24 minute read
LEAVERS’ CELEBRATIONS
2020/2021
Finally, OCs from the class of 2020 and 2021 were able to celebrate their time at Canford with a Leavers’ Ball. This followed on Saturday after the traditional Summer Ball for the class of 2022 which was able to proceed as normal.
2022
Mobilising words for change
SOCIETY SPEAKS TO OC MAX BANKOLE JARRETT
about the many ways he’s used his skill with language – through broadcasting, speechwriting, diplomacy and policy initiatives – to foster transformation in Africa
Despite being used to operating at the highest levels of international diplomacy, dealing with prime ministers and senior statesmen, Max Bankole Jarrett is remarkably down-to-earth and self-effacing, conveying deep conviction in his work to enable more equitable transformation in Africa. Since leaving Canford in 1987, he has led a varied career with roles at the BBC World Service, the United Nations and the International Energy Agency, as well as leading the Africa Progress Panel alongside former UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan. Max explains his first big break arose out of adversity.
Worried about his family, he approached the London office of the BBC World Service in search of accurate news about what was happening in his home country, Liberia, which had become embroiled in civil war. Max’s family home was destroyed in the conflict, and his parents displaced, and for some time it was difficult to ascertain what was happening on the ground. The impact on his family meant he was unable to take up his place for post-graduate study at Oxford but his brief contact with the BBC led to a full-time role with the World Service. ‘I always liked writing but never in my wildest dreams thought I would end up writing professionally or being on air and becoming a well-known broadcaster to millions of people every morning presenting the breakfast show,’ explains Max, who had thought he was destined for a career as an economist. He credits the BBC as having ‘formed’ him and recollects his 11 years there fondly, with great affection for his co-workers. In those days, he recalls, qualifications in journalism and media studies were rare and what the BBC was looking for was people with the ability to analyse and question, before clearly expressing their own thoughts. His time there gave him a thorough education in a wide range of African affairs, ‘diving deep into the politics and economics,’ of the continent as well as ‘getting to speak to many political leaders across the board’. During his time with the World Service, Max worked on Focus on Africa, served as lead presenter and senior producer on the breakfast show Network Africa, and had the chance to create and develop his own music programme, The Jive Zone. He also completed a master’s degree focused on the political economy of Africa at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, presenting early morning shows before attending lectures and tutorials.
In 2001, he took a one-year career break from the BBC to enable him to take on a temporary role with the UN in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ‘After 11 years, I had this itch to return to the continent and return to work more closely related to my academic work, closer to the development space, although I don’t really use that word anymore – I prefer to focus on transformation. We should have ministries of transformation rather than development but that’s a whole different story.’ Believing he needed to ‘get involved instead of just asking the question,’ Max was keen to work alongside people who were trying to find solutions to Africa’s problems. He was initially hired to help establish a studio facility for the UN which would be used to train journalists to broadcast on development issues, using narrative to make the issues less dry and more compelling but at the same time educational. While there, Max’s boss was invited to give a lecture as part of Tony and Cheri Blair’s Millennium Lecture Series. ‘They said you’ve been at the BBC, you must be good at writing speeches so you can join our speechwriting team,’ says Max, who went on to become one of the main speech writers for the UN in Addis Ababa. It is a difficult skill to master, he explains, but an enjoyable process for the right speaker. Like much of his other work, he says, it is all about distilling things down, absorbing information, understanding the message and putting it across clearly. At the BBC he had learned how important it is to be succinct for broadcast audiences, and this skill, being able ‘to pare things down,’ was put to good use in speechwriting.
2014
General Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, was particularly rewarding to write for, Max recalls. ‘His style was “less is more” and so close to broadcast style because people can’t really absorb too much.’ Max worked with Annan for four years in Geneva for the Africa Progress Panel, which he served as deputy director and later director. Asked about his memories of Annan, Max says: ‘A great leader, someone who was incredible with a big heart, you know, what leadership is really about. Leadership is about having a clear vision on where you want the team or organisation to go but at the same time having the heart to be able to engage with all the people that you work with to make them feel that they also have something to contribute, and he also did that. ‘He was really an exceptional leader, that is my abiding memory. He had the courage of his conviction and knew what he was talking about. And he was a sincere human being – which is not something you can say about everyone who reaches the great heights of politics. He was one of the good ones.’
Max with his father Dr Bankole Jarrett
Max’s work on aiding transformation in Africa with the APP led to a deep understanding of energy issues. He was involved in creating two reports: Power, People, Planet and Lights, Power, Action which led him to develop expertise in energy transformation. ‘There was an abiding interest that unless we meet the challenge of power in Africa, we can’t really do anything. There are 650 million Africans who have no access to modern energy.’ Discussing the difficulty of balancing Africa’s growing need for energy with the imperative for global sustainability, Max explained: ‘There are abundant energy resources on the continent, but Africa is energy poor. There is a paucity of modern energy systems on the continent, so what is being used is biomass, especially for cooking, which has a range of impacts on people’s health.’ Breathing in smoke from fires and having to spend time searching for and cutting firewood is having a disproportionate effect on the lives of women, he explained. ‘Africa has abundant gas resources which could be used in terms of LPG for cooking, but how do you make sure we achieve universal access in Africa. We know that in some areas, the grid is not going to reach people. We are looking at a range of different ways of doing it, off-grid systems and so forth. African countries have also signed up to the Paris Agreement to keep the heating of the planet below 1.5 degrees, which means we have to reduce the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible.’ Traditionally, Africa has not been a major fossil fuel consumer and Max strongly believes the continent cannot be asked to bear the same responsibility as countries like the US,
UK, India and Germany, where people live with multiple cars and appliances. ‘Africa has to have some sort of space,’ he explains. ‘Africa can’t be asked to be the first mover in terms of not using gas for example for cooking.’ Gas, he stresses, is a cleaner fuel than biomass or diesel that many people now use for powering generators. ‘You have to say that although gas isn’t completely clean, for a timeframe Africa has to be allowed to use gas.’ After the Africa Progress Panel ceased operations at the end of 2017, Max took up a post at the International Energy Agency in Paris. In international debates, he explained, some say that Africa should not be allowed to use its gas reserves saying: ‘Keep it all in the ground’. ‘The thing is, if we’re talking about a just transition, justice also has to have a timeframe or a historical dimension so you can’t be saying that Africa shouldn’t be allowed to use this gas.’ In seeking equitable energy agreements for Africa, Max believes it is unfair to say African women should only be using charcoal and biomass because renewables aren’t at the scale needed as yet. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, earlier this year, there has been a remarkable turnaround in European positions on gas extraction in Africa. ‘Now some of the people who said they shouldn’t touch it are trying to help them access it,’ he says, pointing to a visit by the German Chancellor to Senegal. ‘So, the world is completely different now.’ Commenting on the fulfilling nature of his work, Max acknowledges: ‘I really enjoy being in this space and this moment in time as well because you can see there are options for change but also, for someone very interested in politics and political economy, it is a contested space which makes it a very interesting and very challenging space to be operating in as someone whose role is essentially as a diplomat trying to help people get on and to move forward in a certain direction.’ Asked about plans for the future, Max denies any personal political ambitions, preferring to continue to advise behind the scenes. He does, however, reveal his passion for education and that one of his greatest desires is to build a school for girls in Liberia, dedicated to his mother and grandmother.
2013
In conversation with
EMILY GARTHWAITE (Ma11)
An award-winning photojournalist and travel writer whose work focuses on humanitarian and environmental issues
Could you describe your expedition along the Tigris last year?
Between March and May 2021, we led an expedition along the full 1,900km of the Tigris river, by boat, from its source in southern Turkey, through north-east Syria, and across Iraq to the Persian Gulf. Our small team travelled from the snow-capped mountains of the source in spring in Turkey through to 50 plus celsius in the Iraqi marshes in early summer. The expedition allowed us to hear the stories of the river, as told by those who live on its banks. Our quest was for the enduring aspects of the Tigris – the culture and heritage that have survived for millennia – but also to see clearly the impact of past decades of conflict, and the environmental and geopolitical threats that are so present in the region. There’s no doubt in my mind that it was the hardest journey I have ever made. The logistics alone took 18 months to arrange. The 70 days on the river were long, gruelling and complicated…but also an incredible privilege. The Tigris river fed some of the earliest civilisations on earth, and many of the major centres of power and influence of old are still important today: Diyarbakir, Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra, Baghdad, Kut, Amara, Basra. An exhibition of the photographs from this journey will be on display at Leica Gallery, Mayfair, in February 2023.
A lot of your work focuses on Iran and Iraq, what is it that fascinates you about this region?
I first travelled to Iraq in 2017, to photograph Arbae’en, a Shia pilgrimage which occurs between the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala. Upwards of 15 million pilgrims walk the seventy-kilometre journey. It was compelling and tiring to walk.
At the very moment I made this journey, the coalition forces and Iraqi Army were taking back Mosul from ISIS. I met mothers and children whose male relatives were fighting or had died. I also experienced the overwhelming generosity of Iraqis. In fact, generosity to guests is enshrined in their culture. Growing up in the UK, I had only known Iraq through a lens of war. In fact, if one were to close their eyes and think of Iraq, the most common thoughts are deserts, war, bombs, dusty towns and camels. I know this, because I’ve been asking people in the UK that question for the past six years. Sometimes someone will respond with ‘Mesopotamia – where civilisations were birthed’. What I found, on that first trip were date palm orchards, dappled light, community meals on the banks of the Euphrates and deeply kind people. This is what travel is all about. How could I not want to return? Iran came a little later, and there I photographed a 200km migration across the thorny Zagros mountains in south-west Iran with a family from the Bakhtiari tribe. It was gruelling and utterly magical. I charged my camera batteries with solar panels, slept under the stars, walked every day with a large flock of sheep, goats, dogs, donkeys, mules and horses. I saw eagles soaring and at one point was three days from the nearest nomad settlement. My editor was a little nervous as the isolation meant I also didn’t have phone signal – so he waited very patiently for my return two weeks later. This story required me to become a photographer and writer – and I published the story in Smithsonian Magazine. Prior to that story, I had spent years walking in Iraq. Since 2017, I have walked the Arbae’en pilgrimage three times and in the north of Iraq, in the Kurdistan region where I live, I’ve walked over 1,250km of trails with shepherds, pilgrims, military and anyone who will let me join! Walking to tell stories has become central in my work, encouraged by my boyfriend Leon McCarron who is an adventurer and author. In 2016 he started to design the Zagros Mountain Trail – Iraq’s first long-distance hiking trail. It opens up to the world in 2023. He taught me how to put up a tent four years ago, and I haven’t looked back!
You take an anthropological approach to your work, living with your subjects for long periods. Why do you do this?
I love Iraq and Iran and I love the stories I work on. I don’t feel comfortable commenting on politics, or environment, or daily life until I have spent a considerable period of time learning about it and living among it. Snap judgements don’t get you far here. I don’t lean on books as much as I do lived experience, which takes time. When you open yourself up to such experiences, you welcome in the good and the bad. After a few years I decided to live in Iraq, and only then did I get to dive deep into life. I have my full-time Arabic classes with a female teacher from Mosul, I go hiking at the weekends with friends, yoga in my local park, assignments in Mosul and Baghdad for New York Times and on Monday nights I attend the expat quiz night with embassy staff and military. I run arts workshops at my rural studio above the Ninewa Plains – I also host dinner parties there when I can. Iraq is beautiful and deserves all the peace in the world. I hope people will visit the country now that it’s opening up.
You were recently awarded a Covering Climate Now journalism award for your work on the Marsh Arabs. Can you describe this project and why you think photo essays can be so effective at covering climate issues?
Long-form storytelling is the antithesis of fast news. I find both rewarding, and the latter fun. The Marsh Arabs story for Noema magazine, a US-based climate publication, required three weeks of sleeping in the Iraqi marshes during the height of summer. It was highs of 50 degrees, covered with mosquitoes and I didn’t encounter a single fan or AC unit until two weeks into the job. When you immerse yourself into the story, and the lives of others, you have the opportunity to bring to life their experiences. You can’t achieve half as much if you commute by car to your story, at least not in lived experience. Today, the Iraqi marshes are on the brink of extinction, and with that the future of the Marsh Arabs, the indigenous community who live there. The marshes are in their worst state since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003. They have shrunk in size from 5560sq km
to 350sq km. Iraq remains one of the top five countries most vulnerable to climate change and much of my work this year focuses on areas in Iraq already lost to climate change. For Iraq, it’s not just something happening, it’s also something that has happened.
When did you first become interested in photography and how did you break into photojournalism?
When I was fifteen, there was a three-mile forest fire near my family home. I rushed to document it, borrowing my mother’s camera and visiting the area where the fire had been put out by firemen. My father drove me to the ridge line, and I looked over the land where I had spent my childhood. It was destroyed. I sent the photos to my local newspaper and saw my first photo published. I wanted people to know it had happened and that it was important, at least to me. I believe that is where my inquisitive nature and perhaps inherent interest in injustice was first alchemised and I could see the results. Many years passed until at 21 I began to travel. I travelled with my camera, I began to interview people on the street and realised that these three things combined made my soul sing. We need to listen to that calling – they don’t come by often. We can so often lead with fear, and that fear can stop us doing the very thing we love. You need to show perseverance and be relentless in your pursuit of stories – but not to be inflexible, unlearning or disheartened. I’ve picked myself up more times than I can think, and that’s ok! Onwards, always, with grace.
What advice would you give to those interested in pursuing a creative career?
• Listen to your inner voice as it will guide you • Go for many long walks, they always help you think things through • Seek out supportive and reliable mentors and nurture those relationships • Never apologise when sharing your work. Share your work, with anyone and everyone • Try to avoid listening to the naysayers! They come from everywhere… • Drink more water • Don’t worry if you’re not interested in the same things as your peers. Nurture your passions without judgement All images courtesy of Emily Garthwaite
Looking out, a remote village in Kurdistan
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ARTEFACTS
Archivist Richard Knott explains his celebratory centenary project which explores Canford’s history through 100 objects
It seems a near universal belief that a school should mark its centenary by publishing a history and certainly I have been asked on numerous occasions what Canford will be doing. The answer is that we won’t be following the traditional route by updating Michael Rathbone’s exemplary history from 1983 (P1) or copy Henry Baynham and Robin
Whicker’s A Portrait of Canford from 1998, although I have turned to both repeatedly in my research. What emerges will, of course, have Canford’s history at its heart, but I wanted something that could be enjoyed by those unfamiliar with the minutiae of Canford life yet interested in what it stood for and how it has changed. What that means is that there will be fewer 1st XI cricket scores and pen portraits of teachers and more anecdotes about everyday life and looking at the bigger picture. The decision – thanks to a suggestion from my wife – has been to write something based on the objects we have in the school archive. It is an interesting collection and there are few opportunities to display it, so this will be a rare celebration of what we own, as well as offering the odd surprise to the most seasoned OC. The format does impose some limitations as there are only a certain number of objects to choose from and they do not spread out evenly across all the areas of school life I want to write about, but it gives a strong shape to the book and offers a different, even if unoriginal, approach.
Neil MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects has spawned a number of imitators and I make no apologies for using his model.
My initial plan was to choose 100 objects and write 1,000 words on each but, having described about a dozen, I realised that round numbers do not always provide the best solution and every publisher warned against making the book too long and repetitive. So, the word count has been reduced and the objects have been divided into eight groups, representing different aspects of Canford. Each of the 100 articles could stand alone but overall, they represent a varied reflection of Canford’s strengths and occasional weaknesses. There will, of course, be far more than 100 objects in the book as, while each section will have a single artefact on which to hang a story, there will be several others, together with some relevant photographs, to support the text. As an example, one of the articles will be on sports we no longer play at Canford. Representing that will be the boxing gloves Monteacutians used in the 1950s (P2) but, in addition, the article might include a photograph of boys boxing on Franklin lawn in the 1920s (P3), a fencing and boxing programme from 1955 and a photo of the fives courts. P1 Every object will be one that still exists but they will not be museum pieces. In fact, several might have little intrinsic value but will prompt an interesting story.
P2
Although it probably won’t make the final cut, one such item is a scrap of paper on which Clive Chancellor, a teacher from Clarence School who then became housemaster at Canford, has jotted down the allocation of rooms in the Manor House (P4). It was found amongst his attempts to design a Canford crest and next to his colourings are suggestions for where the HM’s flat, cleaning cupboards and a range of other rooms should be – worthless to most people but very valuable as a witness to the conditions P4 under which pupils and staff lived and worked. Rooms in the Tower include both Franklin dormitories and maids’ rooms – the imagination runs wild – and it astonishes the modern eye to see house matrons having to share a bathroom with their charges (although, presumably, not at the same time). Chancellor was one of life’s hoarders and it’s thanks to his magpie tendencies that we have so much on early life at both Clarence School and the early days of Canford. If mention of Clarence School prompts a question as to why it should be included, my response is that of course it must be there. When Canford started most of the pupils and half the staff had moved across from Weston-Super-Mare and would be surprised that Canford was anything other than an improved continuation of where they had come from. Without Clarence, and Combe Down before it, (P5) there would have been no Canford. In the same way Canford Manor has played an important role in the School’s history, so must be included (P6). We still use the church, the Manor House (including parts of the mediaeval building) and the Real tennis court; the beauty of The Park forms a background to Canford life and we have benefited hugely from the Guest family, be that from the Assyrian frieze, the books in the library, the sculptures or much else. The history of Canford before 1923, therefore, rightly forms the first group of objects and readers may be surprised at what we have inherited.
P6
The other seven themes are: pupils’ lives; staff; Canford people (OCs, governors, parents etc); academic life; cocurricular life (outdoors); co-curricular life (indoors); and ‘Canford and Beyond’. ‘Beyond’ in the last catch-all category will include both time and place, allowing discussion of the future in the 100th and final object, as well as areas beyond the main buildings such as The Park, the local community and links with other countries. The division might be an artificial construct but offers some natural groupings and breaks in the text.
Many of the objects in our collection have been discovered by chance or arrived unexpectedly. Only last week, during a reorganisation of the Real tennis court, the visiting players’ book used by the Guest family was found (P7).
A late Victorian silver baton, possibly for conducting, arrived from Australia via Weston-Super-Mare having once been given to a music teacher at Clarence School and was no longer wanted in the family. An earthenware dish made by Grindley Hotel Ware was discovered in a bric-a-brac shop and bought by a member of staff. It is dated 1940, has a green Canford crest on the front and was part of a much larger dinner service. It is too good to be used as everyday crockery so must have been for grander meals, perhaps in John o’Gaunts’.
Does anyone remember it as it must have been used for some years after the war as well?
That question shows that the book is far from complete. I don’t think the overall format will change, but I am very happy to alter the sub-headings in each category if a better object comes along; and I am certainly prepared to add further objects which support the main theme. One or two have been promised from OCs but are yet to arrive. If not objects, do you have any anecdotes that you think others would enjoy, even if they are anonymous? Most of the reminiscences in the archive are from the first 50 years of the school, so more recent stories are very welcome. Research has shown that over half what we think we remember is actually false, so I prefer to have corroboration from a second source, but that is not always possible. What I am sure about, though, is that there will be mistakes in the book! Even had I had more time for research there would have been errors, but I hope they will not detract from what should be an enjoyable romp through 100 years of Canford School – with a bit of the 1,000 years of Canford Parish thrown in.
A free online version will be available to everyone, but we will also print hard copies for anyone who would prefer to have an 81st object to hold. I look forward to hearing from some of you.
If you Will, they can
As has become tradition, we held our annual Nineveh Legacy Society lunch in 2022 for those in our community who have left a gift in their Will to Canford. Guests were delighted to hear from Matthew Kosgei (F22), one of our Royal SpringBoard bursary recipients about his time at Canford and the difference his bursary has made to his life. Not only has he gained tremendously from Canford, he has been a real asset to our community and has certainly left a very positive mark. It has been your kind gifts that have made this possible. Ben Vessey brought those attending up to date with Canford news and developments and we concluded with a walk and tour of the new library. Nineveh Legacy Society lunch (above) and Matthew Kosgei (left)
