Homertonian magazine 2019

HOMERTONIAN Homerton College Alumni Magazine

Number 23 | Summer 2019

IN THIS ISSUE Giving street children a global playing field Chiedza Matsvai brings Homerton to a YouTube audience Catching up with The Crown director Benjamin Caron

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HOMERTONIAN23 SUMMER 2019

Contents

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News

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04 Professor Mary Dixon-Woods delivers Harveian Oration

05 A sneak preview of Tottenham’s new home

06 The Beautiful Game 08 Justice Without Ethics?

Features 10 Fellow in Focus: Dr Bill Foster

12 Creating Change 14 Finding Homerton’s funny bone 17 Over the Edge 18 Education in Focus 20 Changemakers 22 A Day in the Life of Helen Andre Cripps

24 Student Profile: Chiedza Matsvai

26 The Power of Print

Welcome!

The articles in this year’s Homertonian tell quite a story – and that’s wholly appropriate, because story-telling is a common theme. Homerton people, it seems, love connecting meaningfully with others.

For some, the act of communication is itself the goal: Benjamin Caron’s CV as a producer and then director for TV (p.28) is a list of stories artfully told, and the three Homerton comedians profiled on p.14 aim to entertain, and to make a point, through their medium.

Student Chiedza Matsvai (p.24) has a very clear audience in mind for the YouTube stories she tells about Cambridge life: young people who might benefit from Cambridge but aren’t yet thinking of applying.

Homertonians’ burning desire to make a positive difference is celebrated in this edition too. Refugees in Greece, street children in Pakistan, and primary schoolers in North-West Cambridge have reason to be grateful to Homertonian talents and energies, skilfully directed.

This edition is the first to be compiled by Laura Kenworthy, Alumni Relations Manager, and I hope you’ll agree she’s done a superb job. As always, putting together this publication reminds us what an amazing bunch you are.

Finally, for those looking for details of this year’s Alumni Reunion Weekend… Respice Finem!

Matthew Moss Director of External Relations and Development

28 Alumni Profile: Benjamin Caron

Updates 03 Principal’s Welcome 09 Estates Strategy 16 The Charter Choir Crosses the Channel

30 Our Donors 34 Alumni Reunion Weekend 36 Alumni Benefits 2

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The Homertonian is Homerton College’s alumni magazine. It is published once a year.

Contact us in the Development Office on Telephone 01223 747066 or Email alumni@homerton.cam.ac.uk with feedback, news or letters. All our publications are available to read online on the Homerton College website: www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/alumni/benefitsandevents.

Thank you to all of our contributors and to those who supplied images. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of Homerton College, Cambridge. Cover photograph: Stephen Bond. Design and print management: H2 Associates, Cambridge.

UPDATE

PRINCIPAL’S WELCOME

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was never much good at Maths. Algebra was Greek to me, Geometry worked in a way that my mind didn’t. What saved me from ignominy at school, and has come in handy since, is a basic dexterity in mental Arithmetic. Armed with this skill, I am able to assure you that whereas Homerton College was 250 years old last year, next year we will be 10. Last year we celebrated the College’s origins in the dissenting movement with a series of events, many of them open to the public, on burning questions for today’s increasingly unstable world: questions about the future of healthcare, what it means to be human, and how we can work for positive change. Next year will mark the first decade of Homerton’s existence and evolution as a constituent College of the University of Cambridge.

Progress has been good by any measure.

The number of would-be student applicants naming Homerton as their College of choice has risen by a startling 100% in the last two years. This is an increase across the board, not focused on certain subjects only. And the board itself is getting bigger; from October we will offer Veterinary Medicine, with Architecture joining our portfolio a year later. I am proud to say that from 2021 Homerton will be one of only 10 Colleges in Cambridge to offer the entire range of undergraduate Triposes.

Those applicants, who have faith in us to give them the best education possible, deserve only the best facilities when they get here. To that end we are building a second dining hall, new accommodation, and an auditorium built to the highest acoustic specifications as well as better practice rooms for our fantastic musicians.

Speaking of music, we will share our 10th anniversary with that of the Ligeti Quartet, now approaching the end of their time as our resident ensemble. Together we will mark the occasion with a day of contemporary music for Cambridge’s newest College.

The student experience at Cambridge includes the opportunity to compete in extra-curricular activity at very high levels, most definitely including sport. We were delighted to applaud the achievement of Homerton postgraduate David Bell, one of the winning men’s Blue Boat in this year’s Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. I am sure he will join me when we unveil our new boathouse, a collaboration with City of Cambridge Rowing Club and St Mary’s School. We have also entered into an agreement with St Mary’s over shared sports facilities including an athletics track, which will mean that in two years’ time Homerton will have the best such facilities in collegiate Cambridge. These things are not just for the champions, but for the students unwinding at the weekend who want to kick a ball about, or go for a run. In that same spirit, while we are delighted that our Charter Choir are to record a second CD and that they continue to tour internationally, we are also going to revive the Homerton Singers for those who like to exercise their lungs, but have less time to practise.

Extra-curricular activity can be as important as the scholarly curriculum, even in as high-achieving a university as Cambridge. Studies have shown that excelling in a regular activity like sport is statistically more likely to accompany high marks, than to lower them. I was about as

good at sport as I was at Maths, and as a student of English Literature rarely lifted anything heavier than the Complete Works of Shakespeare. While the study of poetry encouraged me towards an academic career, I gained a special excitement from organising poetry workshops and stapling magazines containing mine and my friends’ own work, which was of equal importance in the long run. Colleges are unique in their ability to assist with this extra dimension, and there are only two universities that have a truly collegiate system – one is Cambridge and I forget the name of the other.

More seriously, we are coming to realise that, to survive and thrive in tomorrow’s world, our students are going to need to learn life-skills today. We have just inaugurated Homerton Changemakers, an optional, extra-curricular programme that will help bring out the best in our students as they prepare for the world of work. Knowing oneself, selling an idea, handling stress, negotiating ambiguity, thinking critically and independently…

These are just some of the kinds of fluency and resilience that Changemakers will catalyse through its ambitious programme of workshops, speakers and events. You will find more about Changemakers in this issue of the Homertonian, as you will find other instances of our students excelling not just in class but as ambassadors, advocates, and entrepreneurs. Homerton trained ministers, then teachers, growing to a point where we will soon offer all the possible disciplines and courses. This is a place where leaders learn.

Professor Geoff Ward Principal

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NEWS

PROFESSOR MARY DIXON-WOODS DELIVERS HARVEIAN ORATION Professor Mary Dixon-Woods, Homerton Fellow in Public Health and Director of THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute), delivered the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians on 18 October 2018.

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stablished by William Harvey, the first person to accurately describe the human circulatory system, in 1656, the Harveian Oration provides a prestigious opportunity for a leading doctor or scientist to speak on their field of work. Professor Dixon-Woods spoke on the challenges to improving quality and safety in healthcare, and asked why it is so difficult to answer the question ‘does quality improvement actually improve quality?’ 2018 marked a significant milestone for both Homerton and the Royal College of Physicians, as our 250th anniversary coincided with their 500th year.

In May 2019 Professor Dixon-Woods was recognised for her ongoing contributions to the field of healthcare improvement research with Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

THIS Institute collaborates with NHS patients and staff, as well as with academics and the public, to produce relevant and scientifically rigorous evidence on healthcare improvement. Its aim is to create a world-leading scientific asset for the NHS, through which to improve quality and safety in healthcare.

Professor Mary Dixon-Woods

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NEWS When an organisation sponsors both the UEFA Champions League and student scholarships, it would be a wasted opportunity not to combine the two.

Fortunately, Santander didn’t let the chance go by.

A SNEAK PREVIEW OF TOTTENHAM’S NEW HOME

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eorge Boughton, (BA Geography, 2016), who has been a stalwart supporter of Homerton’s access and outreach work, was delighted to be invited to a special screening of the Champions League final at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 1 June, hosted by the Santander Universities programme.

“We were lucky enough to be given a tour of the stadium, completed this year, before returning to the main event space for an insightful talk from former England cricketer Jeremy Snape,” says George.

“This set the tone for the rest of the event with further talks from former Chelsea footballer Dennis Wise, and a Q&A session with former professional footballers Tanya Oxtoby and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink; compered by Seema Jaswal.

When the final, between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, eventually kicked off over 65,000 fans were in attendance and the atmosphere was electric. Whilst the result may not have been the outcome those thousands had hoped for (Liverpool beat Spurs 2–0), I had enjoyed a fantastic day and my thanks go to both Homerton College and Santander Universities for giving me the opportunity to experience the Champions League final in such a fantastic venue.”

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NEWS

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

When John Wroe (BEd 1983) was studying at Homerton, his three great loves were his girlfriend Jo, football and working with children.

Three and a half decades later, the three are still at the centre of his world, and have combined to extraordinary effect to change other people’s lives.

John Wroe with Street Child United participants

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J

ohn is the founder of Street Child United, a programme which supports children living on the streets in countries ranging from the Ukraine to Tanzania, through the unlikely method of enabling them to compete in their own World Cup. The charity was inspired by a family visit to Durban in 2007, which the Wroes made with their two daughters, then teenagers, to a charity working with street children.

The FIFA World Cup was scheduled to take place in Durban three years later, and a throwaway comment from a child they met on the visit, “Why can’t there be a World Cup for street kids?” inspired John to investigate the possibilities.

At the time, children living on the streets of Durban were being rounded up in order to sanitise the city’s image during its time

in the international spotlight. Thanks in part to the intervention of the Wroes, the round ups ceased, and street-connected children from eight countries competed in their own football tournament.

“It’s a way of keeping the issues around street children in the public eye,” explains John. “If you can change the way they’re seen, you can begin to change the way they’re treated.”

The charity now employs a small core team operating from offices in London, expanding in the lead up to an event. It runs a parallel tournament in conjunction with each FIFA World Cup, and this year branched out into cricket.

“The MCC got in touch and said ‘you’re having an amazing impact with football, but cricket’s so much bigger in Pakistan

and India,’” John recalls. As a result, 10 teams of children travelled to the UK to compete at Lord’s, the international home of the game.

“We thought we’d be on the nursery pitch, but we were on the main pitch, where all the international test matches happen, and the children used the same dressing rooms as the international players. The Keeper of the Records at Lord’s said it was his proudest moment in 35 years.”

Street Child United works by identifying collaborative organisations who can provide the necessary support to the intensely vulnerable young people they work with on their return home.

Most of the children involved have little to no identifying documentation, and the charity works with lawyers to secure birth certificates, passports, and, therefore, a lasting legitimacy for the participants. It also provides social workers to manage the extraordinary disconnect between the experience and the children’s daily lives.

“It’s not just the first time they’ve been on a plane – for some of them it’s the first time they’ve slept in a bed,” says Jo

(also BEd 1983), now John’s wife and an award-winning educational publisher and creative writing supervisor at Lucy Cavendish College.

The programme’s impact is not just in its ability to offer children a lifetransforming experience, but also in its potential to highlight the harshness of their lives to their own governments, leading to potential change. The recognition has been immense. In Tanzania the National

Assembly was suspended in order to welcome the competitors home, while Pakistan conducted its first ever census of street children as a result of the charity’s involvement.

For the participants, the realisation that there are others in a similarly desperate situation, all over the world, is oddly reassuring. “It was the first time I realised that being on the streets wasn’t my fault,” one child told John.

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NEWS

JUSTICE WITHOUT ETHICS? Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve

On Thursday, 9 May, Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, delivered the third annual Kate Pretty Lecture.

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he third annual Kate Pretty Lecture brought some big questions to the Homerton auditorium, as an audience of students, academics, alumni and members of the public pondered the principles of justice, ethics and human rights.

Onora O’Neill, Professor Emerita of Philosophy, former President of the British Academy and a former Principal of Newnham, who now sits as a cross-bench member of the House of Lords as Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, delivered the lecture, entitled ‘Justice Without Ethics: A 20th Century Innovation?’ on Thursday, 9 May. Baroness O’Neill explored the idea that justice and ethics have become

increasingly divergent concepts, with ethics seen more and more as a matter of personal conscience or cultural habit, rather than as a set of absolutes.

She also examined the impact that failure to adhere to a shared ethical code can have on human rights.

The lecture series honours Dr Kate Pretty CBE, Principal from 1991 to 2013, under whose direction Homerton made the transition to full College of the University. It provides a platform for high-profile speakers from across the academic spectrum, demonstrating the breadth of study and research now undertaken at Homerton.

UPDATE

From the Dining Hall to the Boat House, Homerton’s physical footprint is expanding. The Bursar, Deborah Griffin OBE, explains the latest plans.

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e are now half way through the College’s Estates Strategy 2014–2024 – at least in time! As the original strategy was based on assessment of needs it was good to report to College Council in February that with the building of Morley House, refurbishment of Queen’s Wing and the building of the Griffin bar and offices some of the most immediate needs – student accommodation, offices for fellows, gym and social spaces – have been met. We have also been able to provide a new archive, additional high-tech supervision rooms and a small reception space in Macaulay.

Three projects under construction or due to start this year will mean that by mid2022 we will be an estimated 85% of the way through the strategy.

North Wing will provide a new auditorium and guest bedrooms to support the conference business, which is critical to our financial sustainability, and two large airy music rooms. This is due to be completed

by April 2020. Planning permission has been achieved for the new Dining Hall and we hope to start construction by the end of this year. This is the largest project in the strategy and will provide not only a space for catering

ESTATES STRATEGY ESTATE STRATEGY 2014 Approximate time

Completed

In planning

Phase 3

2015–2018

2019–2020

2021–2023

Projects Student accommodation Student facilities • Sport • Music • Art • Faith Archive space Special collections Catering Small reception Study spaces Finance office Academic office spaces Porters’ Lodge Fellows/staff housing JRF housing for our increased number of students but also an exemplary working environment in the new kitchens, a large modern servery area and a new Buttery allowing the current

Professor Geoff Ward, Deborah Griffin and Mark Hart, Joint Managing Director for Barnes Construction

JCR to become a dedicated social space for our undergraduates. Both these projects will benefit from Ground Source Heat Pump technology and have been designed with future environmental needs very much to the fore.

Since writing the strategy we have been able to take advantage of two opportunities: to build first class sports facilities on Long Road which are scheduled to be completed in 2020, and to invest in a new Boat House with City of Cambridge Rowing Club which will be ready this summer.

Knowing how long planning takes in the City, once the Dining Hall and sports facilities are under construction we will turn our minds to planning for Phase 3: a Porters’ Lodge with consideration of space for exhibitions and special collections (specifically Children’s Literature) and the reconfiguration of the area around the Great Hall to provide first class facilities for music and drama.

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FEATURE

FELLOW IN FOCUS Dr Bill Foster

Born in Louisiana, USA, and educated in Switzerland, where his geologist parents were working, Dr Bill Foster has been part of the fabric of Homerton since 2007.

Director of Studies in History, he is coming to the end of his stint as Vice-Principal, which he will mark with a well-earned sabbatical.

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How long have you been affiliated with Homerton?

For 12 years now. After studying at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell, I was appointed Keasbey Research Fellow at Selwyn from 2001–3, the last year spent serving as an assistant University Lecturer in the History Faculty. My wife, daughter and I then returned to the States, but Cambridge gets in your blood. It’s like dog years – one year of experience in this system is like seven in any other for sheer intensity.

When I applied to the opening for a College Lectureship in History at Homerton, I received a very compelling pitch from [former Principal] Kate Pretty, [former Senior Tutor] Peter Warner, and [Admissions Tutor] Steve Watts, describing the role as an opportunity to help build a Cambridge College. Which was hard to turn down!

What do you think makes Homerton special?

The undergraduate students. Like all in Cambridge, they are brilliant. There is as well the unique quality of the Homertonian – a kind of frontier, pioneering, self-reliant spirit.

This is a formidable combination, and one that I admire.

Equally distinctive is the Fellowship. In addition to the impressive new generation of Fellows engaged in Biomedicine, Medicine, Engineering and other fields, there is a core of senior College teaching officers with long institutional memories who have devoted their careers to working with the College leadership (the Principal, Senior Tutor, Bursar and Development Director) to get things done. This kind of commitment is essential within a College.

In this age of institutional centralisation, it is important to remember that Cambridge Colleges are not glorified halls of residence.

We are instead self-governing academic institutions in our own right. While our links with other Colleges and the University are inextricable and mutually supportive, at the end of the day we in the College are responsible for ourselves, and for one another. Being part of that kind of devoted community is very special.

You’re about to pass on the baton of the Vice-Principalship to Dr Louise Joy. How have you found that position?

The Vice-Principal’s role is what you make of it. The Principal, the Senior Tutor and the Bursar all have very defined roles, while the Vice-Principal floats around a bit more.

In addition to the obligation to deputise for the Principal when necessary, I have seen the office as a resource to support the Fellowship. This is expressed in such ways as serving as chair of the Research Committee, which supports the Fellows’ research activities.

Louise will be a brilliant V-P!

What research are you currently engaged in?

I’ve always been a historian of war, at first writing about frontier warfare in colonial North America and now dealing almost exclusively with events after 1945. I am currently writing a book called Why the

Cold War Never Ended: Seven Lessons in Understanding Modern Power. There will be a lot there about strategy and leadership, but it is also a meditation on nations more generally and the stories people feel they need to tell each other about conflict. In this case I am asking the question about why the language of ‘victory’ and ‘defeat’ was so often used after 1989, when the reality was (and remains) much more nuanced and ambiguous. The ‘Cold War’ was of course about far more than a US-USSR rivalry. It was instead a global network of interrelated conflicts. If we can understand something about that I think we are in a far better position to understand what is going on today.

What does a lifetime’s immersion in warfare do to your perception of humanity?

It’s an intellectual challenge but it is in a sense emotionally demanding as well. Part of my job, as I said previously, is to be a friendly supporter of my colleagues and students.

But every day in the supervision teaching format I endlessly discuss humanity at its worst. In a typical day I will try to explain something about the Holocaust, the Gulags, and fight the Vietnam and/or FrenchAlgerian Wars two or three times.

At the end of the day though, I feel it’s all urgently necessary. For most of the students I teach, the experience of war is very distant indeed. But these students will soon go into, for example, the civil service, the military, journalism, or other kinds of public service where they will be eyewitnesses to humanity at its most desperate. They will then need to find something inside themselves to make a difference. If I can help them start this learning process, it’s worth it.

So what do you do to clear your head?

I’m trying to learn kayaking. My wife is an expert white water kayaker and is taking up sea kayaking as well (plus my daughter was

formerly a Team GB white water rafter). I am just trying to catch up with all this and have fun. In recent years we have enjoyed islandhopping in sea kayaks off the Croatian coast.

And in terms of white water river-running, last summer I managed to (barely) survive an encounter with the Soča river in Slovenia.

Great fun!

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FEATURE

CREATING CHANGE Educational access and gender equity are shared passions for alumna Susan Durston and current student Helena Trenkić.

45 years apart, both have seen the United Nations as the route to driving change.

Now working as an independent consultant, Susan’s career at UNICEF culminated in the role of Global Head of Education. Helena was supported by Homerton to attend the UN’s Commission of the Status of Women in New York this spring, at which she had been invited to represent the National Council of Women.

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Susan Durston (BEd 1972) followed her time at Homerton with a stint training teachers in Papua New Guinea as a volunteer with VSO. Although she then worked briefly as a primary teacher in the UK, her experience overseas had sparked an interest in development and global education which was to shape the rest of her career.

An MA in Educational Planning in Developing Countries at the Institute of Education led to 10 years of teaching in the Overseas Education Unit at the University of Leeds. Susan then travelled to Uganda, supported by UNICEF, to work with the Ministry of Health, before working with DFID in Zambia and as an educational advisor in Malawi.

She then managed the EU’s support to the education sector in Nepal, before taking a regional post with UNICEF in Kathmandu, overseeing the organisation’s work in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. She subsequently worked as Global Head of Education at UNICEF New York, and now works as a consultant and as a trustee of Child-to-Child.

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ost challenges to providing equity of education are in the human mind.

Valuing all people and their rights, irrespective of gender, race, ability, caste or origin is the first step. We need a curriculum in schools that does that. Secondly, the lack of universal early childhood education needs addressing.

If we could achieve both of these, then other issues could be solved. I was appalled recently to see a Christmas card sold in aid of education which read “it only costs $25 a year to send a child to school.” That is less than a pair of shoes or a new toy in the Global North.

What makes us think that education should be cheap for some children and not others?

The world has moved on, although there is still a lot to do. Resistance to access in education of girls is sometimes systemic, but exists in pockets in every country, where traditional attitudes prevent girls from accessing or completing education. Educational access is only the start: discriminatory attitudes within school, or facilities which are either absent or not girl-friendly can seriously affect attendance and learning.

One of my career highlights was being present in Kabul at a ceremony on the first day Afghan girls were allowed to enrol back in school. It was nothing to do with me, but I felt such a sense of solidarity.

After the tsunami hit Asia in 2004, I found that there was no ready-to-go package for education in emergencies (UNICEF has a pledge to get children back into school quickly under the Core Commitments for Children), so I signed up a consultant who developed a package and trained UNICEF staff and government counterparts. It formed the basis for UNICEF global work gathering existing guidelines and resources in one place for use when an emergency hit.

Homerton taught me to put children at the centre of education, not subjects. Thus it was a natural shift to the Human Rights-based approach used by UNICEF. The ethos of the College was so inclusive, and my tutors remain with me in spirit as role models. They were committed to education, vastly experienced, exceptionally human and good fun.

Helena Trenkić (BA History 2017) has been working to improve gender equality since school, where she was a member of the sixth form Feminist Society. The society was supported by the National Council of Women of Great Britain (NCW), which Helena joined after leaving school. She took an active role from the beginning, proposing a resolution on improving Relationships and Sex Education in British schools, which became part of the Council’s 2018–19 Annual Resolutions with which to lobby the Government.

As a result of this engagement, Helena was invited to represent the NCW at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York in March 2019.

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went to CSW with one firm goal in mind: to ensure that a commitment to providing Comprehensive Sexuality Education was on the agenda for as many people as possible. I ensured it was in the UK Youth Statement that I was given the honour of drafting, and that it was highlighted in the CSW Youth Statement.

I lobbied the Government Equalities Office every night with details I think the UK could do better on, and networked with others who want to achieve the same aim.

While at CSW I also attended daily information events on a huge number of issues including Violence Against Women in Politics, Female Genital Mutilation, child marriage, the gender pay gap, ensuring women’s legal and inheritance rights are upheld, and many more.

The sheer amount of people working towards a better world was inspiring, and I met women and men with incredible stories and contagious passion.

I don’t believe that I ever had a eureka moment where one particular issue led

me to recognise the inequalities that do still remain in all societies, however big or small they can be. As someone whose parents never imposed strict gender norms on me, and encouraged me to do whatever I wanted, I simply didn’t see gender as something which would dictate a life experience. When I saw that it did, through restrictive suggestions of how women should behave, I knew that I didn’t think it was right. When I first read the definition of the word ‘feminist’, I knew that it clearly applied to me, and I didn’t think twice about using it thereafter.

I focused in on Relationships and Sex Education because although there are many new advances in ensuring all girls receive quality education, education about relationships and sex is still lacking and stigmatised in most countries, and it is needed to protect the next generation. No one person can fix everything. It’s far more efficient to follow one particular issue which really burns a fire inside you.

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FEATURE

FINDING HOMERTON’S FUNNY BONE Cambridge’s comedic heritage is well-documented. From Monty Python to Mitchell and Webb, Beyond the Fringe to Fry and Laurie, the University’s impact on British comedy is hard to overstate.

© istock/Ieremy

With a longstanding reputation for Drama, Homerton is well placed to contribute to Cambridge’s entertainment output. We caught up with three Homertonians who, in different ways, are making laughter their business.

K

en Cheng studied for the first year of a BA in Mathematics in 2007-8, before leaving to pursue a successful eight-year career as a professional poker player. His recreational interest in comedy gradually took over, and he reached the final of the BBC New Comedy Award in 2015. In 2017 he was awarded the prize by public vote for the funniest one-liner of the Edinburgh Fringe for his take on the redesigned currency: “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”

In 2018 Ken presented a four-part Radio 4 series entitled Ken Cheng: Chinese Comedian. His live show Best Dad Ever toured the UK earlier this year.

Were you involved in comedy while you were at Homerton?

No I wasn’t, I never discovered it. I didn’t know anything about it, even though I grew up in Cambridge. It’s quite a middle-class thing. I know people who grew up in Cambridge and saw comedy like David Mitchell and Robert Webb in the 1995 Footlights panto when they were 10, but my

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mum never took me to those shows.

I started doing it in 2010, two years after I left, when I was still living in Cambridge. I got the advantages of the Cambridge student scene without having to do any of the work!

and such a direct connection with the audience.

How did you first discover that comedy was something you were good at?

I talk about race a lot. I think it’s very important, especially now that Twitter is so big, and people want that kind of exchange of new ideas and social progress. Female comedians and comedians of colour get lots of traction on social media because they’re reaching people who have been unreached by television. The white, male voice has been the dominant voice for so long, and it’s not the only thing that people want any more. People think there are cynical reasons why women and BME comedians are doing well, but they gain traction because they’re funny.

I think at school. I was always shy in school, that’s why I’d never really gravitated towards comedy, but once in a while I’d say something really funny that the class would all laugh at. That was definitely a buzz for me, and I probably started to chase that feeling more in conversation as I grew more confident.

How does the buzz feel?

Unbelievable. It’s like pure, unrefined, positive validation. It’s so personal,

Political comedy seems to be on the rise. What kind of wider social issues does your comedy touch on?

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iam Williams (BA English 2006), was the runner-up in the So You Think You’re Funny competition at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010, and was nominated as best newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2013. His semi-autobiographical radio show Ladhood was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015, followed by the radio comedy Perimeter in 2017. Liam appeared in the first episode of This Time With Alan Partridge in February of this year.

Were you involved in comedy at Homerton?

I found it all very daunting to begin with. My parents were very into comedy and I was aware of the Footlights heritage of a lot of the people we watched when I was growing up. But when I actually got to Cambridge, there was a student panto in my first term, and I was too intimidated to even go and watch.

But one night I’d been at the bar with a friend for a couple of beers, and we saw the audition posters for a student production of Romeo and Juliet on our way back to West House. We decided to go along, and he ended up playing Benvolio, while I, slightly less glamorously, played several minor characters, including a bed post. But it started to look more achievable.

I threw myself into Footlights, did the panto, started a sketch group, started to do stand-up and took a show to Edinburgh. I did my first ever stand-up in the Great Hall.

The great thing about Homerton was the feeling that you could give anything a go.

at Edinburgh you get the same thing on a larger scale. You get to see people develop their talents, and everyone provides feedback to everyone else.

Comedians have a reputation for being very competitive with each other, but they’re generally very mutually supportive.

How does it feel to have an audience really respond to your work?

When it’s going well it’s a real buzz. But I don’t do the live stuff so much any more.

I find it too unpredictable. I prefer the level of control you have when creating material for radio or television.

Did you take much advice from other comedians as you were progressing?

What has been your career highlight so far?

Oh, very much so. I can see that Footlights probably has a lot of institutional privilege, but being part of a supportive collective and watching people grow was so valuable. And

This year, a series which I wrote for radio has been recommissioned for television, so I’m working on the rewrite. That’s pretty exciting.

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ran Bushe completed a PGCE in Education with English and Drama in 2011-12, having previously trained as an actor. She then taught A Level Drama for five years, while maintaining a sideline as a stand-up comic. She now teaches sketch comedy, while writing for herself and other performers. Her solo show, Ad Libido, exploring the topic of female sexual dysfunction, had a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, where it was chosen as one of the Guardian’s best shows, and transferred to London’s Soho Theatre in May this year.

You trained as an actor, and then as a drama teacher. How did the move to comedy come about?

Were you involved in comedy at Homerton?

No – I was doing teacher training, which is very full-on, so there was no time to get very immersed in anything else.

You’re always out on placement and the rest of your life goes a bit on hold.

When I was working as an actor, I found the waiting for work quite hard. You can go to workshops etc between roles to keep your skills polished, but you spend a lot of time not really feeling like an actor. I started to write my own stuff to fill the gaps between work, and found that I loved it.

As I was going into teaching, a friend set me a dare – by this time next year you have to have done a stand-up set. I joined a course at the Soho Theatre, as a result of which I formed a sketch group, did three Edinburgh shows and gigged all over London. I was teaching all day, doing a gig in the evening, and then going home and doing my marking.

What’s the appeal of comedy for you?

We watch so much through screens, but there’s something about the unpredictability of life theatre, and of comedy in particular, which is really special.

There’s a particular moment in my show which usually gets a laugh, but sometimes there’s a groan, or sometimes it can even seem sad. The weather, the song that’s playing as they come in, what’s happened over the rest of the day – everything can affect the audience’s mood and their response to what they’re watching.

It feels like a different dialogue every night, and you can’t just fall into a pattern.

HOMERTON HOMERTON COLLEGE COLLEGE

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UPDATE

THE CHARTER CHOIR CROSSES THE CHANNEL Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter Director of Music

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uestion: What’s the carbon footprint of flying a choir 500 miles? Answer: Too much to think about, and we tried to avoid having to think about it by instead travelling entirely by train and coach on our tour this year. This summer the Charter Choir sped off at 300km/h by Eurostar for a short (somewhat regimented yet nevertheless leisurely) tour of the Auvergne region from 11 to 16 July.

Arriving late on the Thursday night in Clermont-Ferrand we were welcomed at the station by Homerton’s former Lay Chaplain, Fabienne Bonnet, who since leaving Cambridge has settled in the region.

Friday was mostly a day of recovery, albeit with wine-tasting, swimming, and guided tours among the offering. A successful concert in the gothic parish church of St Gènes-les-Carmes on the Saturday evening kicked off our short series of performances.

Accompanied by our recently-graduated Organ Scholar, Chris Baczkowski, we sang a programme of music from across the Christian liturgical year.

The following morning we were the guest choir at Mass in Notre-Dame de Chamalières, before departing on a threeand-a-half-hour coach journey up into the hills to the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a community with which my family has historical links. The pastor of the Protestant church, Esther Wieland-Maret, greeted us with open arms and refreshments as we

stepped off the coach. There was just about time to enjoy a bite to eat before beginning our rehearsal, then launching almost straight into our concert, before being swept away by our host families to enjoy the Bastille Day celebrations.

Part of what makes this place so special is that the entire population has been collectively honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Indeed, the morning after our concert, the choir received a very moving tour of the Lieu de Mémoire museum, dedicated to the thousands of Jews who during the Second World War were hidden from the Nazis by the town’s leaders, including a certain Pastor André Trocmé and his wife Magda. Then the whirlwind tour continued and we were back on the coach for another – even longer – journey to Moulins-sur-Allier, where the cathedral awaited us, and where our performance of Louis Vierne’s complete Messe

FORTHCOMING KEY DATES: Saturday 28 September, 4.15pm: Alumni Reunion Concert Sunday 27 October, 5.30pm: Evensong, Leicester Cathedral Friday 15 November, 7pm: Fauré Requiem, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London Sunday 1 December, 6pm: Advent Carol Service Tuesday 3 December, 6.30pm: Homerton Carol Service

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solennelle (accompanied on two organs) was received rapturously.

So, was travelling by train rather than plane worth it? Given the revelation in June that Eurostar had sneakily reduced its luggage alcohol allowance to one bottle of wine or four beers, this was the deciding factor for a number of choir members. Never mind! My thanks go to Fabienne Bonnet and to Max Goodall for their generous assistance in organising this very enjoyable tour.

But there’s more! On our return to Cambridge we launched into our newest commercial endeavour. Recorded at St George’s Church, Chesterton, this album of Christmas music will be released later in the autumn (those attending the Alumni Reunion Weekend can expect a taster from the choir then). A celebration at the residence of the Director of Music completed this choral fortnight… with just enough alcohol to placate those who felt hard done by Eurostar’s luggage restrictions.

Alumni are always welcome at Charter Choir services and concerts. The Charter Choir website (www.homerton.cam. ac.uk/charterchoir) contains full details of sung services as well as clips of the choir performing. The website also contains biographies, and details of tours and recordings. Alumni are also encouraged to follow the Charter Choir on its Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/ homcharterchoir.

NEWS

Research Associate Dr Jakob Thyrring has witnessed how climate change is already reshaping communities in coastal Greenland.

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limate change has finally, in the past year, achieved a sense of urgency in the public imagination. We may be no closer to action or consensus on how to address it, but the combined efforts of Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough, Extinction Rebellion and record-breaking global temperatures have made it impossible to ignore.

For Homerton Research Associate Dr Jakob Thyrring, the issue’s rise up the global agenda can’t come quickly enough. Born and educated in Denmark, Jakob came to Cambridge in 2018 on a five-year Fellowship funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and the European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

With a focus on the impact of climate change in Greenland, which dates back to his PhD, Jakob’s fieldwork has allowed him to witness the tangible effects already being felt.

“Greenland is the canary in the coalmine,” he explains. “The ice melt has increased sixfold since the 1980s – that’s in my lifetime.

OVER THE EDGE That’s changed the salinity of the sea, and caused sea levels to rise, and we just don’t know what will happen as a result.”

Greenland’s coastal communities are hugely reliant on fishing, a way of life whose basis is threatened by the increasing environmental changes.

Already, as the surrounding waters become more temperate, new species are moving north which were never previously found in the area.

“It opens up new fisheries, which in the short term can be seen as an opportunity,” says Jakob. “But from a biological point of view it’s quite scary that these species are that far north. And as more large predators move north, it risks tipping the whole ecosystem.”

Jakob spends one to three months in Greenland each summer, splitting his time between West Greenland, where the human population of 56,673 is concentrated, and the unpopulated east, where a research station is maintained

and food supplies are delivered by annual boat.

This year’s research trip will present a new challenge, in the shape of Jakob’s baby son, who will remain at home in Cambridge.

“A baby makes you very aware of the future suddenly,” he says. “I want to be able to tell my son that I actually tried to do something to make a difference.”

For the rest of the year Jakob is based in Cambridge, working on research at the British Antarctic Survey, and with a collegiate affiliation to Homerton. He also aims to do more public-facing work, building awareness of the growing threat.

“It’s so obvious that things are already changing, but politicians are only worried about growth,” he laments.

“But younger generations are more aware of the dangers. We can stop things from getting worse, but it needs to be now.”

Dr Jakob Thyrring HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

EDUCATION IN FOCUS

B AC K TO S C H O O L

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Homerton alumnus Dr James Biddulph heads the University of Cambridge Primary School, which aims to be both “a brilliant primary school” and a focal point for educational research and training.

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Pupils at University of Cambridge Primary School

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ambridge, as alumni returning after a time lag cannot fail to notice, is a profitable place to be a builder these days. New houses, new developments, and wholesale new towns are multiplying throughout and around the city, and one of these has provided the opportunity for a quietly inspirational experiment in primary education.

Eddington, a new neighbourhood in north-west Cambridge, has been built on University-owned land with the purpose of providing housing for University employees and easing the pressure on the local housing market more generally. Required to build a school to cater for the new community, the University took the plunge and decided to take a closer than usual interest.

“When the development was planned, there was a planning requirement to build a school,” explains head-teacher and Homerton alumnus Dr James Biddulph (PGCE 2000, MEd 2007, PhD 2010). “The University was not obliged to run it, but at the time Michael Gove (then Secretary of State for Education) was busy saying universities should be more involved in

primary and secondary education, and it seemed an amazing opportunity to start with a blank canvas.”

The result was the University of Cambridge Primary School, which opened in September 2015 on a striking site at the heart of the development. As a free school, it receives its funding from central government without the involvement of the Local Authority and has no other sources of funding, including from the University. As the first and only Primary University Training School (its legal designation) it has been liberated to try out its own ideas, and to maintain a relationship with the University which would not usually be possible.

The school’s links with the Faculty of Education and other departments mean that, in addition to those student teachers who spend time at the school on placement, the entire PGCE cohort visit as a group to discuss topics such as approaches to classroom discipline, or how to make the most of their NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) year. As the school is not yet fully populated with pupils, empty classrooms provide the opportunity for student teachers to try out different ways

of using the space – a practice which has proved so useful that Dr Biddulph hopes to retain an empty classroom for the purpose even when numbers are up to full strength.

“A key benefit of working with the staff from UCPS is that the trainees have excellent role models to learn from,” says Jane Warwick (BEd 1983), Homerton Bye-Fellow and Programme Manager for the Primary PGCE. “All staff are examples of highly professional, reflective and competent practitioners who constantly strive to meet high expectations and are keen to draw on evidence to improve teaching and learning.”

But it is in its relationship with educational research that the school has been able to be particularly innovative. Described by Dr Biddulph as both “research generating and research informed”, the school acts on the results of the latest educational research both in Cambridge and in a global context.

In turn, its experiences feed back into the conversation had by researchers at the Faculty of Education, and inform educational recommendations made worldwide.

“We see ourselves as releasing children’s potential, rather than filling their deficits.

Lots of free schools seem to make their point of difference from other schools all about imposing more discipline and formality – the whole zero tolerance culture which is in vogue. We are trying a different approach – to open up possibilities and to enable children to access the curriculum fully with their voices loudly heard.”

Dr Biddulph studied English and Music at Durham University before teaching experience in Nepal led him to a PGCE, MEd, and eventually a PhD (completed while working as an assistant head-teacher in London) at Homerton. He believes that a crucial aspect of his role is to be the “head learner – I should always be one step ahead on new ideas”. To that end, he is actively engaged with the Faculty of Education on a daily basis, working with the PEDAL Centre (the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning) on how play can be foregrounded in primary education, as well as collaborating with researcher Julia Flutter on a series of research-informed

An aerial view displays the school’s innovative architecture

books for teachers entitled ‘Unlocking Research’, to be published in early 2020; and serving as a member of the Partnership Standing Committee, which guides the development of the Primary PGCE course.

“James’ expert leadership skills and commitment to the partnership continue to drive and improve this relationship and through this, trainees see a whole school commitment to teacher education,” says Jane Warwick. “James also has regular, much valued informal discussions with course managers about current issues.”

The fact that the building of the school was funded by the University rather than by government is reflected in its generous outdoor provision. As well as vegetable gardens (“We tried to grow our own food for the school kitchen, but the children got sick of eating pumpkin every day for a week because we harvest in September!”), play equipment and sports fields, each classroom has access to its own outside area. The classrooms are door-less, opening directly onto wide corridors which themselves are active spaces filled with book corners, papier-mâché dragons and a medieval banqueting table.

Dr Biddulph is keen to make clear that the use of space is the result of careful thought.

“This is not a throw-back to 1970s open plan classrooms, but rather an intellectually robust decision in which transfer of sound has been calculated and tested.”

Teachers are encouraged to experiment with the layout of the classrooms, sitting children in traditional, forward-facing rows for some purposes, and in collaborative groups or without tables altogether for others, depending on the learning intended.

But while the award-winning, lightfilled building certainly helps, it is not the infrastructure alone that makes this school feel special. Touring the site with Dr Biddulph – tall, bearded, and looking every inch the authority figure in a threepiece pinstriped suit – small children rush up to tell him what they had for lunch, boast about what year group they’ll be in come September, or to admit to failure in having tried to mend his bike. There is an atmosphere of cheerful collaboration, and a commitment to the idea that learning should be fun, which is palpable.

The school has been nominated as one of the best primary schools in the country by the Times Educational Supplement, and the head is clearly delighted by the recognition.

But when asked what he’s proudest of he doesn’t hesitate.

“I’m proud of my superb staff. There are so few positive stories about education, and our teachers, learning coaches and administration team are aware of that and want to be part of the solution. But schools are subject to this constant governmental tinkering, and if people are frightened that their job might be on the line, they’re not going to be visionary. We have developed the confidence of being part of an 800 year-old institution, and the freedom to take risks. In line with the University’s mission to have an impact on social change, we’re committed to improving education for all children, everywhere.”

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

CHANGEMAKERS Homerton already occupies a unique position in the line-up of Cambridge Colleges. As the newest College, yet with a 250 year heritage, the largest student population in the University, and a long expertise in teacher training, we have an opportunity to do things differently. That line of thinking has led Homerton to create a ground-breaking new extra-curricular programme, which takes advantage of the intimate scale and sense of community of the collegiate set-up to shape the Cambridge experience of our students.

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aunched on 17 June 2019, Homerton Changemakers provides a counterpoint to the academic side of life, a way for students to grow and develop beyond their knowledge of their subject. Offering workshops, lectures, summer schools and challenges, it aims to foster four essential qualities: Responsibility, Resilience, Action & Enterprise, and Leadership.

Dr Alison Wood, appointed as Academic Director of Homerton Changemakers in October 2018, has been central to the programme’s creation.

“The world is changing fast.

Technological and social contexts increasingly demand people who are proactive and knowledgeable, who listen as well as act, who are open as well as confident, who can think both deeply and broadly. Cambridge offers an outstanding academic education. Changemakers goes beyond that, to build the foundations essential for success. More than a transferable skills programme or path to employability, Changemakers will help all Homerton students truly find their stride.”

“Students aren’t at Cambridge just to get a degree,” adds Miranda Hewkin Smith, President of the Homerton Union of Students from 2017 to 2019. “It is here that they discover themselves, and decide to make a difference in the world.”

The official launch provided a first opportunity for the Changemakers concept to be unveiled to the wider world. Glorious sunshine, a tree-filled marquee, glasses of fizz and vegan street food all helped to welcome 150 guests, including donors, alumni, students, and colleagues from across collegiate Cambridge and beyond.

The Principal, Senior Tutor and Academic Director spoke about the purpose and

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Dr Alison Wood, Ann Cotton OBE and Dame Evelyn Glennie

Ann Cotton OBE

Dame Evelyn Glennie

ambitions of the programme, while current student Julius Mex (Natural Sciences 2018) gave a powerful endorsement of the Taster Day provided last term.

Honorary Fellows Ann Cotton OBE, founder and trustee of the girls’ education charity CAMFED, and Dame Evelyn Glennie, world-renowned percussionist, joined Dr Wood in conversation to explore the motivations behind the project and their own personal journeys. Both spoke deeply movingly about their backgrounds and trajectories, as well as the importance of the skills Changemakers aims to inculcate.

“Although academic study is important, we can go beyond these disciplines to reach a greater understanding,” said Mrs Cotton.

Students have been enthusiastic to sign up for the first two-year Changemakers programme which begins this September with a week’s summer school.

Dr Wood will present on Changemakers as part of the Alumni Reunion Weekend (see page 35).

Dr Alison Wood

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hangemakers also provides alumni with an opportunity to be part of an exciting and innovative new venture. We are currently seeking financial support to ensure the programme has the foundations it requires. We would be delighted to hear from any former students who would like to donate to help current Homertonians expand their horizons.

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

Homerton’s location gives it the luxury of space which, combined with the absence of ‘keep off the grass’ signs, makes the gardens a favourite with students, staff and Fellows. Head Gardener Helen Andre Cripps takes us behind the scenes.

The gardening team

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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF… HELEN ANDRE CRIPPS

5.30am My alarm goes off at 5.30am, to give me time to go and muck out my horse before getting into work, along with the rest of the team, at 7.30am. I bring a coffee in a thermos, and might bring a sandwich to keep me going.

7.30am We have a team meeting first thing every day, to sort out who’s doing what. There are four of us in the gardening team – me, Robert, Matt and Jonathan (who’s been here 40 years this year!) and we are recruiting for a fifth member. I tend to just say “these are the jobs that need doing – it’s up to you how you get them done.” So people can be by themselves if that suits them, or work together if they prefer to have someone to chat to. We’re always bumping into each other though, and if someone needs a hand we’ll help out, or we’ll catch up when we stop for a cup of tea and a chat.

8.30am I’ll check my emails and reply to anything urgent, such as requests from the Development Office, or notification that there are branches down which need tidying up. I also tend to process invoices first thing, but it’s very weather dependent – I store up non-urgent paperwork for miserable weather when it’s harder to work outside.

Helen Andre Cripps

9.30am

12.30pm

2.30pm

If the tree surgeons are on site I might have to oversee that, or just have a walk around and see what needs tidying up. One of the things I love about Homerton is that it’s access-all-areas. The whole point for me is for the gardens to be enjoyed and appreciated, and to feel that we’re helping the students to relax. The sunny courtyard outside the Great Hall is so varied, and has some amazing specimen plants, and I love the orchard because it’s so peaceful.

We have lunch in the Great Hall and enjoy the chance to catch up with staff from other departments. Homerton’s the fourth College I’ve worked in and is by far the friendliest. There’s so much sense of community, and I really enjoy the ability to mix with other staff. The catering team in particular are brilliant – they bring us bottles of water in hot weather, and offer us hot drinks in winter. The porters are great at looking out for us too.

I’ll talk to the team several times a day, and always include them in the thought process about any new plans so they have ownership of them. Consulting with each other is how we get our ideas, and it’s very much a joint effort; everyone pitches in. We have a large amount of creative freedom, which is lovely and fairly unusual in Cambridge Colleges.

Anything major I’ll run past College Council, but now that I’ve done two or three things which the Principal and the Bursar have liked, they tend to let me get on with things.

10.30am

1.30pm

I know some people aren’t very hands-on when they get to be head gardener, but I don’t know what I’d fill my day with if I delegated it all to the team, and besides, I love gardening! So I still spend most of the day getting my hands dirty. Obviously what actually needs doing is very seasonal, but it might be pruning, mowing – which increasingly needs doing all year with milder winters – edging, weeding or leaf clearance.

If we need to replant we mostly order plants online, but sometimes if it’s just a few bits and pieces we’ll go to the nursery in person. That’s always dangerous though as we’ll come back with 20 extra plants that we have been tempted by, and Jim, the College Accountant, will tear his hair out! In the winter we do all the big planning – any big moves, or refreshing a border etc. We’ll usually do tree planting in the autumn too.

4pm We finish at 4pm and in the winter it’s pretty much dark by then. I don’t mind the weather – I’d rather be outside than in a stuffy office. The wind is the worst, because you feel battered, but rain and snow don’t bother me, I just wear lots of layers and good waterproofs. If you’re raking all day you get boiling hot anyway! After I finish I head back to the stables and go for a ride.

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

STUDENT PROFILE

CHIEDZA MATSVAI

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Chiedza Matsvai is a second year English student. She spoke to us about YouTube, the power of positive representation, and what Homerton is getting right.

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hen I was in Sixth Form in Hounslow, West London, I was just starting to think about applying to Cambridge. Three students in the year above me had got into Oxbridge, but that was a record high for the school – it wasn’t somewhere which sent students here every year. My teachers were very supportive, and went through the whole process with me, but I also found myself looking for interview advice on YouTube.

I stumbled across a vlogger (video blogger) called Nissy Tee (Nissy Nsilulu, BA English, 2014), who like me was a black woman from London, and who was studying English at Homerton College. I couldn’t believe it! I sat my whole family down and made them watch it. Although I’d been looking for practical tips, her video was much more lifestyle focused, and it really clarified in my mind that Homerton was where I wanted to be.

The moment I saw Nissy’s channel, everything changed. It felt like permission, seeing that she was a black woman here, doing English. It’s not just about seeing people like you represented on a prospectus, but knowing that people like you can flourish.

When I actually got my grades I relapsed – I suddenly felt maybe it wasn’t for me after all, that I wouldn’t fit in. But when I arrived it hugely exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be very segregated, that people would socialise with people like themselves, but there was such a welcoming atmosphere. You learn that there are differences between people but that they don’t define how you interact with each other. I now have friends from all over the country.

Academically, I had such a narrow view of literature, and it’s such a privilege to be somewhere where you’re academically challenged and broadened. English is such a visceral subject, it’s difficult not to explore your identity through it. I love the course, but it has sometimes felt like the things we study which are related to writers of colour have been shoehorned in at the last minute. I wanted to write part of my course-work on three black writers,

but was told it would be too narrow – a criticism I felt would never have been made of an essay on three white writers.

It helps to remind yourself that change is a process and you’re part of that. My Director of Studies, Dr Louise Joy, has been amazing, and so influential in my growth.

I had started making my own YouTube videos in Year 10, and then stopped when work got in the way.

But when I got to Homerton I realised that lots of people saw the application process as a maze, so I started posting videos to talk them through it. I get lots of messages from students saying they don’t know how to navigate the system. The comments I’ve received have reinforced the need, both for a demystification of admissions, and for reflections of students from diverse backgrounds. The more people see that we can flourish here, the better.

I spoke recently to a group of girls at a school in Hackney, and one student mentioned afterwards that she probably wouldn’t apply. It turned out that it was because she was black, which I just found heart-breaking. I try to present the full picture through my videos – it won’t always be straightforward or glamorous, and you may well feel imposter syndrome (though that applies to white students too). The experience of students of colour is part of how the University is evolving. It may not always be where it needs to be, but it is changing.

I don’t know what approach Homerton has taken, or whether it’s just the environment here, but having heard people’s negative experiences in other Colleges I find myself regularly saying “that would never happen at Homerton.” In terms of how supportive our Directors of Studies are, or the lack of competitiveness in supervisions, or just the small everyday interactions which make it special, Homerton’s getting things right. It’s redefining what it means to be a Cambridge College, and I really feel that Homerton is the new blueprint.

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

ALUMNI IN ACTION

THE POWER OF PRINT Keira Dignan (HSPS, 2015) and Megan Yates (HSPS, 2014) are working to bring books, resources and support to migrant communities in Greece, through the grassroots organisation ECHO – Education, Community, Hope, Opportunity.

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How did you first get involved with ECHO? MEGAN: I was working with RCK (Refugee Community Kitchen) in Calais for a few months and wanted to better understand the situation across Europe.

I researched various projects in Greece before settling with ECHO. I wanted to work with a social project, educational and integrative, in order to understand the long-term difficulties and solutions for asylum seekers, immigrants, streetconnected people, and also the international grassroots movement.

KEIRA: At Cambridge I read HSPS (Human, Social and Political Sciences) and studied the border crisis, global inequality and the forced movement of people. I knew Megan from Homerton and saw a post of hers about ECHO during my post-graduation summer. She was looking for a support volunteer and so I got in touch and haven’t looked back since.

Had you been active volunteers while at Homerton?

MEGAN: Honestly, no – at Homerton I had my head down most of the time.

KEIRA: Yes - I volunteered throughout my time at Cambridge for NightLine, the student run active listening service - which feels funny to tell you as it had to be a secret throughout my time with them to preserve its anonymity. I was also involved in student activism with Zero Carbon, who campaign to get the University to divest from fossil fuels, and spent some time helping out at a kids’ club with Student Community Action.

It’s quite a leap to go from a summer voluntary role to staying on and running the project – how did that come about?

MEGAN: I took on a co-ordinator position from the beginning and took on more responsibility over time as others left.

KEIRA: Megan was feeling pretty burnt out by the end of last year, so I’d been supporting her co-ordinating (especially after her laptop was stolen!). So when she

decided it was time for her to step back, she looked to me to keep the project going.

Where does ECHO get the resources it supplies?

MEGAN: Books are donated, language learning resources are produced by individuals or NGOs and printed by us, games and occasional stationery are paid for by us. We’re funded by a combination of crowdfunding and grants. We are incredibly lucky with how much people care for the project; we’re really kept going by others’ generosity.

Can you talk me through how it all works in practical terms/what you’re trying to achieve?

MEGAN: Our goals are dynamic and motivated towards what the communities we serve need or want. We are a pop-up community space, we aim to advocate time as a resource for learning and relaxation, and not just an expanse of waiting for a decision or a piece of paper. We support language learning and reading, active child play, music and conversation. Practically this involves a library van, a driver, a load of amazing volunteers, books and learning resources in appropriate languages, and a lot of organisational and juggling skills!

KEIRA: We aim to work in solidarity with the communities that we serve. This means using our access to resources (through grants and donations) to work with refugees and migrants to foster education and community through books. We pitch up, put out the table and the rugs, and borrowers come and bring back their week’s book and browse the shelves for a fresh read. Meanwhile our volunteers (many of them residents of the communities) read with the kids and teach lessons, such as guitar. Each session lasts a

couple of hours and these days we’re busier than ever, packing two or three sessions into our average day to get the library to as many people as possible.

The communities that we visit often have very limited access to educational resources or even somewhere for families and communities to learn together. Cramped, windowless rooms and stuffy tents in thirty degree heat are the norm – and this is all in an unfamiliar country where you don’t know the language. Large, authority-run camps often foster uncaring environments where people don’t know each other. We try to be somewhere where this fragmentation and isolation can be overcome.

Aren’t books and community what all the best libraries are about?

Do you have a sense of how long you might stay?

MEGAN: I’ve been in Athens for over a year now, and it’s reached the time for me to earn some money and gain a little more experience back in the UK. But I’m planning on coming back to Athens in a couple of years; this is where I want to be.

KEIRA: I’ll be running the library until the end of the year at least.

Has the experience changed your career ambitions or plans for the future?

MEGAN: I’ve never thought in terms of career ambitions, and my time here has only reinforced that. I’ve learned a huge amount with the library and I plan to keep on learning.

It’s taught me that communication, resilience and calm are fundamental to working in a distressing setting, as well as keeping an eye on your own wellbeing. I never planned to live in Greece so I suppose it’s totally changed my plans for the future.

KEIRA: I never thought I’d live in Greece either! I guess sometimes you choose things in life and sometimes they choose you. I’ve met a lot of inspiring people out here, and I hope I will take these perspectives with me through life. I’ve learnt that however much authorities and states may try to keep people out and push people down, caring communities will fight back with love. What with the planet heating up and a lot of poorer nations set to become uninhabitable, mass migration is only going to increase. I will certainly never feel comfortable with borders again.

Members of the ECHO team, including Keira (front left) and Megan (front centre) HOMERTON COLLEGE

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FEATURE

ALUMNI PROFILE

BENJAMIN CARON Benjamin Caron (BEd Education with English and Drama, 1995), discovered his taste for the director’s chair while at Homerton, and has spent the past 20 years building a successful career in television. He is currently the director of the hugely popular Netflix series The Crown, the third season of which will be broadcast later this year.

Benjamin Caron

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You were at Homerton at a time of transition – it was an ‘Approved Society’ of the University of Cambridge, but not yet a full College.

What was it like at that time?

It was a brilliant place to be. At the time, you had to pay for a lot of drama courses, as opposed to academic degrees, which were free. So I couldn’t believe it when I saw Education with English and Drama listed as an option at Homerton College, Cambridge. I drove to my interview, in the days before sat-nav, got hopelessly lost and arrived with two minutes to spare! I met Peter Raby, we bonded over Oscar Wilde and all seemed to be going well. Then they said “Now it’s the Education interview”. Ah. Not only had I not prepared for that bit, I hadn’t even known about it. Suddenly I was being asked questions like “How would you decorate your classroom?” I completely

winged it, convinced myself over the course of the interview that I’d always wanted to be a teacher, but was sure I must have blown it. They told me to give them a ring that afternoon for a decision, so I went for a walk around Cambridge to while away time and was completely blown away. I went for a pint at the Eagle and then finally, went to ring the Admissions Office from a pay phone. They had decided to offer me a place.

Did you make your peace with the Education aspect of the course?

In the end, although I’d signed up to the course for the Drama element, it felt like a good balance. There are so many skills in teaching that are directly applicable to all kinds of careers, but particularly to directing.

If you can stand up in front of 30 kids, you can stand in front of a bunch of actors.

researchers working alongside Peter. We can’t make it up too much – although the conversations are obviously imagined, I think we’ve got the essence of what people thought about each other. And because we don’t necessarily choose the obvious points of historical focus, you get Google spikes after each episode, with people wanting to find out what Suez, or Billy Graham were all about.

In the earlier series the history was slightly more at arms-length, whereas the next one takes us from 1963 and the election of Harold Wilson to 1977 and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. It’s still just before my time; or at least, I get born right at the end of the series!

Crowning around: Benjamin Caron, Claire Foy (the Queen), Peter Morgan (writer), Vanessa Kirby (Princess Margaret) and Matt Smith (Prince Philip)

I had a wonderful time at Homerton.

I was on the Boat Club Committee and the May Ball Committee, as well as being heavily involved in acting and directing and taking part in the National Student Drama Festival. I enjoyed working with actors but realised I wasn’t going to be one of the best. Film directing didn’t even feel like it was an option, but theatre directing felt like something I could aim at.

What was your post-Homerton career trajectory?

Shortly after graduation, I met a producer working on The Big Breakfast, who suggested I apply for graduate trainee schemes in television. Having made my way to London, I started at a production company making light and factual entertainment programmes.

Whilst there, I began doing the odd bit of directing. It was really eclectic – I was making everything from music videos, to documentaries and commercials.

After a good stint, I decided to go freelance and began working with the illusionist Derren Brown on a Channel 4 special called The Heist. It did rather well, winning a few awards and such like, and so off the back of that I was able to get myself an agent. Of course, like any director, I wanted to work out how to get into feature films and the general consensus was that you had to do your time in television drama first.

I moved up to Liverpool, where I directed a few episodes of Hollyoaks, which at the

time was quite good at enabling young directors to earn their stripes and get some experience. I then made a few episodes of Casualty in Bristol and Scott & Bailey in Manchester. Gradually, more industry folk became aware of me and I went on to direct an episode of Skins and a show of which I’m very proud; My Mad Fat Diary, starring Sharon Rooney and Jodie Comer of Killing Eve fame.

Following that, I joined Left Bank Pictures, where I directed a single film for TV about Tommy Cooper, and the final three episodes of Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander.

You’re now working on The Crown, which has had an extraordinary global reception. Did you think it was going to be as big as it has been?

No, absolutely not – you never know. We knew it was extremely well written, we knew we had an amazing cast, but it’s just impossible to tell what will grab an audience’s attention.

What do you think The Crown gets so right?

We have an amazing writer, Peter Morgan, who continuously mines for moments in history that resonate today, so that the drama shines a light on things happening now, as well as the past. It’s not about lookalikes, and it’s not a documentary but what we are always trying to do, is get to the truth of the characters.

We also have an amazing team of

The past decade has seen a huge shift in how television drama is perceived. Do you still see television as a stepping stone to feature films, or does it now offer more exciting opportunities in its own right?

I will definitely make a film at some stage, but I want to make sure it’s a film worth seeing – I don’t want to make it until I have something to say.

But yes, the television landscape has completely changed. The Crown, as with other shows such as Game of Thrones, has a decent budget, which allows you to almost treat each episode as though it were a film in its own right. And because of the long-form format of television, you have the ability to delve into characters’ back stories and to do so much more than there would ever be room for in a film. In that way it’s much more novelistic. The way people access and watch television now is completely different from when I started out. You have the ability to reach so many more people.

We’re very excited at Homerton that we now have two connections to The Crown, in the shape of you and Olivia Colman. What a coup to have signed her up just before she took the world by storm and won every award going…

Absolutely, we’re very lucky to have her. We actually overlapped at Homerton, though we never met. She’s a wonderful, instinctive actress. Some actors do all their preparation ahead of time, whereas Olivia instinctively feels it. She’s always so self-effacing and as I said, absolutely brilliant!

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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UPDATE

OUR DONORS

Mrs Carole Nolan Mrs Gwendolyn Williams

1963 Mrs Jean Addison-Fitch Mrs Andrea Caish Dr Anthea Cannell Mrs Christine Macpherson Mrs Catherine Ryder

1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019

The Principal, Fellows, students and staff of Homerton College wish to thank alumni and friends who have generously made donations to the College over the last year. Every effort has been made to ensure this list is accurate; do contact us if you believe we have made an omission.

Key: (d)* = deceased

Alumni 1936 Mrs Margaret Kent 1943 Mrs Kathleen Hayward 1945 Miss Nancy Dunning 1946 Mrs Zoe Coombe 1947 Ms Christine Andrews Lady (Dorothy) Franklin 1948 Mrs Janet Farley Miss Elizabeth Rainsbury 1949 Mrs Mary Dowse Mrs Margaret Eedle Mrs Coral Harrow Mrs Molly Payne 1950 Mrs Mavis Blow 1951 Mrs Sheila Duncan Mrs Patricia Stockdale Mrs Joan Watcham 1952 Mrs Shirley Haslam Mrs Heather Jemson Mrs Evelyn Parker 1953 Dr Alison Littlefair Mrs Margaret Trow Mrs Elizabeth Tunnicliffe

30

HOMERTONIAN

1954 Mrs Pauline Curtis Mrs Carol Hammerton 1955 Mrs Wendy Darr Mrs Christine Grainge Mrs Gillian Hewin Mrs Doreen Hobbs Miss Gwendoline Lancaster Mrs Rachel Lewington Mrs Jane Matthews Mrs Wendy Oakley 1956 Mrs Marguerite and Mr Norman Donkin Mrs Patricia Hubbard (d)* Mrs Alice Severs 1957 Mrs Julia Davis Mrs Gillian Figures Mrs Christine Lincoln Mrs Gillian Reitsma Mrs Josephine Sutton 1958 Mrs Ann Banner Mrs Christine and Mr Philip Carne Mrs Diana Hadaway Mrs Jill Hicks Mrs Beryl Izzard Mrs Wanda Kielbinska Mrs Rachel Macdonald Mrs Judy Manson Mrs Elizabeth McVean Mrs Cynthia Rumboll Mrs Patricia Stott Mrs Dorothy Waite 1959 Mrs Dora Beeteson (in memory of Fran Essen)

Mrs Christine Frost Mrs Ruth Jerram Mrs Diana Lucas Mrs Annmarie Mackay Miss Doreen Rogers

1960 Mrs Rosemary Allan Mrs Sylvia Avgherinos Mrs Jacqueline (d)* and Dr Norman Bardsley Mrs Patsy and Mr John Blythe Mrs Jean Clarke Mrs Susan Dickinson Mrs Jenifer Freeman Mrs Rosemary Hill Mrs Valerie Johnson Mrs Christine Kershaw Mrs Jennifer McKay Mrs Christine Parkyn Mrs Rosemary Rees Mrs Jacqueline and Mr Martin Rupp Mrs Jacqueline Swegen Mrs Janet Valentine Mrs Hillary Young 1961 Mrs Janet Campbell Mrs Frances Clare Mrs Anne Hulse Mrs Joy Kohn Mrs Susan Lovett Mrs Susan McFarland Mrs Caroline Sykes Mrs Jean Thorman 1962 Mrs Carol Bowen Mrs Diana Dalton Mrs Lynn and Dr Jonathan Dowson Mrs Marion Foley Mrs Carole Girdler

1964 Mrs Celia Jones Mrs Mary Maycock Mrs Margaret Meredith Mrs Pamela and Dr Anthony Metcalfe Ms Christine Purkis Mrs Susan Rescorla Mrs Jill Taylor Ms Marjorie Thorley Mrs Janet Woodford 1965 Miss Sue Bates Dr Patricia Cusack Mrs Wendy Dunnett Mrs Judith Hitchcock Mrs Annie Illingworth Mrs Dorothy Nicholls Mrs Anne Perrin Mrs Susan Pinner Lady (Ann) Ricketts Mrs Ruth Watkin Mrs Janet Webb Mrs Dilys West 1966 Mrs Ann Bates Mrs Elaine Beale Mrs Jean Carnall Mrs Susan Carter Mrs Margaret Crowe Mrs Wendy Farmer Lady (Marilyn) Fersht Mrs Margaret Funnell Mrs Sally Gibbons Mrs Judith MartinJenkins Mrs Judith Queripel Mrs Margaret Robbie Mrs Sheila Stephens Mrs Cheryl Trafford Miss Joyce Welch Mrs Linda West Mrs Janet Wilkinson 1967 Mrs Marjorie Caie Mrs Miriam France Mrs Avril Growcott Mrs Marion Pogson Mrs Patricia Saxton Mrs Annette Smallbone Mrs Althea Stevens 1968 Mrs Valerie Hart Mrs Constance Marriott

Mrs Robyn Mitchell Mrs Lynne Parsons Mrs Penelope SpencerChapman Mrs Marilyn and Mr Derek Stansfield Mrs Alison Syner

1969 Mrs Eileen Coombes Dr Victoria McNeile Mrs Merilyn Parker Armitage Ms Anne Reyersbach Ms Hilary Stokes Mrs Sarah Taylor 1970 Mrs Patrica Bradley Ms Fiona Cook The Rev Sheila Crowther Mrs Cynthia Garvey Ms Claire Heald Mrs Glenys Lambie Mrs Mary McCosh Mrs Denise Mitchell Dr Rosslyn Sendorek Mrs Denise Shakespeare Mrs Helen Wood Mrs Mary Wyatt 1971 Mrs Patricia Darke Mrs Denise Few Mrs Sally Mabon Mrs Marilyn Reid Ms Helen Sandle-Baker Ms Anne Sparrowhawk 1972 Ms Catherine Beavis Mrs Sarah Flynn Mrs Margaret Howell Mrs Fiona and Mr Michael Karlin Ms Anne Kennedy Ms Jane Lewin Smith Mrs Helen and Mr James Malcolm Mrs Caroline Melrose Mrs Valerie Mills Mrs Anne and Mr Timothy Ryder Mrs Angela Swindell Mrs Marilyn Thomas Mrs Maureen and Mr Neil Weston 1973 Miss Stephanie Beardsworth Ms Jane Bramhill Mrs Jill Fish Ms Ruth Ludewig-Welch Mrs Sheila Martin Mrs Elizabeth McLean Mrs Dilys Murch Mrs Susan Rodford Mrs Heather Wilkinson

Julius Mex (BA Natural Sciences 2018) addresses the crowd at the Changemakers launch

1974 Mrs Jennifer Little Mrs Elizabeth Rose Mrs Vera Sklaar 1975 Mrs Alyson Baker Mrs Judith Davidson Mrs Helen McRoberts Mrs Ruth Saunders 1976 Mrs Judith Clarke Mrs Joan Gibson Ms Jill Grimshaw Ms Sarah Jacobs Miss Amanda James Mrs Ann Kirkby Mrs Ann Muston Mrs Joanna Newman Mrs Alison Roberts Mrs Zena Tinsley 1977 Miss Sheila Berry Mrs Helen Draper Ms Jane Edwards Mrs Elizabeth Harding Mrs Ann Jackman Mrs Helen Mitchell

Mrs Louise Mursell Mrs Clare Myers Mrs Jane Pearson Mrs Elizabeth Thomas

1978 Mrs Victoria Addey Mrs Marianne Billitt Mrs Ruth Briant Mrs Sandra Burmicz Mrs Annette Cameron Mrs Clare Danielian Mrs Mary Powles Mrs Elizabeth Thomas 1979 Mrs Oyinkansola Ade-Ajayi Mrs Jane Bishop Mrs Jane Bishop Mrs Elizabeth Bond Ms Elizabeth Dickinson Ms Joan Hicks Mrs Deborah Moss Ms Karen Ready Mrs Amanda Renwick Mrs Brenda Thompson 1980 Ms Victoria Brahm Schild Mrs Joanne Broughton

Mrs Catherine Hicks Mrs Sarah Holmes Mrs Ruth Pavey

1981 Miss Anna Chapple Mrs Amanda and Mr Timothy Edwards Mrs Cordelia Myers Mr Graeme Plunkett 1982 Mr Mark HanleyBrowne Mr Brian Howarth 1983 Mrs Alison Brinklow Mrs Joan Kedward Mrs Karen Miranthis Miss Emma Rawson Mrs Frances Surridge 1984 Ms Alison Mesher 1985 Dr Kirsty Byrne Mrs Karen Coombs Mrs Julia Harker

Ms Sally Jaspars Mrs Anna Williams

Mrs Penelope Lee The Revd Wendy Wale

1986 Mrs Keren Cooke Ms Nansi Ellis Mrs Virginia Eves

1990 Mrs Naomi Baynes Mrs Karen George Mrs Fiona Gruneberg Mr Ian Hodgson Mrs Sharon Holloway Mrs Sophie Morley Dr Susanna Pinkus

1987 Mrs Alison Allen Mrs Kim Chaplin Mrs Michaela Khatib Mr James Thomson 1988 Mr Phil Coldicott Mr Arjun Kumar Mrs Katherine Mayne Mr Andrew McNeil Mrs Sarah McWhinnie Ms Phillipa Rushby Mr Giles Storch Miss Jennifer Svrcek 1989 Miss Lucy Bradley Dr John Dodsworth Mr Carl Howarth Mrs Charlotte and Mr Matthew Irving

1991 Mrs Joy Bensley Mr David Chapman Miss Claire Corkran Miss Helen Diggle Mrs Elizabeth Sartain Miss Lisa Tiplady 1992 Mrs Claire Brooks Mr Simon Camby Mr Ian Derwent Mrs Sarah Haines Mrs Louise Hawksley Miss Caroline Mander Mrs Nicola Pitzey Mrs Diane Rawlins Miss Wendy Smith

HOMERTON COLLEGE

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OUR DONORS cont...

1993 Dr Steven Chapman Miss Manjit Hayre Mrs Helen Morgan Mrs Jane Riordan 1994 Mrs Marion Durnin Mrs Victoria TrueBhattacharyya Mrs Emma Vyvyan 1995 Mrs Carol Carlsson Browne

2000 Mrs Susan Aldred Ms Angela Clark Mrs Abigail Deeks Mrs Maria Della Maestra Miss Katharine James Dr Thomas Kitchen Mrs Cheryl Smith

1998 Mr Alastair Chipp Mrs Elisabeth Hackett

2001 Mrs Grace Baines Mr Laurence Ball Mrs Lesley-Anne and Mr Gareth Crooks Miss Lidia Fesshazion Mrs Amy Fleming Mr James Frecknall Dr Robert Fulford Mr Andrew Jenner Mrs Catherine and Dr Tom Kitchen Mrs Nadine Lloyd Mrs Judy Moore Mrs Sandra Stapleton

1999 Ms Erin Bond Dr Neil Hennessy

2002 Ms Rachel Ayres Mr Sam Farmer

1996 Mr Ian Bettison Dr Andrew Holder Mrs Serena O’Connor Mr Christopher Shephard 1997 Councillor Parvez Akhtar Mr Matthew Buck Mrs Elizabeth Fryer Mrs Amy McDonnell

32

Mr Paul Jones Mrs Shamsa Khokhar Mrs Laura Penrose Mrs Louisa Shipp Miss Lydia Williams Mrs Zoe Yeomans

HOMERTONIAN

Mr Sutherland Forsyth Mrs Carys Gladdish Miss Katy Johnson Mr Christopher Kellaway Dr Rajalakshmi Lakshman Mr David Lawrence Miss Sian Mawditt Mr Remi Moynihan Miss Krista Pullan Ms Alison Richman Mr Timothy Scott Dr Lisa Sessions Mrs Angela Woodruffe Mrs Rhiannon WynneLord

2003 Mrs Rachel Bardon Ms Susanna Bellino Miss Katherine Bluck Mr Raymond Cilia Mr Gregoire Hodder Mrs Anne Howell Mr Jonathan Levine Mr Can Liang Dr Feilong Liu Mrs Elizabeth Mansfield Mr Daniel Roberts Dr Tovah Shaw Mr Jean-Paul Skoczylas Mr Tristan Stone Miss Stephanie Tillotson Mr John White 2004 Mr Jingdong Chen Mr Simon Cooper Mrs Emily Davies

Mrs Bridget Donovan Miss Natasha Gray Mr Richard Hopkins Mr Ravi Raichura Mrs Nina Sever Miss Jennifer Sneyd

2005 Dr Enyinnaya Anosike Miss Stephanie Baxter Mr Nicholas Bebb Mr Nicholas Clark Mrs Janice Frankham Mrs Lisa and Mr Fabio Galantini Mr Andrew Gard Dr Scarlett Gard Mr Wenjie Ge Miss Casta Jones and Mr Mark Littlewood Mr Daniel Martin Mrs Rebekah Perry Dr Oliver Rupar Mrs Elizabeth Sharp Mrs Jessica Shingfield Ms Nadia Syed Mrs Emma Turner Mr Chong Zhang 2006 Miss Aniko Adam Dr Theresa Adenaike Mr Andrew Blackburn Mrs Eliza de Uphaugh Mr Thomas Dix Miss Hannah Drew and Mr Mark Shepherd Mr Vladimir Hanzlik

Mrs Christine Kelby Miss Esther Mulholland Miss Chloe Orchin Mrs Dawn Pavey Mrs Lynne Richardson

2007 Mrs Claire Byrne Miss Jessica Dewes Mrs Tracey Harjatanaya Mr Thomas Horn Mr John Keene Miss Xiajuan Li Mr Michael Lynch Miss Nicola Pollard Mr Joseph RandallCarrick Mrs Chikako Woodgate 2008 Mr Thomas Baker Mr Justin Bynum Mr Luke Clarke Mrs Heather Coleman Mr Michael George Mr Christopher Grey Mr Matthew Linsell Mr James Lugton Ms Elaine Mo Miss Amy MunroFaure Mr Ikenna Obiekwe Mr Gershwinder Rai Mrs Emily and Mr Siȏn Roberts Mr David Rosenberg Mr Kenichi Udagawa Mr Roger Willis

2009 Mr Adarsh Bala Mr Nigel Beckford Dr Tumas Beinortas Miss Sophie Bell Mr Daniel Beresford Mr Bhavin Bhatt Ms Shruti Chaudhri and Mr Iain Cameron Mr Jonathan Edge Miss Alice Esuola Dr Jack Euesden Miss Christine James Mr Christopher Morgan Mrs Susan Morley-Souter Dr Jonathan Rackham Mr Paul Shewell Mr Michael Thorp 2010 Ms Kannal Achuthan Mr Henrique Barbone Miss Emma Bowell Mr Nahum Clements Miss Alexandra Courage Mr Richard Craven Mr Gabrielius Glemza Mr Paul James Miss Sian Jones Miss Rosie Keep Miss Suzannah LangdonShreeve Dr Dirk Mersch Dr Shawn O’Donnell Mr Richard Peach Mrs Jessica Taylor Miss Megan Trimble Miss Rebecca Tron 2011 Mr James Chicken Miss Kathryn Dillon Mr Rafe Fletcher Mrs Deborah Giveen Mr Jack Hooper Mr Edward Levermore Miss Helen Lyttle Mrs Cordelia North Miss Charlotte Pearson Mr Laurence Pritchard Mr Thorben Schaefer Miss Angela Stevens Mr George Sykes Miss Abigail Thurgood-Buss Mr Syed Wafa Mr Rune Webb 2012 Mr Amjad Ali Mr Joshua Cozens Mr Henry Fieldman Ms Louise Holyoak Mr Tim Hubener Mr Sylvester Juwe Ms Samantha Kellow Ms Eleni Leontidou Miss Danielle Poole Mr Douglas Porter Mr Theepan Tharmarajah

Mr Dmytro Tupchiienko Miss Krisztina Zaborszky

2013 Mr Marc-Jullian Hensel Mrs Marian Mahoney Mr Hachimi Maiga Mr Edmond Tam Ms Sarah Tiffin 2014 Mr Nigel Ironside Mr Edward Kent Mrs Andrea Saunders 2015 Mr Hamid Abbasov Mr Adam Dobson Mr Vincent English Miss Sarah Witkowski-Baker Dr Zamir Zulkefli 2016 Miss Mille Fjelldal Mr Mitchell Hayden-Cook Mr Bonbien Varga 2017 Ms Olivia Coffey Friends of Homerton Mrs Julie AbramsHumphries Dr Roger Ali Mrs Alexandra Annett Mr Dominic Barber Mrs Frances Barrett Ms Caroline Bell Mrs Gill Blissett Mr Colin Campbell (d*) Mr Winston Carnall Professor Clive Carter Miss Patricia Cooper Dr Constance Counts Dr Alan Davidson Sir Michael Franklin Mr Peter Freeman Mr Michael and Mrs Ingrid Goodall Mr Roger Green Mr Nathan Grundy Mr Andrew Gruneberg Dr Richard Harker Mrs Laura Harnak Dr Stephen Hart Mrs Clare Harvey Mr Brian Heald Dr Lesley Hendy Dr John Hulse Mr Mark Hunting Mr John Iliffe (in memory of Mrs Dorothy Iliffe) Ms Jessica Jennings Mr Frank Kershaw (d*) Mr Rafil Khatib Mrs Leslie Lemonick Mr Duncan Loweth Mr Constantinos Miranthis Mr Ian Mitchell

Mr Anthony Mitton Mr Roger Morley Mr Matthew Moss Mr Alan Newman Dr Andrew North Mrs Helen O’Hara Dr Simon Pain Mr George Pearson Dr Simon Powles Ms Susan Prytherch Dr Peter Raby Dr Jessica RandallCarrick Mr Duncan Reid Miss Dorothy Richardson (d*) The Robinson family – The Bridget Robinson Studentship Mr Martin Rupp Dr William Saxton The Revd Dr Anthony Swindell Dr Robert Thomas Mr Nigel Thomas Mr Melvyn Thomas Ms Marilyn Tullys Dr Peter Warner Mr Victor Watson Professor Stephen Weis Dr David Whitebread Dr Philip Wilkinson Ms Rhiannon Williams Ms Margaret Wood Dr John Woodford Mr Stephen Wyatt

Trusts and Corporations Backstage Trust The Plowright Charitable Trust The Roger and Miriam Pilkington Trust Santander

Cavendish Circle The Cavendish Circle recognises alumni and friends of Homerton who make an annual gift of £1000 or more to the College.

Mrs Jacqueline (d)* and Dr Norman Bardsley Dr Constance Counts Ms Victoria Brahm Schild Mrs Sally Gibbons Mrs Annie Illingworth Mrs Sophie Morley Macaulay Circle We are grateful to those who have indicated they intend to leave a gift to Homerton in their Will.

Miss Patricia Cooper Mrs Coral Harrow Miss Gwendoline Lancaster Mrs Karen Miranthis

Mrs Merilyn Parker Armitage Mrs Catherine Ryder Dr Peter Warner Mrs Dilys and Mr Peter West

1768 Society The 1768 Society recognises alumni and friends of Homerton who are regular donors to the College, making a gift of at least £17.68 a month.

Mrs Victoria Addey Mrs Rosemary Allan Dr Enyi Anosike Mr Henrique Barbone Ms Catherine Beavis Mr Nigel Beckford Miss Shelia Berry Mr Ian Bettison Mr Andrew Blackburn Mr Matthew Buck Mrs Sandra Burmicz Dr Kirsty Byrne Mrs Claire Byrne Mr Simon Camby Mrs Janet Campbell Mrs Kim Chaplin Dr Steven Chapman Nr Nicholas Clark Mr Phil Coldicott Miss Patricia Cooper Mr Joshua Cozens Mrs Pauline and Mr Godfrey Curtis Mrs Diana Dalton Mr Patrick Derwent Mr Adam Dobson Mrs Marguerite and Mr Norman Donkin Mrs Lynn and Dr Jonathan Dowson Mrs Sheila Duncan Miss Alice Esuola Dr Jack Euesden Mr Sutherland Forsyth Mr Wenjie Ge Mrs Karen George Mr Michael George Mrs Carole Girdler Mrs Christine Grainge Miss Nathasha Gray Mr Roger Green Mrs Fiona Gruneberg Mr Mark Hanley-Browne Mrs Ceri Harding Mrs Julia Harker Miss Manjit Hayre Dr Neil Hennessy

Mrs Jill Hicks Mr Gregoire Hodder Mr Ian Hodgson Mr Richard Hopkins Mr Brian Howarth Mr Carl Howarth Mrs Anne Howell Mrs Ann Jackman Mr Paul James Mrs Celia Jones My Sylvester Juwe Mr John Keene Miss Rosie Keep Ms Samantha Kellow Mr David Lawrence Mr Jonathan Levine Ms Jane Lewin Smith Miss Teresa Li Mr Can Liang Mrs Susan Lovett Mrs Diana Lucas Mr James Lugton Mrs Christine Macpherson Mrs Jane Matthews Mr Andrew McNeil Mrs Helen McRoberts Mrs Sarah McWhinnie Mrs Margaret Meredith Mrs Karen Miranthis Mr Matthew Moss Mr Remi Moynihan Miss Amy Munro-Faure Mrs Ann Muston Miss Nicola Pollard Mr Gershwinder Rai Mr Ravi Raichura Mrs Diane Rawlins Miss Emma Rawson Mrs Rosemary Rees Lady (Ann) Ricketts Mrs Susan Rodford Miss Doreen Rogers Mrs Elizabeth Rose Mrs Catherine Ryder Mrs Cheryl Smith Mr Tristan Stone Mrs Lesley Thomas Mrs Brenda Thompson Mr James Thomson Ms Sarah Tiffin Miss Rebecca Tron Mr Dmytro Tupchiienko Mr Bonbien Varga Mrs Dilys and Mr Peter West Mr John White Dr David Whitebread Ms Rhiannon Williams Mrs Helen Wood Dr Zamir Zulkefli

We are also very grateful to those friends and supporters who give up their valuable time in support of the College, those who have made gifts of artworks and books, and all donors who wish to remain anonymous.

HOMERTON COLLEGE

33

ALUMNI REUNION WEEKEND UPDATE

FRIDAY, 27 TO SATURDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2019

34

HOMERTONIAN

This year, bookings will close on Monday, 9 September.

Please do ensure that we receive your booking and payment by this date. The best way of booking for the Reunion Weekend is via our

PROGRAMME Friday, 27 September

Alumni Events page on the College website. Alternatively, please

6.30–7.30pm

Donor Reception (By invitation)

get in touch with Laura Kenworthy, Alumni Relations Manager,

7.30 for 8pm

Drinks in the Combination Room followed by Dinner in the Great Hall

at alumni@homerton.cam.ac.uk, or by phone on 01223 747066.

We look forward to welcoming you back to the College in September!

Saturday, 28 September 9.30–10.30am Registration 10.30–11am

Welcome address

11.15am – 12.15pm

Anniversary Group meetings Tea and coffee in the Combination Room

Annual General Meeting of the RSMA (RSMA members only)

12.30–2pm

Lunch in the Great Hall

2.30–3.30pm Talk by Dr Alison Wood, Academic Director of Homerton Changemakers

Tour of the College Buildings and Gardens

St John the Evangelist, Hills Road: opening of the new community space, with musical contribution from the Charter Choir

4.15–5.15pm Charter Choir performance 4–4.30pm

Unveiling of blue plaque to Dame Leah Manning

4–5pm

Tour of the College Buildings and Gardens

5–6pm

Afternoon Tea in the Great Hall

7pm for 7.30pm

Drinks in the Combination Room followed by Dinner in the Great Hall

CAN’T MAKE THE ALUMNI REUNION WEEKEND? Join us for informal Alumni Drinks in London on Thursday, 17 October 2019.

Booking details will be available on the College website.

HOMERTON COLLEGE

35

UPDATE

ALUMNI BENEFITS As a lifelong member of Homerton and the University of Cambridge you are entitled to a number of benefits. You are very welcome to visit Homerton and use the College Library, Buttery and Bar, and to dine at Formal Hall. Subject to availability, you can also book overnight accommodation at preferential rates and book function rooms for private dinners and events. For more information email alumni@homerton.cam.ac.uk You can take advantage of great deals at a number of Cambridge hotels, bars, restaurants and retailers by using your CAMCard (issued by the University). You will also receive automatic membership to the University Centre and free entrance into most of the Cambridge Colleges.

To request a CAMCard visit https://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/benefits/camcard

KEEPING IN TOUCH http://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/alumni/benefitsandevents Visit the College website for full details of our alumni events, local branches and alumni benefits. You can read College publications online and update your contact details when you move house or job. You can also read about the College’s current fundraising priorities and make a donation to Homerton online.

BRANCH CONTACTS Groups of Homertonians meet in local branches throughout the country and around the world. All alumni are welcome to attend their events. If you would like to get involved, please contact the branch leaders below. You can find the University of Cambridge Worldwide Branch Directory at www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/getinvolved/ find-an-alumni-group if there isn’t a Homerton Branch in your area.

London (‘The London Rollers’) Stephanie Beardsworth (1973–1977) stephanie.beardsworth@btinternet.com Oxford Lucy Barnett (1961–1964) glebecottage@gmail.com Southern California Angela Clark (2000–2003) ad301@cantab.net Wessex Vicki Addey (1978–1982) vicki@addey.co.uk

By email Have you been receiving our email newsletter? If you haven’t seen an eNewsletter recently, send us an email at alumni@homerton.cam.ac.uk to make sure we have your current contact details.

HOMERTON COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF C AMBRIDGE

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Tel: +44 (0)1223 747066 Email: alumni@homerton.cam.ac.uk

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www.homerton.cam.ac.uk Homerton College is a Registered Charity No. 1137497