The Abingdonian 2019

56 The Abingdonian Middle School Scholars What a year! The Scholars have had a truly inspiring set of lectures and trips around the UK, ranging from a talk on the surprising origins of memes to the somewhat more professional artforms found in the Wallace Collection. The range has been gigantic, and in this article I hope to share some of the highlights from the year. To kick off the season, the fifth years were taken to Oxford for a privileged look around the prestigious New College, followed by The Pitt Rivers Museum and the Bodleian Museum and Library, before concluding in a particle physics laboratory. This inspired a number of intriguing articles, available in the Michaelmas edition of the Scholars’ Newsletter, on areas visited in the Oxford tour. One such article that piqued my interest discussed the history of the Bodleian, and the range of contributors to its collection. This included most noticeably John Radcliffe, who, thanks to his generosity and contribution to the field of medicine, had the JR hospital in Headington named after him. As well as his medical advances, he became an MP for Buckingham in 1713. I found this article particularly interesting as I myself was born in the JR and have always wondered about the source of its name. We also had our annual Scholars’ dinner, during which a chosen few presented research pieces they had worked on over the holidays. One such talk was a fascinating look into mental dissociative disorders, and how sufferers use them as a form of retreat from stressful situations. This was topped off, as always, with an excellent dinner. We were also treated to two lectures, one, by Dr Sally Rogers on poetry and its derivations through history, and the other on Latin grammar. While the latter would usually be a fairly dry topic for an evening presentation, especially after a long day, the speaker, Olly Sayeed, perfectly recaptured the audience’s attention. He entitled his lecture ‘Latin Grammar: A two thousand year old meme?’ which certainly intrigued us, and he further held our attention by delivering a detailed analysis of Latin grammar; this included the idea of entropy in language, with the easier words and simpler sentence structures used more often as time passes, simplifying the language. The Lent Term lent itself to an aquatic theme, with the third year trip to Portsmouth dockyard, offering the chance to explore a number of ancient ships, such as the HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. The Scholars were also given an opportunity to steer a tugboat without crashing it into some historical ship or modern war tanker. As the same number of life vests and occupants returned as left, I think it’s safe to assume it was a dry trip, though perhaps the same cannot be said for the accompanying staff. We also heard a lecture by OA Tony Edwards on the sinking of the Turpitz. In his lecture, he showed the fascinating design behind the Tallboy bomb, used to breach the hull. He also shared recordings of his friend who had been involved as one of the pilots on the mission, giving his speech a personal edge. This was followed by an excellent lecture from Commander Tony Long, who left the Royal Navy, having captained battleships, such as HMS Monmouth, to become the CEO of Global Fishing Watch. The group uses advanced tracking systems to review the movements of fish throughout the oceans and aims to reduce illegal fishing. His talk focused on the techniques used to detect illegal fishing and track migrational fish movements, giving the Scholars an excellent insight into the modern use of surveillance for crime prevention in international waters. The evening concluded with dinner for a small group of Scholars who learnt about Commander Long’s exciting days in the Navy. This concluded another excellent term of Scholars events, further details of which can be found in the Lent Term Scholars’ Newsletter. In the Summer Term, the fourth year Scholars were taken into London to experience the Wallace Art Collection, as well as attend a crash course in painting evaluation, leaving all the scholars more cultured than before (if indeed, that were possible), and giving them a wide range of expert vocabulary to deploy at social gatherings. Examples of this are ‘sfumato’ - the blurring of hard outlines - and ‘pochade box’ - a type of painting stand used by those artists working en plein air, as an alternative to an easel. The Scholars also visited the British Museum, the home of the contentious Elgin Marbles. A brief and informative history of the tensions is available in the Summer edition of the Scholars’ Newsletter, which also includes some inspired prose and sonnets, reflecting artefacts found in the Museum. The trip was extremely informative and proved an enjoyable day out. Overall, the year has been extremely varied and enjoyable, and has left the Scholars thirsty for more. We owe special thanks to both Mr Jamison and Dr Burnand for organising such exciting trips and finding an excellent range of well informed speakers. We look forward to the new academic year and, with it, the prospect of many more intriguing events and lectures to come. Jack Tilley, 4LCAM