selling is an awkward business and turf wars can start between gangs. And those at the bottom When Rick was 12, he started storing guns for them. of the pile are often called on to do things that will At different times he stored a sawn-off, a revolver show their commitment to the cause. One day, when and a pistol. He was small and had a baby face, so he was 15, a big guy told Rick he needed a favour. the police were unlikely to trouble Rick hesitated but knew he was ‘The guns were nicked, him. He kept the guns in an going to do it. The big guy put him electrical cabinet he had the key in a car and drove him across town probably by the people to, and whenever they needed to somewhere next to the river. He who had asked him to the guns they would come and ask gave Rick a gun and told him what store them. It’s an old him for them. They needed them to do. Rick waited beside a boat, trick. He had to work for a cap pulled down over his face. It almost every other day. six months to pay them was early evening and already dark.

After a while the electrical cabinet A J was walking along the towpath. off.’ was no good so he stored them When he got close enough, Rick in his house, but he wasn’t happy stepped out and pointed the gun. about that and so he stored them in a bush. The In plain sight of passers by, Rick shot once. A J fell, pocket money came in useful. One day he went out got up, ran and fell. He never got up again. He was and kids were playing with the guns. He took them twenty one. back. Shortly afterwards, the guns were nicked, most probably by the people who had asked him to store That single bullet ripped many lives apart. The victim them. It’s an old trick. He had to work for six months never had a chance to remonstrate or reason, or run. to pay them off.

He was unarmed and he stood no chance. Steph ran to the scene. She tried to get to her dead brother To pay his dues he started as a runner on twenty quid but the police stopped her because they didn’t know a day. Since his mum was a crack and heroin addict who she was and this was a crime scene. She stood he knew the score. After a while he graduated and behind tape while her sibling died yards away. She started selling. There were people who would come went mad. She was restrained by the police and had five times a day. He would watch them take crack, to be dragged to the ground as if she were a nuisance. smoking it through a pipe. They would sit up like a Her mother looked stooped and beaten, bent double board and their eyes would bulge. After the crack by the pain, by the time the court hearing took place. they took heroin and then they relaxed and their eyes glazed over. He felt guilty at times because So what happens to Rick? He did this after all. What that was the cocktail that had destroyed his mother. do you do with him? Well, first, you lock him up and She was his only parent but couldn’t look after him. wait for the court hearing. You have to, of course. 

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They ferried him to the Old Bailey - during King’s Week, as it happens. Rick would have been in the Fifth Form and just free of GCSEs when he stood up and said guilty to murder.

But if you have killed someone as a child you are inside and there are no GCSEs to be had. Even if he had wanted to sit exams he couldn’t. Not GCSEs. Not A’ Levels. Rehabilitation for kids isn’t taken too seriously. There isn’t time for it. It’s just about stopping violence.

Rick found that the screws were ok, but they weren’t going to stand in the way of gang warfare. Why would they on that sort of pay?

Sometimes when he heard someone was going to snake him, he’d just have to get in first. Once, Rick saw about 15 guys piling in on one bloke.

They called an ambulance but he died. Then the police got involved.

Rick hit a few people too, of course. He heard that one guy might come to his cell and take his tobacco, so when the bloke was playing table tennis he walked up to him and punched him five or six times in the face. Nothing too serious.

Some blood and some time on the block.

But Rick began to have problems. Odd sorts of problems. Head problems. He started to struggle with his speech. He began to stutter.

He had never stuttered outside. On the streets he was comfortable – in any situation. In there he got very paranoid. Because he never knew what was going to happen – a punch, a kicking, a blade. He was always on his guard.

‘When the bloke was playing table tennis he walked up to him and punched him five or six times in the face. Nothing too serious. Some blood and some time on the block.’

He reached sixteen. No one visited him much.

Occasionally a grandparent, for an hour or two

‘No one visited him much.

Occasionally a grandparent, for an hour or two every fortnight.’

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‘Rick got frustrated and angry and felt bad about what he did and wanted to turn the clock back.

He dreamt about not pulling the trigger.’

every fortnight. That was the maximum contact with family he was allowed. There was a cousin he liked. Young and smiley. But he only saw him once in a blue moon. For the rest of the time, he was in a world of children staying alive and living off their wits. It could have been 1856 in there, he reckoned. Nothing at all had changed, except hanging, although quite a few of the people he knew hanged themselves, saving the state the bother. What was the difference really? Like back then, showers and washing were tricky too. One every two days if you were lucky. Once he went ten days without. Stank like a fish.

Rick got frustrated and angry and felt bad about what he did and wanted to turn the clock back.

He dreamt about not pulling the trigger. He dreamt he was on the out and studying hard. And then he woke up. He wished he hadn’t. How had this all happened? The day before sentence he smashed the TV in his cell to smithereens. Smashed it up proper. Deep satisfaction. He was on a high after that until the judge told him it would be twenty years before he could even be considered for release.

is, that’s the way he was going then himself.

He tried to get a grip and be normal. Get some life skills. So he learnt to cook Christmas dinner in the kettle. Just kept the switch down when the water boiled. Cooked pasta in it that he got from the canteen and mixed it up with sauce.

Re-boiled to keep warm when necessary. And after the meal a smoke, but the only problem was not having matches. So he turned the plug off at the mains, opened the plug pins with a pen and inserted foil. Then he turned it on and lit paper off the foil.

But one day the cell caught fire because fifteenyear-olds don’t always concentrate on the job in hand. The screws refused to open the cell door because that would mean the fire couldn’t be contained any more. So they just stuck a hose in the cell. They told him to lie down by the door because there was less smoke on the ground and that way he wouldn’t suffocate so quickly.

There was just him, the fire and a locked cell

‘He tried to get a grip and be normal.

Get some life skills. So he learnt to cook Christmas dinner in the kettle.’

That means at least twenty five in reality, even if all goes well. He will be over fifty. He knows he’ll never make that. And he reckons he deserves what he’s got, even if he was fifteen when it happened. The other guy didn’t get another chance. He thinks about him a lot. Knew him.

Quite liked him. Played in his house as a kid. It was the others who had the beef with him. Stuff happens and there is no going back. Ever.

At night there were whispers. He could hear things through the pipes in his cell. Winding people up. Talking about this and that. Mental health people kicking the pipes all night. Trouble

door. He really thought he was going to die, but in the end he just choked a bit and they put it out.

He discovered it was amazing what you could store in the human body. You just gave it a push and up it went, right inside. Money, phones, drugs. If you wanted one of them, you just pushed them out and hoped that what you wanted came out first. They had dogs to search everything. One day a dog came in – the first time he had ever really had anything to do with one. He had seen them on the streets but up close they were funny. It sniffed him and the

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made a choice. He liked the Quran a lot so he read it cover to cover. And then, despite the radicals, who were idiots to a man, he decided to convert. He knew everyone would laugh at him and call him a terrorist but he wasn’t one and he didn’t care. In fact, it made him laugh, because they were nuts.

But he liked the peace the book brought. And Sometimes he got depressed and just lay the Quran was something he could study. He could improve. He could ask on the bed. He thought questions and think about back to years 7 and 8, the ‘He didn’t know what the answers. Free in the best times of his life. Loved school. He was good at it. sort of dog it was – he head. Just not free out of it.

Maths was a total laugh, so had never touched one And now? Well, soon he will easy. Came top. And there were no drugs at that time. before – but it was just be seventeen. He might get Life was sweet. Could have like a cute gold-coloured a parole hearing in nineteen done stuff. dog with big fluffy ears.’ years. When he says that, he laughs and shakes his head. New religion, new He took to reading the Bible as it was better than the other books. More direction. Some hope. He’s just got to do meat on it. And the Quran too. He warmed to something with all this time. It’s the only it. The ISIS guys talked to him on association, way he can put anything back. He can’t do A’ trying to radicalise him. They couldn’t let Levels now. But he can skip them and go for the guard see or they would stop it. He was the Open University instead. Send off work never going to be radicalised but it was quite and then get it sent back. Why not? Plenty interesting to watch them try. Eventually he of time on his hands. screws got all suspicious. He just said he hadn’t had a shower for ten days; it wasn’t drugs. He didn’t know what sort of dog it was – he had never touched one before – but it was just like a cute gold-coloured dog with big fluffy ears. Brilliant. He wanted a dog.

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‘The Quran was something he could study. He could improve. He could ask questions and think about the answers.

Free in the head. Just not free out of it.’

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‘All Bruno could do was prop himself up against a tree and urge his men on until he was struck for the last time.’

Image: Bruno Garibaldi’s body is carried on a stretcher

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A

King’s

Ransom

Joshua Platt (5th LN) reflects

on the humbling heroism shown by OKS 100 years ago

CANTUARIAN | 2018

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NCOs in the OTC c1913

I

t was early morning and Flight Commander Spencer D N Grey OKS looked up at the sunrise from the cockpit of his Avro 504, its orange glow indistinguishable from the flames that consumed German territory below his feet. His mission was to destroy the Dusseldorf zeppelin shed. As soon as the target came into view, he plummeted to treetop level, guns blazing crimson when he opened fire on the hangar, which exploded into a ball of flame while he circled overhead. He had done it. When Spencer looked to signal the other flying aces, he saw something glint in the corner of his eye. His tail wing was on fire, consuming the fabric behind him at an alarming rate. If he could just get back from behind enemy lines, and land, then he would be home straight.

Spencer was written about, later that year, in the 1914 edition of The Cantuarian. The war had just broken out and the newsletter was teeming with heroic stories of bravery, courage and comradeship.

There was much excitement after the school campus had been transformed into a military camp for billeting purposes over the summer holidays.

The science labs were surgeries and troops from the East Kent regiments based themselves in what is now The Schoolroom and The Old Grange. Twenty officers were welcomed into the Archbishop’s Palace and the school was in full patriotic support of the troops on the Western Front. Even the King visited Canterbury in secret to inspect the troops quartered up at the barracks, but naturally some of the students crept out to give His Majesty a hearty cheer when he passed in the carriage.

At around the same time, Sub Lt C E R Alford OKS was sailing aboard a minesweeper when he found

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Avro 504

‘He plummeted to tree-top level, guns blazing crimson when he opened fire on the hangar, which exploded into a ball of flame.’ himself in all manner of mischief. His boat was shelled while he was above deck. After helping as many wounded men off the sinking craft as he could, he jumped ship and swam to a lifeboat. Six men drifted for two days on board that lifeboat.

Sadly, two died. Alford (the only officer) took charge until one day, just on the horizon, what looked like nothing more than a tiny speck came into view. The craft got closer and closer but by the time the crew could see that it was German it was already too late.

The German boat attempted to capture the British lifeboat, insisting they must take any officer prisoner.

Alford abandoned his uniform and insisted that there were no officers on board, and that the crew must be spared. So they were left to drift.

In his letter to The Cantuarian, Alford wrote, ‘I hope I may be pardoned for the lie! But I very much want to get my own back and couldn’t bloody well do it by offering myself to The Hun as a free gift.’

Lt Alford was not the only OKS sailor to come into contact with the Germans firsthand.

Some were less fortunate and fell into enemy clutches. One such man was A Seymour OKS, who found himself interned at Groningen in the Netherlands. In his telegram back home, Alford claimed he only got a ‘short run for his money’ because he and the rest of his crew were captured less than six months after the war began, and Alford was eager to be back out in the war zone, fighting for his country.

This patriotism, pride and heroism was ever-present within the walls of The King’s School. But not all fighters had a home to fight for, and some fought more in the service of an ideal than a country. One such was a brave OKS called Bruno Garibaldi. Stationed in the untamed forests of Argonne on Christmas Eve 1914, Garibaldi’s regiment received orders for their first combat of the Great War, to attack a 150-yard stretch of the German trenchline. Garibaldi’s legion, organised by his brothers, was a group of volunteer mercenaries who strove to defend freedom and democracy. The legion remained unrecognised by the British throughout the war so they fought under the French flag. Previously they had fought in Greece and Mexico, also to defend their beliefs. This was especially hard for Bruno and his brothers, since their parents were Italian Fascists.

‘Bruno knew it would not be easy and the odds were heavily stacked against him.’

Bruno Garibaldi

enemy trench, ahead of all of his comrades, and with lightning speed he was up the other side, chasing fleeing soldiers. Despite his wounds he continued onwards but as he was charging through the final stretch of defences he was hit yet again. This time all Bruno could do was prop himself up against a tree and urge his men on until he was struck for the last time. Bruno’s sacrifice created a legacy that lived on in his battalion throughout the war. His name will live on in our memory.

‘Alford was eager to be back out in the war zone, fighting for his country.’

Living in such a historic place as King’s is a true privilege, but it has changed so much since 1918 that it is too easy for us to put the atrocities of war well in the past. But it must be remembered that there is still no peace in our time. Every day thousands flee their homes due to conflict and, especially this year, at the Centenary of the end of The Great War, it is important not only to pay our respects to those who died in the two World Wars but also to all those who today suffer for war.

A circular with illustrations of Herbert Baker’s plans for the war memorial was produced and inserted in the December 1918 issue of The Cantuarian.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

It was essential the trenches be cleared out, but Bruno knew it would not be easy and the odds were heavily stacked against him. During a daring attack through trenches and uncut barbed wire, Bruno was struck in the hand by a bullet and received only basic first aid. He was hit again while he continued to lead his men but the mounting wounds failed to stop him.

With tremendous valour he dived into the first

‘Living in such a historic place as King’s is a true privilege, but it has changed so much since 1918 that it is too easy for us to put the atrocities of war well in the past.’

Many of the 1914 Sixth Form were killed or wounded.

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100 Years The First World War in OKS Verse

We asked Peter Henderson for a selection of First World War poetry written by former pupils of King’s.

T

he two most significant OKS ‘war poets’ were Dyneley Hussey and Joseph Courtney. Hussey (KSC 1907-12) published a collection entitled ‘Fleur de Lys’ in 1916 and there are some manuscript versions of his poems in the King’s archive. Courtney (KSC 1905-09) published a collection entitled ‘As the Leaves Fall’ in 1917. The title poem in the book was set to music by Harold Darke. Courtney also wrote a poem about a fellow OKS, James Yates (KSC 1903-08), who was the brother of Dame Frances Yates. The final (anonymous) poem in Peter’s selection was published in The Cantuarian, July 1919.

‘A Last View of Canterbury Cathedral from The Franciscan Gardens’ Dyneley Hussey - 1915 (page 106) ‘An Englishman’ - Joseph Courtney - 1918 (page 58) ‘As the Leaves Fall’ - Joseph Courtney - Autumn 1916 (page 113) ‘Bell Harry Tower 1914-1919’ - Anonymous - 1919 (page 50)

War Memorial unveiling ceremony 19 December 1921

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Bell Harry Tower 1914-1919 Like knights of old they sallied forth, to fight for honour’s sake They heeded not the sacrifice, scarce realized the stake: But they had learnt what duty meant, had learnt to do and die ’Neath stately old Bell Harry towering upward to the sky.

They loved to come on furlough to that paradise of peace, To mingle in the quiet life midst haunts of cloistered ease: And often on the battlefield their thoughts would homeward fly To stately old Bell Harry towering upward to the sky.

Now peace is won at last; and over many a grave in France The grateful summer breezes make the slender grasses dance: But memory will call back again those who went forth to die, At sight of old Bell Harry towering upward to the sky.

Anonymous (1919)

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The

S W E CL

Brothers

Patrick (Patch) OKS

M

y five years at King’s, from 2008 to 2013, were spent making unbreakable friendships and embracing many of the opportunities on offer, all of which I look back on with the fondest of memories. Could I have asked for a better time at school? No. But it was soon time for me to leave the fantasy bubble of life at King’s and face the real world.

besides. Each country on our trail had its own unique feel with the most incredible landscapes and some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. All too soon, though, having returned home after eating far too many steaks, drinking our fair share of Malbec and sporting a fine moustache (it seemed like a good idea at the time but didn’t last a week), it was time to get serious again and head to university.

With A’ Levels in Geography, Economics and Politics I gained a place at Newcastle University to read Geography, focusing on Economic and Political Geography. (And no, it was not all just colouring in.) But before making the trip up North I felt a break from academia was needed and decided I was going to snap up the opportunity of having a gap year travelling and experiencing different parts of the world.

I reckon it was in Remove that Archie Todd OKS, Hamish Coultard OKS and I first set our sights on travelling around South America, although before we jetted off we had to earn Brothers Patch, some money. This was when the realities of the real world truly hit home: how on earth was one hour of hard graft equal to one pint of beer!?

I spent a month picking hops for 12 hours a day, six days a week, before moving on to working in a bathroom warehouse during the day and as a bar manager in a local gastro-pub in the evenings for a further five months.

At last we jetted off on our adventure through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Starting in the scintillatingly energetic city of Buenos Aires and finishing in the tranquil ‘We trekked across setting of the Colombian Caribbean coast, we Mendoza on horseback, trekked across Mendoza on drove across the Bolivian horseback, drove across the salt flats, climbed the Bolivian salt flats, climbed Peruvian mountains at the Peruvian mountains at 5am to see the sun rise 5am to see the sun rise over the Ancient City of over the Ancient City of Machu Pichu, cycled down Machu Pichu...’ the terrifying ‘Death Road’ and did much, much more 52

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Angus and Hugo

Newcastle was three years for which the phrase ‘work hard, play hard’ couldn’t have been more apt – enthralling academia combined with constant socialising, living in a house of eight boys with constant banter, it was the best of times that I will never forget. When my time in the Geordie city approached the end, I realised the prospect of being a weatherman or a geography teacher didn’t really excite me so I decided to sign up for a Masters in Commercial Real Estate at the University of Reading.

An academically intense year was once again combined with incessant socialising, but this time I felt that there was a very real purpose – getting a job!

Masters successfully obtained, I am now on the graduate scheme at GL Hearn, a London-based commercial real estate company, currently seconded to the development team.

It’s an ever-changing industry that certainly keeps me on my toes.

Whilst my life has moved on, King’s is still at its core. I live with James Baker, Ben Simpson and Seb Leggett (all OKS) and we often meet up with other King’s friends and all look back on the wonderful memories we have of King’s with the greatest of affection. Machu Pichu

most dangerous road to relaxing on the white sands of the Caribbean coast. The continent is a fantastic place to visit and the people are among the friendliest and most welcoming I’ve ever met. But after three unforgettable months and one dodgy haircut it was time to come back to reality. Although it has become a bit of a cliché, having a gap year gave me a whole new sense of independence and I think if anything in life has changed me for the better, it’s the time I spent in India and South America.

‘Death

Road’

ia

v – Boli

Having completed two years of my Economics degree at the University of Exeter so far and making a plethora of new friends and memories along the way, I’m currently on a placement with IBM. It’s been challenging, exhilarating and everything in between, and I’m excited to see where it takes me post-uni.

Hugo with Lungrik an d Sherab

Hugo OKS

H

aving a younger brother still at the school, I have been back to King’s several times since leaving, but it still strikes me every time I return how much has changed in just four years. New teachers, new uniforms, new buildings; every time I go back there seems to be a new project on the go of some kind or other. Whilst at school, changes like these seem somehow less significant and pass by as just part of school life. It’s only when returning after a while that you really notice big differences. This got me thinking – I wonder if those school friends and teachers who have not seen me since 2015 would think I had changed as much as I think King’s has.

So, to return to where I started, have all these experiences changed me since walking out of Mint Yard Gate for the last time? Probably.

Much like King’s, we all change year to year perhaps far more than we realise and looking back over the past few years I think the same must apply to me, but I suppose that’s not for me to say!

I had always been set on taking a ‘gap yah’ before going to uni, and this started with a job for a marquee company in Kent. As you can imagine, being a sub-average height eighteen-year-old private school boy, I was subject to my fair share of teasing. Going straight from sunny King’s Week into an intense, 10-hour-day manual-labour job was certainly a shock to the system at first, but it was a real growingup experience and by no means a bad first ‘proper’ job.

After a few months mastering the art of erecting marquees, I set off to India with a friend from prep school to volunteer in a Buddhist monastery in Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama. Starting out in the madness of New Delhi and being conned by a tuk-tuk driver within the first 10 minutes, it was a breath of fresh air (literally) when we arrived in the foothills of the Himalayas. Being put in charge of a class of boys aged four to twelve who spoke only Hindi and Tibetan and being tasked with teaching them English and Maths for a month was a challenge to say the least, but I loved every minute of it.

One month back at home and I was off again, this time to South America. Starting in Argentina and travelling up through to Colombia via several very long coach journeys (it turns out ‘El Rapido Buses’ are not so rapido) I had some incredible experiences, from cycling down the world’s

‘I had some incredible experiences, from cycling down the world’s most dangerous road to relaxing on the white sands of the Caribbean’

Party i n Exete r

dise

Para

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Angus (6a SH)

M

y first experience at King’s was as a seven-year-old boy when my oldest brother entered School House. Now, 11 years on, it is almost time for the Clews family to say a sad goodbye.

I started my time at King’s with rather large boots to fill and did find that I was very much known as Patch’s and Hugo’s younger brother, rather than Angus. But I do feel I also started with an advantage, one brother having left only recently and another still in 6a, and having known the School House dream team of Mr. Thornby, Major Vintner and Mary-Anne, for many years , but it still took me a while to find my feet.

Music has also played a major role in my King’s career. Playing the saxophone and being a singer, there have been ample opportunities for me to perform, from the glorious chorales of the Crypt Choir to the exciting sound of the Big Band. The pressure was also on to follow my older brothers as members of The King’s Men and I have particularly enjoyed the comraderie of that group. These opportunities have really set me up for a lifelong ambition to keep participating with music and I was honoured to be awarded a music scholarship for my last year.

My biggest achievement at King’s must be my appointment as Vice-Captain of School. However, this is not because of the status or the purple gown, but simply because it allowed me to gain bragging rights over my Deputy Head of House brothers.

Over the years King’s has taught me a number of things. I left prep school with As I look forward, a clear image of life after King’s fills how life would me with excitement be from then on mixed with and, like many apprehension. Next immature boys year I plan to take a would think, it Gap Year, hoping to really involved really ‘find myself’. only sport.

I have a job lined However, this is up at a prep school not the narrow in Kenya, where I direction in which will be helping out the last four years in all aspects of the have taken me. school, followed by Patch, Angus and Hugo with Mr T Although I still some volunteering really enjoy sport in Buenos Aries, and will continue Argentina.

After to play in teams in the future, King’s has this, I hope to go to university to study Business made me realise my true passion lies with Management and, providing my A’ Levels go to Drama and I now face the tough decision plan, that will be down in Exeter. whether I should go for it and try to make it as an actor, or to stick to a safe option. I have After education I see a world of opportunities, studied Drama from Shell to 6a and enjoyed meaning I have absolutely no idea what I will end every single moment. My highlight was the up doing. My dream is to be a film actor, but I am Mint Yard Play in my 5th Form when I played also seriously considering working in the city or Stanley Kowalski, a lead role in A Streetcar even becoming housemaster of the mighty School Named Desire.

House on which so much of my life so far has been centred. Watch out, Major V!

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‘King’s has made me realise my true passion lies with Drama and I now face the tough decision whether I should go for it and try to make it as an actor...’

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The

Only

Son

L

Looking back at my family history in the last 100 years, the fact that now I am typing this article is a miracle.

Why? Because the probability of my ancestors surviving was pretty much close to zero. If I take you back from 2019 to the Imperial Russia of 1910 and South Siberia, later Kazakhstan, you will see why.

Although Kazakhstan is not a well-known country, it is eleven times bigger than the UK. However, unlike the Western world, it was not industrialized before the Twentieth Century, and most people worked in agriculture. My ancestors really enjoyed farming livestock. It was in their blood. Cultivating this tradition since the Sixteenth Century, they ended up with five thousand cows and three thousand horses. Kazakhstan was one of the first places to domesticate horses, which still play an important part in its culture: nowadays I am the only one in my father’s family who cannot ride. It was also in this region that the earliest version of polo was invented. Called ‘kokboru’, or ‘kokpar’, instead of a ball it uses a headless, freshly slaughtered goat. For modern ethical reasons this sport is now rarely practised. Anyway, my ancestors were living their best life, before the Bolsheviks came.

When she reflects on the hairbreadth escapes of her ancestors, Nia Zhangaskina (5th JR) is glad to exist at all.

the obvious things like food and accommodation. For example, as a special encouragement to outstanding achievement in the fields, men were given permission to spend a night with women chosen for them. As you can imagine, the women didn’t have a choice. Anyone not following the instructions was punished. Obviously. I could go on.

By the 1920s my great-great-grandfather had been shot by the Red Army with countless other men. He was a small official with certain limited powers before the Bolsheviks appeared but they wanted to suppress followers of monarchy and the old political regime, and along with the monarchists they wiped out anyone who posed any sort of threat to the new order. So began the complete destruction of not only the upper class but the middle class as well. Just imagine. If you were more or less intelligent and had a qualification in Science, The Arts or any other sphere, you would be dragged out of your bed at night and killed, and tortured first if you were less lucky. There were no boundaries or limits. Sometimes they committed such cruel crimes just for fun. Of course, when people commit enough brutal actions for long enough, moral boundaries disappear altogether.

‘Communism’s main idea was equality and sharing everything.

When I say ‘everything’, I mean everything.’

My grandfather’s brother predicted the Russian Revolution before the arrival of Communism. So he led half of my ancestral village – four hundred people – in the direction of modern Turkey. We never heard of them again. The ones left behind were not allowed to leave again for seventy years. It is vital to understand that by saying ‘Communism’ I mean the violent orders sent from Moscow against the ordinary people. I will skip the less interesting part, when my family’s property was confiscated by the Red Army and some people started dying from famine, because what happened next was much worse.

By the time my ancestors were kicked out of their traditional home in Siberia and sent to Kazakhstan, new reforms came from the capital. Communism’s main idea was equality and sharing everything. When I say ‘everything’, I mean everything. First, communes were set up where people had to share more than 56

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For example, a psychiatrist wrote in his journal that one of his patients burned herself with boiling water on purpose. When he asked her why, she replied, ‘I’m not crazy. I was in the Communist Party. And now I don’t want to be.’ She recalled witnessing an official breaking

This happened to the neighbour of my sixyear-old grandfather.

‘He was so annoyed by the insult, he moved to Kazakhstan, the ethnic home of the Kazakhs.’

The mother of my father’s father, knowing there was no way to survive in the town, decided by any means possible to save her child. One day, looking at him for the last time, she threw him into the carriage of a passing train and he became the only survivor from a town of four hundred people.

In his pocket she had secreted a small piece of paper with the name and address of the boy’s aunt, who was married to a communist official.

My grandfather grew up in the safety of his aunt’s home, and became a high-qualified pulmonologist – a doctor specialising in tuberculosis. He married my grandmother, Eva, who was sent from Hungary in 1956 after the failed Hungarian revolution against the Communist regime. She was one of 200,000 Hungarians sent to the Soviet Union as part of a punishment for the rebellion. However, she can’t have been too disappointed since there she met the love of her life. My father was born in the 1960s and then my grandfather decided to move back to his native town.

‘Cannibals could knock on your front door, kidnap you and sell your fresh flesh on the streets.’

There was nothing left to remind him of his childhood and my young father was met with discrimination because he wasn’t Russian, but a mixture of Kazakh and Hungarian blood. The local residents refused to call him by his name, ‘Kanat’, but used the typical Russian name ‘Kolya’ instead. He was so annoyed by the insult, he moved to Kazakhstan, the ethnic home of the Kazakhs.

the fingers of a ten-year-old boy for a laugh.

He promised to stop if the boy’s mother broke one of her son’s fingers herself. When the third finger had been broken, she broke the fourth. Rumour had it she went crazy afterwards. More savage crimes than this, too vicious to describe here, happened every day.

Moscow’s orders, the Red Army blocked towns deliberately to provoke famine until everyone was dead. With no food any more, people started losing their minds and practising cannibalism, the ultimate human taboo. They formed gangs to prey on their victims, usually easy targets like children, women and the elderly.

Famine is a grim feature of unstable political situations, and it thrived in the battle between the new government and the people. The people could not resist and had to suffer. It was hopeless. Following

Once the daughter of our family’s close friend went outside to get some water and didn’t come back. Cannibals could knock on your front door, hit you on the head, kidnap you and sell your fresh flesh on the streets.

There he read Architecture and Economics at university and gained a PhD in Economics.

He then discovered a passion for Archaeology and visited over 160 of the 195 countries existing today. Some of them, like China, the USA, Turkey, Russia, Iran and India, he has visited more than 25 times, and others, like Peru, Israel, Syria, Ukraine and Egypt, perhaps ten times. ‘I will never know the history of the whole world but I never stop learning,’ he says.

He is an excellent father. He is my role model.

And I can’t put into words how happy I am to be his daughter. But just think: without the brave sacrifice of his mother when she threw her only boy onto a moving train, neither of us would exist. CANTUARIAN | 2018

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An Englishman (in memoriam James S. Yates, killed in action 8 October 1915) The great call came – his country’s call – He answered it, and leaving all He went to fight for this country’s name, For his country’s right and honour and fame, Which are always one and just the same To an Englishman He Up It As He As

led his men – his country’s sons – and on to the enemy’s guns. was always a cheering word he cried, they fought and fell and were sorely tried. led them on and was struck, and died an Englishman

When the last trump sounds – the call of God – He will answer through the sweat and blood; He will rise up and then from his nameless bed, And answer the roll of his country’s dead: And God will be proud that ’twas so he bled As an Englishman.

Joseph Courtney OKS (1918)

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CHASING DREAMS

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Reflecting on personal experience, Mattie Butler (SL HH) believes the road to the top leads nowhere and is littered with wasted chances.

W

e are always told to follow our dreams: as long as we have passion, we will get through anything. But for many, lifelong dreams are out of reach or don’t even exist, and most fulfil only a few of their aspirations. Some become a famous actor, swimmer, musician or painter only to find they could have done far better without the many sacrifices along the way.

swimming that now she doesn’t have a single other hobby.

Also, she is struggling with school work and friendships because she simply doesn’t have enough time.

In 2017, Lincoln University carried out a study that examined the sacrifices the young make in pursuit of an athletic career.

The study found that under heightened pressure a young athlete is known to make irrational sacrifices. This is exactly what happened to the friend of mine. As she progressed and started to become more talented, her mother pushed her to breaking point. She wishes now that she could have slowed everything down and properly thought about whether all the sacrifices were worth it.

When we are young we take many classes – ballet, swimming or judo – in the hope that we will one day excel. What may have started as a place your mum could leave you for two hours might end up as the centre of your life. Although when ‘Whilst putting children grow up most stop such classes everything into a to progress in other ways at school or competitive career in their social lives, many continue with their passions in case they do achieve might be seen as their dreams. admirable, being

In the pursuit of a dream career, we are often guided by the extremes. On one hand, there are those who doubt ever becoming what they truly want and so never try. On the other hand, there are those who put their all into achieving blinded by such passion their best, usually with no back-up plan.

I used to be an aspiring ballet dancer.

Until I came to King’s, ballet was my plan. is irrational and doesn’t These days the number doing the latter is From the age of two my life was centred starting to increase. With rising numbers guarantee success.’ around ballet classes. I would spend of inspirational talks from people such as hours in the car travelling to competitions in the hope Steve Jobs, the ideal career no longer seems out of reach. that it would get me ahead. Friends’ parties had to be In 2014, across America 37% of students majored in liberal missed and homework put aside in the hope that I would arts instead of engineering or computer information. This succeed in ballet and wouldn’t need Maths. number is increasing along with a growing percentage of millennials who are unemployed, which stands at 12.8%.

Although it was fun, I regret the time and energy I Those are the people who have no job at all, let alone the spent. Now I am at King’s and not training at a dance small percentage of people who succeed at an elite career. school, there is no way I could become a ballet dancer.

It is almost as if there is a different part of me I never Rebecca Adlington, one of Britain’s greatest female use any more. Not dancing has made me realise what swimmers, once said that when she was younger she never I spent on a dream that would never come true. This is considered time missed as a sacrifice. She just loved what why I believe making such sacrifices at a young age is she was doing and that was enough. With a passion such as so wrong. Ask me now if it was all worth it and I would hers sacrifices weren’t even an issue. There might be other definitely say no. examples like this for the tiny percentage who make it to the top of their career, but thousands of other young people This is the case for many young adults and teenagers have a very different experience. in modern society. A friend of mine is one of the best swimmers for her age in England. This is very impressive, All in all, I believe that whilst putting everything into a but just by talking to her you can tell how badly she competitive career might be seen as admirable, especially if doesn’t want it. She trains until 10:30 in the evening, you succeed, being blinded by such passion is irrational and falls asleep at 12:00 having done all her homework, and doesn’t guarantee success. The sacrifices made along the wakes up at 5:15 for early morning training. She wants to way do not justify the pain, missed opportunities or wasted quit, but she can’t. She has put so much effort into her financial outlay of only-a-potentially-elite career.

‘Not dancing has made me realise what I spent on a dream that would never come true.’

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A Few Good Women Fatima Mansoor (R LX) discovers that, where gender equality is

concerned, King’s took its time in getting into step with history, but it got there in the end.

2

018 marked 100 years since British women over the age of 30 won the right to vote in the UK for the first time through the Representation of the People Act. Women’s suffrage was women’s fight for the right to vote. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst in the UK, it revolutionised the country’s social and political system, and King’s embraced such social change while the political emancipation of women was happening throughout the world during the 20th Century. After nearly 1400 years educating only males, King’s has now been fully co-educational since 1990, and in 2019 its intake is roughly half boys and half girls. But King’s took its time to go with the flow of history.

Four years later World War One began, so the women’s suffrage movement was alive at a tumultuous time in history and its campaign was suspended while across the Western world women contributed to the workforce. Large numbers of women were recruited to do jobs that had been predominantly male and the involvement of women in the war effort rapidly changed perceptions of the role of women in British society. Women throughout the country proved that they were equal to men in the workplace (even if the pay wasn’t equal), strengthening the case for the women’s vote.

And in 1918, along with the end of the war they helped win, the women’s first battle was over.

Meanwhile at King’s, even during the war, progress with support The first stone in the for universal suffrage path to equal rights was being made. In the was laid at King’s with a Summer Term of 1914, debate. On 30 October Miss D Bellars was listed 1869 a revolutionary as an assistant master motion was proposed in the school rotulus.

by Dr. Mitchinson, In 1918, Miss Southern ‘Women’s suffrage was women’s fight for the right Headmaster: ‘It is was also listed. Both to vote. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst in the UK, expedient that the taught in the Junior suffrage be extended School in what is now it revolutionised the country’s social and political to women on the Walpole House. Until system.’ same terms as it is the Sex Disqualification enjoyed by men.’ The motion was thrown out by a large Removal Act was passed in 1919, no married women had majority – not exactly a forward-thinking, revolutionary been allowed to work as teachers. beginning to our journey. But such journeys are rarely straightforward.

In 1928 women gained complete electoral equality with men after the Representation of the People Act 1928, which gave November 1910. By this time The Cantuarian had been all women the right to vote aged 21, just like men. That same established in the school, and the debate was back. year Emmeline Pankhurst died but not before she saw the The Debating Society put forward the motion that ‘The political emancipation of women, to which she had devoted suffrage be extended to women on the same terms as her life, achieved in Britain. it is now granted to men.’ This time it was defeated by a mere 29 to 21.

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‘After nearly 1400 years educating only males, King’s has now been fully coeducational since 1990, and in 2019 its intake is roughly half boys and half girls.’

‘Natascha Engel OKS (Mitchinson’s 198385) was the first OKS woman MP and since then distinguished female alumnae are too many to name.’

Such social emancipation was reflected at King’s.

Female music teachers were first listed in 1950, and the first woman member of the Senior School’s teaching staff arrived fifty years ago in January 1968.

Muriel Mallows was not only the first women member, but also the first female Head of Department. She ran Art. During the 1970s, the Sixth Form became coeducational, the first Sixth Form girl, Jane Baron, arriving in September 1971. The first non-Sixth-Form girl, Stefania Almansi, arrived in January 1976, and she was followed by many more. From 1990 full coeducation began and the rest, as they say, is history.

Natascha Engel OKS (Mitchinson’s 1983-85) was the first OKS woman MP and since then distinguished female alumnae are too many to name.

‘Until the Sex Disqualification Removal Act was passed in 1919, no married women had been allowed to work as teachers.’

Looking back at the struggle for female emancipation within King’s and beyond, one has to agree with Frank Zappa: ‘Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.’

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U

nwritten rules said the girls had to sit in the front row and ignore the boys whistling, cat-calling and banging on desks. It was just another day for the young Jocelyn Bell at the University of Glasgow – the only woman in her Physics class.

When she was twelve she was sent with the rest of the girls at school to a course on ‘domestic science’ (cooking and sewing mostly) while the boys did real science. But after she and her classmates complained, twenty minutes later they were allowed to join the boys. Later, in their Quaker household, her parents encouraged Jocelyn to pursue a degree in Physics. Although this was rare in the early 1960s, and the appalling attitude of her peers must still have been a shock to someone raised equal to her brothers, Jocelyn took up the challenge.

She was a brilliant student who always loved space science, especially after the Russians sent the Sputnik into orbit.

After she graduated in 1965 she knew she wanted to do Radio Astronomy, for the sole reason that she could observe the stars during daytime with a radio telescope and then get a good night’s sleep. She applied to Jodrell Bank Observatory, the crown jewel of British Radio Astronomy, but the head of the observatory, Sir Bernard Lowell, found out a couple of grad students were using the dormitory for things other than sleeping, and he blamed the woman. No female was welcome in his temple of science again. So Jocelyn set her eyes on a position in Australia, but she also applied to Cambridge just in case, and was accepted.

It was her thesis advisor, Antony Hewish, who suggested she study quasars, a recent discovery known to be among the farthest objects in the universe. Today we know that they are active galaxies with a supermassive black hole in the centre. As matter falls into the black hole and is accelerated it emits radio waves that reach us as a luminous dot in the sky. Bell spent three years trying to find out the diameter of these radio dots by studying how their light twinkled when crossing through the solar wind before reaching Earth, just like the visible light of the stars twinkles when it is refracted by the atmosphere of our planet.

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Star

PRIZE

Fede Elias (Physics) marvels at the brilliant career of Astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell.

Image: Susan Jocelyn Bell, 1967 by Roger W Haworth

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS FInstP discovered pulsars (rapidly spinning neutron stars) in 1967, one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of astronomy.

To do that, she spent two years building her own radio telescope. The setup involved planting a thousand poles over a four-acre surface (roughly 57 tennis courts) and linking them with 120 miles of cables and metal wires that worked as antennae. Bell would become quite skilled at swinging a sledgehammer, and before her third year as a PhD student she had her own radio telescope, which looked a bit like a hop field.

After she finished the radio telescope, Bell had six months to collect data and

another six to process them and write her thesis before her grant would finish. Unlike the powerful dish at Jodrell Bank, the installation she built in Cambridge could not be moved to point at any location in the sky. She would have to use the rotation of the Earth to let the sky drift above the telescope in order to map the heavens day and night. Radio telescopes do not collect light like optical telescopes. When radio waves pass through the antennae – technically, electric dipoles – they induce a voltage that can be recorded. The more intense the radio signal, the bigger the voltage. This voltage is converted today to a digital signal that can be stored and processed by a computer.

But in 1967 the recording was done by a rolling paper chart that ran under a pen recorder that would vibrate more or less depending on the voltage. The device looked like a modern seismograph.

Although the antennae could not be moved, the radiotelescope beam could be steered from the horizon to the zenith by changing the phase of the dipoles. This means it could effectively Image: NASA Composite Optical/X-ray image of the Crab Nebula, showing synchrotron emission in the surrounding pulsar wind nebula, powered by injection of magnetic fields and particles from the central pulsar

‘Bell was so excited that she wanted to change the subject of her thesis to this new object, but her supervisor refused.’

Image: Jocelyn Bell at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, 1968 (Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)

comb the sky in all directions while the Earth rotated. The daily output was a massive, 96-feet long graph of recorded voltages. It occupied the whole floor of the lab and Bell had to scan the paper with her own eyes to identify the quasars. The twinkling would produce an intensity variation in the voltage that looked like a fringe pattern in the chart; after scanning hundreds of yards of chart she became quite skilled at finding these out and discarding the man-made noise (sparks from thermostats, pirate radio stations or even the police).

One day she detected a strange pattern in the chart. It was about a quarter of an inch in length, and looked rather ‘scruffy’. She did not pay much attention at first, but when she saw the signal a few more times she became intrigued. The problem was that the chart was running too slow under the recording pen and the signal seemed to have a high frequency. So she needed to switch to a high-speed recorder the next time it appeared. After missing it a few times she finally was able to record the signal in detail.

It comprised a series of perfectly regular pulses that appeared periodically every one and a third of a second.

It had to be man-made, said her supervisor.

It was the most obvious answer, but Bell was able to prove that it came from the sky because it followed the motion of the stars and she could predict when it should be detected again. They were still worried the radio telescope had a glitch. This would have made her thesis invalid, so she worked hard to find any fault with the equipment.

Since nothing was found, they borrowed a different radio telescope and found the same regular pulses coming from the sky.

Bell was so excited that she wanted to change the subject of her thesis to this new object, but her supervisor refused.

Nonetheless, she decided she would juggle the observation of quasars, the writing of her thesis, her imminent marriage and the research of these pulses at the same time, even if it meant losing some of the sleep that made her choose Radio Astronomy in the first place.

They started to call the pulses LGM for Little of The Daily Telegraph, Anthony Michaelis, Green Men. It was a private joke but, after christened the new object ‘pulsar’ – a all, this was a high-frequency periodic radio contraction of ‘pulsating star’. The name is signal originating from somewhere 200 light rather misleading, though; in a conference years away in our galaxy. It was not impossible in Cambridge the same year, the famous that someone was trying to communicate. In astrophysicist and science-fiction writer Fred December that year, though, Bell discovered Hoyle correctly guessed that the pulsar was a second identical signal with a period of not a star but a supernova remnant.

1.2 seconds coming from a completely different place in the galaxy. Soon she had What she had discovered was one of the four different signals from all over the sky, most intriguing types of astronomical objects so alien civilization was ruled out. They had to be astronomical objects. And astronomers around the ‘One day she detected a strange pattern in world had to be informed the chart. It was about a quarter of an inch of their discovery. This led to the most troubling in length, and looked rather ‘scruffy’.’ episode in her grad studies.

Once she went to see her advisor in his office she ran into a meeting to which she had not been in our galaxy, a neutron star whose existence invited. Antony Hewish and the head of the had been predicted by Walter Baade and group, Martin Ryle, were discussing how Fritz Zwicky as early as 1934. When giant to announce the discovery. She stayed but stars with a mass between 1.44 and 3 times felt very uneasy. If there were any other the mass of our sun end their lives in a meetings she was never invited. Bell and supernova explosion – an event so energetic Hewish finally published a paper in Nature in its brightness can match that of a whole 1968. It attracted the attention of the press galaxy – the nucleus of the star remains and and eventually the science correspondent begins to contract. It is so massive that its Image: Chart on which Bell first recognised evidence of a pulsar, exhibited at Cambridge University Library

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Bell shown with the radio telescope which she operated and helped to construct

own gravitational pull crushes the atoms and their nuclei until they reach a critical density in which the electrons fuse with the protons to produce neutrons. The neutrons cannot be compressed further and the collapse stops, giving birth to a neutron ‘star’. At this point it becomes so dense it consists of a sphere of merely ten kilometres in radius and containing a bigger mass than our sun. Not all of it is made of neutrons, though; a crust mostly made of iron and free electrons remains.

‘The radio-telescope beam could be steered from the horizon to the zenith by changing the phase of the dipoles. This means it could effectively comb the sky in all directions while the earth rotated.’

Physics in 1974. It was the first time the Nobel committee recognised Astronomy as proper Physics worthy of a prize, but no astronomer had won it before the pulsars. Being a woman, Bell did not share the glory, but to his credit, Fred Hoyle, who had proposed the neutron star explanation first, harshly criticised the Nobel committee for their decision.

A neutron star, unlike our sun, does not produce any energy from Even without the boost of a Nobel Prize for herself, Bell managed to nuclear reactions; it is a remnant, a fossil star that is very hot in the build a hectic career, following her husband and asking for jobs in beginning but will eventually cool down and become invisible to the closest observatory. She jumped from one position to another, sometimes as a technician. She first studied our telescopes. Sometimes, though, an amazing gamma ray sources, then became a pioneer phenomenon happens that we can observe if in x-ray satellite observations. Eventually, we are lucky. The neutron star rotates rapidly ‘By the time Bell was she taught in the Open University and because it has inherited the rotation of the about to write her thesis settled for a management position in the massive star it belonged to, so it can spin from people in Cambridge would Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. After two once every few seconds to hundreds of times per second. As it rotates the free charges it contains congratulate her more readily decades, her husband left her and she could focus on her career again. She became the create a strong magnetic field, not necessarily on her engagement than on first female President of the Royal Society of aligned with the axis of rotation. The acceleration her discovery.’

Edinburgh and of the Institute of Physics; in of electric charges produces a beam of radio the early 2000’s she was a visiting professor waves emitted in the directions parallel to the at Princeton and President of the Royal north-south axis of the magnetic field. Since it is not aligned with the axis of rotation, the beam spins around the Astronomical Society. These days she is a visiting professor of latter. If the beam crosses the path of the Earth we see a flash of Astrophysics at Oxford. radio waves every time it completes a full turn, just like when we look towards a lighthouse. These were the short pulses that Bell so Even though she never won a Nobel Prize, Bell has received many awards. As early as 1973 she received the prestigious Michelson cunningly found among yards and yards of graph paper.

Medal for her discovery of pulsars, and in 2007 she was appointed Even though the discovery of pulsars was a major milestone in Dame Commander of the British Empire for her services to Radio Astronomy and eventually in our understanding of stellar Astronomy. In September 2018 she made headlines after receiving evolution, by the time Bell was about to end her PhD and write her the £2.3m Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her work thesis people in Cambridge would congratulate her more readily on on pulsars and her inspirational career. Typically, for someone who her engagement than on her discovery. She was on her way out of promotes the work of women in Science through the Athena Swan Cambridge and her future was that of a housewife, the role expected Programme (Scientific Women’s Academic Network), she donated of any married woman in England at the time. But she still managed the money to fund PhDs for minorities under-represented in Physics. to squeeze in the pulsars as an appendix to her thesis, ignoring her About missing out on a Nobel Prize, Bell has always been generous. advisor’s wishes.

She has even publicly defended the Nobel committee because she After she got married she stayed at home and had a baby, but weeks was only a graduate student at the time, and the final responsibility after she gave birth she realised this what not the life she wanted. for a project always lies with the supervisor. Whatever the rights or She sought work again, even part-time. Being the discoverer of wrongs of the awards system, in the minds of astronomers all over pulsars was a good letter of recommendation, especially after the world pulsars will always be associated with the name Dame Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle were awarded the Nobel Prize for Jocelyn Bell.

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‘In the minds of astronomers all over the world pulsars will always be associated with the name Dame Jocelyn Bell.’

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The Secret of

DARK ENTRY Melissa But (R HH) investigates the ghostly goings-on of Dark Entry

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‘T

here was a wonderfully cobwebbed feeling about this dizzy and intoxicating antiquity — an ambience both haughty and obscure which turned famous seats of learning into gaudy mushrooms and seemed to invest these hoarier precincts, together with the wide green expanses beyond them, the huge elms, the Dark Entry, and the ruined arches and the cloisters — and, while I was about it, the booming and jackdaw-crowed pinnacles of the great Angevin cathedral itself, and the ghost of St. Thomas à Becket and the Black Prince’s bones — with an aura of nearly prehistoric myth.’

now every Friday night she roams Dark Entry. The story goes that whoever feels her breath on their cheeks dies within a year.

New pupils are told the story of Nell Cook, and are wary ever after of the school’s creepy grounds. But it is not only the school that has inspired such chilling tales. Canterbury Cathedral, joined at the hip to the school, is also famous for vengeful archbishops and bishops and, of course, the knights who famously killed Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. People say the Cathedral Precincts are haunted by not only the ghost of St. Thomas, but also a monk who died from blood loss after a gruesome accident, by which his hands were cut off.

The monk can still be seen floating around, mitt-free. And in the old school shop that is now a storehouse in Walpole, where they stayed before taking Henry II’s famous wobbly as gospel, you can see the knights who killed Thomas Becket wandering about, understandably lost souls.

I’m sure anyone at King’s understands what Patrick Leigh Fermor conveys here about its spooky ambience. About this very old school (probably the oldest continuously operating school in the world), people have recorded many stories of supernatural beings roaming the grounds and the cathedral precincts.

‘People figured out that Nell So, let’s buckle up and learn about some was responsible, and buried of its most notorious ghosts.

her alive under a heavy paving stone in Dark Entry.’

The most famous concerns Dark Entry.

Recorded by R H Barham in his book, The Ingoldsby Legends, Dark Entry is haunted by the ghost of Nell Cook, a fine chef who served the Canon of Canterbury in 1642.

The Canon was a well educated man, and Nell fell for him, but she never admitted her love. Then, one day, a lady who claimed to be the Canon’s niece came to visit. Nell grew suspicious of the relationship, since the lady’s bed was always neat and seemed unused. Nell could not resist describing the pair, in a brilliant allusion to Hamlet, as ‘a little less than kin and more than kind’.

She tested the dodgy visitor by putting a poker and a pair of tongs in the bed and six weeks went by without the items being moved at all, which confirmed Nell’s suspicion — the Canon and the lady were making the beast with two backs. Nell grew jealous and poisoned the couple by putting ‘some nasty Doctor’s stuff’ into a Warden Pie, and the Canon and his mistress were duly found dead in their room shortly after consumption of the doctored victuals. People figured out that Nell was responsible, and buried her alive under a heavy paving stone in Dark Entry.

A century later, the Dean ordered three masons to fix a loose stone under which they made a gruesome discovery. They found a well underneath the stone with a skeleton inside, and a mouldy piece of Warden Pie. People soon realised it was the remains of Nell Cook, whose spirit the masons had thereby unintentionally released, and

‘The story goes that whoever feels her breath on their cheeks dies within a year.’

There are also lots of stories about sightings of ghosts in MO, Broughton and other houses in historic buildings. But are there really ghosts at King’s? I would not deny the school is spooky at night, especially when it’s pitch black, but whether there are ghosts or not, dear reader, is for you to decide.

Warden Pie One of the more appetising ‘lost’ Shakespearean dishes is the warden pie, mentioned by the clown in The Winter’s Tale as he reels off his shopping list for the sheepshearing feast: ‘I must have saffron to colour the warden pies…’

Wardens were a hard type of pear that had to be cooked before eating, and are thought to have been first cultivated by monks at the Cistercian abbey near the village of Old Warden in Bedfordshire around the 13th Century. Because the pears lasted a long time, they were a popular storecupboard staple, particularly in winter months, and were even part of the army’s provisions during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The most popular way to serve them was in spiced pies, flavoured with the kind of ingredients the clown hopes to buy: mace, ginger, nutmeg. Sadly, like so many of our traditional fruits, the pear is now hard to find - though a college in Bedfordshire is, rather wonderfully, seeking to preserve it for future generations.

How to Bake Wardens Core your wardens and pare them, and perboyle them and laye them in your paste, and put in every warden where you take out the Core a Clove or twain, put to them Sugar, Ginger, Sinamon, more sinamon then ginger, make your crust very fine and somewhat thick, and bake them leisurely.

From A Book of Cookrye 1591

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THE

GOOD FIGHT

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Father of Finn (R GR) and Abigail (5th LX) Mark Cunningham has a tale to tell about the military and the medieval church.

W

hen the Editor asked me to contribute a piece about the Cathedral, I suggested looking at the counting house or chapter house, the commercial complement to the church’s spiritual life. We looked at work published in the past, and found it covered most of the functions of the hall as a place for tithe collection, beer and foodstuffs trading; as mess hall and accounts department – the non-ecclesiastical, administrative and mundane functions of a large community.

Of course, I said, you realise it was also a martial arts training hall where priests, nuns and acolytes learned their ‘Butts’? ‘Butts’ was slang for the minimum fighting skills required to demonstrate martial readiness for war. Men between 16 and 60 had to practise archery at mounds of earth called ‘butts’ provided as targets in every town and village in the country. The one in Canterbury was probably next to the Counting House.

‘Are you telling me medieval nuns knew martial arts?’ the Editor asked.

‘No, I am telling you they taught martial arts.’

everyone carried a large knife in the 13th Century, so carrying a large blade was not an intention of badness. But remembering to bring a shield did not bode well. That made you bad news. That made you a swashbuckler. The Priest and the Nun in The Canterbury Tales (c. 1390) kept company with the Yeoman, who was going on his journey tooled up for a skirmish: Upon his arm he bar a gay bracer, And by his syde a swerd and a bokeler, And on that other syde a gay daggere…

So the clergy were expected to handle themselves.

The notes written beside the illustrations of the techniques in 1.33 have been attributed to the secretary of the Bishop of Wurzburg. We know 1.33 is a manual copied at a monastery, so this book is a compendium of European Priest Standard Secret Kung Fu moves, starring a kick-ass nun teaching in a chapter house just like the one in Canterbury. Yes. This is one of the coolest manuscripts ever.

What makes it even better is if you now understand the monks were a little dangerous when they needed to be so, you need to see their personal graffiti in the illustrations they were writing in the scriptorium. If you look closely, hidden in all the pages of gold swirling reverence are small acts of rebellion that are comically brilliant: jousting mice riding dogs, and snails with swords fighting rabbits armed with spears. The monks could be more than useful if

‘Are you telling me medieval nuns knew martial arts?’

‘No, I am telling you they taught martial arts.’

It is well known throughout the Historical European Martial Arts research community (HEMA) that priests, nuns, monks and lay people were taught to fight, the clergy typically using a light single-handed cruciform sword and a small round shield called a ‘buckler’ – hence Shakespeare’s ‘sword and buckler’. The oldest manual still in existence was written in the 13th Century and is sometimes called Warpurgus Fechtbuch or The Lady Nun Warpurgus Fencing Manual, although specialists use the less romantic title I.33, its catalogue number at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Its illustrations are a marvel of historical martial prowess, starring the Priest, his Student and the Nun Warpurgus, in which the Priest teaches the Pupil, and the Nun teaches both.

The term ‘Swash Buckler’ comes from the sound of the little shield cupping against the leg and making a swashing sound as the wearer walked. Almost

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things kicked off, but when they were at peace in the cloisters of their ministry and the Abbot wasn’t looking they drew in their text books the medieval equivalent of stick men fighting. (So, little has changed at the Cathedral, then.)

To explain why martial knowledge was thought a good idea, apart from personal protection, you need to consider the medieval power structure. To be simplistic for a moment, look at the chess board: King and Queen at the centre are flanked by the clergy are flanked by knights are surrounded by castles. Read like this, it all makes sense. Mum has all the power, and her first son has be kept out of harm’s way. Second son joins the Clergy as a bishop and gains land and influence. Third son joins the Crusades and wins his fortune. You send the fourth and ‘non-attributable’

‘The queen can move like everyone else on the chess board because she knows as much technique and as many skills as the others.’ sons to someone else’s castle to be raised, if you can, and if not you send them to the tower. Think Jon Snow in Game of Thrones.

There is a strong tradition still within the military, or was before budget cuts, that returning from campaign is followed by a short rest and then deployment to a non-combat area for intensive exercise and a change of scene. It was no different in Medieval times, when the tradition is borne out by Chaucer’s Knight.

‘Hidden in all the pages of gold swirling reverence are small acts of rebellion that are comically brilliant: jousting mice riding dogs, and snails with swords fighting rabbits armed with spears.’

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‘The nuns of Canterbury were no less likely to be the sisters of the landed boys off to the Holy Land to win their fortune, or the nieces of returning knights.’

Chaucer lists the places the knight has been before the pilgrimage, but none of his battles went well, so what he does when he gets back from campaign is visit the monastery at Canterbury to calm down and cool his blood.

Think of a stay among the community at the Cathedral counting house as a medieval cleansing of the soul, a 13th Century post-traumatic de-compression. And what better way to clear your mind while you are were no less likely to be the sisters of the landed there than teach what you know and get it out of boys off to the Holy Land to win their fortune, or your knightly system, under the protective eye of your the nieces of returning knights. brother bishop, before returning home These battle-weary knights take to mother, disarmed, to meet the heir ‘Walpurgis was the Lady a vow of obedience, stay and apparent?

Nun during Chaucer’s decompress at the monastery, time... a skilled and and have nothing to do during If you accept the chess analogy, you the day other than pray, keep need to embrace the final illustration: dangerous fencer as The healthy and teach their nieces the queen can move like everyone else Bishop of Wurzburg’s and sisters how to stay alive. on the chess board because she knows manual of martial skill as much technique and as many skills as shows her to be.’

That’s what you need to the others. Walpurgis was a Lady Nun consider when you walk the during Chaucer’s time in the Cathedral, cloisters at Canterbury and enter the counting as well bred and as softly spoken as was required by house: not Julie Andrews playing Maid Marion, court, as smiling and enchanting as Chaucer makes but Ninja nuns taking names and kicking ass. Her her out to be, as well as a skilled and dangerous fencer name was Walpurgis, and I would not have fought as The Bishop of Wurzburg’s manual of martial skill her. Not a chance. shows her to be.

Whoever the archetypical medieval nun you see in your mind, clutching a bible and slowly muttering prayers in the cloisters, to my mind the nuns of Canterbury

Mark Cunningham is

a Scholar at the London Longsword Academy. He has been fencing medieval martial styles for eight years, and has thirty years of top-level Chinese and Japanese armed and unarmed systems experience.

He is a collector of European historical arms and has worked as a fencing co-ordinator in film and television.

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Hidden

Depths

Many schools like King’s employ teachers from other careers - law, business, theatre, journalism and academia, for example - but few can boast three who spent the high points of their previous lives thousands of leagues under the sea.

We asked Jim Dickson (Maths), Doreen McVeigh

(Biology, Psychology) and Tim Waite (Chemistry) to explain what tempted them to boldly go so far down.

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Jim Dickson and the USS SCRANTON breaking through ice to get to the North Pole

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The USS SCRANTON

A

Long Way

Home

When Jim Dickson was in the Navy he spent months at a time under ice with several equally dedicated voyagers.

I

This image & above: USS SCRANTON breaking through the ice

t was during the forenoon watch early in 2001 on the aircraft carrier and fleet flagship, HMS INVINCIBLE, that we got the signal. We were steaming back from a gone forever. Submarines in the North Pole busy exercise in the Norwegian Sea north of all sounded too good to miss but what about the Arctic Circle. These exercises maintained my family – a wife and three small boys NATO Cold War capability to reinforce overdue some paternal attention?

Norway in the event of an attack from the East. Such a long-standing NATO commitment Life is hard for Service families. A week or so ensured a regular supply of cold weather after the birth of my eldest, Tom, I deployed adventures around the majestic beauty of on HMS FEARLESS to the coasts of South the northern Fjords illuminated, when the America for amphibious operations in the jungle on the great but weather permitted, by the muddy Demerara River. greatest show on Earth – Paternity leave sounded a the Northern Lights.

‘Beneath the waves bit left-wing in those days is a smoother world and by the time I got home We were heading home unbuffeted by wind and Tom could walk. Despite and I was to leave the ship, waves, where a mug of this, Emma saw a rare enjoy some well-earned tea on a chart table stays opportunity this time too sea leave with the family and head for a new job put, and there is no sense and gave me the green light, so I signed up for the ICEX in tactical development of day and night.’ with ‘cousins’ (le Carre’s for the Maritime Warfare term for our American Centre (MWC), which allies) and after a quick turnaround I made required heavy involvement with the my way North to the submarine base in submarine flotilla. The signal proposed I take Faslane to join the USS SCRANTON. a period as liaison officer with the US Navy during a submarine Ice Exercise (ICEX) to the North Pole. This sounded fantastic to me, The cousins speak the same language and but there was one catch: the timings of the we know a lot about them from TV and the ICEX required what is commonly known as movies, but they are foreign and do things a ‘pier head jump’ from INVINCIBLE to USS SCRANTON, and a consequent loss of all my sea leave.

Service careers offer much excitement and danger, but these experiences are mostly unplanned. If you don’t take the opportunities when they appear they are

USS SCRANTON control room

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‘We went North, on and on, just North. A sense of routine built up and a loss of time and association with the outside world.’

Jim’s diagram of the USS SCRANTON approaching the North Pole

‘There is no concession to comfort on a warship; in a tight space, surrounded by people and things, sits a nuclear power plant that could support a small city for years.’

revolves around four six-hour watches (shifts) with meals at watch handover (0600, 1200, 1800 and 0000). The midnight meal is known as middle watch rations, or midrats. Sleep is found during one of these shifts. There are normally more people than differently. A USN and an RN warship do beds and there is no personal ownership of not feel the same. The SCRANTON had an bunks. And there are people everywhere. impeccably mannered Wardroom (officers’ As a visiting foreign officer, I enjoyed some mess) that extended the warmest of luxury accommodation in a nine-man mess, welcomes but it was more Little House on the bunks arranged in vertical banks of three the Prairie than Senior Service London Club. around a space big enough for only two But their professionalism men to stand. I say luxury was impressive and their because the middle bunk discipline strict. These (my allocation) is thought ‘The infinite power fellows meant business. first choice.

Submarine print by Ravilious

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source is put to good use

We left the wall at Faslane freezing tons of steak.’ There is no concession and powered through the to comfort on a warship; Northern Fleet Exercise weapons, sensors and Areas to the West of engines are packed into Scotland. The first few miles were completed all the available space, causing a Spartan on the surface, or ‘roof’ as the submarines way of life. In a tight space, surrounded like to say, but it wasn’t long before we were by people and things, sits a nuclear power submerged in the Atlantic Ocean. In the plant that could support a small city for Cold War, this is where the silent opposition years with unlimited energy to make fresh would lie in wait, hoping to pick up an water and a breathable atmosphere. acoustic track before it faded.

Fresh food, however, is a problem and, ten days out, the last withered green salad is On the roof a submarine pitches and rolls a marker that deployment has begun in but beneath the waves is a smoother world earnest. On the other hand, there is always unbuffeted by wind and waves, where a mug freshly baked bread and cakes and, in a US of tea on a chart table stays put, and there submarine, the infinite power source is put is no sense of day and night. The routine to good use freezing tons of steak. The ship’s company of the USS SCRANTON ate well.

In fact submarine endurance is a function of food, and in a long deployment supplies The MIZ from space – NASA world view are packed into all available spaces, even covering a whole deck space with tinned spinach (Popeye, eat your heart out!).

‘In the Cold War, this is where the silent opposition would lie in wait, hoping to pick up an acoustic track.’

Submarine print by Ravilious

We went North, on and on, just North. A sense of routine built up and a loss of time and association with the outside world. The days were busy but without the internet the only high-speed communication was by way of a buoy floating on the surface showing exactly where we were. As you go North even the standard methods of high-speed communications fail as the geostationary satellites fall beneath the horizon. When I first went to sea, personal communication between home and sea was not possible.

I used to say to Emma, ‘I’lI try to ring you when we reach Gibraltar in two or three weeks’ time.’ The USS SCRANTON in the Arctic was the same.

We went under the ice to the North East of Greenland for navigation and weapons training. The focus of my work was to understand this frozen environment and the use of sensors necessary to allow safe passage under the ice. Sea ice is different from land ice. All ice-bergs calve from glaciers but sea ice is really just a thin crust; in the high Arctic there are no ice-bergs, just miles of sea ice. Sea ice does not flex or stretch but wind stress continually fractures and squashes areas of ice to create icey plate techtonics. Ridges are formed above, only to be quickly eroded by the wind. Some sheets of ice are pushed down and persist as ice keels, which pose a great threat to any submarine. Where ice sheets are subjected to divergent stress they fracture, giving open water that quickly freezes into a smooth thin area of sea ice known as a polynya. Icecapable submarines can surface in polynyas.

There is much technical detail that cannot be recorded here, but suffice it to say that safe navigation under ice means avoiding ice

keels and tracking polynyas, or ‘surface-able features’. Under the ice you need to know your way back to the nearest surfaceable location for emergencies, a difficult job when the ice canopy is not static but moves with wind and tide.

It was cool to see the lines of real longitude spin quickly through all possible values; through the Meridian now, and an hour later the International Date Line – around the world in one afternoon. At last, some seven miles from the Pole itself we crashed through the ice in a practised manoeuvre. A celebration followed, and much of the crew

The SCRANTON proceeded to the North Pole.

We made several surfacings trough the ice but the first one was perhaps the most ‘On our first surfacing the ice did not break edgey. There is a moment when, although the Naval and the submarine keeled over under the Architects declare the hull pressure. At last we heard a large crack and is strong enough and the sums work out, the crew’s we broke free and righted on the surface.’ doubt takes over. The idea is to surface rapidly and break the ice from underneath, but if this went out on to the ice. The shipwright made doesn’t work compressed air from the vessel a seasonally decorated pole to stick in the flotation tanks is blown out to fracture the ice, and a Father Christmas suit appeared canopy. On our first surfacing the ice did for photographs to send the children back not break and the submarine keeled over home. under the pressure. At last we heard a large crack and we broke free and righted on the Mission accomplished, the submarine dived surface. and made its way South. Sometime later we berthed in Port Canaveral and I left the boat At the North Pole the Spring ice was thick and to make my belated way across the Atlantic, there was no way to surface, so we spiraled sharing a plane with families returning from out to find the closest surfaceable feature. Disney Land holidays.

‘The last withered green salad is a marker that deployment has begun in earnest.’

‘At last, some seven miles from the Pole itself we crashed through the ice in a practised manoeuvre.’

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DeepWonder In her other life, housemistress Doreen McVeigh studies mysterious marine communities nearly four miles down on the sea bed.

O

ver 70% of the Earth’s surface is water, and the ocean holds over 96% of the water on Earth along with a multitude of life forms. Hidden beneath the waves are organisms that have thrived for millennia, and yet scientists are only just discovering them. Our ability to observe our own planet has dramatically improved with satellites, drones and imaging software, yet there is only a handful of instruments designed to explore the vast wilderness of the ocean. As a deep-sea scientist, I had the opportunity to work with two of the most advanced instruments in the world to discover a series of communities: the manned submersible Alvin and the autonomous underwater vehicle, Sentry.

Our team has worked together using the deep-sea vehicles to discover several new deep-sea communities throughout the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Western Atlantic Ocean.

Alvin was designed as the first easily manoeuvrable manned deep ocean research submersible, since previous submersibles only had small windows and no ability to collect organisms. Alvin debuted in 1964 and went on to make the most important discoveries of the 20th Century, such as the existence of deep-sea life at hydrothermal vents in 1977, methane

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Piloting Alvin

seeps in 1983, and the RMS Titanic wreck in 1985. The submersible has made over 4,940 dives in its fifty-four years, and new vehicles have dramatically improved the efficiency of the sub to explore and discover new communities. Sentry is relatively new to the fleet, debuting in 2010 to replace a previous Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) called ABE. With a dive depth of up to 6,000 m (19,685 ft), it is able to generate highly detailed sonar scans and photographs of the seafloor, and carry several types of science monitoring equipment. Sentry and Alvin are an excellent team, with Sentry working through the night to scan the seafloor and returning to the ship in time for scientists in Alvin to view a new map before the 9:00 am dive.

Ice bucket ‘baptism’

‘The sub is hoisted over the edge of the ship using a large A-frame, and suddenly we are bobbing like a cork in the sea.’

Just as astronauts train before going to space, aquanauts (ocean explorers) spend time learning how to handle a variety of situations in Alvin, and all scientists must complete a series of steps before they are even considered for dives to the sea floor.

A pilot introduces scientists to the external features of the sub, such as the titanium arms, sampling tools and science baskets to hold all the collected samples. In groups of two, scientists go into Alvin’s titanium bubble or sphere and learn how to navigate scenarios that could occur, such as fire, loss of communication with the mother ship, and medical emergencies that might occur with other occupants in the sphere. The pilots are also trained to observe scientists for evidence of claustrophobia, since the 4.8m3 sphere holds three people and a typical dive can last 6-10 hours. After training in the sphere, scientists are fitted with an emergency facemask, a life-saving device that bears a striking resemblance to a fighter pilot’s mask.

Our research expedition explored methane seeps approximately 300 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, found from 300 to 2000m depth. Methane seeps were initially discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, and in recent years our ability to detect potential sites went from five sites along the US East Coast, to over 400 with the use of Sentry and ship sonar. While not as well known as hydrothermal vents (also known as ‘black smokers’), seeps are the equivalent to old growth forests in the deep sea, with methane released into the seawater for thousands of years. These seep communities consist of animals that are hosts to chemosynthetic bacteria that they use as their source of energy. Just as humans have bacteria to help with digestion, deep-sea animals cultivate chemosynthetic bacteria in order to thrive in the cold seawater (average temperature 4oC). The animals have adapted to such a steady supply of energy, and the average age of some creatures is over 800 years.

Previous expeditions identified the possible layers of thick woollen jumpers and socks, existence of deep-sea communities off the and a clipboard filled with notes, dive plans, Massachusetts coast, but our work was the and animal keys used to identify species. first to directly explore the sites for life. A The Alvin engineers have been up for hours team of over twenty scientists from various carefully checking everything for the dive, disciplines spent several months preparing and dutifully bring my pillowcase down into for this expedition, and the hard work and the sphere. As the clock ticks closer to 9:00 painstaking planning culminated in two am colleagues begin pointing to a wooden weeks at sea. There are rarely enough dives for all the scientists, and on this ‘Deep-sea animals cultivate expedition I was fortunate enough to be selected for chemosynthetic bacteria in order to thrive a journey to the seafloor. in the cold seawater and the average age of Regardless of age, most parents still worry about some creatures is over 800 years.’ their children crossing the street, and from experience we always advise scientists to tell their family sign in the sub hangar: ‘PB4UGO’ [Pee before members about their dive at the end of the you go!], a reminder that there are no toilets day, when they are safe and back on deck. in the sub. The Sentry team have generated a detailed map of the site we are about to It is a bright, calm morning at sea, and explore, and from the map we can already watching the sunrise I can’t help but sigh identify rocks, mud and possible deep-sea with relief. It’s the morning of my dive, mussel beds. and while preparations started yesterday, weather is a frequent cause for cancelled or Alvin rolls out from the hangar on a sled delayed dives. Before breakfast, I drop off system, and the stairway to climb into the sub a pillowcase outside Alvin containing extra is now in place. This is the cue for scientists

‘We have clearance to descend, and the bright blue surface water gently blends into dark navy, and at 200m it’s completely dark.’

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to climb up, wave (it’s for good luck) and descend inside the sphere. The sphere is dark, and there is just the red glow of the panels indicating that all instruments are functioning. A loud thud rings throughout the sphere as the latch is closed and sealed above our heads. The sub is hoisted over the edge of the ship using a large A-frame, and suddenly we are bobbing like a cork in the sea. After the final safety checks we have clearance to descend, and the bright blue surface water gently blends into dark navy, and at 200m it’s completely dark.

‘It’s about 90 minutes to the sea floor, which leaves plenty of time to stare out the window and admire thousands of tiny bursts of light outside the five portholes.’

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Inside the sub we are planning the dive, reviewing research objectives, and mastering the camera recording devices. The camera recording tools are important because it is the only way we can review the dive, study the behaviour of organisms, and confirm can see streams of bubbles coming up from the sea new discoveries. It’s about 90 minutes to the sea floor, floor, and it is as though we have stepped onto another which leaves plenty of time to stare out the window planet. and admire thousands of tiny bursts of light outside the five portholes. Where does the light come from? The sub has two titanium arms and a series of containers Tiny organisms in the water are bioluminescent, which to hold organisms, and we spend the next few hours means they can emit light. When they filming animal behaviour, collecting encounter Alvin, the organisms flash rocks, mud and organisms that can be ‘The seafloor slips away further studied on the ship. For those in order to communicate with other into the darkness, the few precious hours, we are the only animals around them. It is the most captivating display, and it is easy to bioluminescent creatures humans on the planet to see the newly forget other researchers are just a few discovered site and its inhabitants, once again flash a inches away. and it is the privilege and excitement magnificent display, and that keeps us going through the dark Just a few metres above the bottom, gradually daylight shines and the cold temperatures in the sub.

Alvin suddenly bursts with light. The Every bit of evidence we gather helps through the water.’ seafloor has a thick blue-purple mat of identify the age, composition and distinctive community that exists here bacteria that are actually longer and thicker than human hair, and fish with enormous eyes versus other known communities in the area. swim cautiously by the sub, dazzled by the bright lights.

The bacteria are a strong indication of a functioning The last eight hours have flown by and the sub is seep, so we continue exploring and the bacteria mats ascending back to the surface. The seafloor slips away give way to mud and mounds of rocks with mussels, into the darkness, the bioluminescent creatures once shrimp, fish, seastars, and crabs. In the distance we again flash a magnificent display, and gradually daylight

‘For those few precious hours, we are the only humans on the planet to see the newly discovered site and its inhabitants.’

shines through the water. Within an hour we are back on the deck of the ship, with scientists eagerly asking us to summarise the highlights of the dive. All new divers have a special ‘baptism’ upon their return from the deep sea, which usually involves several buckets of icecold seawater and hugs from fellow divers to mark such a momentous occasion.

Now the real work begins, when all scientists gather to study the deep-sea organisms, rocks and mud collected on the dive. In the laboratory we have discovered new invertebrate species, observed new behaviour and found out how animals may have travelled in the sea to settle in this site. The AUV Sentry can also collect tiny microscopic animals in the water column, so we not only learn about the behaviour of the adult crabs, mussels and seastars but also their young. These vital details can be fed into a computer model I created during my PhD that indicate other possible methane seep sites just waiting to be discovered. The deep-sea is one of the last frontiers of true exploration on this Earth, and each discovery helps us better understand life’s origins on this magnificent planet, and how life has evolved to use other forms of energy.

While Alvin can only take two scientists to the seafloor at any given time, this does not prevent you from becoming involved with deep-sea exploration. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) live-streams deep-sea exploration with their Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Deep Discoverer on the Okeanos Explorer and you can chat with the team in real time (www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/).

The scientist who helped discover the Titanic wreck, Dr. Bob Ballard, started an exploration programme using the E/V Nautilus and ROV Hercules which also gives you ‘The deep sea is one of the most remote the opportunity to places on Earth, but you have the observe dives and opportunity to begin learning from the talk to scientists and ROV operators (www. experts.’ nautiluslive.org). The deep sea is one of the most remote places on Earth, but you have the opportunity to begin learning from the experts, and one day you may very well be on the ship with them.

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Before becoming a teacher and housemaster, Tim Waite was intimately familiar with extreme living conditions on the sea floor.

‘A

Deep

SeA

Smokers

re you claustrophobic?’ Not usually one of the first questions you get asked during a job interview, but in this case it signalled a very exciting prospect since it meant my chance of diving to the bottom of the ocean in the submersible Alvin as part of a multidisciplinary oceanographic research team.

Part of my PhD research involved specialised (or rather obscure depending on how you look at it) electrochemical analysis of seawater, which qualified me to use and develop the methods used to analyse the chemistry of the superheated water gushing out of ‘Black Smokers’ at the bottom of the ocean. The type of analysis I became somewhat of an expert in is called Voltammetry, a sensitive and quick method for measuring things like oxygen and sulphur in seawater. Down in the depths at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean there is no light, very little oxygen and it is around 4°C, so the basis of the food chain is chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis, by which organisms use sulphur chemicals and heat from the hydrothermal vent water in place of oxygen and sunlight. Seawater seeps into the earth’s crust through cracks or porous rock, usually near tectonic plate boundaries, and becomes superheated due to upwelling magma below the surface; this hot water brings dissolved minerals with it as it surges back up into the cold seawater. The sudden change in temperature causes some of the minerals to precipitate, particularly black iron sulphide; hence the name ‘Black Smokers’. The chemosynthetic bacteria living around these hot plumes support a rich and diverse ecology including giant tube worms, clams, limpets and shrimp; all this was unknown to science until the late 1970s.

I joined a research group at the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, and several times a year we would prepare for a research cruise alongside groups from other universities of Marine Biologists (like Dr. McVeigh’s) – Geologists, Physical Oceanographers, Engineers, Statisticians and of course the Captain and crew of the research vessel – to spend a month or so in some remote part of the Pacific. The preparation for such a cruise takes a long time and must be painstaking, because there is no popping out travel to a depth of 4500m, equipped with robotic arms, banks of to the shops for something you forgot, or ordering in spares; each cameras and lights, and a front platform to carry sampling equipment cruise is preceded by weeks and months of careful planning. Then and bring back samples from the seafloor. of course when we get back there is a mountain of data to analyse and write up ‘Each cruise is preceded by It is, unsurprisingly, difficult and hazardous to safely Alvin’s robotic arm collects over the next few weeks and months of careful transport humans to the seafloor and back, but a sample of the seafloor thanks to the meticulous daily checks performed weeks, and then planning. Then of course before each dive by the specialised team of engineers papers to publish when we get back, there on board, a 2600m dive in Alvin actually felt less in scientific is a mountain of data to dangerous than scuba-diving to a depth of 40m. A journals. Mistakes analyse.’ pilot and two scientists lower themselves into Alvin’s or poor planning two-metre-diameter inner sphere made from threecan be costly in inch thick titanium, the two halves forged from two many ways, since solid titanium ingots in order to withstand the huge pressure at great it typically costs $45,000 per day to depths: pressure increases with depth by about one atmosphere for run the R/V Atlantis, the ship which every 10m. All jewellery, watches and shoes must be removed before carries and deploys Alvin. Alvin is climbing in, because you don’t want even the tiniest scratch in the seal a three-man submersible that can 86

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‘Great towers of black sulphide deposits tens of metres high rise from the seafloor, covered in huge two-metre-long tube worms of red and white.’

Alvin’s ti with th tanium inner ree p sphe front f ortholes at t re, or the he pilot.

n

tio nitia i r e t ive. ce-wa nal i r first d o i t i u yo rad The t if it is

Electrochemical probe analysing black smoker chemistry

around the top hatch, and it’s advisable to bring an extra jumper since it gets very cold at depth; all clothing must be from natural materials (no synthetics like fleeces) to avoid the build-up of static within the sphere, which could interfere with or damage the banks of electronics used by the pilot to control the vessel. The titanium sphere becomes an escape pod in case anything does go wrong, in which case the outer body of the submersible can be discarded using controls inside, allowing the sphere to rise uncontrolled to the surface, bobbing around like a massive titanium tennis ball – perhaps not the most comfortable of rides but a life-saving one.

Once Alvin has been lowered into the ocean, external checks have been done by the divers

and we’ve been detached and are bobbing around on the surface, it’s time to dive. It takes about 90 minutes to reach the seafloor, and the light fades to nothing after the first few minutes; apart from the entertainment provided by the photoluminescent algae it’s pitch black outside until we get to the bottom; we can’t spare the battery power to turn on the lights until then. While we descend slowly there’s not much more to do but relax and chat, and listen to music, chosen by the pilot, of course; I wonder if Jimmy Page knows to what great depths his guitar riffs have been enjoyed.

Inside the accommodation is basic; the pilot sits at the front in a small chair, with the scientists behind and to either side, crouching or lying on pads directly attached to the inside of the sphere. We peer through

‘Mistakes or poor planning can be costly in many ways, since it typically costs $45,000 per day to run the R/V Atlantis, the ship which carries and deploys Alvin.’

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‘The titanium sphere becomes an escape pod in case anything does go wrong, in which case the outer body of the submersible can be discarded using controls inside.’

Tubeworms that grow up to 2m long, surrounded by ghostly white crabs and fish.

Alvin’s front basket with water samplers.

Iron blocks of ballast cast off from a previous dive are rusting away on the seafloor.

very thick windows seven inches in diameter and so there is little point in being colourful. when the sensors have detected we are at the The red colour of the tubeworms is seafloor the pilot turns on due to their having the lights and an alien world a special type of ‘When the sensors have is suddenly illuminated. Great haemoglobin in their towers of black sulphide blood that can absorb detected we are at the deposits tens of metres high both oxygen from the seafloor the pilot turns rise from the seafloor, covered surrounding seawater on the lights and an in huge two-metre-long tube and hydrogen sulphide alien world is suddenly from the hydrothermal worms of red and white, vent fluids. around which float clouds of illuminated.’ shrimp, basking in the warmth The two scientists will of the shimmering hot water but avoiding the black plume of superheated water direct the pilot while he controls the rushing directly out from the Earth’s crust itself, robotic arms, collecting samples of rock, at temperatures from 60° to the highest recorded tube worms and shellfish, and deploying of 464°C. The pilot must be aware of where these our electrochemical sensors into the hot plumes are because water this hot can damage the plumes and amongst the communities in outside of the sub, and melt the equipment. Also order to characterise the chemical and encrusting the towers are communities of shellfish, thermal environment in which they live. amongst which scuttle white crabs, octopus and Very specialised, bulky and expensive ghostly white fish; it’s usually pitch black down here devices can be used to collect water

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‘Scientists will direct the pilot while he controls the robotic arms, collecting samples of rock, tube worms and shellfish.’

Divers talk to the pilot on resurfacing with a phone line – the hatch won’t be opened until safely back on deck. You can see here how the Pacific got its name.

Alvin’s 17 tonnes is manoeuvred with a big rope and hydraulic suction pads

having several large buckets of ice water thrown over you if it was your first dive. The sub dives with samples, but due to the huge pressure they are thick- a good oxygen supply for the three inhabitants, walled stainless steel, with massive which can last up to three days, spring-loaded opening valves, but then there is the problem of severely limiting how many samples the carbon dioxide being breathed ‘Our electrodes can be collected and brought to the out, which is absorbed by calcium with accompanying surface. Therefore our electrodes oxide scrubbers that need to be temperature probes with accompanying temperature replaced periodically; even so the are the only practical CO2 levels inside the sub can get probes are the only practical way to measure exactly what nutrients in way to measure exactly a little high during a long dive, the water these creatures are living what nutrients in the resulting in a kicking headache on, since we can take hundreds the next hour or two. But water these creatures for of in-situ measurements over the there are small luxuries to be had are living on.’ course of a few hours to be analysed on a large research vessel – one later on-board ship and back in the can take a dip in the home-made lab on dry land. We have about five swimming pool or go to the top hours to explore the area, after which we need deck after dark for a breathtakingly clear view of the to release the iron blocks used as ballast and rise Milky Way. It does get very dark indeed at night in slowly back to the surface, again taking about 90 the middle of the Pacific Ocean. minutes. This makes the entire dive eight hours or so, a safe window of time to include plenty of wiggle The R/V Atlantis ‘swimming pool’ room at the start and end to get Alvin into and out – a welcome dip after a long day of the water and back on deck. Any hint of stormy weather or rough seas and a dive can be cancelled or immediately brought back to the surface, since safely winching the sub back onto the deck without damaging any of the expensive external equipment, or the three easily bruised humans inside, is a delicate job; Alvin weighs about 17 tonnes and its most recent overhaul cost over $40 million.

‘There are small luxuries to be had on a large research vessel – one can take a dip in the home-made swimming pool or go to the top deck after dark for a breathtakingly clear view of the Milky Way.’

Once back on board the Atlantis, the engineers and technicians set about checking and cleaning Alvin, ready to be stored in its hangar for the following day’s dive, and the two scientists give an initial spoken report of what they encountered on the seafloor, following, of course, the traditional initiation of

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Clive Nuttman, a conservationist who works in the King’s School Library, captures the magic of Africa.

I

t’s early morning on the African savannah and a snake of safari vehicles heads towards the next wildlife viewing point.

We are halted by a herd of elephants. There is no way forward or back on a single-track road, so we stop and let the peaceful behemoths carry on towards their waterhole. A large female is separated from her calf and things start to get lively. After a bit of ear-flapping, the worrying behaviour begins – loud trumpeting – and then she prepares to charge.

I’m driving an ageing British Council Land Rover packed with graduate biologists, many on their first safari. I’m sure they have every faith in me but I’m relieved, first, that they fail to notice me winding up my window – not much protection against a charging elephant – and, second, that this was a mock charge and she veered away five metres short. How did I come to be in a remote part of Uganda, a conservation biologist with several tonnes of angry pachyder hurtling my way?

I had no real career plan when I left school (see panel) but have been privileged to visit many corners of the world, with spectacular scenery and wildlife, since first visiting the tropics in the mid1990s. My passengers were all prospective conservationists then, drawn together by my employer, the Tropical Biology Association, a charity addressing wildlife conservation through training young scientists on field courses. Each year, as Course Co-ordinator, I worked from January to June in the Department of Zoology at Cambridge University and with my counterparts in Nairobi to provide educational opportunities for European and African students. The rest of the year was a frantic but enjoyable trek across East Africa before a six-week stay in magical Madagascar.

Teaching an MSc course ‘in the field’ presents many challenges and hard work in difficult conditions but a fulfilling ‘day job’ with longterm benefits for people and wildlife. One of the highlights was a journey from the middle of the African continent to Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean - 2,000 kilometres of dense rainforest, open savannahs and the remarkable Great Rift Valley, finishing on the Tanzanian coastline.

A cohort of eager students joined us each year in Kibale Forest, Uganda, in the shadow of the Rwenzori Mountains, Rider Haggard’s ‘Mountains of the Moon’ – a snow-capped equatorial range bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo and providing the source of the Nile. These dense montane forests harbour thirteen species of primate, including our closest relative, the chimpanzee.

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worked here for decades, exploring chimp social structures, hunting behaviours and violent group competition. Working with such researchers and through recognised guest teachers, our students experienced the forest as a ‘classroom’. We taught tropical ecology and conservation hands-on and the group examined the conservation issues that influence the lives of people living outside the forest boundary.

After some farewells, we move on to the dramatic Kenyan savannah to collect a fresh group of participants and teachers in Nairobi. The Laikipia region offers a chance to learn about how humans, wildlife, livestock and fire interact to produce the endless grass plains in this part of Africa, and introduce a different set of conservation challenges.

Whereas Kibale is a fully protected national park, the land around our base at Mpala Research Centre mixes privately owned ranches with nature conservancies. Human-wildlife and social conflicts are a feature of the region and the crux of the conservation problem: how

Far

and

Away

can humans and wildlife co-exist? Here, tens of thousands of herders and their livestock move with the seasonal rains to find suitable forage, competing with sedentary ranchers and a diminishing number of antelope, zebra, buffalo and elephant that still roam the grasslands. Human impact on wildlife goes beyond a mere Darwinian struggle for existence. On some reserves, the few remaining rhinos have their own 24-hour security to protect them from poachers and a sorry fate in traditional Eastern medicine as unauthenticated medical relief or just a status symbol as an ornament.

Before working in conservation, I had never heard of the Eastern Arc Mountains, our next stop with another student group. This chain of ancient peaks spans southern Kenya through Tanzania to northern Mozambique and has the biological reputation of being ‘Africa’s Galapagos’ – a string of ‘mountain islands’ where unique wildlife has evolved and flourished. Staying at the Amani Nature Reserve in the East Usambara Mountains, we are surrounded by lush vegetation nourished by rains from the nearby Indian Ocean. In these conditions, we live cheek by jowl with some charismatic animals – eight species of chameleon live here, two of 

‘Our students experienced the forest as a ‘classroom’. ’

‘We are surrounded by lush vegetation nourished by rains from the nearby Indian Ocean.’

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which are found nowhere else on Earth. The reserve is surrounded by tea plantations and small villages, and our students learn about community-based management of natural resources. Amani is not fully protected by law but the managers and local people work together to find ways of conserving the forest, finding alternative income-generating activities and sustainable solutions to coexisting with nature.

After a brief interlude to recharge our batteries, it’s onward to Madagascar. Where do you start with this astonishing island? Most of the flora and fauna is unlike anything elsewhere on the planet due to a long history of evolutionary isolation and the relatively late arrival of human settlers, but the last 2000 years have witnessed huge changes mainly at the hands of man. We stay in unusually dry deciduous forest,

‘The last 2000 years have witnessed huge changes mainly at the hands of man.’ representing just 3% of the original extent of this habitat. Destruction of the forest continues apace while a rapidly growing and shifting population seek more land for food production and political instability reduces protection for natural resources. Lemurs, chameleons, fossas (an unusual small carnivore), and many other animals and plants cling on to a precarious existence during an eight-month dry season when temperatures often top 40°C.

‘A rapidly growing and shifting population seek more land for food production.’

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When the year ends, we reflect on the goal of the work and training just completed, and the importance of conservation in Africa and the wider world. Tropical regions harbour most global biodiversity and are also home to some of the fastest-growing human populations, bringing great pressure on the natural resources that sustain all life. Training young conservation leaders brings more than just benefits to wildlife: as well as protecting the animals and plants, educational opportunities can make a difference to an individual’s chances and to people’s lives. I was inspired by my work with Mark Otieno – a real conservation champion.

Mark grew up in rural Kenya, one of eleven children, and once told me that he did not own a pair of shoes until he was fourteen.

Education was vital to his prospects and, after tenaciously pursuing a school and university education, he arrived on one of our fully subsidised training courses. Further support included funding for an MSc, and then assistance in finding a PhD position at Reading University. There, Mark studied pollination, one of the critical ‘free services’ that nature provides, and went on to work on natural threats to food security, using the pigeon pea, an important Kenyan food crop, for his research. With the population in Africa predicted to rise to four billion by the end of this century, this type of practical research is critical for farming communities.

So helping Mark’s career helps improve local livelihoods.

Clive traded selling cars for Natural History at St. Andrews University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Biology, followed by a PhD working on pollination ecology in the Eastern Mediterranean. After a short stint teaching, in 2004 Clive began the life he describes here, and now combines freelance environmental education with time in The King’s School Library.

Getting into conservation was almost accidental for Clive, but more conventional routes do exist for committed young biologists. At least a Master’s degree is essential for research but academic institutions and other employers will also seek a record of voluntary work. In the UK, local nature reserves and wildlife trusts are a good way to get started. Charlatans abound in the gap year market but careful research can find good educational and career opportunities in the tropics and beyond, working with anything from big cats to local communities.

Be prepared for pre-dawn starts, late finishes, hard work in challenging circumstances, and a lot of fun. Oh, and keep an eye out for stampeding elephants. If a second charge begins, RUN.

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King’s Week Equestrian

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‘Given no choice but to participate and perform at the drop of a hat, as required by the Chinese system, my confidence grew during the week.’ the centre of a conference hall surrounded by six groups of six professors. We had to introduce ourselves ‘preferably in Mandarin’, then ‘perform’ for three minutes. A facilitator explained that if the team liked you they would buzz their bell during your performance and you would then take a seat behind their table. I am not one of those King’s students who relishes the opportunity to perform on stage but rather someone who thinks twice before talking in front of a Chemistry class of six friends. I was petrified. Glancing nervously over at the Chinese students, I saw they were not fazed or surprised at all but excited to sing their pre-prepared song or perform their painstakingly choreographed dance. I had no choice but to rise to the challenge and I recited a poem in Chinese that I had learnt at school.

China Girl

When Amy Hinshelwood OKS went to study in China for a week she was in for a shock.

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love travelling, so in May 2017 I didn’t think twice about applying for an all-expensespaid summer trip to China’s Yunnan Province, offered by a non-profit-making and academic Chinese organisation to promote Chinese culture and language to UK students. I looked forward to a gentle week of sight-seeing, socializing with Chinese students, sharing anecdotes about my life at King’s, drifting into local schools to observe the odd lesson, and perhaps even help to teach. I could not have been more wrong.

With Mrs Liu and Sage Battle (6a), we flew from London to China, spent two nights in a hotel, then rose with the sun to fly cross-country from city Chengdu to countryside Tengchong. On touchdown I was happy to see a side of China I had never seen before. Having visited busy cities like Beijing and Shanghai with their hustle and bustle, I was happy to be greeted now by peaceful picturesque countryside. I was struck with awe and peace. Surrounded by every shade of green, I watched the distant triangular straw hats bobbing up and down on farmers working in the paddy fields, set against mountains far off in the background.

I wondered whether we would go hiking on the first morning, and looked forward to walking around the volcano.

But a few hours later, presented with the itinerary for the days ahead, I realized there was a lot more to this trip than I had imagined and remembered watching the BBC documentary ‘Are Our Kids Tough Enough?’ and reading about the Chinese education system with its long school days and severe discipline.

It turned out there were only three English students on the trip and 40 enthusiastic Chinese students, who were all waiting to meet us on our first evening. First, though, we had to meet the 36 professors.

What I assumed would be a quick self-introduction and handshake was instead a game-show-like activity requiring us to stand in

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And so began a week of presentations, discussions and debates on subjects such as artificial intelligence. Each day we woke at 7am for breakfast.

The day started at 8am and sometimes I did not get back to my room before 11pm. Often I did not even have a break at lunchtime, since eating time was used by students and teachers to summarize the morning’s activities. While I was ready to crash at the end of the day, the Chinese students spent an hour or two before bed doing extra work for the next day - working on what I have no idea! For me the days were as intense, if not more intense, than a normal day at King’s. However, for the Chinese students this was a week of Summer holiday bliss compared to their standard school lives.

I had heard of the pressure put on high-school students by parents and teachers in China and now I observed it firsthand. One of my new friends, Yuki, who was 14 years old, told me that she, like all Chinese students, studies from 8am to 1am or even 2am every day.

Their only real break is 6 or 7 hours’ sleep each night, so it is common in China for high-school students to suffer from sleep deprivation.

Having only just started at high school, Yuki explained that, rather than being able to play with her friends after school, she had to start on her homework as soon as she got home if she was to complete it before her extra review classes in the evening. After these, she would hurry straight home for supper then continue with her homework.

At the weekend she had extra classes when she had to finish all her homework. Yuki was only in year nine and the pressure on her was enormous. It is hard to imagine the stress placed on students in their final year of high school. Yuki is typical of every student in China, all of them anxious not to let down their parents.

There has long been an educational debate: ‘What works better, ‘Each student sat rocking the carrot or the stick?’ The West uses the carrot to motivate back and forth, reciting their students with a system designed to build confidence, creativity and speeches to themselves. individuality. Students are encouraged to speak out and give opinions.

Panic had replaced the But the Chinese system relies on strict discipline and obedience nonchalance I saw at the in classes, which the West claims will rob students of curiosity, beginning of the week.’ creativity and a childhood. However, it is these strict working times and intense self-discipline that make the Chinese system one of the most high-achieving in the world. Not only is the way the students interact with teachers very different from that of the West but also They perform to a very high level with clear instructions and time the way the teachers act towards students. The respect students to complete the task, which was why they were so tranquil when have for teachers is not reciprocated, so a teacher does not think performing on the first day. Perhaps this also explains why students twice about criticizing and dressing down a student. I observed a studying in the Chinese education system do so well, for they have months of preparation and revision. However, the Chinese boy of about 14 speaking passionately last-minute presentation was a real challenge. about his thoughts on a Japanese war museum.

‘I am not one of The professor disagreed with him so forcefully the But there is no doubt that, given no choice but to those King’s students boy started crying. participate and perform at the drop of a hat, as who relishes the required by the Chinese system, my confidence When walking into the conference room on the opportunity to perform grew during the week. And when I was asked to last morning, I saw the pressure students put give a speech during the closing ceremony of the on stage... I was themselves under. Each student sat rocking back SCAPEE cultural exchange, I was no longer petrified. and forth, reciting their speeches to themselves. petrified.’

Throughout the week we were placed in highPanic had replaced the nonchalance I saw at the pressure situations, asked to debate subjects I had beginning of the week for they had only the previous evening to prepare their speech. The pressure was enormous. never considered, ‘encouraged’ to respond to three-hour lectures Learning, as I had done, only the key points of the speech, with a I hadn’t really understood, and watched nervously every night at plan to ad-lib detail on stage, was absolutely not an option. To say supper when we were randomly chosen to present to our groups. even one word wrong would be catastrophic. I noticed the students Becoming more confident, I had started to enjoy myself. The idea of needed more time than students in the West to prepare anything presenting was no longer terrifying but exciting, an opportunity to they do. They lacked the confidence to perform spontaneously. It practise my public speaking and a chance to show what I had learnt has been said that Chinese students can execute but can’t create. that day.

At the end of the week I felt that, while the Western system had given me creativity and the confidence to stand by my opinions and not follow the crowd, my week as a Chinese student enabled me to stand confidently before a large group of people. Oh, and just before we left we did find the time to do the long but rewarding trek towards the distant mountains that I had marveled at on arriving in TengChong.

If you are a UK student, do consider going. It’s an experience you won’t regret.

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Eastern

Promise

Since King’s is this year opening a stylish new branch in China, we asked its first Director, Geoff Cocksworth, to tell us about this exciting project.

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he King’s School Shenzhen International is the first overseas branch of The King’s School, Canterbury. It will be a coeducational international school for pupils from ages 2 to 18 of all nationalities. The new campus will be launched in two separate phases. The Pre-Prep section for children aged 2-6 will open in September 2019, and the Main School, which will include the Junior and Senior sections for children aged 6-18, will open in September 2020. When fully open, we will have a total student capacity of 1,300, with 280 pupils in the Pre-Prep Section (aged 2-6) and 1,000 in the Main School (aged 6-18).

The school is being designed by Walters & Cohen, London-based international architects, who have completed award-winning projects for King’s in Canterbury and are engaged in the further development of The Precincts. Cindy Walters and her team have liaised throughout with their Chinese counterparts and ourselves, producing a stunning, innovative design for 21st Century education.

Cindy Walters says, ‘Whilst The King’s School in Canterbury offers a Twenty-First-Century education in the UK’s oldest school, the new flagship school at Nanshan is a contemporary response to the remarkable historic setting of King’s. We have drawn inspiration from the tradition of arranging academic accommodation about landscaped courtyards, and our design reflects the iconic green courts that define the Canterbury Cathedral precincts. Our understanding of the local climate has informed how the buildings function; much thought has gone into providing well-lit and ventilated learning environments. The school’s envelope is shaded by planting, making this a beautiful and comfortable teaching and learning environment.

Working with UK-based landscape architects, BHSL, we have arranged the new school buildings in Shenzhen around generous garden courts and planted roof terraces.’ 

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‘Our design reflects the iconic green courts that define the Canterbury Cathedral precincts.’

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‘The new flagship school at Nanshan is a contemporary response to the King’s remarkable historic setting.’

Shenzhen is a colourful and energetic modern city, China’s latest first tier and fourth largest, covering an area of nearly 2,000 square kilometres, with a permanent population estimated today at around 15 million. It lies in the Province of Guangdong, at the mouth of the Pearl River, just across the border from Hong Kong, in what has been called ‘The Greater Bay Area’. Growth has been rapid; in 1970, its population was only 8,000, and in 1990 still only 680,000. Development came with the economic freedom to attract large and successful Chinese and international industries and businesses (especially digital technology); this brought a huge surge in migrant workers from the rest of China to what was fast being seen as ‘China’s Innovation Hub’.

The opportunity to bring the UK’s oldest school to such an exciting region was simply too good to miss, for us, for our Chinese partners and the local authorities. We are fortunate to be situated in the business centre, Nanshan, but at the foot of the ‘Southern Mountain, which rejoices in a vast array of fruit trees of different types. Part of our educational mission is to bring the best of the natural environment into the school, as well as the school into the environment.

The aim is to create and maintain close links with King’s in Canterbury from which the new school and its pupils will benefit hugely, a great attraction to Chinese families, but we see the benefits as being two-way: King’s in Canterbury will also benefit from this close-working relationship. 102

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‘Part of our educational mission is to bring the best of the natural environment into the school, as well as the school into the environment.’

‘The aim is to create and maintain close links with King’s in Canterbury from which the new school and its pupils will benefit hugely.’

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We shall provide a modern STEAM environment, embracing science, technology, engineering and mathematics with the arts.

There will be a strong emphasis on robotics and creativity and there will be a bespoke centre for ‘Space Studies’. We shall also provide a rich and varied co-curricular programme and our whole educational philosophy puts pastoral care at the forefront of our mission.

Enjoying a bilingual learning environment throughout the school, Chinese and international pupils will study side-by-side in the same classroom. The Pre-Prep will deliver this through an innovative co-teacher model (one native English speaker and one local Putonghua teacher in each class) and the highly acclaimed EYFS programme offered by JKS. For children aged 6 -15 we shall provide a combined British and Chinese National Curriculum with subjects taught in a mixture of English and Chinese, with English increasing in later years.

In their last three years at school, all pupils will follow an international British curriculum of IGCSEs and A’ Levels aimed in particular at delivering students to universities in the UK, America and Canada.

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‘Our whole educational philosophy is one that puts pastoral care at the forefront of our mission.’

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A Last View of Canterbury Cathedral from The Franciscan Gardens O triple fingers pointing to the skies Sun-smitten, I behold you rise, From mists of applebloom.

God’s peace is here and Spring’s bright day And birds and bluebells and the scents of May – But over there lurks Doom.

Your lacework, white against the blue, The purple shadows that are wrought in you, Shall these be lost to me for evermore?

The glint of gold that crowns your towers, Your ancient glory bosomed in pink flowers, Must I not see them evermore?

O trinity of towers beneath whose roof I oft have worshipped – oft have stood aloof From worshipping – I offer one last prayer: “If foes must ravage this fair land And rapine and destruction be at hand, God, keep this holy place beneath Thy care!”

Dyneley Hussey OKS (May Day 1915)

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sweet Treats Those not in Carlyon may be unaware that Candy Woodgate and her daughter make cakes that are not just confections but witty, colourful sculptures. Here we give you a flavour of their produce, as featured on their Facebook page Emma Rose Cakes.

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King’s Week Drama

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ing’s Partnerships has been running at King’s since 2014, led by Head of Partnerships, Christina Astin, to develop links with other Kent schools by organizing shared projects and resources. One important strand within the King’s programme is East Kent Schools Together (EKST), a group made up of four state schools, one university and three independent schools. The EKST partnership hopes to strengthen ties between schools in East Kent and foster community rather than competition. Christina cochairs the EKST Management Group which comprises teachers (‘partnership champions’) from across the schools and university.

Reaching Out We asked Eleanor Scott (Sixth Form at St. Anselm’s) to interview our own Christina Astin about recent developments in King’s partnerships.

I met Ms Astin on a cold breezy Monday morning during Autumn half term, in the café of Canterbury’s Beaney Museum, home to some EKST events.

After a few tests of my phone’s recorder against the blasts of a coffee maker and a bawling baby, we began.

The King’s website told me Ms Astin has been at King’s for fourteen years, many of them as Head of Science, so what made her move from pure science to something as broad as Partnerships?

‘When I was teaching at King’s, I got very excited about doing outreach work, as we called it then.’ At primary schools she did assemblies, ran workshops and so on, but she found herself increasingly being asked to support and advise secondary schools too. It was a course at Tonbridge School that was her lightbulb moment: ‘I was shown what they were doing in the Science Department to engage with local schools and I was really impressed.

I realised what a difference we could make, particularly in Science, where the gap between primary and secondary schools is so extreme – primary schools don’t have labs or specialist Science teachers and I felt we could really support them.’

Her interest grew until she wanted to take on a role to enable her to make a real difference in the Canterbury educational community.

‘Everything kind of fell into place at the same time.’ King’s changed the name from Outreach to Partnerships to emphasise the two-way benefit between schools. ‘The name Partnerships was really important. This isn’t just about an independent school doing good for other schools. It’s about something mutual. Both schools get something out of the relationship and that’s a theme that runs through all the work I do.’

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Christina Astin and Eleanor Scott It must have been a big challenge, I thought, making the move from Head of Science to Partnerships. ‘That’s part of the reason I took it on. I like a new challenge.’ First was a need to build awareness among staff about what Partnerships were and could be, and second was Ms Astin’s personal problem in repositioning herself away from Science. ‘People still saw me as in Science rather than embracing the whole academic curriculum.’ Luckily, this perception didn’t last long while she worked to build up good relationships at King’s with house staff, colleagues responsible for volunteering and others. Since then, many members of staff have proposed new ideas and projects whilst more and more students come along to volunteer.

On the King’s website Ms Astin is quoted as saying: ‘There is an increasing need for partnerships between state and independent schools.’ I asked her for the main reasons. ‘I think no school can ever

stand still. Every school needs to develop; every teacher, every course, every student needs developing, and we can always learn from other schools.’ Ms Astin believes that new ideas can be discovered and practice shared at a subject level, as with the EKST Cluster Groups, for example, but beyond EKST too: ‘We have a fantastic partnership going on with the Cathedral and Spires Academy and so, through that relationship with Spires, we’ve developed closer links with the Cathedral.’ (King’s is right next to the Cathedral.) ‘That has brought in a lot of

‘The EKST partnership hopes to strengthen ties between schools in East Kent and foster community rather than competition.’

‘A lot of students living in East Kent are not going to go up to London – we need to work with our partner schools and universities to do something locally.’ fresh ideas, new networks and new skills to King’s. And our partnerships have brought to other schools the sharing of King’s facilities (including sports pitches and science labs), teachers, coaches, and many other forms of support. We have a moral obligation to share. We are, after all, a Christian foundation. I think we have a responsibility to our neighbours to do what we can.’

I then asked about the impact on the community of an education system so obsessed with exams. Were partnership projects an escape from that obsession and perhaps a way of reducing its grip? ‘There is a big difference here between state and independent schools. State schools are much better at collecting data on students, setting targets and monitoring and assessing them, but we can be in danger of losing sight of the individual student. I found myself nodding in recognition. Being a boarding school, King’s is experienced in providing activities beyond data and exams. ‘We’ve got to keep the children entertained and enriched outside school hours and that’s our responsibility.

A lot of our partnership projects are about introducing new ideas that students might take up and run with. For example, learning a new language.’

Since no system is perfect, what could be improved in Partnerships? ‘I’m thinking about that all the time. We never stand still and professionally we’re always, always learning. We get feedback from students who come to events, house students who volunteer at events, and from staff and parents, so we learn from that interaction as much as possible. I’ve begun to develop some strategic priorities in terms of our partnership programme.’ Her mental filter ensures all new proposals fulfil three criteria: ‘First, is it practical? Can students get there, and will it work for the school day? Second, is it affordable? If I’m going to have to send students out in taxis every week then no, we can’t afford that. Third, does it achieve a two-way benefit? What’s the benefit to us and what’s the benefit to the other partner?’

King’s, so that when someone has a new Partnerships? ‘I wish I had more time. idea or project they think maybe that’s one Doesn’t everyone? I would like to make for East Kent Schools Together.’ Ms Astin even more links with other organisations also hopes to see more unity, support, and locally. We’ve reached out to The Beaney. encouragement for all students in East We have a good relationship with them, Kent. ‘In East Kent, you know, we’ve got the various charities, the city council and other whole coastal area, a lot of rural and isolated organisations that share our mission, but I communities, and a lot of students living in would further strengthen those links.’

East Kent are not going to go up to London for events or revision classes or “I want the community to see King’s as a anything like that – we need to work with our partner place with open doors and big hearts and a schools and universities to humility that says, ‘We’ve been here a long do something locally for students of East Kent. We time but we’re still learning.’” must recognise that many students might come from families where university might not have To finish, I asked where she saw the future of happened before and where there’s been a Partnerships. Her aim is to paint an image of lot of unemployment and deprivation. And King’s as an open, welcoming place. “I want I think it’s our responsibility to do what we the community to see King’s as a place with can to make access to university more of a open doors and big hearts and a humility that says, ‘We’ve been here a long time but we’re reality. That’s something for the future.’ still learning, and we want to learn from all Was there anything else that Ms Astin of you.’ And on that grand but wise note I wanted to do in her time as Head of pressed the red button on my recorder.

‘I realised what a difference we could make, particularly in Science, where the gap between primary and secondary schools is so extreme.’

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As the Leaves Fall AND the leaves fall . . .

The silver and the golden fall together, A-mingled irresistibly like tears.

The low-branched elms stand idly In all the full-leaved glory of their life: Yet here and there a yellow flake slips slowly, And the branch, where once it hung, lies bare.

Below they lie—the golden fruits of day.

And a soft spirit of the night Weaves the white spell of sleep about their feet.

And the leaves fall . . .

The great sleep of the trees is nigh: The flowers are dead.

Yet through the fine-spun web of mist Gleams faintly Michael’s pale blue star. . . .

A time of sad soul-hunger, unspeakable desire, That clutches at the heart and drags the soul!

And the leaves fall. . . .

Is there a far faint life Whispers with blood-choked voice thy name?

Whispers but once—no more?

Then weep ye now, O Mothers!

And, Maidens, weep!

O England, rend the raiment of thy wealth: Tear the soft vesture of thy pride!

Let the tears fall and be not comforted!

In all their youth they went for thee; In all their strength they died for thee; And so they fell, As the leaves fall. . . . .

Yet they say you are dead?

Ask of the trees. Perchance they hear A distant murmuring of pulsing sap.

Perchance in their dim minds they see Pale curlèd leaves that strive to greet the sun.

Perchance they know of yellow daffodils Will dance again.

Yet the leaves fall . . .

And yonder through the mist is Michael’s star— Saint Michael with his angel-host!

Ay! see them as they sweep along Borne on an unseen wind to the far throne of God. And, Mothers, see; O Maidens, look How the world’s Christ stoops down and kisses each.

And listen now and hear their cry, As, lances raised, they greet their King— “There is no death . . . There is no death . . .

No death . . .” and comfort you, When the leaves fall.

Joseph Courtney OKS (Autumn 1916)

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Founded on

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charity

The Charity Commission says King’s may be the oldest charity in the country so we asked Ferren Winarto (6a JR) to look at where we are now.

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uring my time at King’s I have seen how The support of Jackson was a long-term programme, so the the school looks after those in the wider school maintained close contact with him and checked on community, for example through volunteering. his progress. A Remove Spanish set was assigned the task of Many of my friends and I are active members of ‘adopting’ Jackson. Mr Miles suggested writing to Jackson the Voluntary Community Service that runs every twice a year so the pupils wrote messages in Spanish which Wednesday, which ranges from helping the elderly at their teacher collated and enclosed with an introductory a care home to making pottery with adults who have letter of her own. This exchange between Jackson, a boy learning disabilities. The school has also living deep in a rural villages of Nicaragua, partnered a number of local schools and King’s pupils was mutually educational.

‘The support of to create volunteer programmes. For By the time Jackson graduated from the Jackson was a longexample, Saturday Smarties has helped programme, the Remove Spanish set had nearly 250 pupils to develop their shared dissolved and progressed into the Fifth term programme, so passion in STEM (science, technology, the school maintained form, but Jackson had by then grown up engineering and maths). alongside this one class.

close contact with him and checked on his progress.’

Fundraising events - such as Luxmoore’s renowned bake sales and Bailey’s Open Air Cinema, as well as 24-hour sponsored bike rides, fun runs and coffee mornings - are routine. And these activities alone rack up £45,000 per year, which all goes to a variety of charities.

Every term the school chooses a particular charity to support, and to this end both students and staff congregate in the Shirley Hall to hear presentations by pupils promoting charities with which they often have a personal bond. Everyone then votes online.

Martin Miles, Chairman of the Charity Committee, showed me a list of all the charities the school has supported, dating back to 2002, the year he took over responsibility. These range from disaster relief to medical research. And what caught my eye was the school’s sponsorship, through Plan International, of a Spanishspeaking Nicaraguan boy by the name of Jackson, who lives in the picturesque area of Madriz.

The support for Jackson was made possible by the school’s Chapel Fund, also known as the Rapid Response Fund, which is maintained by the Charity Committee. This comes from collections at the Carol and Commemoration Services, along with other small donations and ‘roundings up’ of sums here and there.

Not only does this enable the school to fund ongoing projects such as Jackson and his village, but it also comes in handy should an emergency arise, when the school deems a need urgent but there is no time to fundraise.

Months after Jackson had been adopted as a protégé of the King’s community, Plan International released an update on both Jackson and his family, revealing that the King’s funds not only supported Jackson’s family but also his home community. The progress of Jackson and his community, enabled by King’s funds, has been impressive.

Although it takes 90 minutes to get there, he attends primary school, where his favourite subject is Maths, and although the nearest medical facility is 45 minutes away, he is healthy. Community projects include provision of sports equipment, the formation of youth organisations and the encouragement of young people to communicate with their sponsors. There is also a drive to promote the protection of children from abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Plan International also lists a few accomplishments in the wider area as a result of King’s sponsorship. 18-year-old Yaoska, through a child council set up in her community, is a member of a youth counsellors group that promotes sexual and reproductive rights in her community. She is also a young entrepreneur who raises poultry, in which she takes much pride. She pays for her studies in Agricultural Ecology with her own money, and hopes to become a nurse one day. Yaoska is one of many who saw improvement in her and her family’s quality of life through sponsorship.

With sponsorship funds, Plan International has also set up programmes in the area such as the Reading Post, through which children learn and have fun at the same time. So the support of Jackson by King’s has worked wonders both for him and for the people in his area.

‘The support of Jackson by King’s has worked wonders both for him and for the people in his area.’

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Charging Ahead

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When we discovered that Elias Boehmer (R CY) has a thing for batteries, we set him up with Dr Robert Murray-Smith, a local scientific genius who is about to change the world.

Visit www.fwgltd.co.uk

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atteries power ever more things in with a lower energy density of 60Wh/ our daily lives, from the smartphone kg compared to 125-250Wh/kg for Li-ion in our pocket to some cars on the batteries. street. They are becoming much more essential, especially since the slow switch This is because the supercapacitors are not, to less reliable renewable energy sources at least initially, meant for small scale uses, means that energy storage becomes more such as in a mobile phone. Instead they are important. However, even though batteries meant for load-levelling and energy storage have certainly improved over the years, in micro-grid installations, where a few there have not recently been houses on the same street any large breakthroughs in could have a small network battery technology that saw of, for example, solar panels.

‘His version of the as much commercial success This is perfect for developing supercapacitor is as the Lithium-ion (Li-ion) countries that lack energy battery, first introduced carbon-based, which infrastructure, but can also in the 1970s. Battery be applied elsewhere. One also means it is fully example would be Japan, manufacturers, still the main biodegradable, non- where, after the 2008 investors, have preferred to slightly alter the chemistries earthquake and tsunami, toxic and also not of Li-ion batteries to the frailty of the existing flammable.’ squeeze out more and more power network was all too performance, instead of obvious. As a result of this, investing the money needed small-scale micro-power to make some of the many battery ideas stations received in Japan $33.32 billion of become a real product. However, batteries funding in 2017. are not the only way to store electricity.

Sustainability, however, does not stop at Supercapacitors are another method, which, supporting clean energy, because one of instead of storing the electrical energy as the main materials used in the construction chemical energy like in a battery, store the of the super capacitor is carbon and the energy as the electrons themselves. This manufacturing process is relatively simple. means that supercapacitors can charge faster, discharge faster and can endure more charge cycles than a battery. This technology is what a local inventor and self-described tinkerer, Dr Robert Murray-Smith, has been working on for the past few years. His version of the supercapacitor is carbon-based, which also means it is fully biodegradable, non-toxic and also not flammable. These are not the only advantages, however. One of Dr Murray-Smith’s main aims with his supercapacitors is to make energy storage a lot cheaper. Li-ion batteries cost around $200-700 per kWh, while his carbon-based supercapacitor costs $75 per kWh, albeit

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‘Hybrid battery packs made up of both Li-ion cells and supercapacitors would bring together the advantages of both.’

A small manufacturing plant can be established in a country, using carbon sources native to that country, be it coal slag, tires or carbonised hemp, which can then provide its products to the inhabitants of the country it is based in. Apart from this use, Dr MurraySmith also had plans to outfit a small electric car with his supercapacitors instead of its stock batteries and then use it to drive across the country. This plan, even though it was partially paid for using crowdfunding, failed.

The future, however, probably lies in a combination of the two technologies. Hybrid battery packs made up of both Li-ion cells and supercapacitors would bring together the advantages of both – high-energy density for the Li-ion battery, and the low cost and high discharge and charge cycle of the supercapacitor.

This kind of hybrid battery pack would be very useful in cars, where the supercapacitors could handle large uses of energy, such as acceleration, whilst the batteries would handle the cruising. This plays both technologies to their strengths, since the high energy output of the supercapacitors would usually have an adverse affect on the lifespan of the batteries. In the micro-grids, the supercapacitors would also be useful for the quick-release energy needed when power spikes happen in the grid, such as when everybody gets up during the break of a major sport event to turn on the kettle. With Dr Murray-Smith’s supercapacitor ready to hit the market any time now, the future for a more reliable and greener energy supply looks bright.

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‘Dr Murray-Smith also had plans to outfit a small electric car with his supercapacitors instead of its stock batteries and then use it to drive across the country.’

‘With Dr Murray-Smith’s supercapacitor ready to hit the market any time now, the future for a more reliable and greener energy supply looks bright.’

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‘The disheartening yet fascinating enigma is that he visits the kiln to gather what he is certain will be his masterpiece to find that the piece is ruined.’

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‘The uniqueness of Ortwin’s pieces are a daunting expression of innovation.’

Genius At Work

Jean Dumrongjaroen (6b BR) visited local master of jewels, Ortwin Thyssen.

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lmost in the shadow of the Cathedral resides an artist-magician in the form of a German jeweller named Ortwin Thyssen. His speciality is the Mokuma, a Japanese jewellery technique that blends metals together to create a solid multi-faceted material.

Metals are placed in a kiln and folded into the desired shape by fusing together several layers of various colours to create a beautiful whole with a surface like wood grain. To create this beautiful material, the jeweller must look close to see that the alloys are being pressed together to form a bar called a billet. The metals must not melt and reform, or it’s all over.

When he talks about this process, Ortwin moves beyond the technical details and shows what it truly means to study the art of Mokuma jewellery. It is not just following a recipe, which is written in Japanese, but a thorough fascination with the ‘baffling stuff that happens when you do this’. Ortwin claims that the Mokuma has ‘tricked’ him many times and fooled him into believing he has it right when he has it wrong. The disheartening yet fascinating enigma is that he visits the kiln to gather what he is certain will be his masterpiece to find that the piece is ruined. Ortwin complains about the mischievous ways of the art form with an empathetic and mischievous smile on his face.

The Mokuma may be at its heart, but Ortwin’s craft comprehends many cultures. His German heritage is evident because he never strays from the intense training he received, and he also involves the intricacies of his current home, England. Because of this he produces medieval jewellery with a wood grain pattern as its background. This may be an odd pairing but the uniqueness of Ortwin’s pieces are a daunting expression of innovation. He says, ‘People come to us because we are really a specialist maker. We are a destination shop.’

Ortwin’s workshop was previously owned by another jeweller so it was only a matter of adding to an already-available structure. His machinery does not use the latest technology so he needs great skill to solve several design issues by hand. He says jewellery involves much patience and sitting, but at the same time much thinking on your feet. Entering his workshop showed his life and his art share many resemblances, a bond between various cultures.

Ortwin’s charming personality makes him a marvellous conversationalist about culture, history and, of course, jewellery. I should know because I nearly missed my train home. Sadly for us, after twenty years in England and twelve in Canterbury, Ortwin and Doro are moving back to Germany. Leb’ wohl, Genie! CANTUARIAN | 2018

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Take a Break CHOCOLATE CAFÉ Perhaps the most accessible of the all the cafés I bring to you is ‘Chocolate Café’, given it’s merely a hop, skip and a jump from Mint Yard Gate. Despite its being most-oft-frequented by the loved-up couples of King’s, many students like to come here just for a chat and a brew. The décor is exquisite, with earnest paintings and some good lighting to create a cosy feel. A second floor allows one to experience the vibes even more, with mismatched chairs and small rickety tables unapologetically organic. We glanced at the menus, marvelling at their slight discolouration and old-time feel, and were impressed by a solid selection that included a ‘special crêpe’ and some goldleaf-coated strawberries (these, I thought, helped me to explore new ways to flash the cash). We also indulged in an iced apple juice that we deemed ‘solid’, and a ‘deluxe hot chocolate’ which was thought a ‘fair brew’. As any keen-eyed fans of the pottery industry in Vienna would notice, the cups were the work of a certain Julius Meinl – a gorgeous touch. To top off our experience, customers frequenting the café were genial, funny and cool.

Verdict: 9/10 cos the loos were a bit grim, but perfect for any King’s couples looking for a romantic time during a short break.

Charles Griffin (SH 5th) gives us the

low-down on what we can expect from all the best cafe hotspots in Canterbury.

CAFÉ ST. PIERRE THE GARAGE The Garage is an out-of-the-way coffee house that likes to remind you about how ‘quintessentially Kent’ it is and the real ‘organic’ nature of its beans. After meandering through the back streets of central Canterbury we arrive. Big orange signs provide a certain allure as you enter, and questionable modern art is a placeholder of the café. Our server was forthcoming and polite, even going as far to ‘make the weakest coffee weaker’ for one of the party. We were all impressed by the big oak tables that tried to dominate the space but the emptiness lent the room an eerie atmosphere. We decided to take away our coffees and indulge outside on the high street. Reactions were varied with some exclamations of ‘sh*t that’s hot’ and a few grimaces.

One of our expressos was tipped into a drain. The packaging wasn’t eco-friendly or even branded, which upset me, and as I implied earlier temperature was an issue.

Verdict: The Garage gets a lucky 6/10 mainly because it made me feel like a hipster.

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Better known as ‘French’, this gem is tucked away at the bottom of the high street. Its foreign theme is pretty well done and lots of little decorations create a collage of pastel joy within. The garden is lovely and surprisingly well renowned among King’s students. Very quickly a waitress comes to take our orders.

Feeling peckish, we get some French pastries and some lattes.

They’re good: through the haze of the garden the tangy beans instil pangs of flavour in our brains. I feel strangely at one with the French. For once in my life, patriotic rage has dwindled and real compassion for our international neigbours blossoms. After my pilgrimage into xenophilia we thank the waitress and leave. Still shaken from the insane cultural experience, I try to comprehend the discovery.

Verdict: French is a charming place to roll up and relax, so it gets 8/10.

‘The garden is lovely and surprisingly well renowned among King’s students.’

WATERSTONES BOOK SHOP CAFÉ An immensely unique find, this café occupies the second floor of Waterstones. With sticky tables and ‘a funny smell’ it fits into a bookstore café look gorgeously.

It’s vibe is chilled out and the place is solely frequented by book lovers, which lends the atmosphere a quieter tone compared with some of the more rowdy Canterbury establishments. As they rip into Sylvia Plath’s earlier works, Posh Spice’s new autobiography or an in-depth analysis of Burmese sewer systems, they can now accompany their endeavour with some coffee, a joyous experience especially when juxtaposed with a deliciously sombre view of the Canterbury high street with its bustling crowds. The food appeared to be tasty and the drinks average but prices were fairly steep.

Verdict: For a reader, as any student of the King’s School must be, this café is an easy 6/10.

THE REFECTORY

THE BEANO

BOHO CAFÉ

‘The art that adorns the walls manages to be tasteful, soft on the eyes and exquisitely interesting all in one clean swoop.’

Often described as ‘the witchy place’, Boho is the most genuine hipster café in the whole town.

In the summer it comes alive with its outdoor patio providing comfort and shade from the baking Canterbury sun. The walls are adorned with clocks of all shapes and sizes, which altogether make me feel it tries too hard. The big quarrel people have with Boho is the prices. But this is fair given its grandiose nature. When you do get the food, it’s tasty and satisfying.

I slurped down a raspberry milkshake and a sandwich with gusto. Boho is well integrated into the culture of our city. It’s got all the local magazines ready to read and has many regulars who are well known in the area.

Solely frequented by the most bohemian, or poor of King’s students, this high-class establishment can provide any interested buyer with the most greasy breakfast of their life. It stacks bacon and eggs into a gorgeous slop and sells the atmosphere brilliantly. If you head down to this spot by the river you won’t be disappointed. Its coffees are infamously strong and cheap and, when accompanying some poached eggs, an unbeatable combo is formed. The décor is inspired, with issues of The Beano festooning the walls. A realistic nicotine-stained yellow paint radiates from the back walls. Pricing is the best of the bunch and you certainly get your money’s worth. I personally managed to indulge in a bacon butty which practically burst with the sheer mass of meat and ketchup contained within.

I would have spoken and talked with the servers, but fear of middle-class cultural appropriation set in too quickly.

The irony is wonderfully done.

Verdict: Overall for its immensely humorous take on a classic British breakfast, The Beano gets 7/10.

A brilliant find is a café just up past Westgate that likes to flaunt its millennial popularity to the real extremes. The Refectory can provide a mean Sunday morning brunch to accommodate the dietary requirements of a King’s pupil. It specializes in avocado toast, full English and iced coffee. On these three fronts, the place performs amazingly.

To add to my incredulity, the café has low prices to accompany its food which really made the whole experience better for me. The décor is the best of all the cafés – fact. The art that adorns the walls manages to be tasteful, soft on the eyes and exquisitely interesting all in one clean swoop. I was especially impressed by the state of the bathrooms: wrought iron taps and brass were cleaned to perfection, which gave the whole café a far more professional vibe. The servers were the most helpful of all the cafés and the crowd that frequented the place, despite my generational bias, were overall a good bunch.

I think that The Refectory was the best café I visited in my search, considering it delivered well on every test I put it through (even the eco-friendly packaging).

Verdict: The Refectory gets 10/10 and concludes my search for the best café in Canterbury.

Verdict: Overall, it’s a brilliant spot and, despite the prices, it delivers as one of the best cafés on the aesthetic and cultural front. Boho gets a 7/10.

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‘Glacial ice can be several miles thick and each year’s snowfall has slightly different properties from the last, creating layers which can be used to count the age of the ice, much like the rings in a tree.’

Geology

Rocks!

Sophie Gamble (6a LX), who studies Geology for A’ Level, explains why the subject

involves much more than the examination of rocks.

O

ver the last two years, I have become used to people saying, ‘Ooo… rocks…’ or ‘How do you find learning about rocks interesting?’ whenever I tell them that I am doing Geology A’ Level. Yet Geology is so much more than rocks.

Contrary to popular belief, the study of Geology covers a multitude of subjects and sciences. For example, in my Geology lessons one day we will be learning about fossils and past climates, encompassing fields such as Biology and Palaeontology, and the next we will be learning about Planetary Geology and Geophysics. Geology is also, in many ways, about history – we learn about how our planet came to be what it is. By studying our planet’s history and how the Earth works, we can see how events and processes of the past may influence the future, enabling geologists to assess the risks of climate change, monitor active volcanoes and seek to prevent major floods and landslides. Geology also has a real application for today by helping to identify and obtain the resources we all depend on to heat our homes and power industry.

Whilst the broadness of Geology is what initially drew me to taking it as an A’ Level, finding out about some of the more unusual and littleknown geological facts, often in the context of well-known issues, is what I have found most fascinating over the last two years. Let me give you three examples.

We all know about the problems of global warming caused by increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases collecting in the atmosphere. However, how many people actually know how the increases (or decreases) in the concentration of these greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are measured and how we know that the average temperature of our atmosphere is rising at a faster rate than ever before?

To geologists, the answer can be found in ice. As well as being able to identify past climates by studying rocks and fossils, geologists can also measure the oxygen isotopes in ice cores. The number of neutrons in an oxygen atom can vary, the most common numbers being 16 or 18, with 18 being more uncommon. While the ice compacts over CANTUARIAN | 2018

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‘Geologists assess the risks of climate change, monitor active volcanoes and seek to prevent major floods and landslides...’ time, the ‘O16’ and ‘O18’ atoms get trapped as tiny bubbles of gas within the ice. The ratio of ‘O16’ to ‘O18’ atoms locked up in the ice correlates to the Earth’s average global temperature at the time the ice was formed. During warm periods, more ‘O18’ relative to ‘O16’ atoms will be found in the ice; during cold periods, the opposite is true.

all the time and do no harm, and that this limit should therefore be increased. Are they right?

In order to identify these gas bubbles, geologists drill cylinders of Whilst the UK may be many miles from a fault plane, it is in fact crissice out of ice sheets or glaciers, usually in Greenland or Antarctica, crossed by thousands of geological fault lines, although most of these which have formed as a result of years of accumulating snowfall. This are very deep underground. As a result, the UK generally experiences glacial ice can be several miles thick and each year’s snowfall has between 200 and 300 earthquakes a year, but only about 30 of these slightly different properties from the last, creating layers which can are strong enough to be felt, meaning they measure more than 3.0 be used to count the age of the ice, much like the rings in a tree. on the Richter scale. The fracking companies are therefore technically Past climates can therefore be identified by measuring the various correct, although it seems unlikely that the government will increase isotopic ratios in the ice’s different layers and the rates at which the the 0.5 limit any time soon.

Earth has warmed up or cooled down in past geological periods can be calculated. This is one of the ways geologists The last subject I wanted to mention is dinosaurs. know that the Earth is warming up at a much faster We all know that dinosaurs became extinct millions ‘The UK experiences rate than ever before. of years ago, right? Well, technically wrong. Whilst between 200 and 300 it is true that dinosaurs such as the T-Rex and the Another interesting geological fact I have learnt earthquakes a year, but Stegosaurus became extinct at the end of the relates to earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by Period, around 65 million years ago, it only about 30 of these Cretaceous stresses within tectonic plates being relieved by is believed that three bird groups of the theropod are strong enough to be family of dinosaurs managed to survive, adapting movement on fault planes. As the UK is fortunately located a long way from the nearest plate boundary, and evolving into the ten thousand species of birds felt.’ the UK does not experience major earthquakes. alive today.

However, does it experience many ‘minor’ earthquakes? I became interested in this topic whilst researching the What is the evidence for this? Well, modern birds share many of the subject of fracking for my EPQ. It is well known that there is a lot of evolutionary characteristics that have been found in the skeletons public opposition to fracking in the UK and one of the main concerns of avian dinosaurs. For example, the hip bones of birds have a hole is that the drilling can cause minor earthquakes or tremors. As a in the hip socket, just like those found in the skeletons of all avian result, the government has set a limit on the magnitude of tremors dinosaurs. The bones of birds are also hollow and their feet have that can be caused by the drilling. If the drilling causes a tremor three toes pointing forwards and one toe pointing backwards – exceeding 0.5 on the Richter scale, it must stop at once. As a result, again, all common features of avian dinosaurs. The present scientific there has been little fracking in this country. The fracking companies consensus is, therefore, that birds are actually a living group of have been arguing that tremors of this magnitude occur naturally modern-day theropod dinosaurs descended from the common ancestor of all dinosaurs.

So, to answer the non-geologists who think I study just rocks, I say Geology helps us understand the world around us – as it was, as it is and as it shall be.

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‘Geology helps us understand the world around us – as it was, as it is and as it shall be.’

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Double Vision Because King’s now has more twins on its roll than ever, we asked Honor Dwerryhouse (Sh BR) to explain why twins are the starting point for any student of human nature and nurture.

I

dentical twins born from the same fertilized egg often share similar physical attributes, personalities and social interests. Even those twins separated at birth can have lives that end up strikingly similar.

These common bonds are proof that the genetic make-up of the human species goes a long way in determining everything from the colour of our skin to our sexual orientation. Which has greater influence, nature or nurture? Or is there another explanation?

There are many rumours of a telepathic connection between identical twins, even when the twins are physically separated. For example, in 1939 a pair of identical twins, Barbara Herbert and Daphne Goodship, were born. When their single mother killed herself, they became separated at birth but met again when they were 40. Despite their different backgrounds they had experienced remarkably similar lives. They both had falling accidents when they were 15 because they had weak ankles. They both met the men they would marry at 16 years old at a local dance. They both had miscarriages with their first pregnancy and then produced two boys and one girl. When they met they were both wearing beige dresses and brown velvet jackets. Even a small issue, for example how

Barbara Herbert and Daphne Goodship

they were called the ‘giggle twins’ because they used to laugh and fold their arms in the same way, shows some connection, but so many similarities cannot be put down just to coincidence. So what is going on?

Mia was adopted from an orphanage in China by an American couple and grew up in California. Alexandra was adopted from the same orphanage in China by a Norwegian couple and grew up in Norway. The adoptive parents met the day after Mia and Alexandra were adopted and instantly recognized a similarity between the two girls and noticed that they had the same birthdays. They asked the orphanage whether or not they were twins but, though knowing that they were, the orphanage denied the truth. Six

‘Tshey were called the ‘giggle twins’ because they used to laugh and fold their arms in the same way...’

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Jim Springer and Jim Lewis

‘The adoptive parents met the day after Mia and Alexandra were adopted and instantly recognized a similarity between the two girls.’ months later the parents did a DNA test on the two girls and confirmed that they were twins. What makes this so interesting is that the twins were raised in two different countries but knew about the other’s existence since they were children, which means they must have had some influence on each other but were still growing up in two different environments while their DNA had an effect on their personalities and their social interactions. The girls, now fifteen years old, still keep in contact over social media. How is it that these girls have felt such strong a connection even though they were separated at birth?

The most famous of all twin case studies involves Jim Springer and Jim Lewis, raised apart from the age of four weeks. Unlike most twins, they share the same first name rather than last name. The twins were finally reunited at the age of 39 in 1979, when they found out that both suffered from tension headaches, were prone to nail biting, drove the same car, went on holiday to the same beach in Florida and smoked the same Salem cigarettes. Whilst they were in different homes growing up they were both aware that they had a twin brother somewhere but neither of them had given it much thought.

Springer’s mum told him his twin brother had died at birth and Lewis was just not interested in meeting Springer. However, that all changed in 1977 when Lewis, aged 37 at the time, decided to find his twin. The two of them spoke on the phone, Lewis having found Springer’s name at a local courthouse. They decided to meet and their

‘They found out that they had extraordinary similarities with each other, such as both having childhood dogs named Toy.’

Image: PBS - Mia and Alexandra

bond was restored on 9 February 1979.

They found out that they had extraordinary similarities with each other, such as both having childhood dogs named Toy. They also both married twice, first to a woman named Linda and then to a woman named Betty. They both had children, one of each of their sons called James (Jim) Allen. They both lived in the only house on their block. They were both chain-smokers, enjoyed beer, had woodworking shops in their garages, drove Chevrolets and worked in separate Ohio counties as sheriffs. Their brain-wave tests were near-identical and so were their medical histories. The similarities between these two have shaped many theories on the nature versus nurture debate and some even use this famous case as evidence of a telepathic connection between twins.

Each of these three cases suggests that nature is of greater influence than nurture in the development of twins and their choices in life. Certainly, there are centres all over the world devoted to the study of twins and the

‘Their brain-wave tests were near-identical and so were their medical histories.’ complex interplay of forces that shape who we are and affect our health. As to some sort of telepathic connection, scientists would currently struggle either to prove or deny this. Perhaps there are some answers that will always elude us, but the study of twins will continue to fascinate us while we try to provide answers.

T

his year at King’s there are no fewer than fourteen pairs of twins, more than at any time in living memory, and probably more than ever before. To celebrate, we asked the twins to write about each other, and to share some of their favourite family snaps.

As you will see, the ones who chose to contribute are remarkably polite about each other.

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2

Twin Sets Hebe Lai

(6b JR)

r, unge d o y an tes minu dresses ts 0 4 g r n only Robe o lo eing ced int s.’ - Ed b e it or on ‘Desp e been f g sessi n v i I ha l-paint nai

Flo Roberts Ed Roberts

(6b LN) Flo and I have always been at the same school, but safe to say in different sets (assume what you like). She was endowed with a large brain while I was endowed with – a large set of eyebrows. Despite my being only 40 minutes younger, I have been forced into long dresses and nail-painting sessions for which her excuse is always, ‘I’m older than you.’ None of this is a massive surprise since Flo has always been loud, quirky and loud again. We have always been close, and I can rely on her to be there for me. When we were six, I used to wake up to pieces of paper, slipped under my bedroom door, that were scribbled over with funny stories and detailed plans for the days ahead.

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(6b LX)

My twin brother Edward (AKA Ewa) pushed me out of the womb 40 minutes before his own arrival, weighing two pounds more, which gave me a squished foot until physiotherapy moved it back.

This rivalry from birth has not ceased. Although we have pretty much grown out of the squabbles, an occasional pinch still does the job. Despite this, some would say we come as a team. We may have different talents and noses, but having never spent over two weeks apart from each other for seventeen years, we have adapted to each other’s peculiar ways. We often get asked if we have twinstincts, which is clearly not true, but we formed a master plan at the age of 10 to trick people into believing we do. It’s worked on quite a few! Many people ask me if it’s nice having a twin and, despite the occasional birthday party compromises, I would say I am extremely lucky although, of course, I don’t know any different.

We are the youngest children in the family. We have one elder sister and one elder brother.

Many people ask us whether we have telepathy but there’s never such a thing between us, at least to my knowledge.

I could make pretty good guesses, however, about what she’s thinking because I know her well. And one of the best things about being twins for me is the moment when people call us the wrong names. I don’t know why, but I just find it really funny.

Faisal Shahab

(Sh TR)

Hello. My name is Faisal Shahab. My main interests are cooking and climbing. I like cooking because I think it is a way to express myself without using words, and I like climbing because every time I get on the wall I feel that I can disconnect myself from the world. I live in Madrid, which is the capital of Spain. I have been living there for my whole life. I love living there. When I was young I had some medical problems but after going through that bumpy road I went on with my life and have lived it very well. My life at Kings’s has been very good.

I missed home a little but then everything was very smooth with the school people and obviously my house. When I’m older I would like to be a chef.

My twin Kamal is a very nice person who has helped me through all my rough times. He is there, whether fighting or supporting me.

Kary Lai

(6b JR)

I am a 6b student and this is my first year at King’s. I love singing and my best memory is singing for an ensemble group in Hong Kong. I like reading as well, mostly social-science books. I am doing Double Maths, Economics and Drama for my A’ Levels. These subjects are interesting, I would say. I am also learning French out of interest. My twin sister is a close friend of mine. Given that we have been together for such a long time, I don’t really have a choice. But honestly it is a blessing to have company who knows you so well.

Kamal Shahab

(Sh GR)

Faisal is my younger twin. In the past we have always been together and we are always there for each other. We have had some ups and downs in our relationship but we have always kept together and we are both really happy to be together.

Having a twin for me has been really helpful because when I want to play with someone I always know he’ll be there to play under any circumstances.

Faisal has been really helpful when settling at King’s because I can tell him any issues I have in school and he’ll help me, and vice versa. My brother has the family reunited with his humour and smiles. He is very cheerful and caring. I love my brother, Faisal.

2 Joe Gotts

(5th GL)

My name is Joe Gotts. I am 15 and I’m in Fifth. I have two brothers, an older brother called Josh and my twin, Fred. Fred is 14 minutes older than me, and he is always reminding me about that. We live in Hong Kong but grew up in England. Since we were young, when we first meet people they always seem to mix us up, despite the fact we are non-identical and look nothing alike. But after they get to know us people realize that we do not look similar and can’t believe they ever thought we did. We are both into sport and play football a lot. Generally, if we are on the same pitch we are always arguing, but it’s not my fault. He’s rubbish.

Fred Gotts

(5th GL)

I enjoy playing football, and having a twin means that no matter what I always have someone to play with. Having a twin means they have been through everything you have and can relate to you with absolutely everything. You always have someone to talk to.

But having them around all the time can become quite tedious, since sometimes you just want a break. Living in Hong Kong and finding new groups of people is a lot easier when there are two of you, since there is always someone you know doing it with you, even if it is just playing football with a new group. I have never had to go to a boring barbecue full of people I do not know, and it is all thanks to my twin.

Sophie Stonier

(6b CY)

When people ask me ‘What is it like to be a twin?’ I am never sure what to say since I don’t know what it’s like not to be a twin. Matthew and I both love sport. My favourite sport is Hockey but I also enjoy many other sports. Matthew excels on the academic side, but I am a lot more creative than him, which I like because it takes off the competitive edge.

I do love the competitiveness of being a twin because I am a competitive person, and I think us being in the same year allows more comparisons to be made, which can increase the pressure. The main reason I love being a twin is that I can understand how my brother might be feeling when we learn similar things at the same time, such as how to drive. I know that I can always do it with him and we can help each other.

Matt Stonier

(6b MR)

I’m twins with Sophie and being a twin is great unless they’re better than you at everything.

Sophie and I get along quite well, but she can’t handle me breathing or eating because apparently I’m too loud. People often ask how come she has such a big mouth. We both love sport and play together although I have to let her win sometimes so she doesn’t start sulking. We both have different strengths: she is great at art while I’m more academic.

‘Being a twin is great unless they’re better than you at everything.’

‘Generally, if we are on the same pitch we are always arguing, but it’s not my fault.

He’s rubbish.’

Charlotte Jones Isobel Jones

(6b BR)

My name is Isobel and I’m 17 years old. I have lived in Hong Kong all my life but it’s my first year studying abroad. I’m half Chinese, half Welsh, and have three siblings, two brothers and a sister. We’re all pretty close since my eldest brother is only two years older than the rest of us. I don’t go home that often so, when I do, I tend to catch up with friends since I don’t tend to talk to them often due to the time difference. My sister and I are quite close because we’ve experienced the same things growing up as well as sharing the same interests and taste in sports and music.

(6b BY) This is my first year at King’s and I have joined 6b in Bailey House.

Before I came to this school I had been studying in Hong Kong for my entire life, in a bilingual environment where we did the IB. Isobel, my twin, and I have always been in the same school, but with different passions in leisure time and separate groups of friends. Now we share two subjects at A’ level, English and Economics. I believe her sharing such an important change in my life has made the transition easier, and we still find time to spend with each other. In the future, I hope to learn and let my shared identity with my twin help to let me grow, with no real plans in mind of the future for us independently.

‘My beca sister a u n thin se we’ve d I are q gs g rowi experien uite clo ng u se ced t p.’ Isob he same el J ones

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2 ‘We can communicate in Swedish and no one understands us so it’s like our own secret language.’

Ben Cook

(5th MR)

f , even i brother y y l m l a s n i o ccasi loves o y e m h f m o r i oo ‘One to h lly Sat talking l.’ - Mo l a w when I’m k c e a bri acts lik

Joe Satoor

(6b MT) Molly Satoor

(6b MR) I was born on 27 December 2001 at 07:34. My brother (late as usual) was born 24 minutes later. Being a twin comes with its perks. For example, I love telling people I have a twin because I can watch while their minds are blown away and I get the predictable ‘You do/don’t look like your brother.’ I’m assuming that my brother’s paragraph will be as short as possible, and will be about the greatest loves of his life: his guitar and computer.

For me, one of my loves is my brother, even if when I’m talking to him he occasionally acts like a brick wall, but his compassion, charm and the connection we share means that I wouldn’t trade him for any other type of sibling.

Hello, my name is Joe and I was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 27 December 2001. A few years after I was born my family and I moved to France where I attended a French reception and primary school. After seven years of being in France we moved back to the UK, keeping the house in France as a holiday home. Once in the UK, I began going to a local primary school and then onto Junior King’s (joining in year 5) and then onto Senior King’s. I still miss France when I’m in the UK (mostly during term time) and I love going back there during the holidays. My twin is called Molly, who is slightly older than me (by 24 mins). I would say that we get on pretty well with each other and there aren’t many fights thankfully. It’s nice to have someone to rely on for emotional support, or pretty much most things in life.

I was born in Canterbury straight into the King’s community, with both my parents working at the school. I went to Junior King’s, finally making my move to King’s in September 2016. I am in a small minority at school, being one of the few day pupils who live in the school. I sometimes find my life at King’s tough, since my ‘younger’ brother steals the limelight in the top sets, while I am the less academic twin. It is not my brother’s fault that he is the clever one, so we still get on well. I am interested in aviation and, if I can fulfil my dream and one day be a pilot for an airline, then none of this will bother me.

Charlie Cook

(5th MR)

My name is Charlie Cook. I was born on 31 March 2003, along with my twin brother, Ben. I have lived in Canterbury all my life. My main interests are football and golf. In the future, I will be hoping to go to university, but I still don’t know what job I intend to do. I have a good relationship with Ben, but being a twin can be hard sometimes, since twins are often instantly compared to each other, which can be unhealthy for both.

However, twins are obviously the same age, which can have many advantages in life: you have someone similar to do things with.

‘Bei advant ng twins can ages: y ou hav have many to do t e someo hings ne simi with.’ lar - Ben C ook

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2 Philippa Stroem

Alexander Stroem

(R LN)

I was born in London, but I grew up in the South of France, a warm and different place to Sweden where my family originally come from. Before coming to England, I lived nine years in France. I had never boarded before or done many of the subjects here at King’s, or any of the sports. My sister and I both indulge a love of history, classics and reading, but she has also developed a passion for languages. Pippa’s love for horse riding and reading novels make her an enjoyable person to be around.

(R BR)

Being a twin is an interesting experience but I am definitely grateful for my twin brother, Alex. We grew up in Monaco but are originally Swedish and started King’s in 2017. Sharing everything with someone you’ve known since birth isn’t always a walk in the park but Alex is a friend for life whom I can trust with everything, and he’s funny. Yes, we might get into arguments but we always resolve them and it’s nice to have someone who is always there. We don’t have many of the same passions. I love horseriding and he enjoys fencing but that doesn’t stop us from getting along. It’s also fun because we can communicate in Swedish and no one understands us so it’s like our own secret language.

At the end of the day, it is great being a twin and I would not change it for the world.

Jenny Zhang

(6b JR)

My name is Jenny, and Tiffany is my younger twin. I have always been thought the fortunate one, since in the Asian community grades are important, at least on the Maths and Science side. Tiffany and I have been competitive since birth, which means a rocky relationship: my mom, since she believes in Buddhism, reckons we were rivals in past lives. Tiffany and I are nothing alike and have nothing in common. Many don’t believe we are sisters because we look completely different, and it always gets on Tiffany’s nerves when people say she looks older. But I believe that being nothing alike gives us a very close relationship; we listen to each other to understand another perspective on the world. Although most of the time I would rather not have a twin, I couldn’t imagine my childhood, or the world now, without her.

Tiffany Zhang

(6b HH)

My name is Tiffany and Jenny is my older twin. We were born on 31 December 2001.

She is 5 minutes older than me and nope, we are not identical twins. We have had a very rocky relationship since birth, when my mom had to get a c-section. For the whole pregnancy Jenny had her butt on my face, which means I have a squished face, and my family never stop reminding me. We are different in many ways and a lot of people say we don’t seem like sisters. Although we always fight, it is nice to have someone supporting me while reminding me she is the better twin.

‘Either way he is my twin and will always be both friend and foe.’

Frederick Way

(R MR)

My name is Fred. I have a twin brother, Ben. We bonded well when we were younger and still do. We were born in England, and have lived in Rochester our whole lives. We went to a rugby club, cricket club and a hockey club in Rochester. Before coming to King’s, Canterbury, we went to a school called King’s, Rochester, a smaller school with the same range of subjects.

Overall, Ben and I felt it was a good time to change schools for our GCSEs. In Canterbury I have tried fencing as a main sport and it’s beginning to grow on me, while Ben is also beginning to like fencing. My older brother fences and I hope to get better at fencing through the years up to 6th Form. Ben is cheeky and funny, and it’s always great to have someone to talk to. I have come to notice how different we actually are.

I have a settled passion for sciences and I hope to move on to medicine some day. Ben has a passion for Drama and more practical things. We both have our differences and argue a lot, but it all gets forgotten about.

Ben’s interesting attitude and unforgettable moments make him a great person to have around.

Ben Way

(R MR)

My name is Ben and I am 15 years old. So is my twin, Fred.

Fred and I have a good bond.

We have lived in Kent our entire lives and before going to King’s, Canterbury we went to a hometown school called King’s Rochester. We went there for an entire eight years and practically lived there. We decided to change schools for our GCSEs and have made a powerful bond after leaving our good friends and memories to move on in life. We have settled very well in our new school and are both excited about what’s in store for each other and ourselves. Fred is hard-working and is always trying to improve himself in all his subjects and other challenges. In everything he encounters he always does his best and tries to be a better person at the end of the day.

He is always a good person to talk to even when he is ignoring you or focusing on something different. He always sees the good in every situation even if it is hard to find it sometimes.

Fred and I both like competitive games and videos but recently I have started to see how much we have gone our separate ways. Fred wants to do Science and get a profession in Medicine whilst I have found interest in Drama, music production and some Zoology hobbies, so basically he will be richer than me. Either way he is my twin and will always be both friend and foe.

‘Although we always fight, it is nice to have someone supporting me while reminding me she is the better twin.’

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King’s Art

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King’s Week Drama

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Following pages: King’s Week and Commemoration Day 2018

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THE CANTUARIAN 2018

www.kings-school.co.uk info@kings-school.co.uk +44 (0) 1227 595501 144

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