magazine - Somerville College - University of Oxford

Somerville Magzine | 11
Val Malone
31 Years of
Somerville service
Val Malone retired on 31 August 2009 after more
than three decades of service to College. She
always got on well with the students and Fellows
and enjoyed getting to know them. Everyone at Somerville
wishes Val the very best for the future – and we thank her
most warmly for her dedicated service over many years.
However, Val is all the more special, as four generations
of her family have worked for the College. Her mother
Audrey was the fi rst member of the family to serve
Somerville – as a scout in Vaughan. Audrey worked for
the College for 21 years. Val’s father also worked part
time in the lodge and kitchen for four years, but sadly
died shortly after leaving.
Next came Val herself. She started as a scout in Vaughan
and worked there for approximately three years before
leaving to have one of her children. When her son started
school she came back to Somerville and worked in
different buildings as a floating member of staff for 11
months before getting a permanent position as a scout on
the top floor of Penrose. Val was responsible for ten rooms
and one tutor’s flat. When she first started in Penrose, she
worked for Jean Banister for three years, then for medic
John Walker, followed by Gráinne de Burca, a Law Fellow,
who moved to Italy but always kept in touch with Val.
Professor Stephen Weatherill was the next occupant of the
flat, followed by Frances Stewart for a couple of years.
Moving on to the third generation, Val’s son Peter was
the fi rst to join the College. He started in the pantry,
then worked in the kitchen – and Somerville paid for
him to train as a chef. He is currently a chef at New
College. Peter’s sister Sarah and husband John Malone
also worked in the pantry.
Although Val’s eldest grandson David left to become
a chef after working in the pantry for a couple of years,
her grandson Martin Brain has been a kitchen porter
at Somerville for four and a half years now. He thus
represents the fourth generation of the Malone family
in Somerville.
Antoinette Finnegan, Annual Fund & Alumni Relations Officer
A tribute from Gráinne de Burca (Law Fellow, 1989–98)
I have very fond memories of Val from my time at Somerville. My offi ce was in Penrose (next to a bedroom, where I
also lived for a year from 1990 to 1991), and Val and I used to enjoy chatting each day when she came to clean the
room. We became friends, and occasionally we went out for tea together. I particularly remember enjoying tea at the
Old Parsonage, just across the road from Somerville. Val is a very kind and incredibly generous person – I used to
worry that she was spending more on Christmas presents for me than she earned in a week! Her warm character and
open personality won her good friends amongst the students too. I remember on one occasion that she went to Poland
at the invitation of one of the students to whom she had grown close. She has a great curiosity about the world, and I
think that, had the circumstances of her life been different, she would have loved to travel more. We continued to write
to one another and to exchange postcards for years after I left Somerville – she was one of my best correspondents!.