Cross Keys 2017

Duty, Courage, Faith: the Chavasse Family in World War I I, Ken Loach Neha Shah interviews the acclaimed film director Trying to burst the Westminster bubble Helen Lewis on political journalism Next Generation Antibacterials?

Prof Mark Moloney

CROSS KEYS ST PETER’S COLLEGE

/ SUMMER 2017

CROSS KEYS CONTENTS

ST PETER’S COLLEGE

/ SUMMER 2017

A word from the Master

1

Development News: Victoria Fangen-Hall 2 Update from the Bursar

4

Interview with Ken Loach

7

Feature: Trying to burst the Westminster bubble, Helen Lewis 11 Cover Story: Duty, Courage, Faith: the Chavasse Family in World War I, Richard Allen 14 Interview with David Atkinson

20

Interview with Srin Madipalli

22

Feature: The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard, Sondra Hausner 24 Feature: Next Generation Antibacterials?, Mark Moloney 27 Feature: 40 Years of Teaching German, Kevin Hilliard 30 JCR Report

32

MCR Report

33

7 27

Sports Report, Miwako Sykes 34 Oxford Rugby, Tom Stileman 37 Music: St Peter’s takes Mahler to the Alps, John Warner 38 Alumni Events: A year in Pictures

41

Staying Connected Dates for the Diary

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

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

Editor: Olga Batty, Alumni Relations Manager Design: Baseline Arts Ltd Printing: Leachprint Photography: Most images by Edmund Blok Cover image: Montage created by Vince Haig

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MARK DAMAZER, CBE MASTER

A WORD FROM

THE MASTER Greetings from New Inn Hall Street – awash with cranes, wrecking balls, dumper trucks and bollards – and only a small proportion of this is connected to the renovation of the main site at St Peter’s. The Westgate shopping centre at the New Road end is noisily taking shape. To my untutored eye it is unlikely to make Prince Charles happy but it can hardly be worse than it was – and will doubtless be an occasional refuge for students seeking retail therapy. But I hope that most of them, and you, will prefer the delights offered by the college, not least the planting here which, in its second year, has been a revelatory delight.

The second phase of the Perrodo Project will be complete in early 2018 and the planting scheme for that is

as ambitious as for the front of the college and the Linton Quad, so quite soon we will have one of the better horticultural displays in Oxford.

In this edition we have contributions from a range of alumni – doing fascinating things. Some, like Srin Madipalli, left only recently and some, like David Atkinson, were here quite a while ago. They are both entrepreneurs doing extraordinary things. Ken Loach – Britain’s most honoured film director – came again to the college this year and packed out the JCR with a showing and discussion of his latest film ‘I, Daniel Blake.’ Here he talks about his work and philosophy – and St Peter’s (to which he is very loyal). Helen Lewis is an outstandingly acute political journalist

and broadcaster and has been back to St Peter’s several times in recent years. She comes every time there is a big national vote or political crisis.

So she will be coming again soon. And John Warner, who has only just left St Peter’s, has been a coruscating musical presence here with a Mahler obsession of the best kind.

You can also get a perspective from some Fellows – from one just leaving (Dr Kevin Hilliard) and two very much still here (Prof Sondra Hausner and Prof Mark Moloney). All of them are full time jugglers – the balls are marked ‘teaching’, ‘graduates’ research’, and ‘administration.’ It takes a lot of doing.

There are insights about the building project from the Bursar.

Under his leadership we have been reconstructing St Peter’s – a crowded space with hundreds of people needing to study, think and write – but also needing to sleep, eat and keep warm while the builders do their business. At the time of writing it remains a major business.

We also provide some flavour of student life, angled this time towards sports. Most days in a given week you will bump into green and gold clad (and sweaty) students who have been exerting themselves. Mostly cheerily – and sometimes very successfully.

I hope this year’s Cross Keys gives a decent flavour of life here – not least its variety. Thank you all for your support and interest. ❚

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VICTORIA FANGEN-HALL DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

DEVELOPMENT NEWS In any role the second year is always more predictable than the first. This contrast is especially true at St Peter’s where the cycle of annual events and the structure of the three terms provide a rhythm to life here.

This has afforded me a greater level of preparedness, but this does not mean the college stands still – it is constantly innovating and changing, and I still have a lot to learn and many people to meet. Rarely does a day go by where I don’t acquire a new fact about St Peter’s – normally from one of our esteemed Emeritus Fellows, or I am astounded by the level of commitment from former members.

This is perfectly encapsulated by an ‘out of the blue’ phone call from Brian Dodd (Geography, 1964) and his wife Pat who, following an outing on the Isis after the 2011 Boat Club Dinner, have donated to the Boat Club a new Women’s VIII.

achievements of our founding family, the Chavasses’ during World War I. Two time Palme D’Or and internationallyrenowned film Director Ken Loach (Jurisprudence, 1957) returned to the JCR for a screening of his film I, Daniel Blake. Ken, an Honorary Fellow, spent a considerable amount of time meeting students, alumni and staff and an interview with him is in these pages.

There have been numerous subject dinners and in May we welcomed back BBC political correspondent Ben Wright (History, 1996) and Deputy Editor of the New Statesman Helen Lewis (English, 2001) to talk about and take questions on the General Election.

We are very grateful to all our alumni for their readiness to be a part of our events programme.

are invited back every five years to reconnect with friends. Many opt to stay on site and re-live, albeit for a night or two, being a resident of our New Inn Hall site including a visit to the bar – an experience most enjoy! We also manage to secure a small part of the lucrative Oxford conference business, which as an institution with limited financial means, brings in much needed revenue. The vacations also offer the opportunity for us to visit those that live overseas. We are a global community and we aim to hold events both regionally and around the world as we know not everyone can easily get to Oxford. This year was no expectation.

With thanks to the assistance of William Lau (1995, Jurisprudence) a dinner was held at the Hong Kong Jockey Club in March, followed by a Singapore gathering which coincided with the Asia Alumni Weekend. Events were also held in New York and for the first time in a number of years on the US West Coast, where we will return in 2018 for the US Oxford Alumni Weekend.

(7–9 April 2018).

“We are a global community and we aim to hold events both regionally and around the world as we know not everyone can easily get to Oxford.”

This year we continued our speaker series and were delighted to welcome the writer, TV personality and professor of Classics at Cambridge University, Mary Beard who spoke to a packed chapel and both General Sir Nick Houghton (History, 1977) and former St Peter’s Visitor the Reverend James Jones who along with BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman gave individual lectures celebrating the

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Whilst the work of all members of St Peter’s extends beyond the three terms, the departure of the current undergraduate cohort who live in college allows us to utilise more freely our facilities. With two gaudies per year our programme ensures alumni

The term breaks are also used by us to further extend our engagement programme through our annual telephone campaigns. Alongside events, these remain one of the most important and successful ways of

Below: Development and Alumni Relations Team. Left to right: Victoria Fangen-Hall, Louise Dawkins, Christopher Shakespeare, Sarah Pyper, Olga Batty

“We are committed to maintaining our relationships with all members of the St Peter’s family ...” the way we communicate in the future is set to change. This will affect the whole charity sector, including the University of Oxford and its colleges. As yet we do not know what the impact will have on our ability to engage with alumni, but be assured we are keeping a close eye on the process. We are committed to maintaining our relationships with all members of the St Peter’s family and will as always do our utmost to ensure we communicate with each member in the way that suits them best.

connecting with our members. They offer the opportunity for student callers to both update alumni on life at college and to ask if they will consider making a donation – an exceptionally high proportion do chose to make a gift. Many thanks to those who took time to speak with our students and for the support we received. Of course not all appreciate being approached in this way, or are not in a position to give and we take great care to ensure that those we intend to contact can opt out. We are respectful of everyones personal preferences and have many different opportunities throughout the year to ensure everyone can feel connected with St Peter’s and receive information in the way they prefer.

There has been much talk in the press over the past few years about how charities fundraise from and engage with supporters, and in 2015

the Government commissioned Sir Stuart Etherington to review the fundraising practice and regulations.

His recommendations, coupled with upcoming alterations to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means the fundraising landscape and

Now in its third year, the Keys to Success fundraising campaign has raised 65% of our £35m target.

One of the main highlights in my second year has been the chance to return the Development and Alumni team back to full strength. I am delighted that Olga who continues as Alumni Relations Manager, and I are joined by Christopher Shakespeare Development Manager, Louise Dawkins – Database and Research Officer and Sarah Pyper – Development Assistant.

I know many of you will already have had contact with the team regarding events or your financial support, but do get in touch at any time. We are here to keep you connected to your college and we look forward to hearing from you and welcoming you back. ❚

KEYS TO SUCCESS CAMPAIGN

To date we have achieved a lot with our limited means, but with a stronger financial platform, we can bolster our tutorial teaching; enhance financial support for our graduates and undergraduates; modernize our main site student rooms and invest in further accommodation. Our needs are considerable, but we are on track to reach our target. Thank you to all who have made a gift to the campaign, and to those who are considering supporting it. Our Keys to Success campaign is about securing the future of this tremendous institution and with your help we can achieve this.

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JAMES GRAHAM BURSAR

UPDATE FROM

THE BURSAR Easter fell late this year, and I’m writing this – my fourth – article for Cross Keys a good month later than last year. Over the past years I’ve written them in the garden of our cottage in Devon, my office at St Peter’s, and the jury assembly room at the Crown Court at Blackfriars.

This year, it’s my study at our home in Putney after a week in a beautifully sunny Devon with Robert Schumann’s (Radio 3’s Composer of the Week) songs playing in the background.

Another full, purposeful and busy year at St Peter’s to reflect on; many projects and initiatives described last year progressed or completed, and new ones started. And although sometimes life at an Oxford college can seem very intensely local, broader social and political issues have loomed large – notably the referendum on our continued membership of the European Union and the US Presidential election, and the turmoil in the Middle East and tension in Asia.

These concerns are never long absent from Oxford conversation.

Again the Master has organised a number of talks and discussions on these and other matters, most of which are open to the public and to which local schools are encouraged to – and do – attend. Over the past year, events have included an EU Referendum Forum with St Peter’s alumni: Martin

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Ivens (Editor, Sunday Times), Afua Hirsch (Social Affairs and Education Editor, Sky News) and Ben Wright (Political Correspondent, BBC). We also hosted talks and lectures by Professor Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Ken Loach (1957, Jurisprudence), awardwinning film director and alumnus.

The college has also hosted a series of events - under the heading ‘Duty, Courage, Faith’ - designed to commemorate the role played by the Chavasse family, its founders, in World War I. These included public talks by General Sir Nicholas Houghton, then Chief of the Defence Staff, Honorary Fellow and alumnus; Jeremy Paxman, renowned broadcaster and author; and the Rt Revd Sir James Jones, former bishop of Liverpool (1998-2013) and College Visitor. The college also hosted, in conjunction with the City and County councils, the unveiling of a commemorative paving slab outside its chapel in honour of Captain Noel Chavasse, son of the college’s founder and the only person to win the Victoria Cross twice during the Great War, and a four-month public exhibition of rare archive materials and artefacts, which attracted close to 3,000 visitors from all over the world between September 2016 and January 2017.

The Chavasse family medals are now displayed in two fine museum-quality

cabinets which were very generously funded by alumnus and Honorary Fellow Lord Hodgson. We look forward to another visit to the college by worldrenowned pianist and Honorary Fellow, Lang Lang next year, and BBC journalist and Today Programme presenter, Nick Robinson, later this year.

The college has also seen a number of important additions to its collection of artworks. June 2016 witnessed the unveiling by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, of the first ever female portraits to be hung in Hall. Painted by Oxford-based artist, Tom Croft, they show St Peter’s alumna Libby Lane (1986, Theology), the first woman to be elected bishop in the Church of England, and Professor

Below left and right: Three of the paintings by Duncan Grant (1885-1978), kindly donated to the College and the SCR Dining Room

Bottom right: The refurbished JCR

“Another full, purposeful and busy year at St Peter’s to reflect on; many projects and initiatives described last year progressed or completed, and new ones started.”

Christine Greenhalgh, first Official female Fellow at St Peter’s (Economics, 1979-2009). These portraits were joined by a triptych of photo portraits, taken by local photographer, Fran Monks, of the current and former female fellows.

The portrait of Miriam Chavasse, mother of Bishop Francis James Chavasse, is being restored and will also be hung in Hall. There are now more women than men on the walls of the Hall.

The collection of artworks by the renowned artist, Duncan Grant (18851978), which have been generously given to us on loan by an alumnus, are now hanging in the SCR Dining Room. We are extremely fortunate to have this magnificent collection.

The pictures have been reglazed with gallery quality glass (and remounted where necessary) - again funded by our alumnus. An expert team from the Ashmolean has helped with the installation which was managed by the Archivist Dr Richard Allen and the SCR President Professor Abigail Williams.

Last summer, the JCR was completely refurbished and redecorated, and the

JCR kitchen will be upgraded in the summer. This Easter, the refurbishment and redecoration of the Canal House Basement has started. This longawaited project is important as part of the maintenance of this fine late

Georgian building, and also because it is often the first sight of the college for guests from the car park, and the home of four Fellows’ teaching rooms and offices.

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Below: View from the new Perrodo Building

We have reported over the past two years the gift from the Perrodo family to fund specific schemes to develop our buildings, teaching rooms, conference facilities and open spaces. Phase 1 of the programme began in August 2015 and main work was completed early in Trinity Term 2016, under budget.

Allies and Morrison were the architects, BHSLA the landscaping consultants, Edgar Taylor the main contractors and Andy Waterman (Waterman Project Management) the project manager for Phase 1. We are very pleased with the results, and we were very pleased that the work was recognised by a prestigious Oxford Preservation Trust Award in November 2016.

Design Engine are the architects for Phase 2 of the programme, and we were granted planning permission in October last year. We have

“All the Perrodo-funded work will improve the utility and aesthetics of the College hugely – and very importantly our teaching and conference facilities.” continued with BHSLA, Edgar Taylor and Waterman Project Management, along with most of the sub contractor and consultant team, from Phase 1.

Phase 2 focuses on improvements to Hannington Quad and the Chavasse Quad, and a new four-storey building against the Baptist Church wall – the Perrodo Building. In case you’re wondering, we’ve moved Peter Minns’ (the gardener) sheds; Project Shed along with the dismantling of the lime trees was one of the early enabling works of Phase 2.

This building will give us six new ensuite student rooms and a ground floor which could be used as an informal, quiet study area or a meeting/ reception room for college use and external events. The top floor of the building will have another large room for college use and external events,

opening on to a partially-covered terrace which will have outstanding new views over the quads towards and beyond the Chapel. There will be attractive terraced areas integrating the new building with the Chavasse Quad. The current, non-compliant disabled ramp is being rebuilt along the New Building, thus allowing for the two quads to be integrated by steps from the higher Hannington Quad to the lower Chavasse Quad.

We will also make significant improvements to the Chavasse Building’s ground floor teaching and conference rooms. These can be used as three separate rooms, or one or two larger, integrated spaces. Access to the kitchens will be improved to support the provision of catering services to these rooms. The improved audio visual facilities already in use in the Latner and Warriner rooms will be installed in these rooms.

The landscaping is a joy to experience and observe as the displays change with the seasons. The amelanchiers have recently flowered and dusted the lawn and paving stones with their white flower petals, and the spring bulbs are showing.

All the Perrodo-funded work will improve the utility and aesthetics of the College hugely – and very importantly our teaching and conference facilities.

Our students, fellows and staff will have a better experience. And all of this will have a beneficial impact on conference income too. Phase 2 will be finished at the end of this calendar year, and thanks to everyone for their support and patience throughout. We are immensely grateful to the Perrodo family for their generosity and support of the college. ❚

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“It’s never the subject that’s out of order but the way in which it is presented.”

Neha Shah (2015, English) interviews Ken Loach (1957, Jurisprudence)

I, KEN LOACH Since he graduated from St Peter’s more than half a century ago, Ken Loach has been making films centered around stark portrayals of anger and hurt, and his most recent one is no exception. I, Daniel Blake, winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a man who is broken by the British benefits system. His doctor says he is too unwell to work after a near-fatal heart attack, but the Department for Work and Pensions decides he is not entitled to sickness benefit.

Blake finds himself trapped in a downward spiral of bureaucracy and despair after his jobseeker’s allowance is suspended, because he is thought not to be trying hard enough to find the work he is unfit to do. There is little subtlety in the polemical film, but Loach’s criticism is a passionate and direct response to policies he believes are aimed at demeaning the worst off.

I, Daniel Blake is immensely moving – particularly a scene in a food bank, when a young mother who Blake has befriended breaks down from blind hunger and despair. I spoke to Loach about this: NS: Every so often, the food donation box in our JCR fills up, but in a way, that seems to be where our sense of social responsibility ends. When we drop a packet of biscuits or a tin of soup into a collection box, we often don’t think about where those will end up. But with this film, you took us on that journey…

KL: Yes, absolutely. What was extraordinary about that, whilst doing the film, was how clear it was that people are being humiliated and degraded and punished for being poor. I mean, they are reduced to hunger in their tens of thousands and yet we barely talk about it.

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This is happening on such a colossal scale – the figure found out was that in 2010 there were something like 25,000 charity food bags handed out; in 2015, just one group of foodbanks handed out 1,100,000 charity food parcels – and this isn’t an amount of food that you can live on. Half a million of those food bags went to families with children which means that there are nearly a million children in the UK that ate for part of that year because we put a tin of soup in a supermarket collection bin. That is so disgusting and shocking – and we’re barely discussing it. We talk about politics in this country as if situations like this just aren’t happening.

NS: Yes, absolutely. Has it been frustrating that reactions to I, Daniel Blake from politicians have been akin to those you got in the late 1960s for Cathy Come Home?

KL: No, quite the opposite – it’s actually been very reassuring.

You see, if they admitted that there was a problem, they’d be halfway to solving it. But they can’t, they are ideologically prevented from seeing that there is a problem because this is their system, this is what they want – this is the free market. This is a society in which the big corporations rule. I think a DWP spokesperson claimed that the film was a ‘work of fiction’ – they’ve been laughing at it, and in a way, that’s the best response. You want them to defend the system, because it’s their creation.

People have asked us if we want to show the film to the Prime Minister or to Iain Duncan Smith and we have said ‘absolutely not’ – they don’t need to see it, they know exactly what they are doing. This isn’t happening by accident. If Paul Laverty (the film’s writer) can just walk into food banks and hear these stories in the hundreds, then the politicians must know what is going on. If they say they don’t know, they are either lying or incompetent, and if they say they do know, they are morally bankrupt. Either way, they shouldn’t be in public life.

NS: I understand that the homelessness charity Shelter was set up around the same time as your film Cathy Come

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“What was extraordinary… was how clear it was that people are being humiliated and degraded and punished for being poor.”

Home came out in 1966. I worry that we have become so desensitised to stories like this that I, Daniel Blake simply won’t lead to social change on the same scale?

KL: People often say things like I, Daniel Blake should have generated enough of a reaction to get these issues re-debated in parliament, but I think, in a way, there’s not much to debate. The government knows that through Work Capability Assessments it is condemning people to do things that they are physically not capable of doing; and they know that the culture of sanctions condemns people to hunger. They also know that there are other ways of dealing with it, but instead they encourage the public to accept these situations as normal.

NS: Much of the story deals with suffocating bureaucracy.

Was it a challenge to make that dramatic? Was it harder to generate that kind of story, where people are struggling under the system day-to-day, than with films like Land and Freedom about revolution in Spain, where people are at the height of their power and confidence?

KL: That’s a difficult question. I did some research with the writer Paul Laverty (and he did a whole lot more!) and we always talked about the morass of bureaucracy. The key to dramatising this was finding a question or a character that would take you through it, illuminate it and not get lost in the sea of detail. Obviously you can’t tick every box or show

Left: Neha Shah interviewing Ken Loach

Below: Postscreening discussion with Ken Loach in the JCR

“The good thing about film is that it can be a lot of different things, and one of those things is a weapon in a struggle. It doesn’t have to be – just to make people laugh is a good enough reason to make a film. However, if you have respect for the medium of cinema, then it gives it a weight and a seriousness that makes it have a valuable contribution...”

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every situation that could arise, but it was a question of finding a story that could stand for everyone else’s story, too.

NS: Some of the criticism you’ve met with recently appears to suggest that cinema is a costly and almost frivolous method of exposing suffering, when straight-up political commentary would suffice. What are your thoughts on this?

KL: The good thing about film is that it can be a lot of different things, and one of those things is a weapon in a struggle. It doesn’t have to be – just to make people laugh is a good enough reason to make a film. However, if you have respect for the medium of cinema, then it gives it a weight and a seriousness that makes it have a valuable contribution that makes it relevant to suffering. We often think of film as just a complement to the popcorn, there to entertain in the simplest sense of the word. And if it could only do that, then it would be out of place, but cinema is often a form of activism in itself.

NS: Are there any events or issues that you feel are resistant to effective portrayal in film?

KL: It’s always in how you do it – there is a scene in I, Daniel Blake where Katie has to sell herself to feed her children.

And you could film that in a way that would prurient – you could make it much more sexualised, which would demean the film. I firmly believe that film can tackle any subject; when it’s wrong, it’s never the subject that’s out of order but the way in which it is presented.

NS: Your films have tackled a range of topics – some political, some social, some personal. How do you find your subjects? Does it come from wanting to make a film about a particular issue, or does it come from finding a particular person or story, which then leads to an issue?

KL: Well, Paul (Laverty) and I have worked together for a quarter of a century now, so it comes from a kind of shared feeling that when we see something that makes us angry, we want to illustrate it with a story of two or three characters. You want to tell a story that is a microcosm, but that illustrates a broader truth, a broader struggle.

NS: I’m always impressed by the naturalism you get from very often unknown actors, or in some cases, non-professionals. I was interested to read that Dave Johns is a bricklayerturned-comic. How does your casting process work?

KL: It’s an extremely long process, we look everywhere and we see lots and lots of people. Mostly, we look for people who will make themselves

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vulnerable, who we know are authentic in how they speak, and who have an awareness of how they use language.

We do like to use people we have met, especially if they have been affected by the issues that we are trying to portray, who have never acted before, but mostly our main characters are all professional actors. The trouble with getting actors who are well-known is that people see the film star, not the character – and that ruins it.

NS: Taking you back to your time at St Peter’s, what is your fondest memory of the college?

KL: The whole experience was completely breathtaking.

For someone who was young, coming here in 1957 – not long after the war – from a small industrial town, I was just knocked out by it. I’d done two years National Service which had wrecked my capacity to do academic work, but the effect of walking through this city was overwhelming.

In my first term, I was in a play by the Experimental Theatre Company at the Oxford Playhouse, alongside actors like Dudley Moore. Critics from the London daily papers came to see us, and it was absolutely extraordinary. I had to pinch myself every morning to make sure I was really here.

NS: What advice would you have for current SPC students?

KL: Enjoy it! Take part in as much as you can. If you’re doing a subject that you care about, work hard. If you’re not, do enough to get by. But please, make the most of it.

Be involved, do the things that seem important to you at the time, and do them with energy and passion. You won’t regret that. You’ll learn a lot. The most important lessons I learnt here didn’t take place in the tutor’s office. ❚

A view of the role of a political journalist, and the challenges they face Helen Lewis (2001, English), deputy editor of the New Statesman

TRYING TO BURST THE

WESTMINSTER BUBBLE There is a lot of talk about how political journalists are part of the ‘Westminster bubble’ and therefore not in touch with Real Britain. But at the start of the election campaign I went to the Birmingham suburb of Yardley, and many people felt the same way I did: it’s all a bit much. Scotland is having its fourth national vote in four years; Britain is having its third in three.

After David Cameron’s downfall, his successor Theresa May found the 2015 manifesto – designed as the starting point for more coalition negotiations – far too restrictive.

Meanwhile, Labour helped save the British union by campaigning strongly against Scottish independence, but sharing platforms with the Tories cost the party dearly – and allowed the SNP to win a landslide in 2015.

The British political system is under great strain. First past the post is supposed to deliver strong, majority governments. But the hung parliament of 2010 kicked off a series of interconnected events. The Conservatives first allied with the Liberal Democrats, then pursued a strategy of ‘decapitation’ against their coalition partners. That won them a majority, but it also meant there was no hiding from an EU referendum.

It’s now a favoured sport of both BBC hosts and internet commenters to mock political journalists for their predictions. But, really, who could have seen all this coming?

One of the few times my crystal ball worked was just before the 2015 election at an event at St Peter’s with The Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens and the BBC’s Ben Wright, where I predicted that Cameron would stay on as Prime Minister.

Last year, I also believed that Donald Trump would win.

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Dishearteningly for a journalist at the New Statesman, my only successes have come in predicting the worst possible outcome for the liberal left.

Over the past five years, whenever I’ve told people that I’m a political journalist, the usual response is: you must be keeping busy. They’re not wrong.

And all these political earthquakes have coincided with a period of intense turmoil for the media. When I joined the New Statesman in 2010, our website was more like a blog – now it’s a behemoth. We have a dedicated social media editor, weekly and daily newsletters, three digital editions and four podcasts.

have to react more quickly, and compete with social media.

Working at a small organisation intensifies the need to be able to turn your hand to anything. I enjoy being a jackof-all trades: reporting, writing features, chairing events, podcasting, doing television and radio shows alongside my office job of editing. I went into journalism because I am nosy and have a short attention span.

It’s worked out brilliantly.

“‘Fake news’ is far less of a problem in Britain than America, but the reason for that is not a happy one – it’s because our press is already so polarised there is no gap for heavily-skewed Facebook pages to fill.”

We’ve had to learn to deal with Facebook and Google – giants which are both bountiful founts of traffic and our competitors for ad revenue. (Between them, the two tech companies control 66 per cent of all digital advertising.) Our journalism reaches more people than ever before – but the economics of producing it are just as tricky. My hunch is that the resistance to paywalls and leaky ‘pay fences’ has weakened in the past few years as the internet has become a mundane part of everyday life, not an anarchic Wild West.

During my time at the New Statesman, the role of journalists has also changed. Most newspapers now have smaller staffs and tighter budgets, so there are fewer specialists and more people for whom journalism is only part of their life. We also

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However, there are undoubtedly downsides to this drift. Specialist reporters, who had decades of experience in their chosen area, are in decline. That means fiendishly complicated government policies, finance arrangements and outsourcing deals don’t get the scrutiny they need. Local papers have closed at an alarming rate (198 since 2005, according to the Press Gazette) with the gap filled by council propaganda sheets. Journalists at websites which aggressively aggregate content, such as The Huffington Post and MailOnline, might be expected to write four or more stories every day.

That doesn’t leave much time for original research or oldfashioned reporting.

‘Fake news’ is far less of a problem in Britain than America, but the reason for that is not a happy one – it’s because our press is already so polarised there is no gap for heavily- skewed Facebook pages to fill. The social network incentivises strong opinion – who clicks to share a bland

news story? – and publishers experience no real backlash to publishing unfair commentary, not even the mockery of peers or a loss of trust by readers.

Since the selection of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, the New Statesman has faced occasional questions from readers wondering why our coverage is not as relentlessly positive as the stuff they could find on Facebook. It’s hard to avoid sounding patronising when the answer is simple: because we are trying to be accurate, rather than tell people what they want to hear.

In the office, I work across both print and digital – and although I love the web, I hope that print survives for as long as possible. There’s something focusing about a print deadline: the weekly magazine is the best possible snapshot of the world we can put together with the available time and resources. We currently send it to press on a Tuesday night, and it arrives on the newsstand on a Thursday morning. Occasionally, this leisurely lead time (caused by a reduction in the number of printing plants, another casualty of the internet) is frustrating. We’ve had long conversations about how to deal with UK elections, which are usually held on Thursdays. Print early? Print late?

Don’t print at all?

carefully. I’ve tried to recreate some of that structure for our web writers, because the lack of hard deadlines is one of the biggest challenges of online journalism. (What’s the difference between a journalist and a novelist? Deadlines.)

Sometimes, we work months ahead: our recent Russian Revolution centenary issue was conceived late last year, giving us a chance to get the most interesting historians of the period to contribute. Other times, it’s a mad scramble to execute a last-minute idea as well as we can. Earlier this year, we found ourselves lamenting the lack of opposition to a ‘hard Brexit’, given the weakness of the Labour party and the left in general. We pulled together an issue on the subject – with contributors including Robert Harris, Paul Mason, Hilary Mantel and Billy Bragg – in two weeks flat.

So that’s the life of a political journalist. Busy? Yes. Boring?

Never. ❚

In the end, though, we changed our thinking – and our readers showed us the way. Following the last election and the EU referendum, the bestselling issues were those after the vote, not before. Our readers don’t need us to tell them the facts, as they can get those from any number of other sources. What they want is high-quality analysis from trusted experts. They want to know what bigger forces are driving the froth of everyday headlines: populism, deindustralisation, inequality, the rise of AI, the resurgence of nationalism.

They also want depth, which is hard to consume from inky great flapping newspapers. We’ve worked on making the magazine nicer to hold (thanks to a reduction in size to just over A4) and more beautiful to look at, with bespoke illustrations on the cover and far more pocket cartoons.

Having the print magazine also gives structure to the week: a crescendo as we approach our deadline, followed by a chance to think and plan more

Left: Three SPC alumni: Ben Wright (BBC Political Correspondent), Martin Ivens (Editor, Sunday Times) and Helen Lewis (Deputy Editor, New Statesman) talking about General Election 2015

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Looking back on a year of remembrance Dr Richard Allen, College Archivist

THE CHAVASSE FAMILY IN WORLD WAR I It is somewhat of a St Peter’s cliché that many of us who come to call the college home have never heard the name Chavasse before we get here. Having spent what seems like every waking hour of the past two years living and breathing all things Chavasse, it is now difficult to imagine how, in my particular case, this was ever possible. After all, the Chavasse name is not just linked with St Peter’s, but it is synonymous with the cathedral and city of Liverpool, and is known to generations of men and women associated with Trinity College, Oxford, Magdalen College School and Rochester Cathedral, to name but a few.

The name Chavasse is, of course, also intimately linked with the courage and sacrifice of the many who lived through the First World War. Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse (1884-1917) was the only person to win the Victoria Cross twice during the conflict, while his sister, May (1886-1989) volunteered in a field hospital from 1915 to 1918. Each of the seven children of Bishop Francis James Chavasse (1846-1928), founder of St Peter’s, and his wife, Edith (1851-1927), sought to do their part either at home or in the trenches of the Western Front.

This past year, it has been my privilege to help organise a series of St Peter’s events to remember these deeds as

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part of the wider World War I centenary celebrations taking place around the country. These events included a number of memorial lectures, two unveilings, an exhibition and an Evensong, all of which sought not just to commemorate, but also to educate and inform both St Peter’s members and the wider public as a whole.

Planning for the events began almost as soon as I arrived at St Peter’s in May 2015 (in fact, some of the groundwork had been laid by my predecessor, Sean Rippington). However, it would be almost a year to the day that the college finally welcomed General Sir Nicholas Houghton, then Chief of the Defence Staff, to deliver the inaugural Chavasse memorial lecture to kick everything off.

Speaking on the theme of ‘Lions led by Donkeys’, Sir Nick, who is both an alumnus (1977, History) and Honorary Fellow, examined the criticism often levelled at the military leadership during World War I and its portrayal in popular media. He also touched upon leadership in the modern Armed Forces and the inspiration that figures such as Noel Chavasse, to whom more memorials are dedicated than any other British serviceman, still provide. As befitting a visit by Britain’s highest military officer, the talk was the scene of many uniforms and

Above: The Chavasse family, c. 1904. Noel Chavasse is in the back row on the

right; his identical twin, Christopher, is standing second from left

Right: General Sir Nick Houghton speaking at the Chavasse Memorial Lecture

much pageantry, including a Liverpool Scottish piper who played both guests and speaker in to dinner afterwards.

The bagpipers returned in force three months later for the unveiling of a special commemorative paving slab in honour of Noel Chavasse. The slab sits outside the Mair Gate between the house in which Noel was born (36 New Inn Hall Street) and the church, now the college chapel, where he was baptised and worshipped. It was unveiled as part of a nationwide initiative to honour the Victoria Cross winners of the First World War. Noel’s slab is, of course, unique. Given that at least two other Oxford institutions, and those located elsewhere, can partly lay claim to his legacy, it is quite a coup for the college to have it. The unveiling, which coincided with the centenary of Noel’s first VC (9 August 1916, Guillemont), was performed by the Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire and by

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Noel’s nephew, Thomas Chavasse (1952, Zoology), and his great-great-nephew, James. On hand were more than 30 members of the current Chavasse family, along with many of the same civic and military dignitaries who had come to the Houghton lecture, including representatives from the Liverpool Scottish and the Royal Army Medical Corps, to whom Noel was attached during the war.

The bagpipe band, and the various uniforms and banners, also helped attract the interest of the passing public, many of whom stopped to stand and watch. The whole event was very moving, and included poignant speeches by the Lord-Lieutenant and the Master, as well as a spine-tingling rendition of The Lament by Pipe Major Jay Axon of the Liverpool Scottish Association.

The otherwise quiet of the summer months also gave time for preparations to be made for the Chavasse in World War I exhibition, which was scheduled to launch in conjunction with the Alumni Weekend of 17-18 September.

Putting together an exhibition is always a daunting task. It is one thing to have a theme, and a particular story within that theme, but sometimes another thing entirely to have the artefacts to do it justice. Fortunately, the Chavasse papers, which form part of the St Peter’s Archives, are so rich that the chief problem became what to leave out.

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“While Noel is rightly famous, his siblings are in many ways no less outstanding. Both Christopher and Bernard were awarded the Military Cross for their actions, while Aidan, the youngest of the four boys, lost his life on 4 July 1917...”

The whole display was also greatly enriched by the loan of other documents and artefacts belonging to Trinity College, Magdalen College School, and the Chavasse family itself.

Staged in the chapel over three months, the exhibition sought to trace the arc of the family’s life and influence before, during and after the war, and provided an excellent opportunity for light to be shed on the Chavasse collective story. Indeed, while Noel is rightly famous, his siblings are in many ways no less outstanding. Both Christopher and Bernard were awarded the Military Cross for their actions, while Aidan, the youngest of the four boys, lost his life on 4 July 1917 in the last of many dangerous missions for which he volunteered. Originally believed captured, the Chavasse

Left: The unveiling of a special commemorative paving slab in honour of Noel Chavasse

Above: A few of the 3000 visitors to the Chavasse exhibition held at the Chapel

CROSS KEYS / SUMMER 2017/ 17 /

papers show how the family searched desperately for Aidan, who was not pronounced officially dead until almost eight months after his disappearance. May, meanwhile, served as a ward maid in a mobile hospital for most of the war, for which she was mentioned in despatches, while her parents and sisters helped send much-needed supplies to the front.

The exhibition also gave the chance to tell the Chavasse story to members of the wider public. Thanks to local news coverage and a large vinyl banner on the gates outside the newly-remodelled entrance, a steady stream of visitors made their way to the chapel. Almost 3,000 people eventually took the time to learn about this most remarkable family and, in many instances, to wander around the college.

Among those to see the exhibition was the award-winning broadcaster, journalist and author, Jeremy Paxman, who in mid-October packed the Sheldonian Theatre for the second Chavasse memorial lecture, entitled ‘World War I: The War to End War’. In a typically wide-ranging and memorable talk, Jeremy used the occasion to touch upon the daily horrors of trench warfare and offered his thoughts on the tactics employed during the conflict and the wider geopolitical circumstances that led to war. He also spoke about the political, economic and social changes ushered in by World War I, in whose shadow we still live today.

Less than two weeks later, things moved back to St Peter’s and the chapel, where a special Evensong, featuring a joint performance by the choirs of St Peter’s and Trinity College, was held to mark the publication on 24 October 1916 of the full citation for Noel Chavasse’s first Victoria Cross.

As with every event in the series, the service, which was organised by the Chaplain and our Director of Music, Jeremy

Summerly, was extremely well attended. The 80 orders of service printed fell well short of the 120-plus people, including many of the Chavasse family, in attendance.

The curtain closer, as it were, came a month later with the final memorial lecture, which was delivered by the Rt Revd (now the Rt Revd Sir) James Jones, former bishop of Liverpool (1998-2013) and college visitor, who spoke on the theme of ’The ways of God are strange‘: Faith in the trenches of the First World War’. Sir James, who is the spiritual successor of Bishop Francis Chavasse, spoke movingly not just about the role that faith played in the lives of the Chavasse family, and how it dictated their actions throughout the war, but also how it helped many ordinary soldiers come to terms with the horrors of the trenches.

Speaking of Noel in particular, who in his Oxford days had been most impressed with speeches by the socialists Keir Hardie (1856-1915) and George Lansbury (1859-1940), the bishop put forward the idea that had Noel lived he might have become one of the leading Christian socialists in the mould of William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury (1942-1944). Letters in the college archives reveal that Christopher Chavasse met William Temple while at Oxford as a student, and that the future archbishop was invited to visit the Chavasse residence in Liverpool in January 1908. It is therefore almost certain that his and Noel’s paths would have crossed, all of which serves to make the bishop’s idea even more fascinating.

The event was topped off by the unveiling of the Chavasse family medals, which are now on permanent display in the chapel in two museum-quality display cases either side of Noel’s wooden grave cross. Noel’s original medals are still at the Imperial War Museum, but alongside replicas of these hang the original decorations awarded to Christopher,

Left: Jeremy Paxman talking at the ‘World War I: War to End War’ Lecture at the Sheldonian Theatre Right: The Rt Revd James Jones speaking at the final memorial lecture, ‘The ways of God are strange‘: Faith in the trenches of the First World War’ Far right: Noel Chavasse (right) and Christopher Chavasse (left) in 1907

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Bernard, Aidan and May, which have been most generously loaned in perpetuity by the current Chavasse family, in particular Thomas Chavasse and Dr Charles Chavasse.

know many members of the current Chavasse family, who have been unfailing in their support and encouragement.

There are 30 medals in total, of which 21 were awarded for actions during the Great War. The display has been made possible thanks to a significant benefaction by Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (1961, History) and it is a magnificent addition to the chapel. It will help educate and inform visitors of the duty, courage and faith of the Chavasse family long after the centenary celebrations are over.

Special thanks are due to Thomas Chavasse, Dr Charles Chavasse, Peter Chavasse, Steven Chavasse (1979, Physiological Sciences), the Revd Father Paul Chavasse, Camilla Kinton (née Chavasse) and Emily Doherty. A special debt of gratitude is also owed to representatives of the Liverpool Scottish Association and its RAMC equivalent, in particular Brigadier (Retd) Barry Smith, Colonel (Retd) Christopher Davies MBE, Major (Retd) Roy Boardman, and Pipe Major Axon and his fantastic pipe band.

Of course, the centenary marking the end of the war that came, in part, to define the Chavasse family, as it did so many others, is still some way off. The coming year will see the 100th anniversaries of the deaths of both Aidan Chavasse and his brother Noel, whose posthumous bar to his VC was awarded for his actions between 31 July and 2 August 1917. I have already been contacted by a number of people involved in planning commemorative events, both here in the UK and overseas. It is my hope that St Peter’s will be able to participate somehow while also holding its own small event to mark the occasion (things are complicated somewhat by the presence of the summer schools, which take over the college in July and August).

Of course, thanks are finally due to all the speakers, performers and participants, without whom the series would not have been possible. They have helped drive home the tremendous sacrifices made during the war by the Chavasse family, whose story, although in many ways remarkable, also reflects the experiences of so many others, both in Britain and elsewhere. It is a story that deserves to be retold and remembered. Given the enthusiasm and genuine emotion I have seen expressed over the past few months, I feel confident that in another 100 years my successor will be sitting down to write something very similar. ❚

But whatever takes place over the summer, the way in which people have engaged with the events held between May and November has reminded us all at college of the esteem in which the Chavasse family is held.

To have been involved in them has been a great pleasure for me personally. I have not only had the opportunity, as all archivists do, to work hands-on with important – and very often – intimate historical documents, but I have got to

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ALUMNI INTERVIEW A Japan journey – from St Peter’s to the restoration of temples The Master, Mark Damazer, interviews David Atkinson (1983, Oriental Studies)

Why did you choose to study Japanese?

I knew nothing about Japan at all. My language A Level was in German but in 1982 Japan looked like a society that was powerfully on the move and Europe – a generalisation I know – was not going through a boom period. The best-selling book Japan as Number One by Ezra Vogel, a Harvard professor, had been published a few years earlier in 1979 and Japan held a certain fascination.

My father advised me to go to Oxbridge or just forget about University altogether. My grammar school in Grantham (Lincolnshire) did not send many students to Oxbridge – it was farming country and people were heavily involved in the agriculture business and a lot of good pupils just stayed put – but my headmaster had been to St Peter’s and that had an impact. (For what it’s worth, my mother had been at school with Mrs Thatcher).

And then – to St Peter’s and Oxford – first impressions?

We were hurled into it and, in all honesty, there were not many support systems. It was tough to adapt – both academically and to some extent personally. Oriental Studies was (and is) a small department and the teaching was more centralised than for bigger subjects. Half of the 12 students in my year had a background in Japanese language in some way or another – and not that much consideration was given to those that had not.

What did you do in your year away (as part of all the language courses)?

I ended up teaching English in a Japanese girls’ boarding school – remarkably like St Trinian’s. The girls were not much interested in academic

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life. Nor were their parents. At least I found out that I did not want to be a teacher!

But I did learn that year about the tea ceremony and calligraphy – from a wonderful calligraphy master. I had to learn how to shape and balance Japanese language characters and I came back to that later in life.

So when did it fall into place?

It took a while for me to find the teacher who triggered a real and deep interest in the subject – Professor James McMullen – a fabulous man – who taught us classical Japanese (to modern Japanese what Latin is to English). He really cared about his subject and I think that I really discovered the value of scholarship from him. In the early days, I remember when I made a particularly egregious mistake – he would take an audible, very audible deep breath. It was as if I had stamped him in the gut. I knew I was doing better when he stopped calling me David and started calling me Dave. He taught me the value of precision and constructive scepticism.

And I loved Finals Year. By then I had got to grips with classical Japanese and Japanese history and economics.

The more I did the more I liked it.

And other than the work?

I captained the tennis team. There were not that many takers for the job.

We were not wholly successful. I sang in the choir. I don’t think the music at St Peter’s was as vibrant then as it seems to be now.

And your first job?

Andersen Consulting. I was sent quickly to New York because Japanese companies were all opening in New

York and they needed Japanese speakers. That was all fine – and then the Japanese financial bubble burst. For some reason a lot of the banking analysts at that time just did not do much real analysis. They were somewhat journalistic in their approach. I was rather attracted to the evidence – the capital ratios of banks and so on. And the evidence turned out to be useful – if not always popular.

I was eventually recruited by Goldman Sachs and was the first analyst to quantify the size of the banking crisis.

The banks’ real estate portfolios were disastrous. Initially, no-one took any interest in our analysis of the size of the problem and its debilitating effect on the economy.

And then the Japanese government took an interest?

The banks had to be refinanced. That was clear. They were resisting the logic.

In the end, they took our advice: a) that they needed to do it and b) how to do it. As it turns out one of the politicians I worked with then is someone I now work with very closely on Japan’s new tourism strategy.

So then comes a radical turn to these Japanese temples and shrines – a huge switch.

Not straightaway. I had done a long stint in financial analysis and decided to take a break. I restored a Japanese house in Kyoto (author’s note – I have been there and it is beautiful and amazing). I learnt the tea ceremony.

A neighbour had been trying to get me involved in what was then her family business (Konishi) – the restoration of Japanese temples – and I had been resisting. She took me to one of the restoration sites and I succumbed.

between Japanese and Chinese lacquer!

And now you are involved more widely in Japan’s tourist business?

I had been arguing with the government, badgering them really, that they needed to invest more in their own heritage – including of course the restoration of their temples, palaces and shrines. (There are 150,000 of them). They were spending a trivial sum (50 million pounds). A politician friend told me that the only way they would do it was if I mounted an economic case.

So I set out to do that starting in 2014.

Japan had then an astonishingly under-developed inbound tourist industry. They were scarcely making any effort. I wrote a book on that – and it was noticed. (There have been two books since) The press and broadcasters took an interest.

I was a wacky foreigner but they were intrigued, and then some MPs got involved. Japan did not, in fact, have a tourist strategy at all and Japan needs growth sectors – the economic context is set in part by their very poor demography. There are not enough workers. They need new sources of wealth.

I began part-time. The company was – not to put too fine a point on it – in a bit of a mess. The financial position was weak and the working practices were not up to that much either.

Then the main executive died and the workers asked me to run the business.

So a foreigner ends up running a large slice of Japan’s heritage business. And the Japanese have a reputation for insularity!

The first year at Konishi was very grim.

The other companies in the sector hated having a foreigner involved. We were one of the two biggest firms and they decided to work collectively to squeeze us out. They tried predatory pricing and manipulating the Industry Association. It was seriously unpleasant.

Was there a big turning point?

In one sense – yes. I had decided to put quality first and see what would happen. Konishi was doing a project poorly and I offered the temple concerned to repaint all the shoddy work – at our expense. The temple was amazed and word got around.

And then I decided to change the nature of staff contracts by putting the workers – who are spread all over Japan – on proper contracts which gave them better employment rights such as pensions and so on. They responded to that. Staff turnover went down and the quality of work went up.

As for me – I now know a lot about Japanese lacquer – and the difference

So now I get to sit on the government’s Tourist Strategy Committee. We are moving on things like – yes – the restoration budget, but also Wi-Fi availability, the ease of getting a visa to come to Japan, beautifying the parks, and much more. The aim is to get to 60 million foreign tourists a year by 2030. There were about 8 million just a few years ago, up to 24 million in 2016!

A lot of this work – thinking about tourism and the economy – takes me back a bit to my first career as an analyst.

So now the Japanese are acting on your advice?

They are extraordinary. They push back and explain why it cannot be done – until they decide to do it. And then they do it brilliantly and, in my view, more effectively than anyone else does. Watch this space!❚

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ALUMNI INTERVIEW Turning Passion into Business Olga Batty, Alumni Relations Manager, talks to Srin Madipalli, (SPC 2012, MBA), entrepreneur, coder, commercial lawyer, writer, traveller and CEO and co-founder of Accomable.

How did Accomable come about?

Accomable is our startup. It is a hotel and accommodation booking platform for people who are disabled or have any kind of mobility problem, or who are elderly. At the moment, it’s really hard to find services that are accessible, and it’s difficult to know whether a property or a vacation rental is suitable. Even if you are just booking a hotel, you often struggle to find all the necessary information online. At Accomable, we find really good adapted listings and our team vets them so that our users can book accessible travel via our website.

Today, we are a team of eight, and we now list more than 1,100 properties in 60 countries and have customers all over the world.

How did you come up with this business idea?

I have a condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy so I have been a wheelchair user pretty much all

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my life. I hadn’t travelled much, but towards the end of 2010 I took some time off work (I used to be a lawyer) to go travelling. The countries and the people were all incredible but I didn’t easy to organise anything: a lot of the times I would turn up in places that were listed as accessible to find out they weren’t anything like what they were supposed to be. It was very frustrating. It was at that time when my friend and I started a travel blog which became rather popular with more than 40,000 regular readers.

What did you write about?

I shared my experiences, the resources I used, where I had been. We had lots of really good feedback and engagement with people who visited the same places and had the same issues. When I went back to work as a lawyer, I had to travel a lot for work and, again, that was really hard. So when I left law to go to Oxford, I had been looking for an idea I could get really passionate about, really get

stuck into, so I focused on travel and helping other people with disabilities to travel more. We thought about what we could do to solve this problem.

Rather than an aha! moment, it was something I had been thinking about for a while, and I gradually came to a point when I was ready to create something new.

Did you decide to go for an MBA hoping it would help you develop your start-up?

Yes, when I left Law I did have an open mind as to what I would do. I wanted to be somewhere where people are really motivated, smart and proactive, so when I started my MBA course at Saïd Business School, I attended various careers events and spoke to different professionals and organisations. I had some rough ideas of what I was interested in and my aim was to meet people with a similar mindset. Being in that environment was incredibly stimulating.

“When an institution has engaged alumni who want to give back, it enhances the experiences for current students. When I was at Oxford, just hearing what people have done after they graduated gave me some ideas, new food for thought.”

What was your first impression of St Peter’s?

I loved it. As it happened, I left an environment I was very unhappy in. It was very corporate, quite cold sometimes and just very businesslike, whereas at St Peter’s you feel more like you are part of a community.

Because it’s a small college, everybody is very engaged, friendly and really passionate about what they do. For me, it was very stimulating. People around the college were always talking about something interesting they were working on. It’s an environment that just gets you going again as a person.

And it hits you immediately, within days of being there. I guess it was a bit strange being there as a mature student, for want of a better phrase.

Coming back to University after you’ve been in the world of work for several years is a very strange but exciting feeling. And I would actually say that going back to University after a career is a much better experience than being an undergraduate student. I did absolutely love it.

As an alumnus, you often come back to speak at University events.

Why do you think it’s important to share your experiences with current students?

I believe when you go to University you usually gain a lot of experience, so you do feel duty-bound to give back later on. When an institution has engaged alumni who want to give back, it enhances the experiences for current students. When I was at Oxford, just hearing what people have done after they graduated gave me some ideas, new food for thought. For me, if you have gained an experience, you have an obligation to pass it on to the next generation of students. Most recently, I took part in Oxford Inspires, which is the University’s main entrepreneurship conference. Essentially, it involves a lot

of alumni talking about their start-ups and giving practical advice.

It is obvious that your business ideas are fuelled by your love of travel. You have visited many places and done some adventures of a more extreme kind. Can you give some examples?

Sure. On my time off a few years ago I went diving in Bali. I found a special adapted diving centre and we did wreck dives at a sunk US WW2 ship. It was a unique experience. I also went out on a camping safari in South Africa. I found this company that had accessible tents and equipment. We were in the wilderness and it was very exciting. I have also done lots of trekking in the mountains. I love the outdoors.

Have you ever been in trouble during your travels?

Oh, plenty of times. Once I landed in Sydney and discovered that my wheelchair had been smashed to pieces. I was stranded. Luckily, the airline was able to source a back-up wheelchair from a local shop. It wasn’t anything like mine, it was terrible, but things like this happen. Generally, there have been plenty of situations where services like taxis, hotels, and so on have not turned out to be as they were advertised. You just have to think on the spot and find a way to get yourself back to where you need to be.

Last year, you were invited to speak at the International Paralympic Committee Inclusion Summit in Rio. Can you tell me more about it?

It was a fascinating experience. We started the company in the summer of 2015, so getting an invite from the IPC within a year of launching was an honour. There was an article about us in the Evening Standard and somebody from the IPC got in touch and said they were organising this event during the Paralympic Games.

It was a talk to the audience of business leaders, media and the government representatives on the advantages of making towns and cities around the world more accessible. They asked me to talk about what we are doing with Accomable and how we are trying to help disabled travellers. My point was that it doesn’t just have a charitable purpose, there is a practical benefit for towns and cities to become more accessible. You are not doing it just because it’s the right thing to do, there’s a genuine business case for it.

Did you get the chance to see the Games?

Yes, as I was there as a guest of the IPC, I could go and watch any event. I spent a couple of days going around the park, watched some swimming, cycling, athletics, tennis. And I spent a day going around Rio as well, so I got to see the Christ the Redeemer statue.

It was quite funny, actually, because there is no lift to get to the top, just an escalator. I had really wanted to see it so we had to perform a bit of an Evel Knievel stunt: you drive your wheelchair up to the escalator, then the escalator gets switched off. A bunch of people hold on to you for dear life, then they switch the escalator back on and it brings all of you up.

How many friends did it take?

It took three people and it was very funny. I posted the video on YouTube and my mum saw it and she was not happy! The view from the top was absolutely worth the effort.

In your interviews you always say that you like to get out of your comfort zone. What is the next challenge?

Every year, I try and do one big thing.

When I started Accomable, learning to code was the biggest challenge.

I started learning at the college actually, and I built the first version of the website. Last year, I did a public speaking course and an impromptu comedy club and I had my first public performance. This year, I have just applied to learn to drive and I’m still working out the logistics. There will be a heavily-adapted vehicle with a joystick and a lot of technology in it, so I’d quite like for it to be the next big project. ❚

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THE SPIRITS OF

CROSSBONES GRAVEYARD Professor Sondra Hausner is an anthropologist, and teaches the study of religion as it developed over the 19th and 20th centuries. In this article she talks about her second monograph, The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard: Time, Ritual, and Sexual Commerce in London (Indiana 2016), where she investigates the dynamics of ritual through a contemporary gathering that commemorates medieval Southwark sex workers.

Professor Sondra Hausner, Fellow and Tutor in Theology and Religion

In December 2009, I began research on a little-known ritual that has taken place in Southwark for the past decade or so. It is a recent innovation and a local one, but it centres on a story that is much older and broader: the ritual aims to commemorate the souls of Medieval sex workers, who were ostensibly buried in the plot of land in front of which contemporary congregants gather.

The participants of the contemporary ritual are aware of the symbolic meaning of the story they tell. They know that memorials are as much about the living as the dead, and that sex work is a practice that has never had much social

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clout, as valuable as it might be to individual societies and livelihoods, or to individual passions.

An anthropologist’s job is to get beneath the surface of the story of the narrative – however self-conscious it may be – and unpack the cultural logic that explains how it is that a ritual action comes into being in a particular place and time. In this case, by the time my research on the ritual was complete, in December 2016, I realised that it was about sex work and also about local economies – the different modes of exchange in which human societies engage – in the face of a dramatically changing south London.

of Winchester. In fact, she identified as a Winchester Goose, argot for a medieval prostitute. She and her fellow Winchester Geese had been sex workers in what were called “stew[e] s,” or brothels – or in some colloquial accounts, “nunneries” – on London’s south bank, in what is now the Borough of Southwark, a mere five hundred years ago.

Left: The Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark, London Right: The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard by Prof Sondra Hausner, Indiana University Press, September 2016

It is impossible to establish exactly when these Southwark stews were first set up, but we know they operated at least from the late 14th century to the mid-16th century. Prostitution in the area very likely preceded this date, however, and we know from court documents intending to bring offenders to trial that it continued long after. Sex work, lest we forget, is the world’s oldest profession, as it is said, and places on the periphery – where Southwark once was – are likely to be the host locations for the perennial trade of love for money, whether or not that exchange is considered a sin.

A place that had been on the periphery for many centuries had relatively recently become the centre of urban London’s and the globe’s attention, with skyrocketing property prices and the Shard towering over the cityscape. This ritual was a form of local activism, a shaking of the fist against big business, mainstream ecclesiology, transnational corporate economies, and gentrification, all in one.

The book oscillates between ethnographic work in the present and historical work in the past. It accounts for the lives, such as we know of them, of the sex workers who later became known as ‘Winchester Geese’ as well as the changing mores of gender, work and sexuality over time, from the Medieval period through the Reformation and into the present. As the ritual brings contemporary participants into the past and back again, so too does the book move back and forth, showing how ritual narrative about history is as much about what effects it may have today.

Whether such a transaction is more sinful than most is the subject of much debate in many places and among many populations: the halls of academe and the churches of England are some of the places where people have pondered whether prostitution should be legal or illegal, supported or barred – and whether the women who sell sex should be pitied or protected, kept down or bolstered up. Religious institutions throughout history and across the world have had to negotiate the ineffable power of sexual attraction and desire – and the resultant place of sex work in society – no matter how much emphasis they also place on moral sexual standards, or on the importance of family, kinship, and marital relations within the home.

“...the halls of academe and the churches of England are some of the places where people have pondered whether prostitution should be legal or illegal, supported or barred – and whether the women who sell sex should be pitied or protected, kept down or bolstered up.”

It is a theoretical intervention about ritual and also, I hope, about social structure and the role sex work plays in gender hierarchies at the most general level. But it is also very concretely about Southwark, in ritual form, through history and through presence, organically embodied in the garden that has become a graveyard. *****Extract***** On November 23rd, 1996, a London playwright and performer by the name of John Constable had a shamanic vision. In it, a totemic goose appeared to tell him her tale. She was the spirit of a particular goose, one who hailed from the jurisdiction

The Winchester Goose did not appear to John in order to argue that her trade is sacred, as prostitution might be cast in some religious contexts. She was simply asking for respect: since it could not be accorded her in her own lifetime, or era, might she be recognized now, in the 21st century? A historical injustice, she claimed, had been done: she and her fellow Geese were not illegal sex workers or trafficked women, but prostitutes who worked under the jurisdiction of the church – under the aegis of none other than the Bishop of Winchester, to be precise, who, it is said by her shamanic advocate, “issued her license.” And yet, when she died, as she inevitably would, she was buried in “unconsecrated ground,” as an outcast, to become a pile of bones in an unmarked graveyard a stone’s throw from the parish church, or what is now Southwark Cathedral. She may have been licensed by the bishop, but she was denied her funereal rights, which is to say her funeral rites. She was buried in what John calls “a pauper’s burial ground,” along with orphans, and other destitute members of her class -- anyone without money, connections, or status, “without,” as John says, “a Christian burial.”

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The River Thames is famed as a glorious, winding artery in the south of England, forming the central visual course through contemporary London’s landscape. It was not always so: for centuries, the Thames was a place of refuse, its banks a smelly border lining the capital. And yet city life thrived nonetheless: a neighborhood known as Bankside, just south of the River Thames, is where Shakespeare first aired his plays at the Globe Theatre in the late 16th century.

As glamorous as the Globe may sound to 21st century tourists, open-air Medieval theatres were not particularly respectable institutions. They fared little better in public reputation than the stews that had been located a few blocks away just 50 years before Shakespeare starting producing plays in the area. Since the late 14th century, the Tudor monarchs had tried to rid Southwark of its ’Vagabonds‘ and its ’Rogues’; in the late 1500s, Queen Elizabeth I insisted that the area be evacuated and closed when a cholera epidemic broke out.

Arguments for culture should not depend on geography, and yet all these activities arguably derived from Southwark’s position: close to but just outside of London, the borough was a place where immigrants landed, waiting Below: Londoners gather in the site known as Crossbones Graveyard to commemorate the souls of medieval paupers and sex workers believed to be buried there

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to get into the big city, as well as a convenient location to which the famous capital could outsource its more practical human needs. For close to the past 1,000 years, Southwark was known as the seedy side of town, where questionable or seemingly ‘low-life’ activities – taverns, stews, street theatre – were exiled across the river from the City of London. It was an urban periphery, where most everyone in pre-Reformation and Elizabethan England had to struggle to make a buck. This history appears to be undisputed.

Claiming a counter-cultural history does not protect a central location from developers, however. Southwark Council may claim its red-light past proudly, but Bankside is tawdry no more. Since the completion of The Shard, London’s tallest building, in 2012, Southwark has consolidated its reputation as one of the most up-andcoming parts of the great city.

Having gradually become part of the City of London (a process that spanned many centuries, concluding only in 1965), the borough of Southwark has never minded its bawdy history, and is not about to start apologizing for it: who could begrudge an affinity with Shakespeare? Arguably the greatest writer in the English language plied his trade on these very streets, seedy though they may have been. All that human passion served great ends for both art and humanity.

Southwark’s underclass history is long, but it is productive: contemporary activists do not want that truth forgotten. ❚

Exciting discoveries in the search for new antibacterials Professor Mark Moloney, Vice-Master, E P Abraham Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry; Tutor for Welfare and Professor of Chemistry

NEXT GENERATION ANTIBACTERIALS? A widely-reported news item at the end of 2017 related to the entry into the OED of the term ‘post-truth’. However, a less well publicised one, ‘post-antibiotic’ is gaining currency, at least among the medical community treating infectious disease.

This relates to the fast-emerging realisation, if not truth, that antibiotics are rapidly losing their efficacy as resistant bacteria emerge and infections are becoming more difficult to treat.

It might be argued that this should not have come as a surprise. This phenomenon is entirely consistent with the outcome of Darwinian natural selection: exposure of a bacterial population to a lethal agent, such as an antibiotic medicine, will never kill the whole population, and the survivors will necessarily have a higher resistance to that medicine.

As a result of the heritability of this property, their progeny too will be more resistant. If this process is replicated over multiple cycles, eventually the bacterial population will be fully-resistant and the medicine by definition will lose its effectiveness.

The implications are very serious, since much of modern medical practice presupposes that antibiotic therapy is inexpensive and easily administered. The safety and efficacy of all types of surgery, but especially deep and invasive transplant, implant, plastic and reconstruction surgery, critically depends upon effective post-operative infection management. But community-acquired infections also benefit from the ready availability of oral formulations which provide fast infection control (some of us will remember, or have used, amoxicillin or ‘banana medicine’, especially popular for infants and younger children).

This turn of events demands many responses at technical, scientific, medical, economic and societal levels. As a chemist, my interest relates to the question: ‘If existing medicines are becoming less effective, where will the next generation of medicine come from?’ The solution to this question is not inconsiderable, not least because it has very recently been estimated that the development cost per drug is in the region of £1billion.

This, of course, comes at a time when financial pressures in many contexts are extreme, so prioritisation of this problem, ahead of many other deserving ones, cannot be assumed. In fact, there is great reason for concern, because there have been no new antibacterials come to the market place for nearly 20 years, and the prospect that this will change quickly is very unlikely. Global efforts in this area have stalled, both in the pharmaceutical industry, because of the high cost and low reward opportunities, leading to significant loss of expertise from redundancies or retirements, and in academia, because cancer has become a better-funded and more lucrative area. Who wants to work on a problem that is not a problem – or so it was thought?

My research in this area came about by accident; I had spent much of my career as a synthetic chemist, making molecular rings containing carbon and nitrogen, but no bigger than six atoms in size. This was, for me, intellectually satisfying, but I began to wonder if such systems might have any use – in modern parlance, whether our work might have any scope for ‘impact’. On searching chemical databases, I realised that one particular class of molecular rings, called tetramates, kept recurring in many natural products. This is chemical matter which can be isolated from the natural world, and usually from plant sources. Many were reported to be antibacterial.

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The key question that immediately sprang to mind was whether the tetramate chemical structure was both necessary and sufficient for the antibiotic activity of the parent natural products. This connection of chemical structure and biological efficacy had been seen before.

It was important for the penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics, for which the b-lactam chemical unit was critical. This was shown by work done by EP Abraham here in Oxford, and incidentally whose Foundation funded my Fellowship here at St Peter’s until 2015 when it was renamed by a very generous benefaction from my predecessor, Syd Bailey. Luckily for us, our methodology for making tetramates in the laboratory was very effective, and we set about making chemical libraries of these compounds to evaluate this structure-activity profile idea more carefully.

At this time, several chance events came about which proved to be critical. First, a highly-energetic Korean postdoc joined the group. He willingly embraced my crazy idea and took it upon himself to investigate it. He made 500 compounds over a three-year period – I am convinced he never slept – made possible by his dedication but also the robustness of the design of our chemistry.

Most students of organic chemistry will complain about their lab sessions.

Their main gripe will always relate to chemical yield – that is, the weight-forweight return of every gram of starting material put into a reaction compared to the product obtained. This is never

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100 per cent, and we would consider 50 per cent to be good, so that it is very common for students to end up with a couple of drops of product after a long laboratory session, which is not much to show for their effort.

The reason for this high attrition is that many chemical processes are inherently inefficient, but also considerable losses can occur during purification (not to mention accidents, like dropping the flask!). This problem is made worse by the fact that most synthetic sequences are multistep. Assuming that a 50 per cent yield over five chemical steps gives a total conversion of only (0.5)5= 1.5 per cent, it is clearly a demoralising outcome. To have successfully made 500 chemical compounds was no mean feat.

Secondly, a chance meeting with the CEO of Galapagos, a pharmaceutical company with an interest in antibacterials, identified common ground, and led to three years of generous funding, which enabled us to screen our chemical library. To our delight but also amazement, a big percentage (around 25 per cent) of our compounds were antibacterially

“To our delight but also amazement, a big percentage (around 25 per cent) of our compounds were antibacterially active, and this was significant because the industry standard hit rate is less than one per cent, so we were well ahead even at the start.”

Left: Members of Mark Moloney Research Group.

Prof Mark Moloney, Mallika Jaiprakash,

Daniel Payne, Jonathan Lockett, Will Hartz, Hadia Almahli, Halima Bagum

Right: Will Hartz

active, and this was significant because the industry standard hit rate is less than one per cent, so we were well ahead even at the start.

This success most importantly validated our initial hypothesis: suitable natural products might provide a valuable start point for drug discovery. The Galapagos collaboration worked superbly well, not least because they were able to complete their assays and return the resulting biological data within seven days of our sample submission, giving us the opportunity to iterate our development cycle very quickly.

There was the added bonus from this programme that quarterly progress meetings were needed in Paris! Sadly, this stage of the project came to an end when our funding was not renewed, as a result of other internal company priorities – a circumstance which illustrates that however good the scientific progress, there are always other parameters (especially financial) which can impact on priorities.

“What was most exciting was that a number of our compounds were at least as good as current clinically used drugs in terms of raw bacteria killing capability, but that they had low mammalian toxicity too – quite important if we want to kill bacteria but not the patient!”

What was most exciting was that a number of our compounds were at least as good as current clinically used drugs in terms of raw bacterial killing capability, but that they had low mammalian toxicity too – quite important if we want to kill bacteria but not the patient! However, good as this outcome was, it just about got us to the starting gates, and now considerable further optimisation to make these systems into an oral drug, or perhaps also suitable for intravenous hospital use, is required, in a process which we expect to take three to five years if all goes well, and which will require £3million.

One of the challenges of this sort of work is convincing potential collaborators and/or funders that the programme is worth being involved in, and that the risk/reward ratio is acceptable. In the area of drug development, this is a very difficult call to make, since what makes a good drug is not always obvious during the development stage, and different potential collaborators often assess the significance of data very differently. For each of our 500 compounds, we have at least 20 supporting data points, so information management and compound selection can be difficult. Data analysis needs to be very careful and easily prone to error.

This leads to the third piece of luck, which was another chance encounter with a small Austrian spin-out company on a technology scouting exercise – they were very impressed with our data, and agreed to collaborate to try to move the project forward. Importantly, they confirmed

our key data points – false positives in this work is all too common. Moreover, they were able to show that several of our systems had good further developability as drug candidates. Again, the advantages of working with a small organisation was the speed of analysis and data transfer, unencumbered by complex organisational protocols. Sadly, successful as this was, that collaboration faltered too, as the spin-out achieved its own development targets (to which our project was peripheral, and not a priority) and has now been sold.

Our plan now is to raise funding to create a new spinout company, with the express goal to find the first new antibacterial drug in more than 20 years, but in a small (five to 10 employees) organisation giving us flexibility and creativity. Are we going to succeed? Going forward, there will be many opportunities where we may fall – one adverse data point could easily be enough to kill the programme, but in that sense, we are no different to any other drug discovery project. I am constantly asking myself whether I am just a crazy academic with a crazy idea, and that the rest of the world is right and it is me who is wrong. That probably is very likely, but if nature has been using similar systems to ours as antibacterials for millions of years, just maybe we are doing something correctly! ❚

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40 YEARS OF TEACHING GERMAN An insight into the lessons learned from the lessons given during a teaching career spanning 40 years Dr Kevin Hilliard, Fellow and Tutor in German After 22 years at St Peter’s, Dr Hilliard will be retiring at the end of the 2016/2017 academic year.

I began teaching German language and literature 40 years ago, in the Hilary Term of 1977, when, as a graduate student, I took over as sabbatical leave cover for my own tutor, Malcolm Pasley, in Magdalen College. More substantial posts at Merton and the University of Durham followed before I was appointed as Tutor in German at St Peter’s, in association with Hertford. Here I have been for the past 22 years.

One way of describing what happened across my time as a teacher is to say that I learned to make fewer mistakes. In the beginning, I overprepared, as if I were the one expected to hold forth, rather than the undergraduate – with the result, which I should have foreseen, that I did hold forth on what I’d prepared. As my tutees past and present will

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know, I never was quite able to curb my tendency to speak too much – I was never one for pregnant silences. Over time, though, I learned that it was better to leave my own ideas in a state of flux in the run-up to the tutorial, and only begin to give them more definite shape in response to the promptings of the student’s essay.

I also learned to comment, as a friendly adviser, on ways in which the student’s own thoughts could have been arranged to greater effect, without necessarily feeling that their ideas had to be brought into conformity with mine. That was not only better for my pupils, but also more enjoyable for me; it meant that no two tutorials on the same subject were the same. For this and other reasons, I never got bored – angry with myself, often, for not handling a discussion well, but never bored.

When I began, I was not much older than my students.

With advancing age, I’ve come to appreciate more and more the opportunity the tutorial has given me to talk to young people about matters of substance. Outside of the family, this kind of inter-generational dialogue is in fact not as common or as easy to establish as it should be, at least in my experience. The old and the young don’t strike up conversations spontaneously. It seems that an institutional framework is needed to allow them to develop. The tutorial is one such institution, as is the college as a whole.

The age barrier to serious discussion is not the only one there is. Compared to politics or religion, literature is actually one of the safer topics one can bring up. And of course short exchanges do take place about the novel one’s been reading, the film one recently saw, the play one’s going to see. But even with close friends it would be pretty uncommon to find a situation arising spontaneously in which two or three people sat down to discuss a literary work (or cluster of works) in-depth and for any length of time.

“Trusting to nature and spontaneity to generate rich encounters with others is a mistake. The artifice of the teaching situation is therefore one of the best things about it.

It allows us to set aside those inhibitions and de-activate at least some of those mechanisms...”

Again, a certain institutional artifice has to take the place of spontaneity. Once inside the institution – in this case, the tutorial – behaviour can become natural that outside would seem odd or cranky. Tutorials are places where the requirement is to speak (in my line of work) about a couple of books for an hour; and so one does, perhaps a little quizzically at first, but increasingly with the sense that this is right and natural.

One conclusion that could be drawn from this is that ceasing to notice how weirdly one is behaving is indeed a sign of having become institutionalised (not in a good way). Or one could, in a spirit of romantic protest, denounce the way artifice interferes with our nature, suppressing what is spontaneous and replacing it by lifeless convention. But this would be wrong, both in theory and in practice. Romanticism is not all it’s cracked up to be. In the sphere of human interaction, nature, so called (for what is natural between social beings such as ourselves?), has a very limited repertoire. ‘What comes naturally’ is in fact conditioned by all manner of inhibiting social rules and psychological defence mechanisms.

Trusting to nature and spontaneity to generate rich encounters with others is a mistake. The artifice of the teaching situation is therefore one of the best things about

it. It allows us to set aside those inhibitions and de-activate at least some of those mechanisms, and so create the possibility of meaningful exchange. It doesn’t guarantee it; but at least it clears a space for it.

Another way of making the same point is to say that it is good for us to play roles. Social institutions might even be defined as settings that demand of their participants that they play a role. All teachers know that when they enter the classroom, they are performing. So too are the pupils. The trick on both sides is to perform the role well. New tutors – I was no exception – sometimes feel that they are impostors.

In some ways that is of course undesirable and confidencesapping. But in other ways it is close to the mark. The way out is to become the person one pretends to be. We should remember that the word ‘person’ itself derives from Latin persona, ‘mask’.

This suggests that in teaching (and perhaps elsewhere, too) distance from ourselves – from our off-duty selves – is a good thing. With that distance, we can hear ourselves think thoughts that our everyday (‘natural’?) self would not think, would not be able to think, not be willing to think.

This happily ties in with the subject I have taught for 40 years. I have taught a foreign language: itself a medium that, whether I want to or not, takes me outside my civilian self and everyday environment. And I have taught literature in that language. What, it is often asked, is the relevance today of a novel, play, poem written 250 years ago (fill in any figure you like here) – and in a foreign language to boot? But that double distance is the point. My thoughts in the present are only a small, and not necessarily the better portion of my potential thoughts. How to escape the constant murmur of the everyday, the latest insistent headlines, the din of advertising, the attention-grabbing flashing of social media? How to step out of the group-think of my place and moment? The literature of another time and place gives me the space I need to think.

That is why I’ve always put the literary works at the centre of my tutorials. I’ve not thought of the tutorial, as perhaps some do, primarily as a gladiatorial contest of thrust and parry between tutor and student. Maybe, as a result, I’ve done less for the intellectual muscle tone of my pupils than I should have. Not that that aim is an unworthy one. But for me the subject mattered. Goethe mattered; Kafka mattered.

The object was to get to the heart of the text, to see what it was trying to do, the ways in which it met or frustrated our expectations, the adjustments to our understanding it was asking us to make: in short, to do justice to its power.

That is not the same as surrendering to it; violent dislike and disagreement can be excellent teachers. But the works we study demand something of us, and I didn’t want that to fall by the wayside.

I’ve been lucky to have intelligent students to teach throughout my career, many of them more intelligent than me. They have made my life interesting for 40 years.

Marking proses? If I’m honest, I won’t miss that so much. But the tutorials: they were fun. ❚

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JCR Report IMOGEN LEARMONTH, 2016/2017 JCR President

Doing my part to help run the JCR, and leading an incredibly capable and passionate JCR committee, has truly been the highlight of my year. As I write this, I’ve just returned from popping into college from my house in Cowley to see a lovely woman named Janice, a professional masseuse, who has kindly come in this weekend to give the third years some therapeutic massages, as we’re coming up to the pointy end of Finals season. I’m reminded constantly that whilst reform in certain aspects of college regulation has been the focus of my tenure, it’s still the little things I’ve organised that have given me most joy.

A lot has happened this year, and the committee has instituted a lot of change that I’m enormously proud of. Unfortunately, there’s not quite enough time in the day to list them all, but I’ll try and make my overview as all-encompassing as possible. The year kicked off, as it always does, with Freshers Week. It was strange for the committee to transition from being fresh new faces into the world-wise and world-weary second years.

They have now become the first port of call to point a new breed of Fresher in the direction of the dining hall, the nearest decent café, or the library (not as obvious as one may think, with one first year entering the library lobby for the first time, looking around, and asking pointedly ‘where are all the books!?’). It was a very long, and very tiring week – as all my predecessors have discovered before me. Freshers Week is indeed the proverbial trial by fire for a new committee – however,

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we successfully put on a cracking show for the new Peterites, that profitably brought them full circle into the warm hug that is St Peter’s College.

The rest of the year was similarly fruitful. I would like to extend my appreciation to the incredible Miwa Sykes, and Marina Goodman, the sports and arts reps in turn. We’ve had so many amazing victories in sports this year, including winning Cheerleading cuppers, once again, and emerging victorious in the rugby Plate final. Arts, too, has been a continual source of joy, with Marina introducing some fun new initiatives like life drawing classes that have been enjoyed by all (not by me though, unfortunately, as I cannot draw to save my life, but anecdotally I hear they were great).

One area of the JCR experience that I’ve been particularly proud of this year has been the emergence and predominance of the incredible, unstoppable and outrageously caring welfare team – Beth Chaplow, Ed Rawlingson, Valeria Kondova and Neha Shah. It’s no secret that Oxford can be a scary place, and the welfare team was always, always on hand, whether it was for a shoulder to cry on, a friendly face to smile at in the quad, or the familiar extended hand of plenitude offering bread and hummus aplenty at our numerous welfare teas.

They’ve worked closely with a number of liberation groups that tackle issues of access, BAME and LGBTQ+ equality and generally address some of the hairier concerns of University life. And, if I may say so, they’ve gone above and beyond to ensure that St Peter’s is, and remains, the friendly and inclusive place we all hope to look back upon fondly, as I’m sure you yourselves do.

For my own part, I’ve supported the other JCR officers that make up the rest of the committee (environment and ethics, access, academic affairs, international rep, and the list goes on). I’ve planned the traditional annual undergraduate events, such as our numerous formal halls and dinners, the hog roast, bops, and then some special events, such as the grand opening of our newly-refurbished JCR. I’ve also worked on a few additional projects that I hope have made the

college a better place. I’ve worked closely with the development office to try and put more current St Peter’s students in contact with alumni, as I hope that some of you are aware by now. I’ve also worked with college to create a brand-new set of guidelines for our practice in regards to suspension of studies, and suspended students, that I think all parties will agree is a positive step forward for the college. There’s been a few other bits and bobs to do with policy, such as changing the housing policy for third year accommodation, that I’ve also carried through at the multiple committee meetings I’ve sat in on.

It’s been a pleasure working with the Master, the Bursar and the rest of the college on these issues, and I’m so grateful for their continued support.

The moment of handing over is a bittersweet one. Though, as much as I’ve enjoyed my time as JCR president, I think I’m about ready to give the baton to someone that I know is an incredibly capable successor, and focus on some finals of my own. My time this year has been devoted, in the majority, to the JCR, and as such I’ve gotten to know it a lot better. It is both the saddest and the most beautiful thing about the constantly morphing collegiate system that the JCR I know is not the JCR you remember, and not the JCR any Peterites of the future will experience. They will enter a whole new group of people, and be led by a completely different committee. For my part, I plan to treasure my own personal St Peter’s College JCR for many years to come. ❚

MCR Report ISURU GOONATILAKE, 2016/2017 MCR President

Despite the fact that our common room is cheek-to-cheek (quite literally) with a construction site at the moment, the postgraduate community has been making the most of 2016/17.

Our intake this year was the largest it has ever been with a 104 Freshers.

New students were treated to a busy Freshers’ Week schedule, which included tours, pizza nights, kebab crawls, and a formal champagne reception.

Our calendar for the rest of Michaelmas and Hilary was pretty busy, too, with a variety of events designed to create a strong sense of community in college.

The annual ‘Oxmas’ celebrations were a particular highlight of the year. Tinsel was put up; the tree was

decorated. Roast hog was served in the JCR, mulled wine in the MCR. Undergraduates and postgraduates sang together in the candle-lit carol service, but we had a cosier formal Christmas dinner to ourselves.

Special mention should be made of the excellent welfare team in the MCR. Having created weekly drop-in sessions for members of the MCR, their efforts have ensured that there is always a system of support in place should a graduate student need advice or help.

Social events in the MCR included exchange dinners with other colleges, wine and cheese nights, welfare walks (in rain and shine), afternoon teas, and even an indoor garden party complete with a snazzy and delicious chocolate fountain! The MCR charities events were also very successful, raising money for Emmaus Oxford and Alzheimer’s Society.

MCR students have taken part in six graduate seminars so far this year.

Each hour-long seminar consists of two graduate presentations, usually from starkly different disciplines. This provides the MCR an idea of what their peers do when they are actually working. The beauty of this is that you get a diverse range of topics being presented, in a manner that a layman can understand the complex research that has been accomplished.

When else do a statistician and an Old English expert find themselves sharing a platform? In Trinity term we’ll see another two seminars, no doubt with similarly eclectic themes.

There have been plenty of other new additions to the MCR, besides a bumper crop of Freshers. Having replaced our old Nespresso coffee machine with a bean-to-cup contraption, we’re beginning to do our bit for the environment. A new £4,000 telly with satellite channels is also on the near-horizon...

Just when you thought the MCR couldn’t get any better, we have crowned all this with a far greater achievement. A refugee scholarship, introduced and mooted by the JCR, was given unanimous postgraduate support in the first motion passed in the MCR in recent memory.

Considering the very real impact that this will have for a student somewhere in the world (and potentially a postgraduate), we are very proud to have stood with the JCR on this important issue.

Keep an eye out for the excellent work being done both academically and pastorally by MCR students over the rest of the year. Each member of the postgraduate community is engaged in valuable and fascinating research.

The fact that they’re also a great group of people is purely a coincidence. ❚

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Sports Report MIWAKO SYKES, 2016/2017 Sports Rep

Sport at St Peter’s is an important part of the JCR that allows regular inter-year bonding in a very enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere. As a smaller college without our own sports grounds, we do not take ourselves too seriously in college sports leagues, yet still manage to do ourselves proud.

Perhaps most notable this year has been the success of the rugby team, SPCRFC, who won the Plate Final of Rugby Cuppers against the Corpus Christi-Somerville team 28-14. This was a fantastic result after a season of great rugby. It followed a 105-0 win against New College and a second place finish in the Division One League.

Not to mention a 24-0 defeat over our college rivals, Teddy Hall, that saw them relegated into Division 2! On top of these team successes, there have been significant individual achievements within the SPCRFC team. Both Tom Stileman and Noah Miller have represented the OURFC Blues rugby team, whilst our very own Captain, Angus McCance, was part of the Victorious Oxford Rugby League Blues team at Varsity this year alongside Sven Kerneis and Matthew Brady.

Our mixed touch rugby team took part in the O2 mixed touch tour’s tournament that came to Iffley back in October. The team played three games during the afternoon having had no training. Despite coming up against colleges with some more experienced players, they successfully drew one game and narrowly lost the other two. The team also got the pleasure of meeting the then England Rugby Captain, Dylan Hartley, following the

Left: Rugby Cuppers: Angus McCance, Matthew Brady, Sven Kerneis and Alex Babb

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Below: SPC Men’s football team

official Q&A session. Despite the offer of attending Peter’s Rugby Drinks that evening, Hartley had to pass on the offer due to his busy schedule!

The men’s football team also achieved great success this year. SPCFC won six out of their seven games in the league this season, resulting in them being promoted to Division One. This is a feat that has not been achieved in Peter’s footballing history as far as the captain is aware! Unfortunately, the strong team did not prove themselves against the Old Boys who showed that skill is not lost with age as they defeated the current players. There was also a very successful inaugural Football Club dinner this year, organised by Captain Alex McCulloch, where James Povey won ‘golden boot’ and Alex DavisWhite won both ‘player of the season’ and ‘goal of the season’.

Despite lacking a permanent women’s football team, there has been a good representation as part of the joint Peter’s/Hilda’s team. In addition, first year Lucy Harper was awarded a Blue for her performance in the Varsitywinning Women’s Blues Football team.

There has been exemplary dedication to the Peter’s/Hertford League Hockey team this year that has seen them retain their position in the Division One League. A mix-up in scheduling one day meant that the team ended up having to cycle 20 minutes from St Gregory the Great in Cowley to St Edwards in Summertown to reach the correct match venue!

Right: (Top to bottom) SPC Hockey players: Maddie Burnell and Alexa Copeland SPC Squash Team St Peter’s Cheerleading Team

Despite this unexpected delay and confusion, the team managed to come away with a win against Jesus and still make college brunch. Furthermore, the team often managed to hold their own with low turnout numbers on a few occasions.

A notable victory this year was the 4-0 win against LMH. We also enjoyed a casual game against the team of an ex-member. Fred Van Someran’s touring Imperial Medics hockey team travelled all the way to Iffley to play a very friendly and entertaining match. Unfortunately, the score was not recorded because everyone was having such a great time! Individual University Hockey representation has seen Maddie Burnell and Alexa Copeland represent Peter’s and receive Blues for their contribution to the Women’s Varsity winning team.

Even in less commonly played sports, we have found a lot of interest and success thanks to the dedicated Peter’s representatives. The SPC squash team, led by the new University Women’s Blues squash Captain, Katie Abell, has seen a strong participant turnout to sessions each week. SPC squash beat teams from both Exeter and Balliol College and will remain in the Division One League. St Peter’s Fencing team, of Doga Basaran and Justin Bewsher, have proudly represented the college to their second college cuppers victory. In addition, the St Peter’s cheerleading team, led by Oxford Sirens; Jenny Spruce, Izzy Garratt, Laura Whetherly, Noah Miller and James Lavin, took home first place at cheerleading cuppers for the second time in the past three years.

This year, we were very lucky to be able to invite two alumni to our annual Sports Formal; Stewart Wilson and

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Stephen Wilcock. Both were members of SPCRFC during their time in Oxford.

Stewart Wilson also played for the Oxford Blues, the Lions tour, and captained the Scotland rugby team in the 1960s. Stewart gave a very entertaining speech about his time studying at St Peter’s and playing highlevel rugby in what were very different experiences to those representing the Lions today. What students found most exciting about his speech that took us back in time at Peter’s, was his recounting of the rivalry with Teddy Hall (St Edmund Hall) 50 years ago.

We were hugely grateful that Stewart and Stephen were able to give up their time and join us in celebrating a great year of Peter’s sport.

St Peter’s College Boat Club started this academic year with only eight returning members, and they remarkably taught more than 50 novices how to row to be able to enter four boats in Torpids Regatta 2017.

The club had intense winter training this year, setting themselves against more experienced crews in the Isis Winter League, Autumn Fours, Nephtys Regatta, and Christ Church Regatta.

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The Torpids 2017 was the first bumps race for the overwhelming number of members, both rowing and coxing.

After a nervous start on Wednesday, our Women’s 1st VIII dug deep to escape from a strong St Anthony’s 1st VIII, rowing over on Thursday. They won their one bump on Corpus Christi 1st VIII in front of the Boathouse on Friday.

Our Men’s 1st VIII rowed over on day one thanks to some tactical steering from Scott causing St Hugh’s M1 to lose the canvas they had gained.

The club continued to build on experiences gained during Torpids by having a full training camp on the men’s and women’s side of the club in 0th week of Trinity, including an exchange with Sidney Sussex College Cambridge Boat Club.

Summer Eights Regatta, the main event of the Oxford college rowing year, was full-on and feisty. Out for blood after their slightly disappointing Torpids campaign, St Peter’s Men’s 2nd VIII bumped Wolfson M3, Exeter M2, St John’s M2 and Worcester M2 achieving blades. The club celebrated their success on Saturday after racing and we were delighted to welcome

the new Women’s 8+ boat which was christened during the reception before the Summer Eights Dinner.

The Pat & Brian Dodd is a brand-new Janousek Eight with aluminium wing riggers and it was purchased for the Boat Club by Brian Dodd who read Geography at St Peter’s and rowed for the college from 1964 to 1967. This was a very memorable ending to a successful Eights and a beginning of a new chapter of the Pat & Brian Dodd. ❚ Below: Brian Dodd (SPC 1964, Geography), christening the new W1 boat

Bottom: Summer Eights Dinner 2017

Oxford Rugby TOM STILEMAN, (2015, Earth Sciences)

Oxbridge Varsity rugby is wholly unique. It is the focus of the season and often described as being the cup final that we know we will be in.

The season is tailored to prepare the squad for the Thursday of 9th week of Michaelmas term and we don’t enter any University leagues or competitions.

In fact, during my time at Oxford we’ve only played one University during the regular season and that was The University of Queensland in the pouring rain – it isn’t often that I long

for an away fixture but that was one such instance.

The distinctiveness and the intensity of packing a season into a term is what endears rugby at Oxford to many.

OURFC is filled with people who love rugby and love their club. Playing with a group of friends over a range of ages and from different walks of life has been a great source of enjoyment, support and engagement.

I first heard about the details of rugby at Oxford from my dad, who had been at Wycliffe Hall and played during his time there. I had just benefitted from an opportunity to move to a school – Cranleigh – where I could take my sport more seriously. Whilst there, I kept hearing about a boy called Henry Lamont, who had been in the rugby team and gone on to study at New College. During my lower sixth year at school, I watched him get his first of four Blues on the wing as a fresher. After leaving school, I took a gap year after an unsuccessful Oxford application and had another go at applying. The appeal of rugby at Oxford, and seeing Henry play, was

probably what made the difference between whether or not I reapplied. I had the pleasure of playing with Henry in his final and my first Varsity last year.

That day was a special one for the club, too. The Men’s Blues won for the sixth successive year, and the Women’s Blues had their first Varsity at Twickenham. Our match was a cagey one with neither side taking full control at any point, but an exciting contest nonetheless. It was an incredible occasion. It had received slightly more coverage and exposure that year, too, owing to the involvement of Jamie Roberts, a Wales international and British and Irish Lion. The day itself was a bit of a blur, but still sticks in the memory.

It is the history of the Varsity Match which affords Oxford rugby the opportunities and resources it enjoys. Before the introduction of professionalism in rugby, Oxford played top tier international teams and had been known to beat the likes of South Africa and Australia. Whilst the professional rugby world has pushed on, it remains a place to play high-quality amateur rugby – with the benefit of this history. The Iffley Road pitch, traditional fixtures such as Major Stanley’s XV, and the chance to play the Varsity Match at Twickenham are good examples. All these are benefits that I have valued hugely over the past two years. For student rugby players to be able to experience such things is unusual.

Of course, rugby at Oxford is not just limited to University, but includes college, too. After a frustrating first year involving three torn hamstrings (two of which were sustained playing in green and gold), it has been great to play for St Peter’s more this year.

Building friendships with another group who share a love for the game, and getting to play other colleges is a lot of fun.

Whilst Oxford is a place to study, it has proven to be a place to enjoy and develop more than just within a subject. I am grateful to all at St Peter’s, and to a very patient tutor and Master, for the support I’ve been given to do just that. ❚

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THE HILLS ARE ALIVE ST PETER’S TAKES MAHLER BACK TO THE ALPS

Concerts, performances and tours, the sights of St Peter’s Chamber Orchestra are set high.

John Warner, (2013, Music), Conductor, Founder of SPCO

Right: St Peter’s Chamber Orchestra at the dress rehearsal of Mahler’s Symphony No.6 in the Sheldonian Theatre

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St Peter’s is lucky to have one of the best concert venues in Oxford. Ever since I arrived as an undergraduate in 2013 I’ve had the pleasure of singing evensong twice a week in the Chapel’s gorgeous acoustic, as well as for choral concerts and recordings. Especially memorable was taking part in one of Roger Allen’s (the Director of Music at the time) legendary biennial performances of JS Bach’s Matthew Passion, and I remember how well the space worked with a chamber orchestra.

Its size allows for the sound to bloom beautifully without the details being swamped, and so in 2014 I decided to put an orchestra together and try it out myself. St Peter’s is an exceptionally talented college musically, and so I hardly had to go further than down the corridor in New Block to find some friends who would be up for it. Music is also one of the most sociable degrees, so the combination of SPC musicians and our friends in other colleges allowed us to form a chamber orchestra of just over a dozen.

Three years on, one of the best defining features of the St Peter’s Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is that we continue to

“Our increasingly loyal audiences consist of a balance of University members and residents of the town, and the orchestra has been consistently praised in the press...” bring together home-grown St Peter’s talent with musicians of an equally high calibre from across the University.

Exceptionally for a student ensemble, our core players have remained the same throughout, and this is for no other reason than that we love the same music, and love performing with each other.

Since 2014, we have given 10 concerts together, mostly in Chapel, but also branching out to other venues around Oxford, such as the Holywell Music Room (the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe) and Christopher Wren’s superb Sheldonian Theatre. Our increasingly loyal audiences

consist of a balance of University members and residents of the town, and the orchestra has been consistently praised in the press as ‘wonderfully expressive’ with a ‘luscious tone quality’ and capable of achieving a ‘gripping level of intensity’.

Such acclaim is testament to the dedication of the players I’ve been so lucky to work with over the past few years. Noone in Oxford has a light schedule, and so to pack in the 15 or more hours of rehearsal time needed for a concert on top of academic work, sporting commitments, and so on, is no mean feat.

In choosing our repertoire, we aim to capitalise on the outstanding talent of the ensemble by performing challenging programmes of music not often heard on the student scene. Michaelmas 2016 was a particularly memorable term for me in this respect. The previous academic year had been a great season for the orchestra, with a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony that packed out the Chapel so much that we had to release standing tickets, and a highly atmospheric Transfigured Night (by Schoenberg) in the Holywell.

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Off the back of these successes, we decided to do two concerts in Michaelmas, one for string orchestra and one for full chamber orchestra. With the latter, we performed Copland’s breath-taking Clarinet Concerto, starring our very own Dan Mort as soloist, followed by Dvořák’s beloved Ninth Symphony, ‘From the New World’. (The positioning in mid-November, just after the American election, was entirely coincidental!)

great personal significance to the composer. Mahler lived and worked in what was then Austria-Hungary, and used to spend his summers in provincial Alpine villages, drawing on the sublime surrounding landscape for compositional inspiration. He built for himself three secluded composing ‘huts’, positioned among the glittering lakes and towering mountains of the Alps, and it is these three locations that are the heart of our project.

We also wanted to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, so decided to perform Two English Idylls

by George Butterworth alongside the Dvořák and the Copland. Butterworth was educated at Trinity College at the same time as Noel Chavasse (son of the Rt Rev Francis Chavasse, SPC’s founder), and they also both fought on the Somme. Earlier in the term, the centrepiece for our string orchestra concert was Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, a remarkable work from the 1940s (when Strauss was an octogenarian), written for 23 solo string players, each with their own individual part. In a piece where everyone is a soloist, the skills we have been working on over the past few years of making chamber music in an orchestral setting came fully into play, and the atmosphere was electric.

We are undertaking the first ever concert tour of all three of Mahler’s summer retreats, performing his last completed symphony, the Ninth, in venues next to the huts (which themselves are tiny), ranging from parish churches to concert halls. Two of these locations have never hosted performances of the Ninth, and one has never hosted the performance of any Mahler at all. With additional concerts in Salzburg and by Lake Bled (Slovenia), we are performing five in all, taking part in important music festivals in collaboration with the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna. It is a genuinely historic project and is attracting significant attention on the continent. The St Peter’s flag will be flown proudly throughout, and with good reason.

“The music is perfect for our setup: it deals with big emotions, is technically very challenging, and benefits hugely from being played by musicians who enjoy working with each other as much as we do”

If I were to pick our specialism, it would be the music of Gustav Mahler. We’ve now performed his Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies, the latter in the Sheldonian with an orchestra expanded to more than 100 and an audience of four times that. The music is perfect for our set-up: it deals with big emotions, is technically very challenging, and benefits hugely from being played by musicians who enjoy working with each other as much as we do. The audiences in Oxford also love it.

Our affection for Mahler is what prompted the idea for our Alpine Tour, which is taking place in July 2017. The premise of the tour is to perform the music in locations that were of

Lake Bled, Slovenia

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The college has been very generous in supporting the project (and SPCO more generally), as have various alumni and members of the public. A full 10-day concert tour, spanning three countries (one of the huts is located in what is now northern Italy), is a huge undertaking for a University orchestra and it would not be happening without this support. We’ve been very touched by the generosity of our backers, who are still growing in number. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of us and a worthy reflection of St Peter’s continued and exemplary dedication to the arts. ❚

ALUMNI EVENTS A YEAR IN PICTURES

The college provides a varied and extensive programme of events each year for our alumni, students, parents & friends, as well as the general public. Our ever growing events calendar includes events outside of Oxford in other parts of the UK, as well as overseas. We warmly welcome feedback, as well as new, innovative ideas and contributions that can help expand our events programme. If you would like to help run an alumni gathering in your area, please contact Olga Batty (olga.batty@spc.ox.ac.uk).

HISTORY CELEBRATION

HOWARD SOCIETY LUNCH

GAUDY 1975-1979

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OXMAS DRINKS IN LONDON

FAURÉ, REQUIEM BY THE CHOIR OF ST PETER’S COLLEGE

ADVENT CAROL SERVICES

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TALK BY PROFESSOR MARY BEARD

SPC10 RECEPTION IN LONDON

GAUDY 1960-1964

50TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION (1966)

ENGINEERING DINNER 2017

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SARAH JONES SPEAKING AT THE LAW SOCIETY DINNER

FUNDRAISING DINNER WITH ALEX FERGUSON AND MICHAEL MORITZ IN LONDON

GENERAL ELECTION FORUM

SUMMER EIGHTS DINNER AND NEW BOAT CHRISTENING

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STAYING CONNECTED Regional and International Networks St Peter’s has networks all over the world through which alumni meet and share stories about their time in Oxford.

Alumni gatherings have fostered business networking, new friendships and general help and support. They are a valuable way to continue to benefit from your membership of St Peter’s.

Our committed and engaged body of alumni volunteers help us to keep alumni in their area connected. This year we are especially grateful to Patrick Turner (1978) for traditionally hosting the alumni dinner in New York. We are very grateful to William Lau for hosting the dinner in Hong Kong during the Asia Alumni Weekend 2017. Thanks are also due to Mary Starkey (1981) for organising the annual alumni dinner in Cape Town, Nick Segal (1976) for his generous sponsorship of the Law Society Dinner and Peter Petyt (1982) for his help with finding the venue for the SPC10 Reception in London.

The Alumni Weekend in Europe will take place in Rome in March 2018, and we are looking for volunteers with local knowledge to help us organise a college event in the city.

If you would like to put your part of the world on the St Peter’s map and become a Regional Representative for your area, please contact us for further details.

Sports We have a very active alumni golf society who enter the annual Oxford Inter-collegiate Golf Tournament which takes place in April each year, and have several golfing fixtures throughout the year. Please let us know if you would like to be put on the Golf Society mailing list to hear about all alumni golfing events.

Alumni are also always welcome to attend St Peter’s rowing events. For up to date information please visit the Boat Club website: www.stpeterscollegeboatclub.com

Connect through social networks The social media sites are not only used to share news, events and photographs, they are also a great way for alumni to link up. As the audiences grow we hope we can develop a place where members can connect with others from their cohort, in their region or field of employment, and so on. You will find us on: Facebook (St Peter’s College Alumni page) Twitter (@spc_alumni) LinkedIn (St Peter’s College Alumni group)

Year Group Representatives To promote strong ties within cohorts we are currently recruiting Year Group Representatives. This will enable us to organise special year group activities in addition to the regular Gaudies. If you are interested in joining this body of volunteers please contact Olga Batty on olga.batty@spc.ox.ac.uk or 01865 614985.

YouTube Flickr Instagram (@spc_oxford)

Share your stories If you have any news, from changing jobs to having children, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you. B

SPC 10 is our alumni event programme for those who matriculated within the last ten years. This initiative was the result of feedback from our younger alumni and mirrors Oxford10, which is run by the University of Oxford. We aim to hold one event per calendar year and invitations are sent by email, so please keep us up-to-date with your contact details and do get in touch if you would like to be involved in this initiative.

Dates for the Diary 2017 Thursday 14 September 50th Anniversary Reunion for 1967 Matriculates Friday 15 September Alumni Weekend Reception (for all St Peter’s alumni) Saturday 16 September Gaudy 1980-1984 Sunday 17 September Howard Society Lunch (for those leaving a legacy to the college) Saturday 21 October Dr Francis Warner’s 80th Birthday Celebration Concert in the Sheldonian Theatre Tuesday 24 October Talk by David Mitchell (British comedian, actor and writer) Saturday 11 November SPC Medical Society Dinner

Wednesday 15 November Talk by Nick Robinson (British journalist and broadcaster) Thursday 30 November Oxmas Drinks in London Thursday 7 December The Rugby Varsity (Twickenham Stadium)

2018 16-18 March Alumni Weekend in Europe: Rome Saturday 24 March Gaudy 1990-1994 6-7 April Alumni Weekend in North America: San Francisco 13-16 September Alumni Weekend in Oxford (50th Anniversary Reunion for 1968 Matriculates, Gaudy for up to 1959 matriculates, Howard Society Lunch)

Our events calendar is always subject to additions. Please visit www.spc.ox.ac.uk for the most up-to-date details about upcoming events.

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

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