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

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

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master at the King’s School, Worcester, where he stayed for 12 years. He then<br />

moved on to head the Classics Department at Sevenoaks School. At a time<br />

when Classics seemed to be somewhat under threat <strong>of</strong> extinction, Tony set<br />

about revitalising their teaching and this, together with the regular field trips<br />

he organised to sites such as Rome and Pompeii, meant that when he left the<br />

School after nearly 20 years, the Department was flourishing.Tony moved on<br />

to undertake research at St John’s <strong>College</strong>, Oxford, and also spent time at the<br />

British School in Rome before returning to Worcester for his retirement.<br />

JULIAN PETER FRANCIS CUMMINS (1973) was a man whose life was cut<br />

tragically short on 9 February 2007 when he suffered a serious brain<br />

haemorrhage whilst doing maintenance work on his yacht in Mallorca. He<br />

had recovered from another brain haemorrhage three years prior to his death,<br />

at only 52 years <strong>of</strong> age.The name <strong>of</strong> his boat, the Alcuin, gives away not only<br />

his deeply felt Christianity but also the love for his adopted Yorkshire, as the<br />

first Alcuin was an ecclesiastical statesman from York in the 9th century. But<br />

Julian was so many more things than a Christian, a sailor and aYorkshire man.<br />

He was also a businessman, a committed politician, an <strong>of</strong>ficer in theTerritorial<br />

Army and a loving husband and father. More than anything Julian was the<br />

eternally enthusiastic schoolboy with an insatiable appetite for life.<br />

Born in St Asaph, North Wales, on 29 January1955 and educated at<br />

Wellington <strong>College</strong>, Julian came to King’s to read Theology. He arrived with<br />

a grey filing cabinet full <strong>of</strong> notes from previous political activism, and was<br />

seen trying to hoist it up the steep staircase <strong>of</strong> Market Hostel wearing his<br />

trademark grin. At <strong>Cambridge</strong> he plunged into student politics with energy<br />

and gusto, standing out at King’s for his liberal convictions and noncompliance<br />

with the breeze <strong>of</strong> leftist ideology and countercultural fashion<br />

that characterised the <strong>College</strong> at the time. He joined the Union <strong>of</strong> Liberal<br />

Students and wrote for the radical liberal magazine Liberator as well as signing<br />

up for the Territorial Army. In 1976, he contested the Newnham ward for<br />

the City Council at only 21 years old. He did not win that election, and was<br />

the butt <strong>of</strong> a lot <strong>of</strong> teasing from his fellow students for his convictions, but<br />

he bore all <strong>of</strong> this with good humour and a smile. Julian’s affable character<br />

111<br />

OBITUARIES

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