Heather Ellis and Alex Clarkson
Profile
The family histories of Heather and Alex could not be more different. Heather, who describes her ethnic identity as ‘English Unitarian’, comes from a very settled background in the north of England. On her mother’s side, her ancestors (Mottrams and Wardles) were Unitarians in Cheshire and Derbyshire for at least five generations. She was born and raised in Southport, Lancashire, in the security of a stable family and a supportive Unitarian congregation. ... By contrast, the lives of Alex’s family were defined by war. His maternal grandparents, members of the Orthodox Church living in Cernowitz in western Ukraine, were married in 1939 and soon afterwards fled from the Soviets to Austria, where they were interned as forced labourers. They were liberated in 1945, and his mother was born in a refugee camp in 1946, while the family was waiting to be transported to Canada. His father´s maternal family were Lutherans in pre-war Sudetenland, where they lost their property in 1945. Improbably, his paternal grandmother, a professional pianist, met Alex’s British grandfather, a high-church Anglican soldier and diplomat, in Brno in the mid-1930s. They were married in London after the war (during which his grandfather had fought with the partisans in Yugoslavia). Their son, Alex’s father, studied the cello in Vienna, where he met and married a Canadian/Ukrainian pianist and then migrated with her to Toronto, where Alex was born and brought up – until the family moved to live in Hanover, Germany, where Alex attended secondary school … Are you still with me? Don’t worry about the details. The question is: what is Alex’s nationality: Ukrainian, German, Canadian, or British? And does it matter?
No, says Alex firmly. When I ask him to declare his nationality he declines, saying merely that he defines himself as ‘a citizen of Hanover, proud of Germany’s post-war reinvention of itself as a modern, democratic state – but also a believing member of the Orthodox faith, and a supporter of the England football squad’. Complementing Alex’s extremely fluid sense of his nationality, Heather speaks fluent French and German, has mastered Latin and ancient Greek, loved living in Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin, and looks forward to returning there to live one day. I find myself thinking: maybe these two young people [Alex is 27, Heather 24] represent the future: citizens of the world, they seem to slip effortlessly between cultures and across borders.
But what explains their incredibly focused and disciplined approach to their work, living in a culture where binge drinking and recreational drug use seem to be a way of life for many young people? Heather read Ancient and Modern History at Balliol College, won an undergraduate scholarship and a university prize, was awarded an M.Phil degree in Greek and Roman History, and studied on a graduate course at the British School of Rome (‘where I saw almost every important and normally inaccessible archaeological treasure of Rome. Climbing up the inside of Trajan’s Column and looking out over the city with nothing but the 14th-century rusty iron railings to prevent me from falling was one of the most amazing things I have ever had the opportunity of doing’). After spending the past year in Berlin, where she learned German (‘at frightening speed’, according to Alex) and taught English to nurses, she was awarded the Jowett Senior Scholarship at Balliol and is about to begin work for a D.Phil degree (on the role of a classical education in shaping attitudes towards masculinity among the British imperial elite in the late nineteenth century). ... Alex, meanwhile, having gained a BA in Modern History at Balliol, went on to do an M.Phil in Modern European History, and is about to submit his D.Phil. thesis on the influence of Cold War conflict on the internal political development of immigrant communities in the Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War between 1949 and 1990.
Somehow they also find time to pursue their non-academic interests: Heather writes poetry, plays tennis, goes to the gym, and loves learning languages; Alex collects GI Joe comics (oddly enough, considering his left-wing politics) and enjoys listening to jazz of the be-bop and East European varieties. They met at a cheese and wine evening for Balliol graduates in 2002 and fell in love; sustained a developing relationship while living apart in Rome and Berlin in 2003; consolidated their partnership while living together in Berlin in 2004/5 (‘making sure that we could put up with each other day in and day out’); and have now embarked on married life in Oxford, without ever losing sight of their respective academic goals.
How do they do it? How do they manage to be so focused and well balanced? I venture to suggest to them that part of the reason might be their roots in two very different but equally sustaining religious communities. They both agree, and pay tribute to the enduring values that their parents taught them. Alex describes himself as ‘earthed in the Orthodox tradition’, and Heather speaks movingly of the sense of continuity and belonging that her Unitarian ancestry and upbringing gave her. Not that either of them is stuck in a time-warp: she says that her concept of the divine is growing and changing all the time (Elargissez Dieu, I find myself thinking); he says that the apparently rigid ritual of the Orthodox faith paradoxically confers a freedom on individual adherents to develop their own theology, and he feels very comfortable taking part in Unitarian worship.
I want to know how they see the future of Unitarianism. Has it indeed got a future? Heather concedes that our denomination, once so radical, even revolutionary in 19th-century Britain, might be at risk of losing its identity and raison d’être now that so many of its social and political ideals, and even its theological tenets, have been absorbed into the mainstream. But so long as we continue to offer something different from the other churches … so long as we provide a place where people can ask questions without fear of exclusion … so long as people experience mid-life crises and personal tragedies and need the support of a loving community … she thinks our denomination will survive. Indeed, she is optimistic enough to think that the Unitarian movement has already passed the danger point at which it might have become extinct. Alex adds that the Unitarian community needs its bedrock of loyal members who were born into the faith or who joined it long ago; but it also needs a regular infusion of new people, with new energy, to keep it alive. I say amen to all that, and privately hope that our denomination will always find room for such one-off free spirits as Heather and Alex. Catherine Robinson November 2005