Part 2 (Obituaries) - King's College - University of Cambridge

the kind of person prescribed in Christianity. This required constant
vigilance against self-deception.
After King’sYorick became a librarian at the Barnett Library in Oxford, a post
he obtained with the help of a warm testimonial from Wittgenstein. He
continued to study philosophy during evenings and weekends, putting aside
regular times for this purpose. In 1944 he married Diana Pollard (known as
Polly).The couple had a son, Danny.
Yorick’s friendship with Iris Murdoch prospered after her return to teach at
StAnne’s College, Oxford in 1948. She described him as a cross between Hamlet
and the grave-digger – thin, stooped, myopic, tall and pure of heart. Close
friends claimed that he was totally truthful to the point of wild eccentricity.
From her journals it is clear that the character Hugo Belfounder in her first
novel Under the Net is a portrait of Yorick, although she commented: “What a
poor image of Yorick Hugo Belfounder is! … The fault is mine.” She found
Yorick a wise counsellor and excellent listener and in 1977 tried to persuade
her publisher Chatto & Windus to give serious consideration to a
philosophical work by him, without success. Yorick did publish a review of
Russell’s History ofWestern Philosophy, in which he outlined his fear that the book
would encourage “slipshod thinking”.
Yorick was a pacifist who held original views and was widely cultured.
However, his attempt at learning to drive was not a success and an early wish
to become a bus conductor was thwarted by his failing the theory test,
probably the only person in the bus company’s history to have done so.Yorick
died in 1980. Iris Murdoch wrote his death into the novel she was working
on at the time, The Philosopher’s Pupil.
OLIVER EDWARD SYMES (1929) enjoyed a long and eventful life before
passing away at the age of 95. He came from humble beginnings, born in
London to a mechanic and a ladies’ maid. Oliver was gifted enough to gain
a place at the newly opened Christ’s Hospital School at Horsham. At Christ’s
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OBITUARIES