Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

This week it is a privilege to interview Canon Dr. William Price who taught me when I was an undergraduate student in the University of Wales in the early 1990s. William Price was born in Colwyn Bay and went to Lampeter in 1970 as a History lecturer, and stayed until 1997\. He now lives in Wem, Shropshire. His father was a curate and William read History at Keble College, Oxford. In this hugely insightful conversation he talks about how he was attracted by Lampeter’s Anglican tradition and saw the job as a chance to revive his Welsh. We talk about how Lampeter is a unique town and William recounts how at one point he knew every academic colleague by name. We learn what William’s earliest memories are, which include walking by the sea during the terrible winter of early 1947 and the birth of his sister. He also remembers his first day at school and he relays what he said to his mother at the end of that first day. We find out why, at the age of 8, his village school said that they couldn’t teach him a

It is my huge pleasure this week to interview Professor Karen Cox, Vice Chancellor of the University of Kent. Karen was born in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, and grew up in the Yorkshire Dales before going to university in London to study Nursing. She talks about her parents’ background, both of whom left school at 16 and were married at 18\. Her father experienced redundancy and was involved in Trades Union activity. We discuss some of the generational differences in terms of career opportunities and how it wasn’t until Karen did her ‘A’ levels that university became an option. She talks about how she didn’t really know anyone who had even been to university and how she is fortunate that she has been able to do the things she did, but that sometimes they are shaped by serendipity. Karen has very strong early memories of Christmases including playing with boxes, and we learn that as a child she enjoyed ballet, wanting to be Margot Fonteyn, and tap dancing. She also played the trombone and loved horse ridin

Mark Connelly is Professor of Modern British Military History at the University of Kent and in this very candid and wide-ranging interview Mark begins by talking about his family background. He was born to a German mother while his father, who is a London cab driver, is a mixture of Irish and Russian. Mark also talks about how his love of history was precipitated by reading Ladybird History Books as a child. Mark was the first in his family to go to university and we discuss our shared arts backgrounds. Mark reveals his earliest memory which is Christmas-related and we learn that he enjoyed going to the Imperial War Museum and the Tower of London when young. Through his parents Mark developed a love of Frank Sinatra, especially his 1950s concept albums, and Mark can just about remember Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ from its original 1973 incarnation. He especially loves Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ and the memories it evokes as well as Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’. We also learn about the time that Mark

It was a pleasure this week to interview Olly Double, Reader in Drama and Head of Comedy and Popular Performance at the University of Kent where he has been based since 1999\. We talk about how his work in stand up emanates from his time as a Drama student in Exeter. Olly grew up in Lincolnshire where his father was an Education Officer and we learn why as a child Olly was frightened of ‘Scooby Doo’ and ghosts as well as what his reaction was when he had a ‘Dr. Who’ book signed by Tom Baker. The conversation moves on to discuss the difference between public profile and personal personae with celebrities, especially in the case of those who have been discredited, and we learn about Olly’s nostalgia for the music of old TV themes. Olly shares his thoughts about working in Higher Education and why he sees himself as an anti-hierarchical person in a profession which is quite hierarchical. He tells us why he’s someone who is uncomfortable with unearned respect and about how he is on a journey like his stu

My guest this week is Cecilia Sayad, Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Kent, where she has been based since 2008 and is presently working on a project on horror and people’s desire to engage with the supernatural. Born in Brazil, Cecilia moved to the US and then grew up in Sao Paulo before returning to the US to undertake a PhD. Cecilia talks about the accidental set of circumstances which led her to where she is now. She used to play with a band and once hoped to be a singer when beginning a degree in Journalism and Social Sciences for a year, before transferring to study Literature. She then worked as a journalist for four years and from there became involved in film. Cecilia remembers flash memories from her childhood e.g. buying lollies from the post office and writing the letter K, and we talk about the experience of learning English. She always liked writing and the theatre and was into Brazilian music but not the charts, and she recounts how her peers were more into contemporary music

This week I have interviewed Dan and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok who were based in Kent from 1975 until 1997 when they moved to Lampeter after Dan was appointed Professor of Judaism. Dan is originally from Denver, and is of Hungarian descent, while Lavinia descends from an established middle class English family whose father was the lawyer of the Church of England. Dan talks about how he found out when he was in his twenties that he was the product of artificial insemination and how he didn’t have a good relationship with the man that he had hitherto thought was his father. Lavinia relays her unhappy experience of going to a girls’ boarding school and how university was a completely different, liberating experience for her. We learn that from 1980-87 Lavinia taught Religious Studies at King’s School, Canterbury, where she was the only full time female member of staff. She later became a headmistress. Dan talks about his experience of going to an ‘American Graffiti’-type high school and from there went to a

My guest this week is Taylor Weaver. Originally from Texas, Taylor came to Canterbury in 2014 in order to undertake a PhD in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kent. We learn why Taylor sought from early in his life to conceal his Texan accent and Taylor talks about the culture shock of coming to the UK. Taylor’s parents divorced when he was in kindergarten and he lived with his father who worked in a power plant as an engineer. He talks about the traits he inherited and shares some memories of getting into a fight when young and why he once claimed that the Devil told him to drop a boulder on his brother’s head. We also learn why, as an American living in the South, it was never possible to escape religion. We then move on to talk about whether there is a confessional dimension to his studies and Taylor speaks about how he isn’t representative of most Baptists due to his liberal world view. He refers to the paradox of being radicalized by leftist intellectuals and how it has shape

It was a delight this week to meet Will Wollen, Director of Public Engagement in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent. Will is an actor, and teaches actors, and wasn’t planning on being an academic. Will was born in Kent and grew up in Dorset, though his parents spent many years living in Kenya, where his older sisters were born. At University, Will studied French and Philosophy and we learn how he got into acting through the Theatre Society at the University of Leeds. We also discuss the perils of what happens when an actor falls ill. We find out what Will’s earliest memories were, which include having his toe being nibbled by a duck, and how in later years he discovered that the boys prep school he went to was run by a paedophile. We also talk about why people go to the theatre in order to see people lose and how comedy happens when people fall over. Will’s first record buying experience was at age 10 and we learn why, in the mid-1980s, he followed a different path to that of his pee

It was a pleasure this week to interview Kyla Greenhorn who is studying for a PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Kent. Kyla was born in Kansas and she discusses the reasons why so many American students choose to study in the UK. She decided from a young age that she wanted to move to Europe and now sees the US as a foreign country. She talks about how her family is predominantly Republican and pro-Trump and how this doesn’t sit well with her being a member of the LGBT community. Kyla comes from an evangelical background and her sexuality affected her entire family dynamics, especially after she came out as bisexual to her mother. We talk about how the experience changed her, and how she can now make a stand for causes she believes in. Musically, Kyla reminisces about the boy bands she grew up listening to and how her musical tastes these days range from heavy metal to church music and how music is the most consistent thing in her life. She also explains why ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ is her fav

It was a privilege to catch up again with Peter Moore who came to the University of Kent in 1971 and taught Religious Studies over the course of the following 40 years. Peter begins by discussing the composition of the department when he arrived where he was only one of three staff in Religious Studies. We discuss the influence of Ninian Smart and how Peter came to discover Religious Studies through literature. For Peter, multi-disciplinarity is important and he explains his pedagogical approach of always engaging with students at the level where they are. Peter was born just outside London at the end of the Second World War and he talks about his passion when young for Latin. We learn that Peter doesn’t have especially vivid memories of the past and we discuss the interpretive nature of nostalgia, the co-relationship between the past and the future, and whether it is possible to be nostalgic about his four decades at the University of Kent. We cover the long hot summer of 1976 and discover what Peter was

My guest this week is the newly ordained Revd. Danny Pegg. Danny shares with us how when he was at University, where he studied Religious Studies and Comparative Literature, he had no faith and theology was, at the time, something of an academic passion. We learn how a sudden experience led Danny towards a belief in God. Danny uses the analogy of fandom and refers to a ‘lightning bolt moment’ to explain his experience. Danny talks about his family background and how in the school he went to, where he was one of only three white pupils in the class, he was surrounded by religion – but the religions he learned about were Jainism and Judaism rather than Christianity. Danny discusses how for him faith is exotic and how, even when he was a student and was used to being around students who were mainly agnostic, the ‘numinous’ is something that he encountered at Canterbury Cathedral. Danny was born in 1989 during the heyday of pop and he grew up at a time when the Spice Girls were everywhere. We learn how his

It was a great pleasure to meet up again with Angela Voss for this week's Nostalgia Interview. Angela works in the Faculty of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University where she runs the MA programme in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred. She begins our conversation by talking about how she brings together esoteric wisdom traditions with transformative learning and the new methodological possibilities that this affords. Angela was born in Chiswick and grew up in Middlesex. Her mother was a district nurse and her father was an artist and art teacher, and Angela recounts how she was an unusual teenager in that she was obsessed with the Renaissance period and would drag her parents off to country houses every weekend. She wanted to have a career in music, which she studied at Leicester University, with an emphasis on early music. Angela discusses how she would be at home listening to Monteverdi while her friends were out at discos. We then turn to the influences on Angela’s life, including astrology, an

For my final interview from southern Scotland, it was a pleasure to meet David McNaughton, who was, until recently, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Florida State University. We begin our conversation by discussing the incongruities of celebrating Christmas in Florida and whether and how it might be deemed an inversion of what is natural and right. David grew up in Gateshead and reminisces about the primary school he went to in the Yorkshire Dales where every child from the ages of 5 through to 11 was taught in a single room by one teacher. He went to grammar school in Nottingham where he developed an interest in French poetry, Dante and Conrad. We discuss how the best way to get people to read a text is to ban it and why being in a darkened theatre amounts to total absorption, as when he was once completely immersed in the experience of watching the silent film ‘Napoleon’ (1927) over several hours. David, who came from a family of schoolteachers, explains how he ended up becoming a phi

It was a pleasure to meet Milja Radovic for my penultimate interview from southern Scotland. Milja is carrying out interdisciplinary research on acts of citizenship in film as well as in film and aesthetics. She was born in Belgrade back when it was the capital of Yugoslavia during the reign of Tito, and we begin our conversation by discussing her experience of sitting on an Ecumenical film jury in the Czech Republic and ponder the question as to why some countries have a film culture while others do not. Milja talks about being an only child and reflects on the carefree and protected childhood in which she grew up. She has been living in the UK for 14 years which precipitates a discussion of what and where is home, including the possibility that home might be something one carries in oneself and that it comprises both embodied space and a part of our memory. We also consider whether one’s home can be a place you never saw. Milja reflects on how she remembers her childhood as a series of fragments, in p

In the third of my series of interviews conducted in southern Scotland, it was an absolute delight to catch up with Kris Jozajtis, who teaches Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies in a secondary school in North Lanarkshire, having previously undertaken a PhD in religion and film at the University of Stirling. We learn why Kris, who grew up in West London in the 1960s to parents who were refugees from Poland, is considered an exotic creature in the part of Scotland where he now lives. Kris remembers watching England win the World Cup in 1966 and reveals why the Kennedy assassination, when he was 5 years old, had a particular impact. He reflects on how the 60s felt like a time of optimism and that it felt like things were going to get better for everyone, especially from the point of view of his immigrant parents. Kris talks about the freedom of growing up and his memory of travelling by himself on the tube to see a football match at the age of 11 and about how the Second World War was an unspoken shad

It was a pleasure to meet Andrew Hass, Reader in Religious Studies at the University of Stirling, on a recent trip to Glasgow. Andrew has been at Stirling since 2003 after undertaking a PhD in Glasgow in the 1990s. Originally from Canada, Andrew discusses the concepts of home and belongingness and how we identify ourselves in a global context (e.g. ‘a citizen of the world’), prompting questions of nostalgia for one’s homeland. In Andrew’s case Scotland is a place that intellectually formed him. Andrew talks about his classic middle class upbringing and a childhood of stability and privilege in which there was no strong legacy of going to university, which he says was largely about bettering one’s parents’ standard of living. His father was an electrical contractor and Andrew discusses how he didn’t set out to have a career in academia. We talk at some length about the role of music. Andrew identifies the extent to which popular music evokes memories, such that we are immediately drawn back to a certain

My guest this week is Juliette Jones, a freelance writer/journalist, currently based in Glasgow, who studied Religious Studies in the University of Wales in the late 1990s. Juliette was born in Inverness and she talks about the route that took her to Lampeter and the appeal of living and studying in a smaller place. Her earliest memory is from her time in playgroup and she talks about the relatively uncomplicated world of her childhood where the radio played a foundational role. In the context of learning to play the piano we also discuss the difference between wanting to do something and having it imposed. The conversation then turns to the role and importance of music and Juliette talks about how she had a different taste in music to other school friends, and we learn whether she is a New Kids on the Block or a Pet Shop Boys fan and which of the two gave her a taste of the adult world. We then move on to discuss the work she has done presenting a request show on hospital radio in Edinburgh and the ‘pure

For this week’s interview I had the great pleasure to meet Reshmi Dutta-Flanders, Honorary Research Fellow in English Language & Linguistics at the University of Kent. Reshmi grew up in Calcutta and came to the UK to study English at King’s College, London, in 1989\. In this fascinating conversation, Reshmi compares her experiences of previously studying literature in India and how she was able to acquire various research skills. Reshmi talks about the influence of her aspirational parents. Her father was a survivor of the Partition and ended up doing an Engineering degree in Wolverhampton. She also discusses her own experience of an arranged marriage and we learn that her mother has just written a book at the age of 80 in the field of Religious Studies. Throughout the interview we learn that Reshmi has often felt a need to prove something to herself, why she has often felt a sense of dissatisfaction and never really felt a sense of belonging. She discusses how fear has often prompted her to push hersel

It was a pleasure to meet Valeska Hass who works as a Project Manager in the Business Improvement and Projects Unit at the University of Kent, where she has been for the last two years. She started working in the automotive industry delivering intercultural training for sales teams and we discuss the role and importance of transferable skills. Valeska was born in Germany but grew up in Namibia in southern Africa and later Venezuela while her father was a teacher who taught in German schools abroad. She has lived in the UK for 13 years which is the longest time she has ever been based in one country. We talk about how home for her has always been the people she has met and about her earliest memory which pertains to the day when her sister was born which, as we discover, she associates with eating cottage cheese. The discussion then turns to the notion of homesickness and how and why Valeska is homesick wherever she is. She explains why she has a frozen memory of the places she has lived, which always stays

Anthony Manning is Dean for Internationalisation at the University of Kent, and in this latest interview Anthony talks about his experience of growing up in a large family but a small town on the Isle of Man where his relatives ran a joke shop. We discuss the sense of community, based on old fashioned values, which the shop elicited, and how its recent closure has resulted in a flood of nostalgia which he is considering channeling in new ways. Anthony talks about the culture shock of leaving the island in order to go to university in England, prompting a reflection on the nature of home and belonging, and we learn whether Anthony feels an attachment to any particular place. The concept of 'neo-native Manx speakers' is introduced and Anthony discusses the benefits, based on personal experience, of understanding other people's languages and cultures. Anthony grew up on an island with 80,000 people that had just one cinema and we find out why he was into The Cure and The Smiths when he was at university an