On Monday, I spoke about responsibility. The message, in a nutshell, was that sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes you make mistakes and you do things to hurt others. The best course of action under such circumstances is to take responsibility for your mistake, admit it, say sorry, and try to put it right – I would imagine that there are plenty of boys in here today who might think about this.
Well, today, I have no set assembly as such. However, I do have three short, and real, and fascinating stories about three Old Bedfordians of the past, the last of whom died just recently. They each, in their own way, demonstrated quite brilliantly our current day core values. Mr Maltby found the first, an obituary from the 1960s, which is almost unbelievable. And I think it is obvious which core value we are referring to here…
“The following account of the very unusual experience of the late Major R C Campbell (94-02), who died recently was published in an Isle of Wight Newspaper.
His word his bond – Major Robert Colin Campbell, for many years an esteemed resident of Totland Bay, whose death at the age of 81 was announced last week, was an officer and a gentleman, with emphasis on the latter characteristic. This trait in his character, coupled with sympathetic response from his enemy captors in the first world war, resulted in Major Campbell having a distinction which I believe to be unique. Wounded and captured during the retreat from Mons, when serving with his regiment, the 1st East Surreys, he was in a German prison camp when he received a letter saying that his mother was very ill.
The commandant of the prison camp was also an officer and a gentleman. Hearing of his captive’s distress at the news he had received from home he suggested that it might be possible for Major Campbell to be granted a special parole to go to see his mother if he would give his word as an officer and a gentleman voluntarily to return to captivity. The Major said he would certainly give such a guarantee, and it was arranged that he should write a letter to the Kaiser appealing for the suggested parole. The commandant sent the letter to the ‘All Highest of Germany’, with a strong recommendation that this unusual request should be granted. Although at that time few Britishers would have imagined that the Kaiser would be likely to show humanity to such a degree, he agreed to Major Campbell’s temporarily release on his promise to return after a fortnight. Without further delay the delighted and grateful prisoner was repatriated through Holland, and after spending just over a week with this mother he gallantly kept his promise and returned to the prison camp.
To those who knew Major Campbell (as was my privilege), this evidence of his strength of character was not surprising. He showed it in many other ways, blended with kindliness, hence the esteem he enjoyed among the people of the West Wight and particularly those who served under him as Chief Observer of the Royal Observer Corps in the last great war.”
A man of integrity there is no doubt. And look how far it got him. For his entire life, and indeed 50 years beyond it, he is remembered for this one act of extreme integrity, to keep his promise to return voluntarily to a German Prisoner of War camp, to keep his word.
The second one is really just an amazing story, by today’s standards – but behind the scenes, this man must have put in an extraordinary amount of hard work and hours into his chosen sport. Very certainly, a man of endeavour.
Old Bedfordian, JG Milton, known as Jumbo, and who, funnily enough, was a contemporary of Major Campbell, was called into the full rugby team for the 1904 Home Nations Championship, whilst he was still a school boy! Just 18 years old, he played all three Home internationals against Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
The English newspaper Land and Water reviewed Milton’s performance in March 1904:
“JG Milton, captain of the Fifteen and head of school at Bedford School, is the first English schoolboy who has ever played rugby for England. Standing at over 6ft and scaling 14st 8lb, John Milton is a worthy chip of the old block, his father, Sir WH Milton, now administrator of Rhodesia, having played for England.”
“That the Rugby Union has made no mistake is shown by the fact that he has been selected for all three of the season’s matches, and, indeed, never from the first has there been the slightest doubt about his being selected.”
Milton made another Home Nations appearance, now representing the Camborne School of Mines, the following year against Scotland and played his fifth Test at Dublin in the 1907 series. He also played for invitational tourists the Barbarians during his time in Britain
Having moved to South Africa, Milton was selected in PW Sherwell’s XI, which played a first-class cricket match against Transvaal in 1913/14. He opened the bowling for his team and from 17 overs finished with 0/78. It wasn’t until his second and final appearance, during the same summer, that he took a first-class wicket. On this occasion he was playing for a Transvaal XI, against the MCC. His only wicket was that of England Test batsman Jack Hearne, who missed a century when Milton bowled him for 96.
So, obviously quite a player – but you don’t get to be that good at anything without extreme hard work.
The last is probably my favourite, partly because it came in yesterday – this OB has only just died – but partly because I have been thinking recently about what it means to be a top academic. If you think you are good academically, and wish to be great (in the way that JG Milton was with sport), listen to this man’s life:
It is with a heavy heart that Iran Heritage Foundation announces the death of its dear friend and long-time supporter Iradj Bagherzade on 8 January 2023 in London.
Iradj was born in 1942 in Vienna, Austria. From a young age he went to Bedford School in the UK and later studied at Oxford, where he received his degree in law, which he never practised, opting to start his career with Time-Life Books, writing and publishing articles. His years with Time-Life took him to New York, Amsterdam, and London. With the company’s entry into the Iranian market in mid-1970s, Iradj was the obvious choice to head the publishing house’s new venture in Tehran, where he also met his future wife, Shahnaz. With the onset of the revolution in 1978, and the difficulties of running an Iranian-American publishing organization, Iradj and Shahnaz left Iran in 1980. In 1981 they married and settled in London.
Iradj had a life-long dream of establishing a publishing enterprise which would make serious academic subjects accessible to a larger audience. And so was born IB Tauris in 1983, the publishing house that started from a single-room office at 3 Henrietta Street. The company soon grew into a major academic publishing house, which he described as “a university press without a university”. Its most extensive area of publishing was the world of international politics and history, and it soon became a leader on the Middle East and the Islamic world. With a backlist of some 4,200 titles, when it was sold to Bloomsbury in 2018, Iradj’s publishing house was at the forefront of disseminating knowledge to the wider world.
“Iradj was both a pillar and an ornament of the Iranian community in Britain and also far beyond these shores. His lasting monument to Iranian studies will be the many hundreds of books he published under the I.B.Tauris imprint. Cumulatively, they bear silent witness to the breadth and depth of his cultural sympathies, so lightly worn. His vision, his indefatigable energy, his dry humour and his endlessly engaging personality will be sorely missed”. Robert Hillenbrand, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Art, Universities of St. Andrews & Edinburgh
“Iradj Bagherzade had a hugely positive influence on my work during the three decades I knew him. With the books I published with I.B.Tauris, Iradj was always supportive, encouraging, and helpful with perceptive suggestions. At our last meeting, at a conference on Afghanistan in Cambridge last September, he was as encouraging as ever when I told him of my latest project. He will be sorely missed by a very large number of friends and professional associates”. Richard Tapper, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies
“Iradj was an extraordinary Iranian. I knew him as a very close friend for almost half a century. Our friendship started in Tehran and flourished even more in London when IB Tauris Publishers, founded by him in the early 1980s, became the chief channel for the publications of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, which I led until 8th January 2023, oddly the same time that Iradj so unforeseeably embarked on his eternal journey. I was always amazed by his depth of knowledge on so many subjects, as I was by his high standards of professionalism as a major publisher in the fields of Islamic and Iranian studies. I shall never forget our weekly walks in Regents Park during the recent pandemic years, when we exchanged our knowledge on English and Persian histories. The Iranian community in London has lost a distinguished member. I shall sorely miss him for the rest of my own days”. Farhad Daftary, Director Emeritus, Institute of Ismaili Studies
I said that I have been thinking recently about what makes a true academic. Hard work, endeavour, is certainly part of it – but at the very heart of it is a restless curiosity. Those of you who acquire a restless curiosity, a genuine need for enquiry and discovery, will be in the short term the ones whom top universities will want the most, and in the long term, the great academic leaders of the future; just like Iradj was in his own lifetime.