The Chronicle 682

22 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Malcolm: That’s a good question which I can only partly answer. When I arrived to settle in it was about a week before term began in September ’62. The Head of History, John Todd, who was a formidable character, said, ‘You will come to the library with me every day for the next two or three days because we’re going to sort out the History section. There’s a lot of rubbish in it, but there’s also a lot of stuff we need and we’re going to go through it all’. So we did start on that, and the History section was already pretty good but the rest of the Library appeared a little thin. At the time it was in the Memorial Building, erected as a Memorial Library for the Second World War. The famous scandal of the time (possibly an urban myth) was that Animal Farm by George Orwell had been filed in the agricultural section! Then we moved the Library into Big School and John Todd ran it. He put in an enormous amount of work to classify the books by the Dewey Decimal System and after John left we always appointed a professional Librarian. Of course, talking about the Library in general turned our minds to the new building and, with Malcolm’s name on a

books to the School and donating many to charity shops. To put that in context, our school library collection is around 11,000 so you really do have rather a lot of books. Malcolm: I’m a little bit undiscriminating, that is my problem. That’s where the bibliomaniac tendencies come in! In 2018, Malcolm bequeathed over 4,300 books to the school, the majority of which are Art History books. Malcolm hopes the collection might be used by Teddies scholars when writing their Sixth Form Extended Essays and Extended Project Qualifications. As Head Librarian I hope to build upon this and encourage not just pupils and staff to use the collection but also to invite visiting scholars from universities and other schools to come and make use of the books. For the collection he selected books which he felt held educational value and included various sets and collections on artists, eras or locations such as the city of Mantua or the artists Fra Filippo Lippi and John Constable. His interest in Art History developed from a love of architecture which engrossed him from a young age.

plaque outside the door, I wanted to find out his impressions of the space.

Malcolm: It’s wonderful, very good indeed, very impressive, a lot of thought has gone into it and that’s marvellous. And of course I’m very flattered to have it named after me! My only worry about it would be nothing to do with the architecture and design but the use. The only problem we had when I was teaching was getting the pupils to work by themselves in unsupervised study periods. I read in the Chronicle about all the curriculum changes and I will be very interested to see the impact of the new buildings on the academic culture.

Sarah: I think it’s safe to say you have a huge love of and appreciation for books.

Malcolm: Oh yes, I would almost say a hunger for books! I’m a collector of books. The term is bibliomaniac. Sarah: Yes, I’ve seen your full collection, it’s extensive – around 16,000 books if I remember rightly – and that’s AFTER you reduced your collection by bequeathing

The Oxley Library in the new Christie Centre