W 1955 - 1960
Reading the Wycliffian Society Newsletter reminded me that sixty years ago today I reached the apogee of my Wycliffe career, even if not academically! It was Open Day and I conducted the school orchestra, commanded the Scout display (I was a warranted Assistant Scout Master), and organised racing for junior IVs on the canal.
From time to time in my final year at school I exerted myself to study physics, an essential A level for entry to medical school: my first attempt at the exam was a disaster (10% in one paper…) and my mother expressed the opinion that I had failed on purpose in order to spend a further year at school devoted to music, playing the clarinet and conducting… Music, of course, was then (as now) the love of my life, and after a career as an ENT surgeon to pay the bills, the opportunity presented itself for me to become an unpaid but very fulfilled musicologist, acquiring three doctorates, writing three books, and publishing over thirty articles.
The seeds of both my careers were sown at Wycliffe (as was my interest in theology), and of my schoolmasters I particularly recall Claude Allen (‘Beak’) in music, Alan Savage (‘Sooty’) in biology, and Eric Bevan (‘Prune’), a deep-thinking classicist. I should also mention Derek (‘Guffy’) Wright, who by some miracle enabled me to pass A level physics and hence enter medical school.
I think it is fair to say that being an academic has helped me through the lockdown: I am accustomed to spending hours on my own, staring into my laptop and practising the recorder. Fortunately I have been able to get out for decent walks in the countryside: no running for me, though, remembering that on compulsory cross-country runs at Wycliffe I usually walked…
I was deemed too rebellious and free-spirited to be made a prefect (!) but I have little doubt that the Douglas MacMillan of today emerged from his chrysalis some sixty years ago at Wycliffe College.
Douglas MacMillan
11 June 2020
Ward’s, 1955 ̶ 1960
