Univ Record 2018

1936
PETER LADE OLDFIELD (Lancing) died on 18 May
2017 aged 99. Peter’s widow Ilse has kindly supplied
this tribute for the Record.
On completing his education at Lancing College in
1936, Peter was accepted for training and a career at
the Bank of England. Almost immediately he decided
he was not suited for it, because he really wanted to
be a schoolmaster. He then read History at Univ. Like
most of his contemporaries at Oxford at that time he
was a pacifist, but once war was declared he and his
friends volunteered for war service. Because of a serious
eye defect Peter was unfit for combat duty, so he was
allocated to the RAMC for hospital administration.
Throughout his six years’ war service he was attached
to the 8th Army, setting up field hospitals, in charge
of medical records and any administrative duties, right
across North Africa, Sicily, Italy, including taking casualties from Monte Cassino, up to
Vienna. While the 70th British General Hospital was located in Pompeii from January
1944 to April 1945, Peter witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in March 1944
where, I believe, the British Army was involved in some rescue work.
On demobilisation he returned to Oxford to obtain his Diploma in Education and he
wished to teach medieval history at 6th Form level.
In 1947 he joined the staff at Chigwell School, one of the very few places then
teaching the medieval syllabus. He had a very successful teaching career there for 27
years. In fact he sent more scholarship candidates to Oxford than any master before or
since in the long history of the school.
Peter retired from teaching in 1974 and was very happy to lead a simple life in rural
Suffolk, pursuing his great love for English literature and poetry and his abiding interest
in politics, current affairs and cricket. His clear and very analytical mind as well as his
wonderful sense of humour stayed with him to the very end.
Peter married Suzanne Dougaud in 1948, who died in a road accident in 1965. In
1970 he married Ilse Wulf who survives him together with a son from his first marriage.
A younger colleague wrote of Peter: “Peter was a wise man, a sort of sage amidst the
chaos. Of course he was a medievalist, and that gave him a sense of proportion.”
1937
KRISHEN BEHARI LALL (Delhi University) died in January 2004 aged 88. He came up
to Univ as an India Civil Service Probationer.
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