William Pouget is the man who just keeps on giving to the Oxford food scene. It all started with Alpha bar in the covered market 20 years ago before Vaults and Gardens and then last year, Chickpea came to King Edward Street. Now, Salsas del Sol is the Mediterranean spin on Pouget’s good-value slow food revolution.
The offering here is similar to the other places in Will’s repertoire but with key twists to differentiate itself. Bowls are again the base here but the contents are different.
For me, the rotisserie chicken is the star of the show. A quarter chicken with sauces on the side comes in at just £7.5 and you can even take away a whole bird for £15. There’s a plethora of salads on offer too including couscous, aubergines, mushrooms, cabbage, guacamole, broccoli, salsa, and more. On its own, the chicken can be slightly dry but the sauces that give this eatery its name rapidly change that — the green goddess is a great pairing with sriracha to really create a combo of smoky flavours in your mouth all at the same time.
Not a chicken man? Pulled pork is available too and pairs even better with the corn tortillas you can opt for on the side. At the moment, these are cooked from frozen which means they do crumble a bit more than Will would like — no doubt in time the plan is to change that.
Salad bowls are here too with the smoked tofu providing a vegan option with far more flavour than you might be accustomed to. Homemade aioli and pickled red cabbage would be my salad choices for this protein, again adding that balance to the dish in both flavour profiles and textures for a complete bite.
Alongside cakes from Tap Social’s Barefoot Bakery, Salsas del Sol also boasts a varied juice bar offering. You are able to blend your choice of fruits and roots with everything from ginger to carrots and pomegranate up for grabs. If you are a bit of an amateur like me then staff are on hand to suggest good pairings! Coffee is just as good value as Chickpea too with the matcha a standout yet again.
So, another opening from Will Pouget and yet again he has managed to reproduce everything that makes his model great with innovative twists that make all the difference. Chicken for me is the big highlight but juices will standout for others — that’s what makes Salsas del Sol so good, there really is something for everyone.
There’s something about Summertown that attracts restaurants and eateries from all around the world and something about this neighbourhood that accepts genuine authenticity in a way that you struggle to find elsewhere. Just in the last few months, I’ve paid trips to Pompette and El Rincón, French and Spanish restaurants where you really do feel like you have made the journey across the channel to their origins. Hervé Gatineau Patisserie, Boulangerie, and Chocolaterie is no different. Whether it is for a daily coffee and baguette, a work lunch, or to indulge in a luxury patisserie item, there is something distinctly French about the flavours, the service, and the setting.
The first items that we tried were from the savoury selection. As well as its signature cakes and pastries, Hervé Gatineau also offers a selection of baguettes and quiches at lunchtime that are predictably popular amongst office workers and students alike. Baguettes all come in at less than £7 and the quiches at around £6. Refreshingly, the flavours here are very different to what you normally find. I opted for a spinach, walnut, and stilton as well as a tomato, mustard, and goat’s cheese. The stilton comes through strongly in the first and the walnuts add a satisfying crunch. The star of the show though was the second. Director Débora explained how the Dijon mustard is lathered onto the pastry and it adds a punchy strong flavour alongside the goat’s cheese that is brought back down perfectly by the cherry tomatoes. Their sweetness compliments the other two flavours just as one would hope.
Quiches: Walnut, stilton, spinach and Tomato, goats cheese, mustard
Then it was onto the sweet selection and realistically this is what anyone is visiting for. Débora also talked us through the provenance of ingredients and techniques here in great detail and it is something that is clearly of massive importance to her. The flour is imported from France and completely free of any additives and sweeteners that are often found in UK wholesale options. Elsewhere, great care is taken to reduce any kind of artificial sweeteners — whole pistachios, almonds, and vanilla pods are what bring the flavour in place of any kind of essences.
The first place we saw this was in the vanilla brioche. You can actually see the black specks of vanilla in the crème here and the taste is distinctly less sweet and artificial than you might be expecting. The canelé is as authentic as you would expect with its signature spongy interior and the plant-based pain au chocolat a really pleasant surprise. There is also a plant-based croissant available, both made using almond flour. The team here have taken special training on the continent to ensure that these have the flaky exterior typical of the French classics but the soft and pleasing interiors that you would hope for.
All chocolate here is Valrhona, the premium French brand that is used across the top end of the industry. The Larieux patisserie was our first taste of this and it does have a noticeably high quality. This cake has been on the menu ever since opening in 2007 and combines milk and dark chocolate mousses atop a chocolate sponge base. The tastes work well and the layering is definitely aesthetically pleasing but at £9 it’s not the kind of indulgence that people would likely be opting for on a daily basis. The Pistachio Paris-Brest is a top pick for non-chocolate lovers and is much lighter with a flavour-packed praline topping.
Pistachio Paris-Brest
For a smaller and cheaper snack, look no further than the macarons. These are available for just £3 and the variety of novel and interesting flavours makes them stand out. The passionfruit was my favourite with the tart sweetness and the lightness of the high-quality meringue making for a good pairing with an afternoon coffee on a treat day.
Larieux patisserie and macarons (passionfruit and vanilla)
Varlhona also provides a wide variety of chocolate truffles on offer in the chocolatier counter and is used to create the chocolate bark with almonds and hazelnuts. Go for a small piece of the dark for a deep and rich indulgence.
Dark chocolate bark with almonds and hazelnuts
Now, I want to make clear that I basically don’t like carrot cake. Years of them being dry and bland have tainted my view of them overall. The plant-based offering here though might just have put me on the road to recovery. Nuts and dried fruits in the batter make for distinct moistness and coconut cream icing means that the sweetness isn’t artificial but fresh and light.
I did of course also have to grab a baguette to-go, a trip to a boulangerie feels worthless otherwise. In England it is very easy to become immune to the bland supermarket baguettes that carry no real flavour but do a job for sandwiches or dipping but that is completely different here. The multiseeded stick tastes so distinct on its own it doesn’t need filling or dipping. In fact, in my view any additions only take away from its flavours.
In recent years, Hervé Gatineau has rapidly expanded its wholesale business to such an extent that its revenue from that size matches if not surpasses that of the retail shop. Supplying over 30 sites across Oxford and also catering for large events, the bread and viennoiserie are now made in a production kitchen in Kidlington. Still though, there is a large bakery in Summertown and this is where all of the cakes are crafted. Luckily, this hasn’t taken the team’s attention away from the store and recent remodelling now means that there are tables back inside and bar seating in the window for coffee and lunch breaks.
All in all, Hervé Gatineau is yet another addition to the thriving Summertown food scene. Much like the rest of the area, price points are high but customers are rewarded with lovingly-created and high-quality results. Any Oxford lovers of diverse and friendly local businesses should wander down here on a weekend — I won’t stop shouting about it until they do!
Oxford City Council is adapting its response to housing those in need. Whilst the annual closure of the city’s emergency winter shelter is expected to lead to an increase in rough sleeping between now and July, the council will be able to offer six new affordable homes for refugees with its new £2.3m programme.
There is continual demand for secure housing. The City Council records that the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) was activated ten times since December including in April for the first time since 2013. Numbers show that the SWEP protocol proved vital for many over the winter months. During 2022-2023, 106 people took up beds when the SWEP protocol was activated with an average of 13 people per night. The Council worked with St Mungo’s, The Porch, Homeless Oxfordshire, Ark-T and Turning Point to provide beds over 33 nights and 446 separate stays in total.
Data from the winter months seem to suggest a decrease in numbers of rough-sleepers requiring immediate housing. The council recorded that the number of people seeking shelter in a month in Oxford reduced from 84 in September to 58 in February with the number of people new to rough sleeping falling from 36 to 16. However, these numbers are expected to rise moving into the summer as winter funding from central government ends and the Oxford Winter Night Shelter begins its annual closure.
The City Council is also addressing housing for refugees by pledging to offer six new affordable homes. The homes, reserved for five Ukranian families and an Afghan family from a bridging hotel, will be let at social rent.
The council expects that the Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) will provide up to £1,108,620 in grant funding from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Alongside match funding from the Housing Revenue Account, this will enable the City Council to purchase six homes and offer them to six families. The Council says this move represents their “long term interest in affordable housing”.
A council spokesperson told Cherwell that they have already received 30% of the funding for the project and will receive the rest in July, provided the conditions of the DLUHC are met.
Councillor Linda Smith, cabinet member for housing, said that “Oxford is a proud city of sanctuary and we’re committed to doing what we can to support refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine”. The homes set aside for six refugee families will, once the initial tenancies end, become council homes for those on the general needs housing register.
Under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, Oxford has housed 400 refugees out of 150,000 nationally and under the national Afghan Resettlement Scheme, the city supported 47 families. The national Afghan Resettlement Scheme provides support for Afghans who have worked alongside the British government and armed forces.
Teachers on strike took to Oxford’s streets on Thursday afternoon with drums, whistles and placards in hand.
This National Education Union (NEU) strike-day was the fifth since 1st February. The protest began with a rally in the Oxford Town Hall and proceeded through the centre to congregate with a second rally on Broad Street. Oxford was one of four organised NEU rally locations.
Alongside veteran protesters, ralliers included first-time strikers and another who is on strike for the fifth time in eighteen years. This teacher said that the greatest deficit was in the lack of funding for teaching assistants who work with children who have Special Educational Needs (SEN). The teacher, based in Banbury, told Cherwell that it was about time teachers received a response from the government that matched the educational workforce’s effort.
The NEU General Secretaries, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, have criticised the Education Secretary: “Gillian Keegan is failing to address the multiple problems damaging our children’s education – around teacher recruitment and retention problems, and inadequate school funding. She has been told by the profession – and a significant majority of the profession – that her pay and funding offer is not good enough.”
A local primary school teacher said she had been to all five of the strike protests. She decried the lack of governmental interest in resolution: “She [Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education] hasn’t even acknowledged the protests.”
She told Cherwell that her daughter left the teaching profession at around the time the first strikes started as a result of unmanageable teaching conditions, and intends to protest until there is a pay raise that is fully funded.
If there is “no fully-funded pay rise, of course we’ll keep striking”, another teacher on strike said, adding that “the only way the government will know [that their response is dissatisfactory] is if we set up picket lines”.
One of the speakers declared that “there is nothing you can pay me to make me cross a picket” which landed with a resounding cheer. The rally was also keen to emphasise its solidarity with striking nursing and communication services unions.
The NEU has stated that “this coming week, NEU members are acting to make the Government see sense and improve its offer to teachers.” The NEU will hold another national strike on Tuesday.
Thirty-five students received word that they had secured a place on Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year for 2023/2024 entry. The Astrophoria Foundation Year is aimed at academically promising students who have experienced considerable setbacks in their education, preventing them from meeting the demands of an undergraduate offer.
The foundation year has been in place at Lady Margaret Hall since 2016 and has been described by one student as having been “beneficial for [their] self-growth, not just as a student but also as a person”. Notable alumni include Danial Hussain, the current President-Elect of the Student Union.
In the coming year, Exeter, Jesus, Mansfield, Somerville, St Anne’s, St Hugh’s, Trinity and Wadham will all welcome their first waves of foundation year students.
The Astrophoria Foundation Year constitutes a further expansion of the university’s attempts to improve access with eligibility for the scheme depending on a number of criteria.
According to the University, students should have experienced all three of; (1.) socio-economic difficulties (e.g. having a certain post code), (2.) school based difficulties (including attendance at a non-selective school where most students are eligible for free-school meals) and (3.) difficulties of individual experience, such as experience acting as a young carer.
Students who have spent time in the care system are also eligible for the foundation year, regardless of whether they are considered to have been disadvantaged in other areas.
In 2020, Oxford launched Opportunity Oxford, a university-wide summer bridging course designed to help disadvantaged students prepare for their first year of university studies.
When asked what distinguished Opportunity Oxford from the Astrophoria Foundation Year, the University told Cherwell: “The two programmes are aimed at different target groups of students.”
“Opportunity Oxford is suitable for students who are ready to start Oxford degrees with modest support”, while “the Astrophoria Foundation Year aims to give more substantial support to students who have experienced significant educational and/or personal disadvantage and so need a more sustained intervention”.
Fully funded by the University, Astrophoria students have the opportunity to continue on to an undergraduate degree without undergoing the same formal assessment process. To gain their places on the programme, however, all 35 offer-holders (along with approximately 500 other applicants) underwent an assessment process consisting of a questionnaire followed by interviews taking place in March 2023.
While the majority of teaching offered during the foundation year will resemble the format of an undergraduate degree, the University has recently confirmed that the Astrophoria programme also offers additional tuition not otherwise found in the standard degree structure.
This includes the ‘Preparation for Undergraduate Studies’ course, targeted at helping with students’ personal development through confidence building and help in the development of practical academic and communication skills.
Academically, students on the foundation year are offered the choice of one of four courses, including Humanities; Chemistry, Engineering and Material Science; Philosophy, Politics and Economics; and Law, before specialising in an undergraduate degree of their choice.
In time, the programme is expected by the University to expand to all undergraduate Oxford colleges.
The sounds of heavy breathing and rustling form the first few seconds of Pamfir, the debut feature film of Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk. These are sounds which become, as we watch, a soundtrack to the life to which the protagonist has bound himself; a life of sneaking hushedly through the woods, avoiding being seen, and inevitably being seen. Leonid, nicknamed Pamfir, is forced to face afresh the demons – quite literally – of his former life of smuggling, after an incident involving his son places the family into a position of economic desperation.
Set in a small village in rural Ukraine on the Romanian border, Pamfir explores a man’s battle with his conscience as he tries his very hardest to do the best he can for his family at the expense of his own morality. The pastoral Carpathian mountains transform into a landscape of nightmares for the entire family as Pamfir becomes ensnared in the terrifying matrix of organised crime. It is a stunning debut from Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, who wrote the film’s screenplay as well as directing it.
Oleksandr Yatsentyuk is suitably brooding as Pamfir, navigating the feelings of guilt which accompany his silent resolve to take on one final smuggling mission. At times, his stoic heroism tragically verges on reckless bravery.
At the core of the story is the relationship between Pamfir and his teenage son Nazar, and makes for some gut-wrenching scenes. Alongside Yatsentyuk, young actor Stanislav Potiak is a quiet tour de force as Nazar. His innocence rings especially poignantly against the merciless figures into whose hands his father falls. Solomiya Kyrylova as Pamfir’s wife Olena brilliantly handles the apprehension and heartbreak she feels on behalf of her husband and son, and, indeed, for herself.
Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk deploys symbolism with a knowing hand. The traditional masks and costumes of the pagan Malanka festival, for which the villagers in Pamfir are preparing, are an eerie addition to the film, and cast a fairytale uncanniness over the action. The recurring image of the snarling, animalistic mask worn atop a bristling costume of hay appears like an omen, of some inexplicable doom, as unidentifiable as the person within it. Interesting also is this contrast between the village’s preparations for a celebration, and the struggle at the forefront of the film, which highlights the importance of keeping spirits high even in the face of difficulty.
The film was in its post-production stage when Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. Whilst it does not have the conflict as a central theme, it occasionally nods to the Russian aggression which was already rocking Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Pamfir enjoyed a successful run in the festival circuit, earning a number of accolades, including the Raindance award for Best Cinematography. It’s not surprising; Mykyta Kuzmenko’s cinematography could be a textbook for arthouse filmmakers. Most scenes are shot in one continuous take, with characters coming in and out of frame, making for a dazzling, quasi-theatrical viewing experience which plunges the viewer intimately into the lives of the village’s inhabitants.
Wide-angle shots are frequently employed to showcase the splendour of the Carpathian mountains, from a foggy autumn afternoon when the trees are bathed in a thick soup of cloud, to a wintry day when snow has already coated the soil and the leaves in a delicate, untarnished sheen. The landscape, though sublime, serves to emphasise the isolation of this village – and the entrapment of its inhabitants under the titanium fist of the “boss”, Mr. Orest. There is simply no way out for Pamfir.
Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk delivers a raw and unpretentious thriller as his debut feature. It’s not easy viewing, but it is certainly hard-hitting and beautiful.
The Van Noorden Index, Oxford’s unique inflation index which is often used to inform annual college rent increases, is consistently higher than standard national inflation indices and has recently come under fire for its lack of transparency.
When compared to the national inflation indices calculated by the Office for National Statistics such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Consumer Price Index including housing costs (CPIH), the VNI trends consistently higher. This holds true for 2022, with the VNI standing at 12.86% versus CPI and CPIH figures of 9.10% and 7.90% respectively. This term, as JCRs negotiate rents for the next academic year, the VNI sits at 13.60% .
Concerns about the VNI have been raised in the SU that there is not enough transparency about the data underlying the VNI. One JCR president expressed their concerns with using the Van Noorden Index to determine rent increases, telling Cherwell: “Using the VNI to calculate rent increases is outdated. It seems to have been consistently higher than other national inflation indexes and fails to consider how students will be able to afford these increases, considering student loan increases are capped at 7%, when over the past two years, the VNI has been 13.60% and 12.86% respectively.”
A Cherwell investigation into rent increases in Michaelmas 2022 found that they ranged between 1.8-12.9%, depending on which college a student attends. The 12.9% hike was from Christ Church, who were using the 2022 VNI figure of 12.86%.
The Van Noorden Index (VNI), a system created decades ago, is named after the late Roger Van Noorden, an economist, fellow, and domestic bursar at Hertford College in the 1970s who is remembered in The Timesas “acquiring a daunting reputation for prudence in the college and for financial expertise throughout the university”. The VNI is an inflationary measure unique to Oxford, created to reflect the costs faced by Oxford colleges. It is calculated annually for all colleges by the Estates Bursar Committee, using aggregated cost information and forward forecasts. The VNI is based on the inflation rate of items like utilities, maintenance, and staffing – a narrower set of goods than is used to calculate national inflation indices. In 2020, New College described “the local ‘Van Noorden Index’” as “collegiate inflation” or “in essence service-industry inflation”.
Not all colleges still use the VNI to inform the rents they set for students, with several colleges switching away from the index in the face of high inflation and the cost of living crisis. New College abandoned the VNI as a tool for setting student rent last year when their governing body deemed the 12.86% figure was “too hefty a hike”. Hertford College also stepped away from the VNI last year in favour of the CPI, although they still “recognise the VNI as a useful reference point, and a key local measure”.
Lincoln College has not used the VNI in recent years since they undertook “an analysis of our historic costs” and found a combination of CPI and the Retail Price Index (RPI) “best reflects the inflation in our accommodation costs”. Similarly, St Catherine’s uses its own ‘Full Economic Cost Attribution model’ in discussion with students, and St Hugh’s uses the CPIH. St Hilda’s told Cherwell they do not use VNI because “other indices, such as CPI … are considered to be more relevant”.
However, many other colleges still rely on the VNI to inform rent increases. St John’s College uses the VNI as a “reference point in annual discussions with students to inform the setting of rents and charges”, also taking into account “the balance between College income and expenditure” and available student funding. University College told Cherwell they do not use the VNI “assiduously”, but rather as a “broad-based figure to help guide the College’s budgetary provisioning”. St Anne’s take a more mixed approach, where they “no longer use [the VNI] as the single formal benchmark to set rents”, and instead also incorporate the CPI and other factors like the Real Living Wage, the Oxford Living Wage, and any increases in the maintenance loan levels available to students. Mansfield College simply confirmed that they still use the VNI.
New College bursar David Palfreyman told Cherwell that because the college was not going to use the VNI again this year, it “looks likely that to be another year in which we will under-recover against a further high VNI, costing College a chunky accumulating sum in partially shielding students from the full impact of inflation”.
He argued this would be “a sum most [colleges] will struggle to absorb when they are still recovering from a major hit to revenue streams [rent and conference earnings] during the Covid disruption” and as “they face a doubling of energy costs” amidst frozen tuition fees and market volatility impacting the “prudent draw-down rate from the Endowment”.
Rent negotiations between JCRs and college administrators are ongoing. Rates are expected to be finalised in the coming weeks.
Gwyneth Lewis is the former National Poet of Wales, the first writer to be given the Welsh laureateship and was recently appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for her services to literature. Her poetry has been proudly reproduced in six-foot-high letters on the Wales Millennium Centre’s façade in Cardiff Bay.
Natascha: You’ve been hosting poetry reading classes here during Hilary term as Balliol College’s writer-in-residence. What made you want to come back to Balliol and how have you found it now that you’re back?
Gwyneth: I was here as a graduate student doing my doctorate and it’s been very sweet to come back older, and not having to write a doctorate. It’s been just a delight. I’ve been given the opportunity to have serious talks with people who are serious writers here and it’s been a huge privilege to think through some of the issues with people who are committed to their writing. I’ve been, I shouldn’t have been but I am, surprised and delighted by the passion that people feel about their own writing. I mean, we, as students used to do it. I was active in the Poetry Society, and I knew a lot of writers, but to actually have the college provide the opportunity is a completely other thing. It’s very enlightened, I think, particularly because I don’t see the skills of good academic writing as all that different from good creative writing. In fact, I think they’re indistinguishable. It’s about clear thinking. It’s about having the courage to say what you mean, not what you think other people want you to say, that’s really key.
Natascha: Would you be willing to speak a bit about what you’ve been working on whilst in residence here at Balliol College?
Gwyneth: I’ve not worked on it as much as I would have liked but I have got a critical book in process about how to approach poetry without fear. I think, as a genre, it’s considered very inaccessible by a lot of people. People have been put off, I think, by feeling as if poetry was talking in a language that you don’t understand and that you’re excluded from it. Well, that’s not good poetry! I feel very strongly about that. So, I’m writing a critical book about that and how to really approach it with confidence and how not to be daunted by both writing and reading, which are very similar processes, because you can’t do the one without the other.
Natascha: I was looking at some of the work that you’ve done in the past and it’s not all just poetic works. You’ve worked in various genres, forms and mediums. Is there a specific medium that you felt was strongest out of all of the ones that you’ve tried? Or do you feel that they all have their own advantages?
Gwyneth: Well, my first love is poetry. I was writing before I knew really what it was – since the age of seven or so. It’s the closest to my brain wiring. But then I also liked writing television scripts, because of the discipline of having to push on the story visually rather than using words. I found writing plays very difficult. I have massive respect for playwrights. In an odd way, no matter what the form is, I find I have similar preoccupations in all of them. So, it’s great to be able to bring out different aspects in, let’s say, a novella or nonfiction book. I enjoy the variety because I get easily bored. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over again.
Natascha: I find it really interesting that you’ve written poetry in both Welsh and English. I was reading a Guardian piece that you wrote about your relationship with poetry in the past, and your Welsh identity. Do you feel that you can express yourself better in one language than in the other?
Gwyneth: Well, yes. I mean, I was bilingual from an early age, Welsh being the first language. I think there’s a way in which the first language you speak is more intimately wired into your brain so I noticed I write more quickly and well [in Welsh]. But because I have that split second [to think], in English, I can do things in my second language that I can’t do in Welsh. I do speak other languages too although I don’t write in them. I think it’s like having a camera with a different focal distance, or a different lens in it for every language. What fascinates me is that when I tried to translate a book of Welsh poems into English, I found I had to change more or less everything, to give a cultural equivalent because your audience is different in both languages, politically different, historically different in their experiences.
Gwyneth Lewis’ poetry on the façade of the Wales Millennium Centre. Image Credit: Lewis Clarke/CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Natascha: Your piece of poetry on the Wales Millennium Centre is said to be one of the biggest reproductions of the poetic word in the world. How was it seeing something that you conceptualised being reflected in the real world on such a grand scale?
Gwyneth: Amazing. Yeah, I mean, really amazing. And fortunately, I still like the words. You know, because if imagine if you thought, “Oh, that’s a weak bit of it”, that would irritate me enormously. But there was something about the spirit of that building, and what the aspirations were when it went up, that helped to write the poem. It was a very thrilling experience. Although I had an irrational fear when I first saw it, that there would be a spelling mistake. But there isn’t.
Natascha: How long did you spend working on that project?
Gwyneth: Well, the way you phrased it is interesting, because I wrote the words in a weekend. But I had been thinking about the building for a long time, because I applied for a job in it so I knew what the building was about very well. But I didn’t try to write any words until the very last minute, until the deadline was nearly up, so I just got lucky.
Natascha: What I also found really interesting was that you’d studied at Cambridge and then went to Harvard, to then come to Oxford to do your post-graduate in 18th century forgeries. How did you find studying in America and what made you want to come back to study that specific specialty here at Oxford?
Gwyneth: Well, I went to America because I was a bit stuck as to which language to write in. At the time when I was an undergraduate, English poetry was very much looking down on the Welsh language and culture and yet English poetry wasn’t terribly interesting. I mean, there were interesting poets, but as whole scene wasn’t that exciting. I thought there was more interesting work going on in America. It gave me a chance to take time to assess politically what I felt comfortable with and that’s when I made the switch to writing in English. Then I discovered, “Oh! I don’t have to stop writing in Welsh either. Why can’t I do both?” It seems obvious now looking back at it, but it was an agony at the time. The reason I wanted to do the forgery is because one of the foundational scholars of Welsh language culture was a forger himself, and he had a vast archive of writing in Welsh that hadn’t been explored when I came here. So, I put him in the context of other forgeries that were going on, which weren’t really forgeries. They were just politically contentious pieces of literature. I wanted to look at the politics of that.
Natascha: So, when you do get the chance to write your poetic works, or any kind of works, do you have a favourite writing spot or a favourite location? Or is it just where and when it grabs you?
Gwyneth: The main thing is to have a door that you can shut or a nest that you can build like a corner of a sofa. I make nests everywhere and I write a lot in bed because it’s unofficial time. You can be more daring.
Natascha: Do you have a favourite spot in Oxford that you just go to for inspiration?
Gwyneth: No, but I’m always on the lookout. Although, I went into the Bodleian for the first time in a long time and the air was thick with hysteria, in the same way as it was when I was a student, it was exactly the same.
Natascha: That’s the perfect way to describe it. Just to close off the interview, I was wondering if you had a favourite memory of your time here in Oxford?
Gwyneth: There’s plenty that I remember with shame. I can’t isolate one. I must say that handing in the doctorate and the degree ceremony for getting the doctorate was wonderful, really very dramatic. You file in in a black gown, and you go out in a scarlet and blue doctoral gown. I enjoyed it a lot simply because it was great to have it finished and to know that I never ever have to write another one.
Natascha: Yet you’re back in the same town.
Gwyneth: Yes. It is it is wonderful to have been allowed back in to see other people at the beginning of that period when I know what they’re going through because it isn’t an easy place Oxford. It has many, many wonders to it but it can be a tricky place to maintain your morale so it’s nice to be able to pass some things on to people that I thought helped, you know, and to say, just enjoy it as much as you can.
3rd Year, Magdalen Dan is best known as a DJ and social mobility campaigner; when he’s not behind the decks, he’ll either be wishing people happy birthday or in the library revising for his finals.
2. Hamish Nash and Shu Huang
Oriel, Oxford and Christ’s College, Cambridge Hamish says, “‘I’ve memed my way onto this list”. Shu says, “I don’t even know what a BNOC is but Hamish forces me to submit this”. Either way, you know who they are.
3. Beau Boka-Batesa
2nd year, Lincoln Beau is a poet, environmentalist, and occasional baller. When Beau isn’t doing their degree, they’re either online, banging out Plush on a Tuesgay or taking advantage of £3,50 cocktails in a bar.
4. Danial Hussain
2nd year, LMH Danial is a PPEist at LMH and is also President-elect of the Oxford University Student Union. Having been interviewed by national newspapers, his face is one you should definitely recognise.
5. Gracie Oddie-James
3rd year, Christ Church You may know Gracie from one of her many performances in Oxford and beyond. Where can you find her next? She says she’s signed an NDA, but after a vodka lime soda at the KA, she may be inclined to tell you…
6. Chloe Pomfret
1st year, St Catz Chloe has been the OULC social sec, hosting their infamous Beer&Bickering, but she may be better known for her viral TikToks and study-Instagram. She’s also the estranged rep for Class Act
7. Disha Hegde
2nd year, St John’s Disha (left) is President-elect of the Union. Last year she was co-chair of the Women*s campaign. In her own words, she also “posts constant (and admittedly cringe) fit checks on my instagram story”.
8. Ati Maheshwari
2nd year, St Hilda’s Ati was the 22’-23’ President of the 93% Club at Oxford. His side achievements include being removed from the role of freshers’ rep and being the ‘failed’ Oxford M2 badminton captain.
9. Hannah Edwards
2nd year, Lincoln In typical PPE fashion, this term Hannah is the Union’s librarian. When she’s not using her free time to argue with people (“competitive debating”) she loves college netball and, most importantly of all, Swiftsoc.
10. Hannah Porter
2nd year, Trinity According to Hannah, “when I’m not busy wibbing, entzing bops which bankrupt the JCR, working on The Isis, or planning VT23, you can find me in parkend keeping up my 100% attendance.”
11. Matthew Dick
2nd year, Magdalen In Matthew’s own words, his personality only consists of 3 things: “1. Having the last name ‘Dick’. 2. Only drinking water and hot chocolate. 3. Being Union president”
12. Yaroslava Bukhta
Msc, St John’s Yaroslava has worked in media and NGO spheres in Ukraine for a couple of years. She is now doing her MSc in Social Anthropology and is the current head of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society.
13. Leah Aspden
3rd year, St Anne’s Leah is the newly elected President of the Drama Society. A self-described “Northern icon”, she is determined to leave Oxford with the world record for asking the most people if they want a brew.
14. Shermar Pryce
2nd year, Univ Shermar describes himself as “a benevolent and (arguably) enlightened despot, steering Oxford’s oldest college through a seemingly endless array of crises”. The most famous of these crises was Univ’s Shitgate.
15. Jasper McBride-Owusu
2nd year, Christ Church Jasper was President of the Oxford Finance Society, but you might also know him from “gasping for breath on a college football pitch, tearing up Torpids or losing at pool in Balliol bar”.
16. James Newbery
3rd year, Teddy Hall James was President of the Drama Society for the last year. When he’s not doing drama-related activities, you’ll probably find him in Plush, losing his mind to Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
17. Lauren Webb
2nd year, Corpus Christi This season, Lauren was the youngest ever Rugby Union Blues Captain, and led the Blues to their first Varsity win since 2016.
18. Imaan Saeed
2nd year, Teddy Hall Imaan is the TT23 president of Oxford’s Law Society. She urges all readers of this list to get themselves a membership.
19. Rosie Wrigglesworth
2nd year, Keble This year, Rosie is President of Oxford’s Diplomatic Society, co-ordinating embassy visits, ambassador talks, and evening events.
20. Julia Maranhao-Wong
1st year, St Anne’s Julia is a Canadian-American from Boston. So far, her Oxford highlights include “being Cinderella at the Union Ball”, where she is an elected member of the Standing Committee.
21. Fiona Zeka
2nd year, Hertford Fiona is a proud Kosovan and author who also works with organisations like the UNHCR, Magic Breakfast, Zero Gravity and Care4Calais to help raise funding and awareness.
22. Lucy Wang
2nd year, Christ Church Lucy is studying maths, although she says that no one ever guesses it when they meet her. You might know her from her Youtube and Tiktok accounts, where she has over 100k subscribers combined.
23. Finley Armstrong
2nd year, Regent’s Park Finley, ak.a. Hummus Man, is known for founding Oxford’s infamous hummus society. Regarding the society, he has ominously warned our readers to “watch this space”.
24. Farabee Pushpita
2nd year, St Anne’s Farabee is an English student and writer. She loves posting incessantly on insta about art exhibits, pretty sights, and her friends.
25. Jemima Chen
2nd year, Balliol When she’s not getting slated on Oxfess, Jemima produces theatre and film. Her feature film with Max Morgan, “Breakwater”, is currently in post-production.
26. Luke Nixon
2nd year, Queen’s Luke tells us that when he’s not pretending to do his Spanish and Portuguese degree, you’ll probably catch him doing too much theatre or aggressively social media-ing to get you to buy tickets for said theatre.
27. Dylan Worsley
2nd year, St John’s Dylan is an ancient historian at John’s who has, in his own words, “hosted some decent seshes in my time, only one of which ending with a formal apology to Brasenose…”
28. Miranda Conn
2nd year, Somerville Miranda was OUCD Blues Dance President for the first Oxford win in Varsity history, and is “known for treating this like it was Olympic Gold”. She’s also repping the Maths & Computer Scientists.
29. Ashley Chee
3rd year, St Catz Ashley is the current Women’s Vice President of Oxford University Football Club. On the side, she dabbles in a Chemistry degree.
30. Mia Wu
2nd year, St John’s Mia has previously served as EiC of The Isis in Hilary, and as Secretary of Asia-Pacific Society. This term, she’s hoping to serve at her English degree.
31. Bella Simpson
2nd year, Oriel Previous OULC co-chair, campaigns officer and TSHA President, Bella is dedicated to delivering social justice. Outside of politics Bella is involved in Oxford’s arts scene, managing marketing teams and directing plays.
32. Meg and Izzie
2nd year, St Catz, and 2nd year, Balliol If you looked at Page 2 of our print edition, you would recognise Meg and Izzie as Cherwell’s Editors in Chief.
[Editor’s Note: Meg and Izzie wouldn’t let us publish this list unless we put them in it]
33. Guy Zilberman
2nd year, Jesus As the co-President of Oxford Climate Society, you can usually find Guy doing something climate-related. However, if you’re lucky, you might also catch him “getting sturdy in Bridge”.
34. Clemmie Read
2nd year, Magdalen Clemmie is EiC of The Isis this term, was President of Media Soc last term, and can otherwise usually be found hanging out with the Magdalen deer.
35. Freya Jones
2nd year, Oriel The Hacks fear her, the Journos revere her – Freya has broken many stories both in Cherwell and in nationals. She spends a lot of time having coffee with student politicians (and occasionally real ones).
36. Manon Hammond
2nd year, Lincoln Manon is chaotically balancing Welsh soc, The Isis, her History degree and “whatever other random thing I decide to take up that term”. She was once described as “a pain in the arse” by Lincoln porters.
37. Brodie Brain
2nd year, St Catz Brodie is self-described “full-time law student, part-time drag queen stranded at Catz”. You can also find her (hip) hopping around Oxford balls with Equinox Dance crew.
38. Philip Gentles
3rd year, Queen’s Philip takes active roles in hockey, hockey, and the charity campaign “what’s a pound”. Seemingly confused as to his presence here, he “represents that you all too can make the list”.
39. Jack Twyman
2ndyear, Regent’s Park When he’s not writing the BNOC list, Jack’s busy with writing the rest of Cherwell, doing Diplo Soc, and living his best life wherever, whenever. He ran Tuesgays last Trinity but is best know for just being tall.
40. Rose and Ayomi
Both 2nd year, Worcester In traditionally salty form, we will be concluding this list with the Editors-in-Chief of The Oxford Student.
At the age of about 12, I saw a priest smoking a cigarette around the back of a church and knew from the look on his face that God probably couldn’t exist. Ever since, I have questioned Christian iconography, mildly suspicious of its ability to get everywhere. A crucifix or collared man decorating the walls of an Oxford college isn’t a sight exclusive to St Stephen’s, but the piety adorning every surface took a second to get used to when I first arrived. (It was the eyes, by the way; the bleak, unblinking eyes as he sucked the cancer right in, like a protest against God themselves.)
St Stephens will relinquish its PPH status later this year to focus on the Church and ordaining Anglican Priests. Having been founded with that purpose in mind, it was only their kindness (and our bursaries) that widened their remit to accept students like me into their arms. But with the highest PGCE (the Post-Graduate Certificate needed to become a teacher) intake of any Oxford institution, where will the trainee-teachers next year be taken in and homed? I worry for them, perhaps unnecessarily, as any mother-hen figure would; there’s a decay in teaching, its core being cut out by years of underfunding and widening socio-economic divides.
My first thought on hearing that St Stephen’s would no longer be associated with the University was to stash as much merchandise as I could. Whilst Oxford merch may not have a fabulous resale price, its potency—underlined by every ‘Look-at-my-subtle-indicator-that-I-go-to-the-oldest-university-in-the-English-speaking-world’ puffer jacket, or the ‘Oh this old thing? Yes, Balliol’ fleeces—means that I still want the crest on my chest. There is a lineage of people going back to 1260 for, say, Merton college students. There will possibly be hundreds of thousands of students that can claim to have attended any one of the older colleges. St Stephen’s, on the other hand, will upon closing have had total numbers of admission closer in order of magnitude to those of All-Souls. This is limited edition merch, the type no one else can get. I wouldn’t like to make any direct inferences, but is that where the similarities end between All-Souls and St Stephen’s? (Yes). And of course I wanted evidence that I was actually at Oxford. I’d worked hard to get here, and the year I get accepted I am told the whole building will stop taking on people like me?! Charming. How will that work on a CV? It will look like I faked the whole thing! I may as well have gone to Aberystwyth at this rate; they have a fantastic PGCE course, and a beach and it’s not a 6 hour journey home. No—the merch will have to be the central evidence that I was ever actually here.
St Stephen’s is not a well-known ‘college’ and I think that’s done on purpose. It is so hidden you would never guess there are 2 chapels, a church, a library, a garden, a small quad and some cloisters, all clustered just off Cowley Road behind the Sainsburys. I’d call it quaint, if I didn’t know how many of my friends from back home would think I sounded so overtly Oxbridge that the bullying may never stop. But certainly it is a very inward-looking place, a self-contained unit of self-sufficiency, and like any hothouse without enough cool air to go around there can sometimes be a feeling of getting on each other’s toes (which I escape by living almost entirely at school).
Among PGCEs, St Stephen’s has the reputation of being where the dregs are collected: it accepts those who didn’t get into the real colleges (even in this privileged institution, it seems, the onion has further layers of privilege still.) It is also where the party lives; we will invariably be the most fun teachers that Oxford produces. We all likely applied around March and have a scattered approach to our pursuits. We also have the brains to just about pull off a really quite admirable portion of them, entirely on the fly.
In wider Oxford circles, asking which college you are at, people will look to you politely and say “Oh no I’m not really familiar with that one”; they will then continue the conversation with a tone that suggests they think I must have meant Brookes, which I find awfully elitist. The alternative, however, is that they have heard of St Stephen’s, and that can often be worse as they gleefully inform you about what they know about “Staggers”. “Did you know that the word Staggers is associated with an oddly closeted homophobia?” Yes, I live there. “Apparently, there’s a joke that every cohort year photo from Staggers will have one priest who’s dead, one who lives in Rome and one who’s in prison.” I know, I live there. “Have you heard about that thing where [Redacted]” Yes. I lived there.
Among the Ordinands, I can only imagine how the PGCEs reputation precedes us. Every year they inform the new cohort “The PGCEs last year were quite difficult, but this year we hope will be different.” It’s an interesting way to phrase it. For such an educated group of individuals, their mathematical reasoning needs refreshing; the PGCE course is one year, the training to become ordained is 3 years. If the pattern of slight tension felt between the two cohorts repeats every year, and the PGCEs change every year, then they may need a maths lesson in common factors. A lesson I am happy to provide. However, I am willing to accept that we can be difficult. That we are loud, we don’t pray, some of us may even have sex, if we are not too tired and ask very nicely. I understand that, for the religiously inclined, watching someone not adhere to your beliefs with the same vigour and respect that you do yourself can be difficult. Yet I still believe that us future teachers and future priests have more in common than we could ever have in differences. We believe that the thing we are doing is the best way to serve our communities, and to build a future that is better than the state of the world today. As the ancient Greek proverb goes “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” In our hearts, we both feel a calling to meet the needs of those who need us. I’d like to think that is why they have accommodated us for so many years. I do have a scepticism about the practice of organised religion, but I am an open-minded Scientist at heart, an agnostic. I would like to believe there is nothing stopping meaningful and productive relationships between the secular and sacred. Religion has been an engine to feed the poor, educate the masses, and give hope to the hopeless, and I hope that if Jesus can associate himself with prostitutes and lepers, that the Ordinands might be able and happy to associate themselves with PGCEs.
I digress. There are some wonderful people that come through those cloisters and I’ve drunk wine with a lot of them. And danced loudly in the common room to the justified annoyance of ordinands, and the teaching staff in the Department of Education the next morning, as they try to cajole some teacher trainers who should take the whole thing a bit more seriously, it is a weekday after all. The food is plentiful, and the chats are interesting and diverse. The visiting students from all over the world, from a great number of disciplines, the lazy Saturday mornings and after-dinner conversations ebb and flow through any topic of their specialities, their interest and devotion to knowledge is something I truly adore.
And sometimes I’m expected to talk. Sometimes I will be asked: “Why have you decided to go into teaching?” My answer is usually always “I enjoy it” or “I couldn’t stand an office job; I’d kill myself a week in” because if I told the truth people would think I was trying to passionately sell them snake oil.
The reality of the matter is, I had a hard time coming to the conclusion that teaching should be my vocation, even though I have always loved it. I love working with young people and watching them develop, watching how funny and wise and awful and magical they are. I love trying to help mould someone into an infinitesimally kinder or more knowledgeable person than they may have been a lesson before.
But I knew how my people might speak about me. On a trip to the library during my second-year undergrad at Bristol, we saw the beaming PGCE graduates standing outside the Wills memorial, having their celebratory moment. My friend leans over and whispers “Well, their futures have gone down the toilet.” I saw them and wished more than anything to be among them. Secretly. I laughed along and procrastinated for a couple of hours in a leather-backed chair.
Is this how I’d be seen if I chose to teach? Not just by my friends, but by society?
I’d be seen as someone who opted for this career, not because it’s the only thing I can imagine myself getting up every single morning to do, but because I wasn’t actually able to do much else.
Not because educating the people who will inherit the earth tomorrow is our only hope, but because I was uncertain about what to do after university, so I thought I may as well give it a go.
Not because I’m the first person in a decade to get into Oxford from my languishing state secondary and I feel fire at the injustice, how many of my classmates were ignored by places like Oxbridge regardless of the stars they clawed down for themselves on their results sheets; Jaina, Jessica, Carys, Dolan, Tilly, Megan, Daniel … No, it must be because I like the long holidays.
So when people ask me “Why did you choose to get into teaching?” I want to grab a soapbox and throw manifestos at them about the liberation of the masses by investing in quality education. I want to slap the drooling tones out the mouths of the privately educated, home counties collective that makes up so much of this city. I want to shout, knock down the bursar’s door, collect the chancellor and round up the kitchen staff, shaking them into submission: We need teachers. We need them so aggressively. Carry on housing the educators as they learn their trade. Keep these doors open for them. Please! Instead, I eat my broccoli and tell them “I just think it’s quite fun!”
St Stephens closing its doors seemed to me like another loss. Another change, a degradation, in our attitude towards state educators that we’ve been seeing long before the pandemic. That tells us how much we value being educated, but not who educates us. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t teach.” Those who can’t teach, teach [insert disliked subject]. We really have to thank G.B Shaw for framing the cultural zeitgeist so concisely.
Maybe I wouldn’t have put these thoughts to paper if I’d just got into Jesus like a good little Welshman. But for me, St Stephen’s has become a home, and it will be sad to know that no other future teachers will know the delights and curiosities of this quaint little corner of Cowley.
