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Imprint Lincoln College News SEPTEMBER 2015

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Annual Lincoln College alumni magazine

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Page 1: Imprint 2015

ImprintLincoln College NewsS E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5

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Editorial2015 will be remembered in Lincoln History as the year of the Garden Buildings. Many of you will now have had a chance to see the Berrow Foundation Building and Garden Building in all their glory, but for those who have not, or who saw only the tantalising exterior as we approached completion, we have included a number of pictures in this edition to show you what has been achieved.

In academic matters, our Fellowship remains active in teaching and research. We have new Fellows in music and modern languages, and a growing number of Junior Research Fellows in subjects as diverse as biomedicine and 1960s architecture. Our feature articles this year come from our new Fellow in Spanish, Dr Daniela Omlor, Dr Daniel Starza Smith, JRF in English Literature, and from Dr Cristina Dondi, a former JRF who has now returned as Oakeshott Senior Research Fellow and who is leading a fascinating research project into early printed books. Also featured is Dr Gordon Gancz, College Doctor for nearly 40 years, who has just retired. He is not turning to golf just yet, though; rather, he has been part of one of the medical teams working on Ebola in Sierra Leone.

Lincoln, as we all know, is a community, and one which particularly appreciates good food, wine and service. We have previously had profiles of Chef and Butler; this year, we look to Katie Ali and the Hall staff for some insights into what makes Lincoln such a special place.

Our students continue to pursue a wide range of activities. There is never enough space to do justice to all the different clubs and achievements, but once again we look to our Boat Club for continued success, with sporting success also evident from our football and netball teams, and many individuals competing in University squads. The Choir had an enjoyable tour in Poland, and VacProj continues to thrive and to help disadvantaged youngsters in the Oxford area.

Adventure and travel is the theme of our alumni section this year: from jaguars in Belize to a race to the South Pole, and various countries between, we explore some of the ways our alumni are making a difference. We are delighted that so many of you stay in touch with your news, and you will find a full update section on p. 40.

Regular items include our events and fundraising round-ups. While we have held a wide range of receptions, lunches, dinners and visits, one of the highlights for the Development Office was undoubtedly the advent of a new online booking service. The other, of course, is the successful completion of the Living Lincoln Campaign, the celebratory events for which took place this year.

Finally, many thanks are due to Bev Cousins, who has edited Imprint for the last three years, and left for a new career at the Birmingham Conservatoire mid-way through this one. Bev’s work on our print and online communications have helped us reach our alumni all around the world, and we wish her well in her new post. The current staff contact details for the Development Office can be found on the inside back cover.

ContentsCOLLEGE NEWS PAGE 1

THE NEW BUILDINGS PAGE 2

15C BOOKTRADE CRISTINA DONDI PAGE 4

MEMORY IN EXILE DANIELA OMLOR PAGE 6

UNLOCKING JOHN DONNE DANIEL STARZA SMITH PAGE 8

SEX, DRUGS, AND BICYCLES DR GORDON GANCZ PAGE 10

INTRODUCING… THE HALL INTERVIEW WITH KATIE ALI PAGE 12

THE JCR 2014-15 PAGE 14

THE MCR 2014-15 PAGE 15

CHOIR TOUR 2015 PAGE 16

MUSIC SOCIETY REPORT PAGE 17

ON THE RIVER LCBC REPORT PAGE 18

STUDENT NEWS PAGE 20

PARLEZ-VOUS FRANGLAIS? NUPUR PATEL (2012) PAGE 22

EVENTS 2014-15 PAGE 24

DEVELOPMENT NEWS PAGE 26

MY LINCOLN TANWEENA CHOWDHURY (1992) PAGE 28

EBOLA: ON THE FRONT LINE GERALDINE O’HARA (2009) PAGE 30

LIFE AT THE HONG KONG STOCK EXCHANGE DAVID GRAHAM (1978) PAGE 32

RACING TO THE SOUTH POLE RICHARD EYRE (1972) PAGE 33

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF CANON BASIL H. DAVIES PAUL GANDER PAGE 34

DOWN IN THE JUNGLE REBECCA FOSTER (1999) PAGE 36

THE WRITE STUFF LYNN SHEPHERD (1982) PAGE 38

ALUMNI NEWS PAGE 40

Front cover image by John Cairns www.johncairns.co.uk © John Cairns I

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College News

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Paul Langford FBA, FRHistSOur former Rector, Professor Paul Langford, died peacefully on 27 July 2015. Paul was well known to many generations of alumni, both as Fellow and Tutor in History (from 1969–1998) and latterly as Rector (2000–2012). We mourn his passing, and will be holding a memorial service in due course. A full appreciation will appear in the next issue of the Lincoln Record.

David Baer GoldeyThe College was also saddened by David Goldey’s death last year. Another long-standing Fellow, David had been Tutor in Politics from 1968–2003. A memorial ceremony took place in College on 24 April this year, attended by many alumni and friends.

AWARDS

We are delighted to announce that Professor Dominic Vella, Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics, has been awarded the Whitehead Prize by the London Mathematical Society. Dominic received the award for “his spectacular contributions to the modelling of instability and interfacial phenomena in fluids and solids”.

Professor Catherine de Vries has received the emerging scholar award of the American Political Science Association, for her work on elections and voting behaviour. This award is made to the top scholar in the field who is within ten years of completing their PhD.

BOOKS AND OTHER NEWS

Dr Harry SidebottomHarry is our lecturer in Ancient History, and also the author of two best-selling series of books set in ancient Rome. The latest

volume in the Throne of the Caesars series, Blood and Steel, was published in May 2015.

Oxford Open DoorsLast year, Lincoln participated in Oxford’s annual ‘Open Doors’ event for the first time, and more than 6000 visitors came to see the College. This year we shall be participating again; the theme is ‘Books, Libraries and Printing’ and takes place on 12 and 13 September 2015. The College will also be hosting a small exhibition of maps by alumnus Alun Thornton Jones (1945) as part of the festival.

Professor Bert SmithBert is the curator of a recent exhibition, Gods in Colour, at the Ashmolean. The exhibition uses casts and detailed research to reveal how Greek statues would have originally appeared in colour. His latest work on Aphrodisius, The Marble Reliefs from the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion, was published earlier this year. n

PROFESSOR MARTIN BOOTH

Professor Martin Booth has been awarded the ICO Prize 2014 by the International Commission for Optics for “his innovative and pioneering research on dynamic optical methods and new approaches to adaptive optics”. This award comes soon after Martin received the prestigious SAOT Young Researcher Award for his pioneering contributions in the field of adaptive optics.

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The Garden Buildings Unveiled

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Images on page 3, clockwise from top: The Langford Room; The new MCR; The exterior of the New Garden Building overlooking the Fellows’ Garden

Lincoln began the Garden Building project as long ago as 2010, when the College decided that the Oakeshott Room was desperately in need of a makeover, and that the demands of a larger College community required better facilities for performance, lectures, music, and for our Middle Common Room. Award-winning architects, Stanton Williams, in partnership with conservation architect Rodney Melville Associates, were commissioned to produce a design that made full use of the existing building and the available space on site.

Work on the site was complicated, given the proximity to the Chapel and other existing buildings (including those of Brasenose, behind), as well as the narrow point of access through the Rector’s Garden. As with all building work in the historic centre of Oxford, the site was visited by archaeologists, who were intrigued by the discovery of new evidence relating to the old ‘Rotten Row’. After two years of mud and toil, the new and refurbished buildings were officially opened in October 2014 by the Bishop of Lincoln, in the presence of our principal benefactors to the project, the Berrow Foundation and the EPA Trust.

Many alumni have now had the opportunity to view the new buildings for

themselves, but for those who have yet to see them, the pictures on these pages give some idea of the blend of old and new, and the quality of the workmanship.

The two-storey stone and glass New Garden Building enhances the refurbished existing Berrow Foundation Building, providing fully accessible facilities for performance, teaching and dining. The new building’s proportion is informed by the geometry and rhythm of the existing 1905-06 Read and MacDonald building and acts as a quiet foil to its symmetrical façade.

The interplay between new and old, and their relationship to the surrounding landscape, is emphasised throughout. Flush corner glazing on the upper level offers a reflected close view of the neighbouring Chapel and its prized ‘enamelled’ glass windows created by Abraham van Linge. In contrast, deeply recessed glazing on the ground level is intended to draw the landscape into the building.

Filled with natural light, the intervention includes breakout spaces adjacent to the Garden Building’s Oakeshott room and Middle Common Room. Delicately designed timber-veneered walls in the new rooms integrate acoustic requirements and

make reference to realigned oak panels in the refurbished rooms.

The introduction of a new basement provides additional music practice facilities whilst the upper level offers dining and kitchen facilities. The ground floor remains as a large multi-functional room. The new extension is designed to complement the quality and versatility of the Garden Building, vastly improving facilities for students.

In the Berrow Foundation Building, a new staircase provides access to a completely refurbished Oakeshott Room, resplendent with oak panelling, and restored roundels donated to the College by Walter Oakeshott. Below, the space has been opened out to create a large and fully panelled MCR, a perfect space for our graduate students to socialise and relax.

Finally, outside, our own gardener, Digby Styles has created two new gardens, for the Fellows and for the Rector, with the support of a very generous donation from alumnus Nigel Lindsay-Renton (1948). n

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15cBOOKTRADECristina Dondi rejoined the College in 2014 as the Oakeshott Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities, after holding a Lyell JRF in 2002-2005; she is the principal investigator of a five-year, €2 million European Research Council Consolidator Grant for a research project on the impact of early printed books on early modern European society, the 15cBOOKTRADE.

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Books printed between 1450 (Gutenberg’s invention) and 1500 (conventional cut-off date) are known as incunabula. Some 30,000 editions survive today, in some 450,000 copies, located in about 4,000 different public libraries, mostly in Europe and North America.

Each of these copies has a different history which can be reconstructed with the help of physical evidence (ownership inscriptions, decoration, binding, coat of arms, manuscript annotations, stamps, prices, etc) and bibliographical evidence (historic library catalogues, booksellers and auctions catalogues, etc): this is known as copy specific information, or provenance, or material evidence, or post-production evidence. 500 years of existence can hardly pass unnoticed!

The idea that underpins the 15cBOOKTRADE project is very simple: to use the material evidence from thousands of surviving 15th-c. books to address four fundamental questions relating to the introduction of printing in the West which have so far eluded scholarship, partly because of lack of evidence, partly because of the lack of effective tools to deal with existing evidence: (1) the distribution and trade-routes, national and international, of 15th-c. printed books, along with the identity of the buyers and users – private, institutional, religious, lay, female, male, and by profession – and their reading practices; (2) the books’ contemporary market value; (3) the transmission and dissemination of the texts they contain; and (4) the circulation and re-use of the illustrations they contain.

I will introduce Imprint readers to each one, in different issues, to begin with the distribution and use of early printed books. What books were printed in Venice and exported, purchased, and used in Germany or Poland in the fifteenth century? Or printed in Nuremberg and used in Italy in the 16th century? – What kinds of books? And used by whom? How?– Were there any female readers? And what kinds of books were purchased by students, lawyers or priests, in the 15th, 16th or later centuries, in Italy, France or anywhere else? – Which mathematical editions were acquired by religious institutions?

Who was buying Ptolemy in the Renaissance? Who was collecting it in the 18th century? – Can we quantify the amount of 15th-century printed books that entered European and American collections as a direct consequence of the dissolution of religious institutions and their libraries in the 18th and 19th century?

In the image below we have an Aristotle printed in Venice in 1483, then clearly shipped to Southern Germany where the decoration was added, and where it was purchased by Wenceslas Brack (d. 1495) – his coat of arms a hound rampant in colours – a noted scholar at the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and at his death donated by the wife to the Premonstratensians of Weissenau, as indicated by their ownership note. The religious house was secularized in 1802 and the book must have entered the international booktrade and reached the UK in the early 19th century, where it was purchased by Samuel Butler and finally by the Bodleian. That this book was sent to Germany via trade routes is not documented anywhere else than by the decoration of the book itself.

How to capture this unexpressed evidence of the movement of books in time and space, their trade and reception, and process it in chronological and geographical terms, usable for historical research?

This was the question that brought me to the creation of the database Material Evidence in

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K South German decoration in a Venice 1483 edition, now in the Bodleian

i Marginal annotation in a Rome 1490 edition, now in Venice

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Incunabula (MEI), where, in a simple but innovative way, we tag every element of provenance – a binding, a decoration style, a manuscript annotation, as well as former owners – with geographical and temporal coordinates, and in so doing we are finally able to track the movement of books across Europe and Americas throughout the centuries, and to identify trends and networks of distribution, of which we know otherwise very little, due to the lack of documentary evidence.

In MEI this record will be retrieved whenever we interrogate the database for the books printed in Venice and exported to Germany in the 15th century, or used in Germany in the 16th and 17th centuries, or for works of philosophy used by religious in the 15th century.

The work necessary to reach this objective is, however, huge. It requires the specialist skills of book cataloguers with the palaeographical knowledge to be able to read ownership inscriptions in Latin, Greek, and any European vernacular language, who can date and locate a binding or a decoration style to 15th-century Italy, or 16th-century Germany or 17th-century England, who can identify a coat of arms, who can distinguish different types of marginal annotations, from corrections, comments, to censorship, who know how to trace back the history of a book using booksellers and auctioneers catalogues and library acquisition registers.

Further, it requires the development of an appropriate database system to not only record but retrieve intelligently the valuable data.

Finally, it necessarily relies on extensive collaboration, supported by a vast logistical plan which coordinates the integration of data produced by hundreds of different libraries into one searchable database.

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L Ptolemy, Geographia, Ulm 1486, copy in the Bodleian

How to capture this unexpressed evidence of

the movement of books in time and

space, their trade and

reception, and process it in

chronological and

geographical terms, usable for historical

research?

The reader will understand that the 15cBOOKTRADE coordinates the work of very many people, over several years. It is the largest project to date totally centred on incunabula and it builds on and brings together decades of specialist cataloguing and research on incunabula, as well as making available completely new data and an innovative way to use these data for historical research. My role as Secretary of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), a membership organisation of about 250 European national and research libraries, and one American, Yale, who share resources and expertise with a view to improving research on the European manuscript and printed heritage in the hand-press period (up to c. 1830; http://www.cerl.org/web/), has been, of course, essential.

But this is the only sensible way. If we want to understand how newly printed books impacted the lives of different segments of 15th-century population, spreading knowledge, information, increasing literacy levels, supporting the growth of universities, creating a new business, contributing to the international trade, well, we better have a good look at the books themselves.

To date the MEI database includes the detailed description of 10,000 copies of incunabula, belonging to 160 libraries, from large national libraries to small religious institutions, in 9 different countries. Over 70 editors are contributing these records.

The database was designed by Dr Alex Jahnke of Data Conversion Group, of the University of Göttingen, is hosted and maintained by CERL, and is freely available on http://incunabula.cerl.org.

I lead a team of five researchers specialised in Palaeography, Bibliography, History of Libraries and the transmission of texts. They are based in Venice (Sabrina Minuzzi), the British Library (Alessandra Panzanelli), and Oxford (Geri Della Rocca De Candal, Matilde Malaspina, and Birgit Mikus). We work closely with two IT units (at the Bodleian Library and at the University of Göttingen) and two Oxford Engineering departments: Prof. Andrew Zisserman of the Department of Visual Geometry, who will apply image-matching software to 15th-century Venetian illustration, and Prof. Min Chen and Dr Simon Walton, of the e-Research Centre, who are experimenting with the application of scientific visualization techniques to our data. n

Cristina DondiOakeshott Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities

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frequently seen as a prelude to the global conflict that followed.

My obsession with the literary legacy of this period began when I discovered the writer Jorge Semprún by chance, intrigued by the combination of a French book title (L’Écriture ou la vie) and the clearly Spanish name of the author. The more I read and the more I dug, the more fascinated I became. Semprún had left Spain as a young boy at the outbreak of the war in the summer of 1936 for France with his family, thinking that his exile would be short-lived. However, after Franco’s rebels won the war a return was impossible. Semprún joined the Communist Party and then the French Resistance against the German occupation and was deported to the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald in 1943. He survived and continued to work for the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), which sent him on undercover missions to Madrid, allowing him to revisit the country of his childhood for the first time. Divergences with the leadership culminated in Semprún’s exclusion from the Party in 1964, by which time he had taken the first step to an alternative career with the publication of his novel, Le grand voyage, in 1963. At the time, Franco’s censorship made it impossible for Semprún to publish in Spain. Semprún continued to write and made an unexpected comeback in politics as the independent Minister of Culture under Felipe González from 1988–1991.

Before coming to Lincoln, I was at Exeter College, where I held the Queen Sofia JRF. When I joined Lincoln last year, not only was I happy to become part of such a friendly College, which had shown its commitment to Modern Languages teaching by creating a new fellowship, it was also a bonus that I didn’t have far to move my books. I’m also a College lecturer at Jesus, meaning I only have to elope through the connecting door to Brasenose to complete the Turl Street set.

In a nutshell, my research in Spanish literature is guided by the principle that happy lives don’t make for good reading. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a hugely traumatic event for Spain, whose long-term impacts still make themselves felt, not least because the war was followed by Franco’s dictatorship which lasted for almost 40 years until the dictator’s death in 1975. Nonetheless, outside Spain the war is often solely remembered for the accounts given by Hemingway, Orwell, and other non-Spanish writers. In our collective imagination it has become overshadowed by WWII in spite of historical interconnections, such as the incarceration of thousands of Republican Spaniards in the Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen, or the fact that many of the tanks that liberated Paris under Leclerc bore names that evoked the Spanish Civil War, such as ‘Guadalajara’ or ‘Guernica’. In fact, in Spain the Civil War is

Memory in ExileDaniela Omlor joined Lincoln in October 2014, as our first Tutorial Fellow in Spanish. She is a very welcome addition to the College, consolidating our tutorial provision in modern languages. She describes her current area of research for Imprint.

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K Some items from the personal archive of Arturo Barea, exiled in Oxfordshire

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I discovered the writer

Jorge Semprún by chance,

intrigued by the combination of a French book title (L’Écriture

ou la vie) and the clearly Spanish

name of the author.

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Molina are nevertheless deeply influenced by their families’ histories and the pasts that preceded their own births. Their novels thus blur the boundaries between literary genres, but also memory and the imagination. Many of us will be able to relate to their confusion if we inspect our own earliest childhood memories, wondering whether we truly remember the event in question or whether the repeated telling of a story has led to its absorption into our memory. Another fascinating feature is that the memory horizons of Spanish novelists are expanding to incorporate the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, the Madrid bombings of 2004 and other traumatic events, which are often seen through the prism of Spain’s own history, e.g. by comparing the siege of Sarajevo to that of Madrid during the Civil War.

Issues of truth and empathy can be found at the core of my research: why do we condemn impostors who allege to be victims of Nazism or Francoism, when we accept that these topics may be covered freely in literature? Should the reader always identify and empathise with the protagonist of a narrative, or can stylistic experimentalism deliver a more accurate portrayal of trauma by avoiding these narrative conventions? The questions that I am drawn to ultimately concern the ways in which novels can open up imaginative avenues of addressing subjects that were publicly repressed and how memory and fiction can be liberating means of engaging with them, precisely because the author is not tied to historical accuracy. n

Daniela Omlor, Tutorial Fellow in Spanish.

L Perhaps the most famous image of the Spanish Civil War – Picasso’s ‘Guernica’

J Top to bottom: Jorge Semprún’s ‘L’Écriture ou la vie’, Daniela Omlor’s ‘Jorge Semprún: Memory’s Long Voyage’

L Left to right: Works by Javier Cercas, Javier Marías and Antonio Muñoz Molina

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Semprún’s life spanned many important historical events of the twentieth century, and yet he deliberately chose to write about his experience not from a purely autobiographical perspective. Instead, he wanted to explore the riches of fiction and memory, by reversing chronologies and presenting versions of what might have happened rather than certainties alleging what did happen. His work thus straddles not only vast historical and literary references, but also plays with both of his languages, Spanish and French. I tried to do justice to these complexities inherent in his work in my monograph, Jorge Semprún: Memory’s Long Voyage, which was published by Peter Lang last year.

Following on from my research on one exiled writer, I developed a curiosity for the insights that fiction might offer when dealing with a burdensome past. In Spain, ‘the generation of grandchildren’ has rediscovered the Civil War and made it the focus of much creative writing. Born decades after the war, writers such as Javier Cercas, Javier Marías and Antonio Muñoz

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‘More than kisses, letters mingle souls’: Unlocking John Donne

Daniel Starza Smith is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow and Oakeshott JRF at Lincoln, and his research focuses on the women patrons of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, particularly those addressed in the poetry and prose of John Donne (1572–1631). He is particularly interested in manuscript

circulation, literary patronage, the material features of letters, and the history of archives and libraries.

John Donne (1572–1631) stands out as one of the most extraordinary poets and religious thinkers of the early modern period. He has gained a reputation as a daringly original poet whose verse dramatically – often shockingly – collides sexual and religious imagery. The inspiration for a thousand ‘metaphysical’ imitators in verse, his biography has inspired as much controversy as his poetry. Notoriously supposed to have been a passionate lover in his youth, he eloped with his employer’s young niece and was cast into prison for his indiscretion. Donne was a devout Catholic who converted to the Church of England and became the most famous preacher of his day. He has been accused of ‘abandoning’ his family’s faith, of being a single-minded careerist, and (with rather more justice) of producing some troublingly misogynistic verse.

Yet his popularity endures: Donne was voted the nation’s second favourite poet in 2009 (after T.S. Eliot, his major champion in the early 20th century) and his words resound through our cultural language: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself’; ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee’; ‘Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy gaol’; ‘For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love’, ‘Batter my heart, three personed God’; ‘Death be not proud, though many have called thee / Mighty and dreadful … Death thou shalt die’. Donne’s friend and literary rival Ben Jonson called him ‘the first poet in the world in

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some things’. Indeed, Donne is the first English literary author whose letters were collected and published; the first (that we know of) to commission a series of portraits of himself; the first to receive a published biography by a contemporary.

Today he is the subject of three major international editions, of his letters, poetry, and sermons – the latter under the general editorship of Professor Peter McCullough at Lincoln. Yet despite the vast critical attention, huge gaps still remain in his biography. My particular interest lies in Donne’s friends and early readers. Donne’s writings were largely unprinted in his own lifetime, and circulated in manuscript – but circulate they did, far and wide. Around 4500 handwritten copies survive from the seventeenth century, some seven times more than any other contemporary’s. If we understand each manuscript transcription as a ‘publication’ (a making-public), Donne was truly a publishing phenomenon, and it’s those early readers and scribes who enabled the process of his transmission in manuscript. What can we learn by studying their idiosyncratic handwriting, reconstructing their lives, their interests, prejudices, and influence? It’s a question I explore in my first book, John Donne and the Conway Papers (OUP, 2014), which I finished in my first year at Lincoln; I’ve since become involved with the

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eight-volume Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, reading through a vast body of criticism to discern the history of Donne’s verse letters to friends and patrons.

During this work, one particular group of readers struck me as needing much further attention – Donne’s female friends and patrons. Donne’s poetry is full of fictional or heavily disguised women, the targets of extravagantly witty seductions, transcendent declarations of love, and prolonged, bitter attacks. These women have attracted the majority of the literary criticism; yet Donne also wrote many poems and letters to real women, whose lives and influence we can study in considerable depth. Who were they, and to what extent did they appreciate their privileged access to literary genius? How can they help illuminate lacunae in Donne’s biography, or elucidate his complex poetry? What can they tell us more broadly about women’s involvement in culture and politics in the seventeenth century?

My three-year British Academy post-doctoral fellowship is seeking to redress this critical imbalance by focusing on women such as Magdalen Herbert (mother of the poet George Herbert), Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, and the pre-eminent cultural doyenne of the Jacobean court, Lucy Harington Russell, Countess of Bedford. Though my post is based in the English Faculty, Lincoln College generously awarded me the Oakeshott Junior Research Fellowship, granting me membership of a particularly inspirational scholarly community. Not only am I able to seek Peter McCullough’s advice on Donne-related matters and Susan Brigden’s on early modern history, the college is also home to Cristina Dondi’s hugely important ERC-funded project on fifteenth-century book provenance, not to mention the Rector’s extensive interests in bibliography and book history.

There are many ways to understand history and its actors; feeling one’s way around material artifacts like manuscripts and books is one of the most satisfying. Researching the communications technologies that preserve

evidence about a period means we can imagine ourselves more clearly into the world we are studying. Last year I co-edited a book called Manuscript Miscellanies in Early Modern England, with Joshua Eckhardt of

Virginia Commonwealth University; we wanted to bring together some exciting new scholarship about miscellanies, composite manuscript books into which early modern collectors transcribed their favourite poetry and prose.

Taking a different (though not unrelated) approach to material history, over the last year I’ve spent a good deal of time manipulating pieces of paper in order to see how early modern writers folded and sealed their letters before the invention of the envelope, a process known as “letterlocking”. It sounds like quite an odd activity for a literary scholar, but it has revealed a huge amount about both the aesthetics and the security systems built into the letter, one of the most important forms of communication that humans have yet invented. I think John Donne would have agreed: “More than kisses, letters mingle souls”, he once told a friend.

As part of an ongoing international collaboration, Jana Dambrogio (MIT Libraries) and I have created a series of instructional videos (http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/letterlocking) which have attracted more than 30,000 views so far; we also toured a hands-on workshop to the US and the UK in spring 2015, teaching our findings to scholars, curators, and conservators. As a research technique, letterlocking can be playful and fun, but the scholarship has important potential applications across disciplines, languages, and time periods. Repeated and much-valued support from Lincoln’s Zilkha Fund and the College’s exchange programme with the Huntington Library have been crucial in enabling the intensely archival research and face-to-face collaboration needed for this kind of project. It’s hard to imagine having the time and freedom to develop work like this without the protected research space afforded by a post-doctoral research fellowship. n

Daniel Starza Smith, British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow and Oakeshott JRF

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There are many ways to understand history and its actors; feeling one’s way around material

artifacts like manuscripts and books is one of the most satisfying.

J John Donne, by Isaac Oliver

K Teaching letterlocking at the new Weston Library in 2015

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College about which he was seeking opinions. He taught me that, however senior you are, listening to others is vital. I have since learned a great deal from both junior and senior members. I remember Lady Trend opening the College Ball in the 1970s then retiring to bed, only to reappear at 6am in ball dress and full make-up to draw the raffle (the prize for which was breakfast in Paris!).

In the 1980s the colleges that I looked after were the first to set up Welfare Committees so that junior members could help us with adapting our services to meet the needs of our patients, and of course the admission of women from 1979 onwards changed forever the role of the College Doctor. My Freshers talks (Sex, Drugs, and Bicycles) apparently became one of the few things that those who were never ill remembered about me. When the Oakeshott Room was being refurbished recently, I found myself giving this talk in the College Chapel. Talking about sex and contraception from the lectern was a novel experience even for me!

Having been an undergraduate myself at Pembroke, I understand only too well the terror that comes before exams and remember even having to walk undergraduates to Schools when they couldn’t persuade themselves to go. (On one memorable occasion a refusenik wouldn’t get out of bed and the doctor was called. There were 4 female members of College in his room trying to persuade him to get up. Once persuaded to leave, it turned out his refusal was simply because he was naked!) But it was at an individual level that I gained greatest satisfaction. For those who ran into trouble during their time at College, it was hugely gratifying to help them back on track and see them graduate. Of course there have been those who didn’t make it, but even helping them to realise that Oxford isn’t right for everyone can make for a successful future.

Sex, Drugs, and Bicycles – a College Doctor looks backDr Gordon Gancz was College Doctor at Lincoln from 1976 to 2014 – during which time he looked after many generations of students, staff and Fellows. When he retired in 2014, he did not lay down his stethoscope, but headed to Sierra Leone to help with the Ebola outbreak. Lincoln elected him to a Murray Fellowship in 2015, in recognition of his contribution to the College.

I first worked as College Doctor in 1974 when my predecessor, John Pearce, fell ill and I stood in for him for a couple of months. In late 1975 he again became unwell and it was while I was running the Practice in January 1976 that he died and my fate was sealed. Though I continued my obstetric career while in practice, and I was for 35 years a Civilian Medical Adviser to all three Armed Forces, ‘College Doctoring’ became my life. Since 1976, I have also been a University Tutor in Medicine and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Primary Care and a College Tutor for Lincoln and Corpus on the Patient Doctor course, which, for their first two years, is the main teaching that undergraduates have in clinical medicine.

It has been a huge pleasure to look after so many generations of both junior and senior members of Lincoln, which is not to say that at times it hasn’t been both stressful and trying! It was very soon apparent to me that there was a lot more to looking after junior members than simply dealing with their physical illnesses and there were many late evenings (and nights) taken up with the psychological problems that erupt in late adolescence and early adulthood. In the 1980s it became obvious that we needed a properly established University Counselling Service and, after three years of late-night sittings, the University committee (of which I was a member) established to set up the Service. In 1989–1990 the Service began and has since been invaluable.

There are so many anecdotes that one might be tempted to tell about Lincolnites, but let me reassure those who might be worried – I have no intention of telling them (hilarious as some of them might be!). Confidentiality is still my byword, but there are some general things that one might mention. Imagine my astonishment when Lord Trend, Rector in my early years, asked if he could seek my advice. On what could a green young doctor possibly advise the former Cabinet Secretary? No, not medicine but a problem within

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Since I stopped seeing patients at the surgery last September, I have had the opportunity to work in Sierra Leone as part of the first NHS team to be sent to fight Ebola. As a contrast to my life in Oxford it could not have been more different. When we arrived our Ebola Treatment Centre had not even been built and helping to build and equip that, as well as train the staff to work in it, was a great challenge. I was in the front line treating Ebola patients but also had the responsibility of looking after the health of our whole team as well as the local doctors and nurses, and other staff in Port Loko. Not far off the number of people in Lincoln but with rather

L The Rector presenting Dr Gancz with a certificate to mark his election to a Murray Fellowship in 2015

L Child with ebola

I The consulting tent

J First patient discharged well

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different challenges. Our living conditions were not good, showers and lavatories didn’t work and the temperature went up to 35–40 Celsius.

Public health (kitchens and food as well as risk) together with occupational health kept me very busy for 10 weeks, and no days or nights off in that time took me back to my first three years as Lincoln Doctor when similarly I had no cover. Could I remember how to take out the appendix of one of our guards, not having done one for 40 years? (Fortunately the patient recovered after 4 days of intravenous antibiotics.)

When we arrived in Sierra Leone there were more than 700 cases a week; last week there were 8. When our team left, there was no one immediately to replace me so I had to stay on to look after the Danish team that succeeded us. At least the food improved! When a British spy returned from gaol in Tehran in the 1980s, he was inevitably asked how he survived such awful conditions. I echo his words by saying that “when you have endured an English prep school, public school, Oxford and the Army, nothing seems too bad.” n

Dr Gordon GanczFormer Lincoln College Doctor

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What is a typical day for you?Well I’ve become very used to split shifts! In Hall we work 7–9am for breakfast, 12-3pm for lunch, and 5–9pm for dinner. For some events, such as gaudies, we can sometimes be here until midnight; the working hours are really varied and depend on what is going on in College.

Have you had anything go wrong that you have had to deal with that sticks in your memory?We had an elderly diabetic gentleman pass out at a dinner once, which was quite scary as he went very pale and slipped under the table. I am first-aid trained which I see as extremely important, and I intend to make sure all of my staff receive first aid training as soon as it is possible.

Introducing The Hall –an interview with Katie AliAs Hall Supervisor, Katie Ali has seen hundreds of students come and go over the past eighteen years. In this interview with Bev Cousins, Katie reflects on her time at Lincoln, from managing new EU legislation to starring in an episode of Lewis!

How long have you worked at Lincoln?18 years in December.

What is the set-up of your team and how does this fit in with the rest of College? The three departments, Dining Hall, Kitchen and Buttery, work together under the three managers; I am Hall Supervisor, Richard Malloy is Head Chef, and Tony Daley is Head Butler. Without this teamwork the system just wouldn’t work. If anything goes wrong it’s dealt with quickly and amongst the team, so in theory no one knows!

What are the main challenges of your role? The introduction of new EU allergen regulations in December 2014 has been a significant challenge for my team at the College. It is a big responsibility to make sure allergy sufferers get the right meal and no mistakes are made in service. We have learnt a lot about food and ingredients since the training took place. For big dinners we have the dietary requirements on a colour coded seating plan and I brief the team as to where guests are sitting that have food allergies or intolerances, to make sure they are served the correct meal. It is our duty to make sure this is right as the consequences of mistakes can be serious.

How does your role differ to that of others in the College staff? I think I am one of the members of staff who gets to know the students best. Partly due to knowing their dietary requirements but I’m also really chatty and like to get to know the students whilst they are at College. The best time for this is at breakfast, when things are a bit less busy and there is a bit more time to chat.

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K Katie Ali and her team in Hall

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What are your favourite parts of the day/year?The evening is definitely the highlight of the day, and is the busiest mealtime in College. I particularly enjoy working at the dinner events where I can meet alumni that I know from their time as students. Trinity is the busiest term for dinner, with a lot of finalist dinners and celebrations. One of my favourite events is the College Ball, which happens every other year. After we finished work at the Ball we get to stay and mingle with the guests which I really enjoy.

Do you remember and recognise students when they return to College for events?I always remember people and never forget a face! It’s lovely when alumni come back to College and remember me. I also get invites all around the world, I have been invited to Dubai, offered free legal advice should I ever need it, and even been invited to number 10, if the alumnus in question ever makes it to PM! So I’ll certainly be taking up that offer if I can one day! I have contacts all over the world from the students I know from my time at Lincoln, and it’s clear how even when students leave they remain so fond of the College. The thing I miss is the weddings, we have ceremonies in the Chapel but unfortunately we aren’t able to hold receptions any longer. I used to really like working at weddings as I’d often know the bride and groom from when they were dating as students!

What other responsibilities do you have? I often choose the person that says the grace during the evening meal; I have heard it so many times you’d think I’d be able to recite it, but I’m not sure I’d like to try! I either pick someone out to say it or sometimes someone will ask to. Students still get half a bottle of wine at the end of term for each time they have said the grace, a tradition that has been going on for many years.

Do you have any good stories to share with us? One of the more exciting days at work was when Robert Redford attended the graduation ceremony of a family member. Everyone was quite star struck and he certainly looked like a movie star! I was also in an episode of Lewis: the Director wanted to film a breakfast being served in Hall and I even had a line to say ( ‘any more marmalade?’), it took all day to film the scene though! We have had other famous guests too, President Bush’s brother and an Israeli Ambassador amongst others.

What do you particularly like about Lincoln? Lincoln students are always really friendly, although they can be quiet and shy at first. It often takes a while to get to know them but once they settle in we chat a lot. I always chat to students before exams and wish them luck, and remember to ask how it went afterwards. It’s a stressful time so I try to put them at ease. It’s really nice to see them celebrating when it’s all over! Sometimes I get bought flowers and chocolates, and I have been given hampers before for working at dinners and at the end of the year, all of which I share equally amongst my team and are much appreciated!

At the end of each day I feel satisfied that my team and I have done a good job and that makes me feel good. I spend more time at Lincoln College than with my family, so no wonder I am quite attached! The previous Butler, Kevin, always used to say to me ‘Katie, I see more of you than my wife!’ People are so thankful for what we do and that makes the job really worthwhile. n

Interview by Bev CousinsAlumni and Communications Officer

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L Katie Ali (right) at the 2015 Garden Party

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This academic year has been another grand success for the JCR. Of course, we have brought in some new (and old) features, but what I have learnt in my year as President is that what makes the JCR tick is the wonderful sense of community that lies at its core. Throughout this year, and all of my time at Lincoln, the JCR has proved itself to be an inclusive, tight-knit group of remarkably able and engaged individuals. We come together throughout the terms to help each other through, have fun with one another and, in general, make sure we all get the most out of Oxford we can. No matter what has changed this year and what my successor will introduce, I hope this continues.

Many alumni will be pleased to hear that we have relaunched The Imp – the satirical College newspaper (think Private Eye with even more in-jokes). Thanks to the dedication of our two self-appointed Imp-editors, Joshua James and Ed Lewis, two new copies of the Lincoln classic have been produced this term. Inspired by The Imp of old, the humour is as cutting and close to the wind as possible. Being on the receiving end of some of the articles, I should know!

Also in the creative sphere of the JCR, Flo Read ensured that Lincoln’s triennial presidency of the Turl Street Arts Festival was a great success with a wide range of events, from acoustic nights, to talks, to life-drawing sessions.

Our sports men and women have also had a promising year with W4 taking blades in Summer VIIIs. A new initiative from the JCR Sports Rep, Jack Barclay, celebrated Lincoln’s proud sporting tradition through the inaugural ‘Lincoln Sports Personality of the Year Awards’. The JCR has also recently entered the fray into what I’m sure you’ll agree is a very serious sporting endeavour. Under the command of the JCR War Officer, Owen Mears, Lincoln claimed victory over Brasenose in the first battle of what may well escalate into a full-scale paintballing war. I somehow doubt this has put to bed our centuries-old conflict, which was again recognised this Ascension Day with a kind gift of Ivy Ale to our neighbours.

JCR President’s report 2014-15

L From left to right: Jess Bailes (Welfare), Ellie Williams (Entz), Will Sharp (Vice President), Ivo Radice (Treasurer), Yyanis Johnson-Llambias (Access and Academic Affairs) and then me

L Article from the relaunched Imp magazine

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In order to make the JCR a welcoming environment for as wide a range of students as possible, this year the JCR has introduced representatives for Black and Minority Ethnic, and Disabled students. These are exiting new positions and I wish the new incumbents the best of luck in making the most of their roles.

I have very much enjoyed serving as President of the Junior Common Room. The year has certainly been stressful and I have spent a lot more time sitting in committees than I would ever like to in future. That said, I would do it all over again; it has been extremely rewarding representing the undergraduates at Lincoln and channelling the wide variety of passions everyone has, so as to make Lincoln a real home for us all. n

Mark Williams (2013)JCR President 2014–15

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K Back row l-r: Kevin Ray, Joshua Thomas, Tristan Parker, Nico Kist, Daniel Rowe, Stuart Ramsay, William Kalderon, Peter Hatfield, Francois Lavergne, Jerome TemmeFront row l-r: Bernadette Stolz, Leandra Bias, Julie Baleriaux, Lucy Hutchinson, Kate Etheridge, Leah Rand

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Lincoln MCR has enjoyed a uniquely special year, living up to its reputation as the best MCR in Oxford.

Following the exceptional example of the previous MCR Committee, the new committee continued to do great work. The energetic social team, comprised of Daniel Rowe (2013), Nico Kist (2013), Leah Rand (2013), Peter Hatfield (2013), Jérôme Temme (2013) and Bernadette Stolz (2013), produced three term cards packed with a wide variety of events.

The traditional fortnightly MCR dinners were taken to new heights as the Chef and his team worked hard to create themed evenings, including a spooky Halloween theme and an unforgettable Burns Night! Numerous exchange dinners and bar exchanges allowed Lincoln students to get to know members of St Peter’s, Queen’s, and several other colleges. Our imaginative social team also put on tasting events, from fortified wine to whiskey, and for those who prefer physical activities, an ice-skating trip! The year concluded with its traditional Garden Party, which was once again at home in the Rector’s (brand new!) garden. Thanks to the

MCR President’s report 2014-15generosity of the Old Members’ Fund, the MCR was able to orchestrate a trip to Lincoln Cathedral by invitation of the Bishop and, of course, the biennial Boat Party, a black-tie cruise along the Thames.

Our members benefited from dedicated Welfare representatives who undertook an intensive Peer Support Training course in Michaelmas term. Josh Thomas (2008) and Leandra Bias (2013) also organised regular MCR teas and movie nights, alongside yoga, belly dancing and aerobics sessions, providing a plethora of opportunities for students to unwind.

The charities team, led by François Lavergne (2012) organised an impressive year of fundraising events, including a high tea, a classy casino night and the always-successful charity auction. Our environmental representative, Ole Andreassen (2010), kept us up-to-date with environmental issues while the food rep, Stuart Ramsay (2008), improved upon the feedback system for college meals. Our LGBTQ rep, Mia Pistorius (2013), kept the LGBTQ community up-to-date with events around Oxford and the First Year rep, Tristan Parker, did a great job of representing the interests of the

new members of the MCR. Will Kalderon (2012) successfully kept the MCR website updated with the latest goings-on, and the Academic rep, Kevin Ray (2013), organised a series of informal MCR talks, where members could speak about their work to a general audience in a relaxed environment.

The executive committee, including the Treasurer, Julie Balériaux (2012), and the Secretary, Kate Etheridge (2012), kept things ticking over behind the scenes, working hard every day to see to the financial, domestic and administrative running of the MCR. This year was very special for Lincoln MCR- we waited patiently for the opening of our brand new common room in the refurbished Berrow Foundation Building! The executive committee organised a sophisticated opening party, including plenty of nibbles and champagne, with the generous assistance of the Old Members’ Annual Fund. The MCR is truly grateful to the Berrow Foundation and the College for our new, elegant and spacious room, which perfectly meets the needs of our sociable graduate community.

I would like to thank each and every committee member for her or his contribution this year. The happiness of the MCR really does rely on a strong team of committed individuals. Here’s to many more years of fun in the new common room! n

Lucy Hutchinson (2012) MCR President 2014–15

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evening. We turned up to an empty and cold church, advertising a concert with a string quartet. Confused, the organ scholars tried to find out what was going on. Despite numerous email and telephone conversations with the church there had been a mix-up and they were not expecting us that evening. Though disappointed, we were all somewhat relieved not to have to sing twice in one day and went in search of more dumplings for dinner.

Day three. Today was a free day and a number of the choir decided to visit Auschwitz, which is only an hour and a half away by car. It was a startlingly beautiful, warm, and sunny day. Our guide was fantastic and gave us all plenty to think about as we walked around the two camps. It was an unsettling experience, but one we will never forget.

Day one. At 6.30am, 22 sleepy members of Lincoln College Chapel Choir gathered at Gatwick Airport to catch a flight to Kraków. Upon arrival we were met by Eleanor Giraud, Lincoln’s Lord Crewe Junior Research Fellow in Music, who was joining us for the trip. We squeezed ourselves onto an already busy bus heading to the centre of Kraków and after a short walk we arrived at our hostel, where we were eagerly greeted by the hostel staff. We were staying at Ars Hostel, in the Stradom district, a short walk from Kazimierz. Having compared each other’s rooms and dropped off our bags we set out to find some food. For many of us, Polish dumplings (pierogi) were high on the agenda and they did not disappoint. In the afternoon we had a brief choir rehearsal in the communal room in the hostel, much to the amusement of other hostel guests. Tired from the day’s travel and eager to relax, we retreated to an underground bar that evening where we discovered something of a Polish speciality: cheap vodka shots in every flavour imaginable.

Day two. No time for a lie in! We were singing after the midday Mass at the Dominican Basilica of the Holy Trinity and we had to be there to rehearse at 10.30am. Following a confused ‘conversation’ with a nun, with whom we had no languages in common, we were greeted by an English-speaking Dominican brother. He led us through the delightful cloisters to our rehearsal room, but not before he had proudly showed us the oldest room on the site, a gorgeous little underground

chapel. As we were singing a short concert immediately after the service, we took our seats before Mass began. The church was cold and by the end of the service it seemed even colder: little did we know that this was the first of many cold churches we would visit during the week. The music for the Mass was provided by seven Dominican brothers, accompanied by the organ. It was simple but extremely beautiful, and very different from what we are used to. Most of the congregation stayed to hear us sing, and they were a highly appreciative audience. We sang for an hour, with a short rest in the middle while our Chapel Precentor Joseph Mason played the huge organ looming at the back of the church. That afternoon we were free to explore Kraków for a few hours before another rehearsal and concert at the Church of SS Peter and Paul in the

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Choir Tour to Poland, 2015

I Choir in front of Wawel Castle

K Dominican Basilica of the Holy Trinity

L Concert at the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

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Day four. A short bus ride away from Kraków are the Wieliczka Salt Mines. We had arranged to sing in the biggest and most impressive of several chapels, hidden within the tunnels and shafts of the mine, the St Kinga Chapel (above). Our witty guide led us through the amazing underground chambers and lakes, carefully explaining the mine’s history to us and even, much to our surprise, encouraging us to lick the walls. Once in the Kinga Chapel we paused to sing a few pieces. There were few tourists there but several stopped to listen to us sing, enhanced by the incredible acoustics. We hurried back to Kraków that afternoon as we had another singing engagement at the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Redemptorystów) that evening. We arrived at the Church to a room of hot drinks and another Polish speciality, Kremówka, also known as ‘Pope cake’. We sang a few pieces during the Mass and afterwards, shivering with cold, we sang our full programme for a large audience. That evening we went to a bowling alley for some competitive relaxation.

Day five. Another free day in Kraków until the evening: many of us explored the picturesque castle and indoor market, while others visited Oskar Schindler’s factory, which is now a museum. That evening we met at St Stanislaus’s Church, the Church on the Rock, for a post-mass concert. This was undoubtedly the coldest church we had sung in all week. As it was our last performance in Kraków, we gave it everything we had, to a small but appreciative audience. Certain choir members were eager to perform again and that evening we stumbled across a karaoke club in which the soprano section decided to impress the club with a tasteful rendition of ‘Let it go’.

Day six. Our final day and we were treated to a delicious three course end-of-tour meal thanks to the generosity of the Zilkha Fund. This was a lovely way to celebrate the past week. For most of us it was an early night as we had to leave the hostel at 7.00am the next morning to fly home.

We are grateful to the Dominican Basilica of the Holy Trinity, the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and the Church on the Rock, for allowing us to sing in their churches and for their hospitality, and to Ars Hostel for being so accommodating. We would like to express our thanks to Lincoln alumni for

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Music SocietyOver the past year Lincoln College Music Society (LCMS) has organised a range of diverse musical events for all members of the College – and beyond – to enjoy! The start of this academic year saw the formation of a non-auditioning choir, The 1427s, which has featured in two LCMS concerts this year. Students from Lincoln also benefited from a Sing for Pleasure conducting workshop that has helped students to lead ensembles within, and outside of, College.

Michaelmas also saw Lincoln host an exciting choral music concert of works by Pärt and Lang, as well as the annual Freshers’ concert, displaying the musical talents of members of the JCR and MCR.

their generous Old Members’ Annual Fund grant, without which this tour would not have been possible. Thanks are also due to: Przemek Rosinski for all his help in securing venues; Eleanor Giraud for her amazing organisational skills; the Zilkha Fund for supporting Eleanor’s trip; Slawek and his colleagues at Ars Hostel for their exceptional hospitality; Rev. Dr Jack Dunn for his continuous support; and the choral and organ scholars for the hard work they put into organising an outstanding tour. n

Marion BettsworthOrgan Scholar (2013–15)

LCMS opened Hilary Term with a Burn’s Night Ceilidh – featuring a Ceilidh band comprised of Lincoln students – which proved to be extremely popular. As part of Turl Street Arts Festival, Lincoln Chapel played host to ‘An Evening of Jazz’ featuring some of Oxford’s finest jazz musicians. At the end of Hilary term, we welcomed Bragod, a duo specialising in mediaeval Welsh music and the crwth, an ancient Celtic stringed instrument.

Trinity saw the formation of yet another musical ensemble – a Lincoln funk band. Following the success of the Freshers’ Concert in Michelmas, a Re-freshers’ Concert celebrated the re-opening of the Oakeshott Room, the first of many LCMS events that will take advantage of this excellent performance space. With the long days and sunny weather that Trinity brings, LCMS transformed Grove Quad in to ‘Groove Quad’ – an evening of acoustic acts and entertainment. Trinity Term concluded with an acappella concert in the Chapel, featuring The Oxford Belles and The Oxford Commas.

This year LCMS has worked to create a jam-packed calendar of music for Lincoln that we hope everyone has enjoyed. We look forward to a successful year next year! n

Alex Chan and Rachel Sears

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Boat Club Report

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Under the guidance of head coaches Alex Bostrom (2006) and Richard Williams, the senior crews undertook extensive technical work, creating an invaluable foundation for the terms ahead. The key focus, however, was naturally on the novice intake, and LCBC welcomed over 40 new rowers at the beginning of term. After the successes last year in Christ Church Regatta, hopes were high once again, and both men’s and women’s novices rose to the challenge. Nephthys Regatta in 6th Week provided an excellent first opportunity for our five crews to gain race experience, and to see how they compared against other colleges. After winning their first four races with lengths to spare, the women’s A crew reached the final! A very close race then ensued, but the Lincoln girls pushed through against a strong St Anne’s boat to win the competition.

The term culminated in Christ Church Regatta, the only regatta in Oxford purely for college novices. Women’s A handily won their first two races before an incident and poor marshalling knocked them out of the running. Despite multiple appeals and complaints, unfortunately the result stood. Going into the final day, Women’s B was the only Lincoln boat left in the competition but had made it into the top eight crews on the river. With the resounding success of not one, but three boats making good showings, Lincoln novice women left a strong impression on their competitors.

On the men’s side, the novices had been training hard alongside the seniors for several weeks, but a few unfortunate incidents prevented the

On the riverLincoln Boat Club Report 2014-2015After a successful 2013-2014 season, the Lincoln rowers returned in October determined to put their hard summer training into practice.

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crews from progressing as far through the competition as they could have done. Spirits remained high however, as it was clear to all how strong and technically good our crews were.

We were therefore extremely excited to welcome our novices into the senior squads in January. Early on in Hilary term, W1 entered Henley Fours and Eights, and were delighted to be placed second out of the Oxford college crews.

Torpids was held in 7th week and LCBC fielded six boats, including a women’s fourth boat, Lincoln being the only club to do so. All crews had trained extremely hard in the six-week run-up beforehand, and it was very gratifying to see all of that hard work turn into numerous bumps. Special mention must be given

to W3, who rowed incredibly well and were only denied blades on the last day as they missed a bump by less than half a length on a crew which had started the day four places ahead of them.

The Easter vac brought more success for W1 in the Women’s Head of the River Race, as they came away with the highest placing in Lincoln rowing history. Shortly after, LCBC rowers once again descended on Shrewsbury for the annual training camp in preparation for Summer Eights. We row on a long and quiet section of the River Severn and stay at Shrewsbury School (a place now legendary for its rower-sized portions of food!) During the week, many technical improvements were made, and an excellent music video was shot on and off the water!

L M2 ready to race!

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As ever, the short training period in Trinity Term meant that Eights week was upon us before we knew it. An atmosphere of great excitement engulfed the club, as we reached the culmination of the year’s hard work. The men’s side were lucky enough to be coached by OUBC’s James O’Connor, newly returned from his success against Cambridge in the Boat Race, and the boys made huge improvements in the short time available. Despite going down three positions, they were extremely happy to remain in the top half of Division 2, and will return next year even more determined to reach the elusive Division 1. M2 had a mixed bag of results, but managed the full complement of being bumped, rowing over and bumping, all in three days, ultimately finishing only one place lower than they started.

On the women’s side, the greatest success came from W4, who managed bump after bump, before ultimately claiming blades after an overbump on University W3 on the Saturday, finishing six places higher than they had started. This is a real achievement for the girls, many of whom had only started rowing a few months earlier, and is indicative of the strong lower boats for which Lincoln is fast becoming famous.

Eights saw W3 put in four strong performances, rowing over the first two days behind a particularly fast Balliol W2. On the last two days, W3 were bumped but were pleased to have held onto their position in fixed divisions, the only W3 in Oxford history to ever have done so.

W2 had an excellent four weeks of training, and it was disappointing to see this not reflected in their results during the four days of racing. Each day they were forced onto slow and lengthy lines around bumped-out crews in front of them, which unfortunately resulted in them being caught by the crews behind who had not been impeded in the same way. The girls showed real grit and determination, and we couldn’t be more proud of their efforts and attitude in the face of unlucky circumstances.

W1 were very pleased to have two returning Lincoln rowers from the University squads in their boat, including Nadine Graedel Iberg, fresh from her success with the winning Oxford crew in this year’s Boat Race. After a day of great racing at Bedford Regatta earlier in the term, W1 entered Summer Eights week focused on continuing their charge up through Division 2 – and this is exactly what they did, in great style.

I feel extremely honoured to have been the President of LCBC this year, and to have had the opportunity to work with both a fantastic committee and with such an incredibly talented and committed group of rowers. We would all like to thank both Lincoln College and the LCBC Society for their invaluable support of rowing at Lincoln. It has been a wonderful year of success for the Club, and I have no doubt that this will continue well into the future. n

Claire Wills (2011) LCBC President 2014–15

L W1 race at Women’s Head of the River Race L W3’s crew, coach and cox show off their guns

J The blade winning W4 crew

I Fun on training camp

K M1 storm down the course at Summer Eights

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Student news

LINCOLN IN LINCOLNIn the early morning hours of Saturday May 9th 2015, a group of 16 graduates and one brave undergraduate left from the Lincoln College Lodge to travel to Lincoln Cathedral. It was a three hour coach ride to get there, and when we finally saw the towers of the cathedral appearing on a hill in the distance, essays, exams, and deadlines suddenly seemed very far away. Despite the very cold winds that met us as soon as we stepped out of the bus, we were very excited to start exploring the charming little streets in the old town of Lincoln. We came across curious shops selling anything from owl taxidermy to walking canes worthy of a Lewis Carroll character, as well as very inviting and warm tea rooms and antique book stores.

We had arranged for a two-hour guided tour of the cathedral at 11am. Unfortunately a meeting with the Bishop himself was not possible due to his full travelling schedule, which kept him in Australia at the time. However, our tour guide had volunteered to guide our group after he heard that students from one of the two Oxford colleges historically affiliated with the diocese of Lincoln were visiting. He proved an excellent guide who managed to present the cathedral’s history and architecture in an entertaining and engaging way. We were particularly impressed by the

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Everyone spent the best part of three and a half hours traipsing around the canopy of Wendover Woods. They traversed winding, wobbling bridges 40 feet above the ground, and hurtled down zip wires. One of the young carers and a bold VacProj leader even managed to complete the extreme route on the last course. Unfortunately for one other hopeful, who successfully climbed up to the start of the extreme course, the leaders who were accompanying her were unable to match her success in reaching the top. As a result, we plan to accompany any future day trips with the appropriate physical training for leaders t0 prevent such a travesty from occurring again. It is a disappointing day for all when nimble 12-year-olds out-climb long-limbed 20-year-olds!

On a more serious note, this day marked the expansion of VacProj as a charity, and will hopefully lead to day trips becoming a consistent aspect of the Lincoln College Vacation Project. Thanks to the outstanding fundraising efforts of the VacProj team over the last few years, we have the money to start reaching more children, and to involve more Lincolnites.

VacProjOn Sunday 15 April, nine Lincoln students took eleven children involved with Spurgeons (a young carers charity) to Go Ape! in Wendover.

These day trips are a new addition, but VacProj will continue to run the two week-long holidays in the summer months at St Katherine’s, a large estate between High Wycombe and Henley, which we have booked for the next three years.

We hope to run the next day trips at the end of Michaelmas 2015 and at the end of Hilary 2016, although we do not yet know which activities we will offer.VacProj is now in its 45th year, and is continuing to provide children with the opportunity to act like children. Most young carers look after a parent or a sibling, and this can involve doing any number of extra jobs. The level of maturity required of them means that they grow up quickly. Putting them in the treetops and letting them clamber around like monkeys allows them to act in a way that most of us took for granted when we were children.

You can find out more about VacProj, and ways to support it, on the website: http://www.vacproj.co.uk. n

Tom Hainge (2013)

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Student news

quickly taken free kick from Seamus Kent (2013) found its way to centre forward Nathan Riddell (2010), who slotted past the Balliol keeper with consummate ease.

Lincoln began to look comfortable, but against the run of play, Balliol broke away and snatched an unlikely equaliser. A nervous few minutes followed, but the Lincoln rear-guard held firm, superbly marshalled by defenders Alberto Cazzaniga (2012) and Alec Gower (2011). Soon we were in the ascendancy once again, and as the pressure mounted, a cross from the left wing was met by Riddell, who expertly guided the ball into the net to send the Lincoln fans into raptures.

The game finished 2-1, and Lincoln lifted the trophy for the very first time. Not the most entertaining spectacle, perhaps, but testament to the enduring powers of team spirit, togetherness, and – above all – friendship. n

Joshua Thomas (2008)LCMCRAFC Captain 2014–15

beauty of the two large, circular, stained-glass windows, the so

called 'Bishop’s eye' (left) and the 'Dean’s eye' opposing each other in

the transept’s arms. Our guide pointed us towards a plethora of small details of little dragons, gargoyles, saints and floral elements, as well as remnants of medieval paint on the screen separating the angel choir from the main nave. Spotting the iconic Lincoln imp in the angel choir (which turned out to be more of a challenge than we had expected), as well as its brother on the outside of the cathedral, was a highlight for many of us. Our guide even arranged specifically for Richard Fleming’s chapel to be opened for us, which marked an unexpected but very memorable addition to our programme.

After the tour, we raided the gift shop for Lincoln imp memorabilia and took the obligatory group photo in front of the exchequer’s gate. We separated into smaller groups for lunch and spent the rest of the day exploring the castle, the beautiful high bridge, and the many other listed architectural gems which Lincoln’s medieval old town has to offer; including some local pubs.

The Lincoln MCR social team and I are very happy to have had the opportunity to organise such a memorable trip. I was personally keen to further explore our College’s historical ties to Lincoln cathedral and, after having found out how difficult it is to travel from Oxford to Lincoln without a car, I had promised the MCR to organise a coach trip to Lincoln in my election hust for the position of social representative last year. The realisation of these plans was only possible thanks to the generosity of the Old Members’ Annual Fund Working Group. I am very grateful to have been part of such a worthwhile trip and I hope that I was both able to give back something to the members of the College as well as inspire potential comparable projects in the future. n

Bernadette Stolz

Students

Students 21 Students | 21

MCR FOOTBALL CUPPERSOn Saturday 28th February, the Lincoln MCR football team took on Balliol in the final of Cuppers, the intercollegiate knock-out cup competition. The team had enjoyed a difficult route to the final, including a tricky tie with Mansfield Road in an ill-tempered semi-final. A thunderous volley from Henry Martin Demasco (2014) that day sparked an astonishing comeback, and after a 4-2 victory we were on our way to Iffley Road for the final.

The weather on the day of the game was dire, and set the tone for a very turgid first half in which neither side was able to gain the upper hand. Still, roared on by a clutch of loyal supporters, Lincoln grew into the game, and the quality of central midfielders Thomas Hughes (2012) and eventual man-of-the-match Arnold Kaluba (2014) began to shine through.

After some inspirational words at half time, Lincoln emerged rejuvenated for the second half, and it was not long before the team wrestled control of the game. A

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For my year abroad, there was an element of being thrown in at the deep end. I wondered if I would sink or swim under the pressures of living in a new country. As if that was not enough, the thought of speaking a foreign language in a different country left me feeling slightly anxious. Any linguist will know that there is a huge difference between studying a language and actually speaking it. Luckily I survived and ended up having the time of my life.

So, what did I actually do? I had three options available to me: finding an internship, studying or becoming a British Council assistant. I chose the latter. For seven months I taught in two secondary schools in Montpellier and another in a small, nearby village called Magalas.

The assistantship was a very rewarding experience, even if my first week was incredibly nerve-racking. I remember stepping inside the schools and instantly feeling as though a thousand and one eyes were watching my every move. At the time my French was a little rusty and I was scared of having to deal with a class full of hyperactive French teenagers. I felt completely out of my comfort zone but in hindsight I am extremely grateful for this. I built on numerous skills, including communication, problem solving, and organisation. The teachers were supportive and I really enjoyed teaching the students who would often shower me with funny (and sometimes bizarre) questions about La British culture: “Madame,

do the British really love Fish ‘n’ Chips?” “What is the Queen’s favourite type of tea?”

As for my language skills, I was blown away by the transformation. Probably one of the most common pre-conceptions is that miraculously, after several months, you become fluent. This is not true, but that is perfectly fine. Although I do not know every single piece of French vocabulary, I have added many new

Parlez-vous franglais? Reflections on the Third Year AbroadNupur Patel is about to start her final year reading Modern Languages at Lincoln. Here, she writes about her year abroad in France, where she has spent several months teaching in French schools.

Students

L Nupur in Grenoble

K Nupur with her enthusiastic students

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Students

Students | 23

words and phrases to my repertoire (for example, “Quand les poules auront des dents”- literally, “When chicken have teeth”, meaning “When pigs fly”), thanks to my parroting skills my pronunciation sounds more French than ever, and producing a grammatically correct phrase no longer feels like climbing Mount Everest. What I am most proud of is my new-found confidence. It is one thing to have a fine set of linguistic tools, but using them to speak to a native speaker takes a lot of courage. After a while I overcame my fear of ‘sounding stupid’ and learnt some valuable lessons from my mistakes.

The year abroad did much more for me than simply improving my French – it gave me a new lease of life. Having had no choice but to be self-sufficient, I faced fears that I would have normally run away from, such as the terrifying ‘adult’ tasks of setting up a bank account and dealing with French landlords. Seizing every exciting opportunity allowed me to make lifelong friends and gain valuable experiences. I gradually crawled out of my shell and flourished into a strong, independent woman.

But it was not all sunshine and rainbows and to be honest, no year abroad is. Within the first month of living in France, it was a nightmare trying to find accommodation, I temporarily lost my suitcase, and experienced one of the worst floods to hit Montpellier (on the day of my arrival, would you believe! My Dad saw the brighter side of things as he

delighted Montpellier with his rendition of Singing In the Rain), thus unsurprisingly I felt rather homesick. Nevertheless, these low moments were short-lived and provided me with a thick skin. And when the time came for my best moments to make an appearance, I appreciated them that little bit more: I dreamt in French (a linguist’s lifelong ambition), completed a 10km run in Marseille, climbed a mountain in Germany, and saw the Austrian Alps.

What was the best part? Travelling. From the snowy Alps to the hot beaches of Monaco, to the picturesque châteaux in the Loire, I made some fascinating cultural observations. I discovered the power of a delicious French crêpe in curing homesickness and learnt to accept the national love of paperwork, queues and strict mealtimes. Luckily for me, I could hop over the borders to other countries and, from Montpellier, I caught direct trains to Barcelona, Brussels and many other destinations without any hassle. Out of my numerous adventures, perhaps my favourite sites were: the famous Christmas markets in Strasbourg, the view of Mont Blanc in Grenoble, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and St Bernadette’s grotto in Lourdes. During my trips I came face to face with new cultures and outlooks on life. I fulfilled the best parts of travelling, discovering and learning.

My time abroad has truly been the best year of my life; I could not have asked for a better experience. I have been on a thrilling rollercoaster of events with some fantastic memories to add to my collection. Never have I felt happier and more confident in myself; I feel like I can take on anything. If only I could do it all over again!

Vive La France. Vive Le Year Abroad.

If you would like to read more about my exciting Year Abroad adventures, follow this link to my blog:https://thenoopsterdiaries.wordpress.com. n

Nupur Patel (2012)

During my

trips I came

face to face

with new

cultures and

outlooks on

life. I fulfilled

the best parts

of travelling,

discovering

and learning.

L Nupur in Nice

J Eating fish and chips in France

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from 1964 (hosted by John Newth) and 1994 (hosted by Si Gillett) joining us; in March, Diana Steel hosted the 1985 year group and Michael Fitton took on the 1975 vintage. Many alumni find that the year dinners have a certain intimate charm to them which is quite different to a gaudy. Gaudies continue, however, and this year the autumn and spring events covered the 1996-2001 matriculation years.

In October, we held the first of several events to celebrate the completion of the Living Lincoln Campaign and to open the new buildings – which at that stage were still in the ‘ownership’ of the contractors. On 25 October, our Visitor, the Bishop of Lincoln, announced the successful completion of the Campaign, with the Marquise de Amodio, representing the Berrow Foundation, the Swiss Ambassador to the UK, and Sir Richard Gardner, Chair of the EPA Trustees, as guests of honour. The new facilities are superb, and we hope that those of you coming to events in Oxford over the next year will have a chance to enjoy them.

January 2015 saw the inaugural event in what we hope will be a successful programme of careers themed events for alumni. The event was a panel-style question and answer session for female alumnae concentrating on networking and mentoring for women in the workplace. Making up the panel of successful Lincoln alumnae were Deborah Thomas (1982), executive coach and leadership skills trainer, previously

at management consultancy McKinsey & Company; Joanna Bayley (1987), GP at Gloucester GP Consortium and on the NHS leadership fast-track; Jane Jenkins (1982), Partner at Freshfields law firm and Wendy Piatt (1992), Director General and Chief Executive at the Russell Group of Universities. The event was fully subscribed and attendees included alumnae from 1984 matriculation through to current Lincoln students; look out for similar events in the future.

Among the many events in March, a particular highlight is the annual London Dining Club dinner at the Cavalry and Guards Club near Piccadilly. This year the after dinner speaker was Dr Sarah Cusk, antiquarian book cataloguer who has been employed by the College to catalogue a selection of the books in the Senior Library. Sarah’s talk was fascinating, and enhanced by the fact that College Librarian Fiona Piddock also attended and brought with her several examples from the Senior Library. Transporting such precious items made for quite a nervous journey into London!

We continue to run the programme of events for Lincoln for Life, a group for alumni that have graduated in the last ten years, and the group is going from strength to strength. At the most recent drinks event in March we had a wonderful event space in the dome roof of McKinsey & Co. in Piccadilly, with impressive views down to Piccadilly Circus and out over London. The venue was kindly provided by Oliver Munn, to whom we are very grateful; we are always looking for new City venues in which to hold such events.

In April the University held its biennial European reunion weekend in Vienna and we were delighted that it was a Lincoln alumnus, Marcin Suskiewicz (2006), that took on organising a ‘Turl Street Colleges’ (plus Brasenose, just to be friendly) dinner. Marcin did an excellent job and the dinner was fully booked, including attendance by Professor Stefan Enchelmaier, one of our law Fellows who represented Lincoln and made a toast to the colleges.

Events reports 2014–15

The most exciting events news from the past year, at least from the perspective of an Alumni and Communications Officer, has been the introduction of a new system for online booking and payment of our alumni events. This has been rolled out over the course of the last few months and should make booking places at Lincoln events much easier and quicker. For new events that are relevant to you, you should receive an email invitation with a link to the online booking service. We will continue to send postal invites to anyone who does not have an email address on our records.

Lincoln’s alumni events programme from the past year has included the usual schedule of year dinners and gaudies, along with a number of new events. We continue to expand the programme of alumni events to locations further afield than Oxford and London; in the past year we have held receptions and dinners in Bristol, Cambridge, Vienna, and even Australia.

The academic year started with a trip for the Rector and Development Director to Australia. Lincoln’s connections with Australia are strong, and we are particularly proud of the role Lord Florey played here as a Fellow, instituting our MCR. On this visit, we held a lunch in Florey’s home town of Adelaide, and dinners in Sydney and Melbourne. It was a highly enjoyable visit, and we hope to return soon.

Our year dinner schedule began in September 2014 with alumni guests

K Adelaide lunch

Events

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Events | 25

Our society for legators, the Murray Society, holds two events a year. This year, we met in College on 31 October, and were given a stimulating talk on issues facing Europe by Politics Fellow, Professor Catherine de Vries. Our Spring visit was quite different: to the newly restored gothic splendour of Strawberry Hill, home of Sir Horace Walpole.

As mentioned above, we are gradually expanding our programme of informal events in order to reach those who may not wish to travel to Oxford, and who would like to get to know Lincolnites in their area. This year, we held a well-attended reception in Bristol, and a dinner in ‘the other place’, courtesy of our sister College, Downing. The food and company were excellent and there was clearly a desire to make this a regular event, which we shall strive to do. The Crewe Society, which has been holding Lincoln dinners around the north of England for more than 60 years, continues to flourish and to welcome

new members: this year’s dinner was in Grasmere, home to Wordsworth.

Further afield, our Deputy Director of Development, Jane Mitchell, continues to grow the alumni network in North America and held events in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco in the fall, with holiday drinks in Washington, DC and Boston in December. She visited California in April with the Rector and his wife, Deborah Woudhuysen, and had a separate drinks event in New York at the end of the trip. For next year, please note that the North American Reunion will be held in Washington, DC in 2016 and there will be special events planned around that time.

We have sent out the invitations for the upcoming autumn year dinners and gaudies, so if you matriculated in 1965 or 1995, you should have received an invitation to your year dinner, and 1986–89 gaudy invitations have also been delivered. As always, if you should

have received an invitation to an event and you do not receive one by four weeks before, please do get in touch with the Development Office and we will make sure you are sent a booking form. The online booking service is also available via the alumni pages of the website.

Please remember you become a member of the Lincoln Society from graduation onwards, and as such you are warmly invited to the Lincoln Society Dinner held annually in September (guests welcome), and the annual garden party at the end of eights week in May. The Garden Party has traditionally alternated between a drinks party for adults and a family day. From now on we intend to make every garden party family friendly so that every one of these events is open to all alumni and their families. This isn’t to say there won’t be wine and Pimms of course, but ‘Juggling John’ is mainly for the children!

Our sincere thanks to everyone who has attended one of our events in the past year, we are grateful for your support. n

Bev CousinsAlumni and Communications Officer

K Stefan Enchemaier talks at Vienna alumni dinner

L Summer Eights Garden Party

L Strawberry Hill - Spring Murray Day

Events

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As I noted in the last edition of the Record, we closed the Campaign on 31 July, having raised in excess of £30m for College priorities. This has been achieved entirely through the generosity of Lincoln alumni and friends, and this year we have had the pleasure of saying ‘thank you’ in various ways.

The first item on the agenda, though, was to open the Berrow Foundation and New Garden Buildings. A date was chosen, the Bishop of Lincoln committed to officiating, invitations were sent out. As is so often the case, though, the building project remained stubbornly unfinished. We are Lincoln, however, and with the help of the entire College community, we were able to pull the event together and create a memorable occasion. The sun shone (in October, and we were duly thankful), the Bishop blessed, and the hard work of staff and, in particular, the gardener, enabled us to show the new additions to the College to our donors and special guests in impressive style. That evening, we closed the buildings again, and they finally opened for College use in March. At a second event for benefactors in May, we were able to show the new rooms off more adequately, with, among other things, a lovely concert in the refurbished Oakeshott Room at which our students gave some strong performances that showcased the talent we have here.

In spite of the many successes of the Living Lincoln Campaign, there remain many areas in which fundraising efforts can make a difference here. Several new appeals for specific projects have been launched in the past year. These include the Physics Fellowship appeal, the aim

26 | Development

Developm

ent Life after Living Lincoln

This has been a tremendous year for openings and closures, as we celebrated the completion of the Living Lincoln Campaign, and began to enjoy the new and refurbished rooms and buildings that are one of its lasting monuments.

of which is to ensure continuity of the tutorial system in that subject, following the retirement of Nick Jelley; and the David Goldey Graduate Scholarship in Politics, to recognise the tremendous contribution of David as teacher and mentor over many years. Thanks to a very generous bequest from the estate of H. Walter Stern, we already have a substantial sum allocated to Physics, and we are optimistic about completing the fundraising over the next 18 months. A number of alumni attended a special memorial event for David earlier this year, and donations for the scholarship are building up.

Student support is very much in the public eye now, and we welcome the generosity of our alumni in providing new funds for undergraduates and graduates. We’ve seen new bursaries established and additional support for our graduate students, which is most welcome.

There are, of course, many other opportunities to support Lincoln, and Rachel Gibbs writes overleaf about the successes of the Annual Fund, donations from which greatly enhance the quality of life for junior members of the College in particular.

We have also looked at how we connect with alumni, and how we might do better. The tradition of Gaudies, and more recently Year Dinners, is now well established, and offers all alumni a periodic opportunity to bask in nostalgia while catching up with old friends. Over the past few years, we have also looked at adding different events to the calendar, and gathering feedback on these. As a result, we now hold more

‘academic’ or subject-specific events, such as Fellowship Club meetings. These provide an opportunity to meet with our tutors, students, and fellow alumni, with a format that usually includes a talk and lunch. Among the highlights this year were Professor Smith’s explanation of the Ashmolean’s colourful casts, and Dr Brigden’s detective work on a particular copy of Orlando Furioso. A flavour of the many and varied events held this year can be found on pp. 24–5.

As the undergraduate and graduate leavers close the door on their time as students at Lincoln, marked, as ever, with a dinner in Hall, we look forward to opening the door and welcoming them to the alumni community. n

Susan Harrison, Director of Development

Student support is very much in the public eye now, and we welcome the generosity of our alumni in providing new funds for undergraduates and graduates.

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Annual FundThe 2014 Lincoln telethon once again took place in September, just before the start of term. After a weekend of training, our twelve student callers from the MCR and JCR spent two weeks speaking to over 550 Lincoln alumni. It was an intense period of attending calling sessions and sending thank you letters to the many generous people who made donations, but I was unfailingly impressed by the camaraderie and good humour of the student calling team – even when we called into the small hours of the morning in our pyjamas to catch our alumni in North America! An incredible 61% of those we spoke to agreed to make a donation to the College; we received around £127,000 over the phone and another £100,000 was received in the following weeks. This was a brilliant result for a college of our size and these funds have already been put to good use; in addition to funding major refurbishments across the

Turl, the Annual Fund has enabled the purchase of academic and current affairs magazines for the JCR, supported the Choir’s tour to Poland, and funded a wide range of activities for students.

This year, as well as the usual applications to the Annual Fund to support College projects and groups, the College also held its first set of applications to the newly created Blues Fund. This combined several different pots of money – including a significant contribution from the Annual Fund – in one place, in order to provide financial assistance to Lincoln’s many aspiring elite sportsmen and women. In this first year of operation, the Old Members’ Annual Fund Working Group allocated Blues Fund awards to 36 students, totalling over £11,000 – this puts us amongst the most generous colleges in Oxford in terms of financial support towards sporting activities.

In March, we held our annual Rotherham Circle Lunch in College for those alumni who are our most generous supporters of the Annual Fund. The group has grown steadily in recent years and we now have over 70 members, with some of our most recent members attending this year’s lunch. After a tour of the New Garden Building and Berrow Foundation Building, we were treated to a most interesting illustrated talk from Dr Otto Saumarez Smith, Shuffrey Junior Research Fellow in Architectural History, on the redevelopment of British city centres in the 1960s.

As we entered Trinity Term, preparations for the 2015 telethon were kick-started with our recruitment of student callers. We were delighted to receive over 20 applications and have recruited 13 excellent candidates – keep an eye on the telethon pages of the website to see their profiles and find out who might be giving you a call! Our 2015 telethon will run from Monday 21st September to Sunday 4th October, and those alumni who will receive a call will receive a pre-call letter over the summer. I hope with our fantastic group of enthusiastic and engaging students, and the generous support of our alumni, we can make this one of the most successful telethons yet! n

Rachel GibbsDevelopment Officer

North American alumni relations and fundraising

Development | 27

It is hard to believe that it has been three years since I moved to the UK. It goes by quickly but I feel I have acclimated nicely; I am now constantly talking about the weather and have introduced ‘blustery’ into my vocabulary, I crave a Sunday roast, and I love a good queue. I’m thrilled that the Governing Body has decided to make my post a permanent one as I am not quite ready to leave this gorgeous city and most certainly not Lincoln.

This has been another successful year for events and giving in North America. I’m pleased that we now have nine regional Lincoln groups led by alumni in cities across the continent from Vancouver and Toronto to Los Angeles and Philadelphia. During the 2014–2015 fiscal year, we welcomed just over 200 people to sixteen events in the US and Canada. I am grateful to the alumni who organised events and hosted gatherings in their homes. It is also wonderful that the chapter leaders are now in place as we were able to have five regional events this spring. This fall promises to be full of exciting Lincoln gatherings as well, with events at the Aga Khan Museum, Le Laboratoire in Cambridge, and The New England Patriots to name a few.

The Rector and his wife and I greatly enjoyed our visit to the West Coast this April. One highlight for me was visiting the Gamble House and having a guided tour from Lincoln alum and curator, Anne Mallek. During the tour, she showed us a Lincoln Imp that was purchased during the Gamble family’s tour of Europe in 1911. The actual letter in which Mary Gamble described putting it up in 1912 includes the following quote: “Today I went around with a carpenter looking up odd jobs. He put up three knockers, the imp beside my bedroom door, a Durham knocker (from Edith C), on the west screen door, and the Liverpool knocker on the hall side of Papa’s den door.” It was amazing to see a little part of Lincoln in that gorgeous home.

Developm

ent

I have also been particularly pleased this year with the amount of legacy gifts we have received from alumni. I believe more people are thinking about the way a legacy gift can have a great impact on the College and I am happy to speak with anyone regarding this type of donation. My goal has also been to increase alumni giving participation in the States to 25% giving and I am happy to say that we have finally reached that landmark this year.

Many alumni in the US and Canada have reached out to me when they are visiting Oxford and I’ve really enjoyed being able to give College tours and show them the new facilities and buildings. I hope others will get in touch with me when they plan a visit to Oxford. It would be wonderful to see you on this side of the pond! n

Jane MitchellDeputy Development Director

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My Lincoln Tanweena Chowdhury (1992)

Where are you from and when did you start at Lincoln?I was born in Bangladesh but have lived on and off in the UK. I first came to London when I was 2 years old. My family relocated to Dhaka when I was 9 years old. At the age of 16, after my O-Levels, I returned to the UK to study for my A-Levels in Leicester. One day, my English Literature teacher at Gateway VIth Form College, Tim Jones, honked his car horn, told me that he was taking a group of students to an Open Day at Oxford and that he had a spare seat. At Lincoln, I was struck dumb by beauty, serendipity and possibility. The next day I called my mother in Dhaka and told her my teachers wanted me to apply to Oxford. I then went to college and told my teacher that my parents wanted me to apply to Oxford. I was one of two students who applied to Oxford that year, and the only

one that received an offer. I studied at Lincoln College from 1992.

What did you study and why?I studied PPE. When I was in primary school in Bangladesh we had a class on Moral Science where one day a Bangladeshi young woman, a foreign-returned graduate, took a class, cracked her knuckles as she paced the aisles, and told us about the Druze and the PLO. I was mesmerised. In Leicester, many years later, I started reading The Guardian where I learnt that in Bangladesh I had lived in a military dictatorship under President Ershad. I realised our parents had carefully shielded us from this fact, and their opinions on the matter, in case we shared these with others. I knew that I wanted to know more and understand better. Philosophy? I thought if not now, when? I would never have the opportunity to learn

about Descartes and Kant, or Hobbes and Heidegger. Economics? At the time, it felt like my one concession to the cold hard truth that, after all this studying malarkey, I would need to get a job. In the end, I have been lucky – my career has allowed me to continue indulging in my interest in politics.

Where has your career taken you since Lincoln?After Lincoln, I tried my hand at accountancy and advertising (again, that insecurity about the future), before deciding that these were not for me and that I wanted do something to help alleviate the glimpses of abject poverty that I had seen in Dhaka.

Armed with an MSc in International Development from SOAS, I joined Grameen Trust in Dhaka. My work there was immensely rewarding – I still feel that my work then made a real impact. As Regional Desk Officer for Africa, Asia and the Americas, I designed international adaptations, monitored implementation and helped train senior management of 21 microcredit organisations in 17 countries; assessed new proposals for funding; and created methodology toolkits. On a personal note, my conversational Bengali became fluent and I could hold my own at Annual General Meetings when questioned by Professor Muhammad Yunus (who, with Grameen Bank, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006).

In 1999, I joined the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Associate Professional Officer Scheme – this is now the DFID Entry Scheme for Advisers or DESA – as an AssistantGovernance Adviser. After a year in the London office, I spent my second year in Pretoria working within the South African Department for Public Service and Administration. My work in Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, gave me insight into how challenging it is to try to improve access to basic services amongst previously disenfranchised and marginalised communities across South Africa’s provinces – and how innovative

Alumni

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Alumni

solutions were being pioneered and showing promise.

After a stint in NY as a consultant to the UNDP, I re-joined DFID as a permanent civil servant, a Governance Adviser. One of the best things about my job is its varied nature. I have conducted an institutional assessment of the Rwandan Revenue Service; commissioned a review of the UK’s support over the last ten years towards free and fair elections in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, the Middle East and Latin America; and designed a programme across more than 30 countries in Africa to improve access to high quality relevant data, evidence and analysis, and support the development of coalitions of citizens to use this information, voice their concerns and interests, and influence decisions of the state.

What are your most vivid memories of your time at Lincoln? So many! Sitting huddled in a duvet on the stairs outside an office, at 4am on a cold winter day, to book a special occasion dinner for my parents who were visiting for the first time; running from Lincoln to the river to watch the sun rise and the ducks wake up – and to row; sitting in my first tutorial paralysed with catatonic dread after I read out my first weekly essay; lying in the sun in Grove Quad on another endless summer day; an impromptu tutorial in the Fellow’s Garden…

Are there any people that made a mark on your time here?The late Dr. David Baer Goldey was my Politics tutor and set the course of my career by deepening my interest in politics. At his memorial or celebration event at Lincoln earlier this year, before the UK General Elections, I said: David made politics come alive for me. Well, not just party politics and electoral vote blocks, though we did spend an awful amount of time discussing these to be honest. David made the personal political and asked us questions that linger on in my mind even now, and especially as the General Election looms. He asked us: Why do we vote the way we vote? Why do we choose the leaders we choose? He made me think about why we do what we do, why are things the way they are, why do people make the choices they make. David inspired me to keep asking these questions in what I do now in my job as a Governance Adviser for DFID.

Were you involved in any extra-curricular activities? I must confess to being a crew member of the Lincoln College 3rd VIII. We weren’t very good, though I think we once did win a race to our surprise. Our motto, emblazoned on our t-shirts, was: drink till we swim. I also became a rather good punter. With a group of friends drawn from across Oxford and Cambridge colleges, I signed up for a charity punt from Oxford to Cambridge. After 6 days we arrived, depleted in numbers, bedraggled,

quite smelly and adorned with terrible hay-bed-hair, after an emergency radio call for help from a lorry to get over a dangerous rock wall instead of weir and one severe allergic reaction to penicillin.

How did your time at Lincoln shape your future? Since my time at Lincoln, I’ve studied international development, and worked in microcredit and governance, and now in evaluation. In some ways I feel like I’ve spread myself too thin, a jack of all trades and a master of none …but then I realise that the one common denominator is my love for thinking and trying to understand politics with a big P and a small p, the politics of everything, humans as political animals, the political economy of incentives, motives, the formal and informal rules that govern the way things are the way they are … I think I realised myself much sooner by studying politics with David at Lincoln, being surrounded by students and a faculty that did not intimidate but that welcomed and nurtured, and by allowing myself to be fascinated and intrigued by everything that Lincoln, Oxford and life had to offer.

Is there anything you would do differently if you had your time at Lincoln again? If I had to do something differently, I would have been braver, more sociable and at least pretended to be an extrovert. n

Tanweena Chowdhury (1992)

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In December 2013, a two-year-old child in the Guéckédou district of Guinea developed a febrile illness with vomiting and black stools. His death occurred a few days later and similar cases began to be reported in the local area; characterised by fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and an exceptionally high mortality rate. An investigational team from the Guinean Ministry of Health and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was deployed on March 18th 2014 and identified the responsible agent as the Ebola virus. On the 23rd March 2014 the World Health Organisation confirmed an outbreak of Ebola virus in Guinea. By the 31st March cases were detected in Liberia and by early April reported in Sierra Leone; molecular typing confirmed identical strains of the Zaire Ebola virus responsible in each country. It is recognised that in this outbreak over 24,000 people have been infected and over 10, 000 have died of Ebola virus disease (EVD).

The scarcity of resources in West Africa resulted in easily overwhelmed healthcare systems – from staff shortages; limited availability of safe transport vehicles for patients and corpses; incorrect triage or recognition of potential Ebola in patients and corpses, lack of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand washing facilities, including lack of water and sufficient chlorine

Ebola: On the frontlineGeraldine O’Hara came to Lincoln as a graduate student in 2009, and was awarded a DPhil in biomedical sciences. Her interest in infectious diseases led her to Sierra Leone in October 2014, where she worked with Médecins Sans Frontières in an Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC).

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supplies; all these factors contributing to the amplification of the outbreak when coupled with local, regional and international apathy.

MSF led the battle against Ebola, operating 15 treatment centres across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, deploying 1300 international staff, and caring for over 5000 confirmed cases of Ebola.

At the

height of the

outbreak, in

some centres

patients

outnumbered

staff by a

ratio of 10:1

I The medical team in their personal protective equipment

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Additionally, early recognition of Ebola in Nigeria, Mali and Senegal meant MSF were able to deploy staff before outbreaks took hold and prevent spread.

Working in an ETC provided many challenges from issues such as dehydration; ambient temperatures during the daytime in West Africa were frequently in excess of 30°C meaning staff dressed in personal protective equipment had only limited time to spend in the isolation area due to risk of overheating, heat stroke and dehydration. Frequently the tips of my surgical gloves would be filled with moisture within 15 minutes of entering the high risk area; a reflection simply of the fact there was no route from which sweat could evaporate. Technically this meant anything complex such as placing intravenous catheters for fluids had to be achieved as soon as possible after entry whilst I retained manual dexterity. Visits to the isolation area were limited to 60 minutes per individual and during this time all tasks must be completed, from washing and feeding people, to assessing and making plans, to administering drugs and cannulation. Sheer numbers also affected the ability of clinical teams in EVD management centres to provide the highest level of care. At the height of the outbreak, in some centres patients outnumbered staff by a ratio of 10:1; this meant that just ensuring basic human needs were met adequately was a significant challenge. My colleagues in Liberia at one point were able to open the doors of their treatment centre for 15 minutes before they were over capacity. The effects of seeing such deprivation and such high death rates was incredibly difficult for all the staff but especially for my Sierra Leonean colleagues – many of whom had friends and family members admitted to the treatment centres. Despite such adversity, and often

fear in the local community about those working in the treatment centre, people came to work daily.

We discovered sometimes surviving Ebola wasn’t enough – patients returning to their villages were rejected as the communities couldn’t understand how they had survived and didn’t believe they were disease free. As a result we realised our teams had to prepare both patients for discharge but also prepare their families and friends to receive them. Discharge of survivors from the centre became a highly celebrated joyful event designed to engage everyone in the occasion and promote acceptance and understanding.

What lies next for Sierra Leone? A country which began this crisis with only 130 doctors for its six million population has suffered serious losses in its healthcare staff. Rebuilding will take years and without investment through NGO’s, public-private partnerships and governmental support it is likely more people will die outside this outbreak of Ebola. n

Geraldine O’Hara (2009)

Top of page and below: The team in the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC)

L Geraldine O’Hara, third from the right, in Sierra Leone

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As I sit down to write this article in late June, looking out my office window at the famous harbour and skyscrapers that define Hong Kong, it is at the end of a month in which Hong Kong has been in the international media for all the wrong reasons. Ever since the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, and the establishment of Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region under the concept of “One Country, Two Systems”, Hong Kong has been grappling with the issue of how its Chief Executive should be elected and the influence that mainland China should have in that election. This erupted towards the end of last year with the so-called “Occupy Central” demonstrations that lasted 79 days and made headlines around the world; and then earlier this month with the voting down by the Hong Kong Legislative Council of the electoral reform programme put forward by the Hong Kong Government.

When I came down from Lincoln in 1981 with a degree in Jurisprudence, little did I expect that I would spend thirteen of the last sixteen years based in Hong Kong, and latterly as a regulator inside the largest stock exchange by market capitalisation in the world. As a young boy from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I had travelled little by the time I arrived at Lincoln in 1978 and indeed had only been to London a couple of times in my life, never mind further afield. All that was to change when I set off on a legal career in a major City of London law firm (Freshfields, now Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) where a nineteen year career (through trainee, assistant solicitor and partner) took me to Paris, New York (where I met my wife, Janette), and ultimately to Hong Kong at the end of 1997, just after the handover. After ten very happy years there, we returned to London; but the call of Asia was too strong, and in 2013 we returned once again to Hong Kong.

And my return coincided with a period of considerable change. The Exchange – like Hong Kong itself – was at an inflection point. For much of the last 20 years, the Exchange had relied increasingly heavily on mainland Chinese companies wanting to list their shares in Hong Kong in preference to the exchanges in Shanghai

Life at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in a time of great changeDavid Graham read Jurisprudence at Lincoln (1978-81), and his career has taken him from London, to Paris, to Hong Kong (twice). Having spent much of his career in general counsel roles for large investment banks, he is now Chief Regulatory Officer and Head of Listing at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Having returned for this role in 2013, he looks at the challenges facing Hong Kong as a financial centre.

and Shenzhen because of the advantages that Hong Kong offered – access to an international investor base, an established rule of law and an efficient listing process. But things were changing fast. Just as Hong Kong was facing political challenges in its relationship with mainland China, so too the mainland economy was beginning to open up and become more international. It was clear that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange needed to find ways to diversify its business – and find ways to collaborate and “connect” with the mainland in new ways – if it was to remain relevant in the longer term.

And so for the last three or so years, the Exchange has begun diversifying into other products – commodities, fixed income, derivatives – and looking at ways to work with mainland China on a “mutual” basis. This has brought significant challenges as the differences between the two legal systems remain considerable. Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect – providing a mechanism for international investors to trade shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange through Hong Kong systems, and for mainland Chinese investors to trade shares listed in the Hong Kong through mainland systems – was launched late last year and was a major milestone; and future such “connect” programs are expected over the next several months and years.

Hong Kong continues to change. When I arrived in 1998, I would have been confident in having a long legal career here even though I could not speak Mandarin. Not so now. For my children, both of whom have followed my wife and I into the law (and one of whom, though at Merton, was taught Land Law by the same Simon Gardner who taught me Land Law some 30 years previously), would find this difficult without very strong language skills. Hong Kong has much less of an “expat” feel than it had when I first arrived and its challenge is to make sure that it continues to play an important global role as a major international financial centre, connecting China with the world. I am confident that it will do so. n

David Graham (1978)

Hong Kong Stock Exchange needed to

find ways to diversify its

business - and find ways to collaborate

and “connect” with the

mainland in new ways - if it wasto remain

relevant in the longer term.

L David Graham

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In mid-November 2013, when I should have been starting my Christmas shopping, I was on a plane flying toward Antarctica.

I’m a trustee of Walking with the Wounded (www.wwtw.org.uk), a charity devoted to the needs of service personnel returning from the battlefield with physical and mental injuries. WWTW helps them re-assimilate into civilian society, and find lasting employment, something many find very difficult.

The charity, with its Expedition Patron, HRH Prince Harry, undertakes inspirational treks to raise the profile of our work, demonstrating the determination of our wounded service personnel to raise money, but also to inspire others who are coping alone with disability and a life that has not turned out how they planned.

The goal for 2013 was for three teams - British, American and Commonwealth – to race to the Pole from 87 degrees South, a journey of 335 km to be covered on skis, pulling sledges (pulks) containing all the food, tents, stoves and equipment we would need for a three week trek. I was the mentor for the British team, which also comprised four wounded soldiers, a highly qualified polar guide, and Prince Harry.

But planning in Antarctica is an imprecise business. The guides tell you, ‘If it can possibly go wrong, Antarctica will make sure it does.’ It did. Our advance party got stuck in Capetown as the weather on Antarctica was too bad to land the plane and when the rest of us tried to follow, we had the same problem.

Finally, after much anxious delay, the three teams and the support crew made the start point and the race began. The conditions were terrible and the snow in a very poor state, whipped into ‘sastrugi’ – frozen ice waves – by a year of shocking weather.

The polar plateau is at 9000 feet and the combination of the altitude and the cold, dry air was vicious – breathlessness, constant coughing, headaches, yet the delays meant that our planned acclimatisation break would have made us miss our flight out from the Pole – and Christmas lunch at home.

I have never undertaken anything so hideous in my life. Worse even than the Macroeconomics paper in my finals. The temperature ranged between -32 and -45 degrees Celsius for the duration of the trip, and the pace, especially when you can’t breathe, was killing.

The only good news was that by the end of the first degree, 110 km, the British team was in the lead. However, extremely fit men and women were being devastated by the conditions. Three members of the Commonwealth face-planted in the first two days!

So the race was called off and after a day pushing forward in the trucks, we skied the final 150 km alongside the other teams. Still an incredible adventure, still spectacularly cold and exhausting, but without the competition.

The soldiers were remarkable. In the British team were Duncan (double leg amputee), Guy and Kate (single leg amputees), and Ibi (right arm amputee). My job was to help them overcome their injuries to get to the Pole, but it was of course a much more evenly balanced arrangement than that.

Reaching the Pole was, for me, the fulfillment of a ten year ambition. In 2004 I trekked to the North Pole and swore I’d never do anything as stupid again. I said the same thing at the South Pole in 2013.

Now I want to go back. n

Richard Eyre (1972)

Racing to the South PoleRichard Eyre (1972) had a remarkable year in 2013. After a career in advertising and media, he was informed he would be awarded a CBE in the Queen’s 2014 New Year Honours; he won the advertising sector’s highest honour, the Mackintosh Medal for outstanding private and public service; and he skied 250 km to the South Pole with Prince Harry and 12 Wounded Soldiers. Here he describes what happened. 

The temperature ranged between -32 and -45 degrees Celsius for the duration of the trip, and the pace, especially when you can’t breathe, was killing.

L Richard Eyre receiving his CBE from the Queen

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Born in 1879, Basil H. Davies was a student at Lincoln College and graduated in 1901 with a theology degree. Many of his fellow students were well-to-do and, being adventurous young men, became interested in the fledgling cars and motorcycles that first started to appear whilst Basil was studying. These machines were very primitive, dangerous, and quite a handful to control; indeed Basil himself described the first motorcycle he rode “as an unnecessarily complicated form of suicide”. However he was not put off and a year or two after leaving Oxford was able to buy his own motorcycle. After Oxford he first settled in Northampton, later moving to Cornwall and West Sussex (Lodsworth) and finally to East Sussex (Bexhill), as a Canon. He married in 1908, raised 6 children and also found time to lead a ‘second life’ as the UK’s most respected motorcycling journalist.

From 1903 until 1961, he wrote under the nom de plume ‘Ixion’ (the fiery wheel), as well as under his own name, but never revealed his daily function. His double life was not known to most people. His fame and popularity as a journalist was enormous, and would have compared with the status today of Murray Walker, as in those days before television, paper journals were the most important means of communication.

From the very early days of motorcycling, he had been using many different motorcycles and wrote about his experiences, giving hints and tips and his general appreciation of the different models. He not only wrote his regular column ‘Occasional Comments’ in The Motor Cycle, and many books on

The double life of Canon Basil H. Davies BAOn 1 July, Lincoln celebrated the motorcycling exploits of a former alumnus, Canon Basil Davis – better known as Ixion (the fiery wheel).

L Following the fiery wheel – the commemorative ride following much of Ixion’s original route (above and overleaf)

K A 1905 Triumph in Front Quad

the topic (like Motor Cycle Reminiscences and Motor Cycle Cavalcade), but also published books on bridge and cricket!

Bexhill motorcycle rider and historian Dave Masters found that Canon Davies’ last parish was St. Barnabas in Bexhill, and researched Basil’s story, eventually leading to a blue plaque being attached to the church. The unveiling was done in the presence of many family members, including Basil’s son Godfrey, who is still alive today at 104 years. Ixion’s full and fascinating life story led Dave Masters to write Ixion’s biography.

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Whilst the earliest motorcycles were truly lethal, by 1905 they had become only slightly lethal and quite reliable. For the 1905 season, Triumph Motorcycles of Coventry had developed a new machine complete with its own design of engine. To demonstrate to the public that these machines were a practical and useable form of transport, they engaged Ixion (who was a Curate at the time) to ride one for 200 miles a day, for 6 days in a row, in June/July of 1905. For this feat (and it was a feat!) he stayed in Oxford at The George Hotel (32/33 Cornmarket – sadly demolished in 1911) and ventured out on 200 mile circuits each day. He would set off at dawn and it would take the whole day to cover 200 miles, often returning in the dark. The roads of the era had no tarmac and were mostly gravel, dirt and horse droppings, so quite exciting to ride on. Ixion and his 1905 Triumph successfully completed this mammoth task and it led to Triumph’s growing reputation and the birth of the useable, reliable motorcycle. July 1st 2015 was exactly 110 years to the day that Ixion’s route looped down to the south coast and back. To celebrate Ixion and the great achievement of man and machine, the day was commemorated by a couple of eccentric ancient motorcycle enthusiasts - Nick Jonckheere from Belgium and Paul Gander from Sussex. They set off at dawn on July 1st from Cornmarket and attempted to repeat Ixion’s triumph by riding a 1905 Triumph (the only one running in existence), and a later 1911 Triumph, over as much of the original route as possible, passing places mentioned in the original report: Goring, Pangbourne, Reading, Lyndhurst, and

kK Ixion on the Triumph. Photos courtesy of Geoff Morris

Alumni

stopped halfway at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, before heading back to Oxford. The 1905 Triumph was ridden by Nick and to manage 200 miles on a machine with only 3hp, no gears, no clutch, almost no brakes, that you have to start by running alongside and jumping aboard, was quite a challenge, even 110 years after Ixion managed it.

Dave Masters has written an excellent biography of Ixion – “Ixion” of the Motorcycle The Fiery Wheel (The First Motor Cycle Diarist) The Life And Times of Canon Basil H Davies BA. You can read about the adventure here – www.go-faster.com/1905Triumph.html n

Paul Gander

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Thunder rumbles overhead. Humidity is high, and the temperature has cooled to a sultry 35 degrees Celsius. The wet season, June through December, has started right on cue. I’m sitting in my small office in Belmopan, the capital of Belize. The ceiling fan is whirring overhead; a lizard scales the wall and deftly catches a moth. While watching nature in my office space, I am wondering how to bring this tiny country, so rich in flora, fauna and natural resources, to your attention.

I came to Belize twelve years ago; travelling five thousand miles from the dreaming spires of Oxford, leaving my job researching bovine tuberculosis in British mammals, to explore, instead, the rainforests of Central America in search of jaguars.

Nestled between Mexico and Guatemala, and no more than the size of Wales, Belize has 60% forest cover, a Caribbean coast and a population of just 300,000 people. Truly, it is every wildlife biologist’s paradise.

Before coming to Belize, my adult life was spent pleasantly sheltered within the academic world of Oxford: a BA degree in Zoology at St Hugh’s, followed by an MSc in Integrative Biosciences at Lincoln, and then a research position within the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the Department of Zoology. Now I found myself in the in the Neotropics with my partner, Bart Harmsen, also a wildlife biologist, embarking on a new life to study jaguars.

The jaguar is the largest species of cat in the Americas; a magnificent and iconic predator. Once found from the southern USA right down to southern Argentina, the jaguars’ range has almost halved in the past century. Like all big cats worldwide, the jaguar has suffered at the hands of man. Historically hunted for their beautiful pelts and impressive canines; today they are persecuted as their forests are cleared for large-scale agriculture, their natural wild prey are over-hunted as game meat and they turn to livestock as the only alternative food source.

Supported by funding from US-based NGOs, we ventured out to understand these elusive cats. We studied the jaguar population inhabiting a protected

rainforest, and I also frequented the neighbouring farms and villages, investigating the ecology of jaguars that inhabit human-influenced landscapes, and the inevitable conflict that results when the worlds of people and predators collide.

Over the next six years, we lived in a small wooden cabin in the jungle of the Cockscomb Basin, at the foothills of the Maya Mountains. No electricity, no cell phone. In the early days, before we had a vehicle, getting supplies involved a 10 km walk to the closest Mayan community, then a bus ride, if one came by, or hitchhiking, a further 30 km to the nearest town.

Our days were filled with long hikes to maintain camera traps, to photograph and count the elusive jaguars, uniquely identifiable by their spot patterns; collecting scats ( jaguar poop, there is no nicer way to say it!) to find out what they eat; and discussions with local farmers to find out whether they had suffered recent attacks on their livestock or killed any cats. We were encouraged by the fact that the jaguars inhabiting the protected forest were thriving. Through camera trap photographs, occasional glimpses, tracks and scats, we could begin

Alumni

Down in the JungleRebecca Foster (1999) came to Lincoln as a graduate student, taking a Masters course in Integrative Biosciences. Since then, she has pursued a research career in biological research, and is now Director of Panthera's Jaguar Program in Belize.

j Rebecca Foster and Bart Harmsen, deploying a Pantheracam to monitor jaguars in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary © Panthera

K Jaguar, Central Belize Corridor© Panthera

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to disentangle the lives of these most secretive of cats. While the jaguars in the protected area were relatively safe, almost half of those that only inhabited the human-influenced landscape were killed by people, primarily in retaliation for killing livestock or dogs. As a foreign graduate student, I could merely document this process and report about it, but we needed to do more.

After successfully defending my PhD thesis at the University of Southampton, I returned to Belize and took up the position of Director of Panthera’s Belize Jaguar Program. Panthera is a US-based non-profit dedicated to the research and conservation of wild cats globally. In this capacity, I am able to do more than simply observe and document, I design research, supervise a field team, give advice, and influence decisions that will contribute to the long-term survival of jaguars.

Unlike the large cats of Africa and Eurasia, whose populations have been decimated to isolated refuges and are teetering on the edge of extinction, the jaguar is still holding on: resilient and opportunistic. Across Mesoamerica, jaguars are persisting, but their long-term survival relies on continued connectedness between populations to protect against inbreeding, stabilise demographic fluctuations, and allow recolonization if local populations go extinct, for example due to disease, environmental disasters or intense persecution. Although jaguars remain genetically connected across their entire range, these connections, or corridors, are rapidly eroding.

There is no doubt that within Mesoamerica, Belize stands as a jaguar stronghold and is a critical link in the regional corridor. However, this tiny jewel of a country is at an environmental crossroads: rapid human population growth is increasing the pressure on the land and natural resources. The jaguar is our focus, but we risk losing much more.

To address this, we are building capacity for Belizeans to study and protect their own wildlife and natural resources. By teaching at the University of Belize, and hiring and training locally, we are fostering a core of

young Belizean wildlife biologists, who are going on to take up active roles in Government agencies and conservation NGOs across the country.

We have equipped the Government with the country’s only Jaguar Officer, who responds to reports of predator attacks on livestock nationally. We are working to expand this program; with on average one report every week, we desperately need more feet on the ground. We also work directly with farmers, testing methods to improve livestock security, reducing the need for retaliatory killing of cats, and helping to implement farm improvements.

We also work with landowners, developers, and policy and decision makers, to encourage responsible land planning and development. Our goal is a landscape which is ecologically and economically viable and sustainable; a landscape in which people and jaguars can coexist.

I did not set out to dedicate twelve years of my life to the jaguars of Belize, and doing so has not been without its sacrifices. Leaving family and friends is a difficult and high price to pay. And, of course I miss the stimulating atmosphere of Oxford, the scholarly tranquillity of its libraries, and the familiar rustic landscape. But I never forget what a great privilege it is to be here in Belize: one of the world’s last few remaining wildernesses, and home of the jaguar. n

Rebecca Foster (1999)

For more information about the work of Panthera in Belize please contact Rebecca Foster at [email protected] or visit www.panthera.org and follow ‘Panthera-Belize’ on Facebook.

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L Rebecca Foster in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize © M Gelling

I Rebecca Foster and wildlife biologist Bart Harmsen deploying a GPS collar on M06-5, a 10-year old male jaguar, in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize© A Soriero

Background image: View across the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize © RFoster

...this tiny jewel of a

country is at an environmental

crossroads: rapid human population growth is increasing the pressure on the land and natural

resources. The jaguar is our focus, but we

risk losing much more.

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I imagine many people who read English at Oxford dream of becoming a novelist, and I know of at least three of my Lincoln contemporaries who’ve gone on to be successful writers. But it’s not an easy road and you have to develop quite a thick skin, so here, for what it’s worth, is my advice, based on what I’ve learned about the pleasures - and pains - of the publishing game.

My first piece of advice won’t surprise you, and that’s read. The more you read, the better you’ll write. Having an English degree helps, but possibly not as much as you might think – sometimes all it serves to do is daunt you! But seeing how other people approach narrative and character, and how they achieve the effects they do, is absolutely invaluable, whether that’s Dickens, Dostoevsky, or Dan Brown.

Up next, practise, practise, practise. Like anything else, you’ll get better, and it’ll get easier, the more you do it. And the skills you need to finish a novel are not the same as those you need to start one, so there’s value in completing a book, even if it never sees the light of day (I have two and a half unpublished novels in my bottom drawer, which I suspect is about average).

As you get better, you’ll need to find an angle, or a niche. Every publisher is looking for something unique, but clearly that’s a lot easier to demand than deliver. As Byron said, “as to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous – ‘there is nothing new under the sun’”. And that was 1813…. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a whole new genre, just an unusual take or a distinctive voice. I was lucky enough to stumble into my own rather by accident. I remember answering an email to my agent back

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The Write Stuff Everything you’ve always wanted to know about getting published but were afraid to askLynn Shepherd read English at Lincoln as an undergraduate from 1982, and went on to work in the City before returning to Lincoln to do a DPhil in 2003. She is a freelance writer and a successful novelist, and here offers some tips for other would-be writers.

L Lynn Shepherd

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in 2008, to let him know what I was working on, and the title Murder at Mansfield Park just came into my head. No-one had turned Austen into crime fiction before that (though it’s been done since, of course), and that original idea has since turned into a series of four crime novels with a different literary hook each time.

This next one is particularly relevant for historical fiction, but it’s probably a useful rule of thumb in general, and that’s take care with research. And I don’t just mean take care to get it right (though that’s vital too). Nothing is more irritating than a book with sloppy mistakes, but only slightly less irritating is one with great slabs of half-digested research that the novelist has clearly spent ages tracking down, and can’t bear to leave out as a consequence. My golden rule is that research should serve the story, not dictate it, so I do as little as possible before I start, and then go back later to fill in the details that you discover you need to know as you write. Like how much it cost to get by cab from the Strand to the City Road in 1850, or how far a coach and four could travel in a day. The other risk with research is that it becomes an end in itself, and the most glorious displacement activity. So resist the urge to read just one more article, and get stuck into writing’s real work.

At some point in the process, you’ll need to get an agent. This has never been more important than it is now, when publishers don’t have the teams of people reading unsolicited manuscripts they might once have had. Your agent really is the most important writing-related relationship you’ll ever have, and if you’re lucky, they’ll combine commercial nous with good literary judgement. You should get some of that from your editor too, but don’t bank on it – my different editors’ input has ranged from the incredibly meticulous to the almost non-existent. And of course an editor’s first loyalty is to their publishing house, while your agent’s is to you.

And now the bad news. Be realistic. For example, don’t expect to make much money. Almost every writer I know has some other form of income, earned or not, and the number making serious cash is vanishingly small. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice money to have, but don’t do it for that, do it because you love it. You also need to be realistic about how much marketing spend your publisher is likely to give you (these days, not much), how many reviews you can expect to get (again, not many), and how much control you’ll have over your

book once it’s out on its own in the wide world. You could find you have a jacket you don’t like, or even a different title in different markets – that’s happened to me twice and it’s fiendishly hard to manage, especially on social media. Talking of which, your publisher will expect you to work very hard building your profile, both online and at festivals, library talks, and events. In fact, you can quite easily find yourself spending as much time promoting your last book as writing your new one. But that’s how it is these days – you have to be your own PR.

This one won’t surprise you either – persevere. We all know the endless rejection-to-riches stories of writers who’ve been turned down countless times and ended up best-sellers. You need some grit in this game, and there will be disappointments all along the way, even after you’re published. The film contracts that don’t materialise, cruel reviews, not getting reviewed at all – you name it. One thing that can help here is getting into the habit early on of sharing your work. It’s so tempting to keep your precious baby to yourself, but inviting feedback, and getting used to constructive criticism, can help you grow the protective layer that will serve you well later on.

The flip-side of the last point is be lucky. You need to write well, and stick with it, but after that a huge factor in publishing success is pure chance and good timing (look at E. L. James). But you can swing the odds a bit in your favour by working hard. That’s what puts you in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea.

And finally, enjoy it. Having people read what you’ve written and love it, and take the time to get in touch to tell you so, is one of the most profound pleasures this business can bring, and I’m lucky to have had a lot of moments like that in the last few years. It never ceases to move me when someone emails to say they’ve been inspired to read Dickens for the first time because they enjoyed Tom-All-Alone’s so much. And that – despite the drudgery, the difficulties, and the (occasional) despair – is why I keep on doing it. n

Lynn Shepherd (1982)

Lynn’s novels are Murder at Mansfield Park, Tom-All-Alone’s, A Treacherous Likeness, and The Pierced Heart. She’s currently working on her fifth.

My golden rule is that

research should serve the story, not dictate it, so I do as little as possible

before I start, and then go back later

to fill in the details that you discover you need to know as you

write.

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Alumni news

Ian Aitken (1948) will be 88 this September. Though very slow moving, he is still functioning fairly normally with the help of a stick and a hearing aid. He retired from The Guardian 20 years ago, after 30 years on the political staff, ending as the political editor and a columnist. He still writes a column for Tribune magazine, and occasional articles (mostly obituaries, alas) for The Guardian. He married Dr Catherine Aitken in 1956. She died in 2006, after a grim struggle against Alzheimer’s. He now lives in sheltered accommodation in Highgate, North London.

A biographical memoir of the late George B. Mackaness, D.Phil., FRS (1948) was published last December by the Royal Society that recounts his life and contributions to science and medicine. Mackaness was the student of former Lincoln College Fellow and Nobel Laureate, the late Sir Howard Florey, FRS (later Lord Florey). The memoir is available in volume 60 of Biographical Memoirs on the Royal Society website or in print (Biogr. Mems. Fell. R. Soc. 60:277-298).

Mike Springate (1954) is sad to report that his wife, Audrey, died of MND on 1st January. He will be relocating from Cookham Dean to Kew Gardens in mid-June.

In 2015, Alan Rosenthal (1956) published Documentary Diaries (Manchester University Press) and started a new TV 90 minute production “Rome- Jerusalem- the Fatal Conflict” in partnership with ZDF Television Germany. He was also awarded the George Stoney Memorial Prize by the UFVA Documentary Working Group for “Outstanding Documentary Work”.

Ian Burns (1958) was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his work as a Lay Observer, South East Region, for services to people in custody. Lay observers are appointed by the Minister of Justice to monitor the treatment of prisoners while

they are in the care of the private escort contractors, who transport them from police stations and prisons to court, look after them in court and take them to wherever the court decides. Ian has been a lay observer in Kent and Sussex for 18 years and an independent custody visitor, visiting police stations in a similar role, for 22 years. He currently looks after the lay observer team in the south of England from Kent to Cornwall.

Tim Piper (1958) has received a certificate from The Law Society congratulating him on completing 50 years on the Roll of Solicitors. He also remains Vice-Chairman of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, and is a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers, a City Livery Company.

Since retiring in 1998, after 26 years and a period as Head of the School of Biological Sciences at Bangor University, Gavin Gatehouse (1960) has travelled widely in Central Asia, having now covered the whole distance between Xian in China and Istanbul overland except for a 30 km gap on the Iranian-Turkmenistan border. While at home, he has been active in local community projects in Abergwyngregyn where he lives in North Wales. The latest of these is the development of a £1.25M, 270kW hydro-electric project in the Carneddau Massif in Snowdonia, the largest community-owned hydro in England and Wales. Anyone interested in learning more about this project should visit www.anafonhydro.co.uk.

Roger Allen (1961) has been very prolific and a number of his translations have been published in the past year. These include A Sleepless Eye, Desert Aphorisms by Ibrahim Al-Koni (Libya), Syracuse University Press, 2014; Monarch Of The Square, short stories by Muhammad Zifzaf (Morocco), with Mbarak Sryfi, Syracuse University Press, 2015; My Torturess,

a novel by BenSalim Himmich (Morocco), Syracuse University Press, 2015. His edited work, with Robin Ostle, Studying Modern Arabic Literature: Mustafa Badawi, Scholar And Teacher was published by Edinburgh University Press, 2015. He also participated in a day-long conference at All Souls College (Oxford) in April 2015, celebrating the Library Of Arabic Literature project, based at the Abu Dhabi campus of New York University and published by New York University Press, and his contribution will be published later this year.

William Evans (1961) wrote an entry for Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetorte (1717-1770), MP for Gloucestershire and governor of Virginia, in the online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Since January 2015, Rodney Mantle (1961) has been Publicity Officer for the Twickenham and Richmond branch of the United Nations Association.

Ian Sharp (1961) is currently Executive President of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He was recently awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal School of Church Music.

John Colvin (1966) has joined the Committee of Bournemouth Chamber Music Society. This autumn’s season will be the Society’s 72nd. The May concert will be the first of a three-year residency by the Pavao String Quartet and will include what they believe to be the oldest quartet written by a female composer. All subsequent concerts by the Pavao will include a piece by a female composer, that in the final concert being a new work commissioned by the Society.

Gavin Selerie (1968) gave a talk at the Le Fanu bicentenary conference, Trinity College Dublin, and contributed to Dreams of Shadow and Smoke: Stories for J.S. Le Fanu, ed. J. Rockhill and B.J.

Showers (Swan River Press, 2014). He also published essays in News from Afar: Ezra Pound and Some Contemporary British Poetries ed. R. Parker (Shearsman, 2014) and Contemporary Olson ed. D. Herd (Manchester University Press, 2015). His 1980 interview with Gregory Corso has been reprinted in The Whole Shot: Collected Interviews with Gregory Corso ed. R. Schober (Tough Poets Press, 2015).

Robert Rogers (Lord Lisvane) (1968) has, with Dr Rhodri Walters (Jesus 1968), published the 7th edition of How Parliament Works (Routledge).

Philip Smallwood (1968) (with Min Wild) has recently published Ridiculous Critics: Augustan Mockery of Critical Judgment (Bucknell University Press, 2014). The book is a hybrid anthology of satirical passages on literary critics by eighteenth-century authors and suggests the value of laughter at the expense of critics today. Examples of recent victims cited include Geoffrey Hartman, Julia Kristeva, and Terry Eagleton.

Stephen Hoath (1969), Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, received a PhD in April 2015 from the University of Cambridge by incorporation of his DPhil (1977). Steve is a Fellow of IOP and Wolfson’s Director of Studies in Engineering (Part 1). He has now worked for 10 years as an EPSRC and Industry funded senior researcher in inkjet printing within the Department of Engineering Institute for Manufacturing, and one year in a Cambridge inkjet company as an EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account Knowledge Transfer Fellow.

In September Richard Lewis (1969) received from Oxford University the senior degree of Doctor of Civil Law, having obtained an LLD from Cardiff University some years ago. Apart from time spent in the USA, he has taught at Cardiff for the past

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forty years and continues to work in the socio-legal area of accident compensation.

David Goodban (1970) has been Head of Children, Young People’s, and Maternal Mental Health at the Mental Health Foundation for the past year. He also collects and plays with antique golf clubs, and walks alone slowly in remote places, when he gets the opportunity.

The University of Chicago Press has published a book by Roger Martin (1971) entitled Off to College: A Guide for Parents. The book provides an insider’s perspective on the first year of college and has been written expressly for the parents of American college freshmen. Dr. Martin is a former Harvard University dean and 20-year college president.

Nigel Siesage (1971), currently Director of Administration for the College of Medicine, Biological Sciences & Psychology at the University of Leicester, has recently been appointed as one of the University’s Public Orators. His first duty was to present Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President of the European Commission and former Prime Minister of Finland, for an honorary degree. Nigel is also chairman of the board of UKCAT Ltd, which runs the assessment test used for admission to most UK Medical Schools.

David Smith’s (1971) wine from his vineyard in the Argentina Andes, SonVida, was awarded fourth place in the Top 100 world wines for 2014 by Wine Enthusiast magazine of New York. ‘This gorgeous Malbec gets it right’, they say. It is 15 years since he bought his land in Mendoza, many ups and downs since, but this is a tremendous boost as he just retired from the United Nations, and his wife Sonia (New Hall, Cambridge) is back home in her native Argentina. SonVida, named after her, is available in the UK exclusively at Gaucho restaurants, more widely in the United States.

Richard Eyre (1972) had a good year last year. He was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours list for services to advertising and media; and also the Mackintosh Medal, the advertising sector’s highest honour, awarded only nine times since 1980.

Patrick Moon (1972) has published his third book, a memoir of travels in India, entitled What else is there for a boy like me? His first two books Virgile’s Vineyard and Arrazat’s Aubergines, about the wine and food of the Languedoc region of France have also been republished in new editions.

Anthony Palmer (1972) has returned to the UK after three years running his company’s Singapore subsidiary.

Simon Brilliant (1973), a fee paid judge of the First-tier Tribunal, has co-written A Practical Guide to Land Registration Proceedings, published by LexisNexis in March 2015.

Jeremy Swinfen Green’s (1973) book Cyber Security: An Introduction for Non-Technical Managers is published by Gower Publishing in October 2015. It is possibly more interesting than it sounds. It is certainly an important subject.

Alan Whitfield (1973) has retired from legal practice and is now living in Marple, Greater Manchester. John Bowers (1974) will be Principal of Brasenose College as from 1 October 2015.

Michael Fitton QC (1975) has been appointed Circuit Judge by The Queen.

Nick Hawkins (1975), one-time Shadow Solicitor-General, has been continuing both his business and legal careers. Having raised the City investment for, and led as CEO, a water-technology business spin-out from Bradford University, in which he retains a shareholding, he has now been asked to do the same job for another spin-out for Liverpool John Moores University, and also has a Business Development role for Water Bonds PLC/Nexus Water Ltd and directorships in other ventures (one introduced by Peter Hill (1975)). His work has brought him back into contact with Mike Joseph (1975) and Simon Acland (1976).

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In addition to this, in Summer 2015, Nick accepted an invitation to re-join his old Chambers, which has grown since his original 7 years there, into the giant St.Philip’s Chambers in Leeds, Birmingham and London – Nick will principally be based in the Leeds Chambers, as he lives in Collingham, near Wetherby, W. Yorks.

Roger Wagner (1975) has a new book out soon, Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions (OUP 2016, with Andrew Briggs).

Peter Ackers (1976) is leaving his post as Professor of Industrial Relations & Labour History in the School of Business & Economics at Loughborough University after 24 years with the institution. In September he takes up a research Chair in Employment Relations at De Montfort University, Leicester. In February 2014, Peter’s third co-edited research collection, Johnstone & Ackers, Finding a Voice at Work? New Developments in Employment Relations, was published by Oxford University Press.

Geoff Cundle (1976) assumed the role of Chairman and CEO of John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd in Sydney, Australia with effect from 1 March 2015, having completed his earlier secondment to the Papua New Guinea-based Steamships Trading Co Ltd as Managing Director. Geoff retains a link with PNG as he has become Chairman of Steamships. A fellow Lincoln alumni, Rod Eddington, is a board director of John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd and they strive to avoid boring their fellow directors with reminisces of Deep Hall – not always successfully.

Paul Keers (1976) won an André Simon Food and Drink Book Award for his latest, co-authored book Sediment, a humorous look at wine drinking, described by judge Julian Barnes as “not just laugh-aloud funny, but snortingly,

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Alumni news

choke on your cornflakes funny – up there with Kingsley Amis and Jay McInerney”.

David Lye (1976) is a Director and Fellow of SAMI Consulting, and lives in Central London.

A new biography of Lord Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace, the computer pioneer, by James Essinger (1977) was published in October 2013 in the UK under the title A Female Genius and in October 2014 in the US under the title Ada’s Algorithm. The book is also being published in Spanish in 2015. James is scheduled to talk about Ada at Somerville College on October 16 2015, at an event to celebrate women in computer science. The bicentenary of Ada’s birth takes place on December 10 2015.

Professor Alistair Fitt (1977) became the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University in February 2015.

Dr Graham Tomlin (1977), at present the Principal of St Mellitus College, will become the new Bishop of Kensington in the Diocese of London this autumn. In his new role, Graham will oversee an area of the Diocese of London which includes the West London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea, the Borough of Richmond North of the Thames, and the Surrey Borough of Spelthorne.

Stephen Craven (1980) has recently moved to Leeds and is working with the Mission and Pastoral team for the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales.

Marc Howe (1980), Principal Lecturer in Law and University Teaching Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy.

James Thornton (1983) finished his tour as British High Commissioner to Zambia in August, and takes up the post of Ambassador to Bolivia at the end of the year.

Stuart Walton (1983) had two books published in the autumn of 2015 – In The Realm of the Senses: A Materialist Theory of Seeing and Feeling (Zero Books), and his first novel, The First Day in Paradise (Roundfire).

Peter Clarke (1984) has launched an engineering services company, xSeriCon Limited, based in Hong Kong, where Peter has been living since 2003. xSeriCon provides specialist risk management training, consultancy, and software products in the area of ‘functional safety’ (automatic safety systems) for applications such as oil and gas,

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petrochemicals, machinery, and transport.

Phil Budden (1985) became a Senior Lecturer (and Diplomatic Advisor) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in July 2015. Phil will teach innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems at the MIT Sloan School of Management, while supporting the global expansion of MIT and its executive education. His wife Deb (1985) is a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. They will therefore be staying in the Greater Boston area, while Sophie (18) heads to college and Lizzy (15) completes US high school.

Tessa Boase (1987) has published her first book, a social history on 19th and 20th-century country house servants: The Housekeeper’s Tale (Aurum Press).

Louise Chantal (1987) returned to Oxford in September 2014 to take up the role of Chief Executive at Oxford Playhouse, after 22 years working in theatre in London and New York. She would love to welcome any Lincoln alumni: [email protected]

Richard Kortum (1987) received East Tennessee State University’s 2014 Distinguished Faculty Award for Outstanding Research. The award for the university’s top

researcher carried a $5,000 honorarium. This fall he is to be promoted to Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities.

The book co-authored by Fania Oz-Salzberger (1987) and Amos Oz, Jews and Words (Yale, 2012), appeared in German, Italian, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, and Greek. Several more translations are to follow. It is a personal essay exploring the universal value of textuality, debate, humour, and bookish parenting.

Melissa Bailey (1989) is delighted to announce that her second novel, Beyond the Sea, was published on 16 July 2015 by Arrow, Penguin Random House. Information on Beyond the Sea, and Melissa’s first novel, The Medici Mirror, can be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Melissa-Bailey/e/B00PXMS9BC.

From August 2015, Paul Wilcox (1990) will take over as Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Bristol.

John Holmes (1991) has been appointed Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham.

Anne Davies (1992), currently Garrick Fellow and Tutor in Law at Brasenose College and Professor

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of Law and Public Policy, has been appointed Dean of the Law Faculty at Oxford University from October 2015.

Warren Peel (1993) has been appointed Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at the Reformed Theological College in Belfast, while continuing to serve as Minister of Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Newtownabbey.

Penelope Rance (1994) and David Edward Thomas Arnold are ridiculously thrilled to announce that they are engaged to be married.

Tom Scruton (1994) and his wife, Mireylia, are delighted to announce the birth of their second child, Amaya, in November of last year. She is a little sister to Dylan, who was born in January 2013. They currently live in Peru.

Graham Child (Fellow, 1995) gave a talk at an event to celebrate the life of Osbert Lancaster (1927). Three generations of the Lancaster family were also present when a blue plaque was unveiled at his former family home, at 79 Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill.

Jerome Ellepola (1995) and family have moved back to Amsterdam for another assignment at Royal Dutch Shell’s new labs executing studies on multiphase flow and researching flow splitting.

Natalia Nowakowska (1995), a Tutorial Fellow in History at Somerville College since 2007, is currently directing a major 5-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC). Entitled Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe, the project takes a fresh look at one of the most successful yet little-known dynasties of Renaissance Europe (www.jagiellonians.com).

Mark Forsyth (1996) published The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the delight of not getting what you wanted (Icon Books) as part of Independent Booksellers’ Week. He also contributed the introduction to the 12th Edition of Collins English Dictionary.

Nicole Miller (1996) won the 2014 New Letters Dorothy Churchill Cappon Prize for the essay “Last Night at the Breakers,”, which was published in the Winter, 2015 edition of the magazine: http://www.newletters.org/magazine/volume-81-issue-2. A second essay, which features her memory of living at Emily Carr’s House will be published in an upcoming issue of Arts & Letters. She is

currently residing in greater Washington D.C. and frequently sees Meena Seshamani (1999), who is Director of the Office of Health Care Reform.

Marko Bacic (1997) and Laura Middleton (New, 1997) are delighted to announce the birth of their first child. Henry Thomas Bacic was born on 3rd June 2015.

Mark Chiverton (1997) and his wife, Emily, are proud to announce the birth of their second child, a boy, Ruben George, who was born at home on the 25th February 2015.

Rachel Dury (née Durrant, 1997) and her husband Adam Dury are pleased to announce the birth of their third son, Frederick George Dury on April 21st 2015.

Ben Rowswell (1998) is pleased to announce the birth of his third child, Mia Mary Rowswell, on February 28, 2015.

Junaid Zaman (1998) has recently received the inaugural Fulbright British Heart Foundation Research Scholar Award to enable him to undertake research at Stanford University for 12 months. Junaid has been selected for this prestigious award to apply his research findings to the development of new treatments for sudden cardiac death, the leading cause of cardiovascular death globally.

Caroline Rodgers (née Iddon, 1999) and Chris Rodgers are delighted to announce the birth of Imogen Sarah Grace on 14th May 2015, a sister for Samuel.

James Rimmer (1999) and Susanne Leitterstorf (1998) are delighted to announce their wedding on 18 July 2015.

Hanna Wilberg (2000), together with Dr Mark Elliott (Cambridge), has edited and contributed to a new collection of essays on Administrative Law. The Scope and Intensity of Substantive Review:

Traversing Taggart’s Rainbow (Hart Publishing, 2015) brings together leading Administrative Law scholars from the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Hanna’s home jurisdiction of NZ.

O. J. Wooding (2002) and his wife Eva celebrated the birth of their first child, Verity Claire Wooding, on 26 September 2014.

In February 2015 Oxford University Press published Culture, Northern Ireland, and the Second World War, by Guy Woodward (2002).

Hamish Marshall (2003 MBA) and his wife Kathryn are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter Victoria Tatiana Marshall, on October 22, 2014. The Marshall family have also relocated from Vancouver to Toronto, Canada.

Amalia Ribi Forclaz (2004) was appointed Assistant Professor in International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Rachel Heatherly (2004) and James Kent are delighted to announce that they celebrated their wedding in true Oxford style in the Divinity School, Bodleian Library on 13 September 2014.

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Alumni

Jack Orr-Ewing (2005) will be studying his MBA at INSEAD, joining the July 2016 promotion. Jack has now left Tesco after 5 years, most recently helping set up specialty coffee company Harris + Hoole.

Sophie Pinn (2005) married Thomas Boardman (one-time honorary member of Lincoln JCR) at Farnham Castle in Surrey on 27th October 2014.

Johanna Scheinost (2005) and Alexander Kurze (Trinity 2005) are happy to announce the birth of Jonas Maximilian James on 22 August 2014, a little brother to Julia Sophia Magdalena (4 years).

Oscar Eriksson and Naieya Madhvani (both 2006) were married on the 25th of July in Eskilstuna, Sweden. Naieya studied Medicine and graduated in 2013 while Oscar studied law and graduated in 2009. They are now both living in Sweden and working as doctors after Oscar changed careers.

Franziska Oeschger (2007) and Oleg Lavrovsky are happy to announce the birth of their son Sascha, a little brother for Julia, in October 2014.

Keary M. Engle (2008), who completed his D.Phil. in Biochemistry in 2013 as part of the Skaggs-Oxford Scholarship program has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, and will begin his independent career at Scripps this summer. Since graduating from Lincoln, Keary has been a National Institute of Health Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology.

Ryan Goss (2008) has published Criminal Fair Trial Rights (Hart 2014), based on the work he did over the period 2008–13 as a DPhil student and then JRF at Lincoln. The book provides an

innovative and critical analysis of the Article 6 case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Liesl Yamaguchi’s (2008) translation of Väinö Linna’s Unknown Soldiers recently appeared as the first Finnish novel in the Penguin Classics series.

Ruvi Ziegler (2008) took up the post of Lecturer in Law, University of Reading in 2012, and also holds research positions at the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, and the Israel Democracy Institute. His monograph, Voting Rights Of Refugees will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

Rhoads Cannon (2009) is back in his home town of Denver, Colorado where he has accepted a merit scholarship to pursue an MBA program at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. He is also starting a small educational consultancy business.

Stephen Caprio (2009) and Annie Hu were married on May 3rd, 2014 in West Milford, NJ. They currently reside in Weehawken, NJ. Annie is a pre-school teacher in Hoboken, NJ while Steve is a Market Strategist at UBS Securities in NYC.

Kevin Smith (2009) and Camilla Jeffries-Chung were married at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on 24 May. Lincoln was well-represented: the wedding was co-officiated by former Chaplain Gregory Platten and attended by numerous alumni.

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Dr Justyna Zaborowska (2009) and her husband Gabriel Klobusovsky have had a daughter, Kalina Rita, born in 2014.

Keith Bates (2012) and Anna Dearden (former Lincoln Development Officer) were delighted to celebrate their wedding with friends and family in Oxford at Anna’s undergraduate college, St John’s, in July. Keith and Anna will be leaving Dublin in September to travel around Asia before returning to the UK in January. n

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If you are an alumnus/na with a question about College, please contact the Development Office and we will do our best to help you. You can reach us at:

The Development OfficeLincoln College, Turl Street, Oxford, OX1 3DRT : +44(0)1865 287421F : +44(0)1865 279965E : [email protected]

Susan Harrison, Director of Development and Alumni RelationsT: +44(0)1865 279838; E: [email protected]

Jane Mitchell, Deputy Development DirectorT: +44(0)1865 616843; E: [email protected]

Lloyd Spence, Development OfficerT: +44(0)1865 279793; E: [email protected]

Julia Uwins, Alumni and College Communications OfficerT: +44(0)1865 279841; E: [email protected]

Susan Davison, Development and Events Administrator T: +44(0)1865 287421; E: [email protected]

Lincoln College contact information:

Ever since Lincoln’s foundation, bequests have played a vital role in shaping and sustaining its development. Although inspired by an array of motivations, they have enabled members and friends of the College to unite in demonstrating their support for its historic goals. Whether great or small, they have enhanced the College community, providing eloquent testimony to its traditions while helping to chart its future.

Legacy gifts not only benefit the College but may also benefit the donor if given efficiently. Making a provision for Lincoln in your estate plans will not affect your current financial situation but will provide for a significant gift in the future. A charitable bequest is deductible for federal estate purposes and there is no limit on the amount of deduction. In addition, bequests are not generally subject to state inheritance or estate taxes.

Lincoln has created the Murray Society, named in honour of Keith Murray, who was Rector of Lincoln from 1944 to 1953, and before that Bursar and Fellow of the College, to thank alumni and friends who leave a legacy to the College. Murray Society members are invited to exclusive events including the annual Murray Day luncheon and talk in College which is an opportunity to meet current Fellows and other alumni. They also receive the The Murray Society newsletter, access to informal legal and practical advice about bequests and a Murray Society tie and/or scarf in Lincoln colours.

If you would like more information regarding the Murray Society please contact Susan Harrison, Development Director at [email protected] or +44 1865 279838. If you are making your gift from the US, please contact Jane Mitchell, Deputy Development Director at [email protected] or +44 1865 616843. Many thanks for your consideration.

The Murray Society

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DESIG

NED

BY BASELINE ARTS, O

XFORD

. 01865-249169

LINCOLN COLLEGE ALUMNI EVENTS 2015–16Please make a note of the following dates for the academic year ahead. Invitations to events will be

sent out by the Development Office approximately two months before the date. This schedule is

provisional and may be subject to change.

2015Saturday 26 September – 1965 Year Dinner

Friday 2 October – Gaudy 1986-89Saturday 3 October – 1995 Year Dinner

Saturday 17 October – Autumn Murray DaySaturday 31 October – PPE Fellowship Club Luncheon

Friday 20 November – 1427 Parents’ Dinner

2016Sunday 28 February – Rotherham Circle Lunch

Monday 7 March – London Dining Club, Cavalry and Guards Club, London

Friday 18 March – Gaudy, all years up to 1958Saturday 19 March – 1976 Year DinnerSaturday 16 April – 1986 Year Dinner

Friday 22 April – Crewe Society Dinner (Chester)Saturday 14 May – 1427 Parents’ Lunch

Thursday 26 May – 1956 Year LuncheonSaturday 28 May – Lincoln Society Eights Week

Family DaySaturday 17 September – Lincoln Society Dinner

We look forward to seeing you at our events during 2015–16.

The answers to most commonly asked questions can be found on our website:

http://www.lincoln.ox.ac.uk/Alumni.

LINCOLN COLLEGE CONTACT INFORMATIONTURL STREET, OXFORD, OX1 3DR

01865 [email protected]