AnnuAL rePOrt 2011 - Winchester College

InVestIng
In the
fUtUre
dAMIAn
hArPer
As guest editor, Old Wykehamist Damian Harper (I, 1977-1982)
appraises Winchester through five stories that testify to the School’s
status as one of the UK’s most progressive academic institutions
and outstanding centres of learning.
The academic culture of Winchester rewards
voracious minds with intellectual sustenance,
cultivating powers of reason that once stimulated,
insist on growth. The influence of this culture
comes to Wykehamical minds during a boy’s
most intellectually formative years, sowing seeds
that may instantly leaf into heightened scholarly
curiosity or, at the very least, ready themselves
for the moment to do so.
I was a late developer, both physically and
intellectually. I don’t recall my Winchester reports
with requisite clarity but they may have identified
‘an unrivalled capacity for day-dreaming and
flights of fancy’. This dreaminess naturally
resulted in an absence of focus, but it certainly
provided me with an appetite for the uncommon
and a taste for the unusual.
of all my academic memories at Winchester,
my first contact with t.s. eliot’s The Waste Land
was an instant of intellectual voltage that has
illuminated my emotional and cognitive life ever
since. I was mentally brought to heel by this poem
in a moment of reorientation that remains with
me still. Language, and its effects, consequently
became rather an obsession. My seed had belatedly,
and unexpectedly, leafed.
despite being suddenly bewitched by the
power of words, an inexplicable drift towards
Biology A-Level at the expense of english was
only corrected by the timely intervention of my
inspirational teacher, tommy Cookson (eternal
thanks). tommy called me in for a chat to remind
me briefly and succinctly that english was up my
street; ‘so do the right thing, drop Biology and
Bob’s your uncle’ (or words to that effect).
My compass failed to find a true sense of
direction until october 1991 and the start
of a four-year degree in modern and classical
Chinese at London’s school of oriental and
African studies (soAs). The path to soAs had
led from a three-year degree in history of Art
at Leeds University and a six-year career in
bookselling. A sudden fascination for China
had demanded attention (no proven ability in
foreign languages being a mere technicality)
and through my degree I found my wife,
my specialisation and my career.
After 15 years of working as a specialist,
writing guidebooks on China (Lonely Planet,
national geographic) and working as a translator,
I occasionally lose sight of what drew me to the
country in the first place. This forgetfulness also
has its own reward, as I learn to see this surprising
country afresh, ceaselessly discovering new and
unusual things to write about. The blinding
ferocity of a snow storm on the slopes of Buddhist
Wutaishan last May perhaps, discerning faint
slogans from the Cultural revolution on the walls
of Jiayuguan fort, almost scoured to invisibility
by the gobi winds, or becoming entranced by
the devotion of tibetan pilgrims in southern
gansu province.
The work is demanding, but constantly satisfying.
There are enormous distances, terrible deadlines
and difficult hotel staff to endure, but sandwiched in
between are eye-opening panoramas, some staggering
sunsets and mesmerizing images of a nation
undergoing a quite extraordinary transformation.
10 WINCHESTER COLLEGE
ANNUAL REPORT 2011
11