University College Oxford Record 2020

brilliant tactician, negotiator and trial lawyer with
a strong moral compass.
Dan cared deeply for his family, was loyal to
and cherished by his friends, and was dedicated to
his clients, who frequently became friends as well.
Married for 46 years to his wife, Susan, he was a
loving husband, father and grandfather. Unhesitating
in his values, he always prioritized time with his
children, and was their biggest cheerleader.
He pursued all of his interests with passion and
intensity. He was an avid tennis player, watercolor
painter, wine lover and collector of early
American paintings and silver. A voracious and
wide-ranging reader, Dan was also a tremendous
correspondent and communicator, keeping in
steady touch with friends both old and new.
Born on January 1, 1939, in Brooklyn, New
York, Dan was a proud graduate of Poly Prep
Country Day School, Harvard College, Harvard
Law School and University College Oxford.
Dan is survived by his wife, Susan Pollack, his
son and daughter-in-law Sam Pollack and Laura
Pollack and their three children Lillian, Hannah and
Ethan, his daughter and son-in-law Gaby Mishev
and Rob Mishev and their two children, Lila and
Maggie, and his sister, Stephanie Miller. Dan was
loved by many and will be deeply missed.
1961:
MUHAMMED SANI DAURA
(Middle School, Katsina, Nigeria) died
on 19 October 2014 aged 81. He was
at Univ for a year on the Overseas
Services Course arranged by the
Colonial Service.
PETER GEORGE SISSONS
(Liverpool Institute High School) died
on 1 October 2019 aged 77. This
Photograph by Rory Lewis
shortened version of an obituary by Stephen
Bates is reproduced by permission of The
Guardian:
Of all the many news bulletins Peter Sissons
read over a 45-year career with ITN, Channel
Four and the BBC, the one he will probably be
remembered for is the Easter Saturday broadcast
in 2002 when he told the nation that the Queen
Mother had died aged 101.
The programme showed Sissons at his best:
able to react immediately, live on air, to changing
news. The fact that he did so while wearing a
burgundy-coloured tie instead of a black one,
however, produced a furore in the tabloid press,
which used the trivial issue of the supposed
insensitivity of his neckwear to indulge its
traditional sport of berating the corporation.
The veteran newsreader was scarcely to
blame, though the BBC allowed him to shoulder
most of the responsibility. The news had broken
only a few minutes before the bulletin was due to
air and he had been told by a producer to “skip
the black...she had to go some time”.
A former colleague at Channel 4 News, the
Guardian journalist Anne Perkins, recalled: “He
was absolutely professional. We would often
go into the studio not knowing who the main
interviewee was or news would break while we
were live on air and I never saw him flummoxed.
On the programme after the Brighton
bomb in 1984, I was handing him
handwritten notes and he read them,
never fluffing.”
On the day of Princess Diana’s
death in 1997, Sissons was on air for
more than 10 hours. “I made up the
editorial policy as I went along,” he said
later. “I ignored the guidance which
was that it would be inappropriate
82 University College Record | October 2020