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his year's 62 Horizon Lecture Series
began with a talk from Headmaster
Richard Biggs on Apartheid. The
lecture covered background information
explaining how and why apartheid came
about, giving a personal perspective of
what it was like to live in South Africa
under this regime and why it was so bad.
Samantha Shannon is a 22-year old
graduate of Oxford University who has
been writing novels in her spare time
since she was a teenager. She won a
deal with Bloomsbury publishers whilst at
Oxford and there is a huge amount of
media interest in her forthcoming series
of books. She told us about her
experience of school and A Levels, telling
us about the challenges of her application
to Oxford and what it has been like to be
in the media spotlight over the last year.
Michael Pearn is the elder brother of
Michelle Pearn, who was a pupil in 62
last year, and the son of an OA. Michael
suffers from cerebral palsy which affects
the control of all four of his limbs and his
speech. Despite his disability Michael
has led a very interesting life, including
achieving Duke of Edinburgh Gold, sailing
on the Lord Nelson and, in his adulthood,
completing a PhD. In questions pupils
wanted to know what message he would
give to the world if he had the chance -
his answer was for society not to make
assumptions about people.
Dr Michael Palmer gave a talk entitled
Freud, Sex and God. He explained how,
through case studies, Freud developed
theories about neuroses that can develop
from attachments formed in childhood.
According to Freud, these can account for
most abnormal behaviour in adults, and
can even explain why people need
religious belief.
'One Voice' is a charity which gives a
voice to people from Israel and Palestine
by enabling them to educate school
pupils about the conflict in the Middle
East. Two women from Israel and
Palestine described their experiences and
explained their relative positions on each
side of the debate. After the lecture,
pupils were encouraged to suggest their
own solutions to the conflict.
Andrew Pontzen was taught science by
Mr Biggs when he was at Magdalen
College School. He is now an
astrophysicist based at Oxford University,
specialising in galaxy formation and 'dark
matter'. His talk used graphics and
figures to explain the most up-to-date
findings about space as we know it.
Beginning with our own galaxy and then
beyond, Andrew illustrated how much
mankind knows of the universe despite our
limited achievements with space travel.
Naomi Harvey is a visiting music teacher
at King's who sings for the Welsh National
Opera. She gave a talk about her career
as an opera singer, and told us of her
unconventional route into the profession,
with stories about people she has worked
with including some of the 'divas' for
whom she has acted as understudy. Her
talk also gave advice about the ups and
downs of a career as a performer,
explaining how enjoyable and how
stressful it can be. Naomi finished by
singing from her favourite opera, Tosca.
Head of English Toby Smith stepped in at
the last minute in November and gave a
lecture entitled Putin's Russia based on
his own experience of and interest in
Russian culture. His talk covered Russian
history and some of its more interesting
characters, with a focus on Putin and the
stories associated with him.
Captain Mike Tattersall from 1st Battalion
The Rifles was accompanied by Lance
Corporal Matthews and King's parent
Colonel Urquhart in a lecture that described
life as a British soldier in Afghanistan,
touching on the living conditions, the ways
they do their peacekeeping work, and
Lance Corporal Matthews' story of surviving
a blast from an IED.
Michael Griffin explained the basics of
Music Psychology by exploring how music
may or may not distract us as we study.
It would seem that several factors make a
difference to our tolerance of background
Horizon lectures
by Emma Forward
Bestselling author Samantha
Shannon with her former A Level
English teacher, Horizon lecture
co-ordinator Emma Forward