Page 3 - The Keble Review 2016

From the Warden
The hanging of the Warden occurred on 7th June. The accompanying photograph indicates that this is
a reference only to the unveiling of my portrait in Hall. At the outset I should
make clear that for me delight rather than disappointment attends its realisation. I say that because I do not want what follows
to be interpreted as vanity, to which I do not confess, or as anything other than unqualified praise for the portraitist.
The Keble approach to such memorials, recently at least, is that they are completed well before the end of
the Warden’s tenure. It is a matter of conjecture whether this is to give the Fellowship maximum flexibility about when to open the departure door or to capture
a likeness before the ravages of time are too distracting. In any event, I was invited to consider the prospect in late 2014 and to identify an artist. Mark Roscoe was
the obvious choice. His portrait of Averil Cameron in 1999 is very widely admired; at the age of twenty-five it was his first significant commission. He was very enthusiastic about a further Keble painting which would evidence how his style
had changed.
I approached my first meeting with Mark in a state of some terror. How deep would he be able to penetrate the dark corners of my soul and what would he reveal that I might wish to leave unexamined? He, of
course, is a consummate professional and our first conversation pointed me in the direction of identifying the aspects of my life to which reference might be made. This was less difficult than I had imagined and his approach to sitting – two half days, involving many photographs – much less onerous than I had feared. Getting to know him was pure pleasure.
So, what is the portrait intended to convey? Some record seems appropriate. The main figure is sitting in the North West corner of the drawing room in the Lodgings. The setting, which includes
my DPhil gown (the degree having been incorporated from my Cambridge PhD) and light coming in from the window, is intended to signify my commitment to the strong academic values of the College and University, while also reflecting my thirty-three years’ experience outside the academy. The illumination may also indicate the artist’s interest in Vermeer.
The model of me is taken from a chess set with which I was presented when I left my final Whitehall role as Permanent Secretary to the Northern Ireland Office. The
original set was designed to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. I went to work on the peace process in 2002 when the Agreement was on the point of collapse and continued in that endeavour until the main elements of devolution to the Stormont Assembly and Executive were completed in 2010. The pieces on the chessboard, which itself is a map of Ireland, include the main protagonists in Northern Ireland’s political parties and in the British and Irish Governments. The pawns, represented in the portrait, are, respectively, an RUC police officer and a Provisional IRA volunteer. My former NIO colleagues commissioned the creator to produce a rather larger model of me, to be positioned as a referee in the middle of the board.
Among the other artefacts are three books. The most prominent is Peter Hennessy’s well-known commentary on my former profession. There is a hidden reference to my Cambridge College, St
John’s, because Hennessy also studied there. The letters “dti”, visible on the corner of another volume, refer to the former Department of Trade and Industry which was my home department in Whitehall for most of my career. And “Plain Words” by Sir Ernest Gowers is one of
the canonical texts in that world, though
it may be in this portrait because I am occasionally accused of linguistic pedantry.
And then there is a photograph of my immediate family: Amanda, my wife of almost forty-two years at the time of the hanging and whose support in my Keble role, as throughout, is beyond compare, and our sons, Ian and Tom, the former
a philosophy tutor at St Anne’s and the latter a Guardian journalist currently in Beijing. It will not surprise anyone who knows me well when I say that I rely on them individually and severally in all things. The photograph was taken at Buckingham Palace when I was knighted in 2009.
What else may be discerned? One thing which is invisible is a manuscript of a
piece of music by Thomas Tallis, Spem in alium. Mark judged, I’m sure correctly, that it would not fit the composition of the portrait, but it is to be imagined, under
the board, as reflecting my great love of choral music and of the Anglican liturgy. For the rest, it is whatever the viewer may find. I might hope that will include glimpses of warmth and humour in someone who has grown to love the College which has commissioned this representation of its thirteenth Warden.
Mark, I am forever in your debt. Your recent election to be a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters was incredibly well-deserved.
Sir Jonathan Phillips
Warden
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