Dan Bavister, Frep, Captain of the Badminton Team, and last year’s John’s Chronicle Editor-in-Chief, describes the community he has found in John’s as he arrives in Durham, ahead of beginning his master’s in English Literature.
As September rolls around, it brings with it, in Durham at least, a whirlwind of activity. Here at John’s, it marks the arrival of our new students.
This year, I played the part of both returning student and new. Having graduated from my undergraduate degree in summer, I was now beginning my master’s in English Literature. Exciting times lay ahead.
Returning to college after nightfall, following an eight-hour tangle of train journeys from my faraway home in the South West, the arrival felt fated. I was warmly welcomed by Andy, to whom I’d given my key when moving out at the end of my undergraduate, and who now moved me into my new room.
The college is a wonderful place. This year especially, the community feels more vibrant than ever. It is a year of change. I’ve stepped down from The John’s Chronicle, the beloved college journal I’ve helped run these last two years. I’ve taken up the men’s captaincy of badminton here at John’s, and I was a Frep.
My new housemates, friends, and colleagues have been wonderful. An impromptu trip to the pub after my first seminar made for a jolly return to study, where I met many of the new students I now enjoy classes alongside. Within college, the postgraduate community already has a burgeoning and deepening sense of belonging.
While moving in my new peers as an International & Postgraduate Frep, I was moved by the kindness and joy that greeted me at every turn. There was the Pakistani man who had won scholarships to several of the best American colleges—only to turn them all down, amidst global uncertainty, to take up a place at Durham. Warmly do we welcome him.
From debating politics over breakfast (thank you Nina!) to philosophy at dinner, John’s embraces genuine intellectual discourse—more than purely academic: it is community-oriented, rooted in respect, generating thought and vision, with kindness at its heart.
Last year, a good friend from another country, who was learning English, told me his favourite word upon arriving in England, and at Durham, was ‘lovely’. It is a wonderful word. And it is certainly true that there is much that is lovely here—the riverside walks, evensong, boats on the Wear; cold ice and snow at dawn; sun in the reaches of the cathedral spires; seemingly endless light everywhere, glorious, golden, fine as filigree. A living poem of light and shade: dusk falling over the Bailey, the glimmer of slick rainwater on the cobbles.
And a home. A home for those who perhaps have been searching for one, or who thought they’d found it but hadn’t, or who have not been welcomed in this world, so often closed and sepulchred in its inwardness. I have found a home here. A joyous home. And this year it has been a joy to return home, and to welcome others home as well. Long may it continue.
Photo credit: Rebecca Bouveng
John's Chronicle 