No.129
The Trusty Servant
candidates – thus completing my tally
of seven heads of Win Coll’s Modern
Language department.
Alan Conn
I retired in 2000, with Andrew
Johnson (Co Ro, 93-02) as head of
department. Patrick Herring (Co
Ro, 02-19; HoD 02-07) then enticed
me back for a hugely enjoyable
Short Half in 2005 when Nicholas
Fennell was on sabbatical. Next,
Barbara MacKinnon (Co Ro, 86-14)
ran the department from 2007 to
2014. I then forget whether it was
Barbara or Stephen Rich (Co Ro,
09-) who first asked me to pop down
from North Yorkshire to give mock-
Oxbridge interviews to the Russian
Apart from the HoDs I have, of
course, happy memories of numerous
colleagues in the department, too
many to mention here apart from two
Russian colleagues. Count Nicolas
Sollohub (Co Ro, 54-73 & 74-80) felt
like a direct link with pre-Revolution
Russia: ‘Nick, I’m doing Lermontov
with the top set’ – ‘Oh, my great-
great-grandfather knew him – I’ve got
some letters….’ Nick’s mother, the
old countess, lived half the year in
10 Kingsgate Street; to talk with her
was to be transported to St Petersburg
high society before World War I. And
two of Nick’s daughters, Countesses
Sasha and Natalya, were in Furley’s
during my time as housedon.
My links with Nicholas Fennell (Co
Ro, 77-13) originated at Oxford in
1959 when I became a pupil of his
father John, who was my tutor and
subsequently my research supervisor
until 1967. Nicholas came to Win
Coll, as I recall, for a term, then went
off to India and Armenia for two
years before being appointed as a don
in 1977. I have always valued our
association and friendship, and the
continuity with his father’s role in my
life.
Count Nicolas Sollohub
A host of colleagues in what is always
almost by definition the biggest
department in the school, and a host
of memories, dating back for me to
1964 and crawling on my hands and
knees past Leslie Russon’s study
window. Thanks, Win Coll, for the
memories.
Back in the USSR:
a Revolution in Russian Teaching
Nicholas Fennell (Co Ro, 77-13) explores
Russian teaching in his time at Win Coll:
‘If this is your first time in the USSR,
you’re welcome to it,’ announced the
slip of paper in my room on the 29 th
floor of the Gostinitsa Salyut. Built
in 1980 for the Moscow Olympics,
this hotel accommodated the first
of my many Russian trips. It is
near Yugo-Zapadnaya underground
station, located on a square so vast
that it takes five minutes to cross.
The area, with its rows of makeshift
stores selling ice-cream, dubious low-
priced vodka, kefir and unpasteurised
milk in plastic bags, was unsafe for
unaccompanied Wykehamists. In
the early days the hotel itself was
hazardous. Our rooms, always high
up, were accessible only by one of
two lifts, for odd- or even-numbered
floors. One day an Italian guest was
seen with a bandaged neck: he had
been garrotted and robbed late at
night in one of the lifts.
13
In the mid-80s Alan Conn, head of
Modern Languages, asked Liz Nash
(Co Ro, 82-97) and then me to take
The Salyut: stay out of the lifts