In Conversation
Paul Cartledge (1960-64) hosts a discussion with other Pauline Professors.
A
cademic’ can be used in more than one way, and I do not mean only both as a noun and as an adjective. If a choice or a decision is (merely) ‘academic’, then in everyday parlance it is nugatory. If on the other hand we say and believe that St Paul’s is an ‘academic’ school, then we presumably mean that positively. At all events, the School has produced over its five centuries a disproportionate number of academics, some of whom have been and are truly distinguished ‘Professors’. There are getting on for eighty of them still alive – and mostly kicking vigorously – as I write.
To explain: following Jon Blair’s (1967-69) enviably elegant and pointed ‘In Conversation’ piece in the Spring/Summer 2021 Atrium, showcasing his ten Unbroken Creative OPs, the Editor had the bright idea of commissioning a follow-up piece on ‘Professors’, no less unbroken if not necessarily as creative, and I rashly agreed to have a go at researching and writing it. Jon has been immensely helpful, as has the Editor, but responsibility for the (surely not merely academic) choice of eight is mine alone. My qualifications? I graduated from Colet Court (1957-60) and attended the School from 1960 to 1964, at the end of which I departed for a nine-month furlough in the States (including a semester at the University of California Santa Barbara) before ‘going up’, following in the footsteps of (Lord) Bernard Rix (1957-62), to New College Oxford to read ‘Mods and Greats’ (1965-69). And I have myself been one, a ‘Prof’, at Cambridge since 1993, first of (ancient) Greek History, then as the inaugural A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, and since 2014 the emeritus version of the latter. Also since 2014 I have been and am a Senior Research Fellow of Clare College (Cambridge’s second oldest). I was a Governor of St Paul’s representing Cambridge University between 1990 and 2007. I consider myself quite exceptionally fortunate to have caught the ‘Cotter-Cruickshank’ wave of 1946-1966, which yielded no fewer than 100 Classics ‘awards’ (entrance Scholarships or Exhibitions) at Oxbridge, a strike rate of 5 per annum. Our Greek teacher EPC ‘Pat’
24
ATRIUM
AUTUMN / WINTER 2021
Eight Pauline Professors Mark Bower (1974-78) Oncologist Richard Gombrich (1950-55) Indologist Duncan Haldane (1965-69) Physics Gerd Kullak-Ublik (1979-83) Pharmacology & Toxicology Colin Mayer (1966-70) Management Studies Lord (Ian) McColl (1948-51) Surgeon Martin Price (1969-74) Geography Tim Rood (1982-86) Classics
