ChurchillTheNEWSLETTER 2010

Our Jubilee year is finally here!

We’ve hosted some great 50thAnniversary events so far and it’sbeen a pleasure meeting new andfamiliar faces. I hope that many ofyou will join us in the celebrations atforthcoming Churchill events inCambridge, Oxford, London,Edinburgh, New York and Toronto; afull list can be found on the backcover. I don’t need to tell you thatChurchill College is the college that

likes to party. So by way of maintaining that festive spirit we have new and excitingevents planned right up until 5 June 2014, which will be fifty years to the day since theCollege was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in1964.

Churchill is a vibrant community with lots of different activities taking place that alumnican enjoy. From a Reunion weekend, a Churchill Association careers evening forstudents, a Churchill Archives Centre conference, a public lecture, an art exhibition, asculpture tour, to an Open Gardens day – there’s something for you to do when youcome back, and not least, a trip down memory lane. Please do come and see us, dine at High Table, and let us know what you’ve been up to since graduation.

As always I’m delighted to take this opportunity to thank those of you who havesupported us in diverse ways this year. To supporters old and new: you really do make apositive difference in what we can offer Churchill students today. Thank you – and keepup the good work!

I hope you enjoy this issue of The Churchill Newsletter and as an added incentive toread it thoroughly you’ll find a puzzle devised by Chris Sherliker contained within theLaw feature. The first person to contact us with the solution to the puzzle will receive alimited edition Churchill College 50th T-shirt. Good luck!

Sharon MauriceDevelopment Director

3THE CHURCHILL 20102 THE CHURCHILL 2010

Hello!

The ContentsPAGE 3From the Master

PAGE 4From Padre to Dean to the Canon

PAGE 6Take only pictures – leave only footprints

PAGE 7Release of Margaret Thatcher’s private papers

PAGE 8Playing History, or, Band of Brothersand the quest for authenticity

PAGE 10Playing Churchill

PAGE 11Manufacturing the future

PAGE 12 – 15Law at Churchill

PAGE 16On a coral reef in London

PAGE 17My astrophysical journey

PAGE 18Sunny Cambridge

PAGE 20A good hair day

PAGE 21Flying roast ducks

PAGE 22The lucky guinea pigs

PAGE 23Never a better time to be a Churchillian

PAGE 24Alumni events & contact

Published byChurchill CollegeEditor: Tim CribbStorey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DS. Tel. 01223 336197; Fax 01223 336177; Newsletter.Editor@chu.cam.ac.uk

Design & layout: www.cantellday.co.uk Print: Norwich Colour Print

All texts, photographs and illustrative material, except where acknowledged otherwise, are © Churchill College 2010. We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce illustrationsand photographs: Ronald Searle (p5), Churchill Archive Centre (p7), Gavin Bateman (p7), David James (p8,9) & Institute of Manufacturing (p11).

Message from the Master

Many of you have taken part in thecelebrations: the tree planting by MarySoames in full view of the oak planted byher father 50 years previously, to the day;the anniversary of the first GoverningBody meeting in the presence ofdistinguished Founder Fellows; theremarkable Cold War Conferenceorganised by Allen Packwood; the officiallaunch of the celebrations and campaignin the Cabinet War Rooms on 30November, Sir Winston’s Birthday – areminder of the heritage andresponsibility we carry; special events inNew York and San Francisco; the verymoving Duckworth memorial event; the‘Churchill Couples’ meeting at the DavidCoffer Group offices where Clementineand Winston held their weddingreception; and so many more. It has beentruly uplifting and fun, and I am reallygrateful to all of you who have supportedthem, and not least to the Alumni andDevelopment Office for the immenseeffort that they are making to ensurethey are a success.

Last year was of coursethe 800th anniversary of the University, and it was good to be able to participate also in the University events in New York and SanFrancisco. I was pleasedto be able to write one of the 800 Letters to theFuture, which have beenstored in the Universitylibrary, to be opened byaddressees in 100 yearstime – and made publicif the addressees wish.

It was sobering to reflect, not least on thechoice of addressee who one can beconfident will be around in 2109:Elizabeth’s inspiration – truly our future –the President of the JCR at Churchill. Mylips must be sealed, as is the letter. Sufficeto say only that I speculated on their viewsof the legacy which our generation willhave left for them. The canny Scot in meplaced a copy in the Churchill Archives,being the most secure location in the Eastof England!

There are many great events still tocome, in Oxford and Edinburgh, as wellas in Cambridge and London. In March, I will visit the University of Tennessee and the Howard Baker Center, where we have so many friends and supportersof the Archives Centre, and attend the

50th Anniversary Gala Dinner of theWinston Churchill Foundation of the USA, in Florida. In April, Elizabeth, Allen Packwood and I will be inSingapore and Hong Kong, cramming inAlumni gatherings and joint events withthe National University of Singapore andHong Kong University. And in Novembera group of us will visit again New Yorkand Toronto.

Elizabeth and I look forward very much toseeing you as the year unfolds.

David Wallace

It is a great privilege to be part of this special place at any time,but to be Master during our 50th anniversary is extraordinary.

ABOVE The Master & VC in the War Rooms

4 THE CHURCHILL 2010

His feats in maintaining morale amongthe Cambridgeshire Regiment prisonersof war in Burma are well known throughRussell Braddon’s memoir, The NakedIsland. Another PoW there was RonaldSearle. In a letter giving us permission touse his drawing of Noel in action here he describes him as a ‘great friend’ and‘universally loved’. Full details of thememorial event will appear in the CollegeReview. Here we highlight a less wellknown phase of Noel’s life. It is based ona panel of the exhibition organised byMichael Smyth (U67), who is gatheringmaterial for a full scale biography, andthis panel was about Noel in Ghana.

He went there at a significant moment inGhana’s history. Achimota College hadbeen founded in 1927 under the auspicesof an enlightened Governor, Sir GordonGuggisberg, to foster an elite with a viewto eventual independence. At theinsistence of his Ghanaian collaborators, itwas co-educational, an extraordinary thingat that date. Is this the remote origin ofNoel’s championing of the right forwomen’s boats to compete on the river,against the opposition of the day? For itwas to Achimota that Noel came in 1948,when the College was re-organised into aschool, a teacher training college, and theUniversity of the Gold Coast, each with itsown ample campus. Noel was attached tothe latter as Dean and described it as ‘aCambridge of the tropics’.

Characteristically, he didn’t stay oncampus but explored the surroundingvillages. There he found that access to acolonial primary education was limited byfees of 5/- a week – no light matter for afamily where the bread earner might earnonly 1/6 a day. The online site of theAnglican Diocese of Accra describes howhe overcame the fees barrier in thevillage of Alogboshie:

Rev. Duckworth did a lot for thecongregation. The six joint candle standwas made for the church by him. He putup the building in which members areworshipping. After completion of thechurch building, the Dean, as he waspopularly known, started Middle Form 1under a nim tree near the church. Lateron he put up a four-classroom buildingand office and store.

Was it Noel himself sitting under that nimtree dispensing no doubt wisdom as wellas knowledge? It can’t have been him allthe time, as he did something similar infive other villages. He was indeeduniversally loved, for the Anglican sitecontinues: ‘A big misfortune hit thechurch, when the Dean … left thecountry’. But he did not leave it as Dean.The man we knew on the Churchillcampus as the Canon was elevated tothat status by Holy Trinity Cathedral,Accra. It is clear that Ghana was close tohis heart, for with what modest funds hehad he founded the Duckworth Bursary.This is not large but occasionally sufficesfor a student to come to Churchill fromWest Africa, especially if they are doingsomething for education.

Ed.

From Padre to Dean tothe CanonOn 23 January theCollege was privilegedto celebrate one of themost moving events ofits 50th. Anniversaryyear, a memorialservice, symposium,exhibition and dinnerfor Noel Duckworth,known in College andon river as the Canon.

RIGHT The Canon diplays his tow-pathtechnique. The picture carries the signaturesof other PoWs.

7THE CHURCHILL 20106 THE CHURCHILL 2010

On 30 January 2010 the Archives Centreopened Lady Thatcher’s personal andpolitical files from her first year as PrimeMinister. Following the release of herofficial files for 1979 at the NationalArchives in Kew, this was the first time aBritish Prime Minister’s private and officialpapers have ever been released in tandem.

Among the papers released wereMargaret Thatcher’s handwritten notes onthe composition of her first Cabinet, May1979, copies of her correspondence withworld leaders at the height of the coldwar (including Presidents Carter andBrezhnev) and her scribbled annotationson documents showing her to have been deeply unimpressed by theEuropean Community.

With the help of material being released inparallel in other collections held by the

Centre, most notably the papers of Sir John Hoskyns and Sir Bernard Ingham,the material arguably gives a fuller pictureof life at No.10 Downing Street underMargaret Thatcher than during the term of any of her predecessors. Many of the key documents have been placedonline at www.margaretthatcher.org, the official website of the MargaretThatcher Foundation.

To mark the occasion, the Archives Centreheld a press day where journalists from allthe UK’s major broadsheet newspapersand representatives of world-wide presssyndicates visited College; the release wasalso highlighted by the BBC and ITN.

To emphasise the truly personal nature of the Thatcher papers, most of thenewspapers led on the (egg-based) dietsheet found tucked into her pocket diary

for 1979. It was assumed that the diet wasto help give her energy during the 1979general election campaign.

Andrew Riley Thatcher Papers Archivist

Release of Margaret Thatcher’s private papersfor May-December 1979

The Churchill Archives Centre now regularlystages conference, lectures and symposia.These events are designed to create adialogue between the past and present,bringing together some of the key publicfigures who created the archival evidencewith those in the academic community whoare seeking to use it. The last few monthshave seen two such major events.

On the 18th and 19th November 2009,sixty years after the Berlin airlift, andtwenty years on from the fall of the BerlinWall, the College played host to a twoday conference on ‘The Cold War and itsLegacy’. Organised in partnership withthe Howard H Baker Jr Center for PublicPolicy at the University of Tennessee, theconference brought together participantsfrom both sides of the former IronCurtain, with representatives from China,Germany, Japan, Romania, Russia, theUnited Kingdom and the United States.His Excellency Grigoriy Karasin, theDeputy Foreign Minister of the RussianFederation, and Susan Eisenhower,grand-daughter of the former AmericanPresident, were the keynote speakers for the opening session. Hugh Lunghidescribed his experiences as aninterpreter for Churchill in his meetingswith Stalin. Former Senator John Warner,

Lord (Charles) Powell, and Dr AlexanderLikhotal compared notes on working forReagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev. AndGary Powers Jr spoke movingly about hisfather (the U2 pilot who was shot down)and how this had inspired him to create aCold War Museum.

Monday 1st February 2010 witnessed the delivery of the 13th Stephen RoskillMemorial Lecture by Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, and theman famously labelled ‘Red Ken’ by the tabloid press in the 1980’s for hisradical leadership of the Greater LondonCouncil. Mr Livingstone drew on hisdecades of experience in London politicsto talk about the challenges facing citiesin the future.

Allen Packwood Director of the Archives

From the Cold War to Red Ken:using the archives to encourage debate

Take only pictures – leave only footprints23/12/2008: Sitting on the train home

for Christmas, my body shakes with

adrenaline as I read an email on my phone

from the Inspire Antarctic Expedition: ‘Many

thanks for your interest in the Expedition to

Antarctica.... We appreciate that you have

spent considerable time and effort

preparing your application….We received

almost 1,700 applicants....’ Oh dear, sounds

like a Dear John letter. But wait – ‘We’re

delighted to inform you that the judges

were particularly impressed with your

application and we would therefore like to

offer you a place on the expedition.’

AHHHHH! – I read it again – this can’t be

true, I continue shaking but this time with

excitement; I am such a jammy....

27/3/2009: Three months later, I am

aboard the Akademik Ioffee crossing a

particularly rough Drake Passage from

Argentina to the Antarctic Peninsula.

On board is a team of academics, energy

industrialists and students all keenly

interested in sustainability and climate

change mitigation. We’re being led by the

polar explorer, Robert Swan, the first man

to walk to both the North and South

Poles. He has a slight stoop as if he is

still dragging the sledge behind him and

repeats the phrase “carry on” with true

British gusto. We continue with our

programme of talks despite 50 ft waves

crashing into the side of the boat and

people looking very pale.

28/3/2009: I am listening to a

postgraduate student from MIT explaining

the complexities and downfalls of the

Clean Development Mechanism as

icebergs drift past the porthole. Is this really

happening? Everything is feeling very

dreamlike. Someone calls down that

they’ve spotted a humpback whale. I dart

upstairs onto the deck forgetting the cold

temperatures and there are three

humpbacks in the distance.

29/3/2009: It’s the third day of the

expedition and we’ve disembarked onto a

small island. I am building a roofless igloo

in which I am going to spend the night.

My group has wisely decided not to build

a roof, so that we can star gaze. The boat

leaves us for the night and the sun sets

in the sky revealing the spectacle of the

Milky Way to feast our eyes upon. I wake

up in the morning curled up in a ball in

the bottom of my sleeping bag.

A year on, I often find myself thinking of

Antarctica; the pristine white landscape,

untouched directly by mankind, the myriad

of blues from the ice, the utter silence

broken only by ice calving into the sea or

the occasional squawking of a penguin.

To be truthful, I am troubled by the

unsustainable nature of the trip. Whilst

I recognise the contradiction of the

expedition’s actions with its aims, it

succeeded by ingraining a deep sense

of sustainability within me. It is certainly

the time to take control of our impact

upon the planet’s processes and to wisely

sustain the conditions for civilisation to

flourish. Clearly it would not be sustainable

to inspire everyone by taking them

to Antarctica and thus the challenge is

to achieve this shift by other means.

Will Rayward–Smith (U05, G08),

Earth Sciences, MCR President 2009-10

ABOVE Landing on Cuverville Island, home of the Gentoo Penguins

LEFT Will Rayward-Smith

9THE CHURCHILL 20108 THE CHURCHILL 2010

First, the most famousadvice ever written for actors, Hamlet’s:‘The purpose ofplaying … was and isto hold, as ‘twere, themirror up to nature; toshow … the very ageand body of the timehis form and pressure’.

Second, compare that remit to thehistorian’s. In The Idea of History,Collingwood says the historian can onlyuncover the ‘inner rationale’ of events by‘re-enacting’ within his own mind thethoughts of the person with whoseactivities he is dealing. Critics ofCollingwood say this encourages ‘theimplausible view that the historianpossesses a mysterious power ofempathetic identification with the mindsof historical agents’. There is nothingmysterious about this to me. I feel likeliving proof of it, what you get when youcross an amateur historian with aprofessional actor.

And so to the year-long history lessonthat was Band of Brothers, at$12,000,000 an hour the most expensiveTV series ever made.

Harry Welsh was born on September27th 1918 in Luzerne CountyPennsylvania. He volunteered after PearlHarbour and was dropped into German-occupied France on June 6th 1944. OnChristmas Eve he was badly wounded,but he returned in time [to be] part of theadvance party that took Hitler’s Eagle’sNest! After the war he married his

childhood sweetheart, who wore a bridalgown made of the parachute he had keptwith him since the D-Day drop. It was myconsiderable privilege to be given the jobof portraying him.

I started work, as we all here start work,in the library. I may have ended up in amuddy field in sodden khaki shoutingorders in an accent that wasn’t my own,but I began with a reading list. Since itwas Stephen Ambrose’s book that formedthe backbone to the TV series, his writingwas the starting point. Ambrose basesmuch of his work on interviews withsurviving veterans, so it’s largely anecdotalrather than primary evidence. His chiefsource for Harry was Dick Winters, whobefriended Harry as soon as he arrivedand stayed close to him after the war, soDick’s opinions were as good as any.Ambrose calls Harry a ‘reluctant officer’ –during training Harry was busted fromsergeant back down to private threetimes, for fighting! That phrase laterinformed a lot of my decisions, but at thisearly stage of reading I took stories likethis on board without clinging to them.Until there are primary sources to back upsecondary it’s fine to let your actor’simagination run riot, as long as thehistorian in you stays circumspect.

A week or so later I got to confront himmore directly – the production sent theirown research packs to us actors, and Iwas thrilled to find some primary sources.I had a couple of photos, so could put aface to the name, and I had copies ofsome letters Harry had written to DickWinters. Now I had to bridge the gapbetween us.

First came physical fitness. As soon asthe research started I upped my exerciseregime. Little did I know that nothingcould have prepared us for how far theproduction was willing to push us in theeleven days of bootcamp immediately

Playing History, or, Band of Brothersand the quest for authenticity

BELOW Ric at work

FAR RIGHT Ric at rest

before shooting. That phrase fromAmbrose’s book about Harry being ‘areluctant officer’ kept ringing in my ears.The reluctance came very easily. I hatedbootcamp. I’ll never forget it. But I hated it.

How did it inform the work? For achievingauthenticity it was gold dust, and you cansee its effects on all the actors whoattended it. And you can see the lack of those effects on the actors who didn’t– another authenticity, since ‘green’replacements were so often required tofill the ranks on the front line, and wereso often the most vulnerable in combat.

Next, the script arrived. The mostimportant factor now was what had beenincluded and what omitted. Just as thehistorian cannot incorporate every detail,so the script is selective (and at theediting stage this selection processhappens again).

And now we come to the business. Afterall this preparation and incessant drivefor authenticity, no expense spared, howdo we make the lowly acting count? Alittle like combat, funnily enough – actingconvincingly on film is partly aboutcontrolled chaos. We don’t have to fakebeing wet and cold, because after a weekin our costumes in a Hatfield field in Aprilwe are wet and cold, and with that hugemetal beast of a tank towering over usnerves come pretty easily too. After that,the most convincing acting you do onscreen is the moments you never plan.Now this does have some bearing onhistoriography, because I recall ongoingdiscussions at Cambridge about Whighistory – that story of perpetual progressto a glorious present – and how to avoidit. That’s what I’m trying to describe inacting terms – how to play the reality ofa moment without playing foreknowledgeof its outcome.

So when the controlled chaos results inmy helmet falling off after the tank’s firedover our heads, and in panic I have to pullit from the ground onto my head as theaction continues, cursing as I push thescene on because soon the tank will beupon our heads, it’s almost on us, that

controlled chaos is precisely what I’m after. In that moment Harry appearsvulnerable, and the combat looksfrightening and real. Since the reality offighting is chaotic and unknown, acting itshould be too: ‘Hold, as ‘twere, the mirrorup to nature’.

Why all this effort? Why this massivebudget? Why authenticity? It has to do withtiming, with accountability, with sensitivity.This ten-hour programme was made withsuch attention to detail because thatgeneration of veterans deserved to see it,and because they were its most importantcritics, and only they could really judge itsauthenticity. They saw the rough cutsbefore we did and if they said an episodedidn’t happen, we couldn’t show it. At timesit felt like a giant project of catharsis forthese survivors. Most of them had neverspoken about their combat experiences toanyone except the veterans they saw atreunions. Band of Brothers gave them avoice. The series had to be made beforethey all passed away.

Harry unfortunately had passed away[but] I met some of the men he’dcommanded. It’s one thing readingAmbrose’s book, quite another whenveterans are there in front of you, thelines of their experience written all overtheir faces, holding themselves proud andmaking jokes when being photographedlike ‘Hurry wid dat, would ya, my legs’rekillin me’, when they don’t have any legs,and everyone present knows why,because we shot that scene two weeksago. Even though 50 years after theevents and marked by the rose tints ofnostalgia, the historian in me knew thiswas no secondary source, but directcontact with the history itself.

I leave you with the rather bizarre thought that I’ve become a source in myown right. What do history students heremake of the fact that if you type in thename Harry Welsh online it’s me thatcomes up?!

Rick Warden (U91)

Manufacturingthe future

Mike Gregory, Head of the

Institute for Manufacturing, has

just moved into his new building.

It’s on the West Cambridge

site and he’s quite excited.

Making the most of ideas and

opportunities is what the IfM

is all about: building stronger

bridges between academia,

industry and government, to help

turn ideas and opportunities into

products and services – very

much a Churchillian aspiration.

From its inception in 1998, the IfM,embedded in the Manufacturing andManagement Division of the Departmentof Engineering, has adopted a broad viewof manufacturing. We include (he explains)the understanding of markets, research,design, product development, production,distribution, services and, increasingly,sustainability. So the Institute bringstogether expertise in engineering,management and policy under one roofand combines this broad scope within aunique structure that integrates education,research and practice. Introducing andeducating people to the challenge andexcitement of turning ideas andopportunities into products and services isenormous fun and the new Arup-designedbuilding is a perfect home in which toaccomplish this.

The building was made possible bydonations from engineer and philanthropistDr Alan Reece, after whom the building isnamed, from the Gatsby CharitableFoundation and from local industry. Wesee ourselves as a ‘community centre’ forall those involved with manufacturing andto engage with that community we needto support the core interests of communitymembers, and that’s reflected in ourresearch activity and broader themes.

These themes include IndustrialSustainability, Service Engineering – inwhich the IfM is already taking a nationallead – Industrial Innovation and EmergingIndustries, building on the strengths of

our research centres to address the mostpressing industrial issues. Newchallenges and opportunities are nowpossible after the move to the newfacilities. We have a wonderful platformto inspire, engage and educate people inthe excitement and challenge ofmanufacturing and industrial innovation.

The IfM has a major supporter in Vice-Chancellor Professor Alison Richard. Atthe opening of the £15 million buildinglast November, she said: “There is nomore vivid a model of linking academiawith the needs of society than theInstitute for Manufacturing.”

The integrated structure of education,research and practice includesundergraduate, graduate and post-experience courses; research centrescovering the full spectrum of policy,management and technology issues; anda flourishing links to industry unit. Theemphasis is on collaboration, locally,nationally and internationally acrossdisciplines, across centres, across theUniversity and across industries. Andinformal networks are already beginningto form spontaneously – just as wehoped they might.

For more information about research atthe Institute for Manufacturing, pleasevisit www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/

Mike Gregory (F85)Head of Institute for Manufacturing

11THE CHURCHILL 201010 THE CHURCHILL 2010

In 1979 it was my turn. I stress “remotely”,because when the American co-producersof the BBC’s three-and-a-half-hourtelevision epic Churchill and the Generalslooked at my photograph, they insisted onmake-up changes that each day would hailme from my bed in the very smallest hoursof the morning. My hair was bleached white,and a matching piece added on top. I had aprosthetic nose added, and prosthetic ears– an extravagance I had never encounteredbefore, but then Churchill’s ears did extendfurther down his face than most people’s.

My eyes were wrong, too. Winston’s eyeswere a watery blue, mine are brown. I hadworn cosmetic contact-lenses before, asHoratio Bottomley, but had had ratherlonger to become adjusted to them thanwould be the case this time. ‘Wear themjust for an hour at a time to begin with,’ thepractitioner advised me at the final fitting,‘and try to avoid strong lights and cigarettesmoke.’ ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Fine. I shall be filming inthem for probably ten hours a day, in studiolighting, mostly smoking a cigar.’

Churchill and the Generals exploredWinston’s relationship with each of thewar-time Allied Commanders: Alanbrooke,Wavell, Auchinleck, Alexander, Montgomery,Ismay, as well as Eisenhower, Marshall andde Gaulle. Ian Curteis in his screenplayexamined Churchill’s tendency finally to relyon his own instinct rather than the adviceof his expert commanders; a tendency thatbecame almost a principle, that probablyled him to make terrible mistakes like themonstrously ill-advised invasion of theDardanelles, but that on the other handfinally won the war.

Originally, the schedule had provided for usto spend a couple of days in North Africato shoot an important sequence during thecampaign in the Western Desert. As so

frequently happens in filming, budgetaryreadjustment took us instead to CamberSands in Kent.

It was May, but one of the coldest Mays inrecent memory and the bronzed soldiersgoing about in uniform singlets had to bekept far enough from the camera for thegoose-pimples not to be visible beneaththe glistening artificial sweat. Patrick Allenas Auchinleck and I had a breakfastscene in a tent, and the Director, AlanGibson, had asked that there should beflies buzzing about us as we ate ourbacon and eggs. The Property Masterexplained that, the outside temperaturebeing about two degrees centigrade, flieswere not at the present moment anoption. But the Director was insistent.

I think I would rather not know where theyactually found some flies, but a hundred orso were eventually brought back in a smalltin. Most of them died as soon as the tinwas opened, but a dozen or so still flutteredweakly. ‘Get a fan,’ said Alan, ‘and blowthem about.’

Patrick and I settled to our breakfast,edging the wind-driven corpses aside asthey plopped into our fried eggs. Where,we asked ourselves, was the glamour…?

Timothy West, CBE, visited the Collegefor lunch (not breakfast) when acting atCambridge Arts Theatre last summer

Playing Churchill

ABOVE Playing Churchill: Timothy West

Every actor who looks even remotely like him is sooner or later asked toplay Winston Churchill.

3THE CHURCHILL 201012 THE CHURCHILL 2010 13

In 1967, Churchill Law undergraduateswere a very rare breed. Out of a Freshmenintake of over 100, there were just three.There were no second-year Lawyers andonly three in their final year. The Lawsection of the Bracken Library occupiedtwo shelves of one bookcase; thepublication dates of most books preceded1960, the year of the College’s foundation.

It might therefore be difficult for the readerto imagine how the year of ‘67 managed toproduce two circuit judges and a bankingwizard. The explanation is simple; it lies notin the quality of the undergraduate but inthe excellence of the teaching andsupervision. A college with such a small andirregular intake of Law students could notjustify a large teaching staff – in fact, apartfrom its Director of Studies, Dr DerrickMcClintock, there was no Law supervisionwithin the college. Derrick was anoutstanding Criminologist, soon to be thefirst occupant of the chair in Criminology atEdinburgh – but Criminology was a post-graduate option so none of us were

supervised by him. It might be thought bysome that we were the poor relations of theUniversity Law Faculty – but nothing couldbe further from the truth. Because of theabsence of in-house supervision, that hadto be provided elsewhere. Quite simply, wereceived the best which the university hadto offer. Long before the days of gps, wehad to find our way to Downing, SidneySussex, Emmanuel, Trinity, Trinity Hall, St John’s and Caius – not to mention thebackwaters of leafy Girton village.

I do not believe that in the early days ofthe College’s existence schools advisedtheir would-be lawyers to apply toChurchill because of the excellence of itsreputation as a ‘Law college’ – that had tobe – and certainly has been – earned withthe passage of time. I cannot speak for myfellow Law undergraduates, but Ipersonally had indifferent (all right, poor) ALevel results and am certain that I wasencouraged to apply to Churchill because Iwas, at best, ‘borderline Oxbridge’ materialwhose chances of being accepted were

considerably greater there than at arecognised Law college.

How times have changed! Churchill isnow the first choice of many would-besolicitors and barristers. I know, as thefather of a Churchill Lawyer, how muchthis is due to Professor Matt Kramer, whohas striven to ensure that the ChurchillLawyer is a force to be reckoned with.Long may this continue!

Clement Goldstone QC (U67)

An early lawyer

I don’t recall my response when asked, at

my Churchill interview, why I wanted to

read Law. As I got in, I assume I came up

with something better than the

unvarnished truth – that it seemed as

good a choice as any other for a

seventeen year-old with no particular

career goals. Whatever I said, my time at

Cambridge has presented so many

opportunities that it certainly was the

best choice I ever drifted into.

As a litigation partner at Allen & Overy in

New York I am fortunate to be able to

work on fascinating legal issues. My

career has also given me the opportunity

to live in several countries and to travel to

many more. (Sadly, though, Cambridge

did not teach me, and I have never

learned, how to be rested and coherent

after an overnight flight.)

A few years after starting my career in

London, I decided it might be fun to work

in New York. After convincing them that

the Churchill College, Cambridge reflected

on my résumé was indeed part of the

Cambridge they had heard of, I persuaded

a major New York law firm to give me a

job. The New York experience began

inauspiciously when, a few weeks after

arriving, I was close enough to the World

Trade Center to be showered in debris on

September 11.

Although a career takes many ingredients,

including luck, there is no better preparation

for the always thrilling, sometimes terrifying,

experience of appearing before a judge than

defending one’s work in tutorial from the

age of eighteen. Some years ago, I was

involved in a particularly contentious trial,

during which tempers were frayed. At the

end, when passions had cooled and the

judge had dismissed the jury, she asked

about my background. She then commented

to the assembled lawyers that the great

thing about me was that I, unlike the New

Yorkers present, could be furious without

yelling. I resolved to take it as a compliment.

Andrew Rhys Davies (U92)Partner, Allen & Overy, New York

A later lawyer

For example, Sir John Stuttard, whostudied Economics at Churchill, wascentrally involved a few years ago inestablishing bursaries for Lawundergraduates at the College. He wasthereby paying tribute to his long-timefriend Judge David Stokes, who – until hisuntimely death in 2005 – was himself agenerously loyal Law alumnus of theCollege. Among the outstandinglysupportive alumni are the four highlydistinguished lawyers who have contributedpieces to this issue of the Newsletter. Eachof them has helped to build a tradition ofexcellence in Law at the College.

Clement Goldstone, Chris Sherliker, andMaha Yamani were students at Churchillwell before my arrival here. Andrew Davies,by contrast, was still here during my firstyear as a Fellow. Since Andrew has notmade any mention of his academic recordat Churchill, I’ll note that he finished at thetop of the University in Part IB of the LawTripos – and very close to the top of theUniversity in Part II – with an array ofstarred Firsts.

Clement graduated long before my timehere, but I got to know him well when hisson Jonathan applied in 1995 foradmission. Clement has visited the Collegemany times, and he was the invitedspeaker at the College’s annual LawDinner in 2003. His elevation to the Benchwas a source of pride for all the Churchill

Lawyers. Jonathan was a Churchillundergraduate from 1996 to 2000 (with ayear in Poitiers on the Erasmus ExchangeScheme). Though Jonathan narrowlymissed an overall First, he was one of themost impressive and dynamic students forwhom I’ve directed studies.

Like Clement, Chris left Churchill manyyears before my arrival. I came to know himseveral years ago, first in his status as analumnus and then in his status as thefounder of the Silverman-Sherliker Awardin Legal Excellence. He has beenadmirably solicitous of the interests ofChurchill Law students, and – again likeClement – he has been the invited speakerat the College’s annual Law Dinner. Withhis own flourishing law firm as an example,Chris has encouraged the students toponder the benefits (and drawbacks) ofpracticing law outside the huge firms towhich most Cantabrigians gravitate.

I have not yet met Maha, but I havecorresponded with her, and all theChurchill Lawyers have taken pride in hertrailblazing achievements as a femaleattorney in Saudi Arabia. The former HeadPorter, Peter Bullock, once recounted tome the trickiness of handling security inthe College while Maha was a student; hehad to strike a balance between dealingadequately with the intrusiveness ofreporters and keeping the College a placewhere students could roam freely. Given

the pressures to which Maha wassubjected, her accomplishments areespecially deserving of plaudits.

There are many other Law alumni whom Iwould like to name here. Because oflimited space, I will mention only one other:Sir Philip Sales. A prolific scholar as wellas an eminent barrister and now a Justiceof the High Court, he has for many yearsmunificently funded the purchase of Lawbooks for the College Library. Because ofPhilip, and because of our numerous othergenerous alumni and excellent students,Churchill has become one of the premierLaw colleges in Cambridge.

Matthew H. KramerDirector of Studies for Law

Law at Churchill

Law has become one of the College’s top subjects during

the past decade because of the talents and diligence of its

students and because of the generous support of its alumni.

(Though I have in mind principally the Law alumni, I do not

have them exclusively in mind.)

Introduction

ABOVE Matt Kramer

ABOVE RIGHT Clement Goldstone

RIGHT Andrew Rhys-Davies

3THE CHURCHILL 20102 THE CHURCHILL 2010 13

If, in 1974, on my own timorous arrival at

Churchill, you had ventured to suggest that

its reputation for legal academic excellence

would eclipse that of the ancient colleges,

an eyebrow would have been raised; but I

am reliably informed that, over ten years,

Churchill is the top-performer in Law. Now

the constitutionally ordained majority of

Churchill scientists has good cause to

regard the dignified minority of Churchill

lawyers with rather more respect, and

somewhat less patronising amusement,

than we were sometimes obliged to endure

in my own day. It is therefore satisfying to

witness Churchill’s pre-eminence as a

centre of legal excellence.

It was musing on what will constitute

‘legal excellence’ in a deregulated and

increasingly competitive UK market for

legal services, now lamentably enshrined in

the Legal Services Act 2006, that led me

to endow a modest annual accolade

grandly titled ‘The Silverman Sherliker

Award for Legal Excellence’.

You would quite rightly expect that the main

criteria for conferring this Award should

always remain academic legal excellence,

but I ventured to suggest that a student’s

potential abilities as an effective and

empathetic legal practitioner might also be

recognised and celebrated. In my respectful

view, if you destroy the principle that the

Law is not only an art and a science, but

also a service, then the justification for its

academic study is lessened.

Accordingly, after an exercising and

enjoyable debate with Professor Kramer, it

was accepted that five key criteria would be

considered when making the Award and,

further, that all five criteria would be taken

into account. These included an ability to

communicate a legal point of view, an ability

to predict legal outcomes and an aptitude

for vigorous debate; also included, however,

were a demonstrable wish to acquire and

refine the essential skills of a practising

lawyer and a good ‘lawyerly, manner. By this

subjective subterfuge were the regulations

observed whist allowing at least some

scope for a recognition of the skills required

of a legal practitioner endeavouring to

deliver legal services in an extraordinarily

demanding legal marketplace.

These additional skills need to be acquired

by lawyers if they are to survive and thrive

as career lawyers. They include an ability to

maintain acute and continuous focus on a

goal in spite of a thousand distractions

born of incessant interruptions and an

unrelenting coruscation of calls, emails,

texts and even ‘instructions by tweet’ (I am

@London_Law_Firm on Twitter).

These skills are not the natural fruit of

academic legal training and demand a high

degree of emotional intelligence, insight

bordering on the visionary, and a depth of

awareness characteristic rather of the Zen

warrior, the religious ascetic or the

contemplative devotee, than of the work-a-

day, jobbing lawyer. You will therefore not

be surprised to hear that certain law

schools in America offer courses in

‘jurisight’ or ‘mindfulness for lawyers’ and I

have blogged on this at

www.silvermansherlikerblog.com:

‘Developing Ninja Lawyer Skills’.

Against this background was The

Silverman Sherliker Award for Legal

Excellence, and its helpfully ambiguous

criteria, conceived.

Correctly ordered, the words in this piece

occurring in the sequence determined by

the formula Tn = 3n(n-1)+1 make up one

of Winston Churchill’s most insightful

comments on the Law. Not that it is my

intention to tease or patronise any Churchill

scientists, you understand.

Web addresses, dates, hyphenations and

the formula itself count as single words.

Punctuation may be ignored. Good luck!

I would take this opportunity to

congratulate all Churchill lawyers upon

whom The Silverman Sherliker Award for

Legal Excellence has been, and will in the

future be, conferred and, further, to

celebrate, with a broad and genuine grin,

the stellar reputation for legal academic

excellence that the College has achieved

and which it so richly deserves.

Chris Sherliker (U74)Managing Partner of Silverman SherlikerLLP, Solictors: www.silvermansherliker.co.uk;email: sjs@silvermansherliker.co.uk

Law at Churchill: the path to excellence

The Churchill lawyers, against all odds, have now established a truly enviable reputation for

the highest academic standards.

ABOVE Chris Sherliker

15THE CHURCHILL 2010

1st of October 1976: it was a rainyautumn that followed an unusually dryEnglish summer. I arrived at Churchillleaving behind the safe familiarity of mynine school years in Switzerland. The onlyChurchill undergraduate studying Part IPersian and Arabic, later, the only one inmy year reading Law, and the only Saudiin Cambridge!

As if to set me apart further, because myfather was in the news special securityarrangements were made and I was strictlycautioned against disclosing my identity.With the help of Mr. George, the CollegeBursar, I even opened a Barclays accountin my ‘other’ name. I blushed every time Ireplaced Yamani, my family name, with myfather’s middle name, Zaki. I learned toidentify the look in the eyes of those who‘knew’ and the others who ‘did not know’.

The academic rewards were invaluable.Having left Saudi Arabia at a young age,the Faculty of Oriental Studies helped mestep back into my culture. I translatedQuranic texts and extracts of Arabicliterature and sampled the beauty ofPersian poetry. In my second year, Dr. ColinCampbell, then Senior Tutor at Churchill,guided my decision to switch to Law. Thecombination of the two subjects laterformed the basis of my PhD dissertationand still constitutes my mission as the first

Saudi woman lawyer, seeking justicewithin an Islamic legal framework.

Wet and lonely on a brand new bicycle, lifeat Churchill was an uphill struggle, wherethe top of the road shone bright. I filled mybasket from the Market Square andprepared gourmet meals seeking socialacceptance from fellow undergraduates. Isucceeded with some but was unable towin them all! I liked the cushioned windowseat in my bright modern room, becameaccustomed to the chitchat of the staircase‘bedder’ and felt a rush of happiness whenI found mail in my pigeonhole at thePorters’ Lodge. But I felt betrayed by theunexpected reflection of the flashphotography in my bedroom mirror, zoomedfrom another student room, and scared atthe late night angry banging at my‘imperialist’ door. It was soon after myfather, then Saudi Minister of Petroleum,had implemented the 1975 Oil Embargoand the time of the BBC’s controversialbroadcasting of the film ‘Death of aPrincess’. Media projection had turned myimage into that of a mistrusted outsider, atarget for freelance photographers andreporters of the student Stop Press.

In my second year at Churchill I passedmy first British driving test, while stillwaiting for the ban on women’s driving tobe lifted in my own country. In my third

year, dictionary in hand, I immersedmyself in the challenge of English Law. At the end of my fourth year, I joined theChurchill Graduation procession fromStorey’s Way to the Senate House. At the time, I thought that it was ‘The End’! Yet I regularly find myselfcatching the Cambridge Express fromKing’s Cross. It seems that I can neverbreak the Churchill ties or give up on myCambridge ‘family’.

Maha Yamani (U76)Maha is an independent researcher and writer specialising in law relating to gender

14

In college in cog.

3THE CHURCHILL 20102 THE CHURCHILL 2010 17

Ed.: You are the Director of SpecialProjects at the October Gallery, London.What are the aims of the Gallery?

Ges: The October shows cutting-edgecontemporary art from countries allaround the planet. The idea is to developthe art of the trans-cultural avant-garde,in recognition that not all great advanceshave taken place in the west. Over thelast thirty years we have exhibited manywonderful artists from over eighty-fivedifferent countries, or cultures, withoutever having to compromise in terms ofquality or excitement. The Gallery is runby a multi-talented group of artists,writers, and adventurers and I write forthe Gallery publications, look after manyof the systems for documentation, andsometimes go on exploratory andcuratorial trips to other countries to find new artists or to develop new linesof approach.

Ed.: The Gallery is part of a broader set of enterprises. Can you tell us more about these?

Ges: The Gallery itself was started by agroup of artists, writers, architects, scientistsand adventurers in 1978. They had built anocean-going Chinese junk in the Bay area,run a cattle-station in Australia, set up anecological farm in France, a rain-forestrestoration project in Puerto Rico. Eachproject was set up to study the workings ofone particular biomic region – such as theocean systems, the rain-forest biome, the

savannah system etc. The Gallery is also anecological project in the sense that it isdesigned to exist in the middle of a largemetropolis (the highly critical ‘urban biome’)and yet to interact with all the other biomesout there through the cultures theydeveloped and maintain. I like to think ofthe Gallery as specialising in the ecology ofliving cultures. I know that this all soundsfairly grand – but this group has beenmainly responsible for the development ofBiospheric science over the last forty oddyears (begun by the Russian scientistVernadsky in the Twenties). The samepeople who started the October Gallerybuilt the ground-breaking Biosphere 2project in Arizona in 1991.

Ed.: The interdisciplinary nature of theorganisation is similar to your ownbackground, and the desire to get deeperinto things. Could you expand on that?

Ges: Well, since leaving Churchill one ofthe things that really appeals to me is theability to spend time in different parts ofthe world: working in the rain-forests ofPuerto Rico, the Australian outback, or thehigh Himalayas, where I’ve been, on andoff, for the past five years. Life-styles arelike languages, you only really understandthe one you grew up in when you’ve beenoutside it entirely. Once you’ve got asecond language, and then a third, youdevelop a taste for trying on otherlanguages, cultures and life-styles. I feellike a bit of a chameleon, I enjoy blendinginto different places and cultures.

Ed.: Churchill College is renowned forgrounding the relationship between thesciences and humanities. Can you tell usa little more about your experience atChurchill and how this influenced your‘career’ thereafter.

Ges: Well, I began at Churchill studyingscience – having gone there to doMedicine, but I switched and took upLiterature instead – which was acompletely different approach. Immediatelyafter leaving, I taught English andAmerican Literature in the Japaneseuniversity system for fourteen years. Eventhough today I spend a lot of my time

working in the arts, I haven’t stoppeddeveloping the scientific line of approach– and one of the things I’m perhaps mostproud of having been involved in is theconstruction, design and development of asmall-scale modular Biosphere system (aClosed Environment Life Support System)in New Mexico over the last decade.

Ed.: What happens next?

Ges: I’ve been developing a project thatlooks at ancient dance traditions around theworld. Between 2003 and 2008 wesurveyed and documented the TibetanBuddhist dance traditions of Bhutan andcreated an archive of about 500 hours ofdance footage, placed in the New YorkLibrary for the Performing Arts. This field ofAncient Dance is an entirely new field –somewhere between PerformanceAnthropology and Ancient History. Many ofthese dance traditions are not survivingparticularly well in the 21st Century, owingto pressures as diverse as “globalisation” –the spreading of western mono-culture – orthe Taliban. When your young Bhutanesefarm-hand knows more about hip-hopculture than he does about his own localdances – which might date from the 7thCentury – then you have a crisis. There aresome amazing dance cultures in the SwatValley. Working out ways to help thesecultures to preserve their authentic ancienttraditions for themselves is a complex task.It’s like the problem we have with the coralreefs – which our ship was involved instudying: loss of reefs, loss of fish stocksthat depend upon them, loss of fishermancultures and life-styles, including dancesand even whole languages. So I supposeI’m someone trying to push ahead on boththe scientific and the humanities side atone and the same time – a mixed-uporientation that I must blame on my time atChurchill College in the Seventies!

Gerard Houghton (U74)Projects Director, The October Gallery,London, interviewed by Barry Phipps,Fellow, and Interdisciplinary Fellow ofKettle’s Yard

On a coral reef in London

LEFT Ges preparing to dance

16

The route to my goal, as I perceived it, wasto go to what I had been told was the bestuniversity, namely Cambridge (a not whollyinaccurate judgement), and first to studymathematics, because mathematicians areproductive only when they are young; Icould pick up the physics later! Because I went to an essentially unknown school,Hackney Downs Grammar School – laterto become nationally famous by being thefirst state secondary school to be(unjustly) closed by the government forincompetence, provoking a bitter two-pagespread in The Sunday Times by theplaywright Harold Pinter who had been apupil at the school a generation before me– the only likely way in was to win an openentrance scholarship. Unfortunately, I couldnot even understand the questions on themathematics papers, let alone solve them,so I had to settle for Natural Sciences. I was lucky, because soon after the awardI learned from an old boy of my schoolthat it was possible to change subjects. SoI wrote to my Tutor at St John’s (Churchillwas then only about to be founded) andwas allowed to change before I arrived.That permitted me not only to embark onmy chosen path in mathematics, but alsoto study physics from the natural scientistsat the same time. So much did I value thatexperience that later in life, as a Fellow, I always supported students who haveseriously wanted to do the same; and theoutcome has always been a success.

For me the most inspiring lecturer in theFaculty of Mathematics was Fred Hoyle. Inmy postgraduate year, taking Part III of theMathematical Tripos, he had lectured on hisformulation of an extremely elegant theoryin cosmology which appeared to explainsome important observations. I asked him ifhe would take me on as his researchstudent, to which, without hesitation, he

replied: No. He explained that there wereso few critical observations in cosmology(the situation is quite different today) that itwas unlikely that any theory I developedcould be proved wrong. I should insteadpursue a PhD in astrophysics, and if afterthat I still yearned for cosmology, he wouldhelp me all he could. So I studied theinternal structure of stars. And I have beenquite happy staying away from cosmologyever since.

My research supervisor, Roger Tayler, setme to study fluid motions in stars. I became especially interested in howconvection interacts with the large-scalepulsations that some stars undergo,because studying the dynamics reveals theirstructure; and information from certainpulsating stars enables astronomers toestablish the distance scale of the Universe,which is why understanding those stars isso important. Oddly enough, I had not foundfluid dynamics very interesting as anundergraduate. But now that I had themotivation to understand pulsating stars,things changed. I discovered that anysubject that becomes necessary for thepursuit of the answer to an importantquestion is immediately fascinating.

In 1975 it was discovered that the sun isoscillating at many frequenciessimultaneously, singing, quite literally, themusic of the spheres. I recognized that thissound (we cannot hear it) is analogous tothe seismic waves produced byearthquakes, and that one should be ableto use its properties to infer the internalstructure of the star. With my knowledge ofstellar physics and fluid dynamics, all Ineeded was to learn (geo) seismology, asubject which till then I had considered tobe highly technical and rather dull. But notso now. I spent nearly a decade developing

helioseismology, a term which I coined, withvery little data to work on, and thereforevery few real results. Many of mycolleagues thought I was misguided. But I interacted strongly with a broad-minded,innovative observer, Jack Harvey, who wasprepared to carry out observations thatwere bound to be inaccurate yet which, I had assured him, would be scientificallyrevealing, rather than to plump for‘beautifully’ precise measurements withlesser direct interest.

The early results of that research attractedmore scientists into the field; a spacecraftwas launched in 1992, and severalnetworks of telescopes were erectedaround the world to observe helioseismicwaves continuously: uninterrupted data areneeded for accurate measurement ofseismic properties. Results poured in, fromwhich we have been able to measure thestate of the solar interior to amazingprecision, enabling us to use the Sun as alaboratory to carry out physics underconditions unattainable on Earth. Theresults contribute to our understanding of matter. They also contribute directly to astrophysics.

Douglas Gough (F72)Awarded the Royal AstronomicalSociety’s Gold Medal this year

My astrophysical journey

My interest in physical science and mathematics was sparked at

the age of nine when I spent four months in hospital with a severely

fractured femur, unable to leave my bed or receive a visitor. But I

was allowed presents. The most appreciated was an encyclopaedia

of mathematics (including mechanics) which I devoured completely.

It generated in me the desire to become a theoretical physicist.

ABOVE A computer drawing of the Sun inone of its modes of oscillation

2 THE CHURCHILL 201018

Sunny Cambridge

Most of my friends and colleaguesthought I was mad. I’m an observationalastronomer, and Arizona operates one ofthe largest collections of telescopes in theworld. I gave all of that up (plus the sunnydays and clear nights of Arizona) for theclouds and rain of a country that I barelyknew at the time. Little wonder that myfriends were concerned, and I confess toa bit of apprehension of my own.

Looking back it is difficult to imagine whyI ever hesitated. The IoA is renownedworldwide for its superb research andstaff and for its interactive intellectualatmosphere. I was welcomed from thestart and quickly melded in, and becamethe IoA Director in 2008. I learned thatlegends of 24/7 rainfall wereexaggerated (most of the time), and thatwhat might be lacking in local telescopesis more than replaced by the superbshared European telescopes, both on theground and in space. I am currentlyleading a large key programme on therecently launched Herschel SpaceObservatory, which is mapping theformation of stars in galaxies andunravelling the physics of galaxyevolution. Previously I was Co-PI of theHubble Space Telescope project which

measured the size scale and expansionrate of the Universe. These successeshave brought honours, including electionto the U.S. National Academy ofSciences, the Dannie Heinemann Prize of the American Astronomical Society forthe work on star formation in galaxies,and most recently the Gruber CosmologyPrize for the Hubble project. With such arich international array of telescopes asunny local climate is no longer aprerequisite for working at the cuttingedge of astronomy.

This successful professional transitionhas been welcome but is hardlysurprising; I knew about the reputation ofthe Institute long before I moved here.What has taken me completely bysurprise, however, is the richness andcollegiality of the college experience atChurchill. Our Fellowship is drawn fromvirtually all fields of science and thehumanities, and seating at meals isarranged in such a way that you end uptalking to different people nearly everyday. The atmosphere is friendly andeveryone is eager to talk, at High Tableand at Common Tables with the studentsalike. As a result I have learned moreabout neuroscience, genetics, behavioural

psychology, microbiology, chemistry,mathematics, economics, and history thanI did in 25 years of working at otheruniversities, and my colleagues are justas eager to learn about astronomy fromme. This interchange of ideas, whetherover lunch or coffee or a postprandiallecture (with after-dinner drink in hand!)touches the soul of what a greatuniversity should be. Whenever I hostguests from the U.S. or mainland Europetheir parting words are nearly always thesame: “Why can’t my university havesomething like this?” I have come tocherish this Churchill experience morethan any other aspect of working inCambridge, and after a few short years Icannot imagine ever giving it up.

Rob KennicuttPlumian Professor, Institute of Astronomy

ABOVE Rob Kennicutt

RIGHT Deep space. Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the Hubble UltraDeep Field (HUDF) Team

Deep spaceAlec Boksenberg [F96] was engagedwith the production of the Hubble SpaceTelescope for two decades from the earlyseventies and thereafter in its use. Hemade early contributions to NASA on theoptical design of the telescope systemand then participated intensively in thedesign and production of the Faint ObjectCamera, which incorporated the ultra-sensitive image photon counting camerahe had invented. After launch in 1990 it

was discovered that the telescopeprimary mirror had been figured to thewrong shape and, working with others, hehelped to devise a way of rectifying thisby addition of an elegant correcting“eyeglass” installed in 1993 by astronautsin a rescue mission.

The image he has chosen typifiesHubble's remarkable range. It is thedeepest image of the universe ever taken– a “pencil beam” site-line through spaceand time. In one picture it looks back more

than 13 billion years to shortly after the big bang when stars grouped in small pre-galactic fragments were just beginningto form and includes the progressivedevelopment to recent times evident bythe nearby larger structures in the familiarshapes of fully formed galaxies such asour own.

It has been nearly five years since I left a cosyProfessorship at the University of Arizona forthe Plumian Professorship at the Institute ofAstronomy in Cambridge, a few hundredmeters from the top of the College grounds.

3THE CHURCHILL 20102 THE CHURCHILL 2010 2120

I left Churchill without any clear idea ofwhat to do with my life and found myselfwaiting at a bus stop on my way to teachEnglish and Drama at a girls’ school. Iwas enjoying that but hated the otherteachers, who I thought disapproved ofme. Maybe my Afro-styled hair put themoff. I said to myself that if the bus didn’tarrive within the next five minutes, thenI’d quit. The bus did not arrive and thenext day I was on a flight to Montreal.Eventually I found myself in SanFrancisco and made a pilgrimage to CityLights bookshop – LawrenceFerlinghetti’s outpost of poetry and beatculture, where you could linger all day,sitting in the basement reading ElizabethBishop or Robert Lowell and drinkingcoffee. No one would harass you to buyand conversations might be struck upbetween strangers. It reminded me of thewonderful library at Churchill College,without the coffee.

I had always been a music addict, buyingthe Beatles singles as they came out andseeing the great bands of the day at theMarquee, the Rainbow and theRoundhouse. So all through my Canadianand American adventure I bought recordsfrom Sally Army and junk stores for25/30 cents apiece and by the time I gotto San Francisco I had a couple ofhundred. Someone I met there, KenDavidson, casually said, “Why don’t youship them back to London and start arecord shop?” My future was sealed atthat moment.

The shop was an attempt to mimic thatspirit of open minded fraternity I’d felt atCity Lights. We were lucky. Punk as amusical movement started all around usseveral months after we opened. Its forerunners, like the New York Dollsand the Stooges, were hard-to-findrecords – but not in our shop. Punkinspired DIY, which meant that the wholeprocess of record-making and productionwas demystified and placed back in thehands of the artists themselves, like

Wyndham Lewis producing BLAST orVirginia Woolf starting the Hogarth Press.Our big idea, borrowed from Karl Marx,was that wouldn’t it be rather excellent tocontrol the means of production. Theartists could then be the decision-makersabout what might be available to thepopulation. We started a nationwide musicdistribution network which we hopedwould make the need for any musician orband to sign to a major record companyobsolete. We succeeded beyond ourwildest dreams, enabling such great labelsas Mute, Factory, 4AD, Creation Recordsand countless more to enjoy control overtheir own destinies and mass marketsuccess when the records merited it.

In 1978 we started our very ownRoughTrade label which was and still is myprime responsibility, along with mybusiness partner Jeannette Lee. My jobwas to source the artists and to make surethey recorded their best and to guide theiractivities. This was helped enormously bymy years at Churchill, which had helped tohone a language of critical appreciation.You need this to talk to artists about themerits of their work and to be able toarticulate what you feel they could possiblydo better. I’m still doing this job.RoughTrade has crashed and we have

picked ourselves up and started again,never knowing when we were beaten. Our list includes The Smiths, The Strokes,The Libertines, Arcade Fire, SufjanStevens, Antony and the Jonsons and amyriad others. I hope you have enjoyed atleast some of these. I think we have aplace in the pantheon of great labels, andit is our aim to try to edge up a little higherover the next few years (he said modestly).

My greatest hope is to continue to learn.

Geoff Travis (U71) English

A good hair day

RoughTrade started as a record shop in west London inthe winter of 1977. Here’s how it happened.

ABOVE The afro-hair is lurking at the back,pursued by the lady with the coat hanger, inOverseas Fellow Wole Soyinka’s Trials ofBrother Jero

Sometimes you just seem to find yourselfin the right place at the right time andworking for Sir Hermann was certainly thetime when my own roast duck came hometo roost. As College Registrar, I am anadministrator, keeping minutes and draftingpolicy documents, and I had the goodfortune to be Sir Hermann’s secretary from1988 until his retirement from theMastership in 1990. When, following hisdeath in 2005, I was asked to organise thefiles in his College room for transferral tothe Archives Centre, I was very pleased todo so. I soon began to realise that thesedocuments, these letters that passedacross his desk from members of theCollege, alumni and colleagues around theworld, and from him to them, gave me apicture of Sir Hermann’s life from a ratherspecial viewpoint. They contain snippets ofinformation and stories away from thepublic image and embed these in the day-to-day of life in College. So I’ve embarkedon a memoir from this viewpoint. I haveadded my own recollections, those of theBondi family, members of the College, and other acquaintances, both professionaland personal.

In this perspective, prosaic matters suchas problems with the Master’s Lodgeheating system, parking on the forecourt,or even the difficulties of managing theMaster’s diary rub shoulders with anunusual view of ‘Magic Squares’ and an intriguing exchange between Sir Hermann and Dame KathleenOllerenshaw, former President of theInstitute of Mathematics and itsApplications. I take a look at a projectrelating to British naval radar, to thearrangements for Sir Hermann’sadmission as Master, to his style inmeetings, as well as to an interchangethat took place between Sir Hermann,Fred Hoyle and Tommy Gold in 1995.

So the memoir is a mosaic of the humbleand momentous, of which the following give

the flavour, beginning with Sir Hermann’sown first impression:

Our visit to Churchill on the early MayBank Holiday of 1982 totally charmedus and won us over.

That first impression is followed by this tothe Chief Maintenance Engineer in 1985:

There is occasionally a little trouble inthe bathroom when one is showering.

It includes an exchange between Sir Hermann and Tommy Gold in 1994when Tommy Gold wrote about Fred Hoyle:

This is to tell you that Fred’s book,Home is where the Wind Blows, hasannoyed me greatly.

To this I’ve added reminiscences fromYuri Sobral (G2004), who helped Sir Hermann write the Royal Society’smemoir of Tommy Gold in the monthsbefore Sir Hermann’s death.

And here’s one of my own recollectionsof working in the Master’s Lodge:

Many a time I would walk into the studyand find Sir Hermann working at hisdesk with Connie, the cat, who wouldbe draped around his neck like a scarf.

Jonathan Parker, President of the MCR1988/89, remembers:

How skilled he was in dealing with trickyissues on the College Council (e.g. wehad an issue related to funding comingto College from a source inside SouthAfrica during the time of apartheid) anddrawing conclusions from discussionswhere I could see none!

The late Jack Miller (F 1961-07; Vice-Master 1978-88) left the followingon record:

Achievement in Cambridge is oftenaccompanied by a certain arrogance,but not Hermann, his straightforwardapproach to problems and his humilitywhen dealing with people resolvedmany tricky situations.

The memoir is now almost complete and I hope it will provide a useful record forthe College Archives. It provides a ratherunusual insight into the life of Sir Hermann,which will be of special interest to thosewho knew him. Further contributions,including financial, are still welcome overthe next month or so, but I am now in thelast stages of this project, trying to fine-tune the text into a state suitable forpublication. That would enable me topresent this memoir as my own particularcontribution to the College’s 50thanniversary campaign.

Paula HalsonCollege Registrar

Flying roast ducksSometimes it seems to me that I have been walking through lifewith a wide open mouth and roast ducks have come flying in withmonotonous regularity! Sir Hermann Bondi

ABOVE Sir Hermann Bondi talking to theLady Soames DBE

3THE CHURCHILL 20102 THE CHURCHILL 2010 23

My wife, seven-year-old son, and I landedin Cambridge from India in December2004. Our first British winter! I had takenup a research post at the ArchitectureDepartment, registered as a part-time PhDstudent. We were in the Wolfson Flats.

Around July of 2006, we heard that theCollege was planning to refurbish them. I assumed this might happen towards theend of my stay, but things moved fast.Almost immediately, the Bursar invitedsome residents to comment upon theplans. The College then decided to useits own Works Department to build aprototype and to recruit a postgrad familyas guinea pigs to test it out. Theprospective tenant was expected toprovide feedback so as to improve thefinal design. This was brilliant, epitomisingbest practice for user participation in thedesign process. Work on the prototypebegan promptly and made rapid progress,and since it was happening in front ofeveryone’s eyes, interest in it grew moreand more. It became a window-shopping

spectacle. One and all aspired to live in it.Several families put in bids, and we wereone of them.

In mid-December, out of the blue, I got anemail from the TAS office inviting us tobe the guinea pigs. I read it three times,just to make sure that I was not readingwhat I wanted to. But it was true! When Ibroke the news to my wife and son, theywere thrilled. The gloomy and dark winterthat lay ahead suddenly became a morecheerful prospect.

In fact it was a bright sunny day when wemoved in. Without exaggeration, when wecrossed the threshold, it felt like walkinginto a video simulation of one of thoseperfect and shiny interiors we all see inproperty brochures and TV adverts. Theexperience was surreal and my wifepinched herself to make sure it wasn’t adream. The underfloor heating system,the bright interior colour and lights, thebig window, the strong connection withthe exterior, the superb kitchen lighting

and fixtures (my wife often quipped aboutmy rekindled interest in cooking!). Thetransformation was indeed magical.

We came to be known as the family thatlives in the new flat. We had several people(including the contractors for the firstphase of refurbishing the whole building)ring the doorbell (at odd hours too!) to havea look, and we happily obliged. Readingabout its energy efficiency achievements ina local newspaper, an ex-mayor ofCambridge dropped in. This was really aspecial time and we basked in the glory ofour new found status. I’m even inclined tobelieve that the happiness this new lifebrought affected my studies – 2008 wasthe time when I did my most intensive workfor the PhD.

Later that year, the first phase of thewhole refurbishment started in full swingand I was invited to the project meetings;I truly felt part of a close-knit community.By June 2009, the first phase wascomplete and we got even luckier as wewere invited to test the final version.Although for only a one-and-a-half monthstay, it was worth the hassle. The bestpart was that I got to see some of mysuggestions implemented: minor thingslike the underfloor heating operationpanel was much better (rather fiddly inthe prototype), darkening of loungewindow glass, more electrical and LANsockets, additional TV socket, mixing ofhot and cold water in the bathroom, andbest of all centralised hot water supply!Although some corners were cut(reduction of storage space from thedining area, lesser drawers in the studytable), all in all most problems in theprototype had been ironed out. Theexperiment had worked for both parties.

My title may sound a bit of an oxymoron,but there are indeed such creatures aslucky guinea pigs!

Bhargav Adhvaryu (G04)

The lucky guinea pigs

22

I have been asked to write a short articleabout my experiences at Churchill. I am asecond-year engineer. I applied toChurchill in 2007, having planned andprepared to do so since 2005. In thatyear I was studying for my first degree atCanterbury, concurrently with A-levels(some self-taught, some at a localcollege), when my A-level Physicsteacher (a Churchill alumnus) told me ofa previous student of his who had won aplace at Churchill, and that he thought Iwould also be a good candidate.

I had not expected to be taking a degreein 2005, but had achieved highly in aHigher National Diploma at theuniversity’s Computing Department, andthen been admitted into the second yearof the degree. I convinced the BusinessSchool to allow me to attach a BusinessStudies minor, and took some A-levels toround-out my education. At the time,loans were available for a second degree,although the fees would not be paid. Aloan for a second degree would havebeen ideal for me, as my expectationshad been raised considerably since I

started studying. However, the ruleschanged shortly after that time, exceptfor people taking a degree considered tobe professional. I was told thatEngineering was not considered to be aprofessional degree for student loanpurposes, although many others, such asLandscape Gardening, were. With only13% of students nationally takingScience/Engineering/Maths degrees,and industry saying that they urgentlyneed that number to be 25% (E&TMagazine, March 2010), Sir Winston’sidea for a mainly science and technologyCollege at Cambridge has never beenmore important. I personally hope that afuture government will considerEngineering to be a professional degreefor post-BA student loan purposes.

But despite this difficulty, which seemedinsurmountable at the time, I have beenable to study, and succeed, at Churchillthanks to outstanding help from theCollege, particularly Richard Partingtonand Colm Caulfield, who secured themajority of the funding that was required.This was a difficult and varied business,

and I would like especially to mentionBritish Maritime Technology, who supportmy studies with a bursary. Without theirgenerosity I would not be here atChurchill today.

Otherwise, life at Churchill is no differentfor me than for any other student. I didnot know that students taking a seconddegree were relatively rare when I applied,and just took the advice of my Physicsteacher to try Churchill. I could not be anymore glad that I did. Before coming, I didnot really understand when peoplereferred to their College as their ‘home’,but I certainly do now. The College is thesize of a small village, and in many ways itfeels like one. With the expansion of theWest Cambridge site, the College is nolonger on the geographical outskirts ofthe University, but rather at the very focusof its elliptical orbit.

There has never been a better time to bea Churchillian.

Douglas Seymour (U08) Engineering

Never a better time

to be a Churchillian

ABOVE The recently refurbished Wolfson flats

Churchill College: The Guide

Cosmos out of Chaos:Introducing the ChurchillArchive Centre

£6.99 + P&P each

These companion volumes can be

purchased as a set for £12.00 + P&P.

To order your copies, please visit

www.churchilians.net or contact the

Alumni & Development Office direct by

email at alumni@chu.cam.ac.uk or call

+44 (0)1223 336240.

CHURCHILL COLLEGE PUBLICATIONS

Points of contactAll phone numbers are area code 01223 (Overseas: +44 1223)

AccommodationT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Alumni@chu.cam.ac.uk

(All Alumni and Past Fellows with internet access, are asked to request accommodation by visitingChurchillians.net at: http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/alumni and completing the online form. You will require ausername and password for this which can berequested from the Alumni Relations Office).

Alumni AssociationT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Churchill.Association@chu.cam.ac.uk

Alumni Relations ManagerT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Alumni@chu.cam.ac.uk

Archives CentreT: +44 (0)1223 336166E: Archives@chu.cam.ac.uk

Conference OfficeT: +44 (0)1223 336233E: Conferences@chu.cam.ac.uk

Development DirectorT: +44 (0)1223 336197E: Development@chu.cam.ac.uk

Churchill Review EditorT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Review.Editor@chu.cam.ac.uk

Newsletter EditorT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Newsletter.Editor@chu.cam.ac.uk

High Table BookingsT: +44 (0)1223 336083E: Alumni@chu.cam.ac.uk

(All Alumni with internet access, are asked to book their High Table by visiting Churchillians.net at http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/alumni and completing the online form. You will require a username andpassword for this which can be requested from the Alumni Relations Office).

Møller CentreT: +44 (0)1223 465500E: Reception.Moller@chu.cam.ac.uk

Porters’ LodgeT: +44 (0)1223 336000E: Head.Porter@chu.cam.ac.uk

Senior Tutor & Admissions TutorT: +44 (0)1223 336202E: Admissions@chu.cam.ac.uk

Tutor for Advanced StudentsT: +44 (0)1223 336157E: TAS@chu.cam.ac.uk

Alumni Events 2010NOW AVAILABLEThe new Email for Life forwarding service for all alumni & past Fellows. Visit www.churchillians.net to get your free email address now.

Every two monthsAlumni Association Pub Night: London.Old Bank of England at 194 Fleet Street,EC4 2LT. (Join the College E-Bulletin andAssociation mailing list by visitingwww.churchillians.net)

19 June 201050th Anniversary Garden Party & FamilyDay. Book your place now by visitingwww.churchillians.net.

3 July 2010Reunion Dinner for years 1978-1982inclusive.

10 July 2010 50th Anniversary Summer Ball.

12 August 201050th Anniversary: Master’s AlumniReception in Edinburgh.

24 September 2010Association Wine Tasting*.

24 – 26 September 201050th Anniversary: Churchill AssociationWeekend and University Alumni Weekend.

25 September 2010 (t.b.c.)50th Anniversary: The 4th Annual AlumniGolf Day*.

25 September 201050th Anniversary: The Associationpresents: Lectures*. Delivered in theCollege’s 50th year by Sir ChristopherFrayling & Professor David Spiegelhalter.

25 September 2010Churchill Alumni Association AnnualDinner* and AGM. This year’s specialguest speaker following dinner is LordWatson of Richmond.

11 October 201050th Anniversary: Broadening HorizonsLecture: Lord Winston.

21 October 201050th Anniversary: Master’s AlumnaeReception. Open to all Churchill Women.Invitations will be sent out in theMichaelmas Term.

28 October 2010 50th Anniversary: Broadening HorizonsLecture: Dame Anne Dowling.

2 November 2010 50th Anniversary: Churchill CollegeDinner in New York.

4 November 2010 50th Anniversary: Churchill CollegeDinner at Trinity College, Toronto.

11 November 2010 50th Anniversary: Broadening HorizonsLecture: Mr Malcolm Brinded (U71) & Mr Simon Henry (U79).

25 November 2010 50th Anniversary: Churchill ScientistsLecture: Dr Ralph Cicerone.

Events 2011Dates to be confirmed

50th Anniversary: Presidential Event.Special event for those who were JCR or MCR Presidents.

50th Anniversary: ‘Alumni Generations’Event. A special event for all of you whohad sons and daughters, aunts and uncles,brothers and sisters etc... in College.

How to give to ChurchillThere are a number of ways to give to your College – a full list with further instructions canbe found at www.chu.cam.ac.uk/alumni/development/ways_to_make_a_gift.php

• A single gift by cheque orcredit/debit card or via the CharitiesAid Foundation (CAF).• A regular gift by Direct Debit orStanding Order.

• A gift of shares.• A gift of property.• A payroll gift and matching giving via your employer.• A legacy.

* Bookings for these events should be made byfollowing the booking procedure for the AssociationWeekend, Annual Dinner and AGM, accompanyingthis Newsletter.

Information on tax efficient giving (e.g. the Gift Aid Scheme) is also available on theabove web page.

For advice on giving to Churchill College, further details on College funds or toreceive a donation form, please contact the Development Office.