Univ Record 2017

Old Members
1936
HANS MICHAEL KARL NUSSBAUM (LATER NOAM) (Aldenham) died on 15 October
2013 aged 94. Michael Noam came up to Univ to read Agriculture, getting a First.
Michael was born in Germany, but he and his family had emigrated to Palestine after
1933. Because of his birth, Michael, who was still in Britain when the Second World
War broke out, found himself interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man for several
months, despite the best efforts of our then Master, Sir William Beveridge, to get him
released quickly. After the war he went to live in Israel where he worked for many years
in the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics as an agricultural economist. He was also a
part-time lecturer at the Hebrew University. He retired in 1981 to become a tour guide,
specialising in developing tours for bird-watchers. In 1999 he published The Guide for
Guides: A Tour Guide Manual.
PETER LADE OLDFIELD (Lancing) died on 18 May 2017 aged 99. The news of Peter
Oldfield’s death reached us just as this year’s Record was being prepared for publication,
and so we hope to include a fuller tribute in next year’s issue.
1937
CHARLES RAYMOND RADCLYFFE (Eton) died on 1
February 2017 shortly before his 98th birthday. He came up
to Univ to read Agriculture, but went down for war service
in 1939. During the war he joined the Royal Scots Greys
and served, mainly as a tank commander, in North Africa,
South Africa, Italy (where he took part in the Salerno
landings), and Normandy, being mentioned in despatches.
After the war, he was posted to Sandhurst as an instructor,
and might have remained in the army for longer, but in
1946, on the early death of his father, he left the army to take on the management of
the family’s farm at Lew House, near Bampton. There he devoted himself to horses.
He would purchase yearlings, mainly from Ireland, and break them in and sell them
on to be trained as racehorses as three or four year olds. Charles, known affectionately
as “the Captain”, had a good eye for a horse, and many of his charges later enjoyed very
successful careers. Among them were Corbiere, who won the Grand National in 1983,
and The Dikler, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1973. For many years he looked
after the Queen Mother’s young horses, much enjoying her regular visits to Lew, and in
2002 was awarded the LVO for equestrian services. He also worked for a while with the
Aga Khan. Charles was a keen hunter, riding with several local hunts. He also served
as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1968, and was Vicar’s Warden for nearly sixty years at
his local church. Charles’s wife Helen died in 2010, but he is survived by his daughter,
Sarah, a film producer, his two grandsons Sam and Callum, and his stepson, William,
an amateur jockey. [We are very grateful to Charles’s daughter Sarah for her help in
preparing this obituary].
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1942
RILEY ANTHONY “TONY” WINTON RUDD (Blundell’s) died on 29 May 2017 aged
93. Tony Rudd originally came up to Univ as an RAF cadet, before going off to train in
Canada and then join No. 305 Polish Bomber Squadron. During a sortie over Germany
in April 1945, he was shot down by an American plane, and ended the war as a German
prisoner. On being demobbed, he returned to Univ after the war in 1947 to read PPE.
Tony was very fond of Univ and in later years acted for a while as the College’s stockbroker.
After completing his degree, Tony became a graduate trainee at the Bank of England,
and represented the Bank in the USA from 1952-3. In 1955, however, he changed career
to become a journalist, working for the Manchester Guardian, from where he covered the
Suez crisis as its shipping correspondent. He also became an assistant to the paper’s city
editor, making his name as a financial journalist.
In the 1960s, Tony turned to stockbroking, and to the business of helping smaller
companies join the stock market. He first worked for the firm of Rowe & Reeve, which was
refounded in 1969 as Rowe & Rudd. He acquired a reputation for his entrepreneurship,
and Rowe & Rudd were an energetic presence in the stock market of the 1970s.
The early 1980s were a less happy time for him. In 1981, Tony discovered that he was
going to lose his sight, having been diagnosed with glaucoma and shingles. He was also
criticised by the Department of Trade for his role in the affairs of a bank called Bryanston
Finance, and after an investigation into the 1982 takeover of an investment firm partly
owned by Rudd, he and a business partner were found “totally unfit to be directors.”
In later years, however, Tony returned successfully to journalism, writing columns
for both the Spectator and the Investors’ Chronicle. Gordon Screaton, Univ’s Estates
Bursar from 1973-2001, was one of many people who read Tony’s lively reports with
great interest. As his sight grew worse, he continued to enjoy opera and ballet, even as a
listener, and would visit art exhibitions with his wife describing what was on show.
In 1952, Tony married Ethne Fitzgerald, whom he had met when they had both been
undergraduates together. She died in 2008, and Tony leaves a son and three daughters,
one of whom, Amber, is currently the UK Home Secretary. He died in the middle of the
recent General Election campaign, and Amber Rudd participated in a major television
debate only two days after losing her father.
1943
TERENCE JOHN ORGAN (Brigg Grammar School) died on
16 June 2016 aged 89. He had come up on a cadet course during
the Second World War, and then returned to read History. His
son Richard has kindly provided this tribute:
After serving in the Queen’s Regiment from May 1944
Terry returned to Oxford in the autumn of 1947 a man much
broadened by his experience both in Britain and the Middle
East. He married Edna Paxman on Saint George’s Day 1948
and completed his History degree the following year.
He joined Cadbury’s as a management trainee in 1949,
with whom he was destined to spend the rest of his immensely
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