June 3rd 2016 - Memorial Service for Sir Jeremy Morse

It was a great privilege to attend the memorial service of Jeremy Morse, who gave so much support "to Minimus" and the Primary Latin Project over so many years. The service, one of three for this great polymath, was held in the beautiful setting of the chapel at New College, Oxford, his former college. This was followed by tea at All Souls, where he was a fellow.

As always, it was fascinating to learn so much about the facets of Jeremy's life and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting some of his extended family - 4 children, 14 grandchildren and 6 great-grand children! I remember one Christmas they all converged on the Morses' country home in Gloucestershire and Jeremy had selected the Christmas reading for the whole family - to work through both Minimus books at bedtime!

The tributes to him - in music, words and even Sophocles' Ode on Man from the Antigone, read in Greek, were beautiful. We have lost an extremely kind man with a giant intellect.

Saying 'vale' to Pam plus more!

1. May 7th - we had a very happy committee meeting with so many exciting ideas for future Minimus resources. Sadly, we said goodbye to Pam Macklin, who is leaving the committee after 20 years of wonderful support for Minimus!

 

2. May 18th - a very enjoyable training day at Chew Valley school. Representatives from 4 schools met to consider using Minimus. None were Latin specialists but were encouraged to learn that Minimus is being taught very successfully by non-Latinists. Thanks to Helen Currie and Classics for All for setting this up and for the potential development of another Classics Hub - and only 8 miles from my home.

 

3. Helen Forte and I are meeting in August to create new pre-Minimus material for children aged 3-6.

 

Thank you for so much positive feedback and so many good suggestions about this material.

 

Barbara