Daphne Park Memorial book 3_3.indd - Somerville College

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Conservative policies. Having received what she described as a ‘brisk’ encouragementfrom the Prime Minister to differ whenever she wished to, she accepted. And she didindeed run into trouble with the Whips for her strenuous criticism of the government’spolicies towards the universities. Higher Education, and its needs, including studentloans, were her first interest as a life peer and a continuing one. In 2000 she spokeeloquently in a debate on Higher Education, to dispel long-lasting misconceptionsabout Oxford’s admissions policy. But by now her main interests were different andher membership of Committees and Sub-Committees correspondingly onerous. Theinterests included, besides Defence and Foreign Affairs, Northern Ireland, and shespoke on the Northern Ireland Peace Process when she was already seriously ill andonly a few days before entering hospital.I will end by returning to the beginning of Daphne’s life peerage. She was moved to tearsby the admission ceremony. At the time, I did not fully understand her emotion, thoughI felt moved myself by the matchless prose forming part of the ceremony. But now thatI have read a piece written by Professor Anna Davies, after Daphne’s death, I think I dounderstand, though I shall express the matter rather differently. Daphne was movedbecause she felt that she was once again a public servant, able to express her love for hercountry, and to do so now with no need for concealment. She was in her defining roleagain but in the open, where she had perhaps often wished to be in the past.10
African ChildhoodFrom the Profile of Daphne Park by Caroline Alexander,The New Yorker, 30 January 1989MISS PARK’S FATHER, John Alexander Park, while a young man attending Queen’sUniversity, Belfast, had contracted tuberculosis, and his family sent him to South Africafor a “cure” in the healthy climate. Within a very short period of time after his arrival,in 1894, he had given away all the money they had supplied him with. “What exactlyhappened to it I don’t know, but he was fairly shortly working in the mines – perhaps notthe best place for someone with TB” Miss Park observed dryly.He later ran a store on the high veldt, then became interested in seeing a bit more of thecountryside, and so walked north through what was then Rhodesia, settling in Nyasaland(now Malawi) in 1905, where he began to grow tobacco. When the First World Warbroke out, he became an Intelligence officer for the Nyasaland Frontier Force, and waseventually wounded and transferred to Roberts Heights, a hospital in South Africa. Hehad come from a scholarly family—his father, who held the Chair of Moral Philosophy atQueen’s University, had spoken Latin, Greek, or Hebrew with him on their Sunday walks—and some years before the war, being lonely for intellectual exchange, had advertised inthe Cape Times for a pen friend “interested in philately and philosophy” and had receiveda reply signed “A.C.G.” During his convalescence, he wrote to his friend saying, “My dearchap, I’ll come over and meet you,” and they arranged to meet in Pietermaritzburg.“I’m not sure at what stage A.C.G. told him that she was a woman—whether he knewbefore he got off the train,” Miss Park said. “Anyway, she met him, and she broughtalong her daughter – my mother – who was very beautiful. My father fell in love with thedaughter at first sight, and they were married six months later.” John Park was forty-four,and his bride, Doreen Gwynneth Cresswell-George, only nineteen. Her father had cometo South Africa from Britain in order to seek his fortune, the family’s money having beensquandered by his stepfather, who had a fondness for playing the horses.The couple left the tobacco plantation to go to England for the birth of their first child,and Daphne Park was born in Surrey, on September 1, 1921. Before leaving Africa, herfather had made arrangements with his partner, a defrocked Portuguese priest whomeveryone had warned him against, to see to the drying, insurance, and shipment of hisbumper tobacco crop. The tobacco arrived at its destination musty, totally ruined, anduninsured; Park returned to discover that the partner had made off with everything hecould from the plantation. After debts had been paid, nothing remained to Park except his11
Page 1: Daphne Park1921-2010MEMORIALTRIBUTE
Page 4 and 5: ContentsForeword by Dr Alice Procha
Page 6 and 7: Address given by Miss Barbara Harve
Page 8 and 9: ecame, the servant of a country tha
Page 10 and 11: Nevertheless, these stories are maj
Page 14 and 15: ifle. Nevertheless, his young wife
Page 17 and 18: SchoolIN HER OWN WORDS:I LOVED SCHO
Page 19 and 20: presented the play, I duly delivere
Page 21: War ServiceFrom the Profile of Daph
Page 24 and 25: The Secret Intelligence ServiceMemo
Page 26 and 27: to exercise it. Nevertheless much s
Page 28 and 29: say, as a conservative cross benche
Page 30 and 31: Daphne, this moral dimension of hum
Page 32 and 33: The following accounts of some of D
Page 34 and 35: On June 30, 1960, independence was
Page 36 and 37: that there would be a lot of armed
Page 38 and 39: it. Weevils and worms used to come
Page 40 and 41: leave, and the Mongols would supply
Page 43 and 44: thought, slightly amused Miss Marpl
Page 45 and 46: one or the other type, millionaires
Page 47 and 48: she gave to the New Yorker in 1989,
Page 49 and 50: Even better, of course, was really
Page 51: Wolfson during the afternoon with a
Page 54 and 55: DAPHNE WAS THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COL
Page 57 and 58: Member of the Sheffield Development
Page 60: Somerville CollegeOxford OX2 6HDTel

Daphne Park Memorial book 3_3.indd - Somerville College

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?