Simon Barrington Ward
Born 1930. Brought up in Oxford with his mother. Former Chaplain (1956-60) and Dean (1963-1969) of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. He and his wife, Jean (also interviewed) lived for a while within a few hundred metres of Kettle's Yard. He first encountered Jim Ede as a chaplain. He helped Jim through his confirmation into the Church of England. In his interview, he describes how Jim redesigned the college chapel - out with the Victorian altar and in with white walls (it has since returned to a Victorian decoration). He also discusses the influence of artist and poet David Jones on Jim's religious beliefs. At the time of interview Simon had retired as Bishop of Coventry. He and Jean live in Cambridge.
Interviewed: 2008-02-26By: Robert Wilkinson
Length: 1 hour 4 mins
Media: On 1 track on CD with summary
Interview id: MYKY02
Jim's vanities were outweighed by his passion for his work
View: Transcript Theme: Jim Ede
I remember how agitated he was when I used to see him in Edinburgh much later, about the way that the press were not producing his book quite right and some photograph wasn't quite in the right... and I had a certain sympathy for the poor people who were doing it because he was demanding in that kind of way but it was a demanding in the service of an ideal, not just because he wanted to, anything for himself. He didn't strike one as a self-advocate or developing person in any way really like that. As I say, sometimes these little, tiny, childish vanities about some recognition of what he had done being secured but they were peripheral to his real passion to create something and open other people's eyes and imaginations to it. I'm sure that's so, certainly that's what I experienced in him.
Direct link to audio: .mp3
Helen - "I cannot put my knitting down anywhere"
View: Transcript Theme: Helen Ede
I always remember Helen having a slightly sceptical attitude at times towards parts of the Kettle's Yard thing if she thought it was... and 'Och, of course, Jim is just so bent on it that I can't even put my knitting down anywhere' and so on. She felt this... the intensity of this could be a little bit much for her. She liked to prick it a bit, and yet in an extraordinary way, she also entered into it.
Direct link to audio: .mp3
Jim rearranged his friends' homes
View: Transcript Theme: House as home
He would pop into our house and he could be quite shocked by me when I was wearing a dressing gown on a Saturday morning having had a little bit of a lie in and... 'what, not up yet?' and so on. He was quite critical of this, gently rebuking me, I felt. The following Saturday I thought, I must get out, get up early enough and not be caught by Jim. So he was quite firm about things like that but also he would like to wander round and tell us where to put things and how to hang things and tell us little tiny tips, like I said, like when I was in the flat, when we were in the flat in Magdalene Street about how to not have the flap of our 18th century folky oak table, not having the flap down but deliberately putting it up and pulling the legs out that held it up, underneath it, because although it made a wider surface in a small room, it opened up and therefore gave a better sense of space. These kind of things. He was horrified by the chairs that some friend of my mother's had temporarily given us, they were rather ugly-looking little chairs and he came around with his own cloth and covered them all, these dreadful objects. Oh, really, I was quite under his sway and Jean [Barrington Ward] was very willing to be too. We both entered into the vision really.
Direct link to audio: .mp3
Kettle's Yard as Jim's artwork
View: Transcript Theme: House as artwork
He [Jim Ede] was always looking out for bits and pieces and brought various things back to the cottages and he was always, of course, fascinated by it himself and thrilled to show you and so he made the whole thing very exciting and it was then that I realised that, as he almost once put it to me, that having tried to be an artist for a bit, he realised he wasn't really a painter and he then began to be so fascinated by painting, sculpture, everything that he worked on, the whole history of it and on the objects and discovering the kind of people whom he felt were doing it right and through doing that, he gradually came through, I think, he didn't really explain this very much but I think it's true, to see that he could make as his work of art a house that was so ordered and furnished and painted and he'd already done this, begun to do this, in other places, in North Africa for instance, so he'd been moving in this direction but a place, that in a place of education like Cambridge and that's why it appealed to him, people could come into and catch a vision and the vision itself was deepening and sharpening as he was making it.
Direct link to audio: .mp3
