Oxford team taking part in festival debate

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33783, 4 March 1975, Page 16

Oxford team taking part in festival debate

One of the most stimulating events during the Arts Festival promises to be a debate between a British team and the Canterbury Speaking Union on the topic, “That we are ale and arty.”

The Canterbury team will have as its third speaker Mr lan Brack-enbury-Channell (the Wizard). Canon R. A. Lowe will be the chairman of the debate.

The British team is from the Oxford Union, which has earned a reputation as a testing ground for politicians. It is: Mr Simon Walker, who

read politics, philosophy, and economics at Balliol College; Mr Jonathan Marks, now reading for his Bar finals; and Mr Simon Carr, an experienced actor, and former editor of the Oxford magazine, “Isis.” Mr Walker is a former president of the Oxford Union and the university’s Labour club. He has been associated with such movements as the Abortion Law

Reform Association, the National Secular Society, and the Oxford Committee for Europe. He now writes speeches for a Labour peer, while reading part time for the Bar. Mr Marks has also been associated with the Oxford Committee for Europe. He and Mr Walker have debated in Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Carr read English at Brasenose College. He has played the title role in “Richard III,” and acted in “Forty Years On” and many other plays and revues. The Canterbury Union team is described as “no easy match.” It is: Mr David Round, a lecturer in law at the University of Canterbury, Mr Jim Hopkins, the leader of the Canterbury team and a participant in national and university debates, and Mr Channel.

Mr Hopkins is convinced that his team will easily match the “daring squires from the dreaming spires.” The Oxford Union team will arrive in Christchurch on March 12. The debate will be held in the auditorium of the Town Hail on March 17.