No. 139 The Trusty Servant
Jennifer Gregory at Retirement in 1999
which to her mind( and mine) made a good A-level qualification in Biology essential to future medics. She had chosen the Cambridge A-level syllabus for her department and this academic and demanding course served the A-level biologists she taught very well. She supported the Cambridge Board by setting and marking their examination papers and by working on developing the syllabus.
By reading extensively, she naturally became the College’ s expert on HIV and AIDS. She wrote a booklet that collected all the then current knowledge on the subject when there was nothing else available in print and was instrumental in developing the school’ s policy in the early years of the virus. She was a brilliant biologist, a great teacher and a very able, sensitive and supportive Head of Biology. She helped me to do as she had done so successfully, namely transition from biological research at university level to teaching at Winchester.
She was a keen gardener, and among other things managed to grow some lovely oleanders from seeds collected on a trip to Petra, in Jordan. She also managed to turn the somewhat delicate Trelowarren geranium I gave her into more than twenty healthy plants, that were instrumental in saving the variety when the collection at Trelowarren, in Cornwall was killed in an unexpected severe frost.
Jennifer believed in being around in her department during the day and on one occasion I found her in her lab, reading. She always wore the engagement ring Martin had given her with a central sapphire in a claw setting and it was with horror and despair that she noticed that the stone was missing. She was clearly very upset, but was able to recall with some certainty that it had been present that morning. I suggested that we carefully and meticulously sweep the floor of her lab and go through the resulting dust and debris. This we did on our hands and knees while people gave us very strange looks as they went past the windows and the door. As you’ d expect the lab floor was clean, but we did end up with a part dustpan full of dust and debris from a morning’ s teaching, which we laid out on a sheet of A3 paper. We found her sapphire and she was thrilled, said some very nice things to me to express her gratitude and shed a few tears of relief. She could seem rather cool and self-contained but in reality, she was sensitive, caring and exceptionally committed to her pupils.
Ian Alexander( G, 67-72) offers a personal recollection of Dr. Martin Gregory:
I was lucky enough to have Dr Gregory for the physics part of my Physical Science A-level. We biologists and other non-specialist physics pupils were treated to his marvellously warm and inspiring introductions to the science. He gently and wittily led us into topics such as magnetic field lines and the nature of electromagnetic induction. We got the rare privilege of feeling in our bones the thrill of discovery, alongside the pure mystery that the first physicists felt when they encountered“ action at a distance”: how could an object feel a force when there was nothing but empty space between it and the thing creating the force? Dr. Gregory’ s simple delight in physics, the belief that it was utterly fascinating, communicated itself with anecdotes that are still fresh in my mind and full of explanatory power 50 years later. When he told us that some ingenious travellers had set up a field-sized induction coil underneath a power transmission line and had thereby powered their cooking and heating needs, we were impressed; when he added that they had then been prosecuted for the invisible act of theft,“ stealing electricity”, we were delighted, and enlightened. He was the best of teachers. He lives on in my memory, and surely of every other Wykehamist that he taught.
One other such Wykehamist is Christopher Normand, Director of Win Coll Soc:
Martin Gregory taught me in my first term in January 1976 and he was still teaching in my last Oxbridge term in 1981. His lessons were always fascinating and illustrated with practical examples well beyond the Physics lab or textbook: his description of the powerful regenerative brakes fitted to the Birmingham trams and the potentially disastrous consequences for any conventionally-braked vehicle following remain with me still. But my abiding memories of Martin have nothing to do with the classroom. While undertaking some welding in Metal Mill, I found Dr Gregory nearby pouring molten metal into a sand cast. It turned out he was casting the flywheel for a model steam engine. All became clear some time later when I was up to him for Oxbridge
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