MER-13565 COVER 2011.indd - Merton College - University of Oxford

is looking forward to a trip to St Petersburg – a city that assuredly
will live up to his expectations.
Hugh Podger has also joined the travellers and enjoyed an
extensive tour of the Far East, but has returned to his considerable
involvement in church duties, which now include membership of
the Winchester Bishop’s Council. Hugh is a regular at the Merton
London dinner where we meet regularly and hope to do so again
(with other forty-niners?) on 18th November.
Hal Miller has retired from the RFU Council on the basis of
anno domini and has turned his attention to the charity world
by becoming a Trustee of Age Concern in Bromyard, which he
describes as a ‘surprisingly deprived area’. He confesses to some
disillusionment with the way in which the charitable sector operates
but is happier to report his pro-planet initiative in installing solar
photovoltaic panels at home. Charities – mostly of a small and
relatively anonymous nature that deserve support – have Tony
Price’s attention along with his garden, which keeps him busy and
healthy. As befi ts a successful novelist, he endorses the observation
of the old Turk in Candide that work banishes those three great
evils: boredom, vice and poverty.
As for myself (Alastair Porter), a great deal of my time seems to
disappear in supporting our local U3A – the University of the Third
Age, for those who have not found one of its 800 branches. There
is always a role there awaiting anyone who is prepared to offer to
research and present a subject of general interest such as the story
of the Victoria Cross, my most recent offering, which can be found
on page 54 of Postmaster.
1952
YEAR REPRESENTATIVE: ROGER MEDILL
4 The Lennards, South Cerney, Cirencester, GL7 5UX
Tel: 01285 862862
An interesting letter from Tony Bailey spoke of a visit to Merton by
a 36-year old Francis Kilvert, mentioned in his diary. He enjoyed
“the famous terrace walk upon the old city walls” and admired “the
celebrated lime avenue”, but his idyllic Merton garden moment
was shattered by a noisy company of men and boys using willow
wands to ‘beat the bounds’. Does this still happen? I looked it up in
Brewer, who records “in a few parishes on Ascension Day.”
Tony’s latest book Velazquez and the surrender of Breda is
NEWS | 1952
OLD MEMBERS
out later this year. He encountered Jeremy Isaacs (1951), Alan
Brownjohn (1950) and Edmund Ions (1953) in lively form at a
memorial occasion in May. He also keeps in touch with Cy Fox,
the world Vorticist expert, who in his latest card to me described
himself as ‘the wandering Fox’, having sold his house and not yet
‘gone to earth’.
Peter and Julia Cooke came to lunch with us recently and
Patrick and Virginia Wright (1951), on a West Country tour to visit
friends, dropped in to tea. I envied them their planned Hellenic
cruise together, with my 55-year-old memories of acting as courier
on several Hellenic air cruises to Athens, Rhodes and Crete. Thirty
passengers on our Viking aircraft, fl ying at eight thousand feet, with
four stops for fuel… those were the days!
I keep in regular touch with Colin Allinson (1953), and Hugh
and Georgina Seymour-Davies, whose latest travels have been
to Vietnam and Turkey, the latter “offering a bridge between
Europe and Asia, carrying the major trade routes and providing the
battlegrounds… Urfa grew rich as the hinge between the Persian
and Byzantine empires.”
Jack and Judy Justice recently returned to Santa Fe (I like their
address: Coyote Pass Road) from a trip to Italy where they enjoyed
a week in Rome followed by the “splendid hospitality of Jeremy
and Gilliam Isaacs at their holiday home in Umbria.”
From Carter Revard, Professor Emeritus of English in Arts and
Sciences, I have receieved what I can best describe as an exuberant
gallimaufry, positively bubbling over the scholarly reference,
conjecture and critique. The origins of language, medieval history,
signifi cance of poetry and many other topics spring forth, agreeably
spiced throughout with wit and humour. The four-week course for
international writers at the Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland, to
which Carter has been invited will evidently be a lively affair, as well
as giving him an opportunity to complete a collection of his poems
entitled From the Extinct Volcano, a Bird of Paradise. A surprising
title, but I can vouch wholeheartedly for the quality of Carter’s
verse. He also mentions attending the golden wedding anniversary
of Tony and Sylvia Marland, along with Ian McMichael, Cedric
Andrews, Gordon Whittle, Stuart McGregor and Ray Quinlan.
Finally, a sad memory came through contact with Paul Curtis
Hayward (1978), son of William, a fellow English student with
me, scholar, poet, novelist, described by his Tutor as a born literary
critic. He took his own life at the age of 37. His sons, Paul and
Michael, were pupils at my school, Rendcomb College.
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