From Oxford, with love
Tetsuya Hirase (BLitt Modern History, 1965)
These postcards were written by Tetsuya Hirase (BLitt Modern History, 1965) to his family in Japan. They provide a snapshot into Tetsuya’s life at St Antony’s in 1965 with trips around the UK, college breakfast, and only seven hours of sun per day (even on sunny days). Below, Tetsuya’s niece Eiko Suzuki recounts the story of her uncle and grandfather – the last time father and son were together was the day Tetsuya left for Oxford.
Tetsuya Hirase, 4 November
Your letter from Nagoya said you would be moving on November 2 — did everything go smoothly? How is life in your new home? As for myself, not much has changed. Yesterday, Professor Eguchi from the University of Tokyo stopped by Oxford for just one day, so the four of us Japanese went around the university town together. We also visited, once again, Churchill’s birthplace, the garden in Woodstock, and saw Churchill’s simple grave nearby. It is in the churchyard of a quiet country church — a most suitable place for eternal rest. After that, we drove Professor Eguchi to London and returned past one o’clock at night. We were blessed with perfect weather. This picture shows the dining room, located in the centre toward the back of the flower garden I sent you before. It has an ancient, timeworn atmosphere — not nearly as bright as it appears in the picture.
Tetsuya Hirase, December
I read your letter dated 1st December. Two pieces of airmail luggage have also arrived safely, so you can rest assured. Now that the holidays have started, I have been having breakfast and lunch at the college, and for dinner, I buy things like bread, sausages, and eggs and eat them myself. Sometimes I cook with other Japanese or go out for Chinese food. I probably will not go on a trip around Europe, as the season is not ideal. I am going to Devonshire for four or five days with two other Japanese (where there is a moor called Dartmoor, and the Dartmouth College which is like Etajima). At the moment, the weather here is warmer than in Nagoya, but the sun only comes out for about seven hours a day (even on sunny days). As the Christmas cards here are mostly the same as those in Japan, I actually sent you a calendar instead.
Eiko tells the story of her uncle and her grandfather:
I still have the postcards which my uncle sent from Oxford, first to my grandfather and later to his mother and my father. My grandfather passed away from cancer when my uncle was staying in Oxford. I still remember my grandfather on a wheelchair at the pier staring at my uncle on board the boat, knowing he would never see his son in the future.
My uncle was a Japanese government scholarship student and studying history. He first came here by himself and one year later, his wife and the second child joined him. During his stay at Oxford, my grandmother visited him and it was the first trip abroad for her.
My grandfather was good at English and was supposed to be sent to the London branch of his office before World War Two. He was very much looking forward to it, but they found kidney problems right before his departure and his assignment was cancelled.
He adored Britain so much and wanted to visit eagerly, but the war destroyed his dream. As he changed his job during WW2 and worked for a plant who made fighter jets, he was arrested by the US after the war for a short period and then lived quietly in a rural area of Aichi Prefecture until he died.
So he was very proud of his son who left for Europe, though he was already very sick and knew he would never see his son again.
This is the story of my grandfather and my uncle.
Written by Eiko Suzuki, niece of Tetsuya Hirase (BLitt Modern History, 1965)
1960s snapshots
Irena Powell (MPhil Japanese Studies, 1967)
Some of Irena’s earliest memories of the College are included in The History of St Antony’s College, Oxford 1950-2000, Appendix 2, pp.257-8.
Some memories of St Antony’s in the early 1960s
Professor Jeremy Noakes (DPhil Modern German History, 1963)
I was a Senior Scholar at St Antony’s from 1963-1965, doing a DPhil on The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony 1921-1933. At that time, the college was limited to the former Anglican convent buildings where, incidentally, my mother went to school during and after the First World War! I had just spent three years as an undergraduate at another Oxford college and the contrast between the two could not have been greater. My undergraduate college was very traditional and inward-looking; the dons were uninspiring and there was only a handful of foreign students. St Antony’s, by contrast, was very cosmopolitan and buzzing with intellectual energy. I guess that at least half of the students and staff came from abroad. Two of my closest friends were David Mulford, an American from Illinois, who was doing a DPhil on Zambia and went on to a distinguished career in international finance and diplomacy, and Austin Gough, an Australian doing a DPhil on 19th century French church history, who later gained a chair at Adelaide. We were brought together partly by all of us having wives and toddlers. Unfortunately, I lost touch with them. Austin sadly died of a heart attack in 1997.
My main contacts, however, were with the German historians, who were an exceptionally impressive lot. Tim Mason, who soon became the leading British historian of Nazism during the 1960s and 70s, had left the year before. He was the reason I chose to come to St Antony’s. Tony Nicholls, then a research fellow, through his drive and contacts with leading German historians and funding bodies, played a crucial role in turning St Antony’s into the major centre for research on 20th century German history in the UK. Among my fellow students were: Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, who had just returned from the Potsdam archive (in the former GDR and thus difficult to access) with reels of microfilm on German colonialism. After a post at Sussex he went on to a fellowship at University College; Volker Berghahn, who was finishing a book on the Stahlhelm, the German veterans organization, and then, after posts at UEA and Warwick, went on to chairs at Brown and Columbia and to author a string of important books; Karl Rohe, who was working on a complementary organization to the Stahlhelm, the democratic Reichsbanner paramilitary organization, then secured a chair in Germany and did important work on parties in the Federal Republic; David Morgan, an American, was doing a DPhil thesis on the Independent Social Democratic Party, later published by CUP and making a significant contribution to the history of Weimar Germany; finally, Jonathan Wright, with whom I spent three months together in Hanover in 1965 researching our respective DPhils and who is still a good friend. After the publication of his DPhil on the Protestant church in the Weimar Republic by OUP in the Oxford Historical Monographs series, he then went on to a Studentship at Christ Church and, among other things, to publish a major biography of the key Weimar figure, Gustav Stresemann.
This was a starry and exceptionally stimulating group, who laid the foundations for what was to come, with Sir Richard Evans, Jane Caplan (who was Tony’s replacement), Richard Bessel and other distinguished historians of modern Germany arriving at the college subsequently.
I had two experiences that were particularly memorable during my time at St. Antony’s. The first involved the so-called Fischer controversy. In 1961 Fritz Fischer, a professor at Hamburg University, published a book Griff nach der Weltmacht (lit. Grab for World Power), claiming that Germany bore the main responsibility for the outbreak of World War I and then went on to develop a series of extreme war aims comparable to those of Hitler in World War II. This provoked a storm in Germany, with conservative historians prompting the German government to try and prevent Fischer from undertaking a lecture tour of the United States. Hartmut Pogge was a student of Fischer and arranged for him to come over and give a lecture at St Antony’s during the autumn of 1964. It turned out to be an exciting event with A.J.P. Taylor among others challenging Fischer’s theses.
My supervisor, James Joll, who was the Sub-Warden, invited my wife and me to dinner with Fischer and his wife in his private rooms. This was an extraordinarily kind and generous gesture. You can imagine what an experience it was for a young scholar in his first term as a postgraduate student to spend an intimate evening with the most prominent historian in his field, as well as the subject of international controversy.
My second remarkable experience at St Antony’s involved Alexander Kerensky. During 1963-64, my wife and I had a flat on the top floor of 1 Church Walk. On the floor below was the flat of Max Hayward, the Fellow in Russian literature and translator of Dr Zhivago, among other things. In the summer of 1964, Hayward invited Alexander Kerensky to stay with him for a fortnight. As you can imagine, during this time his flat was a hive of social activity. Russian exiles from far and wide gathered there. Someone produced a balalaika and Russian songs were sung into the early hours. We shared a bathroom with Max Hayward and, on one occasion, I bumped into Kerensky, both in our dressing gowns. I also met him on the stairs and he gave my toddler son an apple.
I hope these few reminiscences give some impression of what a remarkable place St Antony’s was in the early days. I am hugely grateful for having had such an exciting time as a postgraduate there, both intellectually and otherwise, and for the privilege of having been there at the start of the College’s reign as the centre for research on modern German history in the UK.
Best years in my life
Professor Moshe Moaz (DPhil Middle Eastern Studies, 1966)
Albert Hourani, my thesis supervisor and mentor, greatly contributed to my scholarship and understanding regarding the Middle East. Also, for the first time I was introduced to views of Arab students in college and benefited from them. The college atmosphere was very pleasant and its sport facilities useful – notably squash. My wife and daughters enjoyed life in Oxford.
Do you recognise this building?
The chances of that are very small indeed unless you were at St Antony’s before 1970. This is the original link building in the Old Main Building which joined the College library in the chapel to the main building. It was demolished in 1970 and replaced by the existing concrete and glass link designed by HKPA, the architects responsible for the Hilda Besse Building.
The Hilda Besse (or new Hall and Common Room block as it was known until 1981) had recently opened and HKPA were commissioned to redevelop the Old Main Building in a way which complemented it. The original Victorian convent link was demolished and a new link built which included a staircase down to the newly-created Gulbenkian Room, in the College’s former dining hall. The building works also created additional library offices and stacks and a new courtyard within the building. A stark contrast to the surrounding Victorian architecture, the new link replaced the building you see here which is likely to have been built in c1891-4 when the chapel (now the College Library) was added to the original 1860s convent.
If you look out from the windows in the first floor corridor of the Old Main Building you can still see, on the walls at either end of the HKPA link, where the gable roof of this original building was attached.
The photograph at the top of this page has been reproduced by kind permission of Gillman & Soame photographers and can be ordered online here.