Profiles of Council Members

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Mrs Margaret Juett – member of the Council

Margaret Juett's life has been defined to a great extent by education. She herself studied English and Greek at Birmingham University and, once established in Cambridge nearly 50 years ago, taught English to adults, whom she tactfully describes as “young (and older)”, at Cambridge Regional College. Here she also was Learning Support Co-ordinator, specialising in advice for dyslexic students, a service which she still continues to provide part-time.

As a governor of three Cambridge schools - Chesterton Community College, Roger Ascham School (which closed in 1987) and King's Hedges Infants School – Margaret gained experience of education from another angle and, given that her own three children all attended local state schools, she has all the angles covered. She describes herself now as “a very hands-on granny,” because two of the children and four of the grandchildren live in Cambridge and she makes time for several visits a year to Devon, where her younger daughter lives. “We all like to go for long walks and visit gardens together,” she says.

This year she is enjoying the U3A Gardening Group again and is also taking part in the Poetry Workshop, where the participants keep their minds alive by reading their compositions to each other at the fortnightly meetings. In addition to these hobbies Margaret is very keen on Family History, her own and other people's, likes going to concerts at West Road and is interested in theatre, literature, current affairs and art, an enthusiasm which she picked up doing litho prints and etchings at the studio workshop some years ago.

Proving the truth of the old adage that, if you want something done, you should ask the busiest person you know to do it, Margaret has accepted the challenge this year of heading the Council's Disability Sub-Committee.

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Nicholas Herbert – member of Council
Nicholas Herbert (alias Lord Hemingford) was born in Watford and brought up in the Gold Coast, Uganda, Northumberland and Huntingdonshire.  At school, at Oundle, he studied cricket and rugby, among other sports and at Clare, where he got an Honours degree in English in 1953, he continued this sporting interest, captaining the college at cricket and rowing in the First Lent boat. Reuters News agency took him on to their sports desk in 1956, moving him a year later to cover the Foreign Office and in 1960, with his wife Jenny, to Washington to report on the White House, Congress and the State Department.  Events that he covered for Reuters and The Times, which he joined in 1962, included the Kennedy-Nixon election, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the early space flights and the Martin Luther King marches in the South.  As Middle East Correspondent from 1965 to 1969 he covered the withdrawal from Aden and the Six Day War. Back in Britain as editor of the Cambridge Evening News, he renewed his acquaintance with Cambridge, which he said he found just as complex as the Middle East.  He was recruited to be editorial director of Westminster Press, a group of provincial papers, where he started an in-company journalism training scheme.  As President of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors and a founder member of the Association of British Editors, he developed an interest in press freedom and co-authored two pamphlets on the subject. In retirement he was for 10 years Chairman of the East Anglian Regional Committee of the National Trust and served on the Council of the Friends of the British Library.  In 2008 he published Successive Journeys: A Family in Four Continents, which won first prize for non-fiction in the Self-Publishing Awards and led to his being named joint self-publisher of the year. He was elected to the U3AC Council in 2010 and helped to organise the official opening of the new Bridge Street premises.  He is part of the group conducting research on care of the elderly and assists Peter Woodsford with the Wednesday lectures.  He says he likes the organisation because it works absolutely without compulsion.  “How many other organisations with 2,500 members are run so effectively by so many volunteers?” he asks.

Marjorie Sutcliffe - member of Council

When U3AC held an official opening at the new Bridge Street premises last year, it was Marjorie Sutcliffe's portrait painting course which supplied the added interest with an exhibition of portraits of the founder, Nick Coni. Her own art career began after she retired. She decided to take the subject at GCSE and was justifiably proud of obtaining an A grade. She then honed her skills at various U3AC classes, ending up with portrait painting. There, she says, she met an exceptionally nice and talented group of people and in due time ended up running (or as she modestly says organising) it. “My having taught at so many places in Cambridge meant I had plenty of ex-colleagues to persuade to be models for the class and I could also meet up with old friends,” she says.
Marjorie began her career as a biology teacher at Wigan Girls High School in Lancashire and then, in 1972, spent a year in Scotland while her husband attended a course at Stirling University. Their older daughter Sara was born in that year. They then moved to Cambridge where another daughter was born in 1975. Marjorie taught Biology A level in the evening at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University) and part-time at Hills Road Sixth Form College and from there went on to be a full time lecturer at Cambridge Regional College. Promoted to be the Head of the School of A levels, she remained there until retirement. She continued to teach, however - at Homerton College - with the idea that she would equip the Chemistry and Physics graduates with the Biology they would need to teach Science in schools.
Soon after this she joined U3AC and learnt to play bridge with “the wonderful Ray Keech,” besides embarking on her serial art classes. “I really believe in U3AC, “she says. “I never miss the Wednesday lecture and I have met so many interesting people.” This year she was elected to the Council, serves on the courses sub-committee and is embarking on another stage of her involvement with U3AC.

David Waldman - member of Council

David Waldman won a scholarship to Carmel College in Oxfordshire when he was 13, enabling him to escape from Wolverhampton, which he disliked. He went on to take a degree in Chemistry at St. Catherine's College, Oxford before entering the patent profession, becoming eventually a Chartered Patent Agent in London.
After he and his wife Ann were married in 1967, they moved to Nottingham, where David was employed by Boots until that company's agrochemical division merged with Fisons and he was transferred to Saffron Walden. The Waldman’s moved to Fulbourn in 1981 and they have been in the area ever since, surrounded now by their three children and two grandchildren. After further takeovers and mergers, the research station where David worked was closed down.
David's passion in life had been music so when he joined U3AC after his retirement he at once joined the Music Club and has been a constant ever since. At a week's notice he took over the Symphonies and Concertos” course in 2007, later changing its title to “Talking about Music”. However, he has not confined himself to music, having also done courses in Italian, Photoshop and Architecture. He was a keen member of one of the rambling groups until a bad leg put an end to his participation. Following his election to the council this year, he became a member of the publicity sub-committee and says “I hope to make a valuable contribution to the running of U3AC.”
Apart from music, David likes theatre and travel (especially to Italy) and is also a bridge player, though he modestly describes himself as “keen, but average”.

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