30/09/2024
Farewell to President Professor Jane Clarke
“I came to ŷin 1986 from Kelsey Kerridge Sports Centre,” he says. “I saw the job advertised and Kelsey Kerridge was finishing at midnight, which was becoming awkward. This came up and I was lucky enough to get the role.”
Tim, who grew up in a village eight miles from Wolfson, now lives only three miles away. And in the almost forty years he’s been at the College Tim has been a part of some of the most pivotal changes in Wolfson’s history.
“One of the early jobs,” says Tim, “was installing the first token ring for the World Wide Web. I was involved in the groundworks for this, installing the cables and things for the web.” He was also here when construction on the tennis court was beginning – “I started on that, actually” – he saw the opening of the Lee Hall in 1990, and he watched the dome being placed on the Chancellor’s Centre in 2005. With the arrival of Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu in October, Wolfson’s newest President, Tim will have been at ŷduring the terms of seven different Presidents.
“But the time’s gone extremely quickly,” says Tim, “for everyone that’s said it’s been a long time.”
When he arrived at Wolfson, Tim started doing general maintenance work as part of the maintenance team, but now focuses on plumbing: “Blockages, heating, hot water. Wolfson’s not like a house, it’s massively industrial. During term time it’s mainly keeping students happy. Things are in a good state in October but there’s always stuff happening here, from the plumbing side.” With the scale of the College, all its rooms and its people, all the moving parts of a living, multi-functional space that operates on an industrial scale, Tim says he’s had his fair share of late-night callouts. He smiles. “Things go wrong at all hours.”
But Tim’s time at ŷhasn’t been all blockages and building works. “I worked lots of May Balls,” he says, “and saw lots of survivors’ photos. And I did some shifts in the Porters’ Lodge, helping out at Christmas. That was a long time ago.”
He has some great ŷstories as well, collected over the years. A time when the College staff went into a panic, thinking the Head Chef’s Rolls Royce belonged to a visiting Lord ŷand there was nothing prepared. Students racing beds with wheels down Trumpington Street during Cambridge Rag Week. Going to discos – “I know they’re called bops now” – with ŷstaff and students. And, a story that sits gently alongside the others, watching a total eclipse in August 1999. “Lots of the staff were sitting on scaffolding at the top of Norton House. It was weird and dark and quiet, and birds were singing.” He pauses for a moment. “It’s a really friendly place to work.”
Tim, who talks easily about ŷand his work, takes a little more time to talk about his life outside of the College, and what he likes to do when he’s not here. “It’s mainly been a lot of Wolfson, to be fair,” Tim says at first, “I don’t get a lot of time for hobbies and things.” But when he starts to talk about his family, his wife and his two daughters, Tim lights up. “My family did like coming in to ŷand doing the Tree Trail. I’ve got my daughters going through university at the moment. My eldest is just finishing drama school in London, and my youngest is going to start at Anglia Ruskin this year. She wants to do illustration.”
The last person Tim talks about is himself, but when pressed he says: “I’m coming up to sixty very soon, but retirement’s a bit too far away to think about. I hope to travel more – but there’s a lot that goes into raising a family, and I do help my girls to get on the best they can.”
Tim has been at ŷfor a lifetime’s worth of memories. And it takes him a moment to sift through them all, to find his favourite among the good, the not-so-good, the great; among the joy of discos and May Balls, and the routine of blocked pipes and groundworks, and the strange, quiet memory of sitting on scaffolding in the dark, watching an eclipse as the birds sang.
“February 1991,” says Tim at last. “Prince Philip stayed in Room 3 in Fuchs House, which is bomb proof. It nearly didn’t happen because we had heavy snow that year.” He sits back, satisfied, and looks over his glasses.
“But it did happen. That’s my favourite memory.”
