Staff Newsletter - June/July 2011

All at sea: a remarkable war story page 8

Let’s get social: the rise of digital media page 6

The mAgAzine for The sTAff of The UniversiTy of CAmbridge JUne/JULy 2011

A special relationshipCambridge celebrates

2 | june/july 2011 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE NEwSlETTER

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newsLeTTerThe Newsletter is published for the staff of the University of Cambridge and is produced by the Office of External Affairs and Communications. Please send in ideas for content and other ways we can improve the publication. Tel: (3)32300 or email [email protected] for articles for the next edition should reach the Editor by 25 July.Editor: Andrew AldridgeDesign: www.creative-warehouse.co.ukPrinters: Labute PrintersContributors: Andrew Aldridge, Becky Allen, Alex Buxton, Fred Lewsey.

newsLeTTer onLinewww.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/newsletter

In flower: A new rose commissioned by Churchill College was unveiled at the Chelsea Flower Show last month. The Churchill Rose, developed as part of the college’s 50th anniversary celebrations by Peter Beales Roses, with help from members of the Churchill family, will be available commercially next year.

Overnight success: Madingley Hall has been voted the best ‘hotel’ for business travellers in an online survey. Laterooms.com, an online specialist in discount hotels across Europe, ranked entrants according to a combination of customer reviews and the number of corporate bookings. Madingley Hall, which now provides bed and breakfast in its tranquil surrounds, pipped hotels in Barcelona, Paris and Berlin.

up and running: The Sainsbury Laboratory, a state-of-the-art research facility made possible by an £82m grant from the Gatsby Foundation, was opened by Her Majesty the Queen in April. It will focus on addressing some of the key environmental problems facing the world today, including the increasing strain on the world’s food supplies.

CoverThe University and city came together to celebrate April’s Royal visit. For further details, turn to page 5.

2-5 news round-up

6-7 Getting practicalNew and social media are helping departments and institutions communicate in rich and innovative ways.

8-9 Making a differenceHumans have collected fossil sea urchins for hundreds of thousands of years. Why?

10-11 ProfileCustodian Ivan Waghorn remembers his time serving in the Navy during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

12 People

13 Prizes, awards and honours

14 Small ads

15 Inside the collegesA new book examines how the First and Second World Wars affected Downing College and its members.

16 Backpage Front cover photograph: Nigel Luckhurst

All at sea: a remarkable war story page 8

Let’s get social: the rise of digital media page 6

The mAgAzine for The sTAff of The UniversiTy of CAmbridge

JUne/JULy 2011

A special relationshiproyal fervour returns

leaf alone: Deadly seeds, ferocious spines and irritating hairs are all ways in which plants defend themselves against animals. These and other grisly defence mechanisms are featured in the latest Cambridge Ideas film Don’t Eat the Plants, which sets out to dispel the notion that plants are largely harmless and defenceless. To view the film, log on to http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/video-and-audio/.

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june/july 2011 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE NEwSlETTER | 3

whAT’s new Your comments and contributions are always welcome. Please send them to the Editor at [email protected] deadline for the next issue is 25 july.

SEvEN CAMBRIDGE ACADEMICS have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society.

Andrew Balmford, Professor of Conservation Science in the Department of Zoology and a Fellow of Clare, is recognised for his work on the relationship between people and the global loss of nature and its practical implications for conservation.

Director of the NanoPhotonics Centre at the Cavendish Laboratory and a Fellow of Jesus, Professor Jeremy J Baumberg is honoured for his development of a number of seminal experimental techniques in condensed matter physics.

Professor Béla Bollobás, Honorary Professor in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, has been a Fellow of Trinity since 1970. He is one of the world’s leading mathematicians in

the field of combinatorics. Britain is now one of the strongest countries for probabilistic and extremal combinatorics in the world: this is almost entirely due to Professor Bollobás’s influence.

Clare P Grey is Geoffrey Moorhouse Gibson Professor at the Department of Chemistry. She is distinguished for her extensive studies on the use of oxides and lithium-based materials in rechargeable batteries and fuel cells.

Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor and Director of Research at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, and a Fellow of Selwyn, is recognised for his contributions to electron microscopy of materials.

Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, and Director of the Institute of Astronomy, Professor Rob Kennicutt is regarded as one of the most influential

Professor Clare P Grey and Professor Rob Kennicutt were among seven Cambridge academics elected Fellows of the Royal Society

CAM – THE UNIvERSITY’S award-winning alumni magazine – celebrates its 21st birthday next term.

First published in 1990, the inaugural issue included a feature examining the Gulf crisis and a review of Clive James’s memoir May Week Was in June.

Twenty-one years later and the magazine, which was relaunched in spring 2009 with a new editorial and design team, is as cutting edge today as when it started.

CAM was launched to keep alumni in touch with the work of the University but, says Peter Agar, the University’s Director of Development and Alumni Relations, it has always prided itself on retaining an independent editorial voice and addressing a wide spectrum of issues. “In the coming edition we have features on the pleasures of

Cambridge Alumni Magazine

Issue 59 Lent 2010

In this issue:

Derivatives for mortgages

The language collector

The future of the UN

Antarctic heroism

Bull College, Cambridge

A year of celebration

cycling, the future of super computers and the state of intellectual thought in public life,” he says.

“CAM presents big ideas through a Cambridge lens, and the editorial vision of

Mira Katbamna, with the work of Managing Editor Morven Knowles, has made it a world-class magazine.”

Since its inception, the magazine has had a number of supporters, most notably Sir Paul Judge, who has remained involved with CAM since its launch. The late Peter Richards, who was editor between 1994 and 2007, was another influential figure.

In 2010, the magazine won the Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year, becoming the first non-US publication to receive this honour in 67 years. To view the latest issue, visit http://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/news/cam/.

CAM reaches milestone

Academics honoured by royal society

astronomers in the world. He is recognised for furthering knowledge of star formation and the chemical evolution of galaxies.

Simon Tavaré is Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Professor of Cancer Research (Bioinformatics) in Department of Oncology, Senior Group Leader in the Cancer Research

UK Cambridge Research Institute and a Fellow of Christ’s. He is recognised for contributions to the study of combinatorial stochastic processes, population genetics, computational biology and statistical bioinformatics.

The Cambridge academics were among 44 new Fellows and eight Foreign Members admitted to the society this year.


CoLLege news

women’s word festival returnsTHE THIRD WOMEN’S Word festival gets underway on 24 June with a cast of leading authors, critics and poets giving talks and debates at Lucy Cavendish College.

Among the many female writers and thinkers taking part are Natasha Walter, pictured, (who will be in conversation with journalist and novelist Allison Pearson), Jill-Paton Walsh and literary critic Elaine Showalter. Broadcaster and performer Sandi Toksvig will be the host at a literary dinner on Friday, 24 June, while PD James will talk about her life as a crime novelist a couple of days later.

Other participants include the poet Wendy Cope, psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe, who will be interviewed by Sophie Hannah, and Jane Shaw, who will discuss her latest book Octavia, Daughter of God: the Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers.

Women’s Word, which is organised

and run by Lucy Cavendish, was set up as a festival devoted to women who use words in different ways – from novelists and poets to politicians and scientists. Each year, it takes a broad theme. Two years ago that was women’s imagination and the female response to a long tradition of men’s writing. Last year crime predominated. This weekend’s events

Christ’s unveils new artworksCHRIST’S COLLEGE CHAPEL has a new altarpiece by Leverhulme Artist in Residence Tom de Freston.

Mr de Freston, who previously held the Levy Plumb visual Arts Residency at Christ’s, worked on the two paintings – Deposition and Resurrection – for two years.

The paintings were unveiled on Easter Sunday at a service in the chapel that also saw music from the college choir and a conversation about the installation between the artist and chaplain the Reverend Christopher Woods.

Reverend Woods spoke warmly of the paintings: “The de Freston altarpiece is a new reflection for our time on the human reality of falling to the depths of despair, yet rising again abundantly to life and hope.”

sidney’s weekend of arts

SIDNEY SUSSEx’S BIENNIAL arts festival will take place on 25 June with a line-up that takes in jazz, chamber music, comedy, film and opera.

Highlights include the Shadwell Opera performing scenes from Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, the Choir of Sidney Sussex performing works by Eric Whitacre, and Pheon

Productions’ Once Upon a Dream, which features performances of songs from classic animated films.

There will also be a performance of JS Bach’s The St Matthew Passion on Friday, 24 June at 8pm in the college chapel to launch the festival.For further information visit http://www.sidneyartsfestival.co.uk/.

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TRINITY HAS ANNOUNCED that the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds will join the college as Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts for two years from October this year.

The college has for more than 30 years supported a series of Fellow Commoners in Creative Arts to contribute to the artistic education of its members and to assist artists at the beginning of their careers.

Mr Ešenvalds is the latest in a distinguished line of composers appointed to the post. Others have included Nicholas Maw, Judith Weir, Thomas Adès, Richard Causton and Tarik O’Regan.

will once again touch on crime fiction, as well as the gendered nature of readerships, as embodied in the panel discussion ‘Why don’t men read books by women?’

Lucy Cavendish President Professor Janet Todd said Women’s Word was growing in strength as a literary festival. “As well as being a festival of writers and speakers, it’s also a forum for issues relating to women. This year all types of fiction are represented: from crime to children’s fantasy, and controversial issues of gendered readership and gendered brains – and a great deal besides.”

Trinity appointment

➔ For further details on events and speakers, log on to http://www.womensword.co.uk

➔ For booking, visit www.adcticketing.com.

find oUT more


whAT’s new

discover Cambridge with new iphone app

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Royal visit: Her Majesty the Queen is shown a model of the Sainsbury Laboratory by the building’s architect Alan Stanton (far right), while Director Elliot Meyerowitz and the University’s vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz look on. Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visited Cambridge in April to open the laboratory and attend a lunch and garden party at St John’s to celebrate the college’s 500th anniversary. At St John’s the Queen viewed the newly restored foundations of the original medieval chapel, lunched with fellows and students, and attended a garden party. A couple of days later Prince William and Catherine Middleton became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

WANT TO STAY up-to-date with news and events from within the University through your iPhone? The new University of Cambridge app enables you to do just that.

Available through the Apple store, the iPhone app contains a news feed on the latest research news from Cambridge, with embedded social media allowing users to share stories and other content through sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and an events service that lists exhibitions, festivals, lectures and other activities happening across the University and the city.

An interactive map features University departments, colleges and other places of interest. A handy search function enables people to locate key buildings.

Users can also access videos and audio media through the app,

including the Cambridge Ideas series of films and other content located on the University’s YouTube and iTunesU channels.

In addition to these functions, iPhone users can search and explore Cambridge’s library collections, view and renew items on loan and manage requests.

The iPhone app, which is free to download, has proved popular with customers and staff. “A great app – everything you need to know about Cambridge in one place,” as one put it.

For more information, click on the iPhone icon at www.cam.ac.uk.


geTTing prACTiCAL

new connectionsNew and social media are changing the way people across the University and colleges interact. Four members of staff share their experiences of communicating in the digital age

“TWITTER IS USED at the University Library to keep our readers informed about what we do and to open up an informal channel of communication. Our followers have responded well, engaging us in casual conversations and disseminating news, which increases traffic to our website and raises our profile externally and internally.

We started using Twitter two years ago to advertise news items and last-minute changes to services. Our news and diary items are Tweeted automatically, and the number of automatic feeds has grown as projects and departments have started keeping their own blogs. Contributions come from a large group of staff and across a wide range of interests as department heads highlight the hidden treasures in their collections.

The real value of Twitter for us,

though, is the immediate, personal and informal contact it allows. We always try to reply to followers who mention us directly – typically a casual reference to the Library, or to raise a point of interest. Our followers enjoyed the recent picture of our ducklings, and have risen to the challenge of identifying a mystery object found in the tower. Tweets about our John Speed maps – now online – complemented press coverage to make the maps page the second most viewed on our website.

We now have approaching 2,000 followers, many of whom actively engage with us in ways that they perhaps wouldn’t have before. Twitter has opened up a new line of communication and we hope we can continue to reach out to our users in new, as well as more traditional ways.”Twitter.com/theul

TWITTER Laura Waldoch, Digital Library Services Officer, Cambridge University Library

“THE OFFICE OF ExTERNAL Affairs and Communications transferred its photo library to Flickr a year ago to create a more open and accessible University resource that also doubles up as an external communications channel.

Other departments can sign up to Flickr and get in touch with us, at which point we connect them to our Flickr stream by listing them as ‘family’. The department can then download high resolution imagery from our Flickr site for use in print publications and websites. We currently have more than 100 departments and University organisations listed as part of our Flickr ‘family’.

Our Flickr stream has more than 3,000 images available for download, ranging from shots of University and college buildings to portraits of staff and events. In a recent development, we have joined forces with local photographer Sir Cam,

who has become the University’s official photo-diarist, producing photographs of the Science Festival, the Polar Museum and other projects.

We also use the site as a way of engaging external digital users. As with all our social media streams, our Flickr site is highlighted on the University homepage, and we use other networks such as Facebook and Twitter to point people to interesting content on our Flickr stream.

Photography is great for this kind of communication as it is immediate and evocative. To date we have had more than 700,000 views for our imagery.”

For more information about signing up to the Flickr stream, visit the Office of External Affairs and Communications’ website at www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/communications/services/photo.html

FLICKR Fred Lewsey, Design and Editorial Officer, Office of External Affairs and Communications


“THE ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE set up its Facebook account in spring 2009 and currently has about 4,500 people who ‘like’ its page. We carried out a number of surveys with a range of alumni, and it was clear that Facebook was the social networking site that they used most frequently. For us, it is one of the most effective ways to communicate with alumni, and the number of people who ‘like’ our page grows steadily.

We trialled Facebook advertising last year and that was a successful way of increasing our numbers. As far as promotion of the page itself goes, it is featured in all of our printed materials, such as CAM and the alumni weekend brochure, as well as on the website and e-bulletin.

We primarily use our Facebook page to interact with alumni and re-engage them with Cambridge. Not only does it update them on current news, events and alumni benefits, but it is also used as a marketing tool, to gauge opinions on a range of issues, and encourage a feeling of nostalgia for the University.

Photos of Cambridge and news stories of academic successes generate a lot of comments and ‘likes’. There is also a regular Friday quiz question and photo competitions – both of which are popular.

As we improve our online services, developing bespoke networks for alumni to interact, they will be able to integrate their Facebook profiles.”facebook.com/cambridgealumni

FACEbOOK Anna Kay, Alumni Relations Assistant, benefits and Communications, Alumni Relations Office

new connections“SINCE JULY 2008, the faculty and guest speakers of the Cambridge Judge Business School have featured in a broad range of podcasts produced for the School’s website and the University’s iTunesU portal.

In a collection that now includes about 360 individual podcasts and spans 25 distinct themes, we feel we have developed a powerful resource for those interested in topical research and leadership on subjects such as finance, economics, entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing and strategy.

The material covers the period before, during and after the recent global financial crisis and is considered to be an important business archive worthy of digital preservation by the British Library.

The podcasts are a combination of expert commentary, analysis and business insights from the School’s

faculty, associates and guest speakers. Podcasts by members of the faculty focus on their recent research publications and findings, while guest speakers often offer to be interviewed on their areas of interest while lecturing at the School. All the podcasts are audio interviews, although we are just about to start issuing videos of key lectures with accompanying podcasts.

The podcasts are also drawing increasing attention from the media and are responsible for a significant proportion of the School’s press coverage. Averaging 500 downloads a day, audio content is a key part of our new media strategy, and iTunesU works well as an easily searchable repository of educational material, and engaging and provoking debate on breaking news stories and global issues.”www.cam.ac.uk/video/itunesu.html

iTUNESPeter Graham, Online Communications Manager, Cambridge Judge business School

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EACH MORNING HUNDREDS of undergraduates pour into the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms. Many exchange a friendly smile with Ivan Waghorn, custodian of the building. None, however, are likely to be aware of the extraordinary series of events that took place in Ivan’s life when he was their age. Almost half a century ago, he played a part in an episode of 20th century history that almost cost him his life, and for which he and many other former servicemen have now been recognised with an award from the Malaysian government.

It was August 1962 when Ivan, then a 19-year-old Able Seaman in the Royal Navy, boarded the frigate HMS Loch Fada and set sail from Portsmouth to the Far East. Their destination was Singapore, and their mission was to give military support to the Malayan government in its confrontation with Indonesia over the future of the island of Borneo. Until 1957, Malaya was a British colony, as were two northern states of Borneo – Sarawak and Sabah. Brunei, another state within the island, was a British protectorate until 1984.

Now widely known as Konfrontasi, the conflict between Malaya and Indonesia was an undeclared war that took place deep in the forests of Borneo within areas accessible only by river or helicopter. In the early 1960s, the British and Malayan governments proposed the formation of a new federation of Malaysia, encompassing Malaya, Sarawak, Sabah,

Brunei and Singapore. The proposal was opposed by Indonesia.

The situation was complicated by a communist insurgency: left-wing cells with their roots in the local urban Chinese communities supported the unification of former British territories in Borneo to form an independent state. Britain and other major world powers were keen to quash the rise of communism in the region.

Not surprisingly, the details of the politics of the Far East were hazy to Ivan, who was just 15 when he joined the Navy. He and his comrades aboard the Loch Fada had little idea of where they were going or why. “We were simply carrying out orders and doing our job,” he says.

After a couple of months on standby in Singapore, Ivan, a small group of seamen and an officer in charge were sent to a village of wooden huts on stilts on the banks of a river deep inside Sabah in north-east Borneo. Their role was to transport groups of Royal Marines and Gurkhas from HMS Loch Fada up the muddy, snake-infested rivers, and drop them at points where they could carry out patrols to deter the insurgents from attacking the local villages.

Communication was by means of radio and manoeuvres were overseen from Loch Fada, which was anchored out in Tawau Bay. “We were using small, local craft known as long boats that were fitted with outboard engines. Each boat was manned by three Navy personnel and carried patrols of six soldiers plus all their

equipment. The three of us would take turns to be coxswain, crew and bow.”

For several weeks, everything went smoothly. Then, on 23 February 1963, what should have been a routine trip between two rivers turned into a nightmare for Ivan and two friends.

“There was a sudden rainstorm and the wind blew up. The water became choppy and the sky turned dark. The boat was overwhelmed by a wave and started to sink,” he says.

The sinking long boat had been spotted from the decks of Loch Fada and rescue crafts were sent out to search for the three men. Darkness fell. Ivan’s comrades were picked up within two hours of the boat’s capsize – but Ivan was not found. Unaware of any rescue attempts, or the whereabouts of his friends, he spent the night floating alone in the sea, relying on the natural buoyancy provided by his thick navy uniform.

After an unbearably long night, dawn came and Ivan spotted a log. “It had several sea snakes lying across it – and I really don’t like snakes. I also knew they were poisonous. But I made myself get hold of it as I didn’t have the strength needed to carry on.”

As the sea calmed Ivan could see the tops of trees on the shore and the shape of the Loch Fada on the horizon. The sense of powerlessness that he felt – and the knowledge that he could die within sight of the ship – was something

Alone in the waves

Chief custodian Ivan Waghorn recalls an extraordinary few months serving in one of the UK’s lesser known conflicts

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The conflict between Malaya and Indonesia took place deep in the forests of borneo


impossible to describe in words. Soon after midday, and after 18 hours

in the water, Ivan heard a helicopter, and then watched as it flew between the Loch Fada and the shore several times, dropping off groups of men. Suddenly it made a diversion to where he was floating and he knew that he had been found.

“My skin was wrinkled and peeling off after spending so long in the sea water. I was totally drained, physically and mentally. When I was transferred from hospital to the sick bay on the Loch Fada, the two lads I’d been capsized with burst through the door. They were so glad to see me alive. Once I was back on duty I went to find the helicopter pilot, and he said that the person who deserved my thanks was his co-pilot who spotted me in the water. They weren’t even looking

for me any longer, which I found really shocking. I owe my life to him and to the fact that the water was warm.”

Ivan’s posting in the Far East came to an end on 22 November 1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. He remained in the Navy until 1988. In the late 1980s he took a job as site manager at Sawston village College, south of Cambridge, moving to his present job at the University 12 years ago.

In 1968 British servicemen who had served in Borneo were awarded campaign medals by the British government. In 2006 the Malayasian government decided to recognise the thousands of servicemen from the UK, Australia and New Zealand who had come to their aid between August 1957 and August 1966. The task of tracing this number of people, scattered throughout the world, was huge. Ivan

finally received the Pingat Jasa Malaysia medal in January this year.

The award means a tremendous amount to Ivan and many others around the world. He says: “A long time has passed since all this happened, and I find it hard to recall the exact sequence of events. However, what I have retained is the sense that we were there to help others far from home, risking our lives as young people. So the fact that the Malaysian government chose to recognise us in this way is wonderful.”

As for his time at Cambridge, he says: “I am now approaching retirement, and I have loved my time working at the University. I get to meet lots of top people who come to give lectures here. There’s nothing aloof about any of them, and the fact that I get along with them all makes my job a real pleasure.”

Above top left: Ivan Waghorn as a young Able Seaman in the early 1960s and today as Chief Custodian at Estate Management

Above: Gurkhas being ferried into the borneo jungle during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library

Inset: the Pingat Jasa Malaysia medal awarded to Ivan


mAking A differenCePH

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In 1990, Cambridge palaeontologist Kenneth McNamara stumbled on a poignant illustration in an obscure book by a victorian archaeologist. The find rekindled a childhood obsession and, after two decades of dogged research, he discovered it is an obsession that has been shared by humans for 400,000 years

THE FRONTISPIECE OF Worthington George Smith’s 1894 book Man, the Primeval Savage is as striking today as it must have appeared more than 100 years ago. Lying on her back, knees bent to form a lap, a skeleton’s head and torso are turned down and to the left towards the skeletal remains of the infant she seems to be cradling.

Smith – an ecclesiastical draughtsman turned botanical illustrator and amateur archaeologist – produced the image after unearthing the remains from a flattened Bronze Age burial mound on the chalky soil of Dunstable Downs in 1887.

But the extraordinary thing about Maud – the name he gave to the woman he found – is not when or where she was buried, but what was buried with her. Because around the skeletons Smith discovered not one or two but more than 200 fossil sea urchins.

Dr McNamara describes fossil urchins as “balls of flint engraved with a five-pointed star”. Found like other flints in layers of chalk, the fossils are all that remain of two extinct species of sea urchin known as Micraster and Echinocorys that burrowed in the mud on

The star-crossed stone


“I’m fascinated by the fact that people have been interested in this one obscure object for a phenomenal length of time”

the sea bed some 70 million years ago.“In life they had a calcium carbonate

shell and inside there wasn’t much except guts and gonads,” he says.

“When they die the inner parts rot and there’s this complicated process of flint forming in chalk.

“At particular times you get a band of flint formed by silica from the great forest of sponges that lived on the sea floor. Given the right conditions it forms a silica gel that slowly dissolves, working its way down into the sediment, and the shell of one of these urchins is a perfect space –

an internal mould – for the silica to fill.”Like many fossil hunters, sea urchins

were prize trophies for the young McNamara on weekend forays to the beaches and South Downs near his childhood home in Brighton. “I scoured the downland quarries for urchins. I can’t say that I was ever very successful, but the feeling was always there that the next rock I hit with my hammer just might contain my Holy Grail.”

As the adult Dr McNamara began digging into the neglected history of the star-crossed stone, he unearthed an intimate human association with these obscure objects – and echoes of his own collecting – receding back in time for almost half a million years.

“I’ve been working on fossil urchins since the late 1970s because they are a great tool to use in evolutionary studies – my main interest – and they were one of the first fossil groups used after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to back up some of his ideas,” he says. “But I’m a palaeontologist, so this archaeological aspect was just a little hobby.”

His little hobby, however, turned into a book, The Star-Crossed Stone, revealing that, although Maud was buried with the largest number of fossil sea urchins ever found in a single grave, she was not unique. Humans and urchins have been interred together across thousands of miles and for thousands of years.

As well as in burials, fossil sea urchins have been found forming the centrepiece of carefully fashioned flint tools. And, most astonishing of all, this behaviour extended beyond our own species, Homo sapiens, to our ancestor Homo heidelbergensis and our fellow hominid, Neanderthal man.

“You find fossil sea urchins in tools or burials in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Niger,” says Dr McNamara.

“The oldest is in the Swanscombe hand axe, around 400,000 years old, and there others from the early Palaeolithic in France, so it’s not an isolated example.

“Fossil sea urchins began to appear in burials in the Neolithic period. They have been found in burials from the Bronze and Iron ages, are common in Anglo-Saxon graves and the most recent was found in a 12th century grave in a Jewish cemetery in London where a young boy was buried with them,” he says.

And Dr McNamara discovered even more recent vestiges of this shared history. At St Peter’s church in the Hampshire village of Linkenholt, he found

that during its rebuilding in the 1860s, key parts of the mediaeval structure were preserved, including dozens of fossil sea urchins used to decorate two of its windows.

“I’m fascinated by the fact that people have been interested in this one obscure object, and that you can track it for this phenomenal amount of time,” he says. “For 400,000 years, people have wanted to pick them up, which is an urge I’ve always had, and three species of hominid have done the same thing. It’s absolutely astounding.”

So how does he explain this enduring fascination with a simple ball of flint marked with a five-pointed star?

At one level, Dr McNamara believes it points to an ancient and deep-seated human trait. “So many people have this collecting urge,” he says. “And if you ask collectors, it’s more about the excitement of the hunt. I think for most people it’s not the possessing, it’s the finding of it.”

Which explains part, but not all, of the story. Like our ancestors we have an urge to collect, but why did they collect this one object with such a passion? The answer, Dr McNamara argues, lies in the five-pointed symmetry of the star-crossed stone.

According to other academics who work on the evolution of cognitive development, the appearance of bilaterally constructed tools is evidence of the mind beginning to think in abstract ways, and to appreciate the aesthetic. If that’s the case, it’s not hard to see the attraction of the five-pointed star. And it is not difficult to imagine these objects gradually assuming a spiritual significance, as representations in miniature of the human form, or the status of a lucky charm with powers to ward off evil.

Now that Dr McNamara’s book – 20 years in the making – has been published he admits to feeling slightly bereft. “It was hard work, but I loved writing it, and finishing it was traumatic.”

Perhaps a walk down King’s Parade in Cambridge will ease the loss, because there, as in so many city streets, echoes of the star-crossed stone are everywhere, carved into buildings, worked into flags and in consumer brands. Maud, it seems, will never be far from Dr McNamara.

Dr Kenneth McNamara is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences, Director of the Sedgwick Museum and a Fellow of Downing College. His book The Star-Crossed Stone is published by the University of Chicago Press.

Left: Dr Ken McNamara, Director of the Sedgwick Museum, holds two specimens of fossil sea urchinsbelow: Fossil sea urchins adorn the exterior of St Peter’s church in Linkenholt, Hampshire


peopLe

AppoinTmenTsobiTUAries

Tim evertonTim Everton became the first Dean of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education in August 2001, following the convergence between the University’s School of Education and the research and teaching activities of Homerton College. He succeeded Professor Donald McIntyre as Head of the new faculty, and led it with distinction and vision through its formative years.

Tim was a strategic thinker and a superb manager, who commanded respect throughout the University for his energy, fair-mindedness and ability to take tough decisions with grace and care.

➔ Professor Huw Price, currently Challis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney and Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, has been appointed to the Bertrand Russell Professorship in the Faculty of Philosophy. Professor Price, who will take up the appointment on the 1 October this year, succeeds Professor Simon Blackburn following his retirement. Professor Price is well-known for work in many areas of philosophy, especially the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of language and metaphysics. He has made substantial contributions to the study of time, truth and the nature of meaning.

➔ Professor Ian White has been elected the 40th Master of Jesus College with effect from 1st October. He will succeed Professor Robert Mair, who has been Master since 2001. Professor White was an undergraduate, graduate student and then Research Fellow at the college. He is van Eck Professor of Engineering in the University’s Engineering Department, Head of Photonics Research and Pro-vice-Chancellor for Institutional Affairs.

Lucy Capewell Lucy Capewell, New Media Manager in the Office of External Affairs and Communications, was the driving force behind much of the University’s work in digital and new media.

Lucy joined the University in 2006 after a 20-year career in broadcasting, most of which she spent working on television documentaries. Her brief at Cambridge was to lead the development of ‘new’

or web-based media and, in particular, to explore new avenues through which information about the University’s research could be delivered to a worldwide audience online.

Initially, she headed an operation called Cambridge Media, a joint venture between the Office of External Affairs and Communications and the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies, with collaboration from Apple. Cambridge Media produced a range of videos about the University’s work, including six short films about the Cambridge Science Festival. These were an instant hit, achieving 10,000 views and streams within 10 days of their release.

This success laid the ground for a series of projects that changed the way Cambridge communicated its research to the wider world. In particular, Lucy was responsible for the creation of Cambridge Ideas, a flagship series of short films and audio podcasts made by a team of broadcast professionals that showcased a wide variety of cutting edge research projects.

Initially launched as part of the 800th anniversary celebrations in 2009, the films were a major success. To date, 14 films and 10 podcasts have been released, garnering more than one million views.

Lucy’s tireless work was the single most important force in ensuring that Cambridge’s efforts to promote its research in new media are now fit for the future. She will be remembered fondly by the many friends she made along the way.

In October 2006, he resigned to pursue a new career in pub management, a dream he had nurtured from his student days.

He came to Cambridge from Leicester University, where he had been head of its teacher education PGCE course, as Deputy Principal of Homerton College, becoming a founding Fellow of the reconstituted college in 2001 and Emeritus Fellow in 2007.

In the early 1990s, Tim was a natural foil to the new Homerton Principal Kate Pretty, as they brought together Kate’s experience and insights of the University and Tim’s extensive knowledge of teacher education. Together, they worked dynamically to re-establish Homerton’s reputation as one of the leading teacher education institutions nationally, to develop closer links with the University, and to establish the college as an outstanding centre of educational research.

Tim was an enormous presence in Cambridge teacher education for more than 15 years. He was a calm, reflective presence, and his commitment to his colleagues and students all combined to make him an enormously engaging and human educationalist.


prizes, AwArds And honoUrs

➔ lord (Martin) Rees, Master of Trinity and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, was awarded the Templeton Prize in April.

He was presented with the prize by HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 1st June.

The prize is awarded annually by the Templeton Foundation, which

promotes research on ‘big questions’ in science, philosophy and theology (and which supports several projects in the University).

Lord Rees has authored and co-authored more than 500 research papers and written seven books, five for general readership. His latest book, From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons, based on his 2010 BBC Reith Lectures, is published this month.

Lord Rees said: “Some people might surmise that intellectual immersion in vast expanses of space and time would render cosmologists serene and uncaring about what happens next year, next week or tomorrow. But for me the opposite is the case.

“My concerns are deepened by the realisation that, even in a perspective extending billions of years into the future, as well as into the past, this century may be a defining moment.”

Lord rees awarded Templeton prize other awards

Leading academics honoured

➔ Professor Dame Athene Donald and Professor Dame Ann Dowling were among seven women at the forefront of science, engineering and technology who were honoured last month at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.

The two Cambridge academics were winners in the UKRC’s Women of Outstanding Achievement awards, which recognise women who are “an inspiration to others”.

The UKRC is the UK’s lead organisation for the provision of advice, services and policy consultation regarding the under-representation of women in science, engineering, technology and the built environment.

Professor Donald, pictured left, Professor of Experimental Physics and Director of the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor Dowling, Head of Department of Engineering, received the Inspiration and Leadership in Academia and Research Award.

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, chaired by Lord Willis of Knaresborough. He said: “The range and quality of nominations this year was exceptional, demonstrating the breadth of women’s contribution and impact across all areas of science, engineering and technology.”

➔ Mary Beard, Professor of Classics and Fellow of Newnham, delivered the 2011 AW Mellon Lectures in Washington. Her series of six lectures – ‘The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dali’ – took place between March and May at the National Gallery of Art. Professor Beard has also been elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and her BBC documentary Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town was nominated for a BAFTA.➔ Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture and Fellow of Clare, has been made President of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers.➔ Professor julian Dowdeswell was awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal of the European Geosciences Union at its annual meeting in vienna, Austria. The medal was awarded for “outstanding contributions to the study of polar ice masses and to the understanding of the processes and patterns of sedimentation in glacier-influenced marine environments”.➔ Dr Andrea Ferrari has been awarded the European Materials Research Society’s EU-40 Materials Prize, which recognises outstanding contributions to materials research by a scientist under 40. The award recognises Dr Ferrari’s many pioneering contributions to the field of carbon-based nanotechnology, in particular the establishment of the standard tools for spectroscopic characterisation of these materials.➔ Dr Andy Harter, visiting Fellow of the Computer Laboratory’s Digital Technology Group and a Fellow of St Edmund’s, has been named Businessman of the Year in the Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards. Dr Harter is responsible for vNC(R), a simple universal tool that allows any type of computer to access remotely the screen of any other type of computer. Dr Harter’s company RealvNC has partnered with many

well known companies, including Intel and Google. ➔ Mr Aishwarj Kumar, Language Teaching Officer in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, has been awarded the John Gilchrist Award for 2011 by the Indian High Commission for his work in teaching Hindi. The award is given yearly to a person who has contributed to the teaching of the language in the United Kingdom.➔ Professor Peter leadlay, Herchel Smith Professor of Biochemistry, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award having been nominated by the German scientist Professor Roderich Süßmuth of Technical University, Berlin. The award is made in recognition of lifetime achievements in research with recipients invited to carry out research projects of their choice in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany.➔ Stephen O’Rahilly, Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine, Co-Director of the Institute of Metabolic Science and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, has been elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. Each year the academy elects 72 new members and 18 Foreign Associates from all scientific disciplines. Professor O’Rahilly is distinguished for his research in metabolic and endocrine disease, and for his leadership in clinical science.➔ Dr Darin Weinberg, University Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and a Fellow of King’s, was winner of the 2011 Melvin Pollner Prize for his book Of Others Inside: Insanity, Addiction and Belonging in America. The Melvin Pollner Prize in Ethnomethodology is conferred by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. The award honours the intellectual spirit and memory of Melvin Pollner and is given to an outstanding book, article, or chapter that addresses issues relating to ethnomethodology in the inclusive sense reflected in Pollner’s intellectual and research concerns.

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inside The CoLLeges

IMAGINE CAMBRIDGE COLLEGES filled with men and women, the majority of whom, still in their early to mid-twenties, had just spent several years fighting in a global conflict. Those students would have seen friends and colleagues killed in horrific circumstances, they would be physically and mentally scarred, and would have returned to a country grappling with the social, economic and political fallout of war.

That might seem hard to imagine today, but that was the reality for many students who came up to Cambridge in the early-1920s and mid-1940s, as Downing and the Two World Wars makes powerfully clear.

This slim but fascinating book explores the impact of both conflicts on the college itself, and gathers testimony from those who, in the vast majority of cases, fought for their country. It follows a similar project undertaken by Girton College, which in 2009 published

Girtonians and the World Wars, a collection of articles that examined how women at the college contributed to the war efforts and the effect 1914-18 and 1939-45 had on their lives.

Peter Thomson, former President of the Downing College Association, and one of the book’s co-authors, acknowledges the debt he and his team owe to the Girton project, but adds that he had been thinking about gathering personal testimony from Second World War veterans for some time. “We realised that men who served in the Second World War were dying out and, if we wanted to know about their experiences, we needed to talk to them pretty quickly,” he says.

“Also, we wanted to produce a book that was interesting to alumni and historians – although it isn’t a work of scholarship – and to gather photographs and memorabilia for the college archive.”

The book is alive with the kind of vivid detail that gives the modern reader

a hint of both the heroism and horror of war. In the section dedicated to the First World War, we learn how a certain FR Leavis crawled along the roofs of moving ambulance trains that had no carriage connection to take drinks to the wounded. Leavis, who went up to Emmanuel in 1914, was a Fellow of Downing between 1930 and 1962, during which time he cemented his reputation as one of the most influential English literary critics of the 20th century.

While testimony relating to the 1914-18 conflict relies on letters and other archive sources, the authors have spoken to several dozen veterans from the Second World War. Their memories of almost unimaginable fighting are rendered with the objective precision normally associated with war correspondence. Here’s Bob Alan Russell, who transferred from the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers to the Indian Army, describing combat with the Japanese Army: “Many of our forward gun pits had to be abandoned and were then occupied by the enemy. Hand to hand encounter followed and I received a burst of machine gun fire in the left thigh which shattered the limb completely. This, along with other shrapnel wounds to the head and shoulders, made it difficult for me to fight on and I had to be evacuated.”

Elsewhere, there is a moving account of a student who spent three months in Strangeways Prison for conscientious objection, stories of children who had to get used to fathers they didn’t know, and a detailed account of the RAF’s requisitioning of the college during the Second World War.

It’s a moving, often fascinating read, that should appeal to members of the college and those with a wider interest in the personal impacts of these two 20th century conflicts.

A new book explores the impact that the First and Second World Wars had on Downing College, its students, Fellows and workers

for future generations

The authors have spoken to several dozen veterans from the Second World War

➔ Downing and the two World Wars, by Gwyn Bevan, John Hicks and Peter Thomson, is available from the Downing College Association, Downing College, Cambridge CB2 1DQ priced £12 plus £2 for postage and packaging. It can also be ordered via the association’s website. visit http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/dow_server/association/souvenirs.html

find oUT more

The Officer Training Corps outside Downing in 1916


bACk pAge

THE UNIvERSITY HAS joined forces with Watersprite, the Cambridge International Student Film Festival, to give staff, students and alumni the opportunity to submit films, either documentary or narrative, about Cambridge life – and win £350.

The brief has been kept as wide as possible to encourage a range of entries, with films being judged on originality, engagement and creativity. Participants can use a University or college location as a backdrop for a single scene, or base the entire film on a specific aspect of life at Cambridge. The My Cam competition is also an opportunity

to reveal the diversity of life at the University, and perhaps bust some myths along the way.

So what’s involved? The finished film should be between 90 seconds and six minutes in length. It can be shot on whatever equipment is to hand, even a mobile phone. If you would like to borrow a camera, the Office of External Affairs and Communications have a few hand-held Kodak Zi8s that can be used for a week at a time.

Entries should be submitted in one of two categories: Fiction (narrative film-making) or Snapshot (documentary film-making). There

will also be a public vote prize, judged using the University’s army of social media followers.

The winners of both categories will be treated to lunch at BAFTA with leading producer and former BAFTA chair Hilary Bevan-Jones.

For more information on the competition, along with videos and details on how to enter, visit www.cam.ac.uk/mycam.

The deadline for entries is 9 September 2011.

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Shooting short films is fun and easy, and here at Cambridge we have a treasure trove of potential subjects and settings. So why not enter the My Cam film competition?

show us your Cambridge

FOR MORE THAN 45 years, the Doctor’s arch enemies the Daleks have been striking fear into television viewers with their chilling war-cry of “Exterminate!”. Like the Doctor himself, they have become an icon of British culture. For many, hiding behind the sofa when they appear is virtually a rite of passage.

But just why are these heartless, metallic-shelled baddies just so frightening? Dr Robin Bunce, Bye-fellow of St Edmund’s and Director of Studies for Politics at Homerton, believes he has the answer.

He says the Daleks succeed in scaring us because they offer us a moral lesson in what it means to be

eX-TrA-po-LATe! moral philosophy and the daleksJust why is a master race of intergalactic pepperpots so terrifying?

human in the first place. They terrify us because the evil they represent is a more precise definition than that of philosophers stretching from Socrates to Kant. They are chilling, he argues, because they are a vision of what we ourselves might become.

“The reason the Daleks are evil is

because we recognise that they were once better – they are the nightmare future we dread,” he says.

“Once they were capable of genuine emotion and real moral good. Now they are sexless, heartless brains, shut up in machines and incapable of intimacy. They have

forgotten what it means to laugh and no longer think of themselves as individuals. We recognise the Daleks as evil because they have lost all that we hold most dear.”

Dr Bunce, whose study on the Daleks appears in his book Doctor Who and Philosophy, suggests that for the inhabitants of the 21st century the Daleks embody a fear of the triumph of technology and science over humanity. Once creatures like us, they have mutated into something far more sinister. Inside their metal shells, they have oversized brains representing the dominance of scientific reason at the expense of shrivelled bodies.

“The final lesson is that moral progress is achieved by enlarging the moral imagination, not by increasing our knowledge or becoming more rational,” says Dr Bunce.

The picture above is taken from a 1931 film by University student Stuart Legg. Eleven minutes in length, it shows glimpses of Cambridge life, including lectures, cycling and punting. Legg was a pioneer in documentary film-making and went on to set up the National Film Board of Canada. The film can be viewed on the My Cam website.

from The ArChives

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Staff Newsletter - June/July 2011