rsma newsletter
newsletter of the retired senior members’ association of homerton college, cambridge september 2018
Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis H is for Homerton – NRICH @ 20 Homerton’s Sundial farewell to Charles Bailey … and … and …
a word from the editor
RSMA committee: chair: Peter Warner secretary: Trish Maude
Dear Readers,
membership secretary: Anne Thwaites
Tales Worth Telling Where has the last year gone to? - or for that matter the last 250 years for Homerton, the last 30+ for the college band, Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis (David Whitebread), the last 20 for NRICH (Libby Jared), the last 40 for Homerton’s sundial’s adventures (Anne Thwaites) or even the last three for the new Cambridge University Primary School (Penny Coltman)?
treasurer: Dhiru Karia
I am not quite sure how it has happened but there is a theme feeling in this edition. There are four music articles though maybe reading about John Hopkins’ concert premiere alongside Dr Trouble might be thought to be from the sublime to the …? and somehow along the way we hear about Ivan Vaughan’s friends the Beatles. Philip Rundall (part of the band) has been on his travels again, this time to a ‘Sore Finger’ convention, though whether I can link this with Janet Scott’s travels this year to Bogata to attend the Global Christian Forum may be a step too far. Like John with his music, Gabrielle Cliff Hodges and Christine Doddington have been beavering away with their own writings and there are three books that could appear on your bookshelf.
events and visits coordinator: Carole Bennett almonry: Judy Barham newsletter editor: Libby Jared
It was suggested to me that I should ask John Beck if he could write an obituary for Charles Bailey - though I never imagined it would run to three pages. I never knew Charles as he retired before I arrived as a fairly youngish lecturer. But reading John’s superb article, I so wish I had. I have been left with a feeling of humility and wonder over all that Charles achieved in a world that started so different from my own. It is fitting to publish it in its entirety. It seems so appropriate that during Homerton’s 250 celebratory year, this Newsletter has several Homerton tales to be told and in their sharing our own personal knowledge of Homerton can be so much the richer. I hope you will enjoy another eclectic mix of articles. Happy Reading … Libby Cover photo: Hitting the high notes: Emeritus Choir in rehearsal. L to R: Sue Pinner, Pauline Curtis, Patricia Cooper, Anne Murrell, June Harding, Chris Doddington, Muriel Cordell, Trish Maude & Philip Rundall
CONTENTS Chair’s Letter Peter Warner
3
In Bogotá Janet Scott
The Beatles … & Ivan Vaughan Jill Waterhouse
16-17
Principal’s Message Geoff Ward
4
Researching and Teaching … Reading Gabrielle Cliff Hodges 12-13
Sore Fingers Philip Rundall
17-18
Cambridge University Primary School: ... Penny Coltman 5-7
New on the Bookshelf Christine Doddington
Charles Bailey John Beck
18-21
H is for Homerton – NRICH @ 20 Libby Jared
News from the Composer-in-Residence John Hopkins 14
More on Moore Barbara Pointon & Philip Rundall
Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis David Whitebread
RSMA Roundup 2017 -2018
7-9
Homerton’s Sundial: a walking shadow Anne Thwaites 10-11
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 2
11-12
13
15-16
21 22-23
Chair’s Letter
T
Peter Warner
his has been a busy year, although a relatively uneventful one for the RSMs. Personally, I seem to be more busy in retirement than I was as Senior Tutor! And I have heard many other retirees, including RSMs, say the same thing. Today, having just signed off the book I have been working on for the last ten years or more – HOMERTON: A London Academy in the eighteenth century – I feel like a mighty weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Then, coming into College to write some references, I remembered that - strategically I had left the first draft of the second volume – HOMERTON: Becoming a College, London in the nineteenth century – centre-place on my desk reminding me to get on with it ready for publication next year. Phew! The eighteenth century volume has been very slow in the making, for a number of reasons: like many retirees I did not find the transition to permanent ‘garden-leave’ easy. A Senior Tutor, although a microcosm in Cambridge, enjoys a lot of power and privilege; twiddling of thumbs does not come into it. At point of retirement, or within a month, my mother died and then we moved house, and my father followed soon after. I was the main executor, so two years lapsed without me doing anything on the book and it took a supreme effort to return to it. History is never static and in those two years new material came to light that needed incorporation. So basically I ended up re-writing it. Then, you may remember, I wrote a little article in the Homertonian (No. 21, Summer 2017) ‘Finding John
Conder’. Rex Watson, one of our number, with a gimlet eye for detail and a passion for family history, noticed a portrait of John Conder and Susan his wife on the Ancestry website. This set a hare running that took me on two trips to Ipswich to negotiate with the family; eventually the College purchased both portraits. With them came a mass of detailed information about the life of John Conder, which I then had to write up for the book – he was our first Principal after all and these are the earliest portraits the College now owns. Generally, historians are not easily excited – except this one! The portraits are now near the end of a protracted restoration and should be on display at the Alumni Weekend in September (Saturday 22nd); if you are coming to the RSM annual general meeting, as I hope you will, please have a look at them. Since I retired in 2013, it has amazed me how rapidly the College has evolved in that time. The diversification into medicine was only something we dreamed about, but our first undergrad medics will be starting their third year in September. The latest addition to the architecture of the College is the new Cavendish Bar extension, now renamed the Griffin Bar. It is truly exceptional and will be a credit to the College for many years to come; not only does it fit in perfectly, but the tasteful, high quality finish is a joy to see. It will of course be open on September 22nd. So don’t miss an opportunity to raise a glass with our alumni and enjoy the new surroundings. I hope to see you there!
Rev. John Conder DD., Principal of Homerton Academy 1768-1770. (before restoration)
Susan Conder, Governess of Homerton Academy. (before restoration)
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 3
Principal’s Message
Professor Geoff Ward PhD FRSA
I
t has been not only a very good year for Homerton, but a very significant year. Although we had a presence in London as a debating society and a force for progress in the dissenting movement that reaches back into the 17th century, it was exactly 250 years ago that our Founder John Conder took possession of the Academy in Homerton High Street, bringing all of our activities under one roof. By great good fortune, the College has been able this year to purchase portraits of the Founder, and his wife Susan. They are currently undergoing conservation work and reframing, and will be on our walls soon. However we have a great deal more to show off in this, our very special year. Seeking to bring together our past, present and future, we have chosen to address three burning questions – What Is the Future of Healthcare? What Does It Mean to Be Human? And finally, How De We Drive Change? At a time when the NHS is under pressure as never before, the first question could hardly be more urgent. Ours is the only college in South Cambridge, with Addenbrooke’s Hospital within walking distance, and Professorial Fellow Mary Dixon-Woods has started work at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS.Institute) in a unique relationship with the College to examine issues of NHS effectiveness. This puts us in a unique position to be able to suggest answers to our first burning question. To this end we hosted an evening as part of the Cambridge Science Festival featuring Mary and other Homerton Fellows such as Tim Eisen and Simon Gregory as well as Honorary Fellow Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, to talk about the challenges posed by the fastchanging sphere of human genomics. We were joined by a gratifyingly large audience approaching 400 in number. Another gathering in College called Action Stations involved our science community in particular showing off the research we do and the ways in which it will shape the future. Fears as well as hopes for the future were the subject of Monsters and Me, a discussion involving me, less as Principal than as scholar of the Romantic period and a fan of the fantastic, in conversation with Dr Beth Singler, who works on Artificial Intelligence, is about to join us as a Fellow, and whose lively and authoritative pronouncements on robots and the future have been featured on Radio 4’s Start the Week and elsewhere. Such is the continuing interest in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein rsma newsletter september 2018 page 4
(200 years old this year) that I found myself being interviewed on Drive Time BBC radio as well as for The Cambridge Independent, a new weekly which has run a number of stories on Homerton events recently. The most recent Homerton 250 event (at the time of writing) was spellbinding. Actor Simon Russell Beale mesmerised those of us in the audience while conducting a masterclass in speaking Shakespeare’s verse on stage for the benefit of our Drama students, and to celebrate a new series of Performance Editions of Shakespeare edited by Abigail Rokison-Woodall, an Associate Fellow. At the same event three alumni - Sarah Gordon (Young Shakespeare Company), Sam Yates (theatre director) and Steve Waters (playwright and Associate Fellow) spoke powerfully and movingly about the profound influence of Homerton Drama on their lives. It was great to hear them in the same space as Peter Raby and other RSMs who taught them. Afterwards, I felt that there was a thread of courage running through the whole event – having the courage to become a professional playwright or actor, the courage to take your work into prisons and other difficult arenas, and, last but not least, the courage as a current student to stand up and act in front of one of our greatest Shakespearean actors, Simon Russell Beale. Our special year is far from over – and will indeed run on a little into 2019. The final programme is still under construction, but will definitely include a Homerton 250 Concert on the 24th November, featuring a new piece of music, ‘Elevation’, written by our Composer-InResidence and Emeritus Fellow in Music, John Hopkins. And on 27th October, the College will host a one-day Festival featuring talks, walks, storytelling, workshops, art, science and a range of events including an Alice in Wonderland themed lunch (do please come in costume, but please don’t arrive late, like the White Rabbit) and to cap it all a Masterclass led by our Honorary Fellow, percussionist maestro Dame Evelyn Glennie. In this fabulous anniversary year we remember our vibrant life as the UK’s premier teacher training college, our present as the newest college in the University of Cambridge, and our future. What will Homerton be doing in another 250 years? I would guess that we will still be addressing the burning questions of the day, and helping society by our teaching and training. Cambridge University has been here for 800 years, so it’s safe to assume that it will last for another quarter-millennium. Our place in it looks bright. June 2018
Cambridge University Primary School: Three years old
I
Penny Coltman
n November 2014 a group of onlookers, wearing hard hats, hi-vis jackets and regulation wellington boots watched as Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (Homerton Honorary Fellow February 2018), the then Vice–Chancellor, turned a piece of turf in the ground breaking ceremony to mark the beginning of work on the new Cambridge University Primary School. School trustees joined representatives of the construction firm Wilmott Dixon, architects Marks Barfield, and Roger Taylor, Project Director for the North West Cambridge Development. In his address the Vice-Chancellor asserted that the school would be recognised as a beacon of excellence. Those of us in education glanced at each other. This was a big ‘ask’ for a new school, and the words confirmed for all of us the weight of expectation that would fall on to this venture. We caught the eye of the newly appointed head teacher, James Biddulph. ‘No pressure then, James’. Although the ceremony saw the start of building works, the generation of the school had begun four years before with internal University negotiations followed by seemingly unending documentation requirements and meetings held at the DfE, debates over budget projections, curriculum plans and building design proposals. On one particularly chilly evening a group of us were especially imaginatively challenged by a complex arrangement of tape, held between chairs that had been laid out on a school playground by representatives from Marks Barfield. It was very difficult to envisage the glass walls and corridors that were confidently explained to us. But by July 2015 a wonderful transformation had happened and a similar audience assembled for the ‘topping out’ ceremony as the building was at least notionally completed. As work carried on until the very last minute, the weekend in September before the school opened saw at least two university professors with a team of governors and other helpers supporting James and his staff in constructing play equipment and classroom furniture, unpacking resources and taking turns to collect bacon sandwiches for all from the contractor’s canteen. Ready to open The completed building took our breath away. The circular construction offers an enclosed outdoor space reminiscent of Cambridge college courtyards. Around the periphery of this enclosure is a glass cloister, of which each ceiling panel forms a part of an artwork installation by Ruth Proctor. ‘We are all under the same sky’ depicts skyscapes from places all over the world using
photographs taken by people living in each region. The panel over the main entrance to the courtyard is left blank so that children can see their own Cambridge sky. The theme of a global community is also made evident in the gates to the school which depict a symbolic world map, and our place in a universe beyond is represented by a glass panel in the main hall which incorporates a colourful image of the Milky Way taken by the university’s Institute of Astronomy. Classrooms line the internal and external perimeters around the circular building, either side of a wide space known as the ‘learning street’. This space is used for independent learning activities, large scale art work, role play and quiet reading. It is shared between classes and provides an area for sharing learning, further establishing the cohesion of the whole school as a single community. As with all new primary schools, the University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS) is a free school which means that the head teacher and governors are responsible for matters relating to the fabric of the building as well as the management of the school as a place of learning. Fortunately the school is blessed with a team of governors who represent a wide range of skills, including a finance director, entrepreneurs and specialists in supporting start-up companies, a senior law partner and HR experts. Together with senior university representation and members from the Faculty of Education, governors thus address issues from boilers to budgets and from the curriculum to car parks. In addition to being a free school the UCPS is unique in being a primary University Training School (UTS). There are three key features to this: the first is to be an exceptional primary school, inclusive, ambitious for all and innovative in practice. The second is to contribute to Initial Teacher Education. The school supports the Faculty of Education Primary and Early Years PGCE programme through offering placements and provides day visits attended by large cohorts, facilitated by the large teaching room on the upstairs floor. The third is to be research-informed and research-generating, which involves the development of professional development courses, developing thinking, in partnership with others, so that research-informed practice is developed to raise standards and make positive contributions to society. All three of these strands are now evident in the school’s work. There is a close liaison with the PEDAL Centre (for Research on Play in Education, Development & Learning) based at the Faculty of Education. A research committee has developed clear guidelines to ensure that rsma newsletter september 2018 page 5
all research participation is to the benefit of the school and its students and ways are being explored to develop the school as a hub for dissemination of research findings. Working towards Ofsted Having opened in September 2015 with reception, Year One and Year Two classes the original expectation was that the school would have a first Ofsted inspection in its fifth term of operation, so we looked to the Spring term of 2017 as a goal, with the words of Professor Borysiewicz, mentioned earlier, very much in mind. With only one complete school year under its belt, it was hard for the team to feel that values and associated pedagogical ideals had had time to develop and embed in everyday practice. It came as good news, therefore, when the timescale was changed and the DfE announced that free schools would instead be inspected during their seventh term. This timescale still presents some problems for a school that has gradually grown ‘upwards’. Ofsted’s judgements are heavily informed by outcome data, especially from the end of Key Stage Two as children leave the primary phase. UCPS at this stage would still only have classes up to Year Four. It is very unusual indeed for a school without Year Six data to be judged to be anything better than ‘good’. However, every day from January 2018 onwards brought the anticipation of the phone call from Ofsted. Schools are given slightly less than twenty four hours notice of inspection, and all first inspections last for two days. It was a long wait as the call finally came at the end of June. Two inspectors, one a senior HMI, spent two days in the school. At the end of the first day the process was described as being ‘very rigorous’, and it was anticipated that in view of the experience of the inspectors and the rigour of their investigations, the final judgement would be at least a fair one. On the second afternoon governors joined the senior leadership team for the initial Ofsted feedback. The wave of relief felt as the outcomes were finally announced was palpable. The school had been deemed to be outstanding in every respect - the highest accolade that Ofsted can award. What was it about the school that so impressed the inspectors? Not surprisingly there is no doubt that as headteacher Dr James Biddulph was central to the success, demonstrating a leadership described as ‘inspirational and inclusive’ with a ‘relentless pursuit of excellence’. James himself describes his goal for the school as to be ‘bold, free thinking and rigorous; underpinned by a commitment to the values of excellence, equity and learner empowerment.’ (School curriculum design statement) The degree to which practice is research informed was another key feature. Lesson studies, in which peers observe a lesson together, with a focus on the children’s learning, before discussing their findings together with rsma newsletter september 2018 page 6
input from both internal and external specialists, help to produce a genuine learning community for all. More than one teacher, apparently commented that they had ‘learned more in the relatively short time that they had been in the school than in their previous ten years of teaching’. The core values of the school are clearly articulated as empathy, respect, courage and gratitude. Inspectors noted that children themselves told them that ‘Everyone is welcome here’ and that the values were reflected in the warm and caring relationships observed at all levels within the school. The curriculum offered to children is described in the Ofsted report as ‘bold, ambitious, and knowledge rich’. It is a model underpinned by three ‘golden threads’: Oracy and Dialogue, Habits of Mind and Playful Enquiry. These themes build on work based in the Faculty of Education. More about these core values and threads, which are fundamentally woven into the pedagogic and other practices of the school, can be read on the school’s website. Their influence is evident in the behaviour and demeanour of the children, their enthusiasm for learning and the wide variety of learning experiences provided both indoors and out, within the school environment and beyond. This year weekly drama sessions led by a specialist from LAMDA helped to build confidence in children using their voices in debating and giving speeches, and in engaging in conversation. Visitors to the school will frequently find themselves being asked by children ‘What have you been learning today?’ Lunchtime at the school is unusual within the wider context of primary schools in that there is no provision for children to bring a packed lunch. Lunch is seen as a family affair. Children sit, in mixed age groups, at large round tables, with adults, including visitors, mingled amongst them supporting conversation, table manners and, for younger children, the sometimes difficult procedure of cutting food with a knife and fork. Food is presented as it would be in many homes, with individual main courses brought to the table but vegetables in bowls served by older children to their younger tablemates. It is not unusual for visitors to be welcomed to the dining area by children in role as ‘front of house’ personnel, greeting, guiding and explaining procedures; yet another example of developing confident communication skills. Diverse experiences enhance learning for all. The learning experiences of each class are recorded through photographs and children’s writings in large formal class books which are on display so that children, parents and visitors may enjoy them together. The briefest of examinations of these books reveals that each week brings new stimulating and engaging extraordinary experiences. The blogs on the school website show how, amongst other ventures, both the Reception and Year Four classes have worked with the British Antarctic Survey unit. Also Year One had a visit from a technology company based in Cambridge who are helping to solve the problem of how drones can deliver parcels safely. Most excitingly they showed the children a robot made for the TV programme Robot Wars. Year Two started to work with a professional artist designing a mural for the dining hall and Year Three made a video with Dr Biddulph to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Everyone connected with the UCPS have felt overwhelming gratitude and relief in the manner in which the Ofsted report captures the spirit of the school, as well as its successes, and we thank the hugely talented team of leaders, teachers, supporting staff and children who together are realising the dream. But the foundations for this achievement go back many years and a significant number of RSM members played a part in generating this extraordinary place of learning. We should all feel a shared sense of pride and anticipation towards what the future may bring.
Further reading: School website : http://universityprimaryschool.org.uk Ofsted report: http://universityprimaryschool.org.uk/about-ourschool/ofstedandresults/ Gronn, P. & Bidduph, J. (Eds.) (2016) A University’s challenge: Cambridge’s Primary School for the Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
H is for Homerton: NRICH @ 20
Libby Jared
mathematics for all. OK, the missing ‘e’ did cause a few problems in the early days when most people hearing the name tried to search for enrich, but that no longer seems to matter.
A
birthday party was held at the University’s Centre for Mathematical Sciences in June last year to celebrate NRICH reaching the grand old age of 20. I think it is fair to say that NRICH is held in high esteem within the world of (school) mathematics and thus it certainly deserved its celebration to recognise and to honour all its achievements over the intervening years. But is NRICH deserving of an article in this Newsletter? Definitely as its ‘H’ stands for Homerton! NRICH evolved through the hard work and sheer determination of Toni Beardon from the University’s School of Education (as it became known) in Trumpington Street through earlier discussions with Colin Penfold, then Mathematics Adviser for Norfolk Local Education Authority. Toni gathered further support from Dr Roger Bray at the Royal Institution and from me (at Homerton). When in September 1997, after an initial year’s trial, the NRICH website, nrich.maths.org.uk (yes it even owns the word maths for its domain name) was launched nationally (well actually, in effect, internationally) an ‘N’ (two ways), Toni’s Cambridge ‘C’, Roger’s ‘RI’ and our own ‘H’ provided the name for a mathematics site that was formed to enrich
NRICH could never have taken off in the way that it did without securing funding for it. In trying to obtain some monies, Toni and I often found that many well known funding bodies thought we had an excellent idea, but they could also think of reasons why they were unable to help. In the end, however, we were fortunate enough to secure two major sources of funding ‘close to home’ from UCLES and CUP and for which we will remain ever grateful. I am fairly certain that Homerton played a part in this success as we found tangible support from both Tim Everton, vice principal and a mathematician, and crucially from Kate Pretty as principal and an UCLES syndic. Maybe NRICH would have thrived without Homerton but it would have been far harder to get started. As the initial funding finished, NRICH became part of the Cambridge University’s about-to-beestablished Mathematics Millennium Project (a collaboration between the Faculties of Mathematics and Education), and whilst securing funding remains an ever rsma newsletter september 2018 page 7
on-going task, to date the MMP has done a sterling job in maintaining success.
Mike Pearson, Educational Technologist and Prof. John Barrow, Director of MMP addressing a problem.
I think that back in 1996 we were probably being rather innovative as few schools had a large number of computers linked to the Internet beyond perhaps the administrative offices. Indeed the initial year’s Norfolk trial saw us primarily using paper and the Royal Mail rather than computer technology. But we thought that the day would soon be arriving when things would change and anyway an increasing number of homes were ‘wiring up’ already. We described NRICH as: “a mathematics 'net-workshop' which offers pupils of all ages who enjoy the challenges of mathematics, the opportunity to participate either with friends in a school mathematics club or individually (via school or home). It is a virtual meeting place for young minds to share ideas and collaborate”. Originally the NRICH website had a magazine style containing not only a monthly set of problems but also mathematical games to play, articles to read, news of mathematical events and specific topic activities. A new edition of the magazine was published on the 1st of each month and anyone, from anywhere in the world, who felt that they had a solution to the latest monthly problems had an invitation to send it in by the 21st of that month. The best of these solutions, either from individuals or groups, were published (and acknowledged) within the solutions section on the 1st of the following month. The interpretation of 'best' would be judged at several levels – e.g. according to age, or on how well the pupils had thought things out, explained and justified their methods. A published solution might lead to someone finding a more elegant one, in which case this could also be published later and thus the 'conversation' continued. If no solution was submitted the problem remained ‘unanswered” and became a ‘Tough Nut’ in anticipation that somebody might eventually solve it. Each 'issue' of the magazine was archived so that all past material could be classified according to topic, key stage, level of difficulty and with a particular problem able to be located by means of a search tree or the keyword searching facility. This meant that by 2004, any pupil entering school aged 5 and leaving aged 18 would be able to find a new problem for every day they were at school! This begs the question that even if formats change, how many more problems must now be available? rsma newsletter september 2018 page 8
Although the H for Homerton is due to my initial involvement with NRICH I can take little credit for any of its success; I like to think that I have kept a ‘mothering eye’ on things and shown my enthusiasm for, and appreciation of, all that NRICH staff have achieved through the years. On the contrary I have benefited so much from NRICH as it was AskNRICH that provided me with my PhD topic: Doing Mathematics in Different Places: an Exploration of Young People’s Activities as they make Independent Use of a Web-Based Discussion Board. Early on, and again fairly innovatively (if one is allowed to juxtapose these two words), NRICH established web-board conferencing facilities between school pupils and university students. The technology allowed school students to have their mathematical questions answered and to discuss their ideas with university students through 'AskNRICH', the 'Ask a Mathematician' Answering service. As it turned out age was not a barrier in any of the discussions – anyone of any age from anywhere in the world could either ask a question, assist in the solution or both. Two of the posting protocols (devised at the outset in our vision) were crucial to AskNRICH’s success: the person seeking help needed to share their thoughts and any progress made, although having made none is acceptable. Similarly the person who is offering help was required not to just give the answer even with workingout. Both ‘sides’ needed to enter into a dialogue. I called the participants affectionately the AskNRICHers. I saw that AskNRICH provided the conduit for young people, to be honest generally those who one could perceive as talented and gifted working at a mathematical level often beyond their chronological age, to communicate out-of-school, with like minded ‘soul mates’ across the globe. Thus the interactivities and activities were unrestricted by both the time imposed on a school timetabled lesson and the confines of a physical classroom. Message exchanges between the AskNRICHers could be made over a longer, contemplative and asynchronous time-frame beyond that available within a normal school lesson where activities are compressed within a time-limited frame. The threads are complete entities: started by a request for help, concluded only when that request for help has been satisfied and, in between, on-going for however long it takes to arrive at that conclusion; there is no school bell ringing to curtail the lesson. So for example, one Saturday afternoon, Peter (a pseudonym and my case representative) then aged 15, posted ‘can some one help me with this problem. this is the first [and more difficult than he would encounter at school] trigonometrical equation i have done so please take it slowly and drop me a few subtle hints’. At the end of ninety minutes there had been eight postings (four from Peter, three from one ‘expert’ and one other). The last was from Peter: ‘Now I’ve got the first one I’m motoring through the exercises. Who would have thought trigonometry could be this much fun.’ Who would indeed!
NRICHers. The plenary finished with Fran Watson reading Kobi Yamada’s book What do you do with an idea?. Being slightly older than its target audience, I had not come across it, but as Fran moved through the pages I started to realize that was relating the words to what happens when young people gingerly but determinedly take forward their ideas, delighting in working on their mathematics. For me, the story was a strong metaphor. But what really knocked me out were the words on the final page: “And then I realized what you do with an idea. You change the world”. Back in 1996, Toni had had an idea and subsequently she and (everyone in) NRICH have, to my mind, changed the world. NRICHers, including Mark Dawes and Toni Beardon, and guests thinking hard about a problem
Twenty years is surely a long time for any school focused website to flourish – but it has. Over that time it has been well supported by four Directors and a dedicated team of workers who continue to inspire school students and teachers alike. NRICH produced several posters to mark its celebration. It should be justly proud of all that it achieves – as it says on the poster: reaching 5.5 million users a year worldwide; providing thousands of free online resources for ages 3 to 18 (though I would say to age 95+); a hands-on road show that travels the length and breadth of the UK and occasionally beyond; its emphasis on ‘low threshold, high ceiling’ activities that focus on developing problem solving and encouraging exploration and discussion, and producing rich mathematical tasks that develop students’ capacity to persevere, reason and think creatively. And that is just for starters. At the party, there were balloons, a birthday cake, a ‘goody’ bag containing smarties (lots of scope for doing mathematics with them) and some mathematical problem cards (of course), lots of mathematics to do during the plenary and plenty of talk and laughter between
Homerton planted one of a few acorns that started NRICH’s life – it has been delightful to see NRICH grow and grow (over 37 million page views this school year) and run and run – ‘Happy, Happy Birthday’ - and may you continue to do so.
NRICH Directors cut the cake: Toni Beardon (1st), Ems Lord (current) and Lynne McClure (3rd). Unfortunately Jennifer Piggott 2nd Director was not able to make the day.
Acknowledgement: with thanks to all staff at NRICH present and past – without you I could not have written this.
Caption Competition The story goes that `Margaret was replacing her blow up hangers and could only buy them in 7s, so was giving the extras away….’ Trish Maude In good ‘Have I got News for You’ fashion we currently are in need of a caption. Please be an inspired ‘HIGNFY’ panelist and send in your caption to the editor (ecj20@cam.ac.uk); a selection of the ‘best’ will be published next year. Muriel, Margaret, Dorothy and Trish: Awaiting a Caption!
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 9
Homerton’s Sundial: a walking shadow
I
Anne Thwaites
n last year's newsletter, Pat Cooper added a postscript to Frances Turner's obituary: “The sharp-eyed observer may espy a sundial beside the path to the main door of Homerton. It was designed by Frances’ husband, Philip Turner, who was a distinguished engineer in the University Department of Engineering and a clever inventor. The inscription reads: ‘Time the Destroyer is Time the Preserver’, a quotation from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ ”. I and others found this summary of the story a little tantalising – what did we know of Philip Turner's design, when was it made and by whom, how was it funded, where was it first installed? Over the course of a few weeks, I have been in touch with a number of people both from Homerton and the Department of Engineering and they have all been quick to reply even if they haven't been able to help directly. So I have a few answers to the questions above.
with a gentle sense of humour and as a brilliant designer. When Philip was asked to design the sundial for Homerton, he wanted to make it a bit different and there are probably two aspects that stand out in this regard. Firstly the horizontal surface with the numbers engraved on it is a minimal, near floating arc and, secondly, the numbers are indicated by dots (rather than Arabic or Roman numerals); so, for example, 12 is replaced by two rows of six dots. This seems to be a very unusual representation. The sundial is made from aluminium alloy and has the quotation on the base (apparently suggested by Elizabeth Cook) along with the dedication "This dial, given by past and present members of College, commemorates its recognition as an Approved Society of the University of Cambridge, September, 1977."
www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/125/achievements/centrifuges/philip.htm
In 1977, Homerton became an Approved Society of the University of Cambridge – a huge landmark in the College's history and one permanent commemoration was the commissioning of a sundial. As Pat wrote last year, Frances' husband, Philip (Pip) Turner, was a designer and engineer and he was asked to complete the commission. Part of the funding for the sundial came from donations and indeed there is a letter in the college archive thanking donors from the secretary of the fund raising committee – Victor Watson. Philip Turner was a design engineer in the Department of Engineering on Fen Causeway and virtually anything that was designed there went through his hands before going to the departmental workshops. He was a talented, innovative and creative designer who had designed the suspension of the original Issigonis BMC Mini before coming to Cambridge. He made major contributions to the design of centrifuges [one is named the Turner 10m centrifuge]. In his will, he bequeathed a prize to be awarded annually for "outstanding work ... by a research student working at the Schofield Centre [home to the Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group] in Cambridge". I have been fortunate to talk to Roy Julian who worked closely with Philip Turner for many years. Roy oversaw the construction of the designs as Deputy Superintendent and then Superintendent of the Engineering workshops. He remembers Philip as a very quiet, unassuming man rsma newsletter september 2018 page 10
In the letter to donors in April 1978, Victor wrote: "The sundial is now in position, but not in the place originally planned for it. It looked rather lonely on the big lawn [between the black and white dining hall and Trumpington House] and when it was seen by the College Architect, he suggested that it would be much more in keeping with the new Science building which is almost completed and will come into use next September. The staff agreed and the sundial was accordingly moved." Roy Julian remembers that soon after its installation, the sundial was vandalised with the main upright being bent in two. With some delight he recounted to me how two of his staff had arrived with a large post, a rachet and rope, and by applying heat to the bend and then gently pulling the rope with the rachet, they had been able to repair the very serious damage. In 1996 the College’s main aspect was re-focussed to the south with the Cavendish Building completely renovated and the two courtyard gardens on the south side of the it re-designed and planted. Sam Agnew, then a fairly new
Head Gardener, was responsible for realising the transformation of these spaces using granite sets and slabs from the area outside the black and white buildings for the hard landscaping. At some point in the 1990s the sundial was stolen but eventually recovered from another college; apparently one person had been responsibile for the theft of a number of sundials from around the University. After its return the sundial was re-sited in the garden nearest the West door, close to the main path, a position where it is in the view of large numbers of people each day. This garden was named Adrian's Garden after Adrian Swain a mathematics BEd student who died at the end of the first term of his course in1995. There are numerous sundials in Cambridge, some with their own histories documented. An online search brings up descriptions of several of them, ranging from the ancient wall dial in Queens' to Pembroke's modern wall dial, one of Dr. Frank King’s designs, visible from Tennis Court Road. Somehow our unusual dial hasn't featured in any of the guides I found. I wonder why? With acknowledgements to many people including: From the Department of Engineering: Roy Julian, Alistair Ross, Chris Burgoyne and Andrew Schofield; From Homerton: Sam Agnew, Carole Bennett, Judith Hammond, Svetlana Paterson, Kate Pretty, Ian Morrison, Peter Warner and Victor Watson.
O
In BogotĂĄ
Janet Scott
n my travels this year I attended the Global Christian Forum (GCF) which met in Bogota, the capital of Columbia, in the final week of April. The Forum was founded twenty years ago at the instigation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to bring together the churches traditionally involved in ecumenism with those previously not involved, primarily evangelical and Pentecostal churches. I went as a representative of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), and found that I was the only Quaker there amongst the 250 or so people present.
Columbia is beginning to recover from civil strife. On the journey from the airport it was noticeable how many homes had severe security, not only grills and bars at windows on both ground and first floors but also outside metal barricades and gates. We heard how churches in the country are contributing to reconciliation and social welfare, which will be a hard task. I was told that there are about 8 million displaced people out of a population of around 44 million.
The GCF's primary method of encounter is through the telling of faith stories. We were placed in global groups of about fifteen people each of whom were asked to tell something of their faith in their life. The remarkable thing about this method is that the similarities in the stories have little to do with church affiliation. I felt that perhaps one of the bigger differences was between those who were still in the denomination in which they had been brought up, and those who had changed their church. In the plenary sessions we considered the topics which had been a concern of the Forum since the previous global meeting. The topic which took up most time was persecution, discrimination and martyrdom. We remembered the Syrian bishops, Mar Gregorios and Yafizdi, who were abducted five years ago and of whom nothing is known. We also heard of the situation in the Middle East and Egypt. We were warned against using the language of persecution too lightly; it should be reserved for state action. It will often be more accurate to
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 11
talk of pressure, or of violent attacks from non-state groups. The other plenary topic was proselytism. When we met in regional groups (my region was Europe) this was a concern particularly of the Eastern Orthodox churches. As Europeans we were more concerned about religious freedom. We also found that we had little experience of persecution, and that inward migration and the welcoming of migrant churches and other faiths was more of an issue for us.
accompanied by Columbian music and Taize chants. I found myself admiring the Holy Spirit for its capacity to make itself heard through the noise! The evening prayer was mostly in small groups and quieter. For me the best parts (in addition to meeting old and new friends, including some remarkable Canadian women bishops) were the Bible studies. The most memorable was hearing an evangelical addressing his co-religionists on the importance of taking experience into account when interpreting scripture, a real change for many evangelicals. This was an echo of the debate in the London Yearly Meeting a century ago. We perhaps have swung too far the other way, preferring experience without sufficient reference to the Bible.
The topics that should form the agenda for the Forum in the next phase were also considered during the plenary. I spoke about Friends' concern for living in a sustainable environment and received many appreciative comments afterwards, but it remains to be seen whether it will be taken up as a topic.
The next secretary of the GCF comes from Africa, a reflection of the shift of Christianity to the global South.
The days began with morning worship in a variety of styles from Catholic Charismatic to Pentecostal, mostly
[This text is adapted from the version first published in The Friend, a Quaker magazine, 17th May 2018].
Researching and Teaching Young Adult Reading
W
Gabrielle Cliff Hodges
hen I retired last September, I was a bit anxious that I might not be as fully occupied as I would like to be. I need not have worried, though, not least because I found myself in the middle of co-editing a new book on young people reading. However, what was different was pursuing my ongoing interest in reading without all the pressures of a day job as well! In 2016 Routledge published a book I wrote called Researching and teaching reading: Developing pedagogy through critical enquiry. A key theme in that book was the idea – developed during my time as a secondary English teacher and teacher educator – that research and teaching go hand in hand. What we learn from research can have a profound effect on our thinking about classroom teaching and education more broadly, whether it takes place within or beyond the school and however small-scale it might be. rsma newsletter september 2018 page 12
My own research into young people as readers has always been small-scale and qualitative because I have felt it to be a really good way to learn as much as possible about reading from young people’s perspectives. For example, I have researched students’ use of reading journals, to better understand their developing responses to class novels from the comments they write. I have also investigated interconnections between students’ reading and writing as a different way again to see how they perceive what they read. In 1993 I moved from teaching English in state secondary schools into teacher education, firstly at Homerton College and then at the Faculty of Education. In my role as a teacher educator and supervisor I was able to learn even more about young people’s reading through the research undertaken by the PGCE, MEd and PhD students I supervised. Needless to say, there was always a great deal to appreciate, whether from teacher-researchers working in their own classrooms or from full-time students doing higher degrees. On one occasion, I found myself talking with fellow PhD examiner, Dr Evelyn Arizpe from the School of Education at Glasgow University, about the many international PhD students we had supervised between us, especially in what appears to be a relatively underresearched area of young adult reading between the ages of 12-21. From that conversation, we hatched a plan for a
co-edited book called Young people reading: Empirical research across international contexts which was published at the end of March 2018. The book contains chapters by 11 researchers who have, between them, researched young people’s reading in Canada, Turkey, England, Mexico, Lebanon, Catalonia, Uganda and Malaysia. Almost all the contributors were supervised by Evelyn and me, and all bar one were conducting research into reading within their home countries. As a collection, therefore, the book offers a fascinating picture of young people’s reading in a very wide variety of international contexts, for example 10-14 year old Indigenous readers of the Blackfoot First Nation in Canada reading culturally relevant fiction; Malaysian undergraduates reading for both work and pleasure whilst studying in an English university; young adult school students reading in precarious situations, for example in Mexico and Lebanon. In addition, because all the research involves small-scale qualitative projects, the book is an opportunity for readers to see what happens when such studies are brought into conjunction with one another rather than scattered far and wide in educational journals across the world. In the introduction to the book, we argue very strongly that
bringing work of this kind together is a way of ‘cumulating ... intellectual gold’ (Jensen and Rodgers, 2001): it provides readers with a chance to read the various studies in juxtaposition with one another and play an active part in making comparisons between them. Evelyn and I have each contributed a chapter to the book as well as co-editing it. In our respective chapters we revisit our own PhD research into reading. Evelyn’s chapter, co-written with Laura Guerrero Guadarrama, explores young adult reading practices in Mexico and to what extent they have changed since she first undertook her doctoral study there twenty five years ago. My own chapter looks at a research method I devised for my PhD more recently. The method involves young people creating critical incidents collages of their own personal reading histories (artefacts we came to call ‘rivers of reading’) so that their reading over time and in different spaces can be made visible for discussion and reflection. As co-editors we have both learnt a great deal more than we knew at the outset about young people reading across the world. We hope that other readers of the book will be able to do likewise. References Arizpe, E., & Cliff Hodges, G. (Eds.). (2018). Young people reading: Empirical research across international contexts. Abingdon: Routledge. Cliff Hodges, G. (2016). Researching and teaching reading: Developing pedagogy through critical enquiry. Abingdon: Routledge. Jensen, J., & Rodgers, R. (2001). Cumulating the intellectual gold of case study research. Public Administration Review, 61 (2), 235-246.
New on the Bookshelf
F
or last year’s Newsletter I wrote about the talk I had given in May on the subject of John Dewey at a meeting of the Primary Umbrella Group in Birkbeck, University of London. After that event, I became a co-editor of a book containing a collection of some of the papers presented at that 2016 John Dewey Conference (http://www.dewey2016.co.uk) commemorating 100 years since the publication of Dewey's 'Education and Democracy'. The book is in three sections: Dewey, Experience and Technology; Dewey, Experience and Bodies (my section) and Dewey, Experience, Democracy and Education The papers all look at Dewey's work and its significance for current educational issues, hence the subtitle 'Fighting Back'. Most papers are premised on a critique of the current global policy and practice of education and its narrowing obsession with measurement and performance.
Christine Doddington
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 13
News from the Composer-in-Residence
T
John Hopkins
he start of 2018 has brought a few first performances of my works, beginning with a concert by the Composers' Ensemble in King's College on 16th February. This included the premiere of Lumen Naturale, a duo for violin and cello, which was commissioned by Hartmut Kuhlmann and Gwen Owen Robinson. It took off from some passages in the writings of Descartes, but in essence was to do with the use of 'natural reasoning' in evaluating things, as opposed to 'divine revelation'. This performance can be heard on my SoundCloud at:
really pleased with this performance, and I look forward to hearing it again on the radio. Here are some pictures of the four composers included in the programme, together with the soloists and conductor.
https://soundcloud.com/john-hopkins-941786350/lumennaturale-live-performance
Diana Burrell, me, Thomas Hyde, Charlotte Bray
On 27th April, at a little recital in Churchill College, my Four Pieces for Harpsichord were played by a Spanish harpsichordist, Yugo Mahugo. His performance is not yet on SoundCloud, but there is a version of the work at: https://soundcloud.com/john-hopkins-941786350/lumennaturale-live-performance Standing: Diana Burrell, me, Geoffrey Paterson, Charlotte Bray, Thomas Hyde; sitting: Marcus Weiss, Marco Blaaw (both L to R)
A month later, on 10th March, my Double Concerto was given in a newly revised version up in City Halls, Glasgow. The performers were Marco Blaaw (trumpet), Marcus Weiss (saxophone) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Paterson. The concert was recorded by Radio 3 for future transmission, but as yet I do not know the date*. I was
Finally, I'd like to add that I have now completed my piece for Homerton's 250th Celebration Concert, which will be on 24th November. The work is called Elevation, it's scored for a chamber orchestra and plays for about 15 minutes. I've based the formal outline on a schematic line-drawing of the College's skyline, looking from the Ibberson Building to Queen's Wing. * The concerto was broadcast at 10pm on Saturday 4th August 2018.
Rowing News
Many Congratulations to Homerton College Boat Club on the many outstanding performances of its members, present and past, this year – we were delighted to receive the news.
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 14
Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis
W
David Whitebread
hen I came for my interview at Homerton in December 1985, applying for the post of Lecturer in Education and Psychology, I was questioned in some depth about my experience as a Primary school teacher and my MEd and PhD level academic studies in developmental and educational psychology. I thought I did OK in the various interviews. However, my interviewers’ ears really pricked up over lunch when I announced that I had played drums in various bands over the years. Oh, came the reply, we have a staff band at Homerton, but we don’t have a drummer! So, there has always been the suspicion in my mind that the other candidates for the post had equally good or perhaps rather better qualifications in education and psychology, but what really tipped the balance in my favour was my apparent ability to hit calf skin with a stick in a vaguely rhythmical fashion.
The drummer
I joined the staff at the start of the Easter term in 1986, and I joined the staff band very soon after. David Bridges tells me that the band’s first incarnation was as a jazz band which had its roots in the deep South (South Cambridgeshire, that is) and played for a party in the brick arched cellars of Trumpington House in the mid 80s. The original line-up included Malcolm Pointon (keyboard), Richard Light (saxophone) David Bridges (clarinet), Philip Rundall and Mike Bonnett (guitars) and Barry Jones (Double Bass). The band played a number of traditional pieces along with Richard’s especially written ‘Light Blues’ (get it?). This band played initially for private parties including a series of ‘Stairway to the Stars’ parties hosted by the Heffernans, the Rundalls and the Bridges in the Art Studios of Homerton. Apparently, at these gigs band members (and possibly others) all
dressed up as their favourite movie stars or characters. They were happy, care-free, simpler times! After my arrival this jazz band somehow morphed into a fifties and sixties pop/rock band, with the resplendent name of Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis (with thanks to Elvis!). At full strength this consisted of the following illustrious (and occasionally musical) personnel: Vocals: David Bridges (Philosophy, aka Dr. Trouble) and Jane Edden (Music), she with the golden voice and he with a somewhat rustier version: Jane’s particular talent was to give David his harmony while continuing to sing her own line of melody Keyboard: Malcolm Pointon (Music) Guitars: Philip Rundall (Art), Mike Bonnett (Philosophy) and Rowan Robertson. (Rowan, son of the Homerton psychologist John Robertson, was in the sixth form at the time, but when he finished he was selected by a major Los Angeles based heavy metal band as their lead guitarist) Bass Guitar: Chris Pointon (son of Malcolm & Barbara) Saxophone: Richard Light (Maths) Mouth organ & occasional vocals: Richard Keys (friend of Philip Rundall and Head of Art at Parkside School) Rhythm section: Ivan Vaughan (Psychology) on tea chest double bass (the ‘Jive with Ive’ instrument that he played with his boyhood friends John Lennon including in John’s first band, The Quarrymen - and Paul McCartney), and myself on drums. And then there were the astonishing backing singers in full fifties regalia and pony tails: Trish Maude (Physical Education: who claims no knowledge or memory of her involvement!), Chris Doddington (Philosophy & Drama) and Barbara Pointon (Music)! Chris recalls them practising in the old dance studio, and falling off the back of the stage during one performance, but jumping straight back up again without missing a beat! Our repertoire included Mean Woman Blues (Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison), Feelin Groovy (Simon & Garfunkel), Walk Right In (Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show), Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins), Sweet Dream Baby (Roy Orbison), Then He Kissed Me (The Crystals), Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones), All I Have to do is Dream and Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)– they don’t write music like this anymore! The band played at a number of college events including end of year parties, a 'Charity Rock Concert' in the Great rsma newsletter september 2018 page 15
Hall (1986), a ‘Homerton Havoc’ (May 1987 – Homerton May Ball when we played to the supper queue), and probably the last of the 'Stairway to the Stars' parties in the Art Studio (June 1990). A search through the college archives by the ever resourceful David Bridges reveals at least one end of year event in the college bar of which we have documentary evidence, in the form of a review. This captures much of the raw energy of the band and the enthusiasm of the audience: ‘A suspended D-major 7th ripped apart with a screw driver. Yes, the Homerton Bar is a rockin to the sound of Dr Trouble and the Tutti Fruttis. This band is more than another pop sound – they are full of life. The band played to a full house, a hundred expectant faces filled the bar. Some stood some sat, some danced holes in their shoes… Others merely tapped their feet and drank their beer… Everyone had a common love – the Blues and Dr Trouble.’
Assorted band members: Philip Rundall, David Bridges (aka Dr. Trouble), Jane Edden, Rowan Robertson (a proper guitarist with a foot pedal!), and Richard Light
To his own only slight embarrassment and to everyone else’s amusement, Dr Trouble himself (by then Homerton Deputy Principal) was asked by the porters to cease playing at 10.30 following complaints by local residents about the loud music emanating from the bar.
The band finally folded in around 1990 or so, since when we have gone our separate (and sometimes musical) ways. Malcolm Pointon and Ivan Vaughan both sadly died, Malcolm after prolonged early onset Alzheimer’s and Ivan from Parkinsons. Interestingly both were the subjects of wonderful BBC television programmes chronicling their experience. ‘Ivan’ was made by Jonathan Miller and Malcolm (and Barbara’s) stories were told in the hugely influential film ‘A love story’. Rowan Robertson became a session musician in much demand, particularly in heavy metal bands in the US. Philip went on to form The Backyard Band (with Dave Doddington, Mike Bonnett and others) who performed in the college and elsewhere for a number of years. Jane Edden went on to further musical triumphs on the oboe, and also ran the Emeritus Choir for RSMs for several years. David Bridges and Philip Rundall were reunited in Philip’s recording studio last December to record a ‘Chrismus Blues’ that must surely make number one in the 2018 Christmas songs. David, in the meantime sings in the Cambridge Community Choir that meets in the Club Polonia in Chesterton. Members of the band have their own personal memories. Jane particularly remembers her exuberant performance on the tambourine in ‘Then He Kissed Me’. Philip recalls that he used a very fancy multiple pedal board with his guitar, which he wouldn’t be seen dead using now! My own personal memories of our joint contribution to this golden age of popular music are ones of many happy hours rehearsing in the large room on the ground floor of Trumpington House (now TH1), astonishment at the musical virtuosity of Rowan’s guitar playing (Hendrix, Clapton, Hank Marvin, you name it!), regrets that we never got to do anything by The Who – my style of drumming owed more to the chaos perfected by Keith Moon than the precision and intricacy of Buddy Rich -– and a rosy glow of nostalgia about a time when the academic life was conducted at a rather gentler pace. Happy Days! Perhaps we should do a last ever reunion World Tour? With many thanks to David Bridges, Philip Rundall, Jane Edden and Chris Doddington
The Beatles … & Ivan Vaughan Jill Waterhouse
L
ast weekend, at the Australian National University in Canberra, I was surprised to find a colourful fair spreading over a quadrangle customarily reserved for graduations. Browsing the second-hand bookstall, I was drawn to a tremendously heavy, oversize book, The Beatles: An Anthology, by the Beatles (Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000). I snapped it up as a bargain, but feared I’d regret lugging it around. Instead I’ve found it to be one of my best buys ever, not least because it rsma newsletter september 2018 page 16
mentions Ivan Vaughan who was a former lecturer in Education at Homerton and an influential friend of the Beatles. Many Retired Senior Members will remember tall, darkhaired Ivan. There he is, included in John Lennon’s memories on page 12, and several more times throughout the book. Ivan went to the same school at Paul McCartney who records, ‘I often pedalled around
Woolton [a suburb of Liverpool] going to see Ivan’. John Lennon remembers, ‘It was through Ivan that I first met Paul. Seems he knew Paul was always dickering away in music, and thought he would be a good lad to have in the group [the Quarry Men]. So one day, when we were playing in Woolton, he brought him along. The Quarry Men were playing on a raised platform and there was a good crowd because it was a warm, sunny day.’ Paul McCartney elaborates: ‘Ivan Vaughan was a friend of mine born on exactly the same day as me. (He was a smashing fellow who unfortunately got Parkinson’s disease and has died). Ivan was also mates with John. Ivan said to me one day, ‘The Woolton Village Fete is on Saturday – he lived near John at Woolton – Do you want to come?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing anything.’ It was 6 July 1957. We were fifteen years old. We headed for the stage first, because as teenagers we were interested in music. … John was singing…they were called the Quarry Men because John went to Quarry Banks School. I wandered around the fair and then Ivan and I went backstage ...There was some beer being drunk [and] we were all a little sloshed. Then I played the guitar. The Quarry Men were so knocked out that I actually knew and could sing ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. That’s what got me into the Beatles.’
Google sites contain more detail, including the fascinating story that Ivan’s wife Jan, a French teacher, suggested ‘Michelle, ma belle’ for a song the Beatles were composing, as well as the translation for ‘words that go together well’ – ‘son des mots qui vont trés bien ensemble’. Recently, on 17 July 2017, Philip Kirkland published a blog about Ivan entitled ‘In My Own Write’, complete with a photo of Ivan and Paul. He quotes a poem Paul McCartney wrote in memory of Ivan, including the words ‘Jive with Ive/ The ace on the bass. A classic scholar he/ A rocking roller me/ As firm as friends could be’. Kirkland does not, however, mention Homerton College or Ivan’s funeral that so many of us attended, quietly listening to the evocative Beatles’ song, ‘Blackbird singing in the dead of night’. I don’t claim to have been a close friend of Ivan or of Jan, but if she, their children, or his former colleagues are out there in wintery England I would like them to know that on another warm sunny day - this time sixty years later and in far-away Australia Ivan is being remembered with interest and pleasure. Also, as it happens, Paul McCartney is in Australia today. Canberra, December 2017
Sore Fingers
A
Philip Rundall
t the end of my piece in last year’s Newsletter I threatened to report back on my first experience of Sore Fingers, the UK equivalent of a US summer music camp. Well, during the intervening time I’ve not only attended one but two summer full week camps and an October weekend one as well. All were thoroughly enjoyable, far less trouble getting to and a lot cheaper! So, here’s my report.
countryside and well away from traffic noise. The Cotswold stone buildings, the spacious grounds and the welcoming atmosphere make it very special. I was directed to Sheffield, one of the boarding houses, and selected a bed in a dormitory shared with about seven other men. It was virtually non-stop from then on. Days began at 6.30 and it was late evening by the time one crawled back into bed, so it was a challenging week.
Sore Fingers has been taking place at Kingham School, an independent boarding school near Chipping Norton, over the past twenty two years. It focuses on American Bluegrass and Old Time music with top US as well as European players teaching a wide range of instruments, including: guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, dobro, bass, singing, auto harp and ukulele.
There were twenty students in John’s class and being with him six hours a day was quite an experience. His 1923 Gibson Lloyd-Loar mandolin is regarded by many to be the finest ever made (although he doesn’t make this claim himself). It’s a famous instrument in the mandolin world, so I was amazed when he allowed me to play it on the final day. There were four evenings of tutor concerts and one devoted to the student concert. It was worth going for these alone. Students came from all over the UK, Ireland and Europe and it was wonderful to be with others who are equally obsessed. It was such an opportunity and privilege to sit at meal times and talk to tutors informally. So, for example, I got to talk a lot with Ron Block, the guitar and banjo player who plays in
At the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina I got to hear one of my favourite mandolin players, John Reischman, play. So, it was his being booked to teach, that first attracted me to Sore Fingers. When I arrived on April 16th 2017 I found the school to be a most attractive setting for such an experience, surrounded by lovely
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 17
Alison Krauss’s band Union Station. He regularly comes over to teach as he has such a good time.
Fingers yet. For a start, as soon as I arrived, I found people waving and saying hello. It felt like returning home. Courtney’s teaching was superb and I’ll never forget her performances in the tutor concerts. If you feel like hearing her play I recommend finding her on YouTube, in particular, playing with the mandolinist Joe K.Walsh (playing at an intimate house concert). This year I felt a lot more confident as a player and very much enjoyed taking part in the informal jam sessions that take place after the concerts.
Me along with fellow Mike Marshall mandolin students (left to right - UK, Germany, France and UK)
My old school friend, James Hall (a former Head of Art at Comberton Village College), decided to attend the October 2017 weekend Sore Fingers and persuaded me to sign up too. This time I took the guitar class with a Belgian player that I hadn’t heard of called Yves Aerts. His course was very good, focusing on rhythm playing. Yves later went to the trouble of sending us all short videos demonstrating the main issues he’d been focusing on. This time I shared a double room with James and we were closer to the dining room, a definite improvement! In April 2018 I returned, again with guitar, to spend the week with one of my favourite female guitar players, Courtney Hartman. This, for me, was the best Sore
Jam packed in the bar for the late night jam session
Finally, I have been in communication with the organisers and we’re working on trying to get Bryan Sutton, my on line guitar tutor, over here. He said in a video response to a fellow UK student, who had mentioned Sore Fingers in a video submission, that he’d very much like to come over sometime. So, keep you fingers crossed for me!
Charles Bailey 5th September 1924 – 24th December 2017
C
harles Bailey was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at Homerton College Cambridge in 1964. In due course he became both Head of the Education Department and Senior Tutor of the college, retiring in 1986. He died on Christmas Eve 2017 aged 93. For several years during the 1950s Charles studied for a part-time external University of London degree in economics and economic history. The list of successful candidates in finals was posted at the Senate House in London’s Malet Street. On the appointed day, Charles and his wife Joyce, in some trepidation, made the journey from their home in Leigh-on-Sea to central London. They were confronted by a class list which seemed to have just two main blocks - of upper and lower seconds. Scanning the upper group and finding no Bailey, they rather despondently looked below at the 2.2s but again, found rsma newsletter september 2018 page 18
no Bailey. Only then did they notice, in splendid isolation at the top, the name of a single first-class candidate: Bailey C. H. This episode in Charles’ life tells us a lot about him: his inherent modesty; his tendency to be surprised by external evidence of his exceptional abilities; his devotion to scholarship in circumstances that were seldom easy; and the depth of his and Joyce’s feelings for one another. Although he would have disliked the epithet ‘self-made’, Charles did, throughout his life, progress largely through his own efforts: no one handed him anything on a plate. As his daughter Liz has written in a brief memoir of his early life, much of it based on Charles own written recollections, ‘Having lost his father while still a baby, Charles was brought up in Southend by his mother, Ada, who worked as a cook and a cleaner’. And this image of his mother on her knees scrubbing the floors of the
houses of the better off, was one foundation of his abiding egalitarianism and sense of social justice. Charles attended his local elementary school in Southend and was one of the few in his year-group to be entered for the scholarship examination to go to a grammar school. Much to his surprise he passed. But his mother, intimidated by ‘what seemed to her to be an impossible list of things to be purchased’ and worried about losing his potential earnings between the ages of 14 and 16, reluctantly decided that she couldn’t afford to send him. His own recollections of this significant event in his young life characteristically stressed the positive aspects: ‘grammar school seemed a strange and frightening unknown where none of my friends would be going and I was really quite relieved to find I would be going to the senior elementary with others I knew’. With these peers, he subsequently entered the local labour market in 1938 at the age of 14, employed initially as a van boy and then as a trainee mechanic in the garage of Garon’s, a local bakery firm. Subsequently he got a job in the garage of the Southend Constabulary maintaining police cars and bicycles. With the advent of war Charles, as soon as he was old enough, volunteered with Air Raid Precautions, joining the Air Training Corps in 1941 and quickly becoming a warrant officer. In 1942 he passed an RAF aircrew selection board as a trainee flight engineer but wasn’t called up until two years later around the time of D-Day. By the time he had completed his training as both a flight engineer and an air gunner, the war was over. But he never lost the sense that ‘war is hell’ – and much later in life he came close to embracing pacifism. He retained vivid memories of the war - of German aircraft flying up the Thames on daylight bombing raids, of exhausted soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk being set down at Southend Pier and making their way, exhausted, to the railway station. Nevertheless, he was always grateful for what the RAF did for him, not least educationally. In addition to fostering his life-long love of and skills in mechanical engineering, he was able to take advantage of tuition preparing for a special examination for services personnel whose education had been disrupted by wartime service - the Forces Preliminary Examination. In the RAF too, he met a number of men whose educational and cultural experience was wider than his own – helping develop among other things, his knowledge and love of classical music and poetry, introducing him to radical politics, and leading him to become, for a fairly short time, a member of the Communist Party. The post-war Emergency Training Scheme, which offered a pared down form of teacher training to members of the armed forces, provided the next step in Charles’ educational and professional career. Once again, his cautious modesty is apparent: ‘I took this step, thinking that although my school education was more than a bit short of what was required my passing of the Forces Preliminary Examination might stand me in some stead: it did’. He started his training in September 1949 at the Wimpole Emergency College, which was housed in nissen huts in the grounds of what is now the National Trust property of Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire. Having qualified, he taught successfully for two years at Westleigh Primary School in Leigh-on-Sea but had
growing reservations about the ethos generated by eleven-plus selection. ‘There was something about the school…a certain over-emphasis on competition, an air of not all pupils being equally valued’ that grated and which prompted him to apply for a post at the Southend Open Air School for physically disabled pupils and others with chronic health conditions. Here, in due course he became deputy head whilst also studying part-time for his external London degree. Surprised by his 1st, he was emboldened to apply for a headship and was appointed in 1960 as head teacher of the Phoenix Special School in Stepney. Whilst there, he embarked on a new field of academic study – the philosophy of education – at the University of London Institute of Education. Initially he took the Academic Diploma in Education and then embarked on his Ph.D., supervised by Professor Richard Peters. It was Peters who, in 1964, wrote to Charles saying that he had been asked to recommend someone for lecturing posts at both Goldsmiths College London and Homerton College Cambridge, and encouraging him to apply. Charles’ recollection of his Homerton interview stressed his sense of the disjunction between ‘the understated luxury of the Principal’s room’ and ‘any room I had previously seen in any school or at Wimpole’. He took up the post of Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at Homerton in September 1964 and the Bailey family – Charles and Joyce, their sons Adam and Jeremy, and daughter Liz - moved that summer from Leigh-onSea to the bungalow in Sawston which was his home for the rest of his life.
1964
R. S. Peter’s involvement in this career change signifies a much broader shift in teacher training in England and Wales at that time: the rise of ‘educational theory’, specifically in the form of separate ‘education disciplines’, notably philosophy and sociology of education in addition to the already well established psychology. The London Institute of Education was the main source and disseminator of these changes, which were embodied in the Friday morning marathon of ‘mass’ lectures delivered to more than 700 secondary PGCE students from both the Institute itself and King’s College London. This programme consisted of successive lectures in philosophy, psychology and sociology - and in that order! Charles occasionally contributed to them. Richard Peters tended to assume that the philosophers should articulate the overall conceptual framework, with the two social science disciplines providing relevant empirical evidence. Needless to say, this was not a division of rsma newsletter september 2018 page 19
labour that recommended itself to everyone - with sociology in particular, soon contesting a range of issues concerned with knowledge and the curriculum, as well as exploring wider theories of social stability and conflict. But the ‘three discipline’ model, sometimes supplemented by history of education, became almost universal in teacher training colleges and university departments of education. The later 1960s and the 70s saw a very marked growth in the size, influence and status of departments of education theory – to the chagrin on some ‘subject’ lecturers and not a few students, some of whom regarded education studies as an irrelevant distraction from both ‘proper’ subject knowledge and the development of the practical teaching skills which, in their view lay at the heart of professionalism. For Charles, of course, the most justifiable form of professionalism for teachers was one founded in their own informed understanding of liberal education, accompanied by a seriously held conception of professional accountability built on that basis. This, in turn, involved proper intellectual engagement with the major education disciplines, not as something separate from subject expertise and practical competencies but rather as informing them. These years also saw, in England and Wales, a move towards greater autonomy of non-university higher educational institutions, following the proposals of the Weaver Report of 1966. (Toby Weaver, who skilfully chaired the fractious committee that produced this report also happens to have been the civil servant responsible for implementing the Emergency Training Scheme in the post-war years. So his path and Charles’ crossed, albeit remotely, on two key occasions.) Within the voluntary training college sector, the Weaver Report created a framework which allowed individual institutions to develop what now seems a quite remarkable degree of internal democracy, at least for academic staff. Charles, an instinctive democrat, found himself very much at home in this environment which gave all lecturing staff a significant voice in institutional decision-making of many kinds. As David Bridges has pointed out in his philosophical memoir of Charles’ contributions to education and philosophy, democracy as he advocated and practised it was not simple majority rule but ‘the readiness to sit down together with a view to arriving at a rational way forward and to accommodate as many interests as possible’. This willingness to patiently listen to and engage with competing arguments was a hallmark of Charles involvement in Homerton’s life at many levels – in his manner of conducting Education Department meetings, in his role as secretary of the Academic Board, in Staff Meetings, and in a range of more informal contexts. To quote David again: With Charles, the Homerton Combination Room became a forum for all sorts of stimulating debates as he dissected the radical subjectivism of some of those in the music and art departments and the fashionable sociology associated with the publication of Michael Young’s Knowledge and Control. This was an intellectual community to dream of and Charles was always at its centre.
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 20
Charles was by nature scholarly - with something of the autodidact in his makeup. He believed in close reading of key texts until he was satisfied that he really understood them for himself. Charles once confided to David Bridges that when he was interviewed as a prospective member of the Communist Party, the local committee ‘was somewhat amazed to find that they had a recruit who had not only heard of Das Kapital but read it from cover to cover’. In the last year of his life Charles was still working in this same carefully scholarly way – coincidentally, reading Thomas Picketty’s 2014 book Capital in the Twenty-first Century and carefully annotating it as he went along - not just the first seventy pages (which is all most people read) but also the extensive evidence accumulated by Picketty and his colleagues that makes up the rest of this bulky book. Charles, the advocate of ‘evidential teaching’, practiced what he preached - closely interrogating not only the coherence of the argument but also its evidential base. In the field of philosophy Charles was a leading light among a distinguished group of philosophers of education - in Homerton itself as well as in the University Department of Education, the Cambridge Institute of Education and the University of East Anglia. David Bridges notes that ‘Charles’ mature and incisive but always constructive comments contributed to all our work’. I conclude this paragraph with a longer quotation from David’s memoir – his appraisal of Charles’ magnum opus: The culmination of Charles’ academic work was perhaps the publication in 1984 of his book…Beyond the Present and the Particular: a Theory of Liberal Education, which brought together many of the threads of arguments he had developed over the years into what I regard as quite the best formulation of the nature and rationale for a liberal education and its defence against erosion by contemporary discourses and policy. Sadly this attracted little of the attention it deserved. Its publication came at a time when the philosophy of education was already on the wane in teacher education, when the analytic clarity which was the hallmark of Charles’ writing was being replaced by other forms of philosophical expression and when, in any case, the exponential growth of educational publishing meant that no one had time to read more than a tiny fraction of published outputs… The world is poorer for this neglect of an important body of writing. In addition to his directly academic achievements, Charles had a formative influence on the long succession of contested changes through which Homerton moved towards convergence with Cambridge University. Following the University’s initial refusal to have any involvement in the introduction of a B.Ed. Degree, Charles along with Dame Beryl Paston Brown, was the person chiefly responsible for making it possible for high-achieving Homerton students to take their B.Ed. as external students of the University of London. Subsequently, working with both Alison Shrubsole and Paul Hirst (who by the early 1970s had become Professor and Head of the Department of Education in Cambridge), Charles helped guide the negotiations through which two successive versions of a Cambridge B.Ed. were brought
into existence. First, from 1971, a 3+1 model was introduced, in which qualifying Cert. Ed. students from all the colleges of the Cambridge Institute of Education came together for a fourth year B.Ed. programme in Cambridge. Then, from 1976, a 2+2 model was introduced in which Homerton students were matriculated as members of the university for their final two years, with small numbers of BA students from other colleges also transferring into the new Education Tripos. Because his contributions to these protracted and often fraught negotiations were characteristically unobtrusive, their 1981 significance was never properly appreciated or acknowledged. Less directly, it was also the case that Charles’ combination of evident scholarship and moral seriousness did much to establish Homerton’s academic credibility within the wider university in these years. Following the retirement of Tom Simms as Head of Education and Senior Tutor in the mid-1970s, Charles was the unchallenged candidate to fill both positions – roles which he held until his retirement in 1986 and which he performed with dedication and distinction.
More on Moore
The recent arrival of a Henry Moore sculpture in the College provoked these reminiscences from Barbara Pointon and Philip Rundall.
I
n the Sixties and Seventies I ran a Saturday Morning Music Club for children age 7-14 in Trumpington House and in the half-time break the children usually went outside to let off steam on the back lawn. They were delighted when a Henry Moore sculpture arrived and they explored it in every way possible. At the next staff meeting, I was severely chided by one of the older members of staff who proposed that the club be closed down if they couldn’t behave themselves. Miss Paston Brown smiled and declared that she knew Henry Moore very well and admired his work. He would have encouraged the children to be very tactile with his piece, clamber over it and view the world from new angles. I was a very green junior lecturer at the time, but I had the last laugh - my maiden name then was Miss Barbara Moore! Barbara Pointon
Charles was never an ivory-tower academic: he was a thoroughly practical man and had many interests outside academic and collegiate life. He was a life-long Humanist and for some years he organized a Cambridge Branch of the British Secular Society with a broad membership both within and beyond the university. He also had a wide range of leisure interests which he pursued with characteristic diligence as well as enthusiasm. Perhaps foremost among these was model engineering: in his workshop and using his lathe he built all kinds of working models, many of them steam powered, which were displayed all around the bungalow. He once said to me ‘I was always a Meccano boy’: he and his grandson Alex, when Charles was in his nineties, built a huge Meccano working model of a tower crane. He always read very widely, still keeping up with various key debates in philosophy but becoming increasingly interested in European history – an interest which fed into his enthusiasm for philately, especially collecting German stamps. Across all these diverse and distinguished contributions, what was perhaps most remarkable about Charles was the rare moral consistency that informed every aspect of his life and work. As David Bridges memorably puts it: ‘as Charles taught, so he lived: reason, fairness, respect for others, care – these were the qualities he brought’ to every aspect of his life – qualities that led those of us fortunate enough to work with him, to revere him and now to cherish his memory. ‘Charles was and remains an example and an inspiration to us all.’ John Beck [I am very grateful to Liz Bailey and David Bridges for allowing me to draw on their respective memoirs of Charles’ life.]
T
here was a previous Henry Moore loan - I remember the piece. It was on a plinth on the lawn between Trumpington House and the old dining hall in the black and white building, now demolished. I don't recall any stories related to this specific piece, but I may have mentioned my touching a Henry Moore piece at the Tate Gallery and being told off by an attendant. I responded by saying that Henry Moore had encouraged me to touch his work (I had chatted to him when I visited his studio before going to art school), to which the guard replied, "But this piece don't belong to Mr Moore no more!" No more to be said ..... I think it's my favourite encounter in an art gallery! Perhaps I should have also mentioned that John Jackson, who taught sculpture in the Art Department, was at one time, one of Henry Moore's assistants. I remember him saying, when I asked him what he was like to work for, that he insisted that you used both sides of a sheet of sandpaper! Philip Rundall rsma newsletter september 2018 page 21
RSMA Roundup 2017-2018
Annual General Meeting This took place as usual in September in order to link up with the Alumni weekend. There was time to not only be able to share ideas and plan events for the coming year but also remember with affection and anecdotes members who are sadly longer with us. It was good to see new members there and we look forward to welcoming some new members onto the Committee as soon as possible. Regular Coffee Mornings These have continued during the year and there are no plans to change from our regular pattern of meetings on the third Friday of each month during term time. (dates can differ for December and June celebrations – see below). Coffee Morning Talks We have had two visiting speakers this year: Dr Peter Clarkson MBE from the Scott Polar Research Institute talking about his Antarctic explorations and the Institute’s education programme; secondly, Dr Chris Burgoyne who gave us an insight into the historical and engineering aspects of many of the Cambridge bridges. In the Easter Term we had the benefit of two ‘in-house’ speakers: Dr Kate Pretty sharing some of her cruise experiences and Dr Julia Anghileri about working with teachers at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre. It is amazing to hear about the range of interests and expertise of colleagues demonstrated before and since their times at Homerton. We hope to continue with these talks, at least one a term, during the coming academic year. You do not need to book a place, just come to the coffee morning, stay on and enjoy being challenged by the range of colleagues’ interests. Coffee Morning extended Social Events As has become a custom we were able to transform our coffee mornings into extended social events. The first was at Christmas and we were fortunate once again to be invited to the home of Pauline and Godfrey Curtis for a Christmas Gathering: carols, mulled wine, minced pies and so much more. The second was a Summer Picnic where we started with coffee as usual before touring the grounds to add reminisces of special places, some of
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 22
which may contribute to the College’s in-the-making Heritage Walk. Special Interest Groups There are currently two of these, the Emeritus Choir and the Book Club. Both always welcome new members. Separate reports from these two groups appear below. Almonry Members of the committee are keen to ensure that we keep in touch with others who are unwell or experiencing bereavement. Please do get in touch with anyone on the committee if you have any such news of colleagues who would value us being in touch with them. Newsletter RSMA members receive the Homertonian but in addition we have our own publication. Libby Jared has had this responsibility for the last two years. She is always on the look out for articles, news snippets and photographs. Membership Anne Thwaites has endeavoured to keep our membership list up to date. Information continually changes, so again, we rely upon news of members from all colleagues who hear from friends and ex Homerton staff about their changes of addresses, telephone numbers or emails. Looking Ahead During the coming year we hope to have an RSMA presence at one of the Formal Halls each term. We tried this out twice this year twice and both occasions were very well attended and warmly received. The Development Office is taking on the organization for this year. We hope to publish dates (they are always on a Tuesday) at the beginning of the year so that RSMs hoping to attend (and use their ‘meal a term’ allocation) can keep the dates free. We also hope the have visiting speakers, or arranged visits at least once a term and really need ideas for such happenings from all members. We have had wonderful help in keeping us all informed from Clare Ryan in the Development Office. We do congratulate Clare on becoming the Bursar’s secretary but recognise that we may require additional help to cover our needs in the future. Please look out for the dates of planned events and join us whenever you can. Carole Bennett on behalf of the RSMA Committee
Emeritus Choir
E
meritus is now in its tenth year and continues to flourish, now under the leadership of Alumna Sue Pinner who succeeded the Founders, Barbara Pointon and Jane Edden at the start of Easter Term 2015. In the Easter Term 2018 we were invited to present a song for the Homerton 250th Anniversary Website and thanks to Sue’s patience and skilful encouragement we duly sang her arrangement of the Frank Sinatra version of ‘High Hopes’.
Gaudeamus Igitur! We meet fortnightly in Term time and always welcome new members. Patricia Cooper P.S. from Carole Bennett: For less confident singers amongst us, the Choir offers a range of small percussion instruments with which to accompany their singing. No excuse to ‘opt out’ any longer.
Our next appearance will be at the RSMA Christmas Gathering in December.
Book Club
W
e meet about once a month, usually in the afternoon, at members’ homes. The host selects the book and leads the discussion and when it comes to an end we have tea, with cake! We have been meeting for over ten years and have covered a vast range of books (see last year’s Newsletter for the definitive list). John Murrell enjoyed humourous books, Elizabeth Edwards always admitted that she had read the book twice and Barry Jones wrote carefully planned questions to keep our discussions going. We miss them.
If you would like to join us please get in touch. Pauline Curtis P.S. from Carole Bennett: Having recently joined this group of bibliophiles myself I can thoroughly recommend the opportunity to debate the merits of the monthly selected book with like-minded readers. Each time I have come home really challenged and determined to read the book again and discover all that I missed the first time.
Members' Information for the College archive
I
n the autumn of 2017, the RSMA committee noted again that the College (in common with other employers) does not keep records of employees once six years have elapsed since their leaving or retiring from post. At times there has been need to provide information about members' careers in College both by the RSMA and by College and that has been quite difficult to collate.
perhaps the post they held, others were longer and gave details of many positions and activities that the respondent had carried out in addition to their teaching or administrative role. Some gave fascinating accounts of the relationships with faculties and departments in the university, particularly at the time when students were starting to take tripos papers for their main subject.
So the committee contacted members and asked them to complete a proforma, or to send a recent CV if that was more appropriate, and hopefully to provide photographs of themselves. With the member's permission, these documents are held in the College archive in an attempt to build up a 'catalogue' of the staff of Homerton. Tom Simms kept a record of the staff for many years but sadly this was not continued when he retired.
Currently fifty three people have sent in information from a membership of ninety three (well over half); however the aim was to try to get much closer to 100%! There is no closing date for sending information – so if you haven't sent anything in, now is a good time to do it.
Over the following months, many RSMs responded – some were short, dates of employment in College and
If you have any queries please contact me (eat20@cam.ac.uk) and I will gladly help. Anne Thwaites
Missed the deadline? Why not write an article for the next RSMA Newsletter?
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 23
Four minutes to go to the AGM
Carole bearing mince pies Dorothy & Kate quizzing Godfrey over punch recipes perhaps?
Kate with her trusted technology
Christmas Gathering 14th December 2017 kindly hosted by Pauline and Godfrey Curtis
Sue P, Chris D & Lally another mince pie delivery imminent
Formal Hall maestro Anne with Julia & Dhiru
Trust no-one has brought Duck Pate sandwiches for the picnic
Formal Hall 6th March 2018 Coffee Morning 20th October 2017
Richard, Mike & Stephen – a ‘formal’ conversation
Plenty of time to chat over coffee now we are all retired
Summer Picnic 22nd June 2018
John A ‘spinning a yarn’ to Peter & Ian
Photo credits: Front Page & p.2 Homerton Development Office; p.7, 8 & 9 Becky Warren, NRICH; p.9 Carole Bennett; p.10 CUED, Libby Jared; p.11 AnneThwaites; p.12 & 13 Gabrielle Cliff Hodges; p13 Christine Doddington; p.14 John Hopkins; p.15 & 16 David Whitebread; p.18 Philip Rundall; p19, 21 Homerton Archive; p.24 Jane Edden (top right), others Libby Jared
rsma newsletter september 2018 page 24