Optima 8

Optima i s s u e 8 • au t u m n 2 0 0 5

The Master’s farewell message

Brian and Christine Johnson

Sometime ago, I was travelling on the Jubilee Line when one of our Members who I remembered well from College, boarded the other end of my carriage and when our eyes met, she cheerily called along the carriage, “Hello Master!” Now, both she and I knew what a Master (of a College) was but as for those in the rest of the carriage, they did not! It was like being at Wimbledon, rows of heads swivelling from one end of the carriage to the other. You will appreciate that I’m not easily embarrassed, but on this occasion I flushed quite vividly. A memorable moment!

I suppose this more than most illustrates the delight of being Master. Contact with members of the College is always a pleasure and I know, I have friends all over the world. Recently, I have travelled to the USA, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, not to mention, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter and Bolton, meeting so many of you and hearing your lovely stories of good times spent here.

In New Zealand, I met two delightful gentlemen who had arrived at Fitz together in the late fifties.

As they said, “Even in those days we had a bath at least once a week”. (I replied, “Probably a sheep dip!”). In their lodgings, there was neither bathroom nor tub so, resourceful to the end, they’d watch rugby at Oxford Road (at least once a week!) and just before the game finished, nip into the pavilion for a quick bath. Now that’s Fitzwilliam spirit!

In Bolton, I met the man who first suggested the Saturday fry-up for lunch (successfully!) and the man who provided an out-of-hours entrance and exit, to and from the College, through his window.

Now, there’s Fitzwilliam enterprise! Everyone I met, whether they were at Fitzwilliam House or on the College site, had wonderful, happy stories to tell and were deeply grateful for the Fitzwilliam experience.

These anecdotes bring me to consider my role of Master is to ensure that all aspects of a College run smoothly, effectively and well. Throughout my Mastership, I have maintained my teaching, research and administrative role within Chemistry and the University and I have endeavoured to be involved in the cutting edge of research. In this way, I felt that I could be better acquainted with the current difficulties that beset lecturers, researchers and, most importantly, our Junior Members.

Of course, this final graduation term, sets free a wholly different set of emotions. Here, I sense from

the undergraduates, an overwhelming love of Fitzwilliam and all that they have achieved over the past years. Graduation Dinner, for me a true high spot of the academic process, is a wonderful occasion, charged with the realisation that this is our ‘final’ dinner together as a group. It is an occasion when we give thanks, one to another, for all that has been achieved. It also provides the opportunity to acknowledge the benefits of a Fitzwilliam education and recognise the importance of involvement, not only with one’s subject, but also with those other features which enable us to appreciate the role of others in society. The University world has changed greatly over the past forty years – more so in the last ten to fifteen, when it has become fashionable to bring far too much business mentality into University life. I recognise that there must be checks and balances and a true assessment of achievement and of course, we should all be aware of our responsibilities – as a student, as a Fellow, and as a Master.

These days, the Master stands in for the ViceChancellor and awards degrees in the Senate House to his graduation flock. I love it. As each junior member approaches, slightly nervous and aware of the grandeur of the occasion, I feel very like Father Christmas; even my costume conveys that impression. Always, after the degree has been conferred in Latin, I whisper a few words in English, hopefully to the delight of the graduating member. It represents my last chance to convey how very much I have enjoyed their presence at Fitzwilliam and also to say the most difficult of goodbyes.

We often meet again, either by chance (as I began) or by design, and although I retire in September, I look forward to welcoming many of you back to Fitzwilliam for that free lunch or dinner. Finally, in this my last letter in Optima, I should like to wish my successor, Robert Lethbridge, whom I remember arriving at College, every success and happiness as new Master and to pay tribute to all the staff and Members of the College, both past and present, who have enabled the College to make such outstanding progress over this past one hundred or so years.

CONTENTS 2 Goodbye BFG! Introduction to the contents of Optima.

contents/chemistry • 2

Goodbye BFG! On the front page of this edition of Optima is a valedictory message by Brian F G Johnson, the Master of Fitzwilliam College, 1999 – 2005. Brian came to College as a Fellow in Chemistry in 1970 and, apart from a fiveyear sojourn in Edinburgh as the Crumb Brown Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, has been at Fitzwilliam ever since.

To honour his departure, his contribution to the life of the College and to recognise the high esteem in which he is held by those who work and study here, the first part of Optima VIII is themed to encompass his major interests: chemistry, music and rugby.

All at Fitzwilliam College join together to wish him a long, happy and healthy retirement.

He will be much missed.

10 & 11 Land Economy Fund launched

To the College and to Chemistry Andrew Stachulski on the legacy of Cambridge Chemistry.

Finding surf on forbidden turf Matt Cartright’s love of surfing led him to study the anomaly of wave ownership in the South Pacific for his final year dissertation.

The world is your oyster John Parry writes how Chartered Surveying led him into Property Development and beyond.

3 & 4 Music at Fitzwilliam Music at Fitz is enriched by the addition of the new auditorium Describing College music and all its facets.

UK Shostakovich Society announces support for Fitzwilliam String Quartet Report on new funding in place.

5 & 6 Rugby, now and then Gilbert’s on the ball Adam Gilbert realises his ambition to play in the Varsity match.

‘Your wretched rugby’ Eddie Butler’s memory of early rugby days at Cambridge.

7 An’ all that jazz Sonita Alleyne’s unusual path to a successful career.

12 If you think Cambridge is old …

Sam Allanson’s travel tales with old friends from Fitz.

13 A shilling in the meter and a penny for your thoughts Joseph Stiglitz is interviewed about his early days at Fitzwilliam House and his career as a Nobel Prize winning economist.

14 A little fun in the sun? AIDS and tourism in Asia Rory Gallagher’s PhD project and how travel grants have helped him continue his research.

8 Boathouse appeal update and Oxford Road New Boathouse looms Progress and success for the Boathouse appeal There’s no such thing as a free lunch A great day out in Oxford for ex-oarsmen.

Oxford Road A report on how the College Sports Fund ties in with the proposed development of Oxford Road.

15 Competition Result of the competition in Optima VII. Crossword competition to win a two-for-one, whale watching holiday in the Azores.

16 News and events at Fitzwilliam The diary for 2005 by Emma Camps.

Annual Fund is launched at Fitzwilliam.

9 Babylon revisited Chris Sandford derives ‘satisfaction’ from his life writing best-selling biographies.

To the College and to Chemistry Dr Andrew Valentine Stachulski read Natural Sciences at Fitzwilliam College from 1968 – 1971, along with his friend, John Dudding. In 2001, they jointly established a fund to allow bursaries to be awarded to College graduate students in any of the Natural Sciences who are in need of financial support in connection with their studies.

Andrew’s first class degree in Chemistry led to a College Scholarship studying colchicine synthesis and biosynthesis supervised

by Professor Alan Battersby. He was awarded a PhD in 1974. After a twenty–three year period in industry with SmithKline Beecham and Ultrafine Chemicals, he became a lecturer at the University of Liverpool and a research consultant for Stylacats, a technology led company, based there. His current research group includes a team of medicinal chemists funded by Romark, an American company, together with departmental researchers working mainly on carbohydrate chemistry.

Looking back now, you could fancy there was something of neatness and order about my career path, but I know better. It was in September 1976 that I left Cambridge, and all but twenty-five years later, in March 2001 to be exact, that I realised a long-cherished dream and began as a lecturer at Liverpool.

In between, the journey was indeed unusual. A postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford, a long spell in the pharmaceutical industry and a further lengthy stay in a small, but growing, contract synthesis and research company. During that time Chemistry was written off more than once by the doubters, but always reinvented itself and came back stronger. That is why I am confident it still has a great future, despite the current well-publicised departmental closures and setbacks in big pharma.

There is abundant life in the subject, which can still inspire the students of today, just as I felt motivated to follow that path a generation ago.

When the opportunity to return to academia came, it was truly out of the blue. I had been research manager at Ultrafine for some years and could only watch as the research side of the company was cut back more and more. Ironically, it was the birth of a start-up company at Liverpool, tied in with a lectureship to support Professor Stan Roberts’ teaching, which led to the opening. I accepted the post without hesitation – and what a new lease of life it has been. Yet in truth I can see

The Master with John Dudding (centre) and Andrew Stachulski, outside the Grove

more clearly now how experience of industry has helped me to face present-day academic challenges in turn.

Without question, it was the great legacy of Cambridge Chemistry that kept me going during the interim. Memories of lectures, supervisions, practicals and postgraduate research are still remarkably vivid. Deep enthusiasm and love for the subject speak for themselves and are never forgotten. How fortunate we all were, in those days – I think of lectures by Stuart Warren, Ian Fleming and Tony Kirby, to name just a few; College supervisions by Brian and above all my research in Alan Battersby’s group. Inspiration indeed, and plenty of it, and in addition, how pleasant it always was in later years to revisit Cambridge for a day or two.

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John Dudding and I matriculated in the same year, 1968, and stayed in touch after we graduated. It was particularly in the 1990s, after I returned to live in the North, that I believe the same realisation came to both of us. It seemed natural to make a gesture, however inadequate, to recognise the benefits of those Fitzwilliam years which had influenced our lives and given opportunity more than any other.

There is truly an indissoluble link between all who study, past and present, and I am most conscious of that whenever we visit the College.

How Fitzwilliam has grown – not just in size of

buildings, resources or numbers, but also in stature, as a place of true learning and enquiry.

Our undergraduate days were very firmly set in the experimental period of the College: now there is, dare I say it, at least a semi-establishment feel.

No matter, many little things are still there and instantly recognisable. Brian’s term as Master has been a happy one indeed for John and me and I am sure I speak for John, too, when I say our link with Fitz has never been stronger since we left Cambridge. To the College, and to Chemistry, in the future! It is a privilege still to play a part.

Music at Fitz is enriched by the addition of the new auditorium “Here we will sit, and the let the sounds of music creep in our ears” (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)

Brahms Requiem with the Chiltern Choir

Leipzig Gewandhaus Choir

‘NewFitz’ String Quartet

Music is a central part of College life at Fitzwilliam and the auditorium, situated in the middle of the College grounds, has given it an extra dimension.

The new building is acoustically, one of the best performance venues in Cambridge. Consultant engineers, Arup Acoustics, recommended including adjustable sound flaps to create a perfect environment for almost any use. By opening the flaps, partially or fully, a different acoustic effect can be generated, depending on the size of the ensemble, whether the auditorium is being used for music or for poetry and whether there is a full house or half the seats are empty. The windows have full blackout blinds to occlude the natural lighting of the building when a performance is being staged.

The Fitzwilliam College Music Society (FCMS) officially founded with the College in 1966 although both had their origins earlier, has grown from strength to strength over the years and has done much to enhance the musical reputation of the College. The student-run committee is responsible for organising the recital series that take place on Sunday evenings throughout term, encompassing music for every taste. Additionally, with the enhanced facilities they are able to arrange major concerts and attract well renowned visiting musicians, orchestras and choral groups.

David Ciavarella, an Italian tenor, has visited regularly with his wife, Yuri Takenaka, a soprano, originally from Japan and gave a concert in the Michaelmas term with the Amici in Musica choir, based in Rome. This resulted in an invitation for the Fitzwilliam choir to return to Amelia to perform Mozart’s Requiem with them in June.

Eleanor Goodfield, (Music, 2004) the Fitzwilliam Junior Organ Scholar, helped to organise the trip; quite an undertaking to get thirty-two people plus instruments to Italy for six days and back in time for graduation, especially when a cello has to have its own seat on the aeroplane!

Other distinguished visitors include the Rosamunde Trio led by pianist, Martino Tirimo, a

leading Schubert and Beethoven specialist; the internationally renowned, Leipzig Gewandhaus choir, bolstered by two of Fitz Choir’s tenors, James Crawford (Linguistics, 2002) and David Knight (Engineering, 2003); the Chiltern Chamber Choir who performed Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem alongside the Fitzwilliam choir and Thomas Wakefield, a concert pianist, who performed a recital as a tribute to the late Ronald Smith, who himself had been a regular performer at Fitzwilliam.

The Fitzwilliam String Quartet (FSQ), a professional ensemble, established in the College in 1968, has retained its affiliation with Fitzwilliam and returns to take Masterclasses every term that benefit musicians from both the University and local schools. The FSQ perform high quality concerts either alone or in combination with current Fitzwilliam students in the wellestablished, ‘Fitz and Friends’ concert series. They also took part in the auditorium opening concerts in April 2004, when students and musicians combined to perform major works by composers such as Schubert, Shostakovich and Bach and including a performance of Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. They were joined by the internationally renowned tenor, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, the soprano, Sally Bradshaw and former Fitzwilliam students, John Turner (1961) on the recorder, and composer, Nicky Marshall (1961), who composed a special work for the occasion.

The Orchestra on the Hill, a non-auditioned symphony orchestra based at Fitzwilliam, but including musicians from Churchill, New Hall and Magdalene, benefit from their experience and have performed with them in the auditorium to great acclaim, on several occasions. There is also a String Quartet (‘NewFitz’) composed of current students, Eli Rolfe Johnson on fiddle, Roderick Morris on second fiddle, Ciarán Rhys Jenkins on cello, joined by Becky Saxby from Newnham on viola. They perform alone, or together with other musicians including the FSQ, in a number of

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music at fitzwilliam • 3

Without question, it was the great legacy of Cambridge Chemistry that kept me going … Memories of lectures, supervisions, practicals and postgraduate research are still remarkably vivid. Deep enthusiasm and love for the subject speak for themselves and are never forgotten.

music at fitzwilliam• 4

Steinway grand piano in the auditorium (David Coppendale)

Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar

Eleanor Goodfield

Music is irreversibly linked to Fitzwilliam College. Please help us to allow them to continue to grow together and turn to the centre pages for more information on giving to the Music Fund.

innovative ways to further extend the musical experience of the College. Ciarán Rhys Jenkins says, “We as music students truly benefit because we don’t just receive instruction from a professional quartet, we get real performance experience with a professional ensemble, something that I, in relation to the Schubert Quintet (an epic 60 minute work) will never forget!”

The 2004 Junior President of the FCMS, Edward Bainton (Music, 2003) feels that the new auditorium has provided a massive boost to their activities. As well as being able to offer prestigious visitors a fantastic performing space more suited to their reputation, it allows larger audiences to take advantage of the opportunity to see them perform. The larger dimensions allow the Society to host orchestral concerts that formerly they were unable to do and give the Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra, an alternative place to the West Road Music School, to rehearse. It allows the Alkan Piano Scholarship competition a more suitable venue, as befitting the panel of distinguished judges. A magnificent Steinway grand piano is situated in the auditorium and is available for use by advanced level performers.

There are also three well-equipped music practice rooms, two with upright pianos and one with a harpsichord, to which all music students have priority for use.

But music isn’t all the auditorium has enhanced, there’s drama and poetry too. The 250-seat venue saw a sell-out performance of Jesus Christ Superstar ( JCS) in March 2005 when FCMS combined with FitzTheatre. Over 100 students were involved in the production with a University-wide cast but musically directed and produced by Fitzwilliam students, Malcolm Moffat (Music, 2003) and Chris Wilson (History, 2002). Varsity in reviewing the performance, gave the following accolades: ‘magnificently performed music’, ‘incredibly

impressive ….. sound and staging’ and ‘deeply moving climax’.

An Anglo-Welsh poetry reading was staged for the first time in the auditorium in February with Patrick Jones and Mike Jenkins (father of Ciarán), attracting a totally different clientele. Poetry, in the main auditorium was interspersed with music being played between sets in the glass-fronted foyer, utilising the complete space (with a wine bar downstairs). The spreading of musical wings to encompass poetry and drama attracts a wider audience and provides an advertisement for the College’s amazing facilities, University-wide. It is hoped that recording facilities might be eventually developed which would make Fitzwilliam the only college in Cambridge with its own professional recording facilities.

But all this isn’t without cost. The musicians and both choral and organ scholars need external music lessons to develop their latent talent; portable staging had to hired to perform JCS; a second grand piano brought in for the Brahms concert for two pianos and the choir visit to Italy needed sponsorship. Music has been close to the heart of the Master who presides over the Senior Committee of the FCMS and has been consistently supportive. He has helped individuals find funds for external music lessons, attended the majority of the concerts, entertained the musicians to dinner and helped where he can from the Master’s Fund and from his own pocket on occasions. Eleanor Goodfield said, “He has made a great personal effort to get involved and it has made a big difference to us as performers to know he was sitting in the audience at concerts”.

As well as this being a tribute to Brian’s outstanding support of College music it is a plea for more funds to support this area and help it to continue to expand. It will cost in the order of £2,500 to set up recording facilities; external music lessons are extraordinarily expensive. Those with serious ambitions take lessons in one of London’s music colleges where the going rate is around £80 per hour; although this may vary from person to person, it is never cheap. The E D Davies and other funds have many calls upon them. It cost £185 per person when the choir went on tour and the musicians are in desperate need of a new grand piano.

UK Shostakovich Society announces support for Fitzwilliam String Quartet

The Fitzwilliam String Quartet. Left to right: Andrew Skidmore, Jonathan Sparey, Alan George and Lucy Russell (Alison Carter)

A recently established link between the College and the UK Shostakovich Society (UKSS) has led to the main benefactor of the Society offering additional substantial funding to assist the Fitzwilliam String Quartet (FSQ) in its 2005/6 residency. Continuing associations with the late composer, his widow and his famous students have led the FSQ to perform to great acclaim in Russia where they hold an impressive reputation,

reflecting well on Fitzwilliam College. 2006 is the centenary of Shostakovich’s birth and celebrations are planned to commemorate the occasion in Paris, St Petersburg and Cambridge. The FSQ have been invited to perform the complete fifteen String Quartets of Shostakovich in St Petersburg and the College will host a prestigious international music conference, both of which will be sponsored and arranged by the UKSS.

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6’ 4” Adam Gilbert chose Fitzwilliam due to its sporting tradition and its reputation for forward thinking. He came to visit and liked what he saw, epitomised by the grounds at Oxford Road. Although dogged by injury (torn cartilage in both shoulders) he has represented Fitz in the Cuppers, coached the College rugby teams and realised his life long ambition – to win a Blue in the Varsity match.

Fitz team before the Cuppers final, changing rooms at Grange Road Rugby Club, March 2005

gilbert’s on the ball• 5

Gilbert’s on the ball Adam Gilbert (Land Economy, 2002)

Fitz vs Pembroke in an early round of the Cuppers

The Burgundy and grey colours of Fitz just lost promotion to the first division of the College league on the toss of a coin this season and also sadly, just lost in the finals of the Cuppers to their arch rivals, St John’s but … they’ll be back!

The rugby players train twice a week at Oxford Road under the watchful eye of the groundsman, Dave Norman and are supported throughout the season by both the Master and the Bursar. The Master’s support extends further than just standing on the touchline.

As an ex-rugby player himself, he is the President of the Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club. He presides over the vote for the Captain of the Varsity team, he attends every University game and the majority of the College games.

He dips his hand in his pockets for liquid refreshment and through the Master’s Fund he has helped a number of Fitz rugby players, both Rugby League and Rugby Union, continue and improve their sport. He has even promised the Fitz team, dinner on high table!

Adam spends over five hundred pounds a year on playing equipment – the usual, such as boots, scrum caps and gum shields but he also needs special neoprene shoulder supports for his injured shoulders. They constrict his chest during the game and cause him continuous discomfort but after rehab, his shoulders are now on the mend. A grant from the Master’s Fund towards all the extra costs for equipment has helped him achieve his dream – to play for Cambridge in the Varsity match. Adam says, “It was a fantastic experience and the only time an amateur ever gets the chance to play in front of such a large crowd at Twickenham. It is the biggest rugby event in England outside the cup finals and the Internationals and we played to a crowd of forty five

thousand supporters, which included at least one coach load from Fitzwilliam”.

He played in the second row, was on for the full eighty minutes despite being one of only two undergraduates selected to start and won his Blue.

Sadly, 2004 wasn’t to be Cambridge’s year; Oxford won the match, 18 –11 but Adam, at the age of 21, realised his ambition. He pays tribute to the Master, “I very much doubt if I would have been in the position to play rugby for Cambridge without Brian. I owe him a great deal”.

There have been other former Members who have gone on to pursue a serious career in rugby.

Martin Purdy (2000) now plays professionally for the London Wasps, Chris Collins (2002) plays for Gloucestor, Eddie Butler (1976) was the former Captain of Wales and Alastair Hignell (1974) played for England, 1975 – 1979; to mention but a few. Adam will not go on to play professional rugby when he leaves. The shoulder operations have taken their toll and he hopes to take up oil trading with a company such as Shell. He will never forget Fitz and the opportunity it gave to him. As the President of the Mornie Onions (2003 – 2005) he is hoping to organise a fiftieth anniversary dinner next year (they were founded in 1955). Mornie Onions watch this space – Gilbert’s on the ball.

Adam jumping the line-out, Blues match against Pertemp Bees in Birmingham.

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your wretched rugby • 6

‘Your wretched rugby’ Eddie Butler (1976) Eddie Butler studied Modern Languages at Fitzwilliam College 1976 – 1979. He was awarded Blues for rugby in 1976, 1977 and 1978 and went on to play for Wales between 1980 and 1984, captaining them seven times and winning sixteen caps.

He also toured with the 1983 British Lion Squad. He is currently the Observer newspaper’s rugby correspondent and BBC television’s rugby commentator.

So, we were through to the final, to play Cats, who were awash with Blues, with at least half the University side in their college ranks, it appeared. But we were Fitz, and we were bonded.

Asked to write about Fitzwilliam, I feel like a relic from the museum of the same name, an object marked “Not entirely suitable for public display”. But just as the odd cracked fossil can serve a purpose – if, say, the Polytechnic of Riga make a request for any leftovers here I am, brought up from the crypt to the pages of your workers’ magazine, the one that sounds like my American Express card.

When I was at Fitz it was about one twenty-fifth the size it is now. The Grove was somewhere you dared never tread, for fear of being put in the cupboard reserved for the footballs that came over the fence. I say never, but we were allowed in once a year, for the Onions’ summer cocktail party. We would blunder through the shrubbery giving the poor owners every reason to keep us out for the remainder of the year.

It was so long ago. When I first went up, Edward Miller was the Master. Brian was but a twinkle in his alma mater’s eye. My French supervisor was one Dr Robert Lethbridge. He was a kindly soul, who would hurl my essays back at me with a snarl, “It’s time you spent less time on your wretched rugby”.

The very first essay he gave us, his nervous, earnest charges, was “L’Ironie”. As in, discuss. I think these were pre-hurling days, but the inaugural effort still came back airborne. Not long afterwards, however, while struggling for breath one midweek day down at Grange Road, I looked up, and there, in the crowd, almost bathed in wintry sunshine, was the unmistakeable moustache of my supervisor. “Well, there’s a touch of your bloody irony”, I thought. Actually, it sort of reassured me. I took essay-hurling better after that.

I don’t think I ever told him, would never have dared, but our Master-to-be taught me how to read. Yeah, yeah, I know. But, he did. Proper reading. His ferocity was good for me.

As for Fitz rugby, it was an inversion of my Fitz cricket. In my first Summer, we went to Cuppers final and lost to Downing. It was the same old story. We had this infallible plan: if Alastair Hignell (1974) played, we won. Simple as that. The little bearded one would go out and belt a hundred over midwicket, and on the rest of us would go. He wasn’t there on the big day, so we lost.

Over the following two summers we went precisely nowhere with the cricket team. On the rugby field, on the other hand, things improved.

Well, to be honest, they could hardly get any

worse. In my first or was it my second year, I committed the worst deed of my life. I struggle to remember, so deep is my shame. There was this bloke called Clive, from mid-Wales and Trinity in that order who had been winding me up about the forthcoming Cuppers clash between our colleges.

He was going to do this and that and all sorts to me. I responded with all the dignity I could muster.

In the first ten minutes, I kicked him as hard as I could straight between the eyes. Clive went off. We lost the game. I worried about it for ages, until at the end of my final year Clive came up to me and thanked me for what I had done. It had changed his life, he claimed, and the last I heard he was heading off to do missionary work in somewhere like the Shan Provinces.

Anyway, we lost in the early rounds in years one and two. But in my final year, we went all the way to the final. We weren’t star-studded, we had Blue, Dick Tyler (1978) on the wing but we were closeknit. In the semi final, we were not expected to beat Christ’s, who had John Robbie, already an Irish international, at scrum half. But he knew, that I knew, that he had a gammy shoulder, and this time in the best possible taste - we managed to keep him under control. So, we were through to the final, to play Cats, who were awash with Blues, with at least half the University side in their college ranks, it appeared. But we were Fitz, and we were bonded.

On the eve of the Final, I had to go to speak at the Magdalene rugby club dinner. Monty Don, the gardener, played for them. This created a bit of a problem for the Fitz team, not Monty Don, but me speaking. But I assured them that I would remain sober and that we, close-knit Fitz, would be fine. I go down the hill, I speak and I come back. To find the rest of the Fitz team absolutely hanging in the bar. “What the Hell’s going on?” I said. “We didn’t think you could stop yourself going on the piss”, they wailed.

“So, we did, too”. In a sense, it was a fair point. But on that one night, I don’t know, I must have talked herbaceous borders with Monty.

The upshot was that we never really got it together in the Grand Final and went down, much to the chagrin, I trust, of Dr Lethbridge’s moustache in the middle of our large contingent in the crowd.

Oh, happy days! The best of my life. What? Oh, time to go back to the vault.

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Sonita Alleyne (1985) talks about her career since leaving Fitzwilliam.

She is the co-founder of Somethin’ Else, a TV and radio production company that also acts as a talent agency and is involved in on-line mobile interactive communications. She has won an impressive list of awards including, the Award of Excellence from the European Federation of Black Women Business Owners (2000), the Carlton Multicultural Achievement Award for TV and radio (2002) and she was awarded the OBE in 2003. She is a non-executive Director of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Management Board and is CEO of her own company employing some sixty staff and valued at twelve to thirteen million pounds.

She finished with a ‘Desmond’ and an overdraft; pleased to get the former after her nocturnal existence and determined to do something about the latter.

She arrived back in London armed with a Kitkat and an Evening Standard.

Sonita has had a colourful career. Starting from a girl’s comprehensive in Leyton, she was interested in studying artificial intelligence (AI). Her economics teacher at school, Gerald O’Connell (1970) encouraged the girls to aspire and three came up to Cambridge. Sonita and Sharon White (1985) both ended up at Fitzwilliam, recommended by O’Connell who had read Economics here.

O’Connell writes, “I seem to remember Sonita wanted to study AI. I tried to persuade her that you couldn’t make machines that think until you had a clear understanding of what ‘thinking’ is - and the only way to do that would be to study Philosophy. She took up the idea of studying Philosophy with some alacrity after I pointed out that there were no facts to be learned or committed to memory ….”

Sonita’s memories involve ‘burning the midnight oil’, taking part in a massive water fight in the corridor, singing jazz and being hauled up before the Dean for having a traffic cone in her room which was reported by her bedder. She also remembers it as a time she made lasting friendships and learned to organise.

She was on the Spring Ball committee and served as the Cambridge University’s anti-racism officer. She was in a College band, ‘Mr Creosote’ along with Henry Gee (1984) on keyboard (now an editor for Nature). She felt that reading Philosophy taught her to see all sides of a situation, equipped her well for life and business and encouraged critical thinking. She finished with a ‘Desmond’ and an overdraft; pleased to get the former after her nocturnal existence and determined to do something about the latter. She arrived back in London armed with a Kitkat and an Evening Standard.

Her first job was in sales, as a Financial Advisor for Royal Life. She learned to talk to anyone. One day, she attended a ‘Jazz against Apartheid’ meeting and, in the evening went to a gig and met the same employee of Jazz FM, at both functions.

Fate had taken a hand. As a result she joined Jazz

FM, as an Information Officer in the press office and moved on, during her two years there, to become a trainee producer. The jazz scene was changing, new people were coming in and redundancies were on the cards so in 1991, she joined forced with Jez Nelson and Chris Philips to start their own company. So Somethin’ Else began, with £500 from each founder member as start-up money and a name derived from a jazz album by Canonball Adderley. She was 24.

They began by doing events promotions for live music clubs and moved on to producing programmes for the BBC and commercial radio. In 1994, they covered the Edinburgh Festival and things took off after that. Hit40 UK is the biggest commercial radio show in the UK, the company works with 120 commercial radio stations and recently, in partnership with Orange, they have provided an innovative new service for mobile telephones. In February 2005, this won the GSM Association 2005 Award for the Best Mobile Entertainment Content, in Cannes.

Until last year, Sonita sat on the SONY Awards Committee but recently her life took on a new direction. She and her partner became the proud parents of a son, Miro. She is back working four days a week and still contributes to several National bodies. She feels the contribution she makes to the Government Department for Culture, Media and Sport is valuable as these are subjects that touch everyone’s lives. She is on the National Employment panel, an organisation that advises the Government Department of Work and Pensions. She works on issues such as ethnic minorities and enterprise and lone parent employment, alongside other business people. She was honoured to receive the OBE recently from the Prince of Wales.

As an older mother of 37, she values the smile her son gives her each morning; she is comfortable with her relationship with Jez Nelson who jointly runs Somethin’ Else and enjoys the challenge of inventing new strategies. She wishes to move into the music based film industry and plans are afoot to do so. She feels time with friends and family are important and Saturday and Sunday breakfast time are now social times when friends visit. She is certainly rising earlier than her days at College!

There are things she would like to pass on to students today: Keep asking questions. Take risks and go for things and think entrepreneur. Take a business view of yourself and your value and get the best out of any situation. In a meeting, try to see what the other person wants from it and start talking first to move the meeting in the direction you want it to go.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

an all that jazz • 7

An’ all that jazz

boathouse/oxford road • 8

New Boathouse looms We are so nearly there. Of the original target of £500,000, nearly £480,000 has either been donated, pledged or can be recouped via Gift Aid on donated funds. This magnificent sum includes £100,000 from the JMA reserves and donations from both Billygoats and the Fitzwilliam Society.

Planning Consents have been applied for. The current Boathouse is in a Conservation Area so permission to demolish is required as well as permission to re-build.

The Executive Trustees of the JMA have also put the scheme out to tender to obtain a firm building price. It is not known how long the Planning process will take but its chance of approval is rosy as the new building proposed is like for like in terms of accommodation and scale.

Obviously, costs have risen since the original target was set, but inflation is low at present and interest is being earned on the funds already in place. Pledges have now been called in. Subject to the final funding being in place and to Planning Consents being obtained, the old Boathouse will be demolished as soon as the Mays finish in June 2006 and the new one re-built in time for the Fairbairns in the Michaelmas Term.

THANK YOU ALL

Oxford Road

Cricket at Oxford Road

In Optima VII, in the spring of 2005, the setting-up of the College’s Sports Fund and its official launch at a Sporting Dinner on 25 June, was announced.

That was a huge success, with 120 sportsmen and women bidding an emotional farewell to Brian Johnson after fast and furious bidding for twenty lots of sporting memorabilia generously donated

by Members and friends of the College.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins (who, equally generously, had led the Past cricketers to an unwonted defeat by the Present earlier in the day) gave a typically witty speech and was delighted to see his own donated book realise six times its cover price, in aid of sport at Fitzwilliam.

Thanks to that event, the Fund now stands at well over £10,000 and this is in addition to the Kenneth Wilson Fund of over £150,000, which is earmarked for a new pavilion.

For many years, it has been an aspiration of the College to develop the Oxford Road playing field and appropriate representations have been made at the deposit of successive Local Plans to protect this possibility.

The stumbling block has always been that a suitable replacement has to be found, both because that is a condition of developing any playing field and because Oxford Road is held by the JMA in trust as a playing field. Counsel’s Opinion taken in 1990 (and considering Opinions given in 1968 and 1973) established that it would be possible to develop, provided that an equal replacement was given to the JMA.

The University is close to establishing in the new Local Plan, the removal of a large tract of land, mainly the University farm and that known as the North West Cambridge site, from the Green Belt.

The purpose to which this is to be put (as and when funds permit) is a combination of housing for University staff, up to three new Colleges and departmental buildings. Its master plan also has to provide substantial open space and the College has an “in principle” undertaking from the University that a part of this will provide a new playing field, to be owned by the JMA. Hopefully, since access should be from Storey’s Way, the new playing field will be even closer than Oxford Road.

This proposal has the attraction to the University that rather than having to maintain a landscaped open space, it could sell for value to Fitzwilliam.

For the College there is the attraction of a huge value created by the development of Oxford Road.

First calculations suggest that, after paying for the acquisition levelling and facilities of the new playing field, there would be a significant residue, which could ideally provide at Oxford Road, a substantial amount of graduate and perhaps Fellows’ housing, on part of the site. The rents from these would support sport at Fitzwilliam in perpetuity, making us (in yet another way) the envy of other colleges.

There are many hurdles yet to be cleared. Not to mention the intense affection of generations of Fitzwilliam members for the playing field, there is, for example, known archaeology and a memorial to those who died in the Great War, many of whom had laboured to level Oxford Road. Bringing this project to fruition is likely to take at least three years, but it undoubtedly represents a wonderful opportunity to meet several of the College’s aspirations. The first hurdle is the Local Plan Enquiry, the result of which should be known early in 2006. Fingers crossed for sport at Fitz.

There’s no such thing a free lunch …

Left to right: Norman Killey, Geoff Wilson, David Knowles and John Adams

At the beginning of June, David Knowles (1960) organised a superb fund fundraising event at his home outside Oxford. He invited all those oarsmen he remembered from his rowing days at Fitzwilliam plus any ex-rowers who lived in the Oxford area; quite an extensive list! To his wife, Janet’s evident relief not all those invited were free to come but many sent letters of support or cheques in lieu of attendance.

On Sunday 5 June, David and Janet welcomed about thirty people to an excellent lunch and after a brief update on the progress of the Boathouse appeal, the party decamped to punt ‘the other way round’, on the Isis. This was followed by tea with Roger (1961) and Juliet Blackburn who luckily lived just by the punting station and the day culminated

in evensong at Magdalene College.

A good day out was had by all. The event triggered many of those who had a mind to contribute to the appeal, to do so and extended the generosity of those who were already supportive.

The icing on the cake was that the initiative raised in excess of ten thousand pounds for the new Boathouse. David has issued a challenge to other former Captains to do something similar, using their local places of interest to host a fun-day (fundday) reunion.

If you wish to donate to the Boathouse appeal and help fill that final gap, please turn to the centre pages for more information on giving to the Boathouse Fund.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

“You fool. You won’t make a living out of the Rolling Stones.”

Chris Sandford has published around twenty books since leaving Fitz, among them best-selling biographies of Mick Jagger (1993), Kurt Cobain (1995) and Steve McQueen (2001).

Keith Richard: Satisfaction was a London Times Book of the Year in 2003. His biography of Paul McCartney is to be published by Century/Random House in January 2006. He lives mainly in Seattle with his wife and son, but can be found in the free seats at Lord’s every summer.

These moving and eminently sensible words were uttered in May 1976, on the eve of a critical Part I exam in History, by my long-suffering supervisor, David Starkey. They would haunt me, waking and sleeping, for the next twenty years. Dr Starkey’s first and most forcefully put reservation was one of timing – I was abandoning revision to watch the Stones play live, if they could be called that, at Earl’s Court – although musical grounds might have made a strong bid for second place. Those shows were some of the worst Sir Mick Jagger and co ever gave. The group eventually appeared onstage, two hours late, to the strains of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. From that point on, things began to deteriorate rapidly. Sir Mick bounced around, swung on a wire and generally came over as a hep power-aerobics instructor, while his kohl-eyed friends listlessly cranked at their guitars. Real indignity, I recall, befell the encore: Jagger performed ‘Satisfaction’ while the band was playing ‘Angie’; enough to make one pine, very nearly, for the Seeley Library.

Meanwhile, the image of Dr Starkey berating his feckless charges (by no means the last, or most distinguished of those critiqued by the so-called ‘rudest man in Britain’) was one that he cultivated with single-minded dedication. Some of his more colourful quips would have raised eyebrows on the focsle of a pirate brig. It is therefore, perhaps, a betrayal to say here that I encountered only a man who, if not a martyr to false modesty, displayed both exquisite manners and a very real concern for one’s welfare. Writing books was a slog, he told me, let alone making a living out of them. He was not wrong. I went into print for the first time in 1978 but could not reasonably call myself ‘an author’ until the biography of the aforesaid Jagger was published some fifteen years later.

Music, tequila, cricket. (One passes over the enjoyably demented politics, scene of some lively interaction with the current Home Secretary.)

Those were one’s three sustaining briefs at Cambridge, with anything to do with actually reading History a far-distant fourth. I made no superhuman effort to keep these enthusiasms separate. Six or seven rounds at Fenner’s, followed by an erratic journey back to P staircase and the raucous charms of Sticky Fingers was my idea of a day well spent. Still, it wasn’t perhaps all a waste of the local education authority’s money. My bookwriting days got off to a languid start, with two unpublishable novels. And I like to think those slurred remarks made outside the beer tent on Gresham Road perhaps in some way converted

into the more formal cricket commentary job I held between 1980-82.

Another life lesson: those Stones shows in London (for some compelling reason, I endured three of the six nights) also taught one something about the reality of rock concerts. With a few notable exceptions, most of them still strike me as a crushing disappointment. They’re not cheap, and not especially congenial. Their attraction is anecdotal (“I was there”) and perhaps too the anonymity involved, the fact that no one talks to you except, occasionally, a bouncer; it’s also something to do with the appeal of moving to a rhythm at the same time as everyone else. As North Koreans attend demonstrations, lifting photographs of the Dear Leader and lowering them simultaneously, so people clap along at pop concerts. I seem to remember saying something of the sort to Dr Starkey on my return to Fitz the day before exams, and he very properly drawing my attention to the Wars of the Roses.

Nearly a third of a century later, I’m grateful for what knowledge Starkey managed to impart to me.

The same goes for my tutor, the late Dr Edwards.

“You don’t really believe,” the latter once said – it was accusation rather than question – “people will be listening to that stuff [Sticky Fingers, etc] thirty years from now?” I did believe it; indeed, I was banking on it. Edwards showed heroic self-restraint, mentioning only the practical difficulties of a tone deaf man like myself finding employment in the music industry – no bar, admittedly, to most of today’s record-label chiefs. As I recall, he merely rolled his eyes when I promptly announced my back-up plan, a biography of Geli Raubal (1908-31) to be entitled Hitler’s Niece. This was perhaps riskier even than hitching one’s wagon to the Messrs Jagger and Richards: when it comes to Adolf Hitler and his troubled love life, there can be no presumption of the reader’s sympathies.

Looking back on it now, I’m amazed at the forbearance Drs Starkey and Edwards, among many others, showed me as I lurched around, a determined scowl plastered on my face like a Postit note, in a triangle loosely formed by Fitz, Andy’s Records and the pub. I’m also grateful for such lectures and supervisions as I attended: it was probably about twenty years later that I came to appreciate what resources had been freely available. Oddly enough, although I always get a rude shock when I catch sight of the stooped, fat and antique baldie who’s reflected back in shop windows, I still feel about nineteen. Worse still, my memories of life when I was nineteen seem to be far more vivid than my recollection of what happened last week. Those excruciating Stones concerts could literally have been yesterday.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

babylon revisted • 9

Babylon revisited Christopher Sandford (History, 1974)

Finding surf on forbidden turf

finding surf • 10

Matt Cartwright (2001) is a recent graduate of Fitzwilliam, gaining a first class degree in Land Economy and the RICS prize for the ‘Advanced Techniques in Finance and Investment for Real Estate’ paper. His dissertation was entitled ‘Property Rights Over the Foreshore – the South Pacific Setting’, tying in neatly with his love of surfing. He has travelled all over the world for the best surfbreaks and challenging rides.

Matt with ‘research materials’

Launch of a Land Economy Fund Dr Derek Nicholls, Acting President of Fitzwilliam College 2004 – 2005, Fellow, and Director of Studies in Land Economy, launched a Fund for Land Economy on 23 April 2005 at the Land Economy Reunion Dinner.

The Department has a good reputation and remains strong but to compete effectively, funds are sought both for book grants and to enable students to travel widely in association with their research.

Two articles follow, in support of the Fund, from two former Fitzwilliam Land Economy students.

After leaving school I spent a year surfing around the world, arriving in Cambridge in 2001. Studying had become an almost alien concept. Fortunately, the standard of teaching in the Land Economy department and the friendly environment at Fitz made the transition a smooth one. My three years at Fitz cover some of my happiest memories, including the parties, formals, sports, and of course, friendships.

Halfway through my degree, I began to appreciate the breadth and variety that the Land Economy degree provides. The earlier stages give the student a thorough grounding in law, economics and the environment, with the latter stages enabling a more focussed approach on the interaction of these disciplines at a practical level. I realised during my second year, that it was possible to combine both studying and surfing by basing my dissertation on a bizarre legal situation in the South Pacific.

The situation exists in the Fijian Islands - home to tropical waters, powerful south swells from the roaring forties, and Cloudbreak – one of the best surfbreaks in the world. The swells come marching in from deep water, hit the shallow coral reef and explode into pitching crystal caverns as the waves barrel their path down the outline of the reef, giving the charger the ride of his life, or quite the beating if he makes a mistake. It sounds similar to other world-class surf spots, except the waves at Cloudbreak are subject to a proprietary claim from a local tribe, who inhabit Tavarua and Namotu islands, with access being restricted and fiercely enforced. The exclusivity of the waves here is widely recognised within the surfing fraternity, but little understood. And so the project began; an

And so the project began; an attempt to uncover the mystery of this proprietary claim, a claim which at face value appears absurd: how can you possibly own a wave, itself inherently transient in nature?

Matt with local children on Yanuca island

attempt to uncover the mystery of this proprietary claim, a claim which at face value appears absurd: how can you possibly own a wave, itself inherently transient in nature?

I was fortunate to have Dr Paul McHugh as my supervisor, a member of the department who happened to be one of the world’s leading experts in tribal land rights. However, even he had little knowledge of this situation and so it was necessary to head to Fiji and investigate it for myself, figuring out the economics of more surf time and less library time. It was my most memorable travel experience to date, surfing waves with 20 foot faces on a barrier reef way out in the ocean and learning from local people about their concepts of ownership and property rights. It all added towards a fascinating discovery of how the English legal system interacted with the tribal land systems upon sovereignty, and the extent to which the extant tribal rights can be applied to water, and more importantly to waves. The high profile claim to Cloudbreak has led to similar claims to different surfbreaks, such as the claim to the waves at Frigate’s Pass by the islanders of Yanuca. The fight for property rights over the foreshore is not one confined to remote tropical islands but has also been raging in Australia and most recently, in New Zealand.

My field trip was funded partly by the College, partly by the Commonwealth Fund, but mainly by me. The Fitzwilliam Land Economy Fund will be a hugely valuable resource for future students looking to travel to pursue their dissertation studies.

After graduating in 2004, I chose the legal path and have spent this last year studying ‘distance learning’ as an exemption student on the Graduate Diploma in Law, funded by a City firm. This loophole (which exempts Land Economy graduates from most of the course due to the law studied within their degree) enabled me to spend 3 months tracking the Autumn swells down the west coast of Europe and a couple of months after Christmas, learning Spanish in Central America, where the surf also happens to be a little bit special.

If you would like to support the Land Economy Fund and help students like Matt travel abroad for dissertation research, please turn to the centre pages for more information.

Namotu island Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

The world is your oyster

I was sixteen; what was I going to do? I had no great ambition, only to have an interesting career, reasonably rewarded; Estate Management seemed to fit.

My role model was the son of my parents’ best friends who practiced as a Chartered Surveyor in Amersham. How to emulate him? There were three routes, articles or apprenticeship, both requiring part time study whilst working, and university with its full exemption from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)’ written examinations.

Ever slothful, the latter route was infinitely preferable. My Headmaster and Geography Master were both Fitzwilliam men and Cambridge offered a qualifying course in Estate Management (now Land Economy). I therefore arrived at Fitzwilliam House in September 1954.

The greeting of the Censor, W S Thatcher, seemed to fit my philosophy. We were not there just to study but to enter fully the life of the University. The result was a greatly enjoyable three years and a not very good degree, although any degree from Cambridge carries a certain cachet.

My lowly ambitions were perhaps not a drawback. Chartered Surveying was not ‘rocket science’, one needed to be a good generalist. At that time, it was primarily a UK practiced skill, with limited opportunities for a career in management. I first had to undertake the two years service in an ‘approved office’ in London ie working under the supervision of a Chartered Surveyor before I could be admitted as a Professional Associate by RICS. All this of course preparatory to seeking that post in a comfortable Home Counties Practice.

I have never left London! I discovered Property Development! I was to be a ‘Principal’ not an ‘Advisor’ (truth to tell, I would not have been very good at the latter as I was too impatient with those unwilling to take my ‘advice’!). I joined a Property Development Company as an Area Development Surveyor to find and develop commercial sites. I loved it and over forty years later I still do.

Ten years, several job moves and promotions later, the then Commercial Union Assurance Company (CU) acquired the company I was working for. We were given the responsibility for all CU’s property interests’ worldwide. When I left in 1983, I had become Head of Department and had visited thirty countries and worked in fifty major cities. I had been appointed a member of the Property Advisory Group to the Department of the Environment and a Member, then Deputy Chairman, of Telford New Town Development Corporation.

At the CU, I became increasingly aware of the penetration that other surveyors were making into business life, both here and overseas. Surveyors

were now in Western Europe in numbers though primarily in private practices. Similarly the USA, Southern Africa and S E Asia were proving fertile areas, even the Middle East. UK Property Companies were becoming increasingly multinational.

In the UK, surveyors had reached top positions in the insurance and pensions industry and one had become under-secretary at a Government department. Women were also encroaching into, what had been a male dominated enclave when I qualified. When in the late 70’s, CU commenced a direct graduate entry to my property department, the first appointee was a lady (though from Nottingham!).

I was approaching 50 when I received an offer from Sydney Mason, Chairman of Hammersons, to join the Board as an Executive Director which subsequently, progressed to my becoming Managing Director. Hammerson soon taught me that while I might be a good property professional I had much to learn about being a good businessman. There was more to calculating the likely profits from a new development than mathematics; the need to gauge risk! Every property development is a trade-off between greed and prudence, laced with the thrill of the calculated gamble. In 1992, I became President of the industry’s trade body, the British Property Federation which gave me a chance to put something back.

‘Retirement’ arrived in 1993 with a set of new challenges. I became Chairman and Non-Executive Director of public and private property companies and to the Charity, Haig Homes, which provides social housing for ex-members of the Forces; I was an adviser on risk to the Maltese Government for the re-development of Floriana, a World Heritage site and similarly, to a Shona Chief who owned a city block in the centre of Harare! That which continues to give me great satisfaction is my connection with The College of Estate Management (CEM) based at Reading University.

CEM teaches the landed professions by distance learning with students in over 60 countries. The opportunities to gain professional qualification by diploma, Bachelors and Masters degrees (including MBAs) have never been greater; as is the case with in-career training and further qualification.

Surveyors have still to make the breakthrough into top general management. I believe it is only a question of when, not if. Their training is excellent, not only in professional skills, but also in business management. They have support from RICS that is now thinking and acting globally. The opportunity is there, so go for it! The world is your oyster.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

world is your oyster • 11

John Parry (Land Economy, 1954)

If you think Cambridge is old…

if you think cambridge is old • 12

Sam Allanson (Law, 1999)

Pyramids at Giza. Left to right: Anthony, Sam, Stuart and Hugh

The four in semi-national dress outside Karnak Temple, Luxor

As a Fitzwilliam law graduate, I desperately sought a legal metaphor, a relevant Lord Denning quote or a witty Latin quip with which to start this article.

Even a pun would have done. Unfortunately, my efforts were to no avail. As Charles Louis de Montesquieu said in de l’Esprit des Lois, “Directness is always better than elaborate wording”, so I shall just start.

Almost five years to the day, after matriculating, four of Fitzwilliam’s finest met one cold September morning at Heathrow Airport. In the footsteps of Napoleon, Marc Antony and Indiana Jones, we packed up our Billy pride and headed to Egypt, land of the Pharaohs, mother to the world and home to Papa’s Beach Club; possibly the best nightclub outside of CB1. As well as me, the group contained such seasoned travellers as Hugh Pile (1999), Antony ‘The Cat’ Barton (1999) and Stuart Key (1999). The latter, since graduation has developed a striking resemblance to 1500m Olympic silver medallist, Steve Cram.

Unfortunately, his athletic talents have remained the same.

We touched down in Cairo and were quick to immerse ourselves in the local culture; Crammy’s ginger hair and freckles blending in like a rather sore thumb. The day was spent losing ourselves in the narrow back streets of the old Islamic quarter, taking shelter from the beating sun in the mosques and shisha cafes, and haggling for our Egyptian wardrobe in the bazaar. After a tiring day, we headed to our own sanctuary in the form of a revolving restaurant with views of the mighty Nile cutting through the sprawling mass of Cairo, and pretty decent French cuisine. There we were introduced to Obelisk Blanc, a local wine of heinous taste that would become a very good friend in weeks to come.

The next day was spent at the Pyramids at Giza, the only remaining wonder of the ancient world.

We mounted our steeds, galloped into the desert and stared up in amazement at the sheer size of these structures; so impressed was Antony’s horse it passed out, the nimble ‘Cat’ falling to earth to much amusement. Napoleon said to his soldiers before the battle of Giza, “From atop these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you”; so spectacular in design and steeped in history, they make Churchill College seem architecturally and historically insignificant. It has been said that there is enough stone in the Giza pyramids to build a 10ft-high, 1ftthick wall around France; I guess it’s an option, but my vote goes for leaving them as they are.

We departed from Cairo aboard the sleeper train; think Murder on the Orient Express without the style, the murder and the Orient and you’ll come close. It was pretty quick however and whisked us 1000km overnight to Aswan in the south. The next couple of days were spent lazing on the river (the

Nile being particularly beautiful at Aswan), exploring ancient tombs in the Valley of the Kings and temples in Luxor. I have stayed in the Hotel Luxor in Las Vegas before, and I regret to report it to be historically inaccurate.

Our next stop over the Red Sea was Jordan.

Upon arrival, we discovered we had avoided the Nuweiba bombings in Egypt by a matter of hours.

Not to be confused with the glamour model or the basketball player, Jordan has been described as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’. We presumed this to mean political neutrality, rather than a penchant for cuckoo clocks, chocolate and skiing, so felt relatively secure. Victorian clergyman, poet and traveller, Dean Burgon’s description of the spectacular, rock carved, city of Petra holds to this day, “Match me such a marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city as old as time.” We went through the ‘Siq’, an immense winding kilometre-long crack in the Nubian sandstone, round the final gloomy corner to ‘el Khazneh’, the Treasury and resting place for the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From thence, to the ancient amphitheatre on the valley floor, where ‘The Cat’ gave an audience of three, a faultless recital of Hamlet, and finally, up a sharp climb into the surrounding mountains and to the towering monastery.

There, a plucky young Pile decided to scale the structure, “Because it was there”, he said, with the confidence of Edmund Hilary. I doubt that Sir Ed ‘bricked it at the top’ as much as Mr Pile admitted he had.

So, a breathtaking Petra acted as a fitting finale to an inspiring trip. After a quick swim in the Dead Sea followed by a brief dip in Amman, the capital, the weary, but heroic explorers, returned to England. Phileas Fogg, the critically acclaimed crisp maker, travelled the world in eighty days, searching for the perfect Tortilla Chip. We had only been away two weeks and had chosen entirely the wrong continent for marketable Mexican snacks, but in some ways our trip was more successful. (It’s a tenuous link, I know, but one worth making). Friendships forged in the fires of Fitzwilliam (how’s that for alliteration?) were built upon; death was averted; brains were eaten; we came, we saw and we climbed up the last wonder of the world, but most importantly, we added a couple more countries to our list.

As Deng Ming Dao, the Chinese writer, puts it, “Those truly linked don’t need correspondence. When they meet again after many years apart, their friendship is as true as ever”. I will definitely be using this Taoist philosophy as an excuse not to get in touch with Stuart for a while. Upon reflection, Cambridge and Cairo actually have a startling amount in common; both have old buildings, traffic problems and a polluted river. And what more can you want in a city than that?

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

You arrived in Cambridge in 1965. How did you come to be assigned to Fitzwilliam House.

I had arrived from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US and those at Fitzwilliam House gave places to outside graduate students.

Introduction Professor Joseph E Stiglitz attended Fitzwilliam briefly in 1965 during his time in Cambridge as a Fulbright Scholar from the United States. He has been the Chief Economist for the World Bank, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to President Bill Clinton and is currently University Professor at Columbia University, teaching in the economics department, the Graduate School of Business, and the School of International and Public Affairs. He has written widely. Books like Economics, 2nd ed (1997) and Economics of the Public Sector, 3rd ed (2000) are used as standard textbooks for economics students today. Others have become best sellers and achieved international acclaim such as Globalisation and its discontents (2002) and the Roaring Nineties (2003).

Others, like Towards a New Paradigm of Monetary Theory (2002) have pushed the frontiers of economic science. He is an economist of world renown and won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 with George A Akerlof and A Michael Spence as a result of their pioneering work on informational asymmetries.

Dr Sarah Coppendale The Editor Development Office Fitzwilliam College Cambridge cb3 0dg telephone: + 44 (0) 1223 332075 email: sc266@cam.ac.uk

Do you have any memories of your time there?

I was put in digs locally and it was so cold. I had to have shillings for the meter both for heating and hot water and never seemed to have the right coins.

I also got into trouble for putting hot drinks on the French polished table. On the other hand, dinner in the JCR was friendly. I had come to Cambridge to extend my perspective on economic thinking and was able to talk to students across all the disciplines unlike MIT where I mixed mainly with graduate economists.

Did any of the lecturers influence you specifically?

Joan Robinson was assigned as my first graduate tutor. She felt that two years at MIT had done untold damage and sought to re-educate me. This stimulating and enlivening relationship continued, even after Frank Hahn took over my supervision.

He, with others provided me with a remarkable year, rubbing shoulders with many famous names.

Cambridge had a much broader range of perspectives on economics than did MIT at the time. It was a melting pot of ideas from both young and old with people already distinguished in their careers and those who were to become so. It proved hugely formative and links were forged, contacts made and friendships sealed, with people I have been associated with in my writing and research collaborations over very many years.

You moved to another College, for what reason?

Michael Farrell of Gonville and Caius College inveigled me away with a Tapp Junior Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius. JCR to SCR; digs to a suite of rooms in College; it was too good to refuse.

Your book, Globalisation and its discontents (2002) criticised the policies of the International Funding Agencies (IFA) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Do you enjoy being provocative and do think that the stir it caused was partly responsible for its success?

My subsequent career in academia led on to my serving four years on President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, two as Chair and member of the Cabinet, followed by three years as Chief Economist and senior Vice President of the World Bank. This gave me experience. My education had taught me to question and not accept standard answers. Globalisation caused a stir because it raised questions about some of the existing orthodoxy, including providing some trenchant criticism of the IMF. I had gone to the World Bank to help

developing countries and was astonished that the IMF was sometimes doing just the opposite. I was in a unique position as an academic insider to see not only was going on, but to criticise. At the intellectual level, the stance taken by the IMF in East Asia was not intellectually defensible. It was not sound economics. Its policies in the economies in transition from Communism to the market were, at best questionable. Much of the advice it was giving to developing countries I thought was misguided.

And, unfortunately, during the period I was at the World Bank, the consequences of the IMF’s mistaken policy stances were increasing becoming evident. I wanted to help fight poverty and was in a position to consider and discuss the problems. The book found enormous resonance in both developed and less developed countries and has since been translated into twenty-eight languages. It has, I think, helped reshape the globalisation debate.

Was it a ‘hard act to follow’ and did your subsequent book, The Roaring Nineties (2003) meet with as much opposition/acclaim?

In many ways Roaring Nineties represented a continuation of the discussion that I had initiated in Globalisation and its Discontents. One of the key issues was the balance between the role of markets and the role of state. But I also looked at a number of the issues surrounding globalisation, but this time more from the White House perspective. I was able to discuss why things were going badly, both in globalisation and in the American economy.

Underlying many of the corporate, banking, and accounting scandals were information failures, an area I was very familiar with as this was the area of my research for which I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I was able to use my own research theories, apply them and interpret the problems.

As an advocate of developmental aid, do you feel the US and UK should be doing more for underdeveloped countries of the world? If so, how do think this should be best achieved?

Definitely. The US record is abysmal. It gives less percentage aid per Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than almost all other advanced industrial countries.

Scandinavian countries lead with 0.7% or more GDP, with the UK below and US further down still.

The UK are striving to improve and showing commitment with the Economic Commission for Africa being the focus of this year’s G-8 meeting.

This is commendable. The US politicians talk a lot about aid but fail to live up to their promises.

Do you have a message for Economy students of today?

Economics involves the central issues of the World today. One of the most important issues is achieving more equity between developed and less developed countries and reducing poverty in the poorest countries.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

interview • 13

A shilling in the meter and a penny for your thoughts …

new & reviews • 14

A little fun in the sun? AIDS and tourism in Asia Rory Gallagher is currently completing a PhD at Fitzwilliam, having been an undergraduate here since 1999. He won the William Vaughn Lewis prize for his third year dissertation and was runner up for the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Gender and Geography’ award in 2002.

His MPhil thesis received a distinction and won a Fitzwilliam College Senior Scholarship, and he was recently awarded second prize in the American Association of Geographers’ Sexuality and Space Student Paper Competition. Rory is now a Supervisor of Studies at Fitzwilliam, the Graduate Sports Officer.

Two ladyboys, Thailand

Rory with beach boys

Rory’s postgraduate research looks at the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS in Thailand and its links with tourism and the sex industries. The sex industries are big business in developing countries and are becoming increasingly diverse.

Sex tourists can no longer be presumed to be male and heterosexual, and sex workers are not always female. Indeed, there is enormous variety amongst sex workers in South-East Asia encompassing transvestites, pre- and post-operational transsexuals, go-go boys, money boys and beach boys, each targeting a different market in the adult sex trade. Rory’s work was designed to document these different types of sex tourism and the way they operate in Phuket, Thailand and Bali, Indonesia, in order to make recommendations for interventions that tackle the spread of HIV/AIDS. Ladyboys have become iconic figures in Thailand; a modern Thai proverb states that, “Thailand is famous for three things: elephants, monks and ladyboys”. The prevalence and visibility of Thai ladyboys, or ‘kathoeys’ as they are known locally, is largely attributable to religious and cultural factors. There was widespread belief until the end of the last century that there were three original sexes; the third being male-female.

Additionally, many Buddhists believe kathoeys to be paying a karmic consequence for sexual misdemeanour in a previous life. In contemporary times, ladyboys use widely available hormones from an early age to feminise their appearance, which can then be supplemented with silicone and sex reassignment surgery. Such is the effectiveness of these treatments that many tourists cannot identify them from ‘real’ Thai women, and this fascination has spawned a large entertainment industry. Ladyboy cabaret shows play to thousands of tourists each night and there are also prestigious local and national beauty pageants.

The ladyboys who are involved in the sex trade attract heterosexual men looking for a sexual liaison with an extra frisson, something more than just straight sex. Alongside this market, there are also a large number of male sex workers (‘go-go boys’ or ‘money boys’) who cater for gay men.

Additionally, heterosexual female tourists look for sexual relationships with local ‘beach boys’ and reward them with gifts of jewellery, designer clothes or even housing and international travel, rather than the more traditional monetary exchange.

The rate of HIV infection continues to rise at an alarming rate in South-East Asia and the sex trade, due to its growing diversity, is increasingly difficult to regulate. Furthermore, government funds for prevention are rapidly decreasing, as money is being diverted towards the purchase of the antiretroviral drugs needed for the treatment of AIDS sufferers. Consequently, cost-effective interventions are now more important than ever.

Rory is using his geographical background to explore new ‘place-based’ methods of HIV prevention. This approach targets specific ‘core areas’ with high levels of new partner acquisition, such as the tourist destinations of Bali and Phuket.

Within these resorts sex work is changing, with the sex trade moving away from brothels, where regular HIV testing has been established, to nonregulated places such as bars, discos, hotels and cafes. Hence Rory is mapping these changes and developing interventions that are appropriate to the more protracted and less commercial encounters that these new locations facilitate.

During Rory’s studentship he spent six months of fieldwork in Thailand and two in Bali. As well as the collection of statistics, his research involved interviews, focus groups and the keeping of diaries by sex workers.

It is well known that large-scale government surveys and questionnaires on areas such as condom use and safe sexual practices, have given spurious results in the past, due to the reticence by sex workers to give truthful answers when questioned by figures in authority or government officials. Many of the people Rory interviewed were unwilling to talk freely about sex work, tourism and condom use until sufficient trust and familiarity had been established. He has endeavoured to provide a picture of the reality of sex tourism in the twenty-first century, far away from the stereotyped representations that have previously abounded.

Rory’s research has been presented at conferences in Asia, Australia, America and across the UK. He would like to work in policy making for the United Nations’ AIDS programme for South East Asia when he finishes his studentship. He is grateful for the many funding bodies that have supported his project and especially to those from Fitzwilliam College, the Barbara Humphrey Fund and a number of Travel Fund grants.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

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competition • 15

Sarah Bennett (MML, 1989) set up Archipelago Azores Ltd, a tour company, specialising in holidays in the Azores, in 1998. She is offering a prize of a ‘two for the price of one’ deal on a whale watching trip for two persons in the Azores, to the winner of the competition in Optima VIII. If you are considering that holiday with a difference, support a Fitzbilly business and ask for the brochure from Archipelago Azores Ltd or look at www.azoreschoice.com.

The holiday on offer is based on the island of Faial with accommodation for the week in the modern 4 star, Hotel do Canal right in the heart of Horta. The week will include airport transfers, accommodation on Bed & Breakfast twin share basis, flights from Heathrow or Gatwick to Faial (via Lisbon) including all taxes and 4 x 3 hour whale and dolphin watching trips. This holiday can be taken departing any day between June and September 06 (subject to accommodation and flight availability). The trip must be booked by 2 persons who will share a room, one of whom will pay the normal cost, the other will receive the trip for free.

Normal price for this trip is £860 per person (2006 price).

To win the holiday offer send the completed crossword (many of the answers are embedded in this edition of Optima) together with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address to Dr Sarah Coppendale, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, CB3 ODG by 30 November 2005. Please list any Fitz members with whom you are in contact (to help us locate ‘lost sheep’). The winner will be drawn at random from all correct entries received by the closing date.

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CLUES Across 1 & 4 Recent Joseph Stiglitz’ book 10 Emphatic negative 11 Students used to cross them 14 See 22 down 16 Sweet potato 18 “… be or not to be” (Shakespeare) 19 Sensei grade in Shotokan karate 21 Amazed 22 ‘……… offering’ (saying) 23 See 2 down 24 Good for sprains 26 Irreversibly linked to Fitz 29 What the new Master taught Eddie Butler to do 31 Famous raft 33 Sam Allanson’s subject 34 “I’m going to …. until I blow up” (Dylan Thomas) 36 Joseph Stiglitz won this prize 38 Feminine of ‘his’ 40 See 20 down 43 The Venerable ……

45 Music is close to the Master’s 46 …. Lilly and Company (pharmaceutical) 47 His world is his oyster 48 Donkey 49 Indefinite article before vowel 50 New Master’s joined

Down 1 & 23 ‘A little fun in the sun’, author 2 & 23 across He’s ‘on the ball’ 3 Stachulski knows a famous author?

5 High time 6 ‘Keeping a …..’ (Optima IV) 7 English National Opera (abbr) 8 & 32 ‘An’ all that jazz’, author 9 Joseph Stiglitz lives here (abbr) 12 Indirect object 13 Fitz raising funds for this house 14 Chris Sandford’s hero 15 Matt Cartwright loves it 17 Sacha Baron Cohen’s first name 19 “... as you would be done by” (Kingsley) 20, 35 & 40; 40 across Fitz musical 22 &14 across Retiring Master 24 In charge (abbr) 25 Raw mineral 27 & 28 In place (Lat) 30 As 19 down 32 See 8 down 35 See 20 down 37 Enjoyed by most students 39 Has own lettuce 40 See 20 down 41 Campanologist’s term 42 Part of Sonita’s company 43 Rory’s been there 44 Rory’s interviewee may be in this

The Reverend Stuart Rhodes celebrates his 50th anniversary in Cambridge Stuart Rhodes (1955) from Wistaston in Cheshire, won the competition in Optima VII, featuring a weekend break for two at the Cambridge Garden House Moat House. He and his wife will be returning to his alma mater in September. It was fifty years ago, this autumn that Stuart came up to Fitzwilliam House and his wife, Veronica, started at Homerton, forty-nine year ago.

Congratulations Stuart Rhodes!

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

News and Events at Fitzwilliam

Emma Camps, Development Officer

Emma Camps Events and Alumni Relations Development Office Fitzwilliam College Cambridge cb3 0dg telephone: + 44 (0) 1223 332034 email: events@fitz.cam.ac.uk

Fourteen and counting Already in 2005, the Development Office has held 14 events for our Members. A report on each of them, along with some photographs, will be published in the next College Journal.

Two more events are in the pipeline - see below. At the time of going to press, some details need to be finalised.

Once this is done, it will all be available for you to read on our website. (www.fitz.cam.ac.uk - go to the Alumni section, then click on Events).

New York, New York If you’re a Fitzbilly in New York, you may be interested to hear that you’re not the only one! In fact, there are just over 40 Members living in and around the Big Apple. Walton Denton got in touch shortly after he moved to the City and he was pleasantly surprised to hear that so many of you live there too. I thought it would be nice to give you the chance to meet each other, so we will be holding an event in October. It will be an informal evening in a NY bar where you can chat and reminisce about Fitz and Cambridge. I have contacted our Members with a NY zip code. If this didn’t include you, but you would like to go along, have a look at the website or contact me for further details.

Dates for your Diary 23rd-25th September Reunion Weekend October New York Event (date to be confirmed) 21st October Fitzwilliam String Quartet & Friends 22nd October Fitzwilliam String Quartet October Friends of Fitzwilliam Chapel (date to be confirmed) Event 11th November Alkan Competition 12th November Alkan Scholarship Recital 12th November “Cambridge in America Day” – San Francisco ** 17th November Foundation Lecture – Lord Butler of Brockwell, “Cabinet Government” 19th November “Cambridge in America Day” – New York ** For further information and tickets for musical events, please telephone the Porters’ Lodge on 01223 332000 or email Peter Tregear (Director of Music) pjt21@cam.ac.uk ** For further info on the “Cambridge in America Day” in San Francisco and New York, please visit their website at www.cantab.org or call (212) 984 0960.

Friends of Fitzwilliam Chapel In 2002, we launched the Chaplaincy Appeal and everyone who contributed to this Appeal became a Friend of Fitzwilliam Chapel. To show our gratitude, we will be welcoming our Friends back to Fitz to say, “Thank you” and to give them an update on the Appeal status. It will be held in October and will involve a performance by our wonderful choir, followed by a buffet lunch in College.

Cambridge in America

CAm (Cambridge in America) is the alumni, development and communications centre for the Cambridge Alumni living in the US. In November this year, CAm will be holding a condensed version of the Alumni Weekend in both San Francisco and New York.

The keynote speaker at San Francisco is David Starkey (Fitz 1964). Further information about the programmes can be found on their website (www.cantab.org).

If any of our Members are attending events in either city, it would be an opportunity for you to meet up together for dinner afterwards. If this appeals to you, do get in touch. I am more than happy to co-ordinate.

Take care. I will speak to you again in the spring.

Emma

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Annual Fund launched In conjunction with the launch of the Cambridge 800th Anniversary Campaign in September 2005, Fitzwilliam College launches its own Annual Fund. A copy of the Appeal leaflet can be found inside this edition of Optima.

Throughout the duration of the 800th Campaign, culminating in 2009, the anniversary of the year Cambridge University was founded, any gift made to a college will count toward the total sought by the Campaign.

Fitzwilliam College is an Exempt Statutory Charity (Inland Revenue No. x11732)

Designed and printed by Cambridge Printing, the printing business of Cambridge University Press. www.cambridgeprinting.org

new & reviews • 16

We’ve been busy little bees in the Development Office. Fundraising has largely focussed on the much anticipated new Boathouse and the Events diary has been record breaking, with many Reunions up and down the country and one in Paris. Our newly designed website will be up and running soon. There will be more news and information on the College and Development issues. Do take a look.