The Radleian 1991: We congratulate Dr JR Summerly on being awarded his PhD from the University of Durham. His doctorial thesis ‘Studies in the Legionary Centuriate’ is unusually Thatcherite in that it was begun in the week of the former Prime Minister’s first election victory in 1979 and submitted three days before her resignation in 1990.

The Radleian 1996: Radley 19th-20th June. Awareness of someone banging on the door and then a real thump on the partition and David Coulton speaking loudly, ‘Jim, it’s a fire, in Common Room.’ Dashed out of bed and through the flat. Smoke smell on the corridor. Fire alarm and burglar alarm going off. … The Common Room door showed half an inch of yellow light all round it … Ran down the rest of the stairs and out of the building. … The fire red and strong back from the window in the pigeon-hole room, sheets of flame behind the windows in Common Room. I thought the building was gone. Dashed around to the front and went back up the stairs. Aware of wrong decision. Grabbed writing box with thesis disc, photos and passport…’ Jim Summerly.

Fire in the Mansion – the worst disaster in the history of Radley College. What would YOU save?
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