View from the Archive
One of our former French Teachers, Doris Hugh, interviews our former Classics Teacher, and honorary alumnus, Christopher Tanfield…
Wise, knowledgeable, gifted with a subtle sense of humour, Christopher Tanfield is the epitome of an excellent teacher. Yet, it took him a long time to realise that teaching was the career for him. After a stint in management consultancy and another in journalism, he finally trained as a teacher of Classics at the age of forty. He never looked back because he found teaching so totally absorbing. He joined South Hampstead in 2012 as a teacher of Classics and Head of UCAS. He loved the receptiveness of his classes and particularly enjoyed the clubs and trips he ran. One club he remembers particularly fondly was Experimental Archaeology, where he taught Year 7 girls to replicate the techniques that Greeks and Romans would have used to make mosaics and clothing. Trips to Italy or Roman sites in London were important because that’s where he believes the subject comes alive.
Initially one third of his job, UCAS quickly came to occupy half of it. Christopher enjoyed enabling each girl to choose universities for the right reasons. The rising interest in American and European universities gave him an opportunity to travel and to experience the changing academic scene. He remembers his entertaining conversations with staff at the mime school in Paris on behalf of one student, whose father wanted her to read Law, whilst her preference was mime. She did spend a year in Paris learning mime, and eventually became a lawyer!
Christopher describes South Hampstead girls as alert, streetwise, urban, concerned by social issues… What he looks back on with most satisfaction is when a girl, less able in the subject, suddenly ‘got it’ and managed to improve beyond expectations. He himself was not too proud to admit to the occasional mistake, much to his students’ delight. He recalls one girl writing, after she had left, to say that she enjoyed his ‘errata’ when he confessed to them.
His best memory? Standing at the top of the cable car station on a windy day in Anacapri. One girl shouted: “Bad hair day, Mr Tanfield?” Another echoed: “It’s always a bad hair day for Mr Tanfield.” And his worst memory? Sitting on a Q & A panel at a GDST Oxbridge conference and contradicting the admissions tutors’ assertion that it didn’t matter which college you applied to.
In July 2019, Christopher left South Hampstead to look after his mother. He accepted a part-time teaching job at Marlborough College for one year, after which he began to work on his book, A Companion to the Aeneid, for readers in English, which is nearing publication. He has found it a privilege to write the book, even if it has been a huge job.
Christopher is now Chairman of the Trustees of the Church of St Laurence in Bradford on Avon, one of finest Saxon churches in the country. Keeping the church in trim and holding events there is a great project which has allowed him to meet all sorts of people.
The advice Christopher would give to school leavers is not to be envious of the girls around them or of their predecessors but to remember their potential achievements and the increasing number of opportunities ahead of them, as the world gets more challenging.