2020

rsma newsletter

newsletter of the retired senior members’ association of homerton college, cambridge september 2020

working from home the way we were ragged school & reading room the college bell farewells to four RSMs … and so it goes on …

a word from the editor

RSMA chair: Peter Warner secretary: Trish Maude membership secretary: Anne Thwaites treasurer: Dhiru Karia events and visits coordinator: Sue Conrad almonry: Carole Bennett newsletter editor: Libby Jared

Dear Readers,

Not since Dunkirk …

I think I blame Tim Rowland for the set of interesting events we have all experienced this year. On the way back from the RSM Xmas party, Tim asked me if he could write an article for the Newsletter. Well I wouldn’t say no, would I? The next day ‘The Way We Were’ arrived; a month later Covid-19 was a ‘natural’ part of our vocabulary.

My Dad aged 93 has provided me with my editorial’s title. Shielded and living independently on his own some 100 miles away, he has remained amazingly chipper: “Do you know, I think we’ve never seen such a mess as this since …”. Clare Ryan has been a star in not only in keeping us all connected with Homerton News, but providing the article in pole position on life working from home - with a plentiful supply of coffee and biscuits. Let’s hope that Trish Maude’s twenty, some querky, Activities Challenge (see centrefold) will not need any additions.

Before we return to the ‘new normal’ there is, as ever, a plethora of articles to help you to escape from the daily news. Peter Cunningham provides the historical background of ‘The Ragged School’, a starting point for Leah Manning’s lifetime of public service. It is slightly ‘spooky’ that Gabrielle Cliff Hodges has written what could be considered a companion piece about The Weston Colville Reading Room and the life of Sedley Taylor.

Last September, invited to the PGCE Matriculation dinner, I found myself sitting next to a ‘new’ trainee who became so excited when the College Bell was rung at the start and end of the meal. Rose Sherriff told me its story and promised the delightful article you have here. Young as Rose is now, the years will rush by as the ‘35 years at the Fitz’ have for Philip Stephenson. The letter ‘R’ from RSM is something of a giveaway for a focus on retirement activity articles. Some involve ‘hard work’: South Africa (Julia Anghileri) and China (Chris Doddington), composing (John Hopkins) book writing (Linda Hargreaves) and Charter archiving (Sue Conrad); others subtler pleasures in rural France (Sandra Raban), and music making (Philip Rundall), reminiscences from Australia (Jill Waterhouse) and conversation with friends and colleagues (David Male and Judy Barham).

For these and all the other articles and snippets that I have not been able to acknowledge here, thank you. Happy Reading …

Libby

CONTENTS

Cover photo: Foundation Stone of New Street Ragged School & Leah Manning’s Blue Plaque

Chair’s Letter & Principal’s Message Sedley Taylor & … Reading Room Where in the World are these now?

Peter Warner & Geoff Ward 3-4 Gabriel Cliff Hodges 16-18 Jill Waterhouse Working from home Clare Ryan

Poetic Forms & Musical Titles 5-6 John Hopkins

Homerton Days – Judy Barham …

18-19 Anne Thwaites

Experiences working with AIMSSEC Julia Anghileri

Lockdown 2020: Creative Challenge Behind the College Bell 6-7 Trish Maude 20-21 Rose Sheriff

A Brief Glimpse of New China Christine Doddington

Maisie Blades 8-9 Philip Rundall

Visiting David 12-13 Muriel Cordell & Trish Maude

Fitzwilliam Museum … 35 years Philip Stephenson

A French Retirement 14-15 Sandra Raban

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 2

28-30 30-31

The Homersphere & Estates Update 22-23 Matthew Moss & Deborah Griffin 31 & 33

Homerton’s Ragged School: memorials … Research on schooling in rural Europe The Royal Charter Archive Project Peter Cunningham 10-12 Linda Hargreaves 23-24 Sue Conrad The Way We Were Tim Rowland

27

Bob Arthur, Judith Hammond 24-25 John Chapman and Charlie Jenner RSMA Roundup: Emeritus Choir, 26 Social Activities …

32 34-37 38-40

Chair’s Letter: Lockdown release and the racoon problem

I

Peter Warner

t is of course, no release at all if you are aged over 70 or suffer from any aggravating condition – as far as we are concerned Covid19 still rules the streets, bars and beaches, where we hesitate to roam, unlike the young and the brave and the very, very stupid. A week ago, when I last visited Homerton to clear books out of my room, the College was still deserted like the ‘Marie Celeste’ - apart from builders working on the foundations of the new dining hall and kitchens. Presumably there will come a point in time when student laughter returns to the corridors and its safe to go to the Combination Room for a coffee, but not yet - not for some time.

Every family has a Covid story; some are tragic, some amusing, some about narrow escapes and others about long struggles for survival. Ours is about how we managed to infect the heir to the throne! As you will discover when you read the next issue of the Homertonian, my stepdaughter Vicky (ex-Homerton PGCE 2002) was appointed last year as head of the new Nansledan Primary School, Newquay, Cornwall. As its first head-teacher, with the building unfinished, she appointed new staff and ordered hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of furniture and equipment, from pencils to interactive white-boards. Once the first pupils had settled in, at the start of the Spring term, HRH Prince Charles formally opened the school. The remarkable design of the school is an essential element of the new Nansledan community and is rightly the apple of Charles’ eye.

Consequently the event received national and worldwide television news coverage.

This was his last appointment before being struck down a few days later with Covid-19. Television cameras homed in on that final warm handshake and the face of a smiling and gorgeous Vicky transmitted all over the World. Yes, we were proud, and we think we know who he caught it from, but of course there is no proof. Vicky herself had to go into isolation as did all of Charles’ entourage as soon as he was diagnosed. Thank goodness he recovered! Otherwise I would not be telling this story light-heartedly.

Although in isolation, we have been using Zoom and Teams regularly for work and to keep in touch with family. In my role as a Homerton Tutor, as an RSM and as a school governor, it has been interesting to experience the new technology and to see the way it is transforming education. I feel privileged to have seen a glimpse of the future of education, being a fly on the wall using Teams to observe remote teaching. The very best teachers with the best lesson plans now command a worldwide audience; the demand is there. It will undoubtedly change the face of education forever and it will quickly escalate the stand of teaching and pupil interaction. The crowded noisy classroom and the packed airless lecture theatre are gone now forever with Covid19 for better or worse. Roll on the brave new world.

Homerton itself has moved on into this uncertain future and is bracing itself for a new and very different academic year with incoming students spending ten days in isolation before start of term. But as RSMs we are constantly reminded of the contribution that the College has made to the teaching profession, particularly when we remember former staff who have recently passed away. The sad loss of Jill Richards, who inspired many young teachers in Psychology, and whose wit and hospitality I remember so well as a young lecturer. She and Mike Bibby made a vibrant couple; their dinner parties in their house on Mill Road were always extraordinary, full of laughter and merriment. Barbara Pointon MBE., was of course a national figure, whose heartbreaking television documentaries about her husband Malcolm’s struggle with Alzheimer’s struck a cord in millions of households. But for us, she and Malcolm transformed Homerton music, engaging not just the students, but staff as well in a constant round of concerts and fantastical musical experiences. The students dearly loved John Chapman in his role as Head Porter – I am not sure this was a good thing – the traditional Cambridge Head Porter having an unlovely reputation. But Homerton was a different community then and John epitomised the caring and supportive ‘family’ tradition of Homerton captured in his gentle avuncular style.

This year I am retiring as a Tutor – by September I will have clocked up 40 years and it seems time to stop. However, because of the pandemic, in my last term I was acting remotely as a long-distance tutor on Zoom - a strange but very enjoyable experience. I had a student in Tokyo and another in Vancouver, so time zones were an issue for group ‘meetings’. I only had 3rd and 4th years all doing exams on line. The standard Cambridge exam experience is exactly that – ‘standard’. Every effort is made to create a level playing field in the exam hall or in College. But with ‘Lockdown’ the candidates were all disbursed across the world and everybody had a different set of circumstances under which they were struggling to take their exams. It was down to the tutor to find out if candidates were experiencing serious difficulties of any kind and report back to the Tutorial Office. After a very enjoyable conversation with my tutee in Vancouver, I asked if everything was good for him: ‘Yes, I’m fine here, in fact it is really nice being home – Oh but there is one thing!’

And what is that?

‘The racoons’ The what?

“Every now and again the racoons eat through the internet cable” Ah! Now that could be quite a problem in an online examination! In all my time as a tutor I have never had to deal with racoons - definitely time to stop now.

Kind regards, Peter

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 3

Principal’s Message

L

Professor Geoff Ward PhD FRSA

ast year’s Principal’s column began with my apologising for Homerton College. “It’s a mess”, I wrote, tongue in cheek. Men from Barnes Construction in hard hats and fluorescent jackets were drilling down and putting up wire fencing; ground source heat pumps were going in, as furniture and white goods were coming out. Paupers’ Walk truly lived up to its name. It was a noisy work in progress. But what a creative noisiness, and what a simple and exciting range of difficulties to have to solve, in comparison with what has now hit us. In 2020, the whole world is a mess. It is not just the thousands of deaths that have been caused, and that will continue to be caused, but the insidious daily erosion of economic and other prospects – livelihoods, as well as lives. The world of work into which our Final year students graduated (duly congratulated by me and the Senior Tutor via Zoom) is clouded by closures, slowdown and lost opportunity. We wish them well.

Importantly, we also congratulate them, because even in this dark and difficult time, there are positives. This summer’s cohort are the most successful in the history of the College, with no students leaving with a lower grade than a 2:1, and over a third gaining First Class Honours.

This is a fantastic achievement, but also one that bears scrutiny. For example, this year there were no three-hour exams in crammed lecture halls, thanks to social distancing. Students were instead able to work on longer projects in their own time, submitted remotely. They have reported back in positive terms about the opportunity this afforded them to really do their very best work. In particular it may have benefited students in the Arts, and been a factor in the impressive clutch of Firsts. And so the University is learning from this year’s changes to assessment. I sit on the Remote Teaching and Learning Task Force, which is intent on maximising the benefits of blended and remote learning, as we move towards the new academical year. Meanwhile in College our VicePrincipal, Dr Louise Joy, is leading on this issue. Surely we ought, as the most progressive and modern college, to shine in new forms of education. We will.

Last year I also reported the launch of Homerton Changemakers, a co-curricular life skills programme, leading to an additional passport for our leavers to show employers alongside their University degree. Far from

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 4

suffering in the pandemic, Changemakers seems to have found its best incarnation as a virtual theatre for personal development. More and more I find myself thinking that Homerton College cannot be reduced to a certain estate, and particular rooms, but is a constantly changing journey which takes place over decades, across the world, within networks of different members and alumni, within different minds – and now, on screen.

So there are positive opportunities, but there is no ignoring the magnitude of the challenges that have triggered them. The wider University has taken a financial hit, and the gap between the richer and poorer colleges has widened as a result of side-effects from, and new expenditure caused by, the pandemic. For Homerton as for some others the worst financial aspect has been the complete loss of conference income. That said, our investment portfolio and its managers have served us well. We still have room for manoeuvre, and I am looking purposefully and beginning to find in these unforeseen circumstances, new partnerships and directions of travel. I am grateful to the Bursar and indeed the whole senior team for their tireless work in helping me to steer us through the Covid tunnel. They bring ingenuity, creativity, and a love of the College, which I share.

Next year, by Statute and Ordinance, will be my last as Principal. If you had told me when I took on this role that by the end I would be required to wear a mask in certain areas of Homerton, I would have assumed that planning for the Harry Potter Formals had now gone a bit too far.

It will be an extraordinary year in which to finish, but I look forward to a return visit towards the end of 2021 to see the new Dining Hall. It will be architecturally splendid, a great space for our excellent catering team to work in, and a house with secret gardens and multi-use spaces in which our students will be able to work, practise music, and relax. Let’s hope that by that point there is remission from social distancing and that it is once again safe to congregate indoors, to share views, thoughts and spaces. This is Homerton – if we can do that, we will. And if we can’t return to the old, we’ll adapt, and find new ways to thrive and succeed.

August 2020

Working from home

I

Clare Ryan

t’s Friday 20 March 2020 and everyone’s getting ready to go home. It’s been a strange week, lots of talk about coronavirus and jokes about how most people prefer German lager anyway. Hand sanitiser stations have been installed around College and for the last week we’ve been sitting diagonally across from our friends and colleagues at lunch in the Great Hall. Back then I don’t think I was alone in thinking that it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup and, after all, sadly people die from flu every year, don’t they? As I packed a few files and a couple of notepads into my bag that Friday evening I thought we’d all be back in the office in a few short weeks.

An email from IT: everyone happy with how to log on to the office from home?

Sure.

“Sure”, for anyone who doesn’t know, is shorthand for “no – haven’t a clue – but I probably ought to know how so I’m not going to admit that – how hard can it be anyway?”.

Quite hard as it turns out. Or at least the first time. To be fair the instructions were very clear and easy to follow, but my home is not huge and I don’t have a study. My PC is tucked up in the corner of my dining room, perfect for internet shopping, but not ideal for all-day working. I’d forgotten to pick up any pens. Why can you never find a pen when you need one?! The dining room table is actually more like a table in the dining room, a subtle but important difference, and my working files, notes from IT and scribble pad were fighting for a place between the pile of ironing, the knitting pattern and wool which had been there since Christmas, my son’s laptop and college work, my daughter’s travel brochures (and cancellation documents ☹), a box of tissues and cup of tea.

Let’s just make a coffee and sort this lot out. It’s only just 8.45am, in real life I’d probably still be stuck in traffic.

I’ll just watch the news headlines. Terrifying. I’ll turn the TV off. A biscuit perhaps? It’s 9.30am now and usually I’d have gone to get Deborah a coffee. Yes – a coffee ….. and a biscuit.

Get a grip. Clear the table, get some order. Just be organised. You’re an organised person. Concentrate. It’s so quiet. The street outside is deserted and my children have decided there is absolutely no point in getting up before noon.

I haven’t cleared the table and my notes on how to logon to the office from home have fallen on the floor, again. I think I’ve remembered my password, but can’t remember whether the first letter is a capital or not. I’m in! No wait, there’s a little circle spinning on the screen – the whole world is trying to logon to the internet and NOTHING’S HAPPENING! Another biscuit perhaps and then try again.

This becomes a familiar theme over the next few weeks as I get to grips with Zoom, that and power cuts – always in the middle of an important meeting. During one meeting in the early days of lockdown I was distracted throughout the meeting by another participant’s clotheshorse just behind their right shoulder. Note to self – clear up the table and put the dirty cups in the dishwasher before the meeting starts.

And where to look during the Zoom call? I’m vain, I admit it, and conference calls are just like looking in the mirror. Particularly during the first few on-line meetings, I found myself constantly fiddling with my hair, twirling my earring, adjusting my collar and jiffling in my chair whilst staring at myself! Look at the speaker, just like rsma newsletter september 2020 page 5

you would in real life and resist the temptation to say “oh, I love your wallpaper” until the meeting is over.

It’s 17 July and 100 and something plus days since I’ve been in the office now. I’m a year older and five pounds heavier. The biscuit tin shouts at me all day long – “Clare, Clare, you need to eat more chocolate digestives”.

The table in the dining room, however, has been divided into the office side and the meals side. One of the advantages of being at home all the time is that we’ve had a proper sort out. Zoom is no longer a stranger and

given that four months ago most of us had never heard of it, we’ve all got quite used to it. I miss the camaraderie of friends at work, bumping into colleagues in the corridor for a quick catch-up and popping my head round Deborah’s door to ask a question or get reassurance on some point or other. I don’t know when we’ll be able to go back to College but soon I hope. The novelty of working from the dining room table has well and truly worn off!

Experiences with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences School Enrichment Centre - AIMSSEC

W

Julia Anghileri

hen my retirement from the Faculty of Education at Cambridge was imminent, Toni Beardon approached me to see if I was interested in working on mathematics courses with South African teachers from deprived areas of the country.

Teachers who had no access to professional development and whose own education in mathematics, for political reasons, had been minimal. It was to be a new experience for me, but many years working with mathematics and with teachers in all phases of education suggested to me that it could be an exciting challenge. And so I set out in 2009 with my plans prepared and lots of enthusiasm.

Little did I know how hard I would have to work, modifying my planning to fit the needs of the teachers who work in desperate situations with large classes (sometimes as many as 100 learners) and no resources. It was certainly a new challenge to work with teachers whose experiences and current practices were so different from those I was used to, but I was to find that their commitment to work and their tenacity in getting to grips with new approaches in their changing South African curriculum was unquestionable.

On my first day, having slept in the spartan student rooms at Stellenbosch High School, showered in the communal block and breakfasted at 6.30am, was I ready for the first plenary? This is where the privilege began since AIMSSEC has attracted volunteer tutors from all over the world who have a wealth of knowledge to share and ideas that are new even to those of us who are long in the tooth.

They bring activities and anecdotes to whet the appetite of the teachers and to begin to show them that mathematics can be interesting and exciting beyond the chalk and talk that has been their heritage. With standards of mathematics in South Africa being rock bottom – almost bottom in world rankings – the need for change was (and still is) evident.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 6

Working in South Africa, my first priority has been to promote activities and imagery to help both teachers and learners to see that mathematics is more than manipulation of abstract symbols. This is crucial in a country with 11 different mother tongues where all are expected to teach mathematics from grade 3 in English or Afrikaans. Without the resources we enjoy in the UK, stones, bottle tops and straws find their uses along with anything that can be made from newspaper, like the sticks of rolled paper that can be used to make 3D shapes or measuring sticks for the playground Olympics. Sticky data, stringy activities and the human pie chart (all on the AIMSSEC website – www.aimssec.ac.za) show some of the imaginative ways we get around the shortage of resources.

Teachers using sticks made from newspaper and string to make Platonic solids Two teaching sessions before lunch, two sessions in the afternoon and an evening activity for all before the day ends at 8.30pm. This was the format of the ‘Mathematical Thinking’ course that inducts teachers into professional development at AIMSSEC. Ten days of work with one day of trips to show the participants parts of South Africa that they do not know. As most of the teachers come from

rural areas distant from Cape Town all are excited to visit Cape Point, Table Mountain, penguins at Boulders Bay and, of course, Robbin Island. Another privilege is accompanying teachers exploring their own heritage. Can you imagine crossing the bay to Robbin Island with teachers who had not even seen the sea, let alone crossed it in a small, rocking boat? What do the teachers do at times of stress and probably fear? They sing! In fact, they sing and dance at the slightest opportunity.

In the first sessions of the course the inhibitions that are culturally based became evident. Individuals are defensive and particularly loath to share difficulties or discuss their understandings. As I was used to students and teachers who realise that to share is to strengthen, it was necessary to tease out ideas and show that sensitive listening is a skill that enhances teaching at all levels.

Traditionally in South Africa, teachers are used to delivering the curriculum from the front of the class with learners sitting in silent rows. They are unused to challenges or interruptions where their learners have queries and, for many of them, questions are taken as a personal affront on their insecure knowledge. It is exciting to see changes over the ten-day course as the teachers begin to act as a group collaborating and consulting each other when presented with new ideas in mathematics and in teaching and learning.

The work of the tutors is supported by a number of teaching assistants who have completed AIMSSEC courses and come back with local classroom experiences to work with the tutor volunteers and verify the effectiveness of new approaches. We have great expectations for these special teachers as the ambassadors for change to improve the lot of so many learners in schools across South Africa. Among the people I now work with are Sagree and Mpumi who have graduated from AIMSSEC courses to become tutors on the course.

AIMSSEC is part of a larger organisation, AIMS (the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences), established in 2003 as a partnership project of the universities: Cambridge, Cape Town, Oxford, Paris Sud XI, Stellenbosch, and Western Cape. Through a 1 year residential course, living and working together, talented graduate students from all Africa are taught by some of the best academics in STEM subjects, from more developed countries, who volunteer to give short intensive courses. In the words of AIMS, the objective is to give ‘both a broad overview of cutting-edge sciences and strong mathematical and computing research skills.

The goal is to develop scientists with excellent problemsolving skills, capable of creative thinking and genuine innovation that will enable them to contribute nationally and internationally and become leaders in STEM’. AIMS is now established in six centres of excellence across Africa, including Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

AIMSSEC is making a large investment in the future of South Africa by supporting mathematics teachers in their efforts to give the next generation the educational chances they never had. So far more than 1000 teachers have completed the residential ‘Mathematical Thinking’ course with funding for the residential course, all food and accommodation, travel expenses and the occasional medical crisis. There is a long waiting list of teachers who want to join AIMSSEC and funding remains the most critical issue preventing them.

Current initiatives include further courses to develop mathematical leaders who will disseminate good practice across the schools in their district and, in future, become national leaders. There is a long way to go with the multiple problems that can impede progress in the classrooms but I can see many changes from my first experiences with AIMSSEC. More and more teachers are excited by alternative approaches to make mathematics meaningful for their learners and more satisfying for themselves. The commitment to go back into school and pursue change, introducing resources and using technology, is a groundswell that we hope will be unstoppable.

My Primary teachers with, at the back, me, Flora and Mpumi Since retiring I have been once or twice every year. Four of my granddaughters have been with me to help on the course and learn about South Africa. This year I did not go in January because my 10th grandchild was due and I looked after older brother and sister. Now everything is on hold because of the Coronavirus but I am hopeful the courses will run in January if the funding is available and I will continue.

Ordering numbers on a human number line Most teachers no longer need persuading that their learners are every bit as capable as those born in more developed countries and Neil Turok’s dream to see the next Einstein as an African is coming closer. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 7

A Brief Glimpse of New China

I

Christine Doddington

have an ex PhD student called Lu Wang whose thesis focused on the value of Drama in Education. Like many entrepreneurial young Chinese, her ambition was to create her own business, and in her case, she wished to promote the use of Drama in teaching English as a Foreign Language in China. This explains why she invited me to lecture and conduct workshops with teachers and teacher educators to illustrate how Drama could be used to enhance second language acquisition.

It was late December and travelling via Amsterdam, I flew into Chengdu International Airport, a little travel worn and expecting to be met by Lu. Instead I arrived to be Lu Wang & I in the shopping precint greeted by a multi-aged welcoming committee complete with banner, cheering and singing! The week long trip held many more surprises and some amazing encounters. I knew I would be visiting schools and meeting teachers, but was not prepared for the generosity and kindness nor the level of enthusiasm for what I was bringing. Education is increasingly seen as an area for development and business throughout China. As Lu explained to me, her grandparents suffered demotion and loss of their professional livelihoods with the Cultural Revolution.

Her parents suffered the one child policy and could not continue with education beyond the basics. This means her parents’ generation have poured all their ambitions and resources into education for their single child. This explains Lu’s Cambridge doctorate and while the rigorous and didactic test-dominated system prevails throughout China, there is now a growing understanding of the need to move towards developing creative thinkers for the country and particularly for the economy to develop and flourish.

There are obviously state-funded schools, but an increasing number of private schools have been created and run independently by businessmen in the cities. Leo and his wife Candice (pictured) have started one kindergarten and are building another in Chengdu, under the company, ‘World’s Education’. Candice trained as a kindergarten teacher, but when her son was old enough to begin nursery, she was not happy with the kindergartens rsma newsletter september 2020 page 8

that were available so they decided to pour finance into a business and start their own school.

I visited and spoke at the school and found it was extremely well resourced and was already based on a very explicit, progressive philosophy with a clear emphasis on active learning.

A Feast with Leo, Candice and Sean

Learning English begins as early as age 2 or 3 in the school and so every class has a Chinese teacher and an English-speaking teacher plus a number of teaching assistants. There were 12-15 children in each class and as I moved around the school, the children all spoke and called to me in English. I also visited a state-run out-ofschool academy focusing mainly on the arts for teenage youth. Again, it was very well-resourced especially for music, dance and art and covering both Western arts and traditional Chinese art such as calligraphy.

The Kindergarten Dance Class The team who had organised my trip included Lu, Candice, Leo and the head of an Academy specialising in the training of teachers to teach English. They took enormous pains to fill my trip with enjoyment as well as lecturing and visits. I was indulged with many nights of good food and evenings in the company of teachers, trainers, other businessmen and their families, all eager to learn about Britain and, of course, Cambridge in particular. Chengdu is known as the gourmet capital of

China and in 2018 was voted the happiest city in China (don’t ask how they measured this!) It is in the Sichuan province, famous for its peppers and spicy dishes like ‘Hot Pot’, which is renowned throughout China and beyond. Chengdu is also famous for Pandas. The highlight of my trip had to be when they drove me through the early morning mists to the mountains just outside of Chengdu. I discovered I was to be a Reserve Volunteer at the Giant Panda Conservation and Research Centre for the day. The Centre looks after rescued pandas and operates a highly successful breeding programme as part of their extensive research into these amazing animals.

Cleaning the panda pen I was given the standard blue overalls to wear and was instructed to follow one of the keepers to the large open enclosure where two young pandas were playing. With them safely guided into an inner pen, I and another very young volunteer were instructed how to clear and clean their enclosure. This involved sweeping and removing all their droppings as well as thrashing large hefty stems of bamboo so that they were easier for the young pandas to eat.

My reward after lunch was to get very close to a 28 year old female panda, rescued two years ago, and feed her carrots through the bars of her inner pen! They really are special and quite beautiful and although I found the two hours work exhausting, I think the volunteer system is

worthy. It ensures visitors can have both extraordinarily magical experiences of watching and being close to these playful creatures while giving something back and helping the centre to function.

My visit to Chengdu was both highly enjoyable and educational. It challenged a number of my assumptions about life within an emerging capitalist, yet totalitarian state. I found everyone I met was warm and appreciative of my ‘difference’, they were also fiercely proud of what their country has achieved in the last 10-20 years. While I am sure I was carefully steered away from evidence of any poverty, the sights and sheer volume of commerce and development within a city, home to 16 million people, was astounding.

I think my trip has increased the shock I feel in the current world-wide Covid crisis. I cannot help but reflect on China’s achievements as well as concerns about some aspects of the political context I sensed beneath the surface of what I experienced. Placing this alongside the level of hospitality and warmth I received, strengthens my sense of a common humanity faced with a vicious common enemy. Yet I ponder on the extent to which all societies have the opportunity now to truly learn and shift deep-set values in order to create a better and less divided world.

Feeding the panda

Competition 2019 – a possible acronym for SPODE

I

n last year’s Newsletter I described a ‘sweepstake’ magical mystery tour that I had undertaken with fellow SPODE members who occasionally met together to create real life mathematical problems for secondary aged students to solve. I set you the challenge of suggesting what SPODE stood for.

I had asked this question on at least two earlier occasions. The first was during my first year at Homerton when I was working with a group of Secondary teachers who were retraining to be Mathematics Teachers, often swapping the sports field for the warmer climes of the classroom. Within a day Barbara had come up with ‘Solving Problems Of Daily Experience’.

The second occasion was during an evening meal with friends. Brian, incidentally an ex-Homerton PGCE primary trainee, decided that

The ‘Society for the Promulgation of Differential Equations’ seemed the most likely interpretation.

I was more than a little impressed with both of these contributions but alas no, neither were correct.

That said, Barbara and Brian had made far superior attempts than RSMs. With the exception of Rex Watson, they did at least try. Rex of course may have had some insider information or had remembered an earlier conversation as he emailed with ‘Maybe the inaugural meeting took place in SPODE country, in Stoke say. That's the best I can do !’.

Which is a pretty accurate reply really. Just as with NRICH (see Newsletter 2018), so SPODE is not an acronym. The Spode conference centre was where we always met for the first few years, before spreading our wings to other parts of the country.

Libby Jared rsma newsletter september 2020 page 9

Homerton’s Ragged School: memorials in stone and living memories

Peter Cunningham

New Street Ragged School

U

nfamiliar to most Homertonians, far-flung from The Backs and King’s Parade, Barnwell was industrial Cambridge in Victorian times. Its features included the gasworks where Tesco now stands on Newmarket Road, a sewage pumping station by the river, now the Museum of Technology, and to the south of Newmarket Road extensive brickfields, latterly an enormous retail park. Poorly paid labourers populated this part of the city, an area of general social deprivation.

More familiar and more memorable, because it is much closer to college, is prosperous Blinco Grove, which boasted Morley Memorial School. Built by Homerton as a model practising school in 1900 and named after the great Congregationalist patron and philanthropist, Samuel Morley, its catchment comprised a better-heeled class of tradespeople and skilled workers, like the family of Blinco Grove’s famous resident, actor and director (Sir) Peter Hall whose father was a railway stationmaster.

But Homerton was in need of more capacity for school placements. Principal John Horobin, enterprising and philanthropic, found an opportunity in Barnwell. This was the New Street Ragged School. Established in 1854 by local nonconformists, when school provision was dominated by the Church of England, as an Undenominational foundation ‘free from sectarian bias’, it was attractive to Homerton Congregationalists. John Horobin, ever generous with his own money, on this occasion also raided the staff pension fund (a loan later repaid), to fund the building of five new classrooms, costing £2500. The Congregational Board of Education in their Annual Report, June 1901, referred admiringly to the Principal’s ‘skill and almost reckless courage’ in raising the money, solving many legal conundrums, and supervision of the plans and building.

Young Street. A report in the Cambridge Independent Press waxed eloquent about the quality and attractiveness of the new extension. Its ‘inviting appearance’ was described … ‘each room in different tints – terracotta, pink and green, buff and chocolate, gray and gray-green.

A varnished pitch-pine dado looks very nice, and from the picture rails are suspended some very attractive drawings, hand-coloured, gifted by Homerton’s Principal’. The civic opening was recorded in stone, a foundation stone sensitively preserved when Anglia Ruskin University acquired the building for a Music Therapy department, at the core of their prestigious 21st century Young Street campus, opened in 2015.

So much for the public record: an architectural monument of Homerton’s contribution to popular education in Cambridge. What other memories can we evoke? This article shares some of Leah Manning’s personal memories of her connection with the School, the reaction of students at that time to the building’s renovation, and pupils’ memories of her.

Leah Manning’s personal memories In January 2019 that historic event of 1901 was recalled when a Blue Plaque, sponsored by Homerton, was placed alongside the foundation stone to celebrate our eminent alumna Leah Manning.

Completing her teacher’s certificate in 1908, Principal Mary Allan called Leah Manning in with a specific request. Prompted by dissatisfaction with the headteacher, the governors were threatening to close the school, and Miss Allan proposed that Leah Manning should go in to rescue the situation. A big ask, we might think, of this newly qualified teacher! But her talent and promise had clearly been spotted. (A footnote to this story is that headteacher, Mr Haynes, was still in post ten years later.)

Fifty years on, in a BBC radio broadcast, Leah Manning related her memories of teaching at the school:

New Street Ragged School Building 1901 & Now The extended New Street Ragged School was opened by the Mayor of Cambridge on 7th February 1901. Local dignitaries in attendance included the University ViceChancellor, J.H. Yoxall MP, a national advocate of education, and Alderman Young JP, Treasurer, who owned property adjacent to the school, in what is now rsma newsletter september 2020 page 10

My class numbered sixty-five; my salary was the princely sum of £65 per year—one pound per head per annum. In winter it was freezingly cold except in the middle of the room, where was planted a great, fat, ugly, black coke stove, with suffocating fumes and a heat so fierce within a yard of its perimeter that no-one dare venture near. I’m afraid caning was the order of the day in that school. I don’t think I ever saw the headmaster without a cane in his hand – he took a malicious joy in “dusting their coats.”

Assistant teachers, fortunately, were not allowed to cane.

[But no one] could have had the heart to cane the children I taught. Poor, poor mites – under-fed, overworked, lacking sleep. I would have welcomed a bit of naughtiness, but they just hadn’t the spirit. When I look at the lovely, robust youngsters of today with Children’s Allowances, School Meals and the Welfare State behind them it seems incredible that, less than half a century ago, boys and girls should have been as destitute as were those in my first class.

Our Children were out late at night selling papers on the streets; up early in the morning delivering milk; then back at school all day with red, running noses, blue, chilblained fingers and toes poking out of mildewed shoes. I tried to get milk for my necessitous children. But, believe it or not, the school doctor had to verify that the child was actually suffering from malnutrition before he was eligible for school milk. One of my children died – his death hastened by malnutrition. In my outspoken way, I denounced the Committee’s policy – in public – and was only saved by the intervention of my Union.

Then I’d made lots of friends in the town as a result of my outburst. University students helped me to start an evening Play Centre. A small fund established by my colleagues enabled us to give the children a mug of cocoa on cold mornings.

My group comprised what was known – by courtesy – as Standards Five, Six, Seven and ex-Seven. By the time they reached me all those with a gleam of intelligence had passed “The Labour”, an examination as portentous in its way as the eleven plus is today. With their precious document they then departed to work in such blind alley jobs as the town provided.

Students’ memories In the pages of The Homertonian (Feb 1901) students celebrated renovation of the New Street school. They observed that the former school:

By an Education Act of 1902, Local Education Authorities had been formed and Cambridge Borough Council began to take responsibility for local schools.

Long-drawn-out negotiations continued for a decade, from 1904 to 1914. Homerton sought financial compensation for its investment, a sum significantly dented when it eventually transpired that though College had funded the building, ownership of the land hadn’t been properly conveyed.

Pupils’ memories Fast forward to 1981, and history lecturer Sallie Purkis sets an oral history project for Homertonian students to research school experiences of the 1920s. One interviewee Mrs C. grew up with her three sisters in a tiny two-bedroom house in Barnwell. She entered the school (which her mother had also attended) in 1915.

It was a very poor school, there were kids who went with hardly any shoes on their feet. I remember one dirty boy who smelt who sat next to me.

But I used to love Mrs Manning, she took the top class, which I was in. She had lovely reddy auburn hair and a big bust, which as children we laughed at. … The teachers used to take such a personal interest in you, in the family: I have known Mrs Manning to visit anyone who was ill, she went round to the house to see that they were looked after. … They used to run a play centre and we used to go back at six o’clock. Mrs Manning helped organise quite a lot and the teachers used to be there to look after us. We used to play all sorts of games like Dominoes and Ludo and Snakes and Ladders. … You could read, sometimes they would let you bring a book home, if you were extra interested, to finish reading it. They were very good over things like that. Mrs Manning even used to cut our hair … because it was sixpence to have your hair cut and that was a lot of money. She used to cut it after school hours or in the playtime.

… so well-known to our seniors, has now become a thing of the past. Future students will have no idea of the difficulties under which some endeavoured “in the brave days of old” to impart knowledge to the rising generation of the locality.

Of course we now know that Leah Manning’s work at the Ragged School was only the beginning of her remarkable career. She went on to touch many lives through the many achievements and good works that she was involved in for the remainder of her life.

The large holes in the floor of the old school, which were such a source of anxiety (and yet of amusement); the broken forms which so often gave way and irritated the anxious teacher; the broken windows, though which loud voices were often heard; all these things are of bygone days. They will always live in the memory of the students who laboured in the old building, but they will be a tale that is told to those who have missed the experience.

Leah Manning’s memorial

One feature of the school which will especially interest students is the teachers’ room. It is of medium size, and will, we trust, be nicely furnished. No longer will the students be compelled to take their midday meal in a class-room whose air is far from pure, but here in this little haven they will be able to rest awhile from their labours, and round the cosy fire recount the experiences of their predecessors.

Cambridge witnessed World War in a military hospital encampment on The Backs. Here, after her daily work in the classroom, Leah Manning volunteered as a nurse. She also threw herself into local political and civic life campaigning for women’s suffrage and women’s rights, helping to open the first birth control clinic in the city, and appointed one of the first three women JPs. During the General Strike of 1926 she supported women rsma newsletter september 2020 page 11

workers, including college ‘servants’ (as they were called, bedmakers and cleaners), in their industrial action.

Meanwhile her teaching responsibilities continued with her appointment as Head of the first Open Air School in Cambridge from 1917, also in Barnwell, continuing in that role for 13 years.

At the same time, she became ever more active nationally and internationally. In the National Union of Teachers, she was elected one of the first female Presidents in 1930, and the following year was elected MP for Islington East.

She travelled to liaise with socialist parties in the USSR and in Germany (before being banned by the Nazi government). She supported Spanish Republicans, with visits and a spell of nursing in the Basque country during the Spanish Civil War, when she became a key facilitator in bringing child refugees from the Basque country to the UK and especially Cambridge. That role is commemorated regularly at Homerton by the Basque

Children of ’37 Association, and in the Plaza de Mrs Leah Manning, Bilbao.

In 1945 Leah Manning returned to Parliament as MP for Harlow, where she continued actively to serve the community for the rest of her life. In 1966 she was made a DBE for political and public services.

The Way We Were

I

Tim Rowland

came to work in Teacher Education at Homerton College in 1979. My wife, Judy, and I had been teaching in West Yorkshire for 10 years until the move to Cambridge. I retired from the Faculty of Education seven years ago, but I’m pleased that Cambridge remains my home and Homerton my College.

But this piece is about those 10 years before Homerton.

I’ll try to be brief …

It was very different then. It’s the late 1960s, at Bingley College of Education (aka ‘teachers training College’) in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Some 300 students are enrolled in each of the three years of the Certificate in Education course. About 10% of the student body would extend their course by an additional year, and be awarded a BEd degree. What was I doing at Bingley? I was just 23, an East London boy, and this was my first real experience of The North. On the long train journey from Southampton, my University town, to my job interview, I discovered that West Yorkshire is some way north of Watford. I needed a job, and this one had one huge advantage over anything else I had looked at. Only 20 miles from Bingley was the University of Leeds , with several well-known logicians, and I wanted to study for a PhD in Mathematical Logic. I was taken on as a part-time research student, and Bingley College readily agreed to pay my fees and allowed me one day a week to do research. Mathematics education as a research discipline was in its infancy at that time, a marginal option for doctoral study, and one that I did not consider - then. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 12

From the archive: Bingley College Initially, at Bingley, my job was to teach academic mathematics to the 50-or-so students who had chosen it as their three-year ‘main course’ and to prepare, teach and examine truly undergraduate-level courses to the one or two mathematics students each year who went on to the fourth year. It was not unusual for them to be older than me. For one day a week they came to me for courses in set theory and topology, and sought help with the analysis, group theory and mechanics they had been ‘taught’ by some apparently reluctant lecturers at the University of Leeds School of Mathematics. Before the mid-1980s there was little or no recognition that the nature of the mathematics taught to intending teachers, and indeed the teaching methods they were exposed to, might be different from those where the purpose is purely academic.

I also gave a course (about 30 hours, as I recall) on mathematical games and puzzles to all-comers in their

first term, when they followed an induction course intended to broaden their academic and cultural horizons in advance of making their main and subsidiary subject choices. It was assumed that someone with a master’s degree in mathematics would know about mathematical games and puzzles. In fact I did not, so the course gave me reason to become acquainted with Ernest Dudeney and Martin Gardner, and was a major turning point in my enjoyment and appreciation of mathematics. David, my Head of Department encouraged me to submit my first article to Mathematics Teaching in 1970. In retrospect, the paper shows an awareness of mathematical investigation that I had not acquired by study of advanced mathematics. Another colleague, Sheila, powerfully motivated me to make my own contribution to the business of making conjectures and constructing proofs. I remember once showing her some original (for me, at least) group theory that I had been working on: she immediately proposed my presenting it at a research seminar for our mathematics students. At the time, such events were not a part of the culture.

me in secondary curriculum teaching, and so it happened that I became an apprentice in primary mathematics curriculum. The so-called Basic Mathematics course was based on a strong diet of Logiblocs and Multibase Arithmetic Blocks. We did all the Nuffield stuff with sets. We made them, we sorted them, notated them, found their union and intersection. Somewhere along the way I discovered tessellation, and we did some of that too. I take pleasure in pointing out that I had managed to acquire two degrees in mathematics without learning that every quadrilateral tessellates in the plane. Not long ago, I mentioned this to a distinguished Cambridge Professor of Geometry as we climbed the staircase towards his College rooms. He stopped in his tracks and asked me, “Is that really true?”. As I remarked earlier, mathematics education was at that time in its infancy as a research domain. Many years later, we realise that mathematics pedagogy is informed by both understanding of mathematics per se and by theories of child development – not to mention theories of knowledge, understanding of social factors, and much more.

David also entrusted me – in practice, he had little choice – to set the advanced mathematics papers for the fourth year students. This might entail a fortnight’s work for one paper, in some years for one student! I recall a discussion with a mathematics lecturer at another Leeds Institute College (Bretton Hall, I believe) who confided that “The only creative mathematics that I do these days is setting questions for exam papers”. I understood his remark perfectly. On taking up my post at Homerton College some years later, I was delighted to find myself in a team culture of setting exam questions ‘from the bottom up’: very few were merely cribbed from books or from past papers, from Homerton or elsewhere.

On the national scene, there were some tremendously exciting ideas in the air. One of the earliest uses of the term ‘investigations’ is in a report on College of Education mathematics main subject In the bar studies produced in 1967 for the mathematics section of the Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education. It is probably true to say that we did play down the skills of arithmetic in our curriculum courses at the expense of enquiry-based approaches to learning. No doubt some of it rubbed off, but when our students got into school they, like most of their school mentors, depended heavily on ‘Fletcher Maths’. It was all undeniably exciting, if somewhat chaotic. Perhaps this teacher training environment did for many of these students much the same as it did for me, their ‘teacher’ – the inculcation of some ill-defined but passionately-held ideals and values.

I recognise how much I learnt at Bingley from all sorts of people in staff room conversations, especially when everything stopped for mid-morning coffee. In the absence of any formal training to teach, I learnt a great deal by osmosis – about philosophy of science, about child development, about dance and drama education, about the rationale for the new middle schools. I would say that what I learnt most of all were ideas and principles. I developed a kind of idealism, a philosophy of learning that turned out to be hard, initially, to implement in the ‘real’ world, but which nevertheless remained unshaken in the face of pragmatic constraints.

After three years, there followed a year’s secondment to a secondary comprehensive school, to teach the school’s first-ever A-level mathematics class. I enjoyed the advanced teaching but was only too aware of my lack of competence with the 15-year-olds in the seventh mathematics set. On the other hand, I did teach A-level mathematics to the young woman who that year became the first pupil from the school to gain a university place – to study textiles, at Leeds University.

I returned to Bingley College as a ‘proper’ lecturer, resigned to teaching how-to-teach, having just been made painfully aware of my own shortcomings when it came to managing 11- to 15-year-olds. There was no opening for

All good things must come to an end and, without doubt, it was a good thing for me that this one did. Seven years after I had arrived, I left Bingley for a school teaching post. Three years later, I read that the College had been closed. The boom years had been followed by a dramatic decline in the allocation of student numbers in response to demographic trends. In common with many others, the College became a victim of local government reorganisation and the delightful remoteness of its moorland location. The time had come for that move to Cambridge.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 13

The Fitzwilliam Museum - a Personal and Professional Playground for 35 Years

I

Philip Stephenson

first walked through the doors of the Fitzwilliam Museum in January 1987. My girlfriend and I (she’s now my wife) had come up to Cambridge for the day from Harrow in West London with an emergent idea of actually moving to the City at some point. I remember, there was a special exhibition on at the time curated around Philip Wilson Steer’s Walberswick – Children Paddling.

Anyhow, that wonderful first experience in the Fitz’ made a significant contribution to turning that emergent idea into action. Between then and July we sold our flat in Harrow, bought our place in Chesterton (where we still reside) and here we were.

Briefly, having trained as a secondary school science teacher and done a few years working in that sector, along with the move to Cambridge there also came a change of age-range, and I secured a job at a Sawston primary school.

In 1990 I was appointed as a Science Adviser for Cambridgeshire LEA and one of the initiatives I pursued was making links between science and objects in museums. The idea was that, in the gallery, children would focus on the civilisation-defining technology evident in the objects on display. Then, back in the classroom, they would conduct science as well as D&T activities in the context of the real objects they’d encountered in the museum.

The upshot was The Ancients’ Appliance of Science, a book I co-authored with Frances, and a twenty-five yearlong professional relationship with Frances that continued regardless of my career development (Deputy Head, Head and eventually, teacher education at Homerton latterly the Faculty of Education).

All I brought to the table was enthusiasm. After a couple of observations, my Headteacher sent me on Trish Maude’s wonderful ‘Skilful PE’ INSET course at Homerton and, crucially, transformed my life by arranging for my class to visit the Fitzwilliam, where they would be taught by the Education Officer and I was to look and learn.

I watched spellbound as France Sword brought what was, at first sight, a rather dull 18thC English family portrait to life. She explored every dimension and drew responses from the children that I didn’t think possible … for me, the whole experience was of Damascene proportions. I remember thinking at the time: ‘Oh! that’s how to teach I had no idea!’

Every term from then on, I returned, watched Frances and then would plan for myself and she’d watch me and guide me towards enlightenment. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 14

I became involved in national TDA funded projects aimed at promoting museum and gallery education within teacher training and education, and built strong relationships with the education departments of museums from Norwich Castle to Nottingham, Manchester Whitworth and ultimately the National Gallery.

As a lasting legacy, trainee teachers on Cambridge PGCE courses have the opportunity to have parts of their school-based training embedded in the Fitzwilliam Museum and the National Gallery Learning Departments.

These placements continue to this day, five years after my retirement from the Faculty.

And for me? Well I can’t let go. I serve as a volunteer planning and delivering family tours, and beyond that, working with adult groups such as you - the RSMs. I am also working regularly with Art Education colleagues at Palacký University at Olomouc in the Czech Republic… you can see me in action there at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRt6Kqaptf0 I suppose my proudest achievement was to establish a strong strand of museum and gallery education in the Faculty’s primary and early years PGCE courses (with many thanks to course manager Jane Warwick for her faith and enthusiasm). Central to this was the relationship with the Fitzwilliam Museum, both while Frances was there and on after her retirement.

I’ve been OK during lock-down – I’ve got out and about on my bike and we’ve got some lovely independent food shops close by. I’ve busied myself with the little art articles I circulate, but the one thing I really, really miss is popping into the Fitz’ and thinking … what’s going to inspire me today? The excitement never wanes.

Orchids @ Homerton During the months of June and July I was engaged in orchid spotting at Homerton, brilliantly mentored by Stephen Tomkins.

First to appear was the Common Spotted Orchid

There were up to 50 of these spread throughout the wild areas.

Stephen reports: Homerton's Common Spotted Orchids (Dactylorhiza fuchsii,) are not so common, but always spotted.

Dactyulorhiza (Greek) means it has "finger-like roots".

Next came the so distinctive and secret Bee Orchid

These were carefully marked by our gardeners with a stick nearby, in the rough grass area near the College car park

Last to arrive was the Pyramidal Orchid

There were just two, seen near the walnut tree between the orchard and the car park.

Next year I may also be able to spot the Twaeblade: it will only reappear if the construction of the new Dining Hall has not disturbed its habitat.

Trish Maude

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 15

Sedley Taylor and the Weston Colville Reading Room

Gabrielle Cliff Hodges

Nineteenth century reading rooms

I

n the nineteenth century, philanthropically-minded people founded village reading rooms, often to provide alternatives to pubs for men and boys. Girls and women were not usually allowed access. Reading rooms were supplied with newspapers, magazines and books, as well as games and refreshments like tea, coffee and cocoa. The intention was to encourage working people who may not have had very extensive elementary education, to develop as readers and expand their horizons (King, 2009). Reading rooms were often unpopular, not least if working people felt they were being patronised rather than controlling their own lives.

Moreover, going to the pub to have a drink and chat was, in many people’s view, a better option after a hard day’s work than self-improvement.

Weston Colville Reading Room in 2020 The Weston Colville Reading Room I live in Weston Colville, a small village in South East Cambridgeshire. It still has a reading room (pictured above), co-founded in 1885 by the local landowner, William Henry Hall, and a Cambridge academic, Sedley Taylor. In the porch is a plaque (pictured below):

interest was not surprising. But what about Sedley Taylor? Why might he have been involved? I decided to try and find out. I thought it might take a couple of weeks but more than two years on I still have not found a definite answer. In part, that is because there no longer seem to be any records of the opening of the Weston Colville Reading Room. I have, however, discovered more about village reading rooms in general and Sedley Taylor in particular. This short piece offers a very brief summary. I have written a longer booklet about the investigation, but it is currently at the printers in lockdown. August Stop Press, Ed.: The booklet is now printed and out of lockdown. If any RSM would like a free copy, please email gabrielle.cliffhodges@cantab.net

Weston Colville Reading Room co-founders: William Henry Hall (left) and Sedley Taylor (right) Sedley Taylor Sedley Taylor was an only child, born in 1834 in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. His parents were George and Jane Taylor. George was a doctor. Jane was one of six children born to Richard Mackenzie Bacon, proprietor and editor of the Norwich Mercury. Sedley never married and there is no biography of him. He came to Cambridge in the 1850s and lived at Trinity College for almost all the rest of his life. When he died in 1920, he left his papers to Trinity. Many are now in the Cambridge University Library. From these papers (especially frequent letters between him and his mother) as well as genealogy websites, census returns and archived newspapers, I have tried to piece together a narrative.

Sedley’s schooling

Memorial plaque to Jane Margaret Taylor Inside are photographs of the co-founders (pictured below). As the local landowner, William Henry Hall’s rsma newsletter september 2020 page 16

Information about Sedley’s schooling is scarce: I have found just one reference to the fact that he attended a progressive school in Switzerland called Hofwyl,

probably sometime between about 1843 and 1845. The school was set up by Emmanuel de Fellenberg who believed in a more liberal and less harsh education than was often experienced in English schools at that time. His curriculum was wide-ranging and included a variety of academic and practical subjects. Sedley appears to have enjoyed his time at Hofwyl and always seemed to have retained his interest in broad-minded educational principles.

Jane Taylor’s older sister, Louisa Barwell, sent her four sons to Howfyl and wrote a book about the school called Letters from Hofwyl by a Parent (Barwell 1842). It may have been she who persuaded the Taylors to send Sedley there as well. However, in 1844 George Taylor died in Hofwyl and was buried close by. The cause of his death is not known. Sedley does not seem to have spent much longer at the school, but in later life he went back occasionally to visit his father’s grave. He completed his schooling at the newly-opened University College School, London, another progressive institution. Having then spent time at University College itself, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1855.

Sedley was keenly interested in mathematics, but also in music and political economy. He took Holy Orders in the 1860s but renounced them shortly afterwards: although he very much wanted to be a parish priest, he could no longer subscribe to the Thirty Nine Articles. Denied a fellowship as a result of this, he devoted the rest of his life to teaching, committee work (including Emily Davies’s campaign to establish women’s education in Cambridge), music and politics.

Friendships One of Sedley’s enduring characteristics seems to have been his capacity for lifelong friendships, including with people interested, like him, in progressive education. For example, he became friends with the Herford family, in particular William Herford (whom Sedley had probably met through their mutual Hofwyl connection) and William’s daughter, Caroline. Within Cambridge University, Sedley was friends with Henry and Nora Sidgwick, and Henry and Millicent Fawcett. Crucially, though, he befriended William Henry Hall who lived with his wife and daughters at Six Mile Bottom, near Weston Colville. As Sedley wrote in his obituary, Hall’s friendship was renowned for being ‘warm, staunch and unfailing’ (Taylor, 1904, p.277). The Halls often had guests to stay, inviting people from Cambridge University as well as old friends such as George Eliot and her partner, G. H. Lewes. Sedley’s letters to his mother provide fascinating details about such occasions. He told her when he was planning to go to Six Mile Bottom, whether by horse and trap or train. Sometimes, he stayed overnight, going back into Cambridge to do a day’s work before returning to Six Mile Bottom in the evening.

Political economy Hall and Sedley were both very interested in political economy, especially the idea of profit-sharing, a scheme to develop working people’s financial security. Sedley later expanded on this idea in On Profit-Sharing between Capital and Labour: A Word to Working Men (Taylor,

1882). He wrote about the pioneering profit-sharing experiments of the French house-painter, Leclaire, and how – in a profit-sharing scheme – the firm’s owner accepted only a percentage of the profit in any one year.

The remainder of the profit was shared between the workers, based on how long they had worked for the organisation. Initially, it was distributed in the form of one-off payments; later, the payments might be placed into funds to support workers in retirement (or their widows). There was also encouragement for workers to pay into benevolent societies to avoid hardship and stay out of the workhouse.

What particularly characterised profit-sharing was that everyone’s work was valued. Making a profit thus benefited all – both capitalists and workers: ‘The system is therefore distinctly one of mutual advantage to employer and employed – not a device for enriching one party at the expense of the other’, argued Sedley (ibid., p.

21). Such ideas also formed an important part of Sedley’s lectures at Toynbee Hall which he gave as part of the University Extension Movement in 1884-5. At Toynbee Hall, men from Cambridge and Oxford Universities undertook academic work for the benefit of working people (also usually men) who were unable to attain anything like the kind of education offered at Oxford or Cambridge. Were ideas about mutual advantage, along with Sedley’s own progressive education, also informing his thinking when he co-founded the Weston Colville Reading Room?

Sedley’s legacy Sedley’s correspondence with his mother ceased when she died suddenly on 15 March 1885 aged 82. Perhaps co-founding the Weston Colville Reading Room and dedicating it to her memory helped Sedley overcome his grief? We may never know. However, we do know that Jane Taylor’s body was brought to Weston Colville on 20 March 1885 and buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church. In her will, there is no reference to her burial, but Sedley had an inscription carved for her grave (pictured below) so it seems to have been something he, at least, very much wanted.

Jane Margaret Taylor’s grave The opening of the Weston Colville Reading Room, whenever in 1885 it actually took place, went unremarked in the local press. The first reference I have found to it is in an edition of the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal on Friday 15 May 1891. The article describes a very lively-sounding event held in the rsma newsletter september 2020 page 17

‘reading room and young men’s institute’, as it was by then called. Those participating included William Henry Hall and Sedley Taylor. Everyone was reported as having had a good time. The evening included singing, speeches and a hot meal produced by Mrs Marsh, the widowed innkeeper at the Three Horseshoes pub a short distance away.

WESTON COLVILLE – READING ROOM AND YOUNG MEN’S INSTITUTE On Friday evening last the members and friends of this institution met under the presidency of Mr. W. H. Hall (High Sheriff of the County) to partake of supper, and to celebrate the success of the institute, under the management of Mr. W. B. Wormell, during the season just over. Very excellent speeches were made by the Rev. T. D. Barker, Mr W. H. Hall and Mr. Sedley Taylor (Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge), and admirable songs were sung by the latter gentleman ...

During the 35 years following the death of his mother, Sedley continued to work hard, for example towards the development of Girton College. He was also a generous philanthropist, offering financial support to family and friends as well as donating money towards the first dental clinic for elementary school children in Cambridge.

In old age he was sometimes unwell and he must have been deeply dispirited by the toll World War I took on

students, friends and colleagues, especially at Trinity.

However, when he died, on 14 March 1920, he was in Manchester, staying with his longstanding friend, Caroline Herford. He was cremated there and his ashes were returned to Trinity College where a full memorial service was held in the College Chapel. Afterwards, he was finally laid to rest in Weston Colville. In his will he had written: I desire to be buried in the churchyard of Weston Colville as near as possible to the grave of my Mother Jane Margaret Taylor.

Despite the lingering mystery surrounding Sedley’s interest in the village, his legacy remains in his cofounding of the Weston Colville Reading Room, and his memory survives in the framed photographs of him and his friend, William Henry Hall, which hang on the Reading Room wall.

References Barwell, L. M. (1842). Letters from Hofwyl by a Parent, on the Educational Institutions of De Fellenberg. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

King, C. (2009). The Rise and Decline of Village Reading Rooms. Rural History, 20(2), 163-186.

Taylor, S. (1882). On Profit-Sharing between Capital and Labour: A Word to Working Men. Cambridge: W. Metcalfe and Son. Taylor, S. (1904). William Henry Hall. The Cambridge Review, XXV(631), 276-277.

Poetic Forms and Musical Titles

I

John Hopkins

’ve always been intrigued by poetic forms, and the ways in which they might (or might not) be used as musical ones. Back in 1987, I wrote a work for the Aldeburgh Festival in memory of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears (who had died just the year before). Knowing that the sonnets of William Shakespeare had been very important to them both, I looked again at those wonderful records of an ambiguous set of relationships, and decided to arrange a group of them in a way that corresponded to the overall pattern of a single sonnet, with 14 ‘rhyming’ and interlinked sections. The piece was scored for three singers and a small ensemble of nine players, and it seemed logical to call the work simply ‘Sonnet’. if you are interested, it can be heard on my SoundCloud at: https://soundcloud.com/john-hopkins-941786350/sonnet.

Later, in 2000, I became very interested in the Japanese haiku, and set out to create a work using a collection of rsma newsletter september 2020 page 18

these tiny gem-like texts as the basis for an ambitious piece for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. How to extend the idea of poems of essentially just 17 syllables into the overall structure of a large musical form? (Incidentally, I discovered that 17 syllables were regarded as the optimum number that can be comfortably spoken in a single breath.) It became apparent that a haiku basically has content that aligns it with one of the seasons. Fine, but there are four seasons and a haiku has only three lines: in the end the solution was to organise 17 haiku (of course) into three season-based groups and then to insert a purely instrumental section (representing the ‘break’ that haiku have as part of their form, usually between the second and third lines). Therefore, the overall shape became Winter (5 haiku), Spring (7 haiku), Summer (orchestra alone) and Autumn (5 haiku). For the title, I chose The Floating World and was fortunate to have at that time a Japanese student, who was able to write that

for me in Japanese characters as part of the final cover design. It can also be heard at:

such as Nocturne, Mazurka, Etude, Intermezzo and so on, culminating in a Chorale.

https://soundcloud.com/john-hopkins-941786350/thefloating-world

The relationship to the sonnet crown would be made by germinating a musical idea during the course of each section that would be revealed at its close and which would then become the opening idea of the following section. At the end, the Chorale would be a treatment of all those 14 motifs in a valedictory chorale style.

More recently, I came across the concept of a Crown of Sonnets, actually in the work of Peter Scupham – the title poem from his collection The Hinterland. A ‘sonnet crown’ consists of a sequence of 15 sonnets, with the following intricacies: the last line of one sonnet becomes the opening line of the next, and so on until the final line of sonnet 14 repeats the opening line of sonnet 1. Then the miracle happens – the final sonnet consists of all those 14 repeated lines, in order, in rhyming pattern, and still makes sense. For several years I wondered how this amazing structure could become a musical form, and the solution came to me in the context of the chance to write a new large-scale solo piano piece for the brilliant young artist, Clare Hammond (pictured below).

The pattern required the creation of 15 sections, each of which would be based upon an established piano genre,

So far, so good. It was fun to compose, making for several new departures in my own writing and was finally completed in February of this year. There was then the issue of a title, so that Clare could announce it and start to include it in her offerings to concert promoters and venues. Last autumn, while the discussions with Clare about this piece were taking place, the obvious thing was to call the work Crown of Sonnets. This seemed a bit flat to me (and it still does) but some further inquiries with poetic friends revealed that the form (like that of the Sonnet itself – a ‘little sound’) was Italian in origin. So clearly, Corona di Sonetti seemed it would be a classier title for this new piece. Little did we realise at the time what associations would accumulate around the word ‘corona’. So I am left with a bit of a dilemma: given that the piece is unlikely to reach a public performance before the middle of 2021, should I leave the title in place and hope that by then, the word will have lost its link with the terrible disease that is causing so much distress all over the world, or should I think of something new to call the work by? Any suggestions would be gratefully received, but please don’t put forward ‘Corona Spinea’!

April 2020

Competition 2020 – Libby’s photo quiz

Photo 1 his year’s competition comes in two parts each with its own photo. I snapped Photo One (on an iPhone) at 12.34 pm on Jesus Green, Cambridge and used it as part of a family quiz with three levels of questions.

T

Photo 2 Common. It could be used for a family quiz but currently I have no questions to set to my nephew’s three children: Freya (8), Dexter (6) and bringing up the rear, as ever, little Arnie (2). They greatly enjoy having their own individual questions to answer.

Level 1 Question: What was the year?

Level 2 Question: How many people are in the picture?

Level 3 Question: How many trees are in blossom?

Thus the second part of the competition is to first identify the building and then to set a question each for Freya, Dexter and Arnie.

Thus the first part of the competition is to answer each of these three questions.

Answers (and questions) - not on a postcard please - to the editor (ecj20@cam.ac.uk). Updates will be given in next year’s Newsletter

Photo Two was taken (it is a ‘special’ building) at a completely different time on the towpath of Midsummer

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 19

Lockdown 2020: The Twenty Creative Activities Challenge Trish Maude

A

t the start of Lockdown, a friend suggested that I take on the challenge of amassing 20 creative activities.

She was busy sewing and painting, so I turned my hand to my own unique approach to creativity.

Here is a record of 20 creative activities to date …

1. Please give me a name?

Suggestions so far include Firgie and 'Cor-on-i-ferous Charlie’

2. Original recipe!

Delicious pancake made with self-foraged stinging nettles

3. Easter gifts for my wonderful neighbours who have tagged my grocery needs onto their shopping 6. Hackathon – has been achieved but without a photo as I haven’t enough hands to take a selfie at the same time as cutting hair at the back of my head!

7. Singing whilst Nordic Pole walking – great for both increasing pace and for meandering wanders 8. Cuppas’ with neighbours, each on our own balconies – we need a drone above the 3rd and 4th floors to take this photo!

4. Finding flowers to identify

5. Might I take up apiculture?! Stephen Tomkins demonstrating!

9. New lunch menu - stinging nettles, cheese and potato pancake with asparagus, carrots and green beans … very nourishing!

10. Still planning something as there are lots of these cones around on the ground

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 20

11. Writing my revisions for the 2nd edition of …

12. Watching the local moorhen on nest-building duties

13. Photographing Sylvia’s first bluebell of the spring

14. Planting sunflower seeds from last season’s harvest

15. Finding the first rose of summer

16. Anyone for my shallot starter?

Recipe available on application!

17. choc chip cookies - using an existing recipe, the creativity was in actually achieving an edible ‘baked good’!

20 (below) illustrates why lockdown probably felt such a long time!

18. Honouring VE/PE Day

19. My name is Inuksuk The Inuksuk is an Inuit, stone- built, vertical landmark

This has been a fun sortie into pastures new or newish! I took a kind of ‘postcard approach’, rather like searching through a collection of postcards in a shop and choosing the one that catches the eye.

Taking time to be observant outdoors and enjoying the fabulous weather seem to have dominated one strand, making and trying out foods another and pondering some possibilities for the future, yet another.

What will be your 20 creative activities?

20. Observing the march of Spring in the Homerton Hornbeam Avenue (planted 1975?)

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 21

Maisie Blades

F

Philip Rundall

or the past year I have been enjoying playing in a 4 piece band called Maisie Blades and here is our story.

Some year’s ago I met, through an old school friend of mine, Mike Thompson, the Associate Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Mike, like me, is a self-confessed ‘guitar nut’. Mike will be retiring at the end of this academic year, and hopefully, when we all emerge from the Coronavirus pandemic, we will spend even more time together making music. He has become a very good and trusted friend.

Mike was brought up in North Carolina but has lived a long time in the UK. We share a passion for playing the guitar and we soon began to play regularly together, me more often playing mandolin than guitar. I love the combination of guitar and mandolin. Very soon we started to venture out as a duo and played in local folk clubs, sing arounds and at open stage events. Cambridge is a place rich in venues in which to play both informally or in a more structured way.

One evening we were playing at the Cambridge Acoustic Night’s session at CB2 in Norfolk Street and we were impressed by a Scottish singer called Karen Macwhinnie, a performer we had not come across before. At the end of the session Karen approached us and asked whether we’d like to get together and play. We were delighted and agreed, neither of us really rating our own singing, we both felt this would be a really significant development. It was definitely a good move!

We played at several venues as a trio and then, one evening, when Mike and I were playing at the Black Fen Folk Club (as a duo), we approached the violinist Denise Neapolitan, who was also performing, and asked her whether she’d be interested in joining the band (which at this point had no name). Denise, who was raised in Chicago, but lives across the road from me in Cambridge, agreed and we began to rehearse regularly and perform in public. Denise is a classically trained player who still plays in quartets and orchestras, but also loves to play fiddle in a variety of folk genres, particularly Irish. And now, she is enjoying the tunes that I bring to the table from the American bluegrass tradition, which of course can trace its roots to the dance tunes played by those who originally came from the British Isles and Ireland, mixed up with the influence of black musicians and their African roots. So it’s all linked up anyway.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 22

The band’s name, Maisie Blades, was inspired by Karen’s childhood memories of Maisie, the mother of a close friend, and a woman she loved dearly. Arriving at a name is often one of the most difficult things to resolve at the beginning of a band’s life and we must have covered sheets of A4 paper before agreeing to Maisie Blades. But it’s a name we still like and we feel it works for us.

We are truly a Transatlantic band, we share a love for Americana, Folk, Mountain Music, Country Music, Blues, Bluegrass and fiddle tunes, both American and Celtic. We were fortunate to be asked by the Black Fen Folk Club to take part in their concert in the Club Tent at the 2019 Cambridge Folk Festival. It was the band’s fourth outing and if you’re interested, you can see iPhone videos of three of the songs we played up on YouTube along with other, later, live performances. (Just type in Maisie Blades.) This led to us being guests and playing live on both Cambridge 105 Radio and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The band was making progress on the local acoustic music scene and then, out of the blue, came the lockdown and the postponement of a whole string of appearances. One that I was particularly looking forward to was a community concert to raise money for the Rock Road Library (just round the corner from Homerton). Our friend John Meed was also going to take part in this event along with his band. He is one of the people behind Cambridge Acoustic Nights sessions and so a really good person to have involved in the project. No doubt the event will go ahead when we are all allowed out again, and what a party it will be!

It’s not just the performing that is so satisfying, but the regular rehearsals where we select new songs and tunes and get down to experimenting, working out who should do what and arriving at arrangements. At these sessions I record each individual song and distribute them so that we can individually practice our parts. This I find really helpful as it takes the pressure off one to produce a perfect performance and allows one to be freer. We sometimes have mini-sessions, for example Mike and Karen working on the guitar foundation and the main vocal part. Sometimes the ‘string section’ meets to focus on fiddle tunes or on solo breaks in songs. One area that we were beginning to develop before the lockdown, was adding vocal harmony parts. This really made a huge difference to some songs and when we get back together I am sure this will continue. Apart from the music it’s so nice to work creatively with others. It is one of the things that has led me to spend less time making visual art, which is, like writing, quite an isolating activity.

Finally, through my involvement in the local acoustic music scene, I get to meet performers who rely on performing and teaching to make a living. The majority,

And then there were four!

Educational research and schooling in rural Europe: the stone in Europe’s shoe?

New on the Bookshelf

T

however, are not relying on making money through their music, but for those who do, this crisis is a disastrous and challenging time. It is an issue that really concerns me.

Linda Hargreaves

his book, of which I am a co-editor, presents under-reported consequences of top-down, metrocentric, and politically extreme policies on rural children’s education in Europe. These policies include swathing school closure programmes throughout Europe but especially in the East since the fall of the Iron Curtain. One inspiration for this book was to give voice to researchers from post-socialist countries who have recently presented their research in Network 14 of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER).

Chapters by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from Austria, Czechia, England, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Serbia, and Spain, reveal signs of recovery from distressing histories, as innovative strategies are improving the status and quality of rural education.

The book includes inevitable but important discussion of how to define ‘rural’, and of the quality of rural educational research. Theories of place and space, by Massey and Lefebvre, the sociological theories of Bourdieu, Wacquant and Weber, and the socio-cultural and ecological theories of Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner respectively are used to make sense of lives in and of rural schools. Indications of global pressures, embodied by the OECD’s PISA-driven quest for ‘world-class standards’, run throughout the book. Finland alone is courageously impervious to this process. Rune Kvalsund’s ‘Words for the Reader’ warn that the ongoing standardisation and ‘rurbanisation’ of rural education might turn liberation from the Iron Curtain, into entrapment in Weber’s ‘iron cage of rationality’. Here,

however, are a few examples of the positive strategies identified by the book’s contributing authors.

In Serbia, where rural illiteracy and school drop-out rates are high, Rural educational tourism is bringing families, communities and schools to work together on real-world projects such as educational farms and rural arts centres; The ‘Manifesto delle Piccole Scuole’, is for Italy’s 1600 tiny isolated schools, now enjoying teaching and learning with other schools through digital distance learning environments; In Hungary, currently undergoing unprecedented levels of state control of education, community involvement and more interactive, inclusive teaching are saving small schools from closure, where local ‘white flight’ from Roma families, has been happening.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 23

In Finland, democratic and deliberative collaborative school network planning is seen as essential for the future of small rural schools. Every municipality is expected to involve parents, educators and planners in these deliberative discussions.

Finally, another warning, also from Norway where rural school closures have resulted in very long school bus journeys. Karl Jan Solstad’s research shows that average one-way journey length which doubled between 2005 and 2015, to 15 km, with 10% over 30km, is having negative

effects on children’s physical development and wellbeing. We must beware the bus-ride into the iron cage.

Editors: Cath Gristy, University of Plymouth, Linda Hargreaves, & Silvie R. Kučerová, Jan Evangelista Purkyne University, Prague.

IAP Information Age Publishing, Series: Current Research in Rural and Regional Education Series Editors: Michael Corbett and Karen Eppley Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64802-163-3

Visiting David …

Muriel Cordell and Trish Maude

Dr David Male. Drama Dept 1966-1968 Head of Dept 1975-1983 Instigator and a Founder member of the RSMA, of which he is extremely proud

T

hose of you who know David Male will know that his birthday is on February 29th, and it was partly for that reason, and partly to find out more about his life and career pre and post Homerton, that Trish and I set out on 5th May to visit him in Dovercourt. It was a cold, grey, windy day when we set forth, which got progressively worse. Great gusts of wind and torrential rain meant that we could hardly see the signposts at times, and we lost our way once or twice. By the time we reached David’s flat, it was a case of paddling to the front door!

Upstairs David made us welcome and a tour of the flat revealed the perfect setting for him. He has the same wide view of the sea as before, uninterrupted as he is so high up. The flat is styled to suit his lovely antique furniture. His rear windows look out over the town and he can see the Primary and Secondary Schools he attended and the church he still goes to. He can almost see the house where he was born. Little wonder he feels so at home!

At David’s suggestion we lunched at The Towers, a very splendid hotel. As we sat in the elegant dining room, David showed us where it had been divided into two classrooms. The half where we were seated had been where David sat his exams. Instructions included “Take shelter under your tables if bombs are dropping!”

The meal was delicious, highly recommended, and the conversation flowed freely.

When he left school, David went to work in the Borough Treasurer’s Office. At 18 he was in the Army Cadet Force, and was due to go into the Air Force, but this was deferred. Instead he took a series of courses, the purpose rsma newsletter september 2020 page 24

of which was not revealed, he ended up in the Department of Signals. His duties eventually took him to Khartoum and the Sudan Defence Force. At the end of his Service, when he expected to come home, he found he had to stay an extra 6 months, doing work considered vital. David had applied to Goldsmiths to do a Teacher Training Course and had been provisionally offered a place, but that had to wait.

It was a surprise to hear that David had opted for History as his main subject, with PE as subsidiary! He became active in student drama, playing the role of a soldier in a Greek play in Year 2. At the end of the second year, the Head of English asked; “Had you ever thought of taking a specialist course in Drama?” A question that altered the focus of his studies and his future.

In his third year, David took the specialist course in Drama. One of his tutors was Lilla Bauer, a highly regarded pupil of Laban, specialising in Movement and Dance. He was awarded a distinction.

After a first post in Felixstowe, a brand new school in St Albans gave David the freedom to put his ideas into practice and demonstrate them to visiting teachers. He put on a play, which was seen by Mr Unstead, a wellknown editor, who asked if it was possible to write a book about theatre for children. ‘The Story of the Theatre’ was the result, and this began David’s writing career. David also studied for qualifications in Speech and Drama and in Mime, through the LRAM, travelling to London after school.

A temporary post at Bretton Hall introduced David to the West Riding Movement Study Group, all keen on Dance.

The Group was made up of Inspectors and Teachers and David became very well known in the area. He became a member of the Laban Guild and went on to teach on a 10-day Laban Holiday Course. Other courses followed.

The temporary post at Bretton was made permanent after a year, but life was not easy for David as the Head of Department was on sabbatical, so he had no colleague, but he did courses for teachers with Diana Jordan, who was only 8 miles away at Woolley Hall. After five years in the North, David applied for a post at Homerton under Betty Shaw.

Betty Shaw had trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and was Head of the Drama Department. She was very dedicated and determined to preserve the position of Drama in Homerton, with a recognised place in the Cambridge university curriculum. She and David worked hard for this.

Facilities at Homerton were very poor. The Drama Studio had not been built, so finding places in which to work was difficult. Equipment was also in short supply. Only 6 weeks after his arrival, Betty Shaw was taken into hospital. David was faced with having to find part time staff from outside to cover courses.

The Principal at this time was Dame Beryl Paston Brown and had taught David at Goldsmiths. When a post at Sittingbourne came up, she advised David to apply as it had greater possibilities and would advance his career.

Whilst at Bretton, David had taken a sabbatical year at Bristol University and obtained an M.Litt.

His dissertation was on Medieval and Elizabethan Drama. This meant that he was well qualified for the post at Sittingbourne.

He was appointed Principal Lecturer and Head of Drama Department, tasked with establishing Drama within the Mature Student Institute of Education., part of London University. David went on to become a recognised starred tutor in the Institute brochure, because of his work at Sittingbourne and his publications. When Sittingbourne closed, David returned to Homerton as a Principal lecturer and Head of Department.

He had a purpose-built, well equipped Studio in which to work and two excellent colleagues – Sue Macklin and Peter Raby. Despite tension dealing with the university,

for whom only the text of a play was worth considering, Drama flourished. It was very inclusive, giving staff the opportunity to mount plays and participate in acting with students and colleagues.

Amongst the plays: The House of Bernardo Alba The Real Inspector Hound Waiting for Godot - an all staff cast, produced by Sue Macklin A Midsummer Night’s Dream – playing Bottom The Birds, a Greek play by Aristophanes The Birds was David’s final production, reprised at a surprise farewell party staged by students. Present and recently departed students took part. The songs were re-written and adapted especially for David, and he was presented with a desk set decorated with the names of plays he had produced or acted in. Made by his friend Derek Andrew in ceramic, it was based on an antique theatre model. He loved it.

On retirement, David became archivist for Harwich. An earlier edition of this magazine, 2005 we think, carries an article he wrote on being ‘Locked in Jail with the Queen’.

It happened!

David has continued to study, write papers and attend conferences. Whilst working towards a PhD ‘Exploring Semiotics in Drama’, a Canadian University invited him to go to Canada. He made several visits. He also visited America and his degree was begun in America, but finished in Japan.

After hearing David read a paper somewhat critical of Cambridge’s attitude to Drama, a Japanese academic said “Have you thought of teaching in Japan for a year?”, to which David replied “I can go now.” He was treated with great respect as a visiting professor. On arrival he was met by two stretch limos, one for him and one for his suitcase! He taught English, Drama, especially Shakespeare and he got his Japanese students acting – never before known!

David continues to amaze, with his breadth of knowledge and wide-ranging interest, especially in Dance, Drama and the RSMA!

Homerton’s new look: Fellow’s Dining Room, Harrison Drive exterior, and new Auditorium

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 25

A French Retirement Sandra Raban

L

ike so many others, RSMs among them, we bought a place in France when we retired. For Tony it was the fulfilment of a dream to live abroad. For me, a medieval historian, there was an added bonus of living in Gascony, another part of the Plantagenet empire. We bought a small farmhouse in Cocumont, a village of just over a thousand inhabitants in Lot-et-Garonne. It has a long tradition of welcoming incomers, beginning with Italians who came to farm the land after the First World War; indeed we have a quartier Italien, though today they mostly work in the building trade. Then there were the Spaniards, fleeing Franco.

Now it’s the North Africans and us.

At the evening market, Meilhan-sur-Garonne, 2015

We are well integrated, partly because we joined the ramblers, thereby meeting lots of people, and also because we employed local artisans to renovate the house. We help our neighbours sell their cooked lamb at the evening markets and festivals in high summer and hosted the surprise 80th birthday party of the oldest so that she wouldn’t realise what was going on. Everyone pitched in, erecting marquees and bringing food and wine. It was a wonderfully effortless way to give a party and a brilliant day. We know how to party. The spaghetti fête in the quartier Italien is a highlight of the social season. Bastille Day is celebrated with snails. We give them a miss; there are limits to assimilation! A friend explained seriously ‘food is important to us’. A farmhouse Sunday lunch is quite something. It starts at midday and ends around five o’clock and is all delicious.

No wonder we feel at home here.

We have our own way of commemorating VE Day and Armistice Day. Black pigeons are released when the flags go down and white ones when they are raised again. Then

we have the National Anthems. First ours (even though this part of France was liberated by the Americans), then the Marseillaise, then the European Anthem. The children put little posies round the war memorial and there are speeches (always lots of speeches in France). Pigeons are an important part of the culture. Palombières dot the landscape, either three storey towers or snaking trenches, but in either case the heart is a cabin. Traditionally they were used for hunting migrating pigeon, either with nets or more likely, these days, with guns. Just as important is the conviviality as people eat and drink together. Try getting anyone to do anything in the hunting season!

The newly admitted, their sponsors & officers of the Consulat des Côtes du Marmandais, 2018

The village lives mainly by viticulture; Côtes du Marmandais. ‘Not a good appellation’ as the lady from the Graves chateau observed, but our own. We were greatly touched to be invited to join the Consulat des Côtes du Marmandais, a decidedly dodgy, pseudo medieval confraternity, notwithstanding being foreign and English to boot. Rural France has loads of these groups – the tomato confraternity of our nearest town and the jam makers from the other side of the River Garonne to name but two. In a ceremony at our Festi Vino, I was inducted as a Grande Dame and Tony as a Seneschal!

I have barely scratched the surface of life in SW France.

There is our neighbour whose prison acquaintance burgled us and who ‘came off his hinges’ and terrified the staff in the Mairie, or the time when the Cave was taken to court for passing off undrinkable and undeclared wine.

We could give Peter Mayle a run for his money. What with coronavirus, Brexit and sheer old age, our days in Cocumont must be numbered, but we have such happy memories.

Missed the deadline?

Why not write an article for the next RSMA Newsletter? rsma newsletter september 2020 page 26

Where in the World are these now?

Jill Waterhouse

I wonder if former members of Homerton staff, especially those who moved overseas, have treasure troves of Homerton memorabilia? Here are some special items that now have a home in Canberra - starting with boxes of photographs and other records All good wishes, Jill Waterhouse, ex-History Department, 1972–1974 and 1979–1990

I’m holding my guinea pig I took to a teaching practice supervision lesson.

The inspector thought ‘Galaxy’ was a hamster; fortunately the student teacher and the class knew better!

Top: Kate Pretty Left: Trish Maude adjusting a student’s graduation gown Right: Hilary Shuard accepting a gift. A sliver of Peter Warner on the left!

But I’m not thinking so much of photos, or of a host of papers, as I am of objects:

Student desk. Note the brass-topped inkwell. In the 1980s, Miss Westall, ‘Westy’, the domestic bursar, had a major clean out. Soon after, I spotted this desk in a local antique shop and purchased it for £100. Even though Mac computers were coming in and desks like this were no longer as suitable for study, I loved the fittings, including the original key.

Domestic staff cleaner’s coat, c. 1980s.

During an economic downturn in the 1980s, several members of the domestic staff were retrenched. I was walking past the Principal’s office when one of the maids came out crying. As she lived near me in Cherry Hinton Road, I stopped to commiserate. ‘In any case’, she said, ‘this old thing is worn and I’ll throw it away,’ which she did, then and there.

Marquette of ‘Stretching Girl’ by Betty Rae, a work that once stood in the foyer of the Combination Room. Although I never met Betty Rea, I knew her longtime partner, artist Nan Youngman, and some of their many friends.

Newsletter Competition Latest: Suggest a competition for next year’s Newsletter rsma newsletter september 2020 page 27

Homerton Days – Judy Barham in conversation with …

Anne Thwaites

F

rom the moment that the setting is described as ‘an incredibly wet June morning in the cafe of a garden centre’ it should take only a few seconds to detect that our meeting did not take place this June which was not only dry but a lockdown month!

The purpose of our (June 2019) meeting was to enjoy a cup of coffee (or two) whilst talking about Judy's time in College. What follows is not an exact transcript of our conversation but hopefully gives a flavour of a fascinating morning.

We began our conversation, as one would, at the beginning with Judy describing how she came to start work at Homerton.

JB: It was September 1976, my children were at school and I was looking to do something in the evening. A friend told me that Homerton wanted evening staff and so I applied. I then had what seemed the weirdest interview ever. I was met by Janet Catterall, the Domestic Bursar's assistant, who said that the Domestic Bursar, Miss Westall, - 'Westie', as I later discovered everyone called her - wasn't there and so I would have to come back the next day to see her. Westie didn't seem to want to ask about anything in particular, but simply allowed me to talk about myself and what I did.

AT: So what had you been doing before applying for a job at Homerton?

JB: Well, when I left school, I got a job at Pye's working with tabulators [a machine which would record information from punched cards] and sorters. We had to programme the boxes for the different jobs we were doing like the payroll for all the employees and dealers that sold Pye products. After that I had a job in the University working for Robert Carpenter at the department of Human Ecology and Health Centre in Gresham Road. It felt like being on another planet! He was writing a paper on sudden death in infancy and mental health. We had to collect all the data on punched cards using a tabulator; I had to go to the Mathematical Laboratory to change it to punched tape for their computer. I never met a computer like it - it took the whole length of a wall. Going to the University to work seemed like a piece of cake - I did my first week's work in two days and they said I had to slow down! [Professor Carpenter died in 2016; he was renowned as a world authority on the causes of sudden infant death.]

At the end of the interview Westie said I could start next week. I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't even ask how much she was paying me! With Westie it felt right that you just didn't ask such things. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 28

AT: So when you started, how many hours were you working and what were your tasks?

JB: Well, my main job was cleaning in English and maths [in the old Black and White buildings]. Originally it was 5pm till 7pm and then turned into 5pm till 8pm. If no-one came to do the evening switchboard, Westie would say 'would you go on the switchboard while I go for my evening meal'. But then she never used to come back!

Once I was still there till 9 o'clock. My husband was in the front carpark waiting to pick me up. I ran out and said 'I can't leave, I can't leave!'

AT: That was shrewd of Westie!

JB: I never knew from day one what I would be doing.

For example, she'd say 'I want you to do the sherry, we've got a sherry reception.' These were held in the Combination Room - what's now the Fellows' Dining Room - and I'd draw the curtains and light the candles.

The first time I met John Murrell was at one of these receptions for his PGCE group. I had served sherry for them and on clearing up I noticed John going off with two bottles of sherry so I went after him. He was very good about it and laughed when I explained I was responsible to Westie for all the bottles!

AT: Would this be at the time I heard that it was customary for quite a lot of staff to keep sherry in their rooms?

JB: Yes. I had a key to the sherry cupboard; people had to order it and I put it in their pigeon hole. Westie kept a close check on the bottles of sherry, sometimes people forgot and would ring me up asking if I could get them some.

AT: How did things develop from being the guardian of the Sherry supply?

JB: Well, I was just doing more and more, quite often doing different things to help Westie. Incidentally, her office overlooked the pigeon hole area and she knew all that was going on in college!

I do remember that there were times when Westie could get a bit annoyed with me. Once, before a room was due to be packed up, I went and cleaned it and she called me a 'stupid woman'! She never said sorry, but she made up for it in her way. I remember she came along and gave me this thing of strawberries, and she said 'this is for you'.

There was something about her that made you want to protect her. When you look at it, she didn't give herself any comfort at all; all she had upstairs (at the top of ABC, what is now the upper offices of the bursary) was a bedroom, bathroom and one gas ring.

During my time at Homerton there were four Principals.

Sometimes Alison Shrubsole would ask me to sit with Dame Beryl (her predecessor) when she came into College before an event. She was fascinating, she told me about everything when she first came. I remember her saying about the girls all sitting round a bath with their feet in the water to keep warm! She always wanted to hear about things that were going on. At other times I sat with Alison's mother while she was living with her. Each September, Alison would have the HUS Committee to a meal in her flat [the rooms above the current Principal's office] and she would ask me to help serve it, tidy up and do the washing up.

When Alison retired (in March 1986), she sent me a letter, which I have kept, and have here thanking me for leaving some flowers in her rather bare flat.

AT: … and clearly you were much appreciated by Alison as I see that she wrote: “It was typical, I thought, of your kind, generous, imaginative approach to life, and I am immensely grateful."

This now brings us up to the mid 80’s – were things changing at this time?

JB: Yes! Westie retired in 1985, I was Jill Hamilton's deputy when Doreen Upshaw left. After Jill retired, Caroline Emery came - she was a lovely person, but left after a year. George Hubbard took over a lot of the responsibilities and we had a Personnel Officer (and an Estates Manager). At that time women over 60 had to retire, it caused quite a lot of aggro because housekeeping lost a third of its staff.

Then in 1986, just after my Mum had died, I seemed to be doing a lot of different tasks, particularly as a new Domestic Bursar was settling in and said I would apply to be regraded. I had to go to an interview - Trish Maude was there as a supporter before I went in - with two of the trustees; it took an hour during which I was asked all the things I did and in telling them about them I also mentioned all the things we could do. At the end of the day George [Hubbard] came up and said I was regraded and in 1987 my job was changed to Housekeeper.

AT: So things became rather different for you from then on?

JB: As the Housekeeper I was coming into college at 6.30am and would walk through College just as Westie had done before me. She knew instantly if anything was out of place or missing and I did that too. If someone rang in sick, I knew I could cut corners - like the Combination Room, if it didn't need much doing, I'd titivate it up and then I would say to whoever was doing the Combination Room I need you to go somewhere else.

That's what I did!

My Italian staff were really lovely. I never used to say 'you do this, do that' but instead I used to go up to them, put my arm round them and say 'you wouldn't do me a favour would you?'. I would help them out and for example mop the floor, they wouldn't let me finish it but they could see I would help them. They were also fantastic cooks!

JB: No. The Chairman of the trustees, Sir David Harrison, and his wife used to stay in the guest rooms now and again. I remember asking him once whether he had ever seen the students' accommodation? When he said no, I thought I would take him up to ABC and show him how the students had to wash with a plastic curtain all around them, two students used one sink, and there was only one bath and a grotty shower. And the kitchen had that Belling where if you had the oven on, the two rings wouldn't work! That summer, I got some money to do up Queen's Wing and be able to put some decent furniture in and upgrade the kitchens. Then we got the money, didn't we, to do the rest of it - all of the Victorian building. In ABC three rooms were converted to two with two en suites between them - luxury!

AT: I am assuming that as part of your role you had to keep a ‘weather eye’ on things going on in College?

JB: Ooh I knew what came out of the woodwork! I'd pass on the information about what I'd seen to whoever needed to know. Sometimes I would come in earlier than usual if I was a bit suspicious! Or sometimes I would walk round later in the evening and find things that weren't quite right.

Things did sometimes ‘disappear’ - bits of antique furniture! A grandfather clock went missing, but how do you get a grandfather clock out? The police caught someone and he admitted it but he didn't know where it was. The main items that went were the two outdoor Victorian planters outside the Principal's entrance, the people who took them actually emptied the dirt, loaded them in a van and scarpered!

AT: And I know you also kept a ‘weather eye’ on the students too?

JB: I always had an open door - some students wanted a bit of a chat at times. As I said before, I would pass information on to others to make decisions - the nurse or one of the lecturers. I had my broomstick and witch's hat in the window of my office and I told the students that if they were in the window of my room [in West House] I was in and if not, I was flying around! I used to tell them that I would be up in the watch tower and I'd know what they were up to before they thought about it. I remember one student who didn't like the colour scheme in his room so he painted the room, all round the furniture! At the end of the year there were great cream patches where he had missed.

AT: In later years there must have been many more changes with the College’s extensive building programme, including the Mary Allan Building?

JB: There was! Moving everything from the black and white buildings across to MAB was quite a job. With the Head Porter (Paul Blake) and eight students, we moved all the boxes; but the front path and driveway hadn't been finished so we ended by having to carry them through the mud and wet!! We were not allowed to use the lift so we had to carry everything up the stairs!

AT: What about the student accommodation at this time – was that changing much?

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 29

Aside of all of that there were many fun times: I organised the College fireworks display for a lot of years and one year we made a guy which we put behind the desk in Gale Bryan's (the Bursar’s) office for when he came in! I could tell you all the Junior Bar Treasurers because I sat in all the bar meetings. And I'd stay all night for the Balls and then Guy for Gale at 6am we started the cleaning including shampooing carpets and it would all be back to normal by 10.30!

AT: So you retired in 2008. Kate Pretty in her Principal’s report to the Trustees that year wrote: "The Trustees will also wish to pay tribute to Mrs Judy Barham, the College Housekeeper, who retires in July after 32 years of service. The College receives many compliments, from both staff and visitors, on its beautiful polished floors and brass fittings, and the Trustees themselves will have frequently seen the quality of her flower arrangements. Judy carried out the business planning for the launderette and pushed forward the whole of the College's recycling programme. It is in no

small measure due to Judy and her team that the assimilation of another 138 undergraduates on site, in South Court, at the beginning of this academic year, was carried out so smoothly and successfully."

This is definitely a very fitting recognition of all the hard work you gave to Homerton from that very first day when you met ‘Westie’ and she asked you to tell her about yourself.

And away from college, I remember that horses have played an important part in your family's life.

JB: Oh yes. My daughter, Tracey, was very keen - she had a pony Georgie Girl and then Pippa and Haneesha; my husband, Keith, did a lot with them and took Tracey to lots of events. After Keith died, Tracey persuaded me that I should have a dog and I had a beagle, Henry, for nine years. What a lot of stories I could tell you about him! Now I'm living near Ipswich [Judy has moved since then] but come to help look after my two grandchildren two days a week - that's been a joy.

AT Postscript: As many will know, Judy has been an active member of the RSMA and was the Almoner for a number of years (she had been Almoner for the Combination Room committee too). She has kept in touch with many of the staff of College in a very supportive way.

Behind the College Bell Rose Sheriff, Primary PGCE trainee

I

n September, during the first week of our teacher training, we were tasked with finding an object in Homerton College on which we could teach a short history lesson to our peers. With matriculation mere days away, our group was keen to delve into the history of Homerton. Our aim was to really become acquainted with the college that we would soon be formally initiated into.

We immediately turned our focus to the Great Hall; arguably the grandest and most historic area of the college. Our eyes were drawn to the rose window below which a bell hangs. Since the bell was suspended in such a prominent position, we felt sure that it must have a rich history. So, once we had taken pictures of the bell, we returned to our computers to begin researching the object.

What we discovered was fascinating.

In 1889 Cavendish College was located on Hills Road, where Homerton College now resides. Because Cavendish College was not recognised as a full college, it lacked popularity. In an attempt to boost the status of the college, the choice was made to construct the Great Hall.

It was also around this time that the bell was made in East London and given its name: ‘big’. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 30

Unfortunately, the attempt to increase the popularity of Cavendish College was unsuccessful and, in 1891, it closed.

Consequently, in 1894, Homerton College moved from East London to its current site. It was at this time that the bell was hung outside the hall. It was rung punctually by the students three times a day to signify meals.

The bell was also an integral object for the community living on Hills Road; it is said that the people on Hills Road checked their watches by the Homerton Bell. Unfortunately, the bell eventually fell into disuse. Following donations in the early 1990s, the bell was restored and moved to its current location inside the Great Hall on the south wall.

We began to wonder if the bell was still rung today. After checking the website, it seemed to suggest that it was rung before formal hall and to mark the end of other formal dinners. Not wishing to give false information during our lesson, we approached the porters and enquired whether the bell would ring at our matriculation on the Friday of that week.

This experience really highlighted to me how dedicated and kind the porters at Homerton are. The first porter we spoke to, himself unsure if the bell would sound at matriculation, launched a full-scale investigation to discover the answer to our question. He began calling

some of the long-serving porters and members of Homerton College. The final consensus was that, since the porters had never heard the bell ring, it would almost certainly remain silent on the Friday too.

So, on the evening of matriculation, as our meal drew to a close and the speeches began, you can only imagine my delight when a loud ringing echoed around the Great Hall. The bell that I had become so interested in was finally ringing. It felt like I had become tied into Homerton College’s history.

The Homersphere Matthew Moss, Director of External Relations and Development

I

n mid-March, student life was uprooted. The very few students who could not get home were helped to stay, but all who had a home they could go to were asked to leave. The Principal found one student scooping earth from the flowerbeds into a jar to take with her. Student telethon callers gathered in MAB for their first day of training and were instead met by the Senior Tutor and asked to leave. Later, handbags and half-eaten toast would be found in evacuated student rooms.

It quickly became obvious that students would not be returning for the Easter Term, and that teaching and exams would need to move online. But it was also obvious how much of the experience of being a Cambridge student would be lost. A College is a unique structure: a multidisciplinary and multigenerational community of scholars, sharing a common life.

Musicians and Geographers and Economists and Physicists live and eat together, and learn from each other, in a College. We could imagine how a course curriculum could be delivered online – but the experience would be closer to the Open University than the mindexpanding ‘home’ that a College like Homerton provides.

So within a few days of this sudden scattering of Homertonians, a group of Fellows set about designing a blog which would attempt to replicate the serendipity of Homerton, in digital form. The result is the Homersphere

- https://homersphere.squarespace.com/ - launched on International Star Wars Day (May The Fourth, obviously!) with an accessible and learned article by Robin Bunce on utopias and dystopias in the Star Wars canon.

You can now find posts as varied as Geoff Ward’s radio programme on David Foster Wallace; Steve Waters (former head of drama) writing about his new radio play about the foundation of Israel; and Beth Singler (Junior Research Fellow) on sexism in Blade Runner. Many of the contributions are about, or at least nod towards, the pandemic: Mary Dixon-Woods (Professorial Fellow) writes about the ethics of swab tests for NHS workers, David Clifford (Fellow in English) on how to get leaky pipes repaired at the height of lockdown, and John Hopkins (Emeritus Fellow in Music) shares his playlists to get us through the evolving emotions of the crisis.

The blog has also been a great platform for Philip Stephenson’s lovely series of art history pieces based on works from the Fitzwilliam Museum, beginning with Seurat and taking in William Nicholson, Henry Moore and Veneziano.

And as time has gone by, the purpose and shape of the blog has evolved. We’ve had our first contribution from a graduate research student – Oscar Wilson, recently coPresident of the MCR, has written a great piece on the rhinoceros – and we have used the Homersphere to report on new acquisitions for the College archive (thanks to Peter Cunningham), and a quite fantastic music performance competition organised by the Music Society.

Please do explore the Homersphere – and let me know if you’re interested in writing for it! It’s here to stay, lockdown or no.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 31

The Royal Charter Archive Project Sue Conrad

R

eaders may recall that I wrote a short piece for the 2019 RSMA Newsletter about what was then my Royal Charter Archive Project.

The Royal Charter Archive is a collection of documents and material related to Homerton’s achievement of the Royal Charter in 2010. It is located in the College Archive, a splendid purpose-built facility located on the top floor of Queen’s Wing.

There are photographs, site plans, newspaper cuttings, personal recollections, legal documents, documents relating to the creation of the new Coat of Arms and the College Seal – and the Royal Charter itself!

At the end of 2019, I substantially completed what, for me, was the centrepiece of the project – an Index to the Trustees’ Minute Books from the late 1980s through to March 2010, when the College gained its Royal Charter. The Index to the Trustees’ Minute Books runs to 196 pages! It lists, in some detail, the contents of over 60 lengthy sets of minutes. It is a pdf document which can be searched electronically, making it possible to identify, and then access, via entries in the individual Minute Books, further information relating to specific subjects, discussions and decisions. Perhaps more importantly, once the relevant minute has been identified, it can be linked up with the associated detailed briefing papers which will also be available for reference in the Royal Charter Archive. A similar Index to the Trustees’ Finance & General Purposes Committee meetings is in progress, but has been brought to a halt for the time being by the current restrictions relating to the COVID-19 outbreak.

It was my intention to launch the Royal Charter Archive in March 2020 with an exhibition marking the 10th Anniversary of the Royal Charter. I set up the exhibition on the 1st Floor landing of the Mary Allan Building in time for Saturday 7th March, the date of Homerton’s Charter Dinner, and it was my plan to deliver a coffee morning talk and tour to the RSMs on 13 March. However, I’m sure I don’t need to remind

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 32

anybody about what happened in the meantime. Suffice it to say that the Porters have kindly taken the Exhibition down for me, and everything is now in safe storage.

An element of the Exhibition which I felt it was vital to get across in a meaningful way was the Timeline of the whole process. It is perhaps only when you see the juxtaposition of the myriad elements of the Royal Charter project – the challenges, the planning, the processes, the problems to be resolved, the relentless effort required by all involved over such a lengthy period, in addition to managing a fully-functioning College - that you start to appreciate the full extent of what was achieved. In the end I decided the best way to do this was by means of a wall-mounted display breaking down the elements of ‘what happened when’ into a set of general headings which could be shown together under the years in which they happened, each of which could also be followed through easily on the Timeline on a year-on-year basis. The headings I chose were: College, Convergence with the University, Education, Estates, Finance, Homerton School of Health Studies, People, Research, Statutes, Students, Strategy, University and Miscellaneous. While it isn’t perhaps the most eye-catching of presentations, I do think it is effective in bringing home what was involved, and crucially how much was going on all at the same time. It is a source of satisfaction to me that the Timeline would not, I am sure, have been possible without the searchable Index.

As part of the Exhibition I made sheets available for visitors to complete and return, letting me have their recollections of the Royal Charter process. I would still love to have these contributions, as an additional section in the Archive. My thanks go to Svetlana Paterson, the College Archivist, for her invaluable help and advice, and for letting me invade her workspace in the Archive, on a weekly basis, for the best part of two years.

This is what you would have seen …

Estates Update

W

Deborah Griffin, Bursar

here to start? Since College closed in March, we have been working harder than ever!

Some students were unable to return home and so we have had about 60 students resident throughout. Those not already in graduate accommodation were moved into Morley House and Harrison House where they had full kitchen facilities and could look after themselves. Towards the end of June we started to welcome back some postgraduates whose laboratories were opening and these had to be brought in, firstly either into quarantine or separate households, then into established households.

As the students did not return for Easter term, Finance had the unenviable task of sorting out some 750 students, and Estates arranging for the packing up, storage or return of the belongings left in about 650 rooms.

In the meantime, the Gardens’ Team have kept the grounds beautiful and Building Services have ensured critical testing and maintenance of all College buildings has continued. We have also taken the opportunity to refurbish the floors of the Great Hall, Fellows’ Dining Room and Principal’s corridor and refurbish some ABC rooms and the Hills Road JRF flats as well as decorating and other repairs.

We have furloughed quite a number of staff particularly those in catering and housekeeping who cannot work from home. Some teams such as Finance, Tutorial and IT have worked on the basis of having half the team on at any one time. Nearly everyone has worked from home and the IT team provided superb support to getting us all up and running on Zoom, Citrix, Teams etc.. Managers have been keeping in touch with their teams and we are now bringing back people to prepare for the new term. Most people will be back by September and we are putting in measures to keep everyone as safe as possible.

Throughout all this the Porters have been in College and adapting to evolving circumstances and Paul Coleman, Catering and Conference Manager, has been providing cake and smiles to keep those in College going.

Developments At the time of the lockdown, we had three major development projects underway. After a period of 3 to 4 weeks, all sites returned to work with procedures in place to keep their staff safe.

North Wing, which encompasses a new auditorium for 110 people, two large music practice rooms and 18 guest bedrooms, was only a week from completion when the lockdown happened. This has now been handed over although some supply difficulties are delaying some finishes. This will be a very useful space especially in current circumstances.

Work on the adjacent Paupers’ Walk during the building work has revealed the stone windows covered up in, we believe, 1932. We have decided to expose two of these although they need quite a lot of work to repair the stone and bring them back to their full glory.

The new Sports Fields being constructed with St Mary’s School off Long Road are continuing. The new pitches are due to be completed in August. This will provide flood-lit artificial surfaces for hockey, cricket nets, netball and tennis, rugby and football and high jump and long jump. Other sports such as lacrosse and American Football will also be able to use the pitches.

The construction of a Pavilion will commence in September. College students and the school will be able to use the pitches from September with portacabin toilets in place.

Construction on the new Dining Hall (with buttery, servery and kitchens) had started in February and is now well underway with piling and ground floor slab going in place. We now have another large crane above the College landscape!

We will be installing our second array of ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) this summer which will be under the lawns of the College. Completion of the building is scheduled for end of 2021 – how I wish we had that extra space now!

With these projects underway we are now planning for a much-needed Porters’ Lodge, and development to encompass a Children’s Literature Resource Centre and additional group study spaces. We are also planning for the re-purposing of the Great Hall and the area surrounding it to ensure we make this a well-used and beautiful space for the College.

July 2020

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 33

Robert (Bob) Arthur 14 October 1937 - 9 July 2019

B

ob Arthur was a very significant figure in the life of Homerton throughout three decades in the last century. Joining Michael Carr in 1966 in a newly staffed Geography Department, Bob became a key figure in the years preceding Homerton’s admission as an Approved Society of the University in 1976. As secretary of the Academic Board, he was an important contributor at staff meetings, and in the early days of the evolution of the Cambridge B Ed degree, College owed much to Bob, to his organisational skills, his ability to get on with colleagues who held different perspectives, and his grasp of detail. Those who worked closely with him learnt so much from him, about institutional governance and change, about skilled negotiations and the need for compromise, and not least, as one student president has noted, about “the power of whoever writes the minutes of meetings!”

the war years in Totley, in the south-west of the city.

After education at High Storrs Grammar School, Bob spent national service in the RAF (1956-58), as a meteorologist at RAF Manby (to quote Bob … “on the marshy coastal plain of Lincolnshire”) and – more enticingly – in Singapore (“where the weather was more interesting”). Three years followed in Durham (1958-61) where Bob became a keen rower and member of the University College Boat Club, played hockey, met his future wife Barbara and attended the occasional geography lecture. After completing a Diploma in Education at Sheffield, Bob exchanged the industrial North for the ‘soft’ coastal South, taking his first teaching post in the geography department at Hastings Grammar School, before coming to Homerton five years later, to work with Michael Carr and later with Peter Travers to transform the teaching of geography within the College.

Essentially, though, Bob’s roots were in physical geography and his love of landscape and fieldwork.

Whether in his beloved Peak District, near to his Sheffield birthplace, or on the South Devon coastline between Start Point and Slapton Sands, or on the Norwegian Fiords, Bob was in his element.

Deconstructing landscapes, trekking across Dartmoor bogs and Norfolk Marshes (with a healthy disrespect for health and safety!), demanding that students look, see and think more deeply about the formation and evolution of a particularly obscure and isolated landscape feature, Bob was an inspirational teacher and leader. His catchphrases, “the alert student will note…”, “the more inquisitive student will be asking herself …”, “the observant student will be thinking…” endeared him to countless cohorts of students, and won him admiration, affection and loyalty as he opened up landscapes and a sense of the uniqueness of place to students who frequently were feeling unobservant and neither alert nor inquisitive!

Bob spent twenty-six fruitful and fulfilling years at Homerton (1966-92), at different times involved as rowing coach for the First May Boat, succeeding Hilary Shuard as wicketkeeper for the staff cricket team (showing enthusiasm but little skill), an active committee member of the Wine Society (regularly travelling at Christmas to bring back his Caravette loaded with Mouton Cadet), a regular sailor in his Flying 15, and later as Co-ordinator of Curriculum Studies for the B Ed degree through the 80s until his early retirement in 1992.

More latterly, he suffered considerable ill-health, which he bore with fortitude, determination and humour, supported lovingly by Steve, his son, and Rebecca, and by his grandsons Dan and Will, to whom Bob was utterly devoted.

As former students have made clear, memories abound of these times in the late 60s and 70s when Bob was at his peak … of searching for glowworms with John Hammond and students at midnight on Slapton beach, wonderful crab suppers at the Queens Head and the Tower in Slapton village (two favourite haunts), leading the Homerton geographers in the annual volleymatch which always led to the inevitable defeat for the opposition Biologists (if memory does not deceive), of interpreting Norwegian and Peak District landscapes that were often shrouded in mist and fog (“the alert student will be wondering what we are observing here, if indeed we could see through the low cloud and this tipping rain … let me tell you that it is the most wonderful view we are looking at!”).

Bob’s early years were spent in Sheffield. Bob and Tony (Bob’s non-identical twin) were born in 1937 and spent rsma newsletter september 2020 page 34

A personal reflection on which to end: in the twenty years I worked with him, I came to know Bob as a devoted teacher, an inspirational mentor, a key member of Homerton at one of the most transformational moments in its history, and a socialist to the core. He possessed a gentle sense of irony, a wry sense of humour and an enormous commitment to social justice and the welfare of others. He was a great friend to many of us, and it was a privilege and an honour to work alongside him and to learn from him.

Mike Younger

Judith Hammond 13th May1938 – 22nd June 2019.

M

any Homerton colleagues will have been saddened to learn of the death of Judith Hammond last summer. Judith and her late husband John played a central part in the life of Homerton over several decades and made many friends among all sections of the staff.

Judith was born in Norwich in 1938. She retained both her love of Norfolk, where her sister Jill continued to live, and a distinctive soft Norfolk burr and intonation throughout her life, and she was always delighted to visit the coast with her family.

Judith married John in 1966 and moved to Cambridge about that time. John worked first at College as a biology lecturer. Anne and John Murrell were already close friends, but Judith quickly became part of a social circle that included Helen Arnold, Sylvia Williams, Bob (and later Tony) Arthur, John and Jean Ball and David and Angela Bridges. She revelled in good company over a meal and for many years entertained American Junior Year Abroad students to Thanksgiving dinner – despite her own horror of turkey!

Two daughters, Samantha and Sarah arrived not long after the family moved to Cambridge and Judith was a devoted mother and later grandmother – not least supporting Sarah with her triplets. In their eulogy presented at Judith’s funeral all the children paid tribute to her love for her family and her enormous pleasure in their company. After John died, it did not

Homerton 1974 - 2003

take her long to decide to move up to Belford in Northumberland where she could be close to them all and see her grandchildren grow up – a decision she never regretted.

Judith brought with her to Homerton considerable administrative skills and in the 1970s the College began to take advantage of these in a number of quite innovative Judith and John in retirement initiatives. outside their home in Cambridge First, was the newly established CCTV studio where she worked alongside Bill Coleman for a number of years. Later she held posts as Accommodation and Conference officer, Inset Administrator and Tutorial Secretary before her retirement in 2003. Judith was never a member of the ‘academic’ staff, and the college’s way of defining other staff by what they were not – ‘non-teaching staff’ – always rankled, but she was not afraid to speak up for those she felt were treated as second class citizens, representing them in due course on Academic Board.

Judith loved her work at Homerton and the friendships that it generated and those who survive her will remember her with fondness and affection.

With contributions from David Bridges, Kathleen Brown, Anne Murrell, Chris Tubb and Judith Witt

Remembered Always When I heard the news of Judith’s passing, I was immediately transported back to just two years earlier when an email arrived from Judith responding to my plea for articles which at the time totalled zero. So RSMs had the delight of reading a small piece “Reflections from Northumberland” (Newsletter 2017) knowing that Judith was settled some 5 miles from Bamburgh Castle.

A couple of weeks ago I inexplicably decided that I would try to locate paper copies of previous Newsletters. I rather peculiarly, given that it was five more years before I retired, had a copy of the September 2008 Newsletter. There, on page 4, was an article “The ‘spirit’ of the rsms” by Judith’s John with an accompanying pen portrait including Judith now used again above. Moreover, on the very next page I found “Attention to detail: a ‘Rolls Royce of a Visit …’ by Bob Arthur no less. And immediately following that, an article by Barbara Pointon: “Understanding and supporting dementia”. 2008 was clearly a very good year.

I know that since then Barbara had also contributed “A spider caught in the Web” (2017) and “More on Moore” (2018). John Chapman, just as Judith did to me, had offered “The Olden Days” (2016) to Philip. Charlie Jenner, in her role as RSMA secretary was an invaluable and respected member for several years. Although no longer with us, all RSMs will be forever remembered.

Ed.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 35

John Chapman 1930 – 2020.

Head Porter 1980 - 1994

R

ecently we have been saddened to hear of the death of Mr John Chapman, a former Head Porter at Homerton College. During his retirement he had been living near Bury St. Edmunds and enjoying village life until he died on July 6th at the age of 90.

Many staff and students hold fond memories of a cheerful porter, always willing to help and always sporting a welcoming smile. He was often aided by his Alsatian, King, and on a personal level he and his wife Lilian would welcome students to their home in Blinco Grove and ply them with fantastic home cooking. I believe he and Lilian continued to enjoy the company of their group of ‘youngsters’ in Fornham All Saints, until she died a few years ago.

Covid 19 restrictions meant that only thirty mourners were allowed at his funeral service, on July 27th. But as befitted the gentle, loyal and committed porter that he was, amongst those present were four previous students and three members of the RSMA. This included the Revd Canon Debbie Dewes, herself a Homerton Secondary trainee from forty years ago who later trained for the ministry. She continued to keep in touch with John and Lilian during their time in Suffolk

and led the service with sensitivity and obvious fondness for a family friend. The Eulogy too was very ably delivered by an ex-Homertonian: a previous Student President, Adella Charlton.

Staff will well remember “Mr Chapman” (I hesitate to refer to him as John as he was Mr Chapman to staff and students alike) as a Head Porter who was always there to help. On Graduation days he would be seen proudly leading the Homerton cohort to the Senate House: students immaculately turned out in robes and ermine, he in his best College uniform. Such was his popularity that a group who graduated after his retirement requested that he returned for ‘their day’, and, complete with his bowler, he proudly led them on their Graduation procession.

Head Porter to Retired Head Porter, May 2015

In retirement John Chapman continued to be active in his local community and enjoyed gardening on his allotments , DIY, narrowboat holidays, carpet bowls and many other local happenings. Mourners at his cremation were quick to voice praise for all that he had meant to local residents.

Apparently, if John had ONE pet hate, it was the wearing of hats … by himself and others. So it seems ironic that our most vivid memories of him, are of a well-dressed man in Homerton uniform, complete with bowler hat.

He will be happily remembered, but sadly missed.

Carole Bennett

Extract from RSMA Newsletter 2016 article “The Olden Days” by John recalling his time as Head Porter: A student came to the Porters’ Lodge one weekend to say that she was locked out of her room. She had tried the spare key and the duty Porter, Mr [Rod] Pope, had tried the master key, but to no avail. Mr Pope and I planned our next move, as Mr Evans was away ill at that time. Luckily, the young lady had left one of her bay windows open, so we put a three-sectioned ladder to the window. Too short. Now we were stumped, until I had an idea. I told Rod my plan and he said he was not doing it, and as I was the youngest, it was up to me. I asked the girl in the next room for permission to use her room, which was granted, and then I instructed the two girls to wait in the corridor outside their rooms. So, with Mr Pope directing from below (for health and safety reasons), I swung from one window to the other and then unlocked the door. Both girls were amazed and asked how I did it. I replied “through the trap door in the ceiling” and left them looking for it!

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 36

Charlotte (Charlie) Jenner 28th February 1947 – 29th April 2020

C

harlie started work at Homerton, in what was then the Registry, on 1 February 1996, at a time when the work of the College was still focused mainly on Education and teacher training. As the Tutorial Administrator, Charlie was responsible for line managing a large and lively team of skilled administrators with responsibility for student recruitment, admissions, examinations, graduation arrangements, and welfare, together with provision of support to the academic and tutorial staff. In other words, in her role of managing and coordinating this team, Charlie was central to the smooth running of the College. As College Examinations Officer, Charlie had overall responsibility for ensuring that examinations ran smoothly, candidates with special needs were catered for, and for the organisation of graduation ceremonies. Charlie was also PA to the Senior Tutor.

As if all that were not challenging enough, moves towards full collegiate status within the University of Cambridge were already well underway when Charlie took up her post, the implications of which were to impact massively on the whole College, and very heavily on the Tutorial Office, with the College starting to offer the full range of tripos subjects, not just Education, and all the major adjustments that that involved.

Charlie and I became firm friends, sometimes meeting over a quick morning coffee in the Combination Room when we had time, and nearly always getting together for lunch in the Dining Hall. Working as we did in the administration of very different areas of College life – Charlie with everything student and academic staff related, and me with governance, strategy, finance, personnel and estates – I think our friendship probably helped to oil the wheels and aid communication across these quite distinct and separate activities.

But we didn’t talk shop all the time! We shared a strong interest in gardens and gardening. Charlie loved

her garden, and was very knowledgeable about plants and horticulture. I was always so impressed and amazed by what she achieved in what was quite a small space. She always seemed to be carrying out some sort of major overhaul. We also, somewhat bizarrely, shared a love of high-octane action movies! We went to see several ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ films together, and I have Charlie to thank for introducing me to the joys of the ‘Transporter’ and the ‘Marvel Avengers’ franchises. Both keen travellers, we had a very enjoyable short break based in Salisbury, and often talked about planning a trip to the Scottish Isles. Sadly this never happened. We also enjoyed a similar sense of humour, and found plenty to laugh about in each other’s company over the years. Who will ever forget Charlie’s hearty, generous and infectious laugh? I also have very fond memories of Charlie and me strutting our stuff at a number of Staff Christmas Parties. Charlie loved getting fully ‘glammed-up’, and was indefatigable on the dance floor!

In addition to all this, Charlie was the lynchpin of a large and lively family – taking great enjoyment in the company of her many siblings, children, and grandchildren, and supporting and encouraging them in every way possible. Charlie was a Christian, active in her Church, and brought an extraordinary level of common sense tempered with compassion into her everyday life. Having gained an MA in Victorian Literature, Charlie continued to pursue her academic studies in Theology.

Charlie retired from her full-time post in July 2012 and subsequently took on the role of Secretary for the RSMA. She also returned to the College in a part-time capacity to work in the Development Office, where she soon became a much loved and valued member of the team.

Sue Conrad

An obituary for Jill Richards will appear in next year’s Newsletter Following the recent sad news of Barbara Pointon, we plan to have a special feature on her next year

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 37

RSMA Roundup 2019-2020

Emeritus Choir 2008 to 2019

I

n John Murrell’s first RSMA Report in 2008 he announced the beginning of the Choir named the ‘Crumblies’ made up of a ‘dozen stalwarts’. It was a recruiting piece!

He encouraged real singers, those with ‘voices’ to ‘come and stretch us’ and those who only sing in the bath ‘not to waste their talent down the plughole’.

He went on to say, ‘Those of us who take part in this ‘therapeutic noisemaking’ will testify that Barbara Pointon and Jane Edden are Homerton’s answer to Television’s Gareth Malone. With consummate skill and saintly patience they encourage us to do what many music teachers at school failed to do – get us to enjoy singing’.

We first sang in public at John Hammond’s Memorial Service in 2010. The Principal, Kate Pretty insisted that we should change our name to something a little more dignified. John Murrell therefore suggested ‘Emeritus’ and thus we continued with that more elegant nomenclature.

The choice of songs was wide-ranging, often challenging but always fun. We did a lot of laughing along the way.

Barbara eventually had to retire in 2013 from the joint leadership and the Choir presented her with a personalised rose named ‘Barbara P’ at the Tea Party in her honour. The rose is now the symbol of the RSMA. Emeritus continued the inspiring musical journey with Jane who led from guitar and also added an eclectic selection of percussion instruments into the mix which provided a different kind of challenge. It was an exciting time.

In 2015 Jane retired from the Choir and Alumna Sue Pinner took up the baton with Philip Rundall accompanying on guitar.

We were fortunate indeed to have three Maestrae who shared so much of their musicianship, their talent and enthusiasm, skilfully underscored by meticulous planning. rsma newsletter september 2020 page 38

Jane & Sue: Maestrae 2 & 3 It was a privilege to sing at Kate Pretty’s Retirement Dinner with the RSMA and at Memorials to colleagues: both John Hammond and John Murrell had given long and distinguished service in the office of RSMA Chairman.

John M was indeed a stalwart member of the choir from the outset, as indeed was Barry Jones. They were both sorely missed.

The Choir gave a performance at the RSM Christmas Gathering each year at the lovely homes of Pauline and Godfrey Curtis. We thank them both for their generous hospitality and the RSMA for keeping faith with us.

Christmas 2019 was our Swan Song. The end of an era.

One final photograph Back row: Pat, Sue, Lally, Philip Front Row: Anne, Pauline, Jean, Trish, Muriel Special gratitude to Barbara, Jane and Sue. Thanks for the singing, the fun and the fellowship: Maestrae all we salute you. ‘Thank you for the Music’.

Sadly, Barbara died on 21 June 2020. She left us a legacy of happy musical memories.

Patricia Cooper

RSMA Social Activities

W

ell, things started off as planned. On 15 November 2019 we enjoyed a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum guided by Philip Stephenson (Fellow). As well as having an encyclopaedic knowledge of art (from which we greatly benefited later in the year – see later), Philip has been involved in a series of government funded collaborative curriculum development/professional development projects with the Fitzwilliam Museum and associated East of England museum and archives. We all enjoyed this visit immensely. It was a great privilege to be able to study a small number of paintings in depth with the benefit of Philip’s immense knowledge and enthusiastic presentation.

On 13 December 2020 Pauline and Godfrey Curtis very kindly hosted a ‘Carols and Mulled Wine’ event at their home in Comberton.

Tim, Gabrielle & David This was a The Way We Were before social distancing lovely way to start the Christmas festivities, with delightful music provided by the Emeritus Choir. One sad note was that this was the Choir’s final performance. However, members have been invited to join the newly formed Homerton College Choir, which is open to Fellows, staff and students.

On 24 January 2020 a group of us visited the new Cambridge Central Mosque. We had an excellent tour of this magnificent new building Kathleen & Chris smiling to camera which is a superb new cultural centre for the area, and where all are welcome. I would strongly recommend a visit.

On 21 February 2020, Peter Warner gave an excellent talk in the College Archive on the Conder Portraits.

Peter W with a rapt audience of RSMs

Personally speaking, I went into this knowing very little about the portraits, their subjects, or their history, and rather wrote them off as being rather dull. Well, Peter’s talk changed all that. His account of the Conders, their family and its connection with Homerton, together with an analysis of the paintings and the story of their acquisition by the College was fascinating, and I came away wanting more.

Then everything ground to a terrifying halt! I had been working on an Exhibition to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the College’s Royal Charter, and was to give a tour and a talk to members on 13 March. The Exhibition opened on 6 March (in time for the Charter Dinner (which did go ahead)) and closed, along with just about everything else, a few days later. We had a Heritage Project Progress Report and Activities session planned for the 17 April 2020 Coffee Morning, and were looking forward to a visit to the Botanic Gardens led by Stephen Tomkins on 15 May, a Formal Hall on 19 May, and the Summer Picnic scheduled for 19 June 2020. All were sadly cancelled.

But, thanks to the energy and ingenuity of members, and the wonders of modern technology, the RSMA Social programme didn’t stop. Yes, we did greatly miss our tour of the Botanic Gardens with Stephen, but we drew members’ attention to the delightful online series of ‘Weekly Wellness Walks’ posted by the Botanic Gardens. Philip Stephenson educated, delighted and entertained us with his amazing series of emails based on paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum – thank you Philip!

Summer Picnic Cancelled – but I suggested members might like to have their own picnics at home and take photos which we could display when we get back together. And I’m sure everyone has been sparing some time to jot down some of their memories for the Heritage Project! If not, don’t worry, it’s not too late.

I hope that, with the regular email communications mentioned above, we have managed to keep RSMs feeling positive, engaged with the College and with each other.

Peter C contemplating proof reading?

Obviously as soon as things start to look as if they are getting back to normal we will review and resurrect the social activities programme. If you have any suggestions for future activities, please let me have them.

My huge thanks to everyone who has been involved in keeping things going, and hopefully helping to keep members’ spirits up. Special thanks go to Clare Ryan, who has kept the lines of communication open, and without whose help none of the initiatives described above would have been possible. Clare has written a rsma newsletter september 2020 page 39

piece for this Newsletter about her experience of working from home, and has agreed to give us a Coffee Morning talk on the subject. I have been grateful too, for the updates about what is going on in College, and how Homerton, and the University more widely, are coping, and preparing for the coming Academic Year.

Stay well everyone. We will continue to keep you informed about what’s going on, and about plans for the future, and we hope to see you all soon. All suggestions for future talks, events and visits will be very gratefully received.

Sue Conrad, Social Secretary

PE Ladies: Summer Party 2020

O

n receiving Sue’s email cancelling the Summer Picnic and suggesting 'Very Socially-Distanced Summer Picnics', the Homerton PE Department RSMs took up the challenge. We began to make plans which would be ideal for the lovely summer weather we had at the time, though sadly, 19 June actually turned out to be not only showery but chilly too.

Singing in the rain?

The essential umbrellas did a great job keeping us mostly dry though the cakes fared less well. Trish’s cherry buns trickled away and the red food colouring on Bev’s Covid cakes splattered pink splodges all over Margaret’s beautiful white linen tablecloth (aaargh!).

Muriel’s cake was judged the prettiest and Bev’s Covid cakes the most original. There was no winner in the croquet match, as rain stopped play, though there was a good deal of mallet waving.

Socially distanced croquet

Carole Bennett, Muriel Cordell, Bev Hopper, Trish Maude and Margaret Whitehead, (alias Homerton Ladies Croquet Team 2020) gathered (socially distanced) in Margaret’s beautiful garden for a Victorian style croquet match. We dressed in our pretty frocks and hats though these were soon accessorised with umbrellas, cardigans and padded jackets! Team members brought their own drinks and decorated cakes for the competition.

The prize winning cake

A good time was had by all and, in true PE form, none of us minded too much about getting rather damp and very chilly.

PS Thanks to the wonders of modern laundry detergents, the tablecloth was restored to its former pristine state (phew!!).

Trish Maude

Lots of geometric shapes here

The last word in Covid (cakes)

Photo credits: Front page & p.10 & 12 The Homerton Archive; p.5, 25 & 33 Clare Ryan; p.6 & 7 Julia Anghileri; p.8 & 9 Christine Doddington; p.12 & 13 Tim Rowland; p14 & 15 Philip Stephenson; p15, 20, 21 & 25 Trish Maude; p16 & 17 Gabrielle Cliff Hodges; p.19 John Hopkins; p.19, 38 (Emeritus) & 39 Libby Jared; p.23 Philip Rundall; p.23 Linda Hargreaves; p26 Sandra Raban; p.27 Jill Waterhouse; p.30 Judy Barham; p.30 & 31 Homerton Development Office; p.32 & 39 Sue Conrad; p.40 Bev Hopper & Trish Maude.

rsma newsletter september 2020 page 40