10 minute read
Ten years of girls at Trinity
Alumni in the spotlight
Alisdair Kitchen, filmmaker
We were delighted to hear 2001 leaver, Alisdair, has been awarded a grant from the Genesis Foundation for a series of short films. The Foundation supports “outstanding freelance talent in the creative sector across the UK”, with over 30 leading figures from the Arts on its Advisory Council including Barbara Broccoli and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Alisdair is currently working on a film version of Phaedra - “Getting opera singers used to being on camera is a challenge!” He also works with art galleries, is Director of Digital Programmes at the Rye Arts Festival, resident filmmaker at the National Opera Studio and offers high quality audition and publicity videography. His work has featured on Classic FM, OperaVision and The Arts Channel.
Alisdair has been blessed with wonderful mentors over the years starting with teachers at Trinity including Andrew Truella and Neil Goble (with whom he had organ lessons), piano teacher Nigel Clayton, and Latin teacher Simon Marshall who had a penchant for German songs and introduced Alisdair to Schubert’s Harfenspieler. Alisdair has fond memories of the great Jonathan Miller, who gave him support and inspiration until his death a couple of years ago. “The connection came through Professor Robert Winton at the Royal College of Music. I told him I would love to chat to Jonathan Miller and he gave me his address. I prepared a postcard and went to Miller’s house to deliver it personally. Jonathan was not in, but he telephoned a couple of weeks later and invited me over for a chat. We got on famously and, thereafter, I would arrive for a monthly visit.”
You can read a full interview with Alisdair in the Resources section of My Trinity at www.mytrinity.org.uk.
www.alisdairkitchen.com
Paul Murdin’s star turn
Astronomer, broadcaster and commentator for the BBC and CNN, Professor Paul Murdin OBE ‘Zoomed’ back to Trinity to give a talk on Black Holes to our Physics Society. Lower Sixth students Aman de Silva and Mahdeia Hidary recalled the virtual visit by our distinguished alumnus who left Trinity in 1960:
“After telling us about his career, Professor Murdin plunged into the theory of gravity, with a special focus on black holes. The professor outlined his part in the discovery of the very first black hole, Cygnus X-1. His observations of a binary star system showed that one object was a blue supergiant star and the other a strong X-ray source. His team calculated that the large X-ray source was radiating from a very small point, confirming it to be a black hole. This discovery was the first major evidence of the existence of black holes and marked the beginning of physicists’ experimental observation of these cosmic beasts."
With thanks to Paul for a fascinating talk!
Temi Ladega for Prizegiving
Henry Aldridge’s LA project
We were delighted to hear that 2010 leaver, Temi Ladega has accepted an invitation from the Headmaster to be our guest speaker at Prizegiving in July.
Temi is a Vice-President at J P Morgan having started his career there as an analyst in their Emerging Markets & Asia Pacific team. His current role as a sector specialist covers the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Consumer and Retail industry. Temi provides advice to institutional investors looking at the sector and facilitates IPOs and other corporate activities, as well as managing risk. Away from his desk, Temi supports JP Morgan’s EMEA campus recruitment and Diversity and Inclusion efforts.
Temi is currently studying for an MBA parttime and also finds time to mentor others through J P Morgan and other initiatives he has spearheaded.
When we asked Temi what advice he would give his 18 year-old self, he said:
Congratulations to 2017 leaver, Henry Aldridge, who came second in an architecture competition organised by the Los Angeles Mayor’s office to redevelop a site previously occupied by the house of film director Josef von Sternberg. The other winners of the competition were experienced architects and designers with most working in teams. Henry worked on his own!
Henry attained a First Class Honours degree in Architecture from Cambridge and is currently gaining practical work experience with Cooke Fawcett Architects. He will then return to university for a two-year Master’s course (MArch) which is generally followed by a further year of practical training and a final qualifying exam. Henry used 3D virtual reality technology in his ultimate presentation at university, prompting his lecturers at Cambridge to invite him back to teach students how to use Enscape3d softtware.
You can see his final project and the 3D technology (best seen via a smartphone for the full experience) by searching for Henry Aldridge ‘Stables for the Interregnum’ – there is a QR code for use on a smartphone 13 minutes into the presentation.
Medics on the front line
Alumnus Alistair Slade gave us a perspective on how the COVID pandemic has impacted on his ways of working in the last year, at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.
After leaving Trinity in 1977, Alistair trained in Medicine at Cambridge University and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, graduating in 1984. Shortly after qualifying, he met his wife to be, Sara a Middlesex nurse. They have now been together 36 years, and have four grown up children.
“I have very fond memories of Trinity, which prepared me very well academically for medical school. I suspect I drifted toward medicine because that is what people who were good at science did. I have had no regrets about my career choice and indeed, it has been a privilege to be a Cardiologist over the past 30 years or so, and witness the huge strides in drug treatment and interventions that have taken place.”
After training in and around London, Alistair undertook specific cardiology training at the Brompton Hospital and St George's Hospital, before becoming Consultant Cardiologist in Truro in 1996. He has undertaken several trust management roles including Clinical Director on two occasions and is currently an Associate Medical Director. He has also been on the Council of the British Heart Rhythm Society for the last eight years and is currently its President, having taken up this role in October 2020.
“The COVID pandemic has been extremely challenging for healthcare. Although the Southwest has probably been the best place in England to live and work during the pandemic, it has still been incredibly disruptive and challenging to deliver acute healthcare. In the first wave we saw a marked drop in the usual type of patients that cardiologists see, including those with suspected heart attacks. This was noticed all over the world, but eventually these patients began to come back to hospital to receive their urgent treatment.
We were placed on surge rotas, focusing on inpatient management, with most other activities suspended. Our team briefly looked after a ward of COVID patients as well as our own cardiac patients. Over the summer, we began to
recover, but it became clear that a further surge was imminent, and indeed, this has proven to be far more significant in terms of numbers, impact and duration. Our hospital has again been luckier than many in terms of numbers of patients admitted, but we have still admitted more than twice the number that we saw earlier in 2020. Nationally, it is clear that planned procedures will take many months, if not years, to recover previous waiting positions and, of course, there is the on-going uncertainty of how COVID will develop.
Vaccination is the key and I was fortunate enough to be jabbed early on in the process as a key worker at high risk because of age and BMI. I continue to have to work in very full PPE, which limits the time I can spend in patient-facing work.
It has certainly been an interesting experience to have worked during such a pandemic and, although beyond the standard NHS retirement age, it just does not seem the right time to walk away from the front line.” 2007 leaver and medic Matt Beal is flying high
Matt left Trinity in 2007 after finishing his A Levels, having been one of the few students to have taken a ‘mini-gap year’ between GCSEs and A Levels. Before going on to read Medicine at the University of East Anglia, where he also graduated as Master of Clinical Education (Distinction), Matt was heavily involved backstage in the Trinity Drama productions and with the Mitre Players, taking a second post A-level gap year to work as a technical assistant at the school. Matt attributes his hardworking attitude, focus and ability to cope under pressure to his time spent doing extra-curricular drama at Trinity and looks especially fondly on the care and support given to him to pursue his interests, even where this may have made his schoolwork suffer! In 2017, Matt began his postgraduate training in Anaesthesia, concentrating on the Acute Care Specialities (Anaesthesia, Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine), with a view to subspeciality training in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine. When the COVID pandemic hit the UK, Matt was deployed on the Intensive
Care Unit in Poole, Dorset, initially leading the training of non-
ICU staff who would form the emergency intubation teams, before working hands-on covering the COVID intensive care units.
Matt is currently working as an EPIC Fellow in North Wales, providing pre-hospital critical care on the Wales Air
Ambulance, dividing the rest of his time between the
Intensive Care Unit and the
Emergency Department.
He said “Being on the front line during the pandemic has been emotionally, physically and mentally challenging, but it has been such a privilege to have the knowledge and skills to make a difference for those who have needed it.” Alumna Sophie Winter, who left Trinity in 2013 to read Medicine at Liverpool University told us about how the pandemic impacted on her training.
"I finished my F1 (Foundation doctor) year at Medway Hospital in the summer of 2020. In the first wave, trainee rotations were changed and I ended up working on a Geriatric ward for longer than planned due to increasing hospital admissions. However, I learnt a lot and enjoyed my time there.
Since August, I’ve been working as an F2 doctor at East Surrey Hospital which has been great so far. I worked in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and then briefly moved to general practice, but in January was again redeployed to work on the medical wards at the hospital. I will shortly be moving on to my A&E rotation.
I am hoping to take a year out of training next year to go travelling and to apply for specialty training, possibly in Anaesthetics.
Despite its challenges I feel grateful to have been able to work throughout the pandemic, and although my rotations were different to the initial plan, I learnt a lot and enjoyed them very much. In December, I was able to administer some of the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine at my GP practice which was an exciting moment - finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel!"
