Page 37 - Old Ratcliffian 2020 Edition

the COVID numbers are staying low. My
new book, Life as a Bilingual: Knowing
and Using Two or More Languages, to be
published by Cambridge University Press,
is a selection of posts from my Psychology
Today blog, ‘Life as a Bilingual’, which has
been consulted by more than 2.1 million OR NEWS
readers. It will include 121 posts written
between 2010 and 2020, including 23
interviews. The posts are organised by
topic, in 15 different chapters. I dedicate it
to my two grandchildren, Ismaël and Mia,
who are both bilingual, and to all those
other children of their generation who also
live with two or more languages. The book
is scheduled to come out in the spring of
next year.”

After hearing about Robert Fallon (79), and places of interest for breaks, along
whose son suffers from a debilitating with his carer, without specific disabled
disease called Friedreich’s Ataxia, the OR facilities being required. This will give him
Class of 1979 raised £2,000 in less than a far more choice and freedom, especially
week to buy him a mobile hoist. Now Robert facing the current climate of restrictions
and Julie’s son, Luke, can go off to hotels due to COVID-19.

2019, I went on an ecumenical pilgrimage
to Rome; this was a sequel of a similar visit
made three years ago to the Holy Lands
of Israel and Palestine. Again, this was led
Paul White (81): “I retired to Thailand
nine years ago, where I began building an by my good friends, Archbishop Bernard
off-grid home – the perfect location for a Longley (Roman Catholic, Birmingham)
lockdown. The house has 11.2 kilowatts of and Bishop John Inge (Church of England,
solar panels and 38.4 kilowatt-hours of Worcester), and senior clergy and laity from
battery storage. It is off-grid for water, with both denominations in Worcestershire. It
33,000 litres of storage for the rainwater was a wonderful experience, surrounded
harvesting system. There are also three by friends, which included excursions to
solar well pumps on the property. The water many locations, such as Subiaco, the Major
is filtered for drinking and household use, Synagogue, and Castel Gandolfo. It also
and it is heated by the sun. Dozens of fruit featured an Audience with the Holy Father
trees have also been planted, and there is Pope Francis; I had the opportunity of
a vegetable garden, as well as a fish pond. meeting and talking with him briefly. The
You can follow my progress by reading my overriding spirit of sharing these days with
blog at EcoHouseThailand.com.” fellow Christians was something that I will
never forget, and to do so for the first time
since the Reformation was amazing.”

Philip Jones (59): “I keep in touch with
several friends and contemporaries,
including Paul Rudd (60), Brendan
Donnison (61), Brian Coe (60), Simon Giles Rosie Jones (16): “My partner, Daniel
(60), Tony Holland (56), and Peter Deeley Graham, and I got engaged in February, just
(59). I have retired from general practice before lockdown, after three-and-a-half
as a chartered surveyor, but I have some years together! He proposed on Polzeath
property affairs on which I continue to act Beach, which he knows is my favourite
as a consultant for old, established clients. place, as I go there every year with my
I am chairman of a property investment and family. We’d spent a lovely few days down
development group based in Cheltenham, there, and it was so unexpected. We can’t
and director of a garden design and wait for the future! Sadly, we haven’t been
landscaping company (having moved from able to celebrate properly, being in Wales
a house requiring intensive activity, with and separated from family and friends, but
three acres of formal gardens and a small I’d love to be able to share the news with
arboretum). I also continue as a trustee my OR family!”
of several charitable trusts. In September
The Old Ratcliffian 2020 37