ISSUE 43LIVING IN: UKRAINE 14SINCE ST JOHN’S 20LEADING THE WAY 21JOHNIAN PLAYLIST 24

Solving the housing puzzleJohn Myers and Sophie Camburn address the UK housing crisis 8 and 13

P.S. I always enjoy reading your thoughts on the magazine and the content within. Start a conversation with me via the email address above or fill out the Keep us in the loop form, which accompanies this magazine, to let us know what you’re up to.

W elcome to the issue of Johnian magazine that focuses on living.

My favourite topic, and certainly one that none of us should ignore.

On pages 21–3 we meet Hannah Carmichael (2003), founder of the Living Well Alone Project, and read the story of her remarkable dedication to supporting disadvantaged young people. She further explores her new project in one of several articles on our alumni blog that have been written by contributors in addition to their magazine pieces.

The new Living in article transports us to Ukraine, where Gates Scholar Iryna Shuvalova (2016) grew up. A self-proclaimed ‘poet who loves places’, her poetically phrased prose perfectly captures the spirit of the cities she has lived in.

Where we live is also the focus of the four-page feature article by John Myers (1991), who was inspired by the Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) movement in California to

set up similar grass-roots activism programmes in the UK to tackle the lack of homes. In her Career spotlight article, Sophie Camburn (1992) explores the UK housing crisis from the perspective of an urban designer and masterplanner.

We can all relate to owning – or wanting to own – a home. In contrast, it is unlikely that many of us have lived into our eighties before being exposed as a Soviet spy. This is the basis of Red Joan, the third novel written by author Jennie Rooney (1998), the film adaptation of which is in cinemas now, April 2019. On page 25 you can discover the music that inspires her.

Music often has the power to stir up memories of meaningful life moments. Do you remember what you were listening to when you were a student?

EDITORIAL WELCOME | SPRING 2019

HANNAH SHARPLES EDITOR & ALUMNI PUBLICATIONS OFFICERdevelopment@joh.cam.ac.uk

Editor’s note

Pass your responses on these features to our contributors by emailing us on development@joh.cam.ac.uk – we’ll ensure your message reaches the Johnian in question!

John Myers

Reading an article on the UK housing crisis changed John’s life. He quit his job in

finance and founded the Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) Alliance in the UK. Read more about the movement, their work with local communities and their success campaigning with the government on pages 8–11.

Sophie Camburn

As an Associate in Arup’s Urbanism and Landscape team, Sophie works on

large-scale projects, such as the renewal of the Ebury Estate in London. On pages 12–13 she provides an overview of her role as an urban designer and masterplanner. She also shares her views on the housing crisis.

Iryna Shuvalova

A professional poet and translator, Iryna is a Gates Scholar at St John’s, completing

her PhD on what war songs from the War in Donbas can tell us about affected communities. Although she has fallen in love with parts of the US, Greece and the UK, Iryna’s identity is most closely linked to her native Ukraine. On pages 14–16 she explores the beauty of Ukraine’s living cities.

Mark Wells

When Mark returned to St John’s 30 years after graduating, he discovered the Johnian

Society – a group run by Johnians for Johnians. To his surprise, he found out that he was already a member, as are the majority of Johnians. You can read about the new events the Society will be organising this year, with Mark as Chairman, on page 17.

Nora Topor-Kalinskij

It has been a busy couple of years for Nora since graduation, full of political forecasting

and research into geopolitics and energy. She is now fundraising for a science and diplomacy summit alongside studying for an MSc. Read more about her time since St John’s, including her thoughts on Brexit, on page 20.

Hannah Carmichael

Hannah works in the Department of Education and in her spare time has

founded the Living Well Alone Project. This combination of working a day job and dedicating her spare time to a charitable cause sums up the pattern of Hannah’s life since her ‘day job’ was going to school. Awarded an OBE aged 30, her story of leadership and service is inspirational and can be found on pages 21–3.

Jennie Rooney

The film of Jennie’s third novel, Red Joan, was released 19 April 2019. She has been

jotting down novel ideas since she was at St John’s and writing seriously since studying at law school. Page 24 looks at Red Joan from research to the big screen and on page 25 Jennie reveals five personally inspiring and uplifting songs.

Chris Dickinson

Always interested in the outdoors, Chris taught Geography in Scotland for most

of his life, spending his free time up a mountain or in a canoe. While white-water rafting in Nepal, he met Mukunda Raj Shrestha and decided to set up the Nepal Schools Trust. Follow his journey on page 26.

Contributors

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JOHNIAN 3

Thousands of profile views, messages and connections

38 new members in the last

month

Hundreds of photos,

events and updates

Fellows’ distinguished research recognised

Dr Frank Salmon (2006), President of St John’s, was awarded a Cambridge University Doctor of Letters degree (LittD) for his contribution to the field of Architecture and History of Art. He has published several significant papers and books on post-medieval British architecture during his career and he recently served on the national Historic England Advisory Committee.

Professor Eske Willerslev (2016), College Supervisor in Zoology, was awarded a Cambridge University Doctor of Science degree (ScD) in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of Zoology. He has spent the last 20 years researching the genetics of insects, plants, mammals and humans. He has also had over 200 peer-reviewed papers published, with more than 40 of them appearing in Nature and Science.

DR MANMOHAN SINGH SCHOLARS IN COLLEGE

Celebrating 10 yearsTen years ago, the first Dr Manmohan Singh Scholarship students arrived at St John’s. Dr Manmohan Singh (1957) is an Honorary Fellow of St John’s and was Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. Studying at the College had a profound effect on him and led to him giving his name to a scholarship scheme

which enables academically outstanding doctoral students from India to study at St John’s. So far, 19 Scholars have completed their studies through the scheme and a further four are currently in residence.

Ed’s note: meet three previous Scholars and hear their experiences on the St John’s College website: bit.ly/MSinghScholars

Top storiesHonoured alumniFive Johnians were mentioned in the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2019:

Professor David Green (1970), Chief Executive and Vice Chancellor of the University of Worcester, who has also worked for the homeless charity SHELTER, was awarded a CBE for his services to Higher Education.

Dr Ewan Birney (1996), Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, was awarded a CBE for services to Computational Genomics and to Leadership across the Life Sciences.

Dr Jennifer Schooling (1990), Director of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction at the University of Cambridge, was awarded an OBE for services to Engineering and to Digital Construction.

Robert Bradfield (1970), a retired engineer who has been mapping inshore areas of Scotland, was awarded an MBE for services to Navigation and Maritime Safety on the West Coast of Scotland.

Dr David Hill (1976), previously Director of Music at St John’s and currently Musical Director of the Bach Choir, was awarded an MBE for services to Music.

PHOTOGRAPHY NICK MARCHANT AND BEN LISTER

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EDITORIAL CONTENTS

EDITORHannah Sharples

DESIGNdogeatcog; dogeatcog.co.uk

PRODUCTIONLavenham Press; lavenhampress.com

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Copyright © 2019 St John’s College, Cambridge.

Johnian magazine is published twice a year, in spring and autumn, and is sent free to alumni of St John’s College and to other interested parties. For further information, or to opt into the digital issue rather than print, please email development@joh.cam.ac.uk

The opinions expressed in Johnian magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of St John’s College and the University of Cambridge.

In this issueEDITORIAL:03 EDITOR’S NOTE AND

CONTRIBUTORS05 TOP STORIES

The latest news from the Johnian and College community

06 WHAT YOU’RE SAYING Letters from alumni

FEATURES08 YES IN MY BACK YARD

John Myers (1991) explores potential solutions to the UK housing crisis and what we can all do to help

17 OUR SOCIETY Chairman Mark Wells (1981) explains the purpose of the Johnian Society and its new events

18 BEAUFORT LATEST Celebrating ten years of the Beaufort Society

21 LEADING THE WAY The life of Hannah Carmichael (2003) from 60-hour weeks to receiving an OBE aged 30 and living well alone

REAL LIVES12 CAREER SPOTLIGHT

A look inside the housing sector at the work of Sophie Camburn (1992), urban designer and masterplanner

14 LIVING IN: UKRAINE Iryna Shuvalova (2016) paints an informed, poetic picture of what it is like to live in Ukraine

20 SINCE ST JOHN’S Nora Topor-Kalinskij (2014) discusses the importance of new collaborations in the wake of Brexit

24 JOHNIAN PLAYLIST Author Jennie Rooney (1998) shares five inspirational songs

26 IN A NUTSHELL Chris Dickinson (1974) talks hiking, white-water rafting and the Nepal Schools Trust

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Crossing the Belgium CongoThe article in issue 42 of your excellent Johnian magazine on ‘Crossing the Congo’ was of great interest to me, having crossed the Congo myself 58 years ago!

My experience in April 1960 was, of course, in complete contrast to that of Chloe Baker in 2013. I crossed the country from NW to SE on adequate roads, with good maps and helpful locals, in peaceful colonial times. She crossed the country from SW to NE on water and zero roads, with no reliable maps and in rebellious times – and the population had increased fivefold.

We both had inadequate vehicles. My Opel ‘Caravan’, a 1.5-litre station wagon, had served me well since purchased new and had driven 50,000 miles, virtually all on punishing gravel and loose-sand roads. During the 4600-mile journey, the starter caused difficulties, the jack broke irreparably and the windscreen was shattered into a million tiny bits by a large stone flicked up by a speeding 4-wheel-drive. I also lost my petrol cap, but its replacement with an empty baked-beans tin seemed a minor consideration.

Frankly, problems with the vehicle and difficult road conditions were never a major consideration. Rather, I valued this fantastic experience for the kindness of all the people I met and the spectacular scenery, especially traversing the Ruwenzori mountains and driving along the length of Lake Kivu. I was certainly fortunate to have crossed the Congo only seven weeks before its independence and the outbreak of a violent civil war.Gerry Greenwood (1951)

The ‘publishing’ testsAs undergraduates in the mid-1950s, at the height of the Cold War, we were certainly not aware of the University’s close involvement with the world of intelligence. There may have been murmurings at High Table, but they remained there.

Well over 30 years later, the plethora of books on Bletchley and the codebreakers began to appear and it became possible to read between the lines of ‘Who’s Who’ entries. It was only then that we learnt some part of the true nature of the wartime work undertaken by our tutors and supervisors and their continued involvement with that closed and secret world.

During a late-night session at a conference in the late 90s, several of us were discussing how we first started off in publishing. Surprisingly, three of those

round the table recited the same experience: a cosy tea-time chat by the fire in a small office off Trafalgar Square, arranged by our tutors with ‘someone I know who may be able to advise you…’. As it was, the true nature of those chats – none of which ever did lead immediately to a break into publishing – only became clear much later. We three, and many others, had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Those who passed the tests all those years ago remain in the shadows. Unless, of course, Victoria was able to identify them and (Official Secrets Act not withstanding) name them in her thesis!Ian Charlton (1956) Formerly Chairman of the International Association of Museum Publishers

RosebudI was delighted to see the Playlist idea come to life. Although I am a corporate lawyer at Michelmores, which I love, my lifelong passion has been music. Back at St John’s in 1987–9 I had the joy of playing in the College band Dr and the Glasscocks. The band members keep in touch and we reformed recently for a gig after a reunion dinner.

John’s is such a special place and I still can’t believe how lucky I was to get in – and then get out with more than a Third and some great friends and memories.Richard Cobb (1987)

Ed’s note: listen to Richard’s album Rosebud online: bit.ly/RichardCobb

WHAT YOU’RE SAYING

Letters

Share your thoughtsWe love receiving your letters and emails.

Express your thoughts on the third issue of our new-look magazine, tell us about your latest projects or share anything else the Johnian community may like to know about.

Email your letters to development@joh.cam.ac.uk with the subject ‘Johnian letter’.

Or write to us at Johnian magazine, Development Office, St John’s College, Cambridge CB2 1TP

Please mark your letter ‘for publication’. Letters may be edited for length and are published at the discretion of the Editor.

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Those who passed the tests all those years

ago remain in the shadows

6 JOHNIAN JOHNIAN 7

The strength of verseAfter reading ‘The art of healing’ by Robert Birkbeck, I am moved to send you my own story of healing, poetry and well-being. For twenty years I have learnt to ‘listen to the river’, as in Hesse’s Siddhartha, where he called the river a place of ‘perpetual becoming’.

The poems I write on my walking meditation along the River Mole have ‘lifted the mood’ of those with mental health issues I have worked with over the years, when I was in charge of poetry and creative writing at a large psychiatric hospital.

a swan fliesout ofthe rising sunits white wingsrhyming with time

On 11 November 2018, 100 years on from the end of the First World War, at 8.20 in the morning, there was a downpour with lightning, thunder and rain. A quarter of an hour later, the most beautiful rainbow – a perfect arc – formed over the river. It seemed so poignant, so moving, and I spontaneously wrote:

Armistice Dayafterthunder, darkness & raina rainbowbinds the world with dreamsTony Marcoff (1975)

FeatureYes In My Back Yard

John Myers (1991) is co-founder of londonyimby.org and yimbyalliance.org, two grassroots campaigns to build more homes with the support of local

people. Here, he explores possible reasons for and solutions to the UK housing crisis and explains why he chose to tackle this issue

I grew up in a small town in a pretty part of Lancashire, with a loving and supportive family, and went to the local school. It was a quiet life that left me with an appetite for

bigger cities and an awareness that some places have better opportunities than others. After reading Maths part IA and Law parts IB and II at St John’s, I completed postgraduate degrees at Harvard and in Paris before being called to the Bar and working as a competition litigator for a New York law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell.

I never found a role model in the law that I wanted to be. One day a head-hunter called asking if I wanted to be a financial analyst for George Soros. I’m afraid my initial response was: ‘Who?’ Working in finance allowed me to save money for things I found more interesting, but I gradually realised that there was much more opportunity to make a difference in other fields.

One day, in 2014, I read an article that changed my life. It revealed the eye-watering scale of Britain’s needless housing crisis. Total house prices now exceed the cost of rebuilding those homes by some £4 trillion – nearly two-fifths of the entire net worth of the nation. This is caused

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by an incredible scarcity of homes, particularly those within reach of the best opportunities.

People try to blame empty homes for the current housing crisis, but on the highest estimates empty homes make up only 5% of London’s housing – far lower than in other periods. We would still have a crisis if every house were full, which is impossible because of deaths, other life changes and the time it takes to sell.

Another cited cause: low interest rates. These allow buyers to borrow more and bid higher for houses, raising their value. However, plenty of other countries have no shortage of homes, despite the same low interest rates, because they have built enough houses. People also point the finger at tax breaks for homeowners, where the exemption from capital gains tax on primary residences inflates demand. Sensible tax reform would probably help, but it’s not a fundamental solution.

There are endless scapegoats, but if you do the research the ultimate problem is clearly our failure for decades to build enough of the right kinds of homes in the right places, even while

If we don’t try new things, we will never end the crisis. To expect otherwise is the definition of madness

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Of course, the crisis is also an incredible opportunity. The beauty of something so broken is that there are win-win ways to make it better. I left the hedge fund world to look at setting up an automated investing service that would strip out most of the costs and bad advice that consumers face. When I realised many others were working on the same thing, I decided to work on housing instead.

A group of friends and I launched London YIMBY in 2016. The YIMBY movement –  Yes In My Back Yard, the opposite of NIMBY – took off in California four years ago. Since then, California campaigns have secured multiple new laws to get more and better housing built and have helped elect the new Mayor of San Francisco and a California state senator.

At the core, housing is a political problem. Governments know that. They pay lip service to ending the shortage while doing everything they can to drive up house prices, because that helps consumer confidence and increases their chances of getting re-elected. We quickly realised that if you find more popular ways to get homes built, politicians are more likely to do them. Who could ever have guessed?

In 2018 we helped change national planning policy to allow villages to vote to approve homes in their own green belt, subject to limits on design and other conditions that they choose to impose, if they want to. New Court was built on a field. The key is the quality of what you build.

The more voices pressing the government for change, the better. At the moment, we’re looking to work with more big companies and organisations who care about housing costs and want to speak up for sensible steps to reduce them. We are also working with other countries, talking with allies in New Zealand, California and elsewhere to see if we can help them solve their housing problems and taking inspiration from systems in other countries that are working much better than the one here.

everything else we make has got cheaper, better and more plentiful. Since the Second World War, we haven’t even achieved the same rate of growth for housing stock as in the 1830s, when New Court was finished, let alone the much faster rate of the 1930s, when the working class could afford to buy a London house with a garden, despite vastly lower incomes back then.

We just need to build a lot more homes.

The lack of building is not for want of land. Half of the homes in London are in buildings of only one or two floors. Most of London has one-fifth or one-tenth as much housing per acre as the most-loved central parts, such as Bloomsbury, that tourists fly around the world to see. We can do so much more with the land we have if we only improve the system.

We have forgotten how to build beautiful new heritage, like New Court. We have forgotten the ambition of our predecessors. We have forgotten how to get things done. Under today’s broken planning system, the Industrial Revolution and the incredible resulting increases in productivity, health and welfare might never have happened. Our planning system was never designed to encourage attractive growth in existing places that already have many homeowners. It needs an upgrade.

We spend a lot of time with volunteers, building a coalition of planners, local government, charities and other groups and lobbying government for reform. Part of the problem is people endlessly talking past each other in housing. It has gone round in circles since the 1970s. If we don’t try new things, we will never end the crisis. To expect otherwise is the definition of madness.

An obvious way forward is to give local people more power to approve things that they like. For example, why not let residents of a single street set a design code and vote by a two-thirds majority to give each plot permission to extend or replace existing houses? Over time, that could add millions more homes with much less controversy, creating an economic boom and reducing inequality. It also turns out to be a wildly popular idea because it makes existing homeowners better off. Homeowners are two-thirds of voters, so if you want permanent change you have to bring at least some of them along with you.

It is easy to achieve major change. All you need is a bloody-minded, overriding determination and focus. I’m optimistic that we will get substantial progress in the UK and that we can easily build a fairer, better, more beautiful country. We just need to work together. The way forward is clear; the only question is how quickly we can make it happen.

Good design need not be expensive. The stunning villas lining Regent’s Park in London were rendered with stucco to disguise their shoddy structures, made from the cheapest bricks and rubble. Beauty is essentially a question of the right materials, details and proportions. The actual costs of construction are a small fraction of the final price in any place with a housing shortage.

The reasons why we have ugly new builds all stem from that same problem of needless scarcity. When most of the cost of a new home is the planning permission, which only gets more expensive, people know that appearance matters little for the long-term value. When houses were plentiful and priced more like furniture, the prettiest houses held their value for much longer and people cared much more about looks.

[Governments] pay lip service to ending the shortage while doing everything they can to

drive up house prices, because that helps consumer confidence and increases their chances of getting re-elected

FEATURE YES IN MY BACK YARD

Independent builders have mostly been eliminated by the current system and it is now unaffordable for people to buy a plot of land and commission the house that they want – as they used to do and still do in other countries. Instead, we get cookie-cutter houses from a few large developers that few are happy with.

The housing problem permeates everything we do, leading to massive inequality. The cost of houses in sought-after areas is keeping people away from high-wage jobs in places like Cambridge and London. I’m all in favour of rebalancing the country – we should move the capital if we’re serious about it – but a fake rebalancing that pushes up house prices in areas with sought-after jobs, thereby keeping the young and poor away from high wages, is immoral, not to mention counterproductive.

Interested readers can sign up to the movement’s newsletter and get involved via links on the relevant websites: londonyimby.org and yimbyalliance.org. Have your own thoughts on the housing crisis? Share them with the Editor: development@joh.cam.ac.uk.

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Career Spotlight

Sophie Camburn (1992)

Sophie works for Arup, a global employee-owned design and engineering practice, as their Integrated City Planning Leader for the West

July 2018, with a recommendation to demolish the estate in phases and rebuild it anew, rehousing all existing residents on site and delivering over 50 per cent affordable homes.

How do you combat protesters who want to cling on to existing infrastructure?The pace of change that is required to meet our future needs is unsettling and this should not be dismissed. I strongly believe that the challenges we face in this age of economic and environmental uncertainty have to be addressed by providing sustainable and flexible solutions that meet the needs of future generations and increase the quality of the built environment.

The best way to tackle opposition is through a clear process of engagement, offering opportunities for learning about and understanding the choices to be made in order to improve the quality and quantity of affordable housing in the UK.

What is your advice to Johnians wishing to build a career in the housing sector?Anyone wishing to work in the housing sector should be aware of the key areas for change. These are off-site manufacturing and mass customisation, together with changes to the planning system to help accelerate housing delivery. Above all, it is important to remember that we build for people, not systems, and a human-centric approach should be at the heart of all design and engagement.

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What does your job include?My role spans a range of planning and design disciplines, from urban design and masterplanning to digital and advisory services, and covers Northern Ireland, Wales, the South West of England and the Solent. Arup has an ‘Integrated Urbanism’ approach, which aims to create holistic design outcomes that add value for both clients and communities. I therefore need to address complex and sometimes conflicting aspirations in order to reach the best solution.

Every project starts with understanding our clients’ objectives and understanding what success looks like in order to articulate the vision for the project. We need to pay attention to the social and economic outcomes, as well as formulating spatial strategies and identifying funding and delivery mechanisms.

What are the main perks and challenges of being an urban planner?My passion is to deliver inclusive growth: to deliver, for example, not just jobs and homes but the right types of jobs and homes for communities. I really enjoy integrating a range of technical disciplines into a design solution – a way of working that also provides immense satisfaction for the team. It is great to see individuals thriving in such an environment.

The challenges are, unsurprisingly, politics and political cycles. These sometimes create a short-term response to long-term issues and can end up frustrating the logical approach of doing the right thing at the right time.

How did your career begin?I studied Architecture at St John’s for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. After Cambridge, I worked in several architectural practices on schools, health centres and social housing. I soon realised that my interests didn’t lie in door handle specifications but on urban systems, the politics of governance and integrated design. Once I qualified as an Architect, I completed a Master’s degree at LSE to further these interests. It was a fantastic experience, with students from all over the globe drawing on their knowledge of São Paulo, Athens and Melbourne. After that, I focused on leading sustainable masterplanning projects and I moved to Arup to work with a diverse range of clients and projects in 2008.

Tell us about a current project.Over the past two years, I’ve been working with Westminster City Council on the Ebury Estate Renewal project in Pimlico, London. Ebury is a 1930s red brick estate, much loved by residents but subject to overcrowding, poor build quality and issues of safety and security.

A previous scheme hit the buffers when funding couldn’t be found for the mixture of refurbishment and new-build that was proposed. Trust was lost between the residents and the council and we spent the first stages of our commission working with the council to help residents understand the decision-making process involved in delivering many more high-quality, affordable homes on the Estate.

The preferred scenario was approved in

Why do we have a housing crisis in the UK?The government and experts agree that 300,000 new homes need to be built each year to meet the current 6-million shortfall in the UK, but in 2017–18 the total housing stock only increased by around 222,000 homes and previous years have shown similar numbers or less.

The UK has some of the oldest housing stock in Europe, with over 38% of it built before 1946. Although we are still using these homes, they are not as efficient as we would hope. Moreover, with our current rate of building homes, a new house would need to last 130 years before replacement and the pace of technology is likely to render these houses unfit for purpose long before that. The conclusion is that demand for new housing is far in excess of 300,000 per year – a number we are struggling and failing to reach as it is.

Simply put, the housing crisis is explained by the cuts to local authority house-building schemes since the 1970s and the incorrect assumption that the private sector would fill the void. Private sector economic drivers are different: increased demand creates price escalation, better profits and returns, so there is no incentive to supply more affordable housing.

What do you think is the solution?In my opinion, there has to be a drive for the public sector to take a lead in delivering affordable housing and changes must be made to the planning system to speed up delivery. Local authorities use a long-term, revenue and operational model that would be beneficial to the system, whereas private developers use a short-term, transactional model that aims to meet building regulations at maximum profit.

However, cutbacks in the public sector have eroded the resources, skills and confidence needed to build houses. At the same time, the Right to Buy scheme has resulted in large losses in revenue for local authorities.

It is positive to see the YIMBY alliance growing to create a stronger lobbying voice for those priced-out of the UK housing market. However, in a debate about creating the kind of places that people can afford to live and work in, it’s important to avoid the assumption that we already know what people want and need.

At Arup, we are looking at a move to a

A human-centric approach should be at the heart of all design and engagement

manufacturing-based housing system, in line with the government’s current thinking. In this system, components are created in factories and assembled on-site, reducing disruption to the site and surrounding area. This provides an opportunity to create a sustainable workforce and supply chain. It could also help to tackle unemployment, as these factories can be located anywhere with access to the road network.

Advances in digital technologies allow for mass customisation from production lines so that houses created in this way don’t all need to share the same blueprints, in the same way that not all cars look the same.

INTERVIEW HANNAH SHARPLESPHOTOGRAPHY THOMAS GRAHAM

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I harbour a very humble hope that, having been scarred, we become a bit wiser

When I think of Ukraine, I am on a spontaneous trip to Crimea – Krym in Ukrainian, Qirim in Crimean-Tatar – just a couple of years before it was occupied by Russia in 2014. Krym’s mountains and pebbly beaches swarm with tourists in summer, but that April the warmth came so suddenly that I found myself alone amid all the ancient beauty. I stood on the thresholds of the ruined houses in the medieval cavern city and fortress of Chufut-Kale. Then I lay on the soft new grass and looked up. Above me were the almond blossoms and the busy buzzing bees. I might have started singing to myself.

When I think of Ukraine, I also hear the voices: the voice of my grandma telling how she was taken away at 16 by the Nazis to work as a forced labourer (the term was ‘Ostarbeiter’) in rural Germany; the voice of a wonderfully talented painter from a small town in the Carpathians, who calls his cat ‘cattle’ and insists that the cat being so fat and himself being so thin are in direct correlation and show who really is the boss in the house; the voices of two older manual labourers from the West of Ukraine, conversing on the first, nearly-empty morning subway in Kyiv about how they want to walk barefoot on the wet morning grass.

Feature

Living in: UkraineA poet who loves places, Gates Scholar Iryna Shuvalova (2016) grew up in Ukraine before living in the US, Greece and the UK. Here, she transports us to different times and spaces in her life, sketching an overall view of Ukraine from her personal knowledge of the country and privileging us with glimpses of the places she’s lived in through her own poetic gaze

Sometimes we uproot ourselves so abruptly that we don’t realise what we’ve done until much later. I was born in Kyiv, but my true home is a tiny

village two hours away from the capital, where my maternal grandfather’s family came from and where I spent every summer of my life until I was 14. At that point, I decided that villages were uncool and I wanted to spend summers in the city with my city friends.

My grandfather was an excavator operator, which in the mid-1950s Soviet Union meant pulling a lot of heavy levers. Those aching arthritic hands helped to build a lot of houses in downtown Kyiv and it was in an apartment in one of those five-storeyed houses that we made our home. Its yard had several tall poplars growing in it and in spring it would get flooded by blossoms: an apricot tree came first, then the cherries, the lilacs, the jasmine and the garden roses.

Later, as a poet, I travelled all over Ukraine with poetry readings and book presentations. It is the largest country in Europe and, out of its 24 regions, I visited 18 – all of them different and

beautiful. The cities of Ukraine are alive. As a country, we don’t have the funds yet to mummify them through restoration and conservation, and so they exist as living beings would: growing, changing, falling apart, decaying and giving life to something new.

There is no one way to describe Ukraine. Since the late Middle Ages, the country has been continuously carved across and chopped into pieces between various empires: the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire and the USSR. As a result, Ukraine’s culture has become as rich and varied as its landscape: from the shabby Habsburg grandeur of Lviv in the West to the vibrant eclecticism of the multicultural port of Odessa in the South.

When I think of Ukraine, I am sitting on the sloping hillside of Odessa, looking down at the port with its huge red, blue and yellow cranes and the Black Sea behind them. My roots are in Kyiv, but my branches have tangled among the crumbling buildings of Odessa, its courtyards smelling of home-made wine, sea salt and cat piss.

PHOTO: JEAN-LUC BENAZET

ODESSA CATS ENJOYING A MEAL WITH A VIEW OF THE PORT

THE ANCIENT STONES OF CHUFUT-KALE IN CRIMEA

OUR SOCIETY

One of my favourite books is JRR Tolkien’s classic fantasy tale, The Hobbit, which

describes Bilbo Baggins’ epic adventure in search of dragons and dwarven treasure before he returns to his beloved hobbit hole at Bag End. In the book, Bilbo pens his memoirs as ‘There and back again’, a fitting description of my journey after leaving College in the 1980s and returning some 30 years later (only without the gold) to begin another chapter in my life story, this time as Domestic Bursar, a writer and, most recently, Chairman of the Johnian Society.

I was first approached to join the Johnian Society Committee in 2013 by the previous Chair and current Vice President, Graham Spooner. I had to ask Graham what was involved, as I knew little about the Society or the fact that I was already, apparently, a member.

The Johnian Society was formed between the World Wars to facilitate and enhance relationships between members of the College, especially those no longer in residence, and to support the life and future development of the College. We don’t raise funds as such – that is the remit of the College’s outstanding fundraising team in the Development Office – instead, we help to organise social events for Johnians and provide a small number of travel grants to deserving students. The only income the Society receives is from a one-off membership subscription, currently £25, that all freshers and new Fellows pay as part of their first-term’s bill. At that point, we all become life members of the Society, the adage being ‘Once a Johnian, always a Johnian’!

In addition to hosting dinners in London and Cambridge each year, we organise social events, such as a pub quiz, golf days and walking tours in West Wales, following in the footsteps of Lady Margaret (though I suspect she went most of the way on horseback).

To reach out to our newer members, we have been working with Susannah, Sarah and Hannah in the College’s alumni relations team. We now have over 1,500 Johnians using the newly launched Johnian Hub website to post stories about what they have been doing. This year, we are encouraging more informal get-togethers to help Johnians stay in touch.

Maggie Mondays: on the first Monday of every month, Johnians meet in their favourite watering hole to keep in touch and make new friends, promoted and reported on via the Hub.

Back to College Breaks: visit Cambridge over the summer and meet up with old friends while staying in the College’s excellent B&B accommodation.

Regional Rendezvous: Johnians apply to the Committee for a contribution towards a get-together of a dozen or more Johnians, advertised and recounted on the Hub to encourage Johnians who might live nearby to connect with each other.

The Committee is always happy to hear from members and we will consider any suggestion that helps facilitate relationships between Johnians, wherever we might be in the world.

JOHNIAN 17

Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has had the same political set-up. In practice, this means that we have three branches of power in various states of disarray. The state is headed by the President, with executive power vested in the Cabinet of Ministers and the legislative power belonging to the Parliament. We have had a lot of corruption throughout the years of independence. By 2013, we had a President with a criminal record, fake doctorate degree, a personal helipad built in an area of natural beauty and a golden toilet in his home on a 350-acre estate.

In that critical situation, we Ukrainians decided to exercise direct democracy. Consequently, the Maidan protests broke out and the owner of the golden toilet, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted and had to flee the country. Afterwards, democratic elections were held and the country settled down into the semblance of normalcy again, although, of course, severely shaken by the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the start of the War in Donbas in the spring of 2014.

The War in Donbas is a Russian-Ukrainian war in all but its name. It is a complicated conflict with many proxies, which sees the issues of regional identity manipulated by the Russian media. The conflict is far from over: people keep dying and Ukraine is being bled out, both literally and figuratively. Despite this, the turmoil caused by the war has actually had some positive effect on Ukrainians. For many years, people previously accustomed to the rampant corruption of the late USSR used to accept the corrupt leadership of the newly-independent Ukrainian state as a given. Now, after successful protests and with an external threat from a close neighbour, we are much more aware of our rights and the broader global context we live in. In the past several years, multiple grassroots movements and organisations have sprung up all over the country. We are still in a tough spot, but I do have hope that things will change.

I first went abroad at the age of 15 to live in the

FEATURE LIVING IN: UKRAINE

Want to read more? Find out about Iryna’s research, poetry and translation work in an article written by her on our alumni blog: bit.ly/IrynaPhD

Suggestions emailed to development@joh.cam.ac.uk will be forwarded to the Committee. Read about Mark’s fiction writing in an article on our blog: bit.ly/MarkWells

US for a year on a high school exchange. Some people have a passion for travelling, but I travel to pursue my passions. Although I had very little idea of what I was doing, going across the world and away from my family, I was passionate to see and know things beyond my everyday life and I did not hesitate even for a moment. A passion for literature led me back to the US 10 years later to do my second Master’s at Dartmouth. Lying slap on the border between New Hampshire and Vermont, Dartmouth is snow-swept in winter and has otters playing in the Connecticut river in summer: a lovely, lovely place.

After Dartmouth, I lived between Ukraine and Greece for several years. I fell in love with the country first and then with a specific person, with whom I have spent a number of happy and a number of difficult, but just as important, years. Greece is still an open wound for me. It is a country that always makes me think of a dance with a knife: so beautiful to experience, but one that can cut so deeply. Passions scar, you see, but I harbour a very humble hope that, having been scarred, we become a bit wiser.

I have been living in the UK since 2016 for my PhD. Each winter, I feel like I’m going to literally just lie down and die, but when summer begins and the baby rabbits start hopping all around the Institute of Astronomy grounds and the fields around Eddington, things improve markedly. There will be quite a few Cambridge poems in my new book, including one about my favourite place in all of Cambridge – the tiny ancient St Peter’s by the Castle, tucked behind Kettle’s Yard. I like to sit alone in the whiteness and coolness of its ascetic interior, with the shadows of the leaves moving behind the green window panes.

I don’t belong in these places, but I might still belong in Ukraine. That’s an open question. Perhaps, too, I don’t belong anywhere, anymore.

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TOP SNOWSWEPT CAMPUS OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, US, SEEN THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE SANBORN LIBRARYLEFT THE COLOURS OF EARLY AUTUMN IN GREECERIGHT KYIV PECHERSK LAVRA: A THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD CHURCH IN KYIV

Mark Wells (1981), Chairman of the Johnian Society Committee, explores the aims and background of the Society and highlights new events for this year

FEATURE ART THERAPY

TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY

S t John’s owes its very existence to a legacy, made more than 500 years ago. Since Lady Margaret Beaufort’s founding

bequest, many Johnians and friends of the College have supported St John’s through a gift in their will. The College established the Beaufort Society in 2009 to recognise this impressive and inspirational level of commitment. Anyone who informs the Development Office of a gift to St John’s is welcomed as a lifetime member of the Society.

The spirit of community and friendship within the Society is often commented on. With St John’s in their hearts, Beaufort members, including the Society President Peter Hennessy (1966),

come back year after year to get to know one another, form strong friendships and stay connected to College life. Members and guests are invited to an informal event in the spring and a whole-day event in the autumn. In addition to welcome drinks in the Old Divinity School, lunch in Hall, tea in the Master’s Lodge and Evensong in Chapel, a variety of activities are specially arranged for members to enjoy. These include exclusive lectures from Fellows, music recitals from current students and behind-the-scenes tours in and around College.

Beaufort Soc. latest

A selection of photos from the last ten years of festivities

WORDS EMMA TALIBUDEEN PHOTOGRAPHY ALICE BOAGEY, LOTTIE ETTLING, NICK MARCHANT AND BEN MINNAAR

Find out more about the Beaufort Society and how to leave a legacy: johnian.joh.cam.ac.uk/Beaufort-Society

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Profile

Hannah Carmichael OBE (2003) has spent much of her working life in national and local government, dedicating her free time to supporting disadvantaged young people. Here we follow her rollercoaster journey

Leading the wayPHOTOGRAPHY CARL FLETCHER, ALEX KENTFIELD AND CARMELITA KIRKLAND

There is something very levelling about being stuck halfway up a mountain when it’s cold and dark and someone in the group has a sprained ankle.

It’s where resilience, determination and empathy come into their own. When I signed up for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, aged 14, I had no idea that I was at the start of a decade-long journey that would leave me with thousands of hours of leadership experience – and some good stories – by the time I reached my mid-twenties.

The inspirational staff at the youth centre at which I took the Award had the task of helping teenagers from vastly different backgrounds overcome their differences and find common ground. As soon as I finished my Gold Award, aged 16, I joined the centre’s active leadership programme and started working part-time for the London Borough of Harrow. After university, I moved to Brent to work with young people on the margins – in the care system, young offenders

continent. Yet our societies today are shattered into hostile factions. We need a new, unifying vision of what we aspire our societies to look like in 20, 50 or 100 years: a vision we can act upon. My long-term hope is to help alienated communities find this new shared purpose.

What are your thoughts on Brexit?

The story of Brexit has so far been that of a stalemate, with neither side possessing the resources to overpower the other. Both sides’ primary aim is to buy time until an external, rather than a costlier internal, trigger creates an imbalance of power that will resolve this stalemate. The Brexit deadlock is but the local expression of a political stalemate found at present across the Western world.

Since St John’s

Nora Topor-Kalinskij Nora Topor-Kalinskij (2014) is Director for Sponsorship at Shaping Horizons alongside studying for an MSc at King’s College London in Eurasian Political Economy and Energy. We asked her to share some of her experiences since graduation

Tell us more about Shaping Horizons.

In the wake of Brexit, the UK needs new regional partnerships. With this in mind, I joined Shaping Horizons, a University of Cambridge summit and action programme aimed at sparking new collaborations between the UK and Latin America. This September in Cambridge, we will bring together 100 top leaders from industry, politics and academia with 150 future leaders representing both geographic areas. We opened recently an initial call to select 9 Youth Ambassadors which resulted in 952 applications.

The summit will be an incubator for group projects that participants will implement locally upon their return, guided by mentors from Cambridge. Based on discussions at the summit on key bilateral issues, we will also produce white papers for the governments of represented countries. The aim of my team is to raise sufficient funds to cover participation costs for all young leaders so that the brightest minds can participate regardless of economic background.

If you are not ready to catch a star, even a shower of them will make no difference. My advice to St John’s students is to put beliefs into action.

Why did you choose to study energy after graduation?

Energy is fundamental to human activity everywhere. When I graduated, I first joined the Cambridge Forum on Geopolitics and subsequently the forecasting company Geopolitical Futures, where I analysed political and socio-economic trends across Europe. I realised that it is simply not possible to have a holistic understanding of geopolitics without bringing energy into the picture. Now I’m back to studying, investigating how Europe’s energy geopolitics fits into the broader Eurasian context.

I want to understand how the interdependencies that energy networks create can be used for good rather than ill. A multitude of networks like those of energy trade connect the entire Eurasian

INTERVIEW HANNAH SHARPLES

20 JOHNIAN JOHNIAN 21

Want to read more? Hannah talks about the Living Well Alone Project (livingwellalone.com) and the plans they have for this year in an article on our alumni blog: bit.ly/LivingWellAlone

trustees, we set out to transform the charity. For three long years we worked to overhaul the charity’s management and governance structures, financial position, support services and safeguarding practices.

ResetBy the middle of 2014, Depaul UK was stronger, larger and more successful than it had ever been – and I had burnt out. I had worked 60-hour weeks for almost three years, combining my work in the Civil Service and at Depaul UK with a hectic London social life. I would often be up working late into the night, sleeping for as little as three or four hours. By the end of 2014, I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t happy and that the stress had taken a toll on my physical and mental health.

The change I needed came in the form of a small charity based in East Africa who wanted an advisor to do some work on the ground

with their board and management team. At the start of 2015, I found myself travelling via Nairobi to one of the remotest corners of Kenya as a strategy and enterprise advisor for the Nasio Trust.

Life suddenly became simple. Waking and going to bed with the sun, I lived in a small hut with a concrete floor, mud walls and a roof made of sugar cane. The community farmed, while the charity looked after 600 vulnerable children. Although my day-to-day work was with the management and staff, I spent my spare time with the children and the families caring for them. Under the African sun, I had time to read, write, rest and regroup.

The OBEThe news, when it came, couldn’t have been more unexpected. My mum had emailed, asking me to call home. A thunderstorm raged outside as I struggled to get through.

When I finally reached her, she told me I needed to sit down. I thought something terrible had happened. ‘I have some news,’ she said. ‘There’s a letter here. It’s from the Cabinet Office. On behalf of the Prime Minister. It’s saying you’ve been nominated.’ She paused. ‘For an OBE.’ A whirlwind followed: media interviews, letters of congratulation from dignitaries and invitations to dinners and charity events. I had become one of the youngest people ever to be nominated. Landing back in the UK, it was a dizzying – and sometimes jarring – contrast to the peace and simplicity of the tiny, impoverished community where I’d spent the last year of my life. However, the day itself was one of love and pride as I collected my honour surrounded by family and friends.

People sometimes ask how having an OBE at 30 has changed me. I hope it hasn’t! It can skew others’ expectations, so I tend not to use it much. There have definitely been a few awkward moments where I’ve sensed people waiting for me to say something deeply profound, but when I’m ‘off duty’ I just want to be able to relax and have fun. In a lot of ways I’m a very normal 33-year-old!

and ‘at risk’ teens whose older siblings were involved in gang violence.

I was passionate about the role, sometimes putting in upward of 30 hours a week in evening, weekend and holiday work. I worked for the Award during my A levels, in my holidays while at Cambridge, alongside studying for an MSc at SOAS and even after I’d joined the Civil Service Fast Stream. Eventually, the late evenings and exhausting weekends made it hard to focus on the day job and I stopped working for the Award in 2008.

Helping the homelessBy 2011, my Civil Service career had taken off – first at the Department for Communities and Local Government and later at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I missed the focus on young people, though, and was delighted when a serendipitous meeting with a former colleague led to an opportunity to join the board of one of the UK’s leading youth homelessness charities, Depaul UK.

When I joined Depaul, its staff were working with more than three thousand young people. The organisation had become something of a victim of its own success, outgrowing the capabilities of its dedicated management team. I was voted Vice Chair of the board after just a few months, later acting as Chair for more than a year after the Chair unexpectedly stood down.

Together with the new CEO (the wonderful Martin Houghton-Brown, now CEO of St John Ambulance) and a small group of other

Prioritising educationI worked overseas for another year, my last posting in Sierra Leone during the aftermath of the Ebola crisis, and when I came back to England I had a renewed sense of purpose. Making a difference to young people is my passion and I finally decided to put that at the centre of my daily work. I joined the Department for Education, supporting first Justine Greening and then Damian Hinds as Secretaries of State to deliver their priorities for children in England.

I’ve been at the Department for more than two years now and have just moved to lead the Department’s thinking on ‘where next’ for early years policy. Brexit means we’re working in a tough climate and I’m fortunate in being surrounded by passionate, dedicated colleagues. I’ve also recently started a couple of

projects because, as history has shown, having just the day job is never quite enough for me!

Living well aloneThe Living Well Alone Project was born out of my own experience of struggling to get to grips with solo living while grieving the loss of my lovely dad at the end of 2016.

The Project aims to empower those living by themselves to lead happy, healthy and connected lives. We’re doing research, gathering and sharing people’s stories and learning more about this diverse, engaged and interesting group. We’re building an online toolkit and already have an active Facebook community of over a thousand followers.

There are still a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be someone who lives by yourself. It’s assumed either that something’s gone wrong in your life, which can make others worried about approaching you, or that you’re having a fabulous time and don’t need others to check in with you, which can lead to isolation.

The 8 million people living by themselves in the UK are an increasingly powerful social, economic and political force and the numbers are growing. Through the Project, we’re normalising the choice to live alone as a commonplace, legitimate and often empowering one.

Last year, we launched a national survey. This year, we’re building an online toolkit and already have an active Facebook community of over a thousand followers. We’re ramping up our media work and pitching for corporate sponsorship to move the Project onto a sustainable footing. It’s going to be very exciting!

LEFT HANNAH ON HER THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY WITH HER MUM, JUST A FEW MONTHS PRIOR TO RECEIVING HER OBE NOMINATIONRIGHT AND BELOW HANNAH WITH COLLEAGUES AND CHILDREN AT THE NASIO TRUST IN KENYA

Making a difference to young people is my passion

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JENNIE’S CHOICES

Paul Simon, The Only Living Boy in New York

This song reminds me of mooching around at College with the luxury of reading books all day. When I wrote my first novel, I would work on it late into the evening with music playing and candles lit. I don’t know why I needed the candles – perhaps they added an air of mystery to keep me at my desk. There was something in the rhythm and yearning of this song which fitted with the tone of that novel and which would always take me back into the novel when I was struggling to get there. I generally write with music playing, but it has to be so familiar that it doesn’t become a distraction. When I listen to this song now, it takes me back to that time of optimism and hope.

The Beatles, I’ve Just Seen A Face

My brothers and I grew up with the Beatles as a constant soundtrack to our lives. My grandparents all lived a short walk away from Penny Lane and we used to drive past the houses that John Lennon and Paul McCartney grew up in on an almost daily basis. They were the fabric of my youth and they felt personally connected in a way that they, erm, weren’t. Their principal legacy to me is that I know that, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I can put on any of their songs (and particularly this one) and feel immediately at home.

Belle & Sebastian, Get me away from here, I’m dying

When I was at school, I fell in love with this band completely and utterly. I felt that I had ‘discovered’ them by myself, particularly the If You’re Feeling Sinister album, even though they were, of course, already discovered. I went to gigs in Brixton and London with my school friends and it felt like the first steps towards adulthood and a life which I hadn’t yet found. Watching them play live with all their earnestness, joy and enthusiasm was a life lesson in how not to be self-conscious. I remember my heart breaking when someone once referred to them disparagingly as my ‘student rock’ phase: to me they were, and still are, glorious.

Head to johnian.joh.cam.ac.uk/playlist to enjoy the Johnian playlist on Spotify as it develops. The playlist will be added to each time we release an issue of Johnian and sometimes in between. It will be packed with music recommendations by the Johnian community, along with music by alumni and friends of St John’s College. Email development@joh.cam.ac.uk with the subject ‘Johnian playlist’ to get involved.

The National, Slow Show

The National produce perfect ‘writing’ music: dream-like, dramatic and melodic. This is the song I associate most closely with writing my third novel, Red Joan, while I was working as a lawyer in Chiswick and living with Mark, now my husband, in a big old flat in Hammersmith next to the river. I had a bike with a basket, which I would ride along the towpath to work, and at the weekends I would cycle a bit further to the National Archives in Kew to do research on the atomic spies. I loved being in the archives because you could touch the history and hold it in your hands. Now that I look back, that period of research and writing seems almost idyllic.

AN AUTHOR’S INSPIRATION

Johnian playlist

WORDS HANNAH SHARPLES

Jennie Rooney (1998) is the author of several novels, including Red Joan, which has been turned into a film and was recently released in UK cinemas on 19 April 2019. Here, we learn about her writing journey, the process of turning her third novel into a film and five songs that have uplifted and inspired her along the way

Jennie always wanted to write. While reading History at St John’s, she filled notebooks with scribbled ideas for novels. After her degree, she spent a year travelling and then trained to be a lawyer, where she was struck by how many of her colleagues were surprised at the length of time they had been working in the same place. Their reminiscing about paths not taken acted as the catalyst she needed to focus seriously on her writing.

A realistic deadline was set: to finish her first novel before she qualified as a solicitor. By writing anywhere, anytime, even just as little as one hundred words, Jennie met her deadline.

Red Joan is her third novel, written while she was working as a media lawyer in Chiswick. She never expected it to be made into a motion picture, although she would often agree when people asked her if it would make a good film. Asked theoretically which

actress she would want to play Joan, her answer was always ‘Well, Judi Dench, obviously’.

The process of turning Red Joan into a film happened more or less organically. The book had been chosen as one of Waterstones’ Book Club titles and when Jennie offered to give a talk in her local Waterstones to coincide with the paperback release, the shop created a big display in the front window. Sir Trevor Nunn lived nearby, saw the display, bought the book and then called Jennie’s agent.

Over a ‘surreal lunch’ with Sir Trevor, Jennie discussed the idea of Red Joan as a film, including approaching David Parfitt of Trademark Films (who had won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love) as the producer. A year and a half later, she received a text from Trevor: Judi Dench had said yes to the role!

The script was shared with Jennie for reading, although she wasn’t involved in its creation, and she was invited to watch the filming. During the shooting, she experienced the detail of the sets, the actors at work and how much thought goes into making every section work. A particular highlight of hers was acting as an extra in a scene shot in All Saints Garden, just outside St John’s.

‘Seeing Judi Dench shooting the scene where she makes her statement to the press was another highlight,’ Jennie recalls. ‘That was the original inspiration for the entire novel and my memory of the day is dreamlike. Did that really happen?’

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The Seekers, Morningtown Ride

This is the song my mother sang to me and my brothers when we were little. I can picture our matching orange bedspreads whenever I hear it. I didn’t know that I knew the words until I held my own babies in my arms – and then it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to sing this song to them. I will always remember the nights I have spent sitting in a rocking chair in the dark, singing about a train ride and a sandman and holding a sleeping baby who might one day discover that they know this song without knowing it.

JOHNIAN 25

PARISA TAGHIZADEH © TRADEMARK (RED JOAN) LTD 2018

It was incredible to see the excitement of the kids as they took

ownership of their new home and school

I arrived in the UK in the frigid winter of 1963 as a six year old, having hopped by air from Blantyre in Nyasaland to London via Salisbury, Nairobi, Khartoum and Rome. My father was in the colonial service and the imminent independence of Nyasaland, which became Malawi in 1964, meant our family starting a new life in the Lake District, where my parents bought and opened a hotel. My world was already a big place at the age of eight.

The Lakes was an inspirational setting for a shy but adventurous boy, exploring rivers, swimming, fishing and walking and climbing on the hills with my dad. I inherited the ‘mountain bug’ from him. When the family then moved to Norfolk, I was at a loss to find myself in the least mountainous place imaginable. Escaping to the mountains thereafter felt like a natural instinct.

I was somewhat unsettled in the flat fenland surrounding Cambridge, so I took a year out during my Geography degree at St John’s to explore the Azores and almost all of Central and South America. When I graduated, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, but this background of expressing myself physically in the outdoors and my love of the mountains steered me to Scotland.

An early and brief business career in Aberdeen was cut short by a serious illness that made me turn my thoughts to a career in education. I took a PGCE in Geography, developed my skills in outdoor leadership and gained my coaching qualifications. For more than 20 years I worked in Argyll teaching children practical geography and outdoor activity skills.

My passion for climbing mountains was driving my life, and to this was added a growing love of rivers and the sea. Climbing and kayaking allowed me to see the world from two contrasting and different perspectives: the mountain top and the very bottom of the valley. I felt the world at a very basic level, the rock in my hand, the power of the water on my paddle, the wind in my face.

I became a leading figure in the exploration of the white-water rivers of Scotland and soon extended this to the rivers of Europe and the world – and, in particular, of Nepal. Being privileged to reach un-climbed summits in the Coast Range of northern Canada and make first-descents of rivers in Nepal and Ecuador revealed to me some of the wildest places on earth in all their majesty.

On an early expedition in Nepal, I struck up a friendship with a young raft guide, Mukunda Raj Shrestha, who helped me explore many remote and difficult rivers. Some 20 years later, he took me to his home district, where I was overwhelmed and inspired by the difficult circumstances of the schools I saw there and the obvious commitment of parents, teachers and kids. My career had ended prematurely due to government funding cuts and I felt that educationally I had more to give. Why not Nepal? I set up Nepal Schools Trust, a registered charity, to try to help the 28 schools in that district.

Working for the children of the Devchuli district has been a fascinating journey. The Trust has been able to help resource welfare issues that schools could not address because their funding from government was so inadequate: clean drinking water, carpets, furnishings, paint, lights, toilets and help with books, teaching materials and equipment.

In 2016 we opened a brand new residential school for the profoundly deaf. Kids from a wide area come to live in dorms at the school to benefit from the quality teaching. It was incredible to see the excitement of the kids as they took ownership of their new home and school.

A school is only as good as its teachers. Our current focus is to train and support all our teachers to better be able to teach in the universally adopted English-medium. A three-year project to employ two skilled Nepali tutors who can work with all the teachers is just commencing. The most gratifying aspect of the ten years working with the community in Devchuli is that it has inspired local people to set up two charitable organisations of their own to add quality to educational needs there.

My life so far has taught me that there’s a joy, but also an uncertainty, in taking the path less travelled.

INTERVIEW: HANNAH SHARPLES

Chris Dickinson (1974)

The Founder and Chairman of Nepal Schools Trust shares his fascinating journey from kayaking down white-water rivers to providing teaching and resources to disadvantaged and disabled children

In a nutshell

Discover what else Chris and the Trust are planning at nepalschoolstrust.org.uk

26 JOHNIAN

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