Some members of College may not yet know that Jamie Gardiner (2013-2016, History) was killed in a mountaineering accident in Norway on 2 January 2017. As readers of the website and the College Magazine will certainly know, Jamie was an enthusiastic traveller and explorer – the more arduous and extreme the challenge, the better.
This is not the place for an obituary, which will appear in the next issue of the St Hugh’s Chronicle. But it should be recorded here that many members of College attended, and are unlikely ever to forget, his funeral in St Mark’s Church, Cambridge, on Saturday 21 January.
On the afternoon of Sunday 7 May the College held an event in Jamie’s memory, which was attended by his family. There were reminiscences from those who had known him at school, in College and the wider University, his tutors, his parents, and one of his brothers. The standard of oratory was so high that the event proved to be uplifting, as well as deeply moving.
Jamie was a fanatical rower, and regarded himself as the Boat Club’s τριήραρχος. At the Club’s invitation, his parents launched and named the Club’s new eight after Jamie. Members of his family and friends took it out for a first row late in the afternoon, and put the College’s current First VIII to shame.
Jamie would have been delighted to learn that in Eights’ Week just gone, while making a bump, the crew managed to prang the bow of ‘Jamie Gardiner’ against the bank. Those present who knew Jamie ventured to suggest that had he been rowing, he would have written the boat off. He always regarded an eight as a trireme.
Professor George Garnett
