{"id":1887,"date":"2017-01-12T09:51:49","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T09:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/?p=1887"},"modified":"2017-01-16T09:42:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T09:42:31","slug":"only-connect-by-christina-briggs-rutherford-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2017\/01\/12\/only-connect-by-christina-briggs-rutherford-1966\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Connect by Christina Briggs (Rutherford 1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I set foot in Rutherford College in 1966, at the age of 17, the first person
\nin my Irish immigrant family to have been to grammar school and then
\nto university. I had actually wanted to go to art school, but students got a
\nbad press in those days, and art students were the bottom of the heap. So
\nno point in insisting. As it turned out, my parents were too sceptical of
\nthe whole idea of higher education to make up the shortfall in my grant.
\nThis created financial problems, even though -remember full
\nemployment?- I did paid work every vacation. But my feelings were
\nwholly joyous, delighting in the new freedom of being independent, and
\nthe groundbreaking new course \u2018 Britain in the Contemporary World\u2019
\nopened a door onto an extraordinary joined up world of learning.
\n\u2018 Only connect\u2019, Professor Ian Gregor\u2019s mantra (from EM Forster) was a
\nlesson I learnt by heart. It took me into several European languages,
\ncontemporary philosophy, politics, history, literature – and linked back
\nto the visual art which fascinated me.
\nLife on campus was dominated by my mundane drive to get one
\n(prepaid) square meal a day. Sitting with the public school boys at dinner
\nin hall was a big mistake as, well practised, they could wolf the entire
\nmeal on the table in a second after grace was said. Buying books wasn\u2019t
\nan option, but the library was heaven – over heated and never over
\ncrowded. Subs to societies or sports facilities weren\u2019t feasible either, but
\nthe walk down to Canterbury town through orchards was sublime. My
\nboyfriend, a London architecture student, got vetted by the ex-
\nNyasaland policemen on the gate, who kindly turned his blind eye to our
\nongoing love affair – fifty years later, I\u2019m still grateful. Occasionally the
\n\u2018guards\u2019 would stage early hours fire drills – assembled shivering on the
\nbridge, we all tried to pretend the suspiciously large number of students
\npresent was entirely correct.
\nAnd, fifty years later, I\u2019m showing my paintings in Kent.
\nIt was a circuitous route, taking in 27 years teaching in state schools, but
\nthe opportunity that was given to me, against the odds, to learn how to
\nlearn in a way that got beyond face value, dealt with the difficult
\nquestions in life, is one that I will always treasure. I had the luck to be
\npart of British life – suddenly opening up and becoming more inclusive –
\nin the sixties. An expatriate for almost two decades now, my children and
\ngrandchildren all Europeans, I just hope British society has not changed
\nso much since June 23rd 2016 that a trajectory like mine – no great fame
\nor acclaim but a solid entry into a professional job and regular,
\ncontinued links with Europe – has become impossible.
\nOneOneSix Gallery Tenterden Kent – New Paintings Christina Briggs<\/em>
\n7 March-16 April 2017.<\/em>
\nchristina-briggs.odexpo.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I set foot in Rutherford College in 1966, at the age of 17, the first person in my Irish immigrant family to have been to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34788,"featured_media":1888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1918,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions\/1918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}