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Author profile: Maggie Fergusson Make love, not porn Four Rhodes diverge10 14 20Somerville2013magazineCracking the chapel codeThe inspiration behind Somerville’scontroversial ‘house of prayerfor all peoples’ | 12UnexpectedjourneysFrom Classicsat Oxford toteaching inPalestine | 16

2 | Somerville MagazineContentsPrincipal’s Message 3News & People 4From the JCR President 6Commemoration 7Fellow profile:Professor Jennifer Welsh 8Author profile: Maggie Fergusson 10Cracking the chapel code 12Make love, not porn 14Unexpected journeys 16Mrs Thatcher’s other peculiarity 18Four Rhodes diverge 20The social media entrepreneur 22Making his Mark on the Donor Wall 24Development Director’s report 26Telethon News 27Happy 100th birthdayDame Kathleen! 28Events in pictures 29An update to our database:moving to the Development &Alumni Relations System (DARS)Somerville, in common with several other colleges, willthis year transfer to a new database system, DARS.This system holds the details of alumni, students,staff and friends previously held in separate alumni anddevelopment databases of the University and the participatingcolleges. More colleges are joining and the result will be asingle, comprehensive database allowing, on a regulatedbasis, colleges, faculties, departments, administrative units,international offices, recognised alumni societies, andsports and other entities associated with the University (the‘Participants’), access to all the data held in it. We hope thatthis will lead to the details of our alumni, students, staffand friends being kept more up to date and that it will helpimprove our communications with you.For past and present members of Somerville, we and any othercollege you may have affiliations with are still your primarycontact within the collegiate University; the use of DARS isnot changing this. Included with this magazine is a sheetcontaining the full details of this move.Please note that your data will continue to be held securely.For full details on the way in which your data will be held andused, please see the Privacy Statements at:https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/data_protection(or get in touch at the address below to request a hard copy).If at any time you have any queries about the use of yourpersonal data in DARS or wish to change the fact of, or extentof, use of your personal data, please contact Sara Kalim,Development Director, at the address or email below.Somerville Development OfficeWoodstock RoadOxford OX2 6HDEmail: sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.ukSomerville CollegeWoodstock Road OX2 6HDTelephone +44 (0)1865 270600www.some.ox.ac.ukFront cover image: ‘Taichow Chapel’ by E.G. Kemp. Watercolour,courtesy of Ashmolean Museum.Magazine committee: Elizabeth Cooke (Secretary to Somerville Association),Amy Crosweller (Access and Communications Officer), Antoinette Finnegan(Annual Fund and Alumni Relations Officer)

Somerville Magazine | 3Principal’s MessageALICE PROCHASKASomerville certainly packs an ambitious array of special meetingsand events into the year. This issue of the Magazine records itsfair share of regular events, all extremely well attended.The winter meeting this year heard from theSomervillian who has been described as KarlLagerfeld’s muse, Amanda Harlech of Chanel.We combined the meeting with our second annualParents’ Day, filling the newly refurbished FloraAnderson Hall to capacity. The European Oxfordalumni reunion, which happens once every two years,met this year in Madrid, and Somerville’s dinnerat the Ritz was among the best attended of all thecolleges’ dinners.Events organised by particular groups are oftenespecially successful. The Somerville LondonGroup’s tour and dinner at Strawberry Hill House inTwickenham was sold out, on a beautiful summerday. A City Group meeting at Goldman Sachsheadquarters in Fleet Street heard from HonoraryFellow Baroness Shriti Vadera about the Eurozonecrisis, and she later visited the College to talk tostudents about her career and her own economicvision. I always enjoy these smaller meetings wherestudents have a chance to engage in lively debatewith role models from previous generations.A concert in aid of our campaign to endowfellowships in Philosophy and French at theAshmolean Museum in November heard a beautifulprogramme of baroque music for voice and lute,sung by Dame Emma Kirkby (also an HonoraryFellow) with lutenist Jakob Lindberg. Our PhilosophyFellowship has now been endowed in perpetuity,thanks to the generosity of many Somervillians, andto one in particular who gave the largest lifetimegift yet received from any of our alumni, but wishesto remain anonymous. In March, Somervillians inScotland crowded into the Edinburgh drawing roomof Foundation Fellows Sir Gerald and Lady (Margaret)Elliott for a talk by another Honorary Fellow,Professor Carole Hillenbrand, on the historic clashesbetween Muslims and Christians in the Middle East.We had the added attraction of a talk about MarySomerville by our Librarian Anne Manuel. It was arevelation to most of us that the long-livedMary Somerville (1780-1872) was not only arenowned scientific writer in her day but also anaccomplished painter.Honorary Fellows provide something of a themefor the year. So many of them give so much toSomerville, and this year we were especially fortunateto bring some twenty-five of them together for asymposium and dinner to discuss the future of theCollege and to meet some of our current students.They included an ambassador, entrepreneurs, thewriters Victoria Glendinning and Hilary Spurling,and senior stateswoman Baroness Shirley Williams.The theme that took up most of our discussion timewas that of access for people from disadvantagedbackgrounds. Widening access to Somerville isa constant aim of the College (as of all Oxfordcolleges); and it takes up an increasing amount oftime. The Honorary Fellows produced some fertileideas and, in a brief round-up of career trajectories,some truly inspiring life stories.*If the Somerville year belongs to one HonoraryFellow more than any other, it has to be MargaretThatcher. Her death on 8 April was a nationalevent. Together with two students, I represented theCollege at her funeral. Back in Oxford, the Collegescreened the BBC’s live coverage for a group ofstaff, fellows, alumni and students. I found myselfreflecting how extraordinary it was that this greatceremony, attended by the Queen and all the nation’sleading politicians, presided over by the Bishopof London and Archbishop of Canterbury, was forthe first non-royal woman ever to be so honoured.So controversial and so dominant in life, this mostfamous of Somervillians earned at her death theultimate and most sober tribute. How did she do it?What combination of her nature and her educationequipped her to hold the office of British primeminister for longer than anyone else in the twentiethcentury, and to become so world-renowned?Baroness Thatcher was always generous in her praisefor the education Somerville had given her (“If Ihad not been there I would not be here” she wrotefrom 10 Downing Street). Somervillians have beenwriting to the College with a range of responses toher death, from admiring to hostile and mostly intones of moderation, with a perspective lent by thepassage of time. Perhaps there is in all of us a grainof that determination and that hard learned courage,which people find they can admire even across greatdistances of experience and belief.*The Principal’s blog (http:// principal2010.wordpress.com) contains my Foundation Dayspeech to students, for which the Honorary Fellows’dinner provided inspiration.

4 | Somerville MagazineNews & People...Margaret Casely-HayfordAnna PooleSomerville NewsProfessor Aditi Lahiri,Fellow and Professor of Linguistics, has been elected an honorarymember of the Linguistic Society of America.Professor Matthew Wood,Fellow and Tutor in Medicine and Physiology, will lead a new 30million Euro project to develop new methods for drug delivery.The project has been launched by a new public-private consortium(known as COMPACT), funded by the Innovative MedicinesInitiative (IMI) of the EU, and will focus on improving the deliveryof biopharmaceutical drugs.Professor Wood says that this important project is “a vitalopportunity to bring the strengths of academia and industrytogether to dramatically improve the delivery of new drugs intothe brain. Within five years we aim to have safe and effective newmethods available to test in patients.”A major challenge in treating many currently incurable neurologicaldiseases, such as Alzheimer’s, is to achieve effective drug deliveryto the brain across the blood brain barrier (a natural barrierthat protects the brain). The new IMI project aims to tackle thischallenge within the next five years.Professor Dame Nancy Rothwellwas named in February as one of the 100 most powerful women inthe UK in the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List.Alumni NewsFarah Bhatti (1984, Physiology) andDina Medland (Kapur, 1977, PPE)both appeared on this year’s Asian Women of Achievementshortlist. Farah was the first female consultant cardiothoracicsurgeon in Wales, and the fourth woman in the UK to hold such arole. Dina is a journalist who contributes regularly to the FinancialTimes and the FT-NED website, among others, is a columnist forChartered Secretary magazine, as well as writing a popular blog onboardroom issues.Dr Doreen Boyce (Vaughan, 1953, PPE)has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the ThreeRivers Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors(NACD). This award was been given to her in recognition of herleadership in corporate governance and women’s advocacy and forher role in creating three well-respected organisations, includingthe Three Rivers Chapter of the NACD, the Executive Women’sCouncil and the International Women’s Forum.Margaret Casely-Hayford (1980, Law)has been appointed as a Non-Executive Director of the NHSCommissioning Board by the Government. The Board hasresponsibility for overseeing the effective, efficient and appropriateuse of the £95 billion budget for commissioning services for thewhole country. It’s a great privilege for Margaret to have beenasked to join the Board, particularly at a time of great changefor the NHS, as the Minister transferred power and oversightresponsibility for the NHS to the Board in April this year.

Somerville Magazine | 5Martin RoeDame Lucy Neville RolfeAnna Poole (1988, Law)was appointed QC in September 2012.Martin Roe (1997, Classics)wrote and co-produced Buzkashi Boys, which was nominatedfor an Academy Award in the Short Film (Live Action) category.Buzkashi Boys also won the Jury prize for Best International ShortFilm at the Raindance Film Festival and the prize for best dramaat the LA Shorts Fest.Tessa Ross (1980, Oriental Studies)received the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Awardat the BAFTA Film Awards in February 2013 and was also namedamong the 100 most powerful women in the UK in the Woman’sHour Power List.Joanna Haigh (1972, Physics) andJulia Yeomans (1973, Physics)have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, thenational Academy of science in the UK.Somervillians recognisedby Queen’s HonoursWe are delighted to congratulate the following Somervillianson their New Year’s and Queen’s birthday Honours:Eleanor Fuller(Breedon, 1972, Modern Languages),formerly UK permanent Representative to the Council ofEurope, an OBE for services to human rights and diplomacy.Joanna Haigh(1972, Physics),Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London,a CBE for services to Physics.Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe(1970, PPE),a DBE for services to industry and voluntary service.Alison Wolf(Potter, 1967, PPE),a CBE for services to education.

6 | Somerville MagazineFrom the JCR PresidentIt has been a wonderful year for the JCR. We began verypositively with a wonderful freshers’ week which introduceda new group of very vibrant and eager students to Somerville.Our gym was refurbished and Governing Body very kindly approvedthe building of a new social hub which will be instrumental instrengthening our community and bringing the JCR and MCRcloser together. During the year, the JCR voted unanimously insupport of high table after a lengthy discussion about its symbolicimportance and worth, we voted to seek College approval to have atortoise as a College pet and, for the first time in recent memory,we had a very controversial referendum concerning Meat-FreeMondays. This referendum drew College-wide involvement andeventually resulted in a compromise – we now have ‘More-VegMondays’.We have a fantastic JCR executive made of students who areso hard working and so selflessly devoted to making the JCR’sundergraduate experience the best that it can be. I mustparticularly mention our incredible College welfare and peersupport teams which have no equal in Oxford. The JCR executiveis very proud of this year as it has been marked by a significantincrease in involvement and interest in college life and thus aheartening sense of togetherness and Somerville in unity.Somerville students continue to shine in all aspects of Universitylife. We have a very healthy pool of University sports playersincluding Beth Debenham, who captained the Oxford Women’sLacrosse team to victory in their varsity match, and AlexProbodziak and Julia Skisaker, who are captains of the UniversityAthletics and University Women’s Football Clubs respectively.Somerville is strongly represented in University news by a numberof students including Alis Lewis, who has recently become thenews editor of OxStu. Somervillians are climbing the ranks ofboth OUSU and the Union and we also have a very large groupof students who are involved in the Arts. Furthermore, Somervillehas a very strong team in for University Challenge, with MichaelDavies, Sam Walker and Chris Beer from the JCR. This will besomething to look out for this summer.Our boat club has also been moving from strength to strength.After minimal water training time due to poor weather, our crews‘smashed and dominated’ at Torpids. The first women’s boatbumped four times under captain Laura Jennings, and the firstmen’s boat, captained by Tom Loveluck, rowed convincingly toblades and into division two for the first time. Sophie Phillbrickalso rowed for the Oxford women’s lightweights against Cambridge,winning of course.All of this wonderful news shows why Somerville topped thebarometer for student satisfaction last year. Somerville studentsare very proud of their College and so thankful for all theopportunities the College presents them with to maximise theirpotential in academic and extra-curricular endeavours.This year’s JCR President, Marsha Sudar (2011, Physics and Philosophy)Somerville students are very proud oftheir College and so thankful for allthe opportunities the College presentsthem with to maximise their potentialin academic and extra-curricularendeavours.Trinity term saw our glorious quad transformed for our TriennialSomerville-Jesus Ball with many students and alumni comingtogether to celebrate our College identity. With prelims and finalsat this time of year, our library is, as ever, filled with studentsworking diligently for their examinations.It has indeed been a wonderful year. But as always at Somerville,one does not know what further excitement and challenge the nextyear will hold. Perhaps the best is yet to come.

Somerville Magazine | 7CommemoratingSomervillians who have died (asof 6th June 2013)This year Somerville’sCommemorationService was held inthe College Chapelon Saturday 8thJune. This importantevent in the Collegecalendar underlinesthe enduringrelationship betweenSomerville and itsformer members. AllSomervillians arewelcome to attendthe annual service.The service openswith the traditionalwords of theCollege BiddingPrayer, in which wecommemorate theCollege’s founders,governors and majorbenefactors; it endswith the solemnreading of the namesof members of theCollege and its staffwho have died in thelast year.If you know of anySomervillians whohave died recentlybut who are notlisted here, pleasecontact Liz Cooke atSomerville College,Woodstock Road,Oxford OX2 6HDEmail elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk or telephone01865 270632*to be commemoratedin 2014Honorary FellowsRachel Jean Banister (Fellow 1951-1984; Emeritus Fellow 1984-2013) on 15 February 2013 Aged 95Nina Mary Bawden (Mrs Kark) née Mabey (1943; Honorary Fellow, 2001) on 22 August 2012 Aged 87Professor Dame Louise Johnson (Fellow 1973-1999; Honorary Fellow 1990) on 25 August 2012 Aged 71Olive Sayce (Lecturer 1946-62; Research Fellow 1962-65; Fellow 1965;Emeritus Fellow, 1990) on 25 February 2013 Aged 90Margaret Hilda Thatcher née Roberts (1943; Honorary Fellow, 1970) on 8 April 2013 Aged 87AlumniHilary May Alpin (1933) on 14 February 2013 Aged 98Annette Claire Baier née Stoop (1952) on 2 November 2012 Aged 83Marie Louise Sidney Beesley née Woolf (1943) in November 2012 Aged 87Janet Elizabeth Bouri née Powell (1954) on 3 January 2013 Aged 77Hilda Betty Buddle née Staple (1937) on 30 April 2012 Aged 92Bridget Rosemary Burge (1956) on 10 May 2012 Aged 74Elizabeth Mary Clarke née Potter (1940) on 18 May 2012 Aged 90Rita Harriet Cornforth née Harradence (1939) on 6 November 2012 Aged 97Kathleen Elizabeth (Liz) Daunton (1937) on 31 October 2012 Aged 94Alison Gwen Davies (1950) on 14 May 2012 Aged 80Margaret Joan Dawes née Monk (1936) on 16 June 2012 Aged 93Brenda Mary Duncombe (1934) on 8 February 2013 Aged 98Marianne Fillenz (1950) on 15 December 2012 Aged 88Margaret Ann Finer née McFadyean (1946) on 9 September 2012 Aged 87Sarah Louise France née Charlton (1980) on 25 April 2012 Aged 50Andrée Gibson née Welch (1935) on 20 June 2012 Aged 96Aelfthryth Georgina Gittings née Buzzard (1958) on 31 December 2012 Aged 73Elizabeth Eve Hawkins née Sowerby (1934) on 12 November 2012 Aged 96Susan Jacqueline Hicklin née Cox (1935) on 22 December 2012 Aged 96Lucienne Marie Hill née Palmer (1941) on 29 December 2012 Aged 89*Hazel Christine Hoffman née Gill (1943) on 27 May 2013 Aged 87Margaret Howell Jepson née Gwyther (1943) on 21 October 2012 Aged 86*Mary Jennifer Kearsley (1949) on 23 May 2013 Aged about 83Jennifer Lilian Margaret (Jenny) Knauss née Dobbin (1955) on 11 June 2012 Aged 75Christina Anne Le Prevost (1962) on 7 July 2012 Aged 69Pamela Frances Liebeck née Lawrence (1949) on 3 July 2012 Aged 81Virginia Rose Cecilia Luling (1957) on 7 January 2013 Aged 73Leila Rebecca Mizrahi née Dagut (1944) on 7 June 2012 Aged 86Beryl Reid Mustill née Davies (1950) on 18 February 2012 Aged 79Jennifer Margaret Newton née Clapham (1961) on 2 March 2013 Aged 76Margaret Anne Oddie née Timmis (1950) on 28 July 2012 Aged 80Joan Mary Paddon (1934) on 4 February 2013 Aged 96Alison Anne Palmer née Oates (1969) on 7 December 2012 Aged 61Vivien Alice Maud Pilton née Cox (1930) on 26 September 2011 Aged 99Zaïda Mary Ramsbotham née Megrah (1943) on 17 March 2013 Aged 87Betty Robbins née Spice (1943) on 14 March 2013 Aged 87*Moira Enid Rowland née Armstrong (1945) on 8 May 2013 Aged 85Shirley Shea née Ashton (1952) on 7 December 2012 Aged 78Catherine Anne Stoye née Wells (1947) on 12 June 2012 Aged 83Deborah Thornton née Jackson (1952) on 28 July 2012 Aged about 79Audrey Geraldine Northcliffe Verity née Stokes (1939) in May 2013 Aged 93Rosemary Ethel West née Lambert (1948) on 2 February 2013 Aged 84Moira Jill Worthy née Woodhead (1950) on 28 September 2012 Aged 80Jean Wright née Atkinson (1949) on 9 January 2013 Aged 80*Mary Margarite de Zouche (1942) on 22 January 2013 Aged about 89

8 | Somerville MagazineFellow Profile:ProfessorJenniferWelshJennifer Welsh, Professor inInternational Relations, is a coremember of Somerville’s PPE team.Her research interests lie at theintersection of ethics and armedconflict, with a particular focus onthe United Nations Security Council,the practice of military intervention,and the evolving principle of the‘responsibility to protect’. Shecurrently co-directs the OxfordInstitute for Ethics, Law andArmed Conflict (ELAC).David Railton (2009, PPE)

Somerville Magazine | 9Over the last few years, Jennifer has become one of the foremost authorities on theResponsibility to Protect, a political commitment undertaken by heads of state andgovernment at the UN World Summit in 2005.ennifer Welsh’s office is a longMaitland room. In winter, the singleJglazed windows mist up, with theplush student-friendly sofa draped withscarves and shawls. In summer, lightrushes in from main quad, picking outlettering on the cluttered shelves and ringboundpapers on the low coffee table. Onone shelf sits a block of dull concrete, acouple of inches across. It’s a piece of theBerlin Wall.As is often the case in a tutorial, the storybehind this object emerged tangentially.The discussion had been ricochetingaround; from the Arab Spring, to the role ofNATO, to the last wave of democratisationto sweep across a region. Jennifer gesturedto the unremarkable lump of rock, whichhad gone unnoticed despite a term ofstudy. 1989 was during her first spell atOxford; a Canadian from the University ofSaskatchewan, she had taken up a RhodesScholarship to pursue first an MPhil then aDPhil in International Relations.Caught in the midst of research,Jennifer had immediately perceived theimportance of the events in Hungary andCzechoslovakia which precipitated EastGermany’s Peaceful Revolution. After aquick trip to the student travel agency, shehad jumped on a plane to Berlin with agroup of friends as the demolition began.Along with many thousands of Germans,she became part of die Mauerspechte: thewall woodpeckers, carrying off a trophy tocommemorate the historic event.Jennifer has not been afraid to travelwith her work. She has held a number ofdistinguished posts in universities acrossthe globe. In Florence, she was a JeanMonnet Fellow of the European UniversityInstitute, whilst she has spent periodslecturing on International Relations inCanada, at the University of Toronto andMcGill University, as well as in Prague,at the Central European University. Norhas she been confined to academia. For atime she was a Cadieux Research Fellow inthe Policy Planning Staff of the CanadianDepartment of Foreign Affairs and shecontinues to act as a consultant for theCanadian Government on internationalaffairs. Her influential book At Home in theWorld: Canada’s Global Vision for the 21stCentury was recognised by the CanadianPolitical Science Association and hasensured her a place as a frequent foreignpolicy commentator in Canadian media.Jennifer’s advice is not sought purely inCanada though; she has also consultedfor the UK Government and the US-basedAspen Institute. This work, together withappearances in the British media, has beencentred around her latest field of interest:humanitarian intervention.Jennifer hadimmediately perceivedthe importance of theevents in Hungaryand Czechoslovakiawhich precipitated EastGermany’s PeacefulRevolution.Over the last few years, Jennifer hasbecome one of the foremost authoritieson the Responsibility to Protect, apolitical commitment undertaken byheads of state and government at the UNWorld Summit in 2005. R2P emergedat the confluence of several debates ininternational relations over the nature ofstate sovereignty, the responsibilities ofthe international community in the faceof mass atrocities, and the role of the UNas a co-ordinating and legitimating body.Jennifer has written at length on eachof these strands, co editing The UnitedNations Security Council and War in 2008and more recently helping to contextualisethe intervention in Libya. Returningto Oxford fitted seamlessly with theseinterests. As well as joining Somerville asa Fellow, Jennifer became a Professor ofInternational Relations and a Co-Directorof the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law andArmed Conflict, ELAC (www.elac.ox.ac.uk).The Institute’s mission is to investigatehow a combination of laws, norms andinstitutions might restrain armed conflictin the modern world, an ever pressingfear given the inter-state and intra-stateviolence which has wracked regions of theworld since the wall fell and the SovietUnion unravelled.Side by side with her loaded research,Jennifer is a prominent figure in College.There is more than a little irony that I wasnot introduced to Jennifer the scholar ofinternational law, but Professor Welsh, thearbiter of Somerville discipline. Thankfully,I seldom met Jennifer wearing her Deanhat (well, Dean gown and Dean frown).When we did meet, it was more likely todiscuss the minutiae of the next Bop. Ijoined my peers in seeing Dr Welsh asa figure of unrivalled fairness. Notably,she more or less dispensed with fines,preferring a ‘community service’ approachto student misbehaviour, which bothhumbled students and gave the scoutsa helping hand. Still, Deanhood wasjust a passing phase in her relationshipwith Somerville. Instead, it is thePPEists who undoubtedly carry away therichest experiences. Jennifer declaiminganimatedly at the lectern in South Schools;Jennifer waving jugs of orange juice at thatawkward first freshers’ drinks; Jennifer’sunfailingly blunt one line emails. AndJennifer standing at the white board in herMaitland office, drawing coloured circlesfor the schools of Realism and Liberalism,and breaking off into tangents. Even withthree students, the squashed sofa offerswarmth and comfort. But they’re all on theedge of their seats.

10 | Somerville MagazineAuthor Profile:MaggieFergusson

Somerville Magazine | 11Maggie Fergusson (Parham, 1983, History) is Secretaryof the Royal Society of Literature and Literary Editorof Intelligent Life. Her first book, George Mackay Brown:The Life, won the Saltire First Book Prize, the MarshBiography Award, the Yorkshire Post Book of the YearAward and the Scottish Arts Council Biography Award.She was awarded an MBE for services to literature inthe 2012 New Year’s Honours list.go into a bank, and turn money into moremoney.” That was Daphne Park’s advice to us as“Don’twe prepared to leave Somerville in 1986, and I’mafraid I ignored it. Getting a job in the City was too easy. A CVand an interview (these were conducted in twin-bedded roomsin the Randolph Hotel) were enough to secure a starting salarybeyond undergraduate dreams. But after a few weeks analysing thebuilding sector for a pension-fund-management firm, I wished I’dlistened to Daphne.There’s not space here to explain how I escaped from that chromeand-glasspowerhouse by London Bridge to the Royal Society ofLiterature. Suffice it to say that in the RSL’s gracious, dilapidated,Bayswater home, wonderful things began to happen. On the dustyshelves of the first-floor library, I discovered the work of the Orkneypoet George Mackay Brown. The imagery was dazzling – fresh,yet so true as to seem almost inevitable. Lovers at harvest timelay under the “buttered bannock of the moon”; sunset drove “abutcher blade in the day’s throat”. He wrote fiction as well aspoetry, I discovered, and he had a new novel coming out. TheTimes agreed to send me north to interview him.Suffice it to say that in the RSL’sgracious, dilapidated, Bayswater home,wonderful things began to happen.It was June, so Orkney was spilling over with light, and GeorgeMackay Brown was perhaps the wisest, wittiest and most giftedman I had ever met. For the next few years, I seized everyopportunity to return, to get to know him and his islands better.Then in 1995, the summer before he died, he agreed I shouldwrite his biography.How do you tell the story of a man who scarcely travelled, wasnever involved in scandal, and who doggedly dodged the literarylimelight? A fortnight after George’s death, in Edinburgh UniversityLibrary, the librarian handed me a box, previously unopened,containing hundreds of letters. They were from George to his muse,Stella Cartwright, and they revealed a love that had endured,through thick and very thin, over a quarter of a century. I had neverread a correspondence so moving. A central part of George’s lifebegan to emerge from the shadows; others followed. The biographytook shape.That book was such a labour of love I thought I’d never writeanother. Then, shortly after its publication, the children’s writerMichael Morpurgo bounced into my life, and asked if I would writeabout him. So, a completely different project – a living subject thistime, and a born showman, but with his private demons, justlike George.What next? I’m not sure. Twenty-two years on, half my week isstill devoted to the RSL, and shortly before she died DaphnePark visited us to address the question “How Real was JamesBond?”. She received a standing ovation. Helping her into her carafterwards, I reminded her of the careers advice she’d given usso many years before. “Ah,” she said, fixing me with those kind,beady eyes. “I hope you all realised how much I loved you.”

12 | Somerville MagazineCracking theDaniel Moulin, Chapel DirectorIt is no secret that the chapel caused controversy when it was built. Less wellknownare the origins and meaning of the building: the vision of an eccentricSomervillian whose forward-thinking proposal of a ‘house of prayer for allpeoples’ has perhaps only just come of age.The story of the chapel beginswith the journeys of its donor, theadventurer, artist and writer EmilyGeorgiana Kemp (1860-1939). Kemp, aBaptist from a wealthy industrialist family,was one of Somerville’s first students(1881-1883). Studying at the SladeSchool of Fine Art after leaving Somerville,Kemp then spent a lifetime travelling,writing, sketching and painting in China,Korea, India, Central Asia and the Amazon.Often intrepid, she was awarded the‘grande médaille de vermeil’ by the FrenchGeographical Society, and made a Fellow ofthe Royal Scottish Geographical Society.Kemp’s journeys are documented in herbooks: The Face of China (1909), TheFace of Manchuria, Korea and RussianTurkestan (1910), Wanderings in ChineseTurkestan (1914), Chinese Mettle (1921)and There followed Him, women (1927).These travelogues show her preoccupationwith the welfare and education of women,and the role of women in religion.Letters in the College’s archives indicatehow Kemp’s experiences travelling inspiredher vision for the chapel. The diversereligions and cultures she encountered,and the Christian faith of her travellingcompanions, had a powerful impact uponher. Consequently, she developed a beliefin the universal good will that united, andwas common to, people of all religionsand nations.Kemp’s career also brought her intocontact with some of the most progressivereligious thinkers of her day. One of herfriends was the theologian Marcus Dods,who, like Kemp, was interested in therelationship between Christianity and otherreligions. Kemp’s circle also included H.N. Spalding, the eccentric explorer SirFrancis Younghusband, and the Nobelprize-winner, Albert Schweitzer. Eachof these luminaries has a part to play inthe story of the chapel. H.N. Spalding,founder of the first professorial chairin Eastern Religions and Ethics in theUniversity (the first incumbent beingSarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the seconof India) helped with the negotiationsbetween Kemp and the College concerningthe donation of the chapel. Schweitzer,at Kemp’s request, came to the chapel toadvise on the purchase of the organ, whileYounghusband, the founder of Britain’soldest interfaith organization, the WorldCongress of Faiths, arranged for delegatesrepresenting the world’s major religioustraditions to visit it in 1937.Kemp’s proposal for a space for prayer,meditation and spiritual exercises open tothose of all nations and creeds affectedthe design of the chapel. The historianof architecture, Sir Nikolaus Pevsnerdescribes the chapel as ‘bleak.’ ButAbove: Somerville’s chapel todaysimplicity can have meaning. Accordingto Vera Farnell, who dedicated the chapelin 1935, the chapel was intended to be asymbol of ‘universal brotherhood.’ It wasdesigned by Courtney Theobald who wasson-in-law, and business partner, of thearchitect of the original Wembley stadium,Maxwell Ayrton. Ayrton served as assistantto Edwin Luytens, to whose style thechapel’s monolithic design can perhapsbe likened.The interior represents a compromisebetween a traditional chapel, and theradical concept of a multi-purpose buildingfor use by those of all faiths. The CollegeCouncil authorized Kemp’s chosen biblicalphrase ‘A house of prayer for all peoples’(Isaiah 56) to be written in Greek on theoutside of the chapel. This was meant toindicate openness to those of all religionsand beliefs. The engraving in the vestibulededicating the building to Christ, onthe other hand, was placed by Kempwithout permission, following a number ofdisagreements with the Principal, HelenDarbishire.Members of the College Council were toldthat the stained glass window designed byGeorge Bell was to be abstract. The windowinstalled, however, shows the resurrectedChrist above two female figures dressedwearing chasubles and stoles: one holdingthe lamp, a symbol of truth; the other amirror, a symbol of learning. Despite theskepticism of Darbishire and others, Kempsaw no conflict between the chapel’sfunction as a place of prayer for all faiths,and this Christian symbolism. She arguedthat in all her lifetime of engagement withother cultures, the figure of Jesus wasrevered by all of the world’s religions.

Somerville Magazine | 13chapel codeThe chapel holds one further hidden clue that helps us understandKemp’s motivation for donating to Somerville. Tucked behind thearch at the East is a 19th century Della Robbia derived from theAnnunciation lunette in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence.The subject of the Annunciation – the divine mission of a woman– was of great significance to Kemp. She saw it as symbolic of thespecial importance of women in serving God, spreading the Gospel,and liberating other women.Above: The 19th century Della RobbiaKemp shared Schweitzer’s spiritual appreciation of music, andshe intended the chapel to be a place where music could flourish– hence its fine acoustic. But unlike the chapel itself, the chapelorgan (Harrison and Harrison, Durham) was not donated by her.When Schweitzer’s help proved to be unfruitful, 231 contemporaryand prior members of the College, including Dorothy L. Sayers,raised the necessary funds. The fundraisers felt these donationswere a way of showing Somerville’s thankfulness for the gift of theCollege chapel.Daniel Moulin is Chapel Director at Somerville College and a DPhilCandidate at Oxford University’s Department of Education. He wouldalso like to acknowledge the help of The Spalding Trust and the CarmenBlacker Fund in supporting the writing of this article.Daniel would be interested in receiving any Somervillians’ recollectionsof the chapel and its role in college life from any period(daniel.moulin@some.ox.ac.uk).Above: Emily Kemp during her student days

14 | Somerville MagazineMake love,not pornTim Williams(2010, PPE)talks toCINDY GALLOP(1977, EnglishLiterature)

Somerville Magazine | 15After 38,000 tweets and counting, she can surely lay claim to be Somerville’s mostprolific tweeter.We sit down in the Old ParsonageHotel on Banbury Road and thewaiter asks our order. Awareit’s late afternoon and my interviewee hasalready advertised, on Facebook, that she’llsoon be mixing martinis with students inthe College bar, I hesitantly guess we’regoing non-alcoholic. Thankfully CindyGallop takes charge of a familiar situation.She, after all, is the one who “dates men intheir twenties”. Tea, scones, jam and “lotsof cream” it is.It’s been a big year for the formeradvertising executive. While shehas continued her consultancywork “to pay the mortgage” and ranwebsites IfWeRanTheWorld.com andMakeLoveNotPorn.com (MLNP) from herNew York base, her workload has beentransformed by her new start-up, MLNP.tv.The user-generated crowdsourced site,which for a small fee allows users to watchothers’ “real world sex” video submissionswhile encouraging them to also submitvideos themselves, launched in theautumn. A powerful message lies behindthe video venture: porn, which many nowuse to begin to find out about sex, is aworld away from reality. Her big idea is to“get people talking about sex” and sharetheir experiences – tagline: ‘Pro-sex. Proporn.Pro-knowing the difference.’The .com version of her website starkly laysout the differences between the porn andreal worlds. The “extraordinary response”to that instilled a feeling of “personalresponsibility” to take the idea to anew level.“We should be able to laugh at ourselveshaving sex. Real world sex is funny, messy,dirty. It’s also responsible.” She points outthere are no condoms in porn. “I want tomake those awkward condom moments hotand arousing.”The site’s launch and her ability to givea good quote has not gone unnoticed bythe international press, with provocativefeatures in the Mail and Guardian and, toher own surprise, a prime-time televisioninterview on Ireland’s RTE.“I’ve not been waiting for publicity in theslightest but it’s been incredibly easy to getcoverage without doing a single piece ofmedia outreach.”“We were going to go live under the radar,to test things out, but it’s been great”.As well as leading the business, one ofCindy’s and her small team’s roles is to“curate” the videos people send in. Onlyones which pass certain criteria go up. “Ifind the right moment of the day – I don’toften [watch videos] at breakfast.”I feel a lot more intouch now with therest of the world in theright kind of way.The journey to launch was tough and attimes despairing.Despite believing she was “an investor’swet dream” with a tech concept designedto disrupt a sector worth billions of dollarsin a way both socially beneficial andpotentially highly lucrative, it took twoyears to get funding. At first, “nobodywould come near me”.Funding eventually in place, the nextproblem was accessing it, because no bankaccepted business accounts with “porn”in the name. With the likes of Paypal alsorefusing adult content clients, she directlycontacted tech entrepreneurs via Twitter tofind a payment system for the site.As anyone who follows her on Twitteror Facebook can testify, social media isa “seamless” part of Cindy’s life. After38,000 tweets and counting, she cansurely lay claim to be Somerville’s mostprolific tweeter.It’s all part of her self-branding – buildingon skills she developed at advertisingfirm BBH but, of course, without the paypacket.“I’m reinventing myself financially. Myold days were high-flying advertising exec.These days it’s impoverished start-upentrepreneur. I’m no longer one of theone percent; I’m one of the 99 percent.And I think that’s a good thing. I lookback at my old life and am horrified athow extravagant I was. I feel a lot more intouch now with the rest of the world in theright kind of way.”I suggest this is all still a long way fromtutorials in Maitland and then perilouslybegin comparing her to an ordinarySomervillian – something which brings outa ferocious support for the College.“There is no such thing as an ordinarySomerville alumnus,” she responds.“I feel enormously strongly about helpingSomerville because I think it has been afundamental part of helping me to achievethe things I’ve always wanted to do. I’ma huge believer in giving back, that’s whyI’m here (to fulfil an invite, from a currentstudent, to speak at a TED conference).I would love to see more alumni reallyunderstanding the relevance Somervillestill has to all of our lives and doing whatthey can in their different capacities tohelp give back.”There is a potential future for her ideain sex education, but although she saysshe has enough to be getting on with,you couldn’t rule anything out if the rightbusiness partner came along.“Everything in my life has beenaccidental. If you had told me five yearsago that one day the leading porn industrytrade journal would have Cindy Gallop onits front page, I’d have told you youwere joking.”

16 | Somerville MagazineUnexpectedSuchandrika Chakrabarti (2001, English) talks toCarl Gibson (2006, Classics and Modern Languages)Carl Gibson, who finished his degree in German and Classics in 2011, is anexample of just how far extra-curricular activities can get you.Carl has spent much of histime since graduating fromSomerville working for the NGOTeach for Palestine, teaching English toschoolchildren in Nablus – a project heinitially became involved with thanks toa Horsman Scholarship from the College.And it’s not just this financial supportthat he is grateful for from Somerville:Carl believes that he would not have beenable to get such a great start in his dreamcareer of development without the Arabicthat he started learning in his sparetime there.Carl was one of the first people from hisschool (Queen Elizabeth’s in Wimborne,Dorset) to go to Oxbridge. His decisionto apply was based upon attending aUNIQ Summer School that was hostedby Somerville. He was given a week-longintroduction to German during the course,and found that he really enjoyed it.Although he confesses that he was terrifiedbefore he went along, he found that thecourse debunked the preconceptions hehad about Oxford. He found that Somervillewas much friendlier than he had expectedan Oxford college to be, and of course, thehuge quad was a selling-point for him.His burgeoning interest in Arabic wasnurtured by his German tutor, AlmutSuerbaum, who encouraged him to visitthe language centre. Carl’s interest inArabic was at first linguistic; having learntAncient Greek and Latin from scratch aspart of his degree, he was looking for a newchallenge. Arabic was topical and soundedinteresting, but the political side of thingsonly came to him much later.Dr Suerbaum noticed his growingfascination with studying Arabic, andintroduced Carl to the Modern LanguagesFaculty’s Heath Harrison TravellingArabic was topical andsounded interesting,but the political sideof things only came tohim much later.Scholarships. The proceeds from the prizeenabled him, at the end of his second year,to spend a few months studying Arabic inCairo. Carl calls the prize “a real godsend,”and even though he found Cairo itself anintense place to visit, he was not put offfrom visiting the Middle East again. He hasbeen to Jordan, as well as making severaltrips to Palestine, and would like tovisit Syria.During his degree, Carl spent a yearundertaking Middle Eastern Studies inGermany. This introduction to the politicalside of the language that he found solinguistically fascinating marked a turningpoint for Carl, convincing him that this wasthe direction he would like to head in.After graduating from Oxford in 2011,Carl started on an MA course in MiddleEastern Studies at the University ofReading. He found the shift from Oxfordto Reading quite a major one, mainly dueto the change in subject matter, but alsobecause he had to leave the tutorial systemand all its benefits behind. He found thatit prepared him well for a lecture- andseminar-based course, as he was “veryused to stepping up and giving[his] opinion.”

Somerville Magazine | 17JourneysThings like teargas and soundbombs were notwhat I expectedto experience. Ittakes you aback,but you get usedto it.Carl left for Palestine “about four hours after” finishing hisMasters. He had become interested in development over the courseof his MA, and felt that his knowledge of Arabic would come inuseful in a field where many don’t actually speak the language ona colloquial level that would be understood by the locals.Carl has some fairly harrowing tales of his time in Palestine lastyear. As he says, “it was a hectic year for Palestine, even by itsown standards… we had the bombardment in Gaza.” He foundPalestinians surprisingly calm during bombardments, becausethey have become used to them. However, he did find the situation“exceptionally tense” by last November. There were only around40 westerners left in Nablus by this stage, and the rioting andbombardment became much more frequent events; as Carl puts is,“things like tear gas and sound bombs were not what I expected toexperience. It takes you aback, but you get used to it.”He found sound bombs, which are used to disperse riots, the mostdisruptive to his class. The explosion hurts the ears and scared hispupils so much that they’d run off home – “so that was my daydone.” Carl says that he and his colleague were so busy that theyjust worked through the rioting, tear gas, sound bombs and Israelijets flying low overhead: “aside from that, it was pretty much lifeas normal for us.”Now safely back home, Carl is firmly on the job hunt. He wouldlike to move further into development work, and the educationsystem in Palestine remains a focus for him.Carl would like to say a heartfelt thank you to Somerville for thesupport, which has been crucial in his education and travels so far.

18 | Somerville MagazineMrs Thatcher’sother peculiarityJill Rutter (1975, PPE)Margaret Thatcher, arguably Somerville’s most famous alumna, died in April2013, aged 87. Britain’s first woman Prime Minister was also its first scientistPrime Minister – a fact that has so far gone relatively unnoted by the media.Here, Jill Rutter examines what impact Mrs Thatcher’s scientific training atSomerville had on her approach to politics.Afew years ago I was walkingback into the Department ofEnvironment, Food and RuralAffairs where I worked, when I met thethen Labour Climate Change Minister onthe doorstep. He had just had a meetingwith the Democrat Senator BarbaraBoxer. They had spent much of the timediscussing why climate change was adivisive politicised issue in the US, but thesubject of bipartisan consensus in the UK,where the world’s first Climate Change Actwas about to be passed – with only threedissenting votes. He asked me why thepolitics of climate played out so differentlyin the two countries. I pointed out that thefirst leading mainstream politician to takethe threat of global warming seriously wasa British Conservative: Margaret Thatcher.And perhaps the principal reason for thatwas that she was not just our only womanPrime Minister, but the only Prime Ministerto have studied science at university.Strange enough to have a Somervillian asprime minister – but a Somerville chemistwas truly exceptional.Most of the tributes to Mrs Thatcherfocused on her convictions, her courageand the simple fact of her being awoman. But few drew attention to theimportance of her scientific training.Former government chief scientific adviserLord May noted her delight at being madea Fellow of the Royal Society. Her closestally, Lord Tebbit characterised the “twogreat influences in her life. One was herscientific training. The other, of course,was her religious belief”. Lord Waldegraveunderlined the point with a story about howMrs Thatcher used her scientific trainingnot just to see off a proposal for regulationof the coal industry, but to intimidateher German counterpart, on a day whenBonn was suffering from a smog whichcould have been used to justify the policychange: “’Now Helmut’, she said to thecowering Chancellor – he was always alittle nervous of her, as were others – ‘I willtell you what you have here. You have gotan inversion and a smog. If you had properclean air laws, like we do in England,that would have put paid to all that. I willexplain the chemistry to you if you like’. Hedid not want to know the chemistry”.The speeches she madein 1988 to the RoyalSociety and to the UNGeneral Assembly,warning of the emergingrisks of climate changeand the need to act, arestunning to read today.Some commentators have suggested thatit was her knowledge of the reality ofscientific research, from her early careeras a research chemist, that made herrethink the role of the state during heryears as Secretary of State for Educationand Science in the Heath government:by forcing a market approach to sciencefunding which she then extended intoother areas as Prime Minister. But climatechange was the area where her scientificgrasp made a big difference. The speechesshe made in 1988 to the Royal Societyand to the UN General Assembly, warningof the emerging risks and the need toact, are stunning to read today. Now thatthere is more of a fissure opening up inthe Conservative party over the realityof climate change, there is a debate onwhether she would now be siding with theLawsonian sceptics – but on this, as onother issues of science, she would havegone back to the science, and pride herselfon being able to “explain the chemistry”.However, it is quite hard to reconcileThatcher the scientist with Thatcherthe conviction politician. The currentgovernment is commissioning a set of“what works centres” to bring evidenceto bear on social policy – part of a moveto apply the “scientific method” to policymaking. But Mrs Thatcher did not believeher flagship policies were “pilots” or“rebuttable hypotheses”. She believedthey were simply the right thing to do,with something like a religious certainty.She was not embarking on a series ofincremental changes, whose effects couldbe isolated in a randomised control trial,but rather was on a mission to convert thecountry.

Somerville Magazine | 19The 1943 matriculation year; Margaret Roberts is in the top row, fifth from the rightBut her scientific training showed upin a different way. She was much moreinterested in ideas than any other PrimeMinister since, with the possible exceptionof Gordon Brown. But she was also avery meticulous and methodical PrimeMinister. She read her papers thoroughly.She prepared well. She was happy toargue but would take colleagues apart ifthey did not know their brief (remember,she was a lawyer too) as well as she did.And although she is remembered for bolddecisions, she mixed her boldness witha hefty dose of caution: the privatisationprogramme started slowly and builtmomentum over time. She waited until shewas ready – and knew she could win – totake on the miners.One of the contrasts between chemistsand PPEists at Oxford is how many hoursthe former have to put in the lab. Thatusually keeps them out of universitypolitics. The stakhanovite undergraduateMargaret Roberts made time for both. AsPrime Minister, Margaret Thatcher wasfamously not “for turning”. But she tookthat chemist work ethic with her too: ouronly scientist Prime Minister was not for“chillaxing” either.Jill Rutter is a former civil servant, nowat the Institute for Government. Thisarticle is based on a piece originallywritten for the Institute(www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk).Above and right: Margaret Thatcher and her former chemistry tutor, Dorothy Hodgkin, at the College’s 1979 centenary garden party

20 | Somerville MagazineFOUR RHODES DIVERGE:How four unlikely womenbecame Rhodes ScholarsClaire GordonIn 1977, it was as easy to picture a Rhodes Scholar as it hadbeen in 1902 when Cecil Rhodes described him. Stridingacross Christ Church meadows with a book in one hand anda tennis racket in the other, he was the model of a fine mind ina fine body. A Rhodes Scholar was a person of “truth, courage,devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak,kindliness, unselfishness, and fellowship.” But the first and mostessential quality he had to possess was “manhood.”35 years ago the first female Rhodes Scholars arrived in Oxford.For four of these women in particular, gaining the scholarship wasan extraordinary feat they had not imagined possible. Scrappy andworking class, two from immigrant families, these young womenhad hardly heard of the Radcliffe Camera, much less expected tocycle past it in gown and cap.“It changed my dreams and all thepossibilities.”Ann Olivarius (Connecticut and Somerville 1978)“It’s transformative when people starttaking you seriously.”Annie Haight (Montana and Somerville 1978)“[The Rhodes Scholarship] completelychanged the trajectory of my life.”Banuta Rubess (Ontario and St. Antony’s College 1978)“[Without it,] the world would have beena much smaller place than it has been.”Nadine Baudot-Trajtenberg (Québec and Brasenose 1978)

Somerville Magazine | 21PICKING FIGHTSIn the 60s and 70s, distrusting authoritywas the zeitgeist. But as teenagers, Ann,Annie, Nadine and Banuta took up thisstruggle with particular zeal. The statusquo had been very unkind to their mothers,and they had no time for it. Three of themwere also raised rigidly Catholic, and turnedon the church very young. It’s probablyno coincidence that girls who challengedthe order of things in their families andcommunities would go on to challenge theorder of things on many other levels.At Yale, Ann devoured political and feministtheory. The first test of it came early.During her junior summer, while interningat the Supreme Court, Ann was included inconversations about Nina Totenberg, a risingstar of a journalist, who’d already managedto embarrass then president Nixon.“How can we handle this problem?” MarkCanon, the Administrative Assistant toSupreme Court Chief Justice Berger, askedAnn. One day, a file on Totenberg was givento Ann. It was filled with evidence thatCanon was trying to get stories plantedagainst her including some nasty and untrueallegations. They wanted her fired, out ofjournalism for good, destroyed.This was actual politics – vivid and real – alife Ann long thought she wanted to pursue.But the slime, the corruption, the selfrighteousspite did not figure in the politicallife Ann had contemplated. She wasembarrassed to see the Chief Justice’s officeconduct itself this way. Before she left theCourt, she decided to put whatever gifts shehad in service as a lawyer – to protect theNina Totenbergs of the world.BEING WILDLYTRANSGRESSIVETeenager Annie had known what it felt liketo take a political stand by the time shewas 14 and had marched against the war inVietnam. Although Annie’s mother wantednothing more than to raise a conventionaldaughter, it was clear this was not goingto happen.In high school, Annie’s first group of greatfriends included two gay buddies. With herhippie jeans and curly red hair, she’d hangout with them on weekends visiting yardAnne Olivarius (1978, DPhil in Social Studies)sales. They’d try on pleated skirts right thereon someone’s freshly-mowed lawn. It waswildly transgressive and she loved it.After graduation, Annie went to Reed Collegein Oregon. It was progressive and far away.But when her work started getting Cs insteadof As, her confidence was shaken and sherealized she didn’t know what she wantedout of her life.In her family’s world, a girl like herself mightbecome a nurse or librarian or teacher. Or,“if you were really high fallutin’, and reallythought a lot of yourself, you might dare tobecome a lawyer.”Annie dropped out of school and went backto Missoula. She got a room at the city’s newyoga house where, in exchange for free rent,she did all the cooking and cleaning. Aftersix months or so, she decided to go back toschool, to the University of Montana. Shemet her boyfriend soon after.“Just thank god, thank god I found you,” shethought. “Someone who understands me.Someone who loves me. Someone who’s onmy side against my crazy family. It was justwonderful.”Annie moved in with him.Four years before, The New York Times didan exposé on the phenomenon of cohabitingcollege students. The shacked-up co-edsAnnie Haight (1978, DPhil in History)all spoke on the condition of anonymity,nonetheless the identity of one of the girlswas quickly uncovered, and she wasnearly expelled.Annie must have had courage, strong will,and a sense of what she needed in order tomove in with her boyfriend in her hometownwithout marrying him. But she didn’t do it toshock. “It didn’t seem to me like I was doinganything wrong,” she said. “I was just beingwith my close friend.”What Annie needed at the University ofMontana was to take a course with MaxineVan de Wetering. But what she didn’t realizewas that Van de Wetering not only developedthe first women’s studies curriculum atMontana and taught the history of science,she also made Rhodes Scholars in her sparetime. Because of Maxine, the University ofMontana was the seventeenth best universityin the country at producing Rhodes Scholars,beating out better-ranked schools, likeColumbia, Georgetown, and Berkeley.One day, she called Annie into her office. “Idon’t know who your advisor is,” she said,“but I’d like to be your academic advisor.”This is an excerpt from Claire Gordon’sarticle of the same name. To view thefull article, please visitwww.some.ox.ac.uk/fourrhodes

22 | Somerville MagazineThesocial mediaentrepreneurQ&A withDan Lester(1997, Mathematics)Bogdan-Alexandru Panait(2009, Mathematics andComputer Science)

Somerville Magazine | 23Dan Lester is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Conversocial, astartup empowering companies to use social media as a channel for theircustomer support. It has offices in London and New York, and has raised$6m in venture capital funding. He also co-founded iPlatform, which wassold to an international competitor in September 2012. iPlatform specialisesin Facebook marketing campaigns for brands such as Tesco, Channel 5, andthe FA. Dan has also spent time in Silicon Valley where he developed OpenSocket, an interface between Open Social gadgets and Facebook.What part of the Somerville experience do you findhas helped you most?After four years of studying maths, I didn’t know what I wanted todo next – but it seemed sensible to get a job in London, you know,something computer based. I think I’ve always been interested bythe idea of being an entrepreneur, or at least fascinated by storieslike Google and Microsoft. So I spent five years working in the City,and then I suddenly decided that it was enough and it was timeto start a company. I could program a computer and was full ofideas even before coming up to Oxford, but I guess I wouldn’t havenecessarily known how to do that in a business context. I think Iultimately matured as a person at Somerville.What prompted you to move away from thetraditional City job in finance?I enjoyed five years working in the City, but, the real question,again, was why I wanted those City jobs in the first place, in termsof “who I am”. I guess, fundamentally, I was more interested indoing something over which I had more ownership and control.What prompted me to move away was more the attraction of whatI wanted to go into. I guess it’s difficult leaving a relatively wellpaid job and suddenly not being paid anymore. However, I believedthat it would work out and it did. It helped that I was able to gotravelling for a year – which made me move from that well paidlifestyle to one where you don’t have an income. It was an easiertransition than from going straight a well-paid job to a badly-paidstart-up.How does the entrepreneurial mentality in SiliconValley compare with the one in London?I think there are pockets of people in London who have beeninterested in high tech start-ups, but it’s probably true to say thatthere wasn’t an obvious network in London in 2007, like therewas in Silicon Valley. I think being in London, in that communityof people involved in start-ups, they’ve missed the point thatthere are already billion dollar high-tech companies in the UK.I certainly think it’s possible that social media made it feel likeit was a group of people starting out for the first time buildingbusinesses. It would have been easy to feel isolated without beingable to search on Google or Facebook for anyone else who was alsotrying to start up a business.From your experience with both iPlatform andConversocial, what do you feel makes or breaks ateam of entrepreneurs?I guess what makes it is being able to talk to each other and beingopen about things. I’ve seen attempts at start-ups where peopleare a little bit too formal about it and perhaps they worry aboutwhose idea this is and who owns that bit of IP. Ultimately, we [Danand his iPlatform and Conversocial co-founder, Joshua March]started to thrash out quite a bit of that in the first months ofgetting to know each other. We each had different contacts and Ihad the tech background, but after a while we realised there’s onlyone way to go – so we shared the responsibility 50-50 from thestart, and took it from there.Do you think your next venture will also be in thesocial media sphere?Facebook underpins a lot of the next generation of the web.However I don’t think I am a world expert in social media or thatI need to capitalize on my specific experience. Again, what’simportant is being able to find something a bit smaller and startoff in the same way as before. With iPlatform, it started by playingaround with Facebook when it was still small. I would try to findanother technology to play with and see where that takes me.

24 | Somerville MagazineKirstin Shipton(Lund, 1963, Classics)

Somerville Magazine | 25Making his Markon the Donor WallSomerville received an overwhelming response to the Make Your Markbuilding appeal. All supporters were offered the chance to have their namesinscribed on a Donor Wall that stands at the entrance to our new buildings.One of those supporters, Kirstin Shipton, chose instead to honour herancestor, who placed great value on education for both men and women.down on this slate what you learned atschool today,” said Duncan Menzies to his young“Writedaughter Kate. It was September 1872. Duncanand my great grandmother Kate were sitting in a simple little croftnestling among the Ochil Hills where Duncan was a shepherd onthe Harviestoun Estate. He himself had little formal education. Butit was something he valued highly.He had been determined that his young family should attendDollar Academy nearby. At first the school refused to admit them– the family did not actually live in Dollar, but two miles awayin the remote Dollar Glen. Duncan persisted. He went to see theHeadmaster and pleaded his case. The struggle was rewarded.Young Kate, and three siblings, all won prizes at Dollar Institution(as it was called then). I have them today on my bookshelves.I also have two photos, taken in 1926 and 1931. In the firstpicture Kate’s granddaughter, my mother Catherine, is holdingsome of the many prizes she has just won as Dux of the MaryErskine School in Edinburgh. And in the next she is a graduatestudent at Oxford. She is steering a punt through the gentle wavesof the Cherwell. This is a very different stretch of water from therough, torrential stream young Kate had trudged beside as shemade her way to school through the deep ravines of Dollar Glen.And the education of women has been transformed since Kateattended Dollar Academy.90 years after Duncan Menzies asked his daughter Kate what shehad learned at school, Duncan’s great great granddaughter askedher Professor of Latin at Glasgow which Oxford College she shouldchoose for post-graduate study. Without hesitation, my professorreplied “Somerville”.So what would I tell Duncan Menzies if he were alive today andasked about my first term at Somerville? I’d say how strange thewater tasted compared to the pure clear streams of his nativePerthshire. And – to a daughter of the Manse – how strange, atfirst, were the words of Evensong at St Mary the Virgin compared tothe simple vernacular of the Church of Scotland. But I’d also tellhim how exciting it was to meet in person the authors of books Ihad read as an undergraduate at Glasgow. I’d tell him that Oxfordlaid the foundations for my own academic career. I’d say that I wasgrateful to him, and proud of his interest in education.Then I’d take him to the Donor Wall to see his name.

26 | Somerville MagazineLike coming homeAlumna Sara Kalim (1990, Classics) returned to Somervillethis year as our new Director of Development. Here sheoutlines her career since leaving College – and what it isthat made her Somerville years so special.When I applied to Oxford, Somerville College was oneof my top choices but, as I often hear fellow alumnisay, I felt it really chose me. I wanted very much toexperience the atmosphere and life of aspiration and intellectualrigour that were the same as in the days of Vera Brittain, IndiraGandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Daphne Park (the ‘Queen of Spies’),Iris Murdoch, and the first female British Nobel Science Prizewinner, Dorothy Hodgkin. These are just a few examples of peoplewhose lives embody the new Somerville strap line: “If you want tochange the world, come to Somerville”. Now we are able to addto those ranks a brilliant new generation of both male and femaleSomervillians who are leading the way.I adored my tutors as well as my time and activities while I was astudent. The late Nan Dunbar was a wonderful support as a tutor.She shared her enthusiasm for ancient comedy as well as manynotable anecdotes, not least about her friendship with CS Lewiswhose portrait adorned her office. I continued my contact withMiss Dunbar until her death. I would often bump into her in frontof her house on Walton Street and get to hear about her retirementactivities, such as helping local primary school children with theirreading. She may have instilled fear into many undergraduates inher time, but she had a very warm heart indeed.Both she and my wisest-of-the-wise Moral Tutor, Lesley Brown,used to turn a benign blind eye upon my time-consuming thespianactivities while I was studying at Somerville, confident in my abilityto find a bit of time for essay writing as well. I did, however, getofficial approval to lead the Chorus when the Oxford Playhousestaged the Oxford Classics plays: Sophocles’ Trachiniae in theoriginal Greek; and Aristophanes’ The Frogs, one of the mostmemorable experiences of my time at Oxford. I know I am notalone in cherishing these memories of my tutors; testimony to thisis the number of letters of remembrance we have received from theformer students of Olive Sayce, whose memory we honoured at aspecial service in College in May.Let me briefly describe where Somerville led me personally: Itrod the boards for a short time before embarking on 14 yearsof working on documentaries and current affairs programmes,starting at the BBC and then becoming head of development fortwo independent companies. My jobs included raising funds forprogrammes from all the major UK broadcasters as well as someinternational ones. It was a charmed life working in television– and it gave me the opportunity of working on such diversesubjects as the museums of the world, the strange world of sleepdisorders, the history of women at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, the2008 Mumbai terror attacks and the unsolved case of the mostprolific serial killer in Italy. I returned to Oxford for work and metmy future husband and had my two daughters whilst juggling thefilm-making, including a spell working on Channel 4’s Dispatchesstrand. The latter involved sending courageous reporters to someof the world’s most hostile environments. This last three years,working at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, aresearch centre of the Department of Politics analysing the criticalissues facing international journalism, brought me back toOxford University.While the Reuters Institute was a wonderful place to work, Icould not resist the pull of Somerville, especially after hearingabout its current ambitious campaigns and visionary projects.A very personal attraction was the College’s plan for the IndiraGandhi Centre for Sustainable Development, since my own Indiangrandmother, a politician and campaigner for the educationof women in India, worked with both Mrs Gandhi and PrimeMinister Nehru during her service on several national educationcommittees.Somerville has a wonderful tradition of promoting a sense ofempowerment among its students in a characteristically nonconformistfashion. It is only in recent years, however, that Ihave begun to understand the transformative effects of thateducation and the doors it opened for me. I took my degree at atime of increased student funding from the state and no tuitionfees. I myself came up to Oxford on a grant that covered mymaintenance, and therefore I never had to worry about repayingstudent loans. Now the landscape has changed and we face theundeniable reality that we have to work much harder to ensurethat gifted young people are afforded the same opportunitiesthat my generation enjoyed and that, by supporting the excellentteaching at Somerville, we will protect what is most preciousabout the education we offer. College has certainly served me well.Now I find myself very happy and excited indeed to be back atSomerville, this time to serve the College.I look forward hugely to getting to know the Somerville communityof fellows, staff and alumni. I am very grateful for the warmwelcome I have received so far and look forward to many moreencounters with Somervillians, past, present and future. Our livelyprogramme of events, dare I say one of the most envied by otherOxford colleges, offers the chance to all Somervillians to reconnectwith the College. I am particularly excited about our forthcomingFamily Day: a celebration of learning to be held on Saturday14th September. This unique event, generously sponsored byan alumna, will give all our children (and grandchildren!) anopportunity to find out what we already know: Somerville is awonderful place not just to get an education but also toget inspired.If you would like to discuss how you can support Somerville,please contact Sara Kalim:Tel: +44 (0) 1865 280596Email: sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.ukFor the latest news on Somerville’s Campaign, please visit:www.some.ox.ac.uk/Campaign

Somerville Magazine | 27Telethon News2012 campaign raises £165,000The 2012 campaign ran over two weeks in September and raised over£165,000. Over the course of the campaign 58% of alumni contactedchose to make a gift - the highest participation rate since the launch of theSomerville Campaign in 2009.Last year our 16 student callers spoke to 864 Somervilliansall around the world, and had a great time hearing storiesfrom the College’s past. Third year History student LornaSutton said she found the experience very enjoyable: “I was able tospeak to so many fascinating alumni and hear how Somerville haschanged over the years. Raising funds for College is so importantand I’m glad I was able to be a part of the telethon campaign.”Louise Jones, who is in the fourth year of her French course, feltthat the telethon offered her a chance to support Somerville’sfuture. “This campaign will ensure that future generations ofSomervillians receive the same benefits that were offered tous, such as a diverse range of subjects, updated buildings andfacilities, and bursaries for those who need them, hence ensuringthat Somerville remains one of the most meritocratic collegesin Oxford.”She added, “The telethon was hard work, but at the same timeextremely rewarding. The highlight of the campaign for me wasphoning a lady who happened to be directly outside the windowI was facing. Having the opportunity to meet her and invite heraround to the bar - our temporary call-centre - was surreal and, atthe same time, priceless!”We are tremendously grateful to everyone for helping us raise agrand total of £165,000. Money raised through the telethon goestowards the Annual Fund making a genuine and direct differenceto students’ lives at Somerville. The Fund provides help forstudents through bursaries and hardship funds, as well as supportfor the buildings and facilities and the tutorial system.

28 | Somerville MagazineHappy 100th BirthdayDame Kathleen!Dr Anne ManuelLibrarian and ArchivistAt a special lunch to celebrate Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw’s 100th birthday,College Librarian Dr Anne Manuel interviewed Dame Kathleen for theCollege archives oral history project.Honorary Fellow, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw (Somerville1931-34 and 44-45) is an internationally renownedmathematician and educationalist, having playeda major role in the creation of the Royal Northern College ofMusic and Manchester Metropolitan University, as well as in theadministration of Lancaster and Salford Universities and UMIST(as was). In 1979 she became the first woman president of theInstitute of Mathematics and its Applications. She became LordMayor of Manchester in 1975-6 and was granted the freedom ofthe city in 1984. In 1971 she was awarded her DBE for servicesto education.Kathleen Timpson arrived at Somerville College for her interview in1930. By any standards it was no ordinary interview. Concealingthe fact that she was almost entirely deaf, she lip-read her waythrough the questions posed and stunned the Fellows into silencewhen, in answer to the innocuous question ‘what did you do in thesummer vacation?’ she gave a full account of her attendance at aninternational Disarmament Symposium at the League of Nationsheadquarters in Geneva. The Fellows were duly impressed and shewas awarded a scholarship.She attended lectures given by T W Chaundey of Christ Church,and although she couldn’t hear what he was saying, attended hislectures religiously. He took a special interest in her and whenshe returned in 1944 to study for her DPhil, Chaundy was hersupervisor. She always worked hard and after three years of herfour year undergraduate course, decided that she was ready to takeschools. This she did, passing her exams with what would now bea 2:1. She did a similar thing ten years later when she was backat Oxford to take her DPhil. Publishing five papers in two years,she was awarded the degree without the need to spend three yearswriting a formal thesis.But it was not all study at Oxford. Kathleen spent much of hertime playing hockey, captaining the University XI for two yearsin her undergraduate years. She was also a keen ice skater andremembers that during the winter of 1944 she skated figures ofeight on the water tank which had been dug in Darbishire quad asa fire precaution.Although she had little to do with Margaret Thatcher whenshe was at Somerville (Margaret Thatcher would have been anundergraduate while Kathleen was then a graduate student), thetwo got to know each other well later on in life. Dame Kathleenremembers one occasion in particular when Margaret Thatcher wasSecretary of State for Education, she invited her to Manchester toopen a college of Further Education. Thatcher knew little aboutFE at the time, so Kathleen briefed her the night before and wasamazed at how expert she sounded the next day. “You would havethought she had known about it all her life!”But perhaps Kathleen’s fondest memories of Somerville concernthe friendship she struck up with Principal Helen Darbishire,a renowned Wordsworth scholar. Kathleen’s husband Robertdelighted the Principal one day with his extemporary verse “Forgiveme to remark, with the slightest touch of malice, That the strawsin Wordsworth’s hair would thatch the Crystal Palace!” Despite (orbecause of) the teasing, the Ollerenshaws became fast friends withMiss Darbishire and visited her in the Lake District every year inher retirement.Dame Kathleen’s lunch was attended by 25 friends and colleagueswith speeches from The Principal, Professor Sir Martin Taylor,Warden of Merton College and of course, Dame Kathleen herself.We were delighted to welcome her back.

Somerville Magazine | 29Events 2012-131962 Golden Reunion22 June 2012The 50th anniversary of their matriculationwas celebrated by 38 members of the 1962year group, with a weekend of events andrecollections.Garden Party 201223 June 2012Somerville London Group:An evening at Strawberry Hill House19 July 2012Somervillians of all ages and their familiesreturned to Oxford to attend the GardenParty. Wet weather meant that we had torelocate to the Hall, but our spirits weren’tdampened.The London Group enjoyed a wonderful evening at Strawberry Hill House. A tour ofthe house was followed by supper, during which the Principal gave a talk about theLewis Walpole Library at Yale – the prime source for the study of Horace Walpole andStrawberry Hill.Gaudy 201223 June 2012The Gaudy this year was for those whomatriculated between 1956 and 1966. Theevening’s black tie dinner was a glitteringoccasion, followed the next day by afascinating talk from Alex Rogers, Professorof Conservation Biology, on the topic‘Exploring the Submarine Mountains ofthe Oceans’.Somerville London Group:Talk by Vice-AdmiralPhilip Jones Gaudy 201227 September 2012Vice-Admiral Philip Jones, Fleet Commanderof the Royal Navy, spoke to the London Groupon the subject of the role of the Navy in the21st century.Concert for the Somerville Campaign6 October 2012To celebrate the College’s success, and to mark the start of the finalphase of its £25 million campaign, Somerville held a magical concertfeaturing soprano Emma Kirkby and lutenist Jakob Lindberg, at theAshmolean Museum.

30 | Somerville MagazineSomerville London Group: Private View of the Fleming Gallery19 November 2012The Somerville London Group returned to the Fleming Gallery for a private view of the exhibition of the Scottish Colourist GeorgeLeslie Hunter, along with a significant selection of works from the permanent collection in the new Upper Gallery.1972 Reunion10 November 2012The 1972 Reunion took place in College.We were fortunate to have two formerChairs of the Somerville Association inattendance, Karen Richardson and KayBrock, and the group enjoyed lunch inHall before having the opportunity to visitthe new ROQ buildings.Somerville Carol Concert29 November 2012The Somerville Choir performed in the Chapel ata wonderful evening for donors and supporters,followed by festive refreshments in Hall.Somerville London Group: Kate Williams28 January 2013Kate Williams delighted the London Group with a lively talk on the extraordinary life ofJosephine Bonaparte on entitled ‘Mistress, Empress, Collector’.Honorary Fellows’Symposium18 February 2013We were delighted to welcome back many ofSomerville’s distinguished Honorary Fellowsto discuss wide-ranging topics, includingaccess and outreach, fundraising and theimportant role they continue to play inCollege life.“In the apt splendour of the Oxford and Cambridge club,Kate Williams brought to life in an entertaining way an oftoverlooked figure in history. Her talk, peppered withhumorous anecdotes, gave us a flavour of the colourful lifeof Josephine Bonaparte, who was in many ways justas remarkable as her husband.”Dan Harris (History, 1997)Somerville Lawyers Group28 February 2013Laurence Marks gave a fascinating talk entitled ‘“Lest We Forget”: Miscarriagesof Justice’, focusing on the murder trials of Ruth Ellis, Craig & Bentley andChristie & Evans. All of these cases involved highly controversial sentences ofcapital punishment in the decade or so before its abolition.Winter Meeting9 March 2013Lady Amanda Harlech, long-term creativecollaborator of Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi inRome and Chanel in Paris, was the guestspeaker. She spoke on the subject of Cartesde Tendresse, a reflective look back at heramazing career and fashion journey.Parents’ Lunch Winter Meeting9 March 2013The second lunch for parents was a great success, with Hall filled to capacitywith students and their families. This was a great opportunity for parents tolearn more about College life, with the proceedings rounded off with a talk anda lively musical performance from Benjamin Thompson.

Somerville Magazine | 31Somerville London group:Tour of the FoundlingMuseum12 March 2013The Somerville London Group enjoyed aprivate visit to the Foundling Museum,where tour guides explained the history ofthe Museum and members were able to visittheir special exhibition “Fate, Hope andCharity” – tokens left by mothers with theirbabies which offer a glimpse into the lives ofordinary women in the 18th century.Edinburgh Reunion16 March 2013Somervillians from all over Scotlandgathered at the home of Sir Geraldand Lady Elliot where they enjoyedlunch as well as talks from ProfessorCarole Hillenbrand OBE (OrientalStudies, 1968, and HonoraryFellow) and Dr Anne Manuel, CollegeLibrarian and Archivist.Somerville City andLawyers Groups:Talk by Sir Hector Sants18 March 2013The City and Lawyers groups joined togetherfor this talk by Sir Hector entitled ‘Whatdoes the financial crisis tell us about howprofessionals in the financial services shouldbehave?’.“I think it would be an understatementto say it was a resounding success. We allhad an amazing time.”Iain Cox (History, 2004)Historians’ Dinner23 March 201329 Historians from the 2000-2009 matriculation years returnedto Somerville for a traditional-style Historians’ Dinner. Thetutors spoke about their current research and some of thereturning Somervillians gave presentations on life since College.“A wonderful evening to indulge in some high quality historicaldebate whilst serenaded by Benjamin Thompson’s exquisitesinging.”Patrick Cassidy (History, 2004)“Seated in Somerville Dining Hall, surrounded by myclassmates and copious amounts of red wine, I am remindedthat the history dinner always repeats itself.”Alex Starritt (History, 2004)Medics Day20 April 2013The theme for this year’s Medics Day was ‘Tomorrow’s Health Service: Evolution or Revolution?’. Over 50 alumni came back to College to heara range of talks on this subject, with speakers including Dr Susanna Graham-Jones (1968), Sophie Corlett (1982) and Jenny Wright (1969).Madrid Reunion26 April 2013As part of the University’sEuropean Reunion in MadridSomerville held a dinner atThe Ritz. The elegant andsophisticated surroundingsas well as the sparklingconversation made this avery special occasion.“It will stay in my memory for many years to come! Everythingran so smoothly, and I am sure I speak for all attendees whenI say we felt very well looked after. It was a true ‘cultureintellectual-culinary-fest’from start to finish! … It was lovely tohave so much time to catch up and also have conversations withthe Principal and her husband, as well as my fellow alumni. Ihave never felt more like a true Somervillian as well as a trueOxonian! Wonderful all round.”Sue Canderton (Hutchison, English, 1987)

Somerville CollegeFAMILY FUN DAYA celebration of learning14 SEPTEMBER 2013, 2PM - 5PM.Free admissionOn Saturday 14 September, Somerville will behosting its first ever Family Fun Day.This is a wonderful chance to bring your family back to College to enjoy fun activities forall ages, including a climbing wall, archery, zorb racing, science workshop,storytelling and much more.In addition, there will be the opportunity to listen to subject talks by some of Somerville’stutors, tour the College and find out about student life at Somerville today.This is a new and exciting initiative which has been very generously sponsored by one of ouralumni. Numbers are limited and tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis,so we would advise an early response.For information about how to book, and to find out about other events runby Somerville, please visit: www.some.ox.ac.uk/AlumniEvents