Rhubarb October 2022

INTERVIEW

An inter view with LINDA LYNe (SCR, 1977-2004 and 2006-2012)

By Ed Hunt (SCR, 1987-2020) & Cecilia Hunt (Mac’s, 2008-2013)

L inda started

covered the book and started A Level Greek. I continued Latin and French and began Ancient History A Level (which I did largely on my own).The Greek and Ancient History were not on the school curriculum, so were not timetabled; Miss Sharp and I sat in store cupboards and corners. It was customary then for Oxbridge candidates, who had to sit fearsome exams, to stay on in the Sixth Form for a third year (the exams were in November). I certainly needed that extra year. (Another candidate, at Highgate School in North London, was my future husband. He started Greek at eight, I started at 16. Just saying).

working at Teddies

in 1977 at the time when there were just four women teachers, all part-time, and no female pupils. She grew her role and involvement with the School from a part-time teacher of Classics to Head of Department in 1987 and House Tutor in Segar’s. Here she talks about the roots of her love affair with her subject, working at Teddies for over 30 years and the relevance of Classics in today’s society. I owe my Classics to Miss Winifred Sharp, Latin teacher at Aberdare Grammar School for Girls, who spotted how naturally I took to Latin, which I began at 13. Miss Sharp met me in the corridor after O Levels on the last day of the summer term, and presented me withWilding’s Greek for Beginners . ‘You might like to take a look at this,’ she said casually, and handed over an unassuming book, which proved to be the foundation for my life. Where did your love of Classics stem from?

To Miss Sharp’s surprise, there followed a Scholarship to Girton College Cambridge, announced by a telegram, which I still have, and an Exhibition to Oxford. I wanted to go to Oxford; it was much nearer to my home, but Miss Sharp said, ‘No-one turns down a Girton Scholarship!’ So I became a

Girton girl; the college was much like a boarding school in those days. I have never regretted choosing Classics, and going to Cambridge. I kept in touch from time to time with Miss Sharp, but I really wish I had acknowledged more what she did for me. She had once sent for me and said, ‘I hear you have a boyfriend, well you can’t have a boyfriend and get to Oxford’. I didn’t give him up, and I wore ever shorter skirts and danced to the Beatles and Rolling Stones in those heady days of the sixties. I wasn’t just a swot! I remember sitting on the doorstep of my grandparents’ house in the summer sun reading the Penguin translation of Homer’s Iliad , and running home to the next street to announce that I had discovered something amazing.That excitement never 23

I did take a look, and was hooked by the intriguing new alphabet and its idiosyncratic grammar. Six weeks later, I had