Churchill College Newsletter 2013

ChurchillTheNEWSLETTER 2013

As ever we have tried to cover a range of topics in this edition of The Churchill newsletter.Featuring fellows, students and alumni, you’ll find everything from cricket, women in politics,Nobel Laureates, food and drink to furniture exhibitions (no, we haven’t turned the Collegeinto an outpost of MFI or IKEA!) but chairs have been a highlight over the last year with afascinating retrospective of Hans Wegner chairs on display in the Jock Colville Hall to yourvery own named chairs in the dining hall – they’re still available so please do get in touch ifyou want to have your name on a chair for posterity or should that be posteriority?!

Wherever you are in the world I urge you to stay in touch, get involved and continue to bepart of the wider Churchill community. We have a number of events taking place andwould love to see you at them. See the Back Page for further details. If you can’t be therein person, try a virtual visit by going to our website www.chu.cam.ak.uk or Facebook pageand follow us on Twitter.

Churchill College is a truly global entity and has a unique connection to the Commonwealth,it being the national and Commonwealth memorial to Sir Winston Churchill. In March, duringCommonwealth Week, we paid homage to this distinction by hosting a special dinner withguest speaker, Lord Watson who is, amongst many other things, Chairman of the Council ofCommonwealth Societies.

In April the Master visited alumni in the Far East and, for the first time, in the UAE. Assome of you know, our Alumni Relations Manager, James, is helping to set up alumnigroups around the globe so if you are interested in participating in a group near whereyou live please do let us know.

I hope you enjoy this year’s newsletter. Please do let us know what you think as youropinions are very important to us.

Sharon MauriceDevelopment Director

2 THE CHURCHILL 2013

Welcome!The ContentsPAGE 3Message from the Master

PAGE 4I believe he has ideas about becominga scientist…

PAGE 5Continuing a Nobel tradition

PAGE 6Churchill returns to New York

PAGE 7Operation Iceberg

PAGE 8A way of life

PAGE 9A day in the life

PAGE 10Making money to making history

PAGE 11Letting them in

PAGE 12Skipper Paddy aiming for four

PAGE 13Chariots of Fire

PAGE 14To sleep, perchance to dream…

PAGE 15Catering for Churchill

PAGE 16-17The art of sitting comfortably

PAGE 18Caption competition

PAGE 19Churchill College publications

Published byChurchill CollegeEditor: Tim CribbStorey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DS. Tel. 01223 336197; Fax 01223 336177; [email protected]

Design & layout: www.cantellday.co.uk

All texts, photographs and illustrative material, except where acknowledged otherwise, are © Churchill College 2013. We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce illustrationsand photographs: Gavin Bateman, Sal Brinton, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Noelle Caulfield, Ray Goldstein,John Gurdon, Helen Czerski.

3THE CHURCHILL 2013

Message from the Master

We were both delighted to be able toattend the launch of the exhibitionChurchill: the Power of Words, which ranfrom June to September at the MorganLibrary in New York. It was a very specialaffair, with the Director of the Library, BillGriswold, the Vice-Chancellor Sir LeszekBorysiewicz, and the other Boris (Johnson)making what can be most succinctlydescribed as complementary speeches. I am reliably told by the historian AndrewRoberts that afterwards the Mayor ofLondon took over the cycling from anexhausted pedal-cab driver to reach theirdinner destination in Manhattan,declaiming his powers as Chair ofTransport for London. The exhibition was a tremendous success, drawing recordcrowds to the Morgan throughout.

We are now getting close to realising ourhopes for the New Court, and my sincerethanks to all who have contributed towardsmaking this possible. The final phase offundraising was launched at a specialdinner hosted by Lesley Knox (UG72); in the 50@50 campaign, we are seekingsupport from individuals and groups ofalumni to name a room in the New Courtfor a contribution totalling £50K (after giftaid or equivalent if you are in the USA),which can be pledged over up to fiveyears. It is a very exciting prospect to beon the threshold of this development.

We again hosted the alumni reception at our flat in Edinburgh in August – noobjections yet from the neighbours with40+ present! We were delighted thatNatasha Squire, widow of FoundingFellow Peter Squire, was staying with us.

We are planning a major trip to the FarEast in 2013, to include the alumnireceptions which the Vice-Chancellor willhost in Singapore (probably 7 April) andHong Kong (probably 20 April). We hopeto meet alumni then, and in between we

are planning to visit Beijing, Shanghaiand Fuzhou, in part to visit clients of theMøller Centre. Beforehand we will have aweek in Koh Tao, in the Gulf of Thailand,to see our daughter Sara, and to renewmy acquaintance with the wonderfulunderwater world there.

This all means that we are likely to missthe second of the events in collaborationwith Clare, King’s and Lucy Cavendish to celebrate the 40th anniversary of theadmission of women, which will be atChurchill/ Lucy Cavendish, on 20 April2013. The first of these was preceded by a wonderful concert in King’s CollegeChapel, which featured Penny Driver(UG80), who gave a superb performanceof the Prelude, Sarabande and Giguefrom JS Bach’s cello suite No. 2.

In all this extraordinary richness of Collegelife, I mustn’t forget the academic. Ourwarmest congratulations go to Sir JohnGurdon (F73, now Honorary Fellow) for

the Nobel Prize for medicine in recognitionof his work on cloning and stem cells; to Ray Goldstein (Fellow), the Ig NobelPrize (the College’s first) for his beautifulPhysical Review Letters paper on theshape of the ponytail; and to our students,who came out fifth (out of 29) in theTompkins Table of Cambridge Collegeundergraduate academic performance (to those of you as confused as I, yes, it was first announced as fourth, but TheIndependent newspaper made a mistake).

Your college continues in good heart.

David Wallace

“Back tae auld claes and porridge” – but it hasn’t been at all likethat since Elizabeth and I returned from our travels in April.

ABOVE: Artist Tai Schierenberg and ourHead of House


Having recently returned from a week ofbanquets and other extremely generousentertainments during the so-calledNobel week in Stockholm, this seems avery far cry from my earliest exposure toscience at school over 50 years ago. At that time, soon after the end of WorldWar II, teaching in science did not startuntil the age of 15. After the first term, I came bottom of the bottom class out of 250 students in the same year and I was dismissed from any science for myremaining time at school. Nevertheless, I was fortunate enough to be able toreturn to a science career having leftschool. How could this have happened?The short answer is that, nowadays, itcould not.

I enjoyed learning how to translateHomer, Aeschylus, and other Greek and Latin literature into English for myremaining time at school, but my realinterest was always in insects and plants,which I used to grow in my free time.Thanks to extensive parental help, I wasable to do enough elementary scienceteaching to start a Zoology course atOxford; getting into Oxford was itselfprecarious; the admissions tutor said thatI would be accepted on condition that I studied any other subject than Classics,in which I had taken the Entrance. In theend, I got a good degree in Zoology. I was rejected for a PhD in entomology,but was accepted by an outstandingLecturer at Oxford to do a PhD inembryology. What time there was leftbetween learning zoological facts, mostlypaleontology, I liked to keep fit and gotinto the second university team for skiingand squash.

Within a year of starting on my PhD work, luck was on my side, and two major technical hurdles, which could haveremoved a career in science from mygrasp, had been resolved. Before the endof my PhD work, the major question towhich my PhD work had been addressedhad been answered to a large extent. This

question was whether all different kindsof cells in the body had the same sets of genes. I remember a contemporary of mine saying ‘this is the kind of work forwhich people get a Nobel Prize’, althoughit didn’t seem so at the time.

At the invitation of George Beadle, I went toCalTech for postdoctoral work inbacteriophage genetics, at which I wasextraordinarily unsuited. I returned to Oxfordas an Assistant Lecturer in Zoology andwas accorded a very favourable ResearchFellowship at my Oxford College, ChristChurch. In spite of great support fromheads of other departments in Oxford, andnotably from Rodney Porter (Nobel Prize for

antibody structure), I accepted a job offerfrom Max Perutz at the MRC laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Since it started, just over 50 years ago, it hasfostered, spawned, or whatever, no lessthan 17 Nobel Prizes on a modest budget. I have always been immensely grateful to Max Perutz (X-ray crystallography) forappointing me to his institute. To move toCambridge from a very secure professionaland comfortable domestic life in Oxfordwas a substantial risk and challenge [at theage of nearly 40].

I believe he has ideas aboutbecoming a scientist…

5THE CHURCHILL 2013

My collaborators and I were thrilled tolearn in the late spring that we were tobe awarded, jointly with Prof. JosephKeller of Stanford University, the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize in physics. The Ig Nobelorganizers swore us to secrecy on thematter until the award ceremony inBoston, to which we all travelled in lateSeptember. It was a hilarious andenjoyable evening at the famous SandersTheatre at Harvard University.

The ceremony was broadcast live on theinternet and we received many commentsfrom people around the world whowatched it.

Ray Goldstein (F07)

Continuing a Nobel tradition

Patrick Warren, Ray Goldstein, Robin Ball

Having resigned my Research Fellowshipat Christ Church, Oxford, I shall be forevergrateful to Richard Keynes (Physiology,Cambridge and a founding Fellow ofChurchill) for getting me invited to have anE-class Research Fellowship in Churchillonly a few years after moving toCambridge. At Churchill, I was generouslyspared the (to me) substantial discomfortof mid-week afternoon committeemeetings. I always felt like a parasite (notthat for a moment the College made mefeel this) because I enjoyed the privilegeof belonging to High Table where one metan extraordinarily wide range of interestingvisiting Fellows, and indeed teachingFellows of the College, while notcontributing in a material way to thesuccess of the College.

After just over 10 years at the MRCMolecular Biology Institute, my closecolleague Ron Laskey and I were invitedby Professor (later Sir) Gabriel Horn toaccept Professorships in his departmentof Zoology in Cambridge. As it turned out,this somewhat risky move paid off to anunexpected extent. My long-timecolleague Ron Laskey and I were offeredmoney to initiate a new Institute ofCancer and Developmental Biology inCambridge. Having started as a CancerResearch Campaign supported research

group for Ron Laskey and myself, it hasnow developed into an institute containingsome 17 groups, some 250 people, andan annual budget of about £9 million.

Since those early days, I have beenpreoccupied with the important question of how it is that a somatic cell nucleus can be rejuvenated or reprogrammed bycomponents of an egg. This reprogrammingis the basis of the concept that it may bepossible to give patients with aged ordiseased tissues new rejuvenated cells ofall different kinds of the body starting fromaccessible skin types such as skin or blood.

During my scientific career, my wife Jeanhas been extremely tolerant of my long

hours in the laboratory and extensivetrips to foreign meetings. After some 25years as a Research Fellow at Churchill, I was kindly offered the job as Master of Magdalene in Cambridge. Havingbenefitted a great deal from that,Churchill has been so very kind as toinvite me to become an Honorary Fellowof the College, thereby enabling me tocontinue this long association since 1973.

John Gurdon(F73; Honorary Fellow 07)

LEFT: Sir John Gurdon

ABOVE: Sir John’s Science Report


In 2009, an approach was made to the Morgan Library and Museum inManhattan. Churchill read widely and livedby his pen; while the Morgan Libraryexists to collect and preserve the literaryand artistic tradition upon which he builthis writing and career. Thus was born the concept and the title of the exhibitionChurchill, The Power of Words. It wascurated by Allen Packwood, the Directorof the Churchill Archives Centre andDeclan Kiely of the Morgan Library.Thereafter, Martello Media of Dublin werehired to design the exhibition’s layout andthe audio-visual pod.

The exhibition opened on the evening of June 7th with a large crowd and manyeminent people present, including theVice-Chancellor of the University ofCambridge, the Mayor of London andCaroline Kennedy. (The speeches areavailable at www.winstonchurchill.org).The exhibition drew large crowds fromJune 8 to September 23, 2012 andreceived multiple positive reviews.

The exhibition brought to life the manbehind the words through some 65

documents, artifacts, and recordings,ranging from edited typescripts ofChurchill’s speeches, to his Nobel Medaland Citation, to excerpts from hisbroadcasts made during the London blitz.The centerpiece of the exhibition was the‘pod’ where eight of his most famousspeeches were heard with accompanyingwords and relevant newsreel footage.

In parallel a series of related events tookplace; these included a book written bySir Martin Gilbert entitled Churchill, thePower of Words, a Speakers series thatincluded Celia Sandys and others, a filmseries, and other events. The exhibitionalso provided the backdrop for the softlaunch of ‘The Churchill Archive On-Line’,an ambitious collaboration between theArchives Centre and BloomsburyAcademic to digitize the entire ChurchillPapers collection.

Out of so many wonderful Churchillquotes, the one that appeals to me mostis one from 1943.

‘The empires of the future are theempires of the mind’(During a speech WSC made atHarvard University on receiving anhonorary degree, September 6, 1943)

While different people can interpret it intheir own way I think of the internet,websites, connectivity, collaboration andall the wonderful things that derive fromthese new paradigms and technologies.

The exhibition was a once-in-a-lifetimeopportunity to raise Churchill’s profile and inparticular to try and connect with a youngergeneration. Personally I felt this way withtwo lively teenage sons and especiallyaround the high value of leadership. Wedecided that we needed a special means of providing an interesting, attractive

gateway to communicate the exhibition and the importance of Churchill directly tocontemporary experience to those under 21.

Towards this end, a wonderful website(www.discoverchurchill.org) was createdby an enthusiastic team.

Allen Packwood said at the time: “I hopeand believe that this website will be agreat vehicle for taking Churchill's wordsand deeds to a wider and youngeraudience.” Positive comments werereceived and people liked the moderntrailer set to music. It had wide globalreach; a sample of 100 hits came from asmany as 70 cities globally all the wayfrom those in China to Chile.

The exhibition was an extraordinarysuccess and it was a great personalhonour to have been involved since itsinception, working with professionals ofhigh excellence in their fields. AllenPackwood and others have set the barvery high for future Churchill exhibitionsand events. Stay tuned!

Michael Norwich (UG66)

Churchill returns to New York

Over time, a cadre of Churchill College graduates and other Churchillians spokeabout ‘bringing Churchill back to New York, ‘the city where his mother was born’,the first city he visited in America, on November 9, 1895 (he was on his way toCuba), and also the city from which he left America on his last visit, leavingIdlewild Airport for London on April 13, 1961.

ABOVE: The first page of the DiscoverChurchill website © Estate of Yousuf Karsh

7THE CHURCHILL 2013

Operation Iceberg

Physicists do like space-time diagrams. But in the excitement of thinking aboutparticles and photons zooming about on paper, we sometimes forget about thediagrams we travel in reality.

Peter Wadhams (now Professor) was anundergraduate at Churchill, readingphysics from 1966 to 1969. I studied thesame subject at Churchill from 1997 to2001. Same place, thirty years apart. Lastsummer, our paths met on a ship in theDavis Strait, just west of Greenland. Alsopresent at the same point in time but 50metres away in space was a polar bear,and underneath the polar bear was amassive tabular iceberg. Peter and I stoodon the bow of the ship and watched thebear. The bear peered back at us for awhile, and then wandered off. The icebergstayed put. After all, the iceberg was thestar of the show.

Operation Iceberg was a BBC Two seriesabout iceberg formation and destruction,and it was all filmed during one six-weekexpedition to Greenland. I was excitedabout the series because its aim was toshow the process of scientific discovery,something that is all-too-often missingfrom science TV. The BBC had assembleda collection of scientists who normally

worked in the Arctic, and had persuadedthem to join our expedition so that theywere all collecting data in the same place.I was one of the presenting team, there tofollow the scientists, assist with practicalwork when possible, and to help tell thestory of the science being uncovered.

The first three weeks of the expeditionwere spent perched on a ledge overlookingthe front of Store glacier. It was a stunningsetting for a camp, and it was a hugeprivilege to spend three weeks with a clearview of the glacier front. The glacierrumbled and boomed as it marched along,and every few days we were rewarded bythe sight of a massive chunk of the icefront breaking away and starting its journeydown the fjord. The largest chunks, eachapproximately a cubic kilometre of ice,rotated as they broke away to reveal icethat had been hidden away under theglacier for thousands of years.

Peter joined us when we set off in anIcelandic ship to study a large tabular

iceberg out at sea. The snappily-titledPetermann Ice Island B1 had split awayfrom the Greenland ice cap two yearspreviously, and we were there to look atthe mechanisms helping it break up. Afterspending several days surveying, somescientists (including Peter) finally got outon to the ice to set up experiments. Justas they were finishing, a huge crackopened up a mere 100 metres or sobehind the group, almost parallel to theiceberg edge. This fracture must havebeen three kilometres long, and all I couldthink of was the fractures I had studied inmy first year materials science course,which had a maximum length of about one millimetre. This was fracturemechanics on a grand scale, and Peterwas standing on top of it. Fortunately, we had taken extensive safety measures,and the team all got back on to the shipquickly. I’m sure that when Peter did hisearly work on iceberg break-up, he hadnever dreamed that he would be quite so close to that physics in action.

I loved the expedition and the opportunityto talk about the physics of ice and theocean. Operation Iceberg got a veryenthusiastic reception when it wasbroadcast, and I’m glad that ChurchillCollege played its part in this project.

Helen Czerski (UG97, PG02)


I joined the Liberals in 1974 aged 19, inthe run up to the Europe Referendum thefollowing year. Many years followed ofdelivering leaflets, going to conferences,becoming an agent, until 1993 when I was elected to Cambridgeshire CountyCouncil as a Liberal Democrat for CastleWard (including Churchill College) andalso became the Education portfoliomember, with a budget of £250m p.a.

All too soon after that I was mentored andsupported to become an approvedcandidate for Parliament. I was selectedfor neighbouring S E Cambridgeshire, aseat with potential, and useful for learningthe ropes. I attended excellent partytraining to develop my team, how to useelection software to maximise our data,working with volunteers. But as a womanwith young children and a demanding jobit was always tough to balance. At 22%,there are still too few women MPs.

In 2003 I was selected to fight Watford, a top three-way marginal target seat.Here I discovered the nastier side ofpolitics. Cambridgeshire was a positiveoasis of courteous behaviour! Thepersonal abuse hurled at all politicians viathe local newspaper and on leaflets wasbreathtaking. In addition I was the targetof a campaign of criminal damage,harassment and stalking over a three-yearperiod, culminating in the arrest andconviction of my Conservative opponent.This was extreme, even by politicalstandards, but we were determined not to let it get in the way of our campaign.Frustratingly, in both 2005 and 2010 we narrowly failed to take the seat by1400 votes.

I had turned down going into the Houseof Lords before, but when offered thechance in late 2010 I agreed. The Lordsis something of an extreme contrast tothe hurly burly of the campaign trail. It isan excellent revising scrutiny Chamber,

which has expertise is many subjects, notjust amongst the politically neutralCrossbenchers (one of whom is LordBroers). Instead of the Punch and Judystyle of debate found “in Another Place”as the Commons is quaintly referred to,courtesy is extended to speakers,interventions much more considered. Onmy first day I met a friend who was anewly elected MP and a long servingLord. As the Commons Division bell went,the MP asked us if we were going to

vote. My colleague replied “We try not todo anything as vulgar as that”.

My role these days is leading on Bills, orparts of Bills, for my party, taking part infascinating topical debates, asking OralQuestions in the House. I miss helpingthe public with casework (we don’t dothat in the Lords), but find the workfulfilling and busy. And House of Lordsreform? I believe it is overdue andnecessary, but that’s another story.

Sal Brinton (UG81)

A way of life

TOP: Sal Brinton with Nick Clegg, Watford 2010

LEFT Sal Brinton and husband, Tim Whittaker

Politics isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. Either you get the bug, or youdon’t, and that’s important, because the personal commitment you need to make to succeed is considerable. And so it should be. Seeking electedoffice is not something to be undertaken lightly.

9THE CHURCHILL 2013

As a Reader in Forensic Psychology, I usually do two media appearances aweek but the Savile investigation kept mebusier. My role in cases like this is toprovide some information the public won'treadily be able to get from the newspapers.This morning I explore how the Broadmoorincidents could have happened in the wakeof the Ashworth Inquiry which had a majorimpact on secure hospitals like Broadmoor.

Back in Cambridge I cycle to Shire Hall tocheck my Councillor mailbox. One of myresidents has been ripped off by a trader. I ring her to check facts and then I contactthe County Trading Standards Officer to investigate further and report back to me. There is an overgrown tree on the Madingley Road cycle path which I report for trimming. And someone’sdisabled badge renewal has been delayed.While I am chasing that up on the phone, I report two potholes for mending by emailand put them on Fix-My-Street as well. We have campaigned to have softwarethat can report and be transparent aboutthis work but it is a constant battle to tryand bring the County Council in to the21st Century. Casework is the most

rewarding aspect of being a councillor, andwhat may seem like small issues can be amajor factor in people being able to getaround Cambridge or being isolated.

I write some Thank You cards to those who helped during a recent Euro-selection. I am delighted to be highon the list at number three to stand as aLiberal Democrat candidate in theEuropean parliament elections.

In the evening I go to a hall where NormanLamb is due to speak. As Minister forSocial Care, Norman is in Cambridge toconsult about putting a cap on the amountthat people would have to find to fundcare costs in later life. After the talk heensures that everyone’s question is repliedto and provides thoughtful answers. I amstill bemused, but rather proud, that warm,unstuffy friends in politics are nowministers creating a stronger economy and a fairer society.

Afterwards I bring Norman up to dateabout a national pilot scheme which Ihelped launch in parliament. It is calledthe Ugly Mugs Scheme and will improve

the level of intelligence regarding crimescommitted against sex workers in the UK.The scheme is already showing goodresults as it meets its aim to encourageand increase the level of reporting ofhidden crimes against women. I hope thatthis vulnerable group of people will havethe system fully funded one day as thepilot is run on a shoestring and fundingwill run out after six months. Normanlistens carefully and promises to read theinformation pack I prepared. We agree tomeet and discuss things again when thereare more results to evaluate – this time inCromer of all places! A by-election is duethere so I have a hunch our meeting willend up with a canvassing session.

Belinda Brooks-Gordon (PG95)

A day in the life

I wake at 6am, I am only ever up early for a media interview, otherwise I tend to workuntil very late. The 7.15 train gets me into Kings Cross and a car takes me to the Skystudios where I have agreed to talk about the Savile Report.

ABOVE: Belinda contributing to theunderstanding of sexual offending patterns

LEFT: Councillor Brooks-Gordon pressing theimportance of women’s safety to the Ministerof State for Care and Support, Norman Lamb


It was not a happy experience. ‘ButCaroline you are in your mid-forties – youhave left it too late’ said one. ‘Yourexperience is in the energy sector, that’sthe only sector where I can reasonablyplace you’ said another. Thank goodness I didn’t listen to them.

I am writing this piece whilst in Delhi,where I am meeting with the new CEOand Chair of Sightsavers India – we areinvesting in fundraising here now not justprogrammes, tapping into the new wealththat is being created. Over the next fewmonths I will be visiting Congo-Brazzavilleand Southern Sudan, as well as meetingwith people from World Bank and WHO,all in the cause of eliminating avoidableblindness and fighting for the rights ofdisabled people. If I had listened to thosefusty old headhunters I would never be inthis position. And loving what I do.

My career has been unusual. I studiedPhysics because my father said ‘it wouldlead to a good job’ and anyway, I was nogood at Chemistry. I came to Churchillbecause I was blown away both by theEnergy group at the Cavendish (sadlydemised now) and Cambridge itself. Iwanted to spend three more yearsstudying if I could do it in such a place,and do something relevant to society (thefirst ‘energy crisis’ was upon us then).

From Cambridge I joined the oil industry– mainly to earn some money. Being anacademic is all very well but I was toovenal to put up with the pay and the shortterm contracts that made getting amortgage impossible…. So I then spentthe next 17 years in an industry wheremen well outnumbered women. Buthaving done Physics this was of courseentirely the norm for me. Indeed thingsdidn’t change until I joined the

charity/NGO sector where womenoutnumber men…

People ask me what it was like workingmainly with men – I think they expect luridtales of sexual harassment or a desperatefight to be taken seriously. I can honestlysay I experienced very little of either – atleast after the first few years. I did haveone boss joke constantly about us havingan affair – but a rather risky stratagem ofcalling his bluff in the hotel soon put paidto that. I remember too a boss who clearlyfelt deeply threatened by me, who tried tostop an important promotion by telling mynew boss that I was a ‘raging feministwho spent a lot of time with the women’snetwork.’ Bad call on his part as the newboss was, unbeknownst to him, a ragingleftie who was a member of theCommunist party. He thought this mademe ideal for the job, so it backfired.

My career in the oil industry ended with a couple of lucrative deals that gave mefinancial security – one selling the part of the company I ran, and the otherhelping another company turn aroundand sell its own gas subsidiary. At thatpoint I knew I needed something different– whatever headhunters might say. Myadvice to others is that you should not letyourself be pigeonholed – it is possible tomake a radical change. I got myself somecharity experience first by taking a nonexecutive directorship at a housingassociation; I was then very loud at theSightsavers interview – I decided to bememorable even if I didn’t have all thenecessary experience. It worked.

So these days I spend some of my time meeting Ministers of Health, somepersuading donors to support us, andsome time sitting with people in the mostdeprived communities in the world,

talking to them about their lives. I get tosee the world as it really is – in all itscontrasts. I see poverty at its mostextreme, but also communities who bindtogether in a way that I think we, in theUK, may have lost.

I am at my happiest, I think, when I amdoing public speaking – and particularlytalking about the fact that we standpoised at the moment to eliminate someof the most disgusting diseases on earth– blinding trachoma and river blindness(one very painful, the other causingunbearable itching, and both causingblindness). If we can do that (and withenough will and resources we can), then I will have played a part in history. Whocould ask for more than that in a career?

Caroline Harper (PG81)

Making money to making history

As a Chief Executive I have spent quite a bit of my time with headhunters –mostly as the recruiter but occasionally as the candidate. There was a brieftime when I was looking to make a major change in my life when I turnedto those I knew for advice on how to make a radical career move.

11THE CHURCHILL 2013

Your roving reporter attended. Thecelebration started with afternoon tea inClare, whose team laid on plenty of hotdrinks and two kinds of delicious cake.(Coffee and lemon, since you ask.) Therather small room in which it was heldliterally brought everyone together, gettingthings off to a properly warm start. We’dbeen told to leave in good time forEvensong at King’s, so we straggled overin the drizzle to queue outside the Chapelfor what seemed a long time. But that gaveus the chance to get chatting to otherqueuers – my neighbour was a delightfulLucy Cav alumna who had read a firstEnglish degree at Oxford in the days whenthe syllabus stopped at 1900. Fed up withthis, she moved east for a second BA inEnglish at Lucy; the Cambridge syllabus inthose days extended to a progressive1945. I swapped a few similar tales aboutthe Modern Languages degrees in eachinstitution, tales which somehow seemedof a piece with the fact that it took Oxford’smen’s colleges rather longer thanCambridge’s to go mixed (1974). (To be fair,Oxford did allow its existing womenundergraduates to proceed to degreesnearly thirty years earlier than Cambridge,1920 versus 1948, but we won’t talk aboutthat now.)

Eventually we got into the Chapel, wherewe were put in pews whose cunninglyplaced wooden knobs just in your backseemed designed to stop you nodding off,

but it was worth it. We were right next tothe choir, and the sublime singing andwonderful setting more than compensated.But – no girls in the choir? Treble and altostill sung by little boys and countertenors?Blind tests reveal no differences betweenyoung girls’ voices and young boys’. In the1960s, David Willcocks, who conductedthe St Matthew Passion broadcast fromthe Festival Hall every Easter, broke withtradition and used girls from Londonschools for the ripieno chorus in theopening ‘Come, ye daughters’. No one evercomplained. It’s all the more regrettablebecause the musical training acquired inchoir schools has helped many future malecomposers, while potential female oneshave been shut out from it – one reason,it’s been speculated, for the historic dearthof women composers.

Early in the service, the Evensongcelebrant referred to the Gala’s marking of the admission of women by ‘King’s andseveral other colleges’. In case we hadn’tunderstood that the ‘several other’ collegeswere not for naming, he repeated thephrase verbatim later in the service. Youcould almost hear Churchillian, Clareanand Lucyan hackles collectively rising.

Next came free time to test our memoriesof suitable watering-holes near King’s, testsmostly passed with flying colours. That wasfollowed by a superb collaborative GalaConcert. The performers were all women

drawn from the alumnae, current studentsand Fellows of the four colleges, and one of the soloists was our own cellist PennyDriver (U80). By now, everything wasrunning a tad late, so the planned receptionmerged with the dinner in an atmosphere of comfortable chaos. For reasons unclearto us, all the Churchill people were seatedat a table marked King’s. Dinner was jolly,with a serious note, however, struck in aspeech by the Vice-Chancellor, who took us through the shameful pre-1972 historyof Cambridge’s exclusion of women andemphasised that female professors are stillin a small minority of 15%.

Then it was post-dinner drinks, on whichyour reporter can’t comment as she retiredat this point. The whole occasion had beenconvivial and optimistic. But let’s not forgetthat in other parts of the world women not only lack education but may die for it. A month before our Gala, as readers will remember, fifteen-year-old MalalaYousafzai was shot in the head by theTaliban for daring to promote the educationof women. We may think the battle’s wonhere in the UK, but we can feel for thosemillions of deprived women elsewhere.

Alison Finch (F72)

ABOVE: Four-College Gala Concert

Letting them in1972 saw the admission of women to Churchill, Clare and King’s, and the first admission of womenundergraduates to Lucy Cavendish (until then for women graduates only). The four colleges have joinedforces to hold anniversary celebrations this year, and the first took place on Saturday 17th November,based in Clare and King’s.


Paddy, who has a Scottish mother and anEnglish father, began life in London butmoved to Edinburgh when he was six.His introduction to cricket was with hisclub side – unlike so many Varsity

cricketers he did not go to a cricket-playing school – so he was playing withand against adults from the age of 11, aswell as for LLAS – a side comprised ofplayers from across state education in

Edinburgh. Unorthodox maybe, but itcertainly worked: nine years on, he was inAustralia captaining the Scotland under-19 team in the World Cup, with gamesagainst Bangladesh, Australia,Afghanistan, Pakistan, New Zealand,Zimbabwe and Ireland. We tried an oldchestnut: did he have any cricketingheroes? If there was one, he said, itwould be Darren Gough, who was doinghis quick bowling for England just whenaspiring quick bowler Paddy was at animpressionable age.

Bound to come up was the question ofthe importance of sport in University life.Paddy is as enthusiastic an advocate asyou will come across, speaking warmly ofits value in the lives of individual studentsboth in and after their time in Cambridge,and its power to connect the Universitywith the wider community. He accepts,seemingly with no reluctance, thatadmissions must be based on academiccriteria. He emphasizes, however, that theUniversity and the Colleges mustvigorously support those sportsmen and

Churchill has had a few Cricket Blues in the past, Jim Fitzgerald and Hugh Pearman in the ‘60s, Tony Lea and Ian Burnley in the ‘80s. But never has it had the captain of the University cricket side –until now, in the person of Paddy Sadler. Two Fellows of the College with close connections to CUCC,Ken Siddle and Edward Craig, took the opportunity to congratulate Paddy and have a chat about hiscareer so far, his aspirations and the upcoming Cambridge season.

Skipper Paddy aiming for four!

3THE CHURCHILL 2013 13

With students tending to move on fromCollege (eventually) we do see a fairlyregular turn over in team-members, and thisyear there were three people to replace. Wewere delighted, in the year we celebratedthe 40th anniversary of the admission ofwomen to Cambridge, that one of ourfemale Junior Research Fellows turned outfor the squad to join two older (though notwiser) fellows representing the SCR. Still noadvance on staff numbers though, so ourintrepid captain was, once again, left aloneto represent that part of the Collegecommunity, while two new fleet-footedMCR members volunteered to keep our

numbers up and our time down. Thecompetition was tougher than ever, with thenext College team only two minutes behindus, but we were indeed leaner, meaner andfaster (albeit by just six seconds) than lastyear, which was enough to bring us home in11th place overall. This was an advance ofthree positions since 2011 and, curiously afurther three from 2010 when we rompedhome in 17th. I hesitate to lay down achallenge to better this by another threeplaces in 2013, but it would have a nicemathematical structure, wouldn’t it?

Colm Caulfield (PG87/F05)

Chariots of Fire

ABOVE: Winston’s Winners, 2012

Winston’s winners did it again. It may have sounded like hollow posturing back in summer 2012, but this year’sChurchill College ‘Chariots of Fire’ team pulled off a first-ever hat-trick back-to-back-to-back ‘three-peat’ in theColleges’ Cup.

women who do clear that hurdle, urgingthat all such support should continue and,wherever possible, be strengthened.With the three of us offering experience of CUCC over more than 50 years (ouch!)it was equally certain that we would touchon the changes that half-century hasbrought. Paddy’s attitude is clear, and aspositive as can be: there is no question of aiming to revive the club’s past, whichdepended on outside circumstances thatno longer exist. However, it is an object of respect and a source of inspiration, andwhat it inspires in him and his colleagues is a determination to embrace the game as it now is and to take the club forward,laying down a record which theirsuccessors will be proud to follow. For astart, it would be nice to win the one-day50-overs game against Oxford at Lord’sfour years running, a target right withintheir reach next season.

The CUCC captain traditionally has thelast word on matters of selection. HerePaddy may face some difficult decisions,but if so at least his problems will be ofthe right kind: with eleven (!) Old Bluesback this year, and some promisingfreshmen coming into consideration,breaking into the side will be hard andretaining one’s place will be far fromautomatic. So expect some good viewing

at Fenners, and watch out in particular forthe T20 Varsity-match, where (so Paddysaid, doubtless drawing on last season’sexperience at The Parks in Oxford) a goodcrowd can supply real home advantage.

A final question before Paddy was off to a training session: what were his topcricketing experiences so far? He pickedout playing at Lord’s and playing against

Australia in Australia. Few cricketers willquarrel with either of those choices.

Ken Siddle (F82) &

Edward Craig (F66)

Dating back to 1827 (pre-dating thefirst Boat Race in 1829), the CricketVarsity Match is the oldest Oxford vCambridge fixture and one of theoldest continuously played at theheadquarters of world cricket.

Churchill's Paddy Sadler (U10) willlead the Light Blues through theLord's long room and in to battle with the old enemy.

Cambridge women will also play their Varsity Match on Saturday 15 June. They will take on their

Oxford counterparts on the NurseryGround while the men face off on themain square.

If you would like to join us in supportingPaddy and the Cambridge team in theChurchill College hospitality box atLord’s for the Varsity Cricket Match onSaturday 15 June please contact Hilaryfor details on 01223 336240 or [email protected]

We hope this will be the perfectopportunity to see Cambridge win andfor Churchillians to get together.

Join us at Lord’s


Exploring ways in which we might do this

provided a great excuse – as if an excuse

was needed – to get some of our Churchill

arts and media stars around the table in

the Cockcroft Room and brainstorm. Not

surprisingly there were several impressive

ideas from interactive installations in the

Jock Colville Hall to a Churchill film

festival. What we finally decided to test the

water with was an event entitled ‘Confront

the Nightmare’.

Bearing in mind the College’s mission at its

foundation to apply science for the benefit

of society and the fact that its first Master,

Sir John Cockcroft, was awarded the Nobel

Prize for splitting the atom, we decided to

explore and confront past, present and

future dreams and nightmares, looking at

the way in which a scientific dream for the

future may become a present nightmare, as

well as the way in which science and

scientists have been represented in public

media. We organised a panel discussion

chaired by the Master and inspired by a

series of film clips compiled and introduced

by Sir Christopher Frayling (UG65). These

included various Hollywood depictions of

‘Frankenstein’, Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’, ‘Dr

Strangelove’, Greer Garson as ‘Marie Curie’

and Paul Wilmshurst’s (UG81) BBC drama

documentary, ‘Hiroshima’.

It was particularly apt that the event took

place in the Wolfson Hall, which at

Cockcroft’s request was originally fitted

with translation booths for international

conferences on the peaceful use of

atomic energy.

The panellists were made up of Fellows and

current students: Sir Christopher Frayling,

Professor Melissa Hines, Professor David

Spiegelhalter, Dr Alex Webb, David Neal,

Kat Vaughan and Hilary Costello. A

fascinating discussion took place with lots

of challenging questions from the audience

giving food for thought for future debate.

This year the theme for the Festival of

Ideas is ‘Frontiers’ and we are working

on an online project, so please visit the

College website next Term for details

and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter,

Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram

and Vimeo to be part of the action!

Sharon MauriceDevelopment Director

14

“To sleep, perchance to dream –ay, there’s the rub…...”Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)

Last November the University’s Festival of Ideas explored the theme of ‘Dreams and Nightmares’ sowe decided to take part in the programme by organising an event at Churchill. Churchill is synonymouswith science and technology but we wanted to involve our arts and humanities students, alumni andFellows as well as our scientists and engineers.


Catering is developing at Churchill at arapid pace as the needs of the modernstudent continue to evolve. It’s importantthat we keep pace with the High Streetin order to meet their expectations.Developing the Buttery into a café-barhas helped keep pace with the socialneeds of students as we see a huge shiftaway from the traditional student lifestyleand one where students are now drinkingcoffee and getting late night eats andusing social media in the confines of thebar. The aim in the buttery is to ensure itremains the meeting point, retains theidentity of the College and uses the‘brand’ to full effect. Last year we soldjust fewer than 10,000 cups of coffee,2500 home baked cookies and just over1000 pizzas in the Buttery.

The Dining Hall has similar changesoccurring as the menu develops to dealwith students diverse dietary requirements.The Chef team cater now, more than ever,for the individual. A modern menu is reallyimportant and we are constantly searchingfor improvements and better ways toproduce. Our ongoing move away frombought-in products, towards more home-made, is a welcome development. One ofthe key tasks is to ensure that we have awell-trained team which has both theknowledge and skills to keep thisdevelopment process moving forward,ready to implement change when required.Importantly, this must be matched by a great service delivery team who are responding to all our customers’diverse needs.

Making this a financial success is allabout team work, with the CateringDepartment and wider HospitalityDepartment each having its part to play.The increased use of IT in thedepartment has enabled us to take fullcontrol of purchasing as we now buy90% of our produce via e-procurement,finding the best price and introducingquality suppliers. A till system that can bemoved to different locations, deal with allour different customers, and be updatedinstantly is important when dealing

with 165,000 transactions per year. A powerful conference system allows us to maximise room usage and respondto customer enquiries quickly. Thus theCollege is able to offer as much of itselfas possible and keep all the teamsinformed of what’s going on and where.

However, the most important part of lifein the College Catering Department isthe people that work here, they all care and strive to do their best for the Students, Fellows, Alumni andConference Guests, they have greatexperience and knowledge and all knowwhat is required of them by the Collegeand the importance of this task.

David OakleyCatering Manager

Catering for Churchill

ABOVE: Some of the Churchill CollegeCatering team

2

The exhibition, Chairs by Wegner, broughttogether some of his most recognizablefurniture of the last century, including thetype of chair used by future PresidentsKennedy and Nixon during their famous1960 Presidential debate.

As exhibition curator, I’d provide apassionate and compelling argument ifasked whether furniture can also truly beclassified as art. This isn’t simply anexhibition about chairs, it’s about howdesign can fundamentally change the waywe live. Hans J Wegner’s furniture unitesform and function; in every design heplaces the highest demands on comfortand ergonomics. To Wegner, a chair isn’tjust a piece of furniture, but a work of artmade to support the human form.

The exhibition at Churchill brought together30 individual items of furniture spanningthe whole of Wegner’s career, from hisdesign for a child’s chair, ‘Peter’s Stool’(1948) – which was made as a gift for the

young son of his friend, the designer BørgeMogensen – to his bespoke design for the‘Møller Chair’ (1990).

Indeed, much of the furniture on displaycomes from either Churchill College or theMøller Centre, that sits in its grounds andwas founded by a gift from the shippingmagnate A P Møller. The exhibition marksthe 20th anniversary of the Møller Centreand also includes rare Wegner designs forsofas, tables and lighting.

Over his career, Wegner designed morethan 500 chairs with many different woodsand styles. Proof of his enduring popularityand the timelessness of his designs isevident in the fact that many of his iconicdesigns are still in production today.

Although he was earnest in his ambitions,Wegner allowed himself the space to havefun, too. He said: “We must take care thateverything doesn’t get so dreadfully serious.We must play – but we must play seriously.”

During his lifetime Wegner won theLunning Prize, the Grand Prix of the MilanTriennale and was an honorary Royaldesigner for industry of the Royal Societyof Arts in London, as well as receiving anhonorary doctorate from the Royal Collegeof Art, awarded at the same time as MartinScorcese received his. It will be interestingto see if the reputation of Scorcese’s filmslasts as long as that of Wegner’s chairs.

Barry PhippsFellow and Curator of Works of Art

16

The art of sitting comfortably

One of the most influential designers of the 20th century, who turned furniture into works of art tosupport the human form, was celebrated with an exhibition in college. Hans J. Wegner’s iconic work canbe found in the permanent collections of museums around the world, including New York’s Museum ofModern Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Wegner, born in Denmark in 1914, received almost everymajor recognition given to designers during a career that spanned from the early 20th century until hisdeath in 2007.


Where are they now and where are their trousers!?

Caption Competition

Can you identify any of these 1983 students?

Image courtesy of Robert Bartlett (U80)

Can you think of a caption for this picture of Henry Moore (right) supervising the installation of this sculpture at Churchill in 1966? A prize will

be awarded to the best entry, which will be published in the next Newsletter.

Send your captions and ‘Where are they now?’ answers to [email protected]

Image courtesy of Nick Denbow (U64)

3THE CHURCHILL 2013 193THE CHURCHILL 2010 23

CHURCHILL COLLEGE PUBLICATIONS

The books available include:

Canon Noel Duckworth: An Extraordinary Life

by Michael Smyth (U67)

Flying Roast DucksRecollections of Sir Hermann

Bondi 1983 - 2005

by Paula Halson

Graffiti Artworks and Poems from

Churchill College

by John Kinsella

New revised edition of

Corbusier comes toCambridge Post-war architecture and

the competition to build

Churchill College

by Mark Goldie

The College is pleased to announce that it has publishedfour new books to add to its collection.

All books are available for purchase from the Porters' Lodge or online from the College Websiteat www.chu.cam.ac.uk (by selecting the merchandise tab).

Points of contactAccommodationAll Alumni and Past Fellows with internet accessare asked to request accommodation by visitingwww.churchillians.net and completing the onlineform. You will require a username and passwordfor this which can be requested from the AlumniRelations Office by clicking the link at the top ofthe homepage. Alternatively please telephone theConference Office on +44 (0)1223 336233 oremail: [email protected].

Alumni [email protected]

Alumni Relations [email protected] Adamcheski-Halson, AlumniRelations Manager: +44 (0)1223 336083Hilary Stimpson, Development Officer: +44 (0)1223 336240Livia Argentesi, Development & AlumniRelations Assistant: +44 (0)1223 331546

Development DirectorSharon Maurice+44 (0)1223 [email protected]

Churchill Review EditorProfessor Alison [email protected]

Newsletter EditorMr Tim [email protected]

High Table [email protected] Alumni with internet access are kindlyrequested to book High Table by visitingwww.churchillians.net and completing theonline form. You will require a username andpassword for this which can be requestedfrom the Alumni Relations Office by clickingthe link at the top of the homepage.

Porters’ Lodge+44 (0)1223 336000

Møller Centre+44 (0)1223 [email protected]

Alumni Events 2013

15 June 2013Varsity Cricket Match at Lord’sPlease go to www.churchillians.net forfurther details and to book your place.

15 June 2013Boat Club DinnerPlease go to www.churchillians.net forfurther details and to book your place.

6 July 2013Reunion Dinner: 1999-2002The Reunion Dinner for those who joinedthe College between 1999 and 2002.Please go to www.churchillians.net andvisit the link in the ‘What’s new’ box onthe homepage for further details and tobook your place.

7 July 2013Association Garden Party andFamily DayJoin us from 2pm-5pm for a familyfriendly event at Churchill.

Please go to www.churchillians.net forfurther details and to book your place.

15 August 2013Master’s Reception in EdinburghThe annual event hosted by the Masterand Lady Wallace in their home town.

27-29 September 2013Churchill Alumni AssociationWeekend*

1963 Reunion Event

To celebrate 50 years since they joinedthe College. Further details can be foundin the accompanying document.

27 September 2013Churchill Association WineTasting*

27 September 20137th Annual Association Golf Day*Come and join Churchillians and current members of College in a friendlycompetition for the Association GolfTrophy at Cambridge Meridian Golf Club.

28 September 20131972: Conversation

28 September 2013Churchill Association Dinner* & AGM

1 November 2013Alumni Formal and PavA dinner for those who have recentlygraduated.

Events 2014Dates to be confirmed andfurther details to follow.

June 2014Special concluding event for alldonors to the 50th AnniversaryAppeal (invitation only)

Supporting Churchill CollegeThere 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, credit/debitcard or via Virgin Giving

• A regular gift by Direct Debit

• A gift of shares

• A gift of property

• A payroll gift and matching giving viayour employer

• A legacy

* Bookings for these events should be made byfollowing the booking procedure for the AssociationWeekend, Annual Dinner & AGM accompanying this Newsletter.

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

For further advice on giving to Churchill College, further details on College funds orto request a donation form, please contact the Alumni & Development Office.

Shopping at AmazonThe College is a member of theAmazon Associates Scheme. Everytime you shop with Amazon, pleasevisit www.churchillians.net and click theanimated Amazon link at the bottom ofthe homepage and do your shopping inthe usual way. For every item that isdespatched to you, Amazon will makea donation to the College at noexpense to yourself. It’s a simple wayto support your College.

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The full calendar of events can be found on www.churchillians.net

Churchill College Newsletter 2013

Documents

Transcript of Churchill College Newsletter 2013