RSMA Newsletter 2005

rsm newsletter

newsletter of the retired senior members of homerton college, cambridge. december 2005

was there life before homerton? rsm visits to sutton hoo, william morris gallery evolution of the combination room

Newsletter of the Retired Senior Members of Homerton College, Cambridge

a word from the editor

Chair: John Hammond

Secretary: Trish Maude

Treasurer: George Hubbard

Committee Members: Pauline Curtis, Bob Arthur and Carole Bennett.

newsletter editor: Philip Rundall

contributers: John Hammond, Bob Arthur, Helen Bunton, Carole Bennett.

design and layout: Patti Rundall

publishers:

Dear Readers, We're back! After a difficult year with Patti's health, we're in business again. We would like to thank everyone for their concern and support.

Thank you too to everyone who has contributed to this issue of the Newsletter and especially John and Judith Hammond who have been behind so much of it. And of course to Patti, without whom, the newsletter in this format would not be possible since I'm a caveman when it comes to computers.

Two of the pieces tell us something of colleagues' experiences before arriving at Homerton. I find it hard to believe that this isn't a rich vein worthy of further investigation, so, please, do consider writing something for the next issue - a short piece of 500-1000 words would be quite ample.

Brilliant Artists If you have an idea for an article or story, send your text to Philip (in plain text or Word) by email or on a computer disc. Photos or other illustrations are all very welcome. Here is the address to send to: Philip Rundall, 34 Blinco Grove, Cambridge, CB1 7TS. Tel:01223 240483 email: philip@rundall.co.uk

cover: John Hammond (on the left) at the start of his RAF National Service in 1953.

Finally, thanks to Kate Pretty for her piece which brings us right up to date on the developments at Homerton.

Wishing you all a spendid Christmas Philip PS. Patti and I attended the private view of Ian Shearman and Neil Bolton's exhibition in Cirencester in November. Their work is going from strength to strength as is Ian's hair!

Was there life before Homerton?

by John Hammond Page 3 Reaching for the sky

by Bob Arthur

Pages 4-5

RSM summer lunch - some photos Page 6 Machakos University says "Thank you!"to the RSMs by John Hammond Page 7.

A visit to the William Morris Gallery

by Helen Bunton Page 6

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 2

RSM visits Sutton Hoo

by Carole Bennett

Page 7

The evolution of the Combination Room by John Hammond Page 8 What's going on at Homerton? A summary of Kate Pretty's talk at the RSM coffee morning.

Page 11 Noticeboard: Dates for your diary, etc Letter from a Friend

Page 12

was there life before homerton?

On the following pages, John Hammond and Bob Arthur talk about very different days when they defended the realm. Here John reflects on his national service experiences (1953-5).

S

ome years ago, when visiting Chicago, I saw a car sticker which read ‘Is there life before coffee in the morning?’ Taking that as my text I offer ‘Was there a life before Homerton?’

With two years of National Service looming, I was uncertain about University. I was offered a position of Scientific Assistant at the ‘Rocket Range’ at Shoeburyness, Essex with the prospect of going out to Woomera in Australia.

Accompanying the offer was a document outlining the risks to life and the requirement of making a Will – at 18! This so upset my mother that I declined the offer and decided on a career in Meteorology [the interest created by the Meteorologist on the panel of seven interviewers at Shoeburyness].

After attending the Met School at Harrow I was posted to RAF Wattisham in Suffolk and became one of the team of Meteorologists which produced forecasts for the fighter pilots who were constantly patrolling the North Sea against Soviet aircraft; this being 1952/53 - the period of the Cold War. One very early morning in February 1953 I was alone in the office when two pilots came in for their debriefing and reported that the north Norfolk coast had ‘disappeared’. The teleprinter was soon reporting the disaster of the North Sea floods and the consequent loss of life. The ‘Enquiry’ that followed was the first of several that resulted in me having to give evidence about forecast accuracy.

I was reminded of this some weeks later when the Head Forecaster enquired as to how I knew that the visibility was 10 miles. In those days visibility was judged on being able to see a listed number of objects, specific distances from the office. The furthest distance was a farmhouse 6 miles away – ‘but I could see the curtains in the windows so clear was the visibility’ I claimed! ‘Scientists stick to the facts’ I was told.

National Service caught up with me in the summer of 1953 and I was posted to RAF Warrington for training. The period there coincided with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and most of the time was spent on the Parade Square preparing for ceremonial duties. After ‘passing out’ from Warrington I was posted to various RAF stations in the UK before finally obtaining my request for an overseas posting by arriving at RAF Gutersloh in Germany.

This was a large office of meteorologists and apart from one other Englishman, the rest were German and all had been in the Luftwaffe in WWII. One was, and remained, an avowed Nazi but the rest acknowledged the fact that they had been coerced, conscripted or bribed to join the service. In the winter of 1954 the office issued a severe snow warning on a Sunday afternoon. Aircraft mechanics rushed to tow aircraft into hangars. One mechanic towed a plane down the ‘apron’, by now in a raging blizzard, unaware that the tip of the wing of his towed plane was slashing

through the tail fins of other planes waiting to be collected.

Result: another Court of Enquiry.

The Commanding Officer at that time was a very bitter man who had killed his wife and child in a car crash on the Autobahn, whilst under the influence of alcohol.

He was feared by everyone on the base. One night he came into the office to get a barometric pressure reading for the Mohne dam; he was going fishing and had a theory that the fish swam at different levels according to air pressure. I was alone in the office and dozing in the chair but perhaps just sufficiently awake when the door opened! I offered him a coffee while I prepared the brief; I heard nothing afterwards.

He frequently came into the office in the early hours, unable to sleep. Behind his bitter facade I discovered a man with humility and understanding.

He sympathised that one had to work with these German meteorologists. He showed no sympathy to the young officer who killed all the tropical fish in the Mess by pouring in his whisky when in a drunken state, nor with the Warrant Officer that he discovered on parade with a hole in his socks.

One of my tasks in the office at Gutersloh was to prepare the work schedules of everyone.

Being the only unmarried member, the rest were pleased for me to work a lot of night shifts. Consequently, during the day, after a brief sleep, I could travel and partake in sport. I played Hockey for the Station and, as the Captain was Wing Commander Flying, we went to

most of our away matches in the Station Airspeed Oxford aircraft.

On the occasion of playing the Army stationed in Berlin we travelled by train through East Germany. Can you imagine the concern when we awakened next morning to find our compartment the only one left on the train and we were in some marshalling yards some distance from the main Charlottenburg station!

We had slept through the arrival in the early hours! It was a strange feeling playing our matches in the 1936 Olympic Stadium, watched by a score of onlookers. I also played Cricket in the summer. The Captain was an officer ‘Digger Foxlee’ who had been a tail gunner in the raids on the Mohne Dam in WWII. Leading Aircraftsman Fred Truman was just leaving the team as I joined it, being thankful I did not have to face him in the nets! Matches were always started by ‘Digger’ inviting both teams to sample the array of bottles in the boot of his car. He once played in ‘mufti’ because he could not find room in the boot for his kit, it was too full of bottles.

After demobilisation I was posted to the Meteorological Research Department at Harrow and spent most of my time working on the incidence of tropical storms in the Pacific, as gleaned from Ships’ Logs that we collected from the Port of London. I decided on a career change and finally started my second career at Emanuel School, Wandsworth in 1958 before coming to Homerton in 1965.

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 3

reaching for the sky

Bob Arthur recalls his two years in the RAF (1956-1958)

I

n 1956 I had been offered a place at University College Durham [known to all as 'Castle', for self evident reasons], but decided to do National Service before going up rather than after graduating. Having read the whole Biggles oeuvre as well as The Dam Busters and Reach for the Sky I volunteered for RAF. aircrew. Thus after a fortnight cycling through the Low Countries and Germany, returning along the banks of the Rhine to Cologne and then to the Channel with three friends from school, I attended the selection board at RAF Hornchurch.

At the final interview I declined a three-year commission to become a navigator [I might have been tempted if it had been for pilot training…]. Only one candidate was accepted as a pilot – his father was an Air Commodore. The rest of were sent directly to RAF Cardington for kitting out and trade selection. The latter took place in a large room which displayed photos of airmen in each trade, together an indication of desired skills [as I recall there were no specific skills listed for the cookhouse]. The ranges were essentially technical, e.g. airframe or engine fitters, the RAF Regiment [a bit like the army but in blue, and clerical duties. The single one which looked most interesting was as Motor Rescue launch crew, dashing round the Channel and North Sea picking up ditched aircrew. At interview the officer pointed out that was for people who couldn’t do anything else but had some maritime

experience of which Sheffield was deficient. Looking at my school C.V. he rooted around in a drawer and asked if I would consider Meteorology, as a lot of these people had been posted to Cyprus and the Middle East [1956 – Suez Crisis, remember].

Thus I became a meteorologist.

Following basic training at West Kirby on the Wirral I was posted to RAF Uxbridge, an accommodation only camp for airmen clerks working in Whitehall at the Air Ministry, and for the tiny number of Met. Entrants at the Met. Office Training School at Stanmore. We had season tickets for the tube, and joined civilian civil servants travelling daily. In my RAF group were only four alongside about a dozen civilians in the class, which lasted eight weeks.

Following training I was posted to RAF Manby.

Manby is on the marshy coastal plain of Lincolnshire adjacent to the resort of Mablethorpe [not a beguiling location]. Nearby, inland is the market town of Louth, the Grammar School of which was the alma mater of Tennyson who apparently hated it, which I felt was a suitable punishment for inflicting “In Memoriam” on me for A-Level.

The work of the Met Office has not altered in function over the years, though the technicalities certainly have.

Each RAF station requires detailed and up-to-minute forecasts of conditions for flying, of which by far the most important were atmospheric pressure used to calibrate

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 4

altimeters and calculated as runway pressure at the height above sea level and adjusted for sea level to permit aircraft landing elsewhere to calibrate altimeters at the new airfield. To standardise met readings these are taken internationally every hour on the hour (in those days using GMT, i.e. using the Prime Meridian). When Greenwich was agreed internationally in the late 19th C, France had demanded Paris as the base line, and still on their equivalent of O.S. maps print the Paris Meridian as well as that of Greenwich. This time is now called Universal Time, internationally, though whether the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri conform is not known. The second task of each station, then, was the preparation of weather charts, in the case of the U.K. of W. Europe including the western Med., and the eastern Atlantic.

Once there were Weather Ships [three locations A, B, & C, on the same longitude but spaced latitudinally; now there are distant recording and transmitting buoys giving a much wider cover.

Being an airman in the Met Office was an anomalous position since it was part of the Air Ministry. All civilians were civil servants, but being on RAF stations they were given equivalence to RAF ranks.

The airmen were in the RAF. The working pattern was of 24/7 coverage, with shifts on a three-day cycle; an evening 1400 – 2200, then morning 0100 – 1400,followed that day with a night 2200 – 0600 with rest of day 2 for recovery. Day

3 was off-duty. Thus we were never available if we knew some parade or VIP visit was scheduled and left the station.

After basic training I never did anything military and once, being in bed during an Air Officer Commanding inspection of the camp, I was told to sleep to attention.

By the summer of 1958 I turned my back on the thought of another Lincolnshire marsh winter, and with the assistance of the Senior Met Officer, arranged a posting to Singapore, feeling that I would be unable to get there later under my own steam.

After a week’s embarkation leave I was kitted out with tropical uniform and sent to Stansted airfield – then a small collection of nissen huts and facilities little changed since the departure of the American Airforce in 1946.

We travelled on a four-engined, piston-powered Hermes, which required refuelling every 1500 miles so. We stopped at Rome, Ankara, Habbania [still there, NW of Baghdad], and Karachi, for a night, then Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur, thus taking five days.

UK military personnel were not permitted to travel in or over India, so we all travelled as “Government Officials” according to our amended passports [mine had a photograph taken in school uniform as a prefect], even though we all carried identical white kitbags.

Landing at Changi in a thunderstorm was an introduction to tropical weather. Our first official engagement was in the camp cinema, where a medical

officer showed a film on venereal disease, and the ET [early treatment] room in each accommodation block with howto-use-it-instructions: we were very quiet on the way out.

The camp looked more like a country estate than a military centre, and we were housed in three-story blocks with open plan billets with about 60 beds on each floor: no windows but large wooden doors opening onto a veranda and large, slowly revolving fans in the ceiling.

The office routine was much the same as UK stations, though the weather was more interesting.

The journey home was even more time consuming than outwards, as we went by troopship, chartered by the South Wales Borderers.

With a day’s stop at Colombo, Aden and Gibraltar it took four weeks. Four of us formed a bridge school, and were pretty good by the time we landed at Southampton.

I was demobbed in the third week of September and on 6th October joined Freshers’ Week in Durham.

National Service? I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

Troopship from Singapore in the Mediterranean. 1958.

Bob is the handsome one on the left.

Changi village 1958

Below left: RAF Changi 1958 and below right, its accommodation block

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 5

the rsm summer lunch: july 2005 The food was the best ever

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 6

photo: Bill Palmer

the alison shrubsole memorial fund machakos teachers' college says "thank you"

by John Hammond

A

t last we have concluded our project of providing a Memorial to Alison at Machakos College in Kenya; a Teacher Training College for young women. Alison created this College from a green [probably brown!] field site in 1957. On taking over the chair of the Committee from John Ball in 2003, my first task with this project was to approach the British Council to obtain their help in the implementation of the project. Repeated promises resulted in no action and, finally, in 2004 they admitted failure.

Judith and I have a good friend who has a business office in Nairobi and he agreed to help. Machakos College identified three tangible gifts for our consideration and the Committee chose the purchase of a file server that could be used by students and staff. Our friend agreed to get estimates in Nairobi and eventually an array of equipment was purchased for Ks70,000. His office manager offered to deliver them to Machakos, 100 miles from Nairobi. Two days before the delivery I was asked to send out a ‘presentation speech’ that could be read out at the handover. The local press were invited and a photographer took photographs.

Not only were the staff and students impressed with our generosity but so was the person making the delivery. The Principal of the College, Joseph M Kihara, as written to thank the RSMs and has copied his letter to the Ministry of Education in Nairobi (see right).

Dear Sirs, On behalf of the Board of Governors, the Staff and Students of Machakos Teachers Training College, I would like to thank you most sincerely for the file-server that you establishment donated to the College.

The donation is a manifestation of your commitment to helping the needy and improving academic standards in higher learning institutions, ideals that the Late Principal Alison Shrubsole stood for as an educationist.

The file-server will go a long way in streamlining educational programmes in the College once connected to the internet. There will be networking within departments and the Finance Office soon.

The staff and students will have accessibility to the international library - which would doubtless, mean accessing the best publications globally.

We sincerely appreciate this offer and have informed our Ministry about it.

Joseph M Kihara, Principal/Secretary B.O.G

Staff and students of Machakos Teachers' College with the file-server.

From the photographs of the presentation (top right) one can detect Alison’s name at the top of the list of Principals since 1957 [rather more than Homerton!]. The photograph on the table with the equipment was a recent one of Alison and was included in the set that was sent to me by a lady who was the College Librarian in Alison’s time and who helped in our contacts at Machakos.

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 7

a visit to the william morris gallery 2nd March 2005

by Helen Bunton

A

small group of us went to visit the William Morris gallery in Walthamstow on one of the coldest days of this winter. We all waited in the warmth of our cars in the College car park for the minibus to arrive; when it did we all turned out dressed like modern day Eskimos.

The curator took us round and told us of many aspects of Morris’ life that some of us did not know. He went up to university to read Religion and Philosophy, the choice was that it was easiest to get in for those subjects [nothing changes!]. At Oxford he met friends who remained for life and together they launched the Arts and Crafts movement.

Before that he had a brief spell as an architect but he found that unsatisfying and turned to design.

He had a passion for early Medieval art, and this led to his beautiful stained glass windows some of which were on show.

He also had a love for nature and this is shown in his tapestries and prints. He would go out into the country and take in all he saw without appearing to be looking. He also had a phenomenal memory [and we all know one who has an elephantine memory too].

The prints and tapestries were so beautiful that it was worth the visit to see them alone. He only used natural dyes which last so much longer than the aniline dyes, so frequently used today.

He was fond of those lovely vibrant blues as a background and on enquiry I found out

that they came from an old and traditional source – WOAD. It was not over warm in the gallery and we were all glad to retire to the local pub for food.

It was an enormous coaching inn and my heart sank when it turned out that they only served pizzas.

I imagined that they would be the plastic pizzas so common in pubs, but no, they were freshly made ones from a pizzeria across the road and they proved to be delicious and nourishing. After lunch we had the opportunity to browse over exhibits again.

Altogether it was a splendid outing and thanks to John Hammond and Sallie Perkis for arranging it; keep up the good work!

Editor's Note: Dr Christine Poulson, a former Homerton Art Historian, was the Curator of the William Morris Society in London.

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 8

Photos taken from William Morris Gallery and Society websites www.lbwf.gov.uk/wmg www.morrissociety.org

RSM visit to Sutton Hoo

by Carole Bennett

alongside royalty in those days.

The imminence of World War II hampered further research for some years but work started again in the 1990s and Peter was a significant member of the Cambridge team involved.

The National Trust has obviously spent large sums of money recreating the burial ship and also the display of many other artifacts from the site.

During our visit there were also additional display materials on loan from the British Museum.

As we walked up to the mounds beyond the display areas, we could indeed feel the ‘atmosphere’ of the site. Resting at the top, and able to get a clear view of many of the significant points of the burial mounds, we stood enthralled by all that Peter had to tell us. Indeed several other visitors took advantage of our ‘guided tour’ and joined our group for some of the time.

Like all good teachers Peter helped us to visualize what the place had been like hundreds of years ago, but also, because of his own research, he was also able to add details and insights which will probably never make the guidebooks. I’m sure that had he had the opportunity to address the school children “Anglo Saxon look-alikes” who were visiting that day, he would have been equally able to make the site come alive for them.

Lunch in the restaurant was excellent and made even better by the news that London was awarded the 2012 Olympic bid. Further good news for us too is that Peter has agreed to join us for future trips into

Suffolk’s past. Many thanks to Pauline for organizing this most enjoyable trip and to Peter – you helped to make a good trip excellent.

photos:philip rundall

J

uly 5th, for most people, will be remembered as the date on which London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Bid. Indeed that was important for the RSMs too, as it was also the day on which a large group of us descended upon the Anglo Saxon burial site at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk.

All good educational visits start with a minibus journey (I am not sure if there was community singing aboard because we went by car) quickly followed on arrival by coffee, and shortly afterwards, by lunch.

However the highlight of the day on this occasion was the guided tour of the site led by Dr Peter Warner. Known to all of us as Senior Tutor and as Director of Studies for History, perhaps few of us realized his previous and indeed current experience as a researcher in landscape archaeology.

Surely these were credentials enough for him to give us the background to the site, its discovery and its preservation.

Amazingly though we also discovered that Peter had been very involved with research at Sutton Hoo itself and has written articles and books on the subject.

Sutton Hoo was the burial site of Anglo Saxon Kings and in 1939 the remnants of a burial ship were found. The burial chamber of the 90 foot long ship has now been reconstructed and forms a magnificent display alongside many other artifacts such as swords and helmets, and other items which were buried

What's for supper, Judith?

Peter Warner reading from Beowulf

Right: One of the exhibits Left: Ghost Ship.

Mound One in 1939 shows the shadow of the leaf-shaped long-ship imprinted in the sand by the remains of its timbers and the oxidisation of its rivets. www.wuffings.co.uk

Right: An arial view of Sutton Hoo www.suttonhoo.org

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 9

the evolution of the combination room John Hammond remembers college's first combination rooms.

panelling and exposed the rough bricks and mortar behind. The College carpenter – Walter Payne – was given the task of making good the panelling. He had an assistant called ‘Jacko’ a Spanish lad who spoke no English. Walter, accompanied

by Jacko, went off to a timber merchant and selected the wood to make good the panelling.

Once carefully stained it was expertly fitted in place. I wonder if anyone can go down the long wall of the Fellows’ Dining Room and find panels of the sixties and the original panels? Walter had to teach Jacko the name of the various tools that they were using. As they worked you would hear ‘hammer’ – ‘ammer’, ‘half inch chisel’, ‘arf inch cheesil’ and so on. I hope the Fellows will appreciate the craftsmanship that took place then when they dine there for years to come.

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 10

Photo above shows the Library before its conversion to being the Combination Room in 1968.

Below, Judith Hammond's farewell in the same room in 2003 when it was the Combination Room. The clock donated by the RSMs is above the door.

photos:patti rundall

I

n 1965 the Combination Room was situated in the current Cavendish Bar. One approached it down a long corridor from a door just off the ‘Square’. The lecturing staff who were the only members of the Combination Room [plus the Librarian] had grown enormously in the early to mid sixties so it was often standing room only. My Head of Department [William Palmer] informed me that it was the custom for male lecturers to pour out the coffee/tea at midmorning and hand out to female colleagues. Somehow I seldom arrived in time and often received my coffee passed over the heads of others till it reached me at the door!

When the new Library was built in the ‘Black and White’ building, it was rumoured that the Trustees planned to turn the Old Library [present Fellows’ Dining room] into two classrooms. We asked the Trustees if it could become a new Combination Room to accommodate all the staff. Not only did they agree to this, but they also gave the then Domestic Bursar [Dorothy Westall] a princely sum to furnish it to Cambridge College standards. Westy headed off to Heals in London and ordered furniture, curtains and other items to complete the furnishing.

When the new Library in the Black and White building was ready for fittings, the College Carpenter removed the shelves from the old Library. This left ghastly gaps in the wood

The present Combination Room, situated in the old Gymnasium.

photo: patti rundall

what's going on at homerton?

A summary of Kate Pretty's talk at the RSM coffee morning, 18th Nov.

K

ate started by saying that although she spent a considerable amount of time being a Pro Vice Chancellor for the University, she actually still spent most of her time being Principal of Homerton College. She and Peter Warner had come from teaching a group of Year I History undergraduates archaeology. They were inspecting a pit which had been dug near West House on the site where a new accommodation block is going to be built, but nothing had been found by the Archaeologist so far to delay the planned block.

On Kate’s ‘watch’ she hoped the final building works were now being undertaken.

Currently Homerton is in the throes of building a block for 60 Postgraduate students. The single rooms will be slightly larger than normal for students, as this group spend the entire year in Cambridge, rather than the 3 terms. On the top floor there will be 4 small flats for Junior Research Fellows. This building is between the car park and the rail line, in the spot where the potting sheds were!

A courtyard will be created at the back of West House which will link the current building with the planned one for approximately 118 more undergraduate rooms. Once this has been completed [by 2007] there will be sufficient rooms for all Homerton undergraduate students to be housed within the College. This will complete the long estate strategy which has been going on in Homerton since 1992.

Kate thought it would be interesting if the RSMs were able to see the English Heritage film, ‘Doorstep Discovery’ made about 14 years ago at Homerton which is already considered history. Not only has the site altered dramatically but the internal appearance and arrangements have been refurbished and rebuilt. Part of these arrangements is that ‘K Block’ now has more rooms for offices as the Buttery has been combined with the Bar [which was JAHs second lab many years ago]. The space outside between the bar and what recently had been a student combination room [where the reprographics was with John Maltby and Viv], will now make a bigger buttery with the bar enclosed. This will probably be ready in the New Year.

In the opposite direction and down Paupers Walk a Conference Centre is being revealed! This will mean that the College can host Conferences during term time so that it will not interfere with any student activity. The [new] Combination Room [old gym] is to lose a small amount of space to make way for a lift to get up to the middle level [previously the Art Textile studio] and further up to the Paston Brown room [previously the Painting studio]. The entrance foyer will be via P4 [previously the old Pottery studio]. On completion there will be 2/3 rooms for occupation, with any food required being available in either the Fellows Dining Room [old Combination Room]

or the Drawing Room. The Combination Room [old Gym] will be re-opened in the New Year. At this time Macaulay will also be back in use as a function room. The Shrubsole Room [old CCTV studio] will also be available for use. This use of space has been made possible by the Faculty of Education teaching that has moved out of Homerton.

Our coffee mornings will be back in College in the New Year and Kate hoped that for the February coffee morning [3rd Friday in the month] she will be in a position to lead a tour around the new arrangements.

Kate also spoke of how much better the gardens are looking, although it has been a misery whilst the buildings are being built/rebuilt.

Now that Homerton has Fellows, some of the younger ones will be able to ‘live’ in. The new Junior Research Fellows are an interesting group, one is studying the collapse of the 3rd Century Roman State, the Art Historian is studying Thornhill [he who decorated St Paul’s Cathedral] and another is studying Medieval French and German. The College has also appointed a Law tutor. At this moment in time the College has not had a PhD student who has completed - this will come soon. The College would like to have more women as Fellows.

The next tranch of JRFs will be advertised in History, Drama, Music, Sociology/Politics and Sciences.

Education is at a strange stage and sadly Cambridge is

producing fewer teachers. The Faculty of Education is reducing the overall number of PGCE students by approximately 160.

The College did not recruit as many education undergraduate students as it would have liked this year, but that is a result of a low level of applications.

Kate would like the College to move to Approved Foundation status [from Approved Society status] and possibly to the whole way as a full College.

The College is on course for this happening as most of the hurdles are already conquered.

The finances of College are in good shape. It has recently sold HSHS to Anglia Ruskin University and within a year the name will change from Homerton School of Health Studies. Kate was concerned that the staff at HSHS were of necessity kept completely in the dark about this move, but there was little she could do about it.

Kate finished by saying that her life was extremely interesting with the Homerton work and that of the University which takes her to places like Oman or New York for one day. She is responsible for international strategy on behalf of the University. She was also pleased to report that Homerton is known and liked wherever she goes and the University are very impressed with the building up of the College. It is also good to be part of a University that is ranked 2nd in the World, Harvard being top.

On behalf of the RSM's John Hammond thanked Kate for taking the trouble to come along.

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 11

noticeboard

diary dates: grand burns night Sat 28 January 19.00 in College.

Contact David Whitley: 01223 507219 or Morag Styles: 01223 507281 for tickets. £30.

annual dinner

Friday 10 February, 19.00 in College

cecil higgins museum, bedford

Thursday 6 April (tba: Minibus will run from College and a guide will take us round).

summer lunch

Saturday 3 June, 12.30 at College

anglo-saxon settlement at west stowe Wednesday 5 July. (tba. In the morning we'll visit Bury St Edmunds and have lunch. In the afternoon, the tour will be led by Peter Warner. Meet at the Visitor's Centre.)

AGM and lunch

Friday 13 October in College.

two free agents

Philip Rundall and Dave Doddington play acoustic blues, folk and jazz, each Thursday (8-11pm) at No 1 King's Parade, Cambridge.

Ring to chec`k if they are on: 354907

improbable fiction

Chris Doddington's daughter, Laura, is one of the central characters in Alan Ayckbourn's play Improbable Fiction which comes to Cambridge Art's Theatre Feb 6th -11th. The verdict of Philip and Patti who saw it at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough: "Brilliant!"

coffee mornings: All coffee mornings are on Fridays at 10.30 am There are none in College in January or August.

20 January at Pauline Curtis’ house at ‘Gazeley’, Gazeley Road, Trumpington. Please ring Pauline 01223 844220 by Thursday 19th Jan to let her know if you plan to attend.

17 17 21 19 16 21

february march april may june july

rsm newsletter, december 2005, page 12

College College College College College College

A LETTER FROM A FRIEND I have become a little older since I saw you last and a few changes have come into my life. Frankly I have become a frivolous old girl – I’m seeing five gentlemen every day.

As soon as I wake up Will Power helps me out of bed. Then I go and see John. Next it’s time for Uncle Toby to come along followed by Bill T. They leave and Arthur Ritis shows up and stays the rest of the day. He doesn’t like to stay in one place very long so he takes me from joint to joint.

After such a busy day, I’m really tired and glad to go to bed with Johnnie Walker. What a life!

PS. The preacher came to call the other day; he said that at my age I should be thinking about the hereafter. I told him, Oh I do, all the time! No matter where I am, if I’m in the parlour, upstairs, in the kitchen or down in the basement I ask myself ‘Now what am I here after?’

So what are Seniors worth? Remember, old folks are worth a fortune, with Silver in their hair, Gold in their teeth, Stones in their kidneys, Lead in their feet and Gas in their stomachs.

PERCY [a friend of JAH]

fens anyone?

Philip wondered if there is any interest in organising another trip to the Fens in the Spring or Summer. Last year's visit, organised by Bob Arthur and John Hammond, was fascinating but poorly attended, perhaps because it was cold. The trip included Wicken Fen and the Streatham Old Engine pumping station. Contact John Hammond if you are interested.