The Queen's College Record 2023

And he was impishly funny. Some days after his release from several days in a
Tehran jail, a minder from the Ministry disingenuously asked if he was encountering
any difficulties covering the country. Gareth deadpanned, with his trademark granite
poker face: “Nothing comes to mind, no”. Apart from political counterparts, he could
make little kids shriek with glee, mentor and inspire young adults, and befriend the
old, engaging with an ease that was entirely natural.
Obituaries
Gareth’s legacy is one of empathy and compassion combined with intellectual
integrity. He was generous and kind, an interesting and engaging guest and host.
He leaves behind a close, extended family, his long-time partner Zeinab Charafeddine
and her son Nader, and many admiring friends worldwide.
David Donaldson and John Jackson (PPE, 1976)
DAVID WILKINSON
David Wilkinson died on 12 July in Dublin after a short
illness. We had known each other since the day we both
arrived at Queen’s in the October of 1957. He came up
from Manchester Grammar School to read Greats and
joined myself and Dick Williamson as inhabitants of the
back staircase of the rambling chaos of Queen’s Lane
under the sometimes bizarre care of Henry, our Scout.
Queen’s Lane was a friendly place and small enough to have its own micro-culture
in which David became a prominent and approachable personality.
Many of us were sporty and David was a talented lacrosse player and swimmer,
in both of which sports he represented the University. Both his brother and sister
were international swimmers and David became part of the very successful Queen’s
Water Polo Team. The College Record announced that he had enhanced his “already
considerable reputation by scoring goals with a vengeance”. David was a member
of the College and Chapel in much more than name. He was a Scholar but he wore
his intellectual capacities lightly; one recalls a heated, doubtless beer-fuelled but
theoretically interesting discussion, following his claim on the authority of Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus that the Gods especially rewarded the bodily and mental strength
of a sound posterior. I was a skinny 440 runner and demurred (possibly on the
grounds that this sounded more like the Xenophon who had written movingly on
the sources of equine strength), his answer was an ad hominem gesture indicating
his own solid rump. This tale of an excursion into the scholarly virtues of Greats has
the virtue (duly noted by Marcus Aurelius) of being true.
Our friendship became closer when I got married in the second year and bought a
house for our little family in Great Clarendon Street in Jericho and David volunteered
College Record 2023 | The Queen’s College 121