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Dedication to Dunstan Skilbeck
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II
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Dedication to Dunstan Skilbeck There is no going back, only going forward The Editors of The Environmentalist have the greatest of pleasure in dedicating this issue to Dunstan Skilbeck, CBE, former Principal, Wye College, University of London. The dedication is a tribute to his skills as an administrator, educator and thinker. To the public at large the contribution which educators make never appears dramatic, yet our only real hope of a global survival rests in the education of young people, stimulating them with ideas, and preparing them to be tomorrow's leaders. He strongly believed, a belief he still holds, that the universities never honour their proven teachers in the way they should. It is a great sadness to him that teaching ability is not ranked with research ability. Great teachers are far too rare in our universities, a situation that has deteriorated rather than improved with the passage of time. For myself this is a doubly pleasurable task for, as an undergraduate at Wye College, I experienced in a very personal way much of what appears in this dedication. When one encounters one's former principal, some years after his official retirement, one can not help wondering whether the image lives up to reality. In the case of Dunstan Skilbeck, his mind is as sharp as ever, the intense interest is still there, the optimism is there, and above all, the humanity of the person to whom I owe so much is as always so much in evidence. Dunstan Skilbeck has always had a love, respect and understanding of the countryside and the people who live there. One could say that he was born a conservationist, though the term was not in use at that time. He remembers well telling his mother at the age of seven or eight that he was going to be a farmer. He has always considered the country as his home, though his time at school was spent in London, where his father, a painter, had a studio; however his holidays which he remembers so vividly were always spent at their home in the country. His early interest in fanning never diminished. Though he went up to Oxford initially to read classics, he soon discovered that he had 0251-1088183]$3.00
little affinity with such studies; he switched to the then rather unacceptable study of agriculture, taking his first degree in rural economy. On graduation he had an appointment at the Oxford Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics, and later transferred to teach agricultural production. From an early age he had run his own farm in addition to his university work, and later on was responsible for the development and management of the university farm. He has always placed equal importance to the skills of practical farming as the medical profession gives to clinical practice. During his time at Oxford he also spent some months in the Sudan working with a small team carrying out a soil cure botanical survey of that country. His time in the Sudan marked the beginning of his interest and concern for the Third World, which gave him an insight into the problems of a then remote and underdeveloped part of the world, particularly in the west and south of that great country. Early in the war he joined the Royal Air Force having previously belonged to the Oxford University Air Squadron, seeing active
The Environmentalist, 3 (1983) 242-244
©Elsevier Sequoia/Printed in The Netherlands
service in the Middle East. Soon he was transferred to a semi-civilian appointment with the Middle East Supply Centre, which was responsible for the food reserves and food production of some thirteen countries and whose territories extended from Constantinople to Addis Ababa. As assistant director of food production this was a most fascinating and exacting job involving such disparate problems as the supply of combine harvesters to Turkey, to assisting Saudi Arabia develop its food producing capability, and helping in the administration of the anti-locust campaigns of the Middle East. This remarkably varied responsibility gave him firsthand and rare experience of the problems of developing countries under the exigencies of a wartime economy, an experience which stood him in good stead in his later work. In 1945, while still in uniform, he was appointed Principal of Wye College, which housed the agricultural faculty of the University of London. Arriving there without staff, without students, with no equipment, centred on a charming fifteenth century building that had been recently vacated as a military headquarters, he was faced with a daunting problem of recreating a viable institution. In the following years he skillfully devoted his abilities and energies to the redevelopment and evolution of Wye College, which rapidly arose phoenixlike from its wartime ashes to become an institution of a national and an international reputation second to none. Dunstan Skilbeck loved his time at Oxford, and felt that the quality of life of the two older universities of Oxford and Cambridge had to be transplantable into a wider context. He indeed successfully reproduced and maintained at Wye an extension of their concepts. Above all he felt that the college must be broadly based and a civilized place in which to study as well as maintaining academic excellence and high level research. All the courses from the beginning were multidisciplinary. To maintain an integrated and effective multidisciplinary staff must be developed a strong concept of the Senior Common Room, where there could be, and where there was, continual dialogue between members of staff, ranging from the sciences and the technologies to the social sciences. The maintenance of this continuing and daily dialogue was an imperative part of his philosophy. This was further emphasised when he persuaded the Nature Conservancy Council (a government agency) to open the South-East Regional Office on the Vol. 3, No. 4 (1983)
Wye Campus, so that there could be a dialogue between the university staff and the conservancy staff. He was also instrumental in establishing on the campus the local headquarters of the extension and advisory services thus bringing the college into close contact with the farming community. He takes far too little credit for what he did, affirming that he was just lucky in having been provided with the opportunity and the means with which to do it, and the vision and imagination of his colleagues. When appointed Principal of Wye College, he contemplated a limited stay; twenty-three years later when he retired he felt that he had just begun the job. It was during the early years of this period that the former colonial territories were emerging as new nations and the University of London was active in assisting these nations in setting up their own universities. Dunstan Skilbeck was very much a part of this, assisting and advising in the setting up of agricultural faculties in these new universities which were to become important in their national development. This took him to the West Indies, East and West Africa and even further afield, doing what he enjoyed doing, and doing it so well. He had been a Council Member and later Vice-chairman of the Governing Body of the then Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. He was much concerned with the eventual transfer of this well-known and long established institution to the University of the West Indies as its faculty of agriculture. As someone who has always loved teaching, which is only dialogue by another name, he recalls the joy of the coming of each October and the welcoming of a new set of undergraduates to the college, and of the pleasure of growing old against the constant background of young people. This he misses the most. He opposed in every way and by every means water tight compartments of learning and can recall with considerable less pleasure the resistance within academia of individuals who did not understand, and were determined not to understand what he was trying to achieve. He would have liked to have been involved in the setting up of Centres for Rural Education, Associated Disciplines, Extension and Research, and regrets not having had the opportunity of visiting Lylapur University (now renamed Faisalabad University) in Pakistan where such a concept is in operation. Individuals such as Dunstan Skilbeck never retire. On completion of twenty-three years 243
service at Wye he became actively concerned with the work of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, becoming Vice-Chairman of the national body, and later, a position he still holds, a Vice-President of the organization. However, to experience his old enthusiasm one has to see his work with the Ernest Cook Trust. He is a trustee of this charitable body which administers farms in four counties, and uses the income from rents to support educational projects, mostly in the United Kingdom, which concern the countryside and rural life. Though his formal education was long before the term conservation was in general use, he, like so many at this time, was influenced by Professor A. G. Tansley and by Sir George Stapledon. His attitude to the countryside is always refreshingly realistic, considering it both a pleasure and a privilege to have known and enjoyed it before the take-over by the internal combustion engine, the selective weed spray and the destruction of hedges, but recognizes that there is no going back only going forward. He accepts that the countryside will continue to undergo many changes, and must find its new role. But it must in the first place discover that new role. The quiet and tranquil environment has gone only to be recalled in memory or in poetry. There will have to be more access to the countryside, and this will result in stress and damage. What is required of us is to ensure that the stress and damage are minimized. In the middle to longer term, he considers education, especially of the young, the most important answer. He quotes examples like the farm adoption scheme where it is possible for urban children to have an understanding of what is happening in the countryside. Again he presses the need for dialogue. Every opportunity must be taken by the countryman, be he farmer, naturalist, forester or conservationist, to talk to those who enjoy walking (or even motoring) through our countryside, to explain what is happening to it and what is going on in its field and farm steadings. Through dialogue comes understanding. As to what the future holds he is unhappy at the extent to which the countryside is being raped and destroyed but finds it wrong to blame the farmer as being primarily responsible for its destruction. They have to maximize their resources in a highly competitive world and on them in the longer term the na-
244
tion relies to keep its larders full. Conservation will however only succeed if there is a change in attitude amongst the fanning community and he sees evidence of this already happening. The recent development of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group clearly indicate, not only a change of heart but, more importantly, a change of interest. Farmers do not, and certainly will not, wish to live or to have their children live, in a degraded countryside where the natural ecology has been virtually sprayed to a halt. Equally important is it for society in general to appreciate that it must be prepared to pay, in one way or another, for the protection of precious sites of scientific interest and for more general protection of the countryside which indeed must almost certainly involve tighter planning regulations, however much one longs to shy away from bureaucratic controls. He also has a deep concern about the rural community and its vital contribution which it makes to our heavily over-urbanised society; particularly so in the United Kingdom where less than three percent of the population works on farms. Despite Fritz Schumacher's philosophy of "small is beautiful" he like so many others seems full of uncertainty about the viability of the small farm. It is inevitable that more and more small units of production will be absorbed into even larger units, more capital and less labour intensive. Is the alternative for much of our sub-marginal hill and moorland small farms their abandonment? Such forebodings postulate the further demolishment of our rapidly changing rural communities unless in adapting to changing circumstances they discover a new role for themselves; a role which through the motor car, farm holidays and a whole range of leisure activities brings town and country closer together. The countryside is never static, but more like an ever changing kaleidoscope. New patterns emerge which of course involve losses but are there not potential gains as well? With imagination could not a closer contact between town and countryside lead to a rejuvenation of the rural community to the benefit of both ? The gloomy alternative is not acceptable to Dunstan Skilbeck whose tomorrows are much more exciting than his yesterdays, challenging and full of hope for those willing to accept the challenge. David Hughes-Evans
The Environmentalist
II
I
Dedication to Dunstan Skilbeck There is no going back, only going forward The Editors of The Environmentalist have the greatest of pleasure in dedicating this issue to Dunstan Skilbeck, CBE, former Principal, Wye College, University of London. The dedication is a tribute to his skills as an administrator, educator and thinker. To the public at large the contribution which educators make never appears dramatic, yet our only real hope of a global survival rests in the education of young people, stimulating them with ideas, and preparing them to be tomorrow's leaders. He strongly believed, a belief he still holds, that the universities never honour their proven teachers in the way they should. It is a great sadness to him that teaching ability is not ranked with research ability. Great teachers are far too rare in our universities, a situation that has deteriorated rather than improved with the passage of time. For myself this is a doubly pleasurable task for, as an undergraduate at Wye College, I experienced in a very personal way much of what appears in this dedication. When one encounters one's former principal, some years after his official retirement, one can not help wondering whether the image lives up to reality. In the case of Dunstan Skilbeck, his mind is as sharp as ever, the intense interest is still there, the optimism is there, and above all, the humanity of the person to whom I owe so much is as always so much in evidence. Dunstan Skilbeck has always had a love, respect and understanding of the countryside and the people who live there. One could say that he was born a conservationist, though the term was not in use at that time. He remembers well telling his mother at the age of seven or eight that he was going to be a farmer. He has always considered the country as his home, though his time at school was spent in London, where his father, a painter, had a studio; however his holidays which he remembers so vividly were always spent at their home in the country. His early interest in fanning never diminished. Though he went up to Oxford initially to read classics, he soon discovered that he had 0251-1088183]$3.00
little affinity with such studies; he switched to the then rather unacceptable study of agriculture, taking his first degree in rural economy. On graduation he had an appointment at the Oxford Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics, and later transferred to teach agricultural production. From an early age he had run his own farm in addition to his university work, and later on was responsible for the development and management of the university farm. He has always placed equal importance to the skills of practical farming as the medical profession gives to clinical practice. During his time at Oxford he also spent some months in the Sudan working with a small team carrying out a soil cure botanical survey of that country. His time in the Sudan marked the beginning of his interest and concern for the Third World, which gave him an insight into the problems of a then remote and underdeveloped part of the world, particularly in the west and south of that great country. Early in the war he joined the Royal Air Force having previously belonged to the Oxford University Air Squadron, seeing active
The Environmentalist, 3 (1983) 242-244
©Elsevier Sequoia/Printed in The Netherlands
service in the Middle East. Soon he was transferred to a semi-civilian appointment with the Middle East Supply Centre, which was responsible for the food reserves and food production of some thirteen countries and whose territories extended from Constantinople to Addis Ababa. As assistant director of food production this was a most fascinating and exacting job involving such disparate problems as the supply of combine harvesters to Turkey, to assisting Saudi Arabia develop its food producing capability, and helping in the administration of the anti-locust campaigns of the Middle East. This remarkably varied responsibility gave him firsthand and rare experience of the problems of developing countries under the exigencies of a wartime economy, an experience which stood him in good stead in his later work. In 1945, while still in uniform, he was appointed Principal of Wye College, which housed the agricultural faculty of the University of London. Arriving there without staff, without students, with no equipment, centred on a charming fifteenth century building that had been recently vacated as a military headquarters, he was faced with a daunting problem of recreating a viable institution. In the following years he skillfully devoted his abilities and energies to the redevelopment and evolution of Wye College, which rapidly arose phoenixlike from its wartime ashes to become an institution of a national and an international reputation second to none. Dunstan Skilbeck loved his time at Oxford, and felt that the quality of life of the two older universities of Oxford and Cambridge had to be transplantable into a wider context. He indeed successfully reproduced and maintained at Wye an extension of their concepts. Above all he felt that the college must be broadly based and a civilized place in which to study as well as maintaining academic excellence and high level research. All the courses from the beginning were multidisciplinary. To maintain an integrated and effective multidisciplinary staff must be developed a strong concept of the Senior Common Room, where there could be, and where there was, continual dialogue between members of staff, ranging from the sciences and the technologies to the social sciences. The maintenance of this continuing and daily dialogue was an imperative part of his philosophy. This was further emphasised when he persuaded the Nature Conservancy Council (a government agency) to open the South-East Regional Office on the Vol. 3, No. 4 (1983)
Wye Campus, so that there could be a dialogue between the university staff and the conservancy staff. He was also instrumental in establishing on the campus the local headquarters of the extension and advisory services thus bringing the college into close contact with the farming community. He takes far too little credit for what he did, affirming that he was just lucky in having been provided with the opportunity and the means with which to do it, and the vision and imagination of his colleagues. When appointed Principal of Wye College, he contemplated a limited stay; twenty-three years later when he retired he felt that he had just begun the job. It was during the early years of this period that the former colonial territories were emerging as new nations and the University of London was active in assisting these nations in setting up their own universities. Dunstan Skilbeck was very much a part of this, assisting and advising in the setting up of agricultural faculties in these new universities which were to become important in their national development. This took him to the West Indies, East and West Africa and even further afield, doing what he enjoyed doing, and doing it so well. He had been a Council Member and later Vice-chairman of the Governing Body of the then Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. He was much concerned with the eventual transfer of this well-known and long established institution to the University of the West Indies as its faculty of agriculture. As someone who has always loved teaching, which is only dialogue by another name, he recalls the joy of the coming of each October and the welcoming of a new set of undergraduates to the college, and of the pleasure of growing old against the constant background of young people. This he misses the most. He opposed in every way and by every means water tight compartments of learning and can recall with considerable less pleasure the resistance within academia of individuals who did not understand, and were determined not to understand what he was trying to achieve. He would have liked to have been involved in the setting up of Centres for Rural Education, Associated Disciplines, Extension and Research, and regrets not having had the opportunity of visiting Lylapur University (now renamed Faisalabad University) in Pakistan where such a concept is in operation. Individuals such as Dunstan Skilbeck never retire. On completion of twenty-three years 243
service at Wye he became actively concerned with the work of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, becoming Vice-Chairman of the national body, and later, a position he still holds, a Vice-President of the organization. However, to experience his old enthusiasm one has to see his work with the Ernest Cook Trust. He is a trustee of this charitable body which administers farms in four counties, and uses the income from rents to support educational projects, mostly in the United Kingdom, which concern the countryside and rural life. Though his formal education was long before the term conservation was in general use, he, like so many at this time, was influenced by Professor A. G. Tansley and by Sir George Stapledon. His attitude to the countryside is always refreshingly realistic, considering it both a pleasure and a privilege to have known and enjoyed it before the take-over by the internal combustion engine, the selective weed spray and the destruction of hedges, but recognizes that there is no going back only going forward. He accepts that the countryside will continue to undergo many changes, and must find its new role. But it must in the first place discover that new role. The quiet and tranquil environment has gone only to be recalled in memory or in poetry. There will have to be more access to the countryside, and this will result in stress and damage. What is required of us is to ensure that the stress and damage are minimized. In the middle to longer term, he considers education, especially of the young, the most important answer. He quotes examples like the farm adoption scheme where it is possible for urban children to have an understanding of what is happening in the countryside. Again he presses the need for dialogue. Every opportunity must be taken by the countryman, be he farmer, naturalist, forester or conservationist, to talk to those who enjoy walking (or even motoring) through our countryside, to explain what is happening to it and what is going on in its field and farm steadings. Through dialogue comes understanding. As to what the future holds he is unhappy at the extent to which the countryside is being raped and destroyed but finds it wrong to blame the farmer as being primarily responsible for its destruction. They have to maximize their resources in a highly competitive world and on them in the longer term the na-
244
tion relies to keep its larders full. Conservation will however only succeed if there is a change in attitude amongst the fanning community and he sees evidence of this already happening. The recent development of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group clearly indicate, not only a change of heart but, more importantly, a change of interest. Farmers do not, and certainly will not, wish to live or to have their children live, in a degraded countryside where the natural ecology has been virtually sprayed to a halt. Equally important is it for society in general to appreciate that it must be prepared to pay, in one way or another, for the protection of precious sites of scientific interest and for more general protection of the countryside which indeed must almost certainly involve tighter planning regulations, however much one longs to shy away from bureaucratic controls. He also has a deep concern about the rural community and its vital contribution which it makes to our heavily over-urbanised society; particularly so in the United Kingdom where less than three percent of the population works on farms. Despite Fritz Schumacher's philosophy of "small is beautiful" he like so many others seems full of uncertainty about the viability of the small farm. It is inevitable that more and more small units of production will be absorbed into even larger units, more capital and less labour intensive. Is the alternative for much of our sub-marginal hill and moorland small farms their abandonment? Such forebodings postulate the further demolishment of our rapidly changing rural communities unless in adapting to changing circumstances they discover a new role for themselves; a role which through the motor car, farm holidays and a whole range of leisure activities brings town and country closer together. The countryside is never static, but more like an ever changing kaleidoscope. New patterns emerge which of course involve losses but are there not potential gains as well? With imagination could not a closer contact between town and countryside lead to a rejuvenation of the rural community to the benefit of both ? The gloomy alternative is not acceptable to Dunstan Skilbeck whose tomorrows are much more exciting than his yesterdays, challenging and full of hope for those willing to accept the challenge. David Hughes-Evans
The Environmentalist