6 Sep 2001 - Memories of Keswick..... by David Wright
DAVID WRIGHT, former Keswick Hall Geography Lecturer
David took early retirement from UEA in 1994 and says "recently I've being going round delightful primary schools handing out £2Ks to teachers, in between writing books and travelling the world." His childrens' atlas is well used in schools.
He lives south of Norwich and can be contacted via E-mail through this site. He still uses the back of old one-inch O.S. maps as writing paper!
He writes:
A FEW MEMORIES OF KESWICK HALL 1969 - 1981
I arrived at Keswick Hall in April 1969, as a young, 29-year-old member of staff. I left my teaching post, and my council bed-sit flat, in Stevenage New Town, and immediately found myself in a stately home, consuming dainty triangular cucumber sandwiches, and buns in frilly wrappers, on the finest Indian Tree crockery. Fantastic - and - FREE!
The students were very well catered for too - three cooked meals a day plus 'Little tea'. No wonder we all put on weight!
There was a free week at a hotel in Whitby too for the Geography fieldwork - I couldn't believe my luck!
Delightful students too. It was nice to meet 14 of the 23 1969 - 72 Geographers at their big '25 Years On' reunion in October 1994 - and hadn't we all matured well! It made me realise that Keswick Hall was a special place.
In the 1970s, North African fieldtrips were an innovation. So many things could have gone wrong - in fact the photograph of students at Bir Bou Rekba station, which was in the College prospectus for several years, shows us all waiting for a train that was 25 HOURS late! We stayed the night in Saharan caves (except for Maree, who lost her way). We crossed a salt lake. We even met the President...
HOW ARE YOUR OLD LECTURERS GETTING ON?
..... the obvious answer is 'we're getting on'. 20 years after 1981, none of us is any younger. The number of ex-Keswick lectures at UEA shrank to single figures by 1995 and is now only 4 (at the latest count) but the appointment in 1994 of Jeff Battersby (Keswick student 1965 - 68) as the UEA Geog-Ed tutor has created another link.
Many of the ex-Keswick lecturers stayed in the Norwich area - most are in the telephone directories. They are active in many fields including lecturing to WEA or extramural classes. Go to a concert in Norwich and you're likely to encounter them - in audience, choir or orchestra. Several lecturers have responsibilities in churches in the Norwich area. Other are (or were) parish or district councillors; some have advised bodies such as English Nature and the Ordnance Survey. There are school governors and school inspectors. Many primary schools have Science and Geography books written by former Keswick lecturers. Other books by ex-Keswick staff include local history and a book of cutout Leonardo da Vinci machines.
The saddest occasions are perhaps the most memorable and the most remarkable, for there must surely be few colleges that muster well over half the 1960s - 70s staff at the funerals of former colleagues. Yet this has happened several times: the grapevine still works fast and the staff gathers as if 1981 was only a few days ago...
Both articles originally published in copies of the Old Students' Club Magazine - with the author's permission.
David took early retirement from UEA in 1994 and says "recently I've being going round delightful primary schools handing out £2Ks to teachers, in between writing books and travelling the world." His childrens' atlas is well used in schools.
He lives south of Norwich and can be contacted via E-mail through this site. He still uses the back of old one-inch O.S. maps as writing paper!
He writes:
A FEW MEMORIES OF KESWICK HALL 1969 - 1981
I arrived at Keswick Hall in April 1969, as a young, 29-year-old member of staff. I left my teaching post, and my council bed-sit flat, in Stevenage New Town, and immediately found myself in a stately home, consuming dainty triangular cucumber sandwiches, and buns in frilly wrappers, on the finest Indian Tree crockery. Fantastic - and - FREE!
The students were very well catered for too - three cooked meals a day plus 'Little tea'. No wonder we all put on weight!
There was a free week at a hotel in Whitby too for the Geography fieldwork - I couldn't believe my luck!
Delightful students too. It was nice to meet 14 of the 23 1969 - 72 Geographers at their big '25 Years On' reunion in October 1994 - and hadn't we all matured well! It made me realise that Keswick Hall was a special place.
In the 1970s, North African fieldtrips were an innovation. So many things could have gone wrong - in fact the photograph of students at Bir Bou Rekba station, which was in the College prospectus for several years, shows us all waiting for a train that was 25 HOURS late! We stayed the night in Saharan caves (except for Maree, who lost her way). We crossed a salt lake. We even met the President...
HOW ARE YOUR OLD LECTURERS GETTING ON?
..... the obvious answer is 'we're getting on'. 20 years after 1981, none of us is any younger. The number of ex-Keswick lectures at UEA shrank to single figures by 1995 and is now only 4 (at the latest count) but the appointment in 1994 of Jeff Battersby (Keswick student 1965 - 68) as the UEA Geog-Ed tutor has created another link.
Many of the ex-Keswick lecturers stayed in the Norwich area - most are in the telephone directories. They are active in many fields including lecturing to WEA or extramural classes. Go to a concert in Norwich and you're likely to encounter them - in audience, choir or orchestra. Several lecturers have responsibilities in churches in the Norwich area. Other are (or were) parish or district councillors; some have advised bodies such as English Nature and the Ordnance Survey. There are school governors and school inspectors. Many primary schools have Science and Geography books written by former Keswick lecturers. Other books by ex-Keswick staff include local history and a book of cutout Leonardo da Vinci machines.
The saddest occasions are perhaps the most memorable and the most remarkable, for there must surely be few colleges that muster well over half the 1960s - 70s staff at the funerals of former colleagues. Yet this has happened several times: the grapevine still works fast and the staff gathers as if 1981 was only a few days ago...
Both articles originally published in copies of the Old Students' Club Magazine - with the author's permission.