Univ Record 2017

1974
ALEX DANCHEV (King James’s College, Huddersfield) died suddenly in August 2016
aged 60. Professor Garry Taylor, Acting Principal and Master at the University of St.
Andrews, published a tribute to Alex on the website of St. Andrews, from which these
extracts are given:
It is with deep sadness that I have to inform you of the death of our friend and
colleague Alex Danchev, Professor of International Relations.
Alex was an extraordinary Professor of International Relations, who took a cross
disciplinary approach encompassing broad ranging interests including; art, global politics,
war, ethics and military history. His chief interest was in works of the imagination, and in
putting the imagination to work in the service of historical, political and ethical inquiry.
As a teacher he was rated extremely highly; having won the Dearing Award for
Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and a Political Studies Association Award for
Innovation in Teaching.
He was also a committed researcher, who loved discovering a line of enquiry and then
following it no matter where it led. He wrote extensively on art and politics and good and
evil in the modern world, published a prize winning new translation of The Letters of Paul
Cézanne, and authored of a number of internationally acclaimed biographies. His was an
academic life brimming with lives – his 2012 biography of Cezanne was widely praised;
his biography of the philosopher statesman Oliver Franks was on the Observer’s Books
of the Year; his biography of the military writer Basil Liddell Hart was listed for both
the Whitbread Prize for Biography and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction; and
his unexpurgated edition of the Alanbrooke Diaries was listed for the W.H. Smith Prize
for Biography. In 2009 he published On Art and War and Terror, a collection of essays on
the most difficult issues of our age and, in particular, the nature of humanity in times of
conflict; followed by his most recent book, On Good and Evil and the Gray Zone – a sequel
published last year.
Alex was born in Bolton, the son of a mining engineer, and brought up in Alloa
and Huddersfield. He was educated at University College, Oxford; Trinity Hall,
Cambridge; and King’s College London before his academic career began as an officer
in the Royal Army Education Corps in 1979. His journey continued at Keele University
where he became a Professor in his mid thirties. He then took up a Professorship at the
University of Nottingham, where he held a chair, before being appointed to the School
of International Relations at St Andrews in 2014.
Alex enjoyed working in St Andrews, where he found an openness to cross
disciplinary enquiry and continued his life’s work of exploring what it means to live well
as a human being. He set us a great example. Colleagues in the school remember a man
of great personal warmth, hugely committed to his students; and who was passionate,
and deeply articulate, about the wide range of topics that interested him. Both in the
school and across the wider university, we will recall his profound commitment to an
interdisciplinary exploration of the power of the artistic imagination to illuminate the
human and social worlds.
1975
ANDREW JOHN LYDIARD (King’s School Chester) died on 22 February 2017. Ian
Grainger (1974) has kindly written this tribute:
Andrew Lydiard came up to Univ from the King’s School Chester in 1975. He was
the only son of George and Beryl Lydiard but had a younger sister Terri to whom he was
always close. The family came from the West Midlands and he was born in Birmingham
but they moved around following the demands of his father’s work at British Steel.
By the time he got to college, certain life-long tastes were already well-formed:
bridge, a distinct list to the political left and above all classical music. He was a violinist
at school but later lapsed to simple listening. He came up as an open scholar to read Law
and his intellectual capacities were immediately obvious: he took firsts in both Mods and
Schools. He was widely and deservedly popular, more for his lively conversation than for
any prowess on pitch or field: sporting endeavour was limited to the occasional foray to
the tennis courts!
Andrew could however talk for England and it was no surprise that after a year doing
an LLM at Harvard, he studied for the English Bar. He was called by Inner Temple and
began pupillage in the Chambers of John Wilmers QC in 1 Harcourt Buildings. He
practised widely in civil matters but increasingly specialised in aviation and insurance
law. In 1992, the set moved to 5 Bell Yard, but unfortunately split in 1998: he was then
offered a place at Brick Court Chambers where he took silk in 2003. Given the field in
which he practised, Andrew’s cases were not always anecdotally riveting but to his credit
he was not one of those lawyers who talked about them. But the talk certainly flowed
in other areas: politics, religion, philosophy, the lot. He had dabbled in academia as a
weekender at Pembroke, Oxford in his early years: he also did voluntary work at various
law centres in London and later for the Bar Pro Bono Unit, a cause dear to his heart.
Together with the late Mark Copping (1975), Andrew sponsored the College’s mooting
cup. He became a civil Recorder in 2011.
The humanity of the man was best seen in his rich and stable hinterland. In 1983, at
the Catholic Chaplaincy (Andrew himself was already well on the way to being “lapsed”),
he married Mary Adair, a St Hilda’s lawyer. The reception was in the Alington Room.
Theirs was a marriage of enduring stability and love, rendered only firmer by the arrival
of two sons, Robert and Stephen. They lived in Balham and then on Leith Hill, near
Coldharbour in Surrey. Remote and beautiful, the house was a fine location for their
generous hospitality to friends and family.
In January 2016, Andrew was found to have a brain tumour and while fully conscious
underwent lengthy surgery, chatting away to the surgeon in the process, as later explained
in The Guardian. Sadly, he did not last as long as the doctors had hoped but the time that
remained was predictably full. He and Mary helped friends to organise a concert at Leith
Hill House in September and then spent a week in Rome in October. Andrew went
rapidly downhill in January and died peacefully at home on 22 February. At the moving
and well-attended memorial in the local church in April, there was a splendid address
from Paul Dean (Classics, 1976 and a Chambers colleague) and beautiful performances
of Bach and Mahler. It was a lovely occasion that perfectly fitted a good and gentle man.
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