Jennet Blake
Profile
Jennet Blake has lived close to the soil, worked with growing things, and enjoyed outdoor pursuits all her life – or at least since 1933, when at the age of four she moved with her family from suburban Guildford to live in the village of Eynsham in Oxfordshire. Here, on the 500-acre farm that her mother had inherited, Jennet and her younger brother spent a very happy childhood, and it was this experience that motivated her to study horticulture when she left Oxford High School in 1947.
From Studley College for women in Warwickshire, having gained an external degree from the University of London, Jennet went on to obtain a PhD at the University of Reading for her study of the effects of day-length and temperature on the flowering of carnations. While at Reading she took up a one-year exchange fellowship in 1950 at Cornell University in the USA, where she obtained a master’s degree (before embarking on the great adventure of travelling to California and back in a second-hand car, camping with friends en route).
After three years as a research assistant (studying unusual amino acids in plants) at University College London, and three years as a research assistant in the Botany Department of Birmingham University, Jennet began what was to be her life’s main work at Wye College in Kent (part of London University). There she spent 28 years – 25 of them devoted to developing a micropropagation system for the coconut industry in countries like Jamaica, Tanzania, the Philippines, and Mexico, where coconuts are a major subsistence crop. As a senior research fellow, she worked on the delicate task of trying to propagate coconut palms vegetatively, a more reliable way of improving the stock than selective breeding using seeds. She was also involved with her students in developing a micropropagation system for producing potato microtubers without the use of growth regulators. These pea-sized tubers have big advantages for transportation in Third World countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Vietnam, where potatoes are an important subsistence crop.
Soon after starting work at Wye College, Jennet married a radio technician whom she had met while bird-watching on the island of Skokholm. It is not surprising, she comments wryly, that the marriage did not last – given that her husband worked on lighthouses and ocean-going tankers. Somehow she juggled her career with raising her two children: Alizon, born in 1969, and David, born in 1972. Alizon is now married with two young daughters, schooling horses and hoping to run a bed and breakfast business on 80 acres in Lincolnshire with her husband, who builds cross-country fences for horse trials. David works in IT and lives in London with his wife and two young daughters.
Jennet retired from Wye College in 1991 and moved back to Oxfordshire. She divides most of her time between visits to her four grand-daughters (aged between one and four), her large allotment, and her passion for croquet, which she has been playing for 20 years. She serves on two of the national committees of the Croquet Association; is responsible for organising its training programmes for ‘golf croquet’; and has published a basic guide to this form of the game, which appeals especially to older people. Jennet loves the game “because it is played on green grass; because it is good physical exercise (with no bending, unlike bowls); and because it is a very sociable game, enjoyed by players aged 9 to 90 – but also a tactical game, which can be played at a very high level”. Jennet is a leading figure in the Eynsham Croquet Club, which she founded 12 years ago, and she herself plays in competitions at the national level.
In her spare time (what there is of it), Jennet plays Scrabble with an old friend, reads (mostly religious books, including Karen Armstrong’s), and attends Sunday services and discussions at Manchester College. Jennet says that even as a child she was prone to doubt: she refused at first to be confirmed in the Church of England, because she could not believe in life after death, and she was always distressed by the idea of wine representing the blood of Christ. She adds: “My belief in the divinity of Christ was always a bit shaky, and finally vanished after a member of my church in Kent assured me that Christians who were not evangelicals were totally in error.”
Jennet has continued to read and think about spiritual matters, exploring the concept of the universality of the spirit, and mystified (as a scientist) by the undoubted effects of Reiki healing techniques (channelling spiritual energy), in which she took a training course 15 years ago. Three years ago she read an article in The Guardian about Unitarianism and, attracted by its universalist values, began attending our services. Jennet thinks that our faith has much to commend it, most particularly its emphasis on freedom of thought (“too much, sometimes: I am a bit shocked by Unitarians who declare that they don’t believe in God”).
Jennet serves as chapel steward occasionally. She appreciates the sense of community in our congregation and enjoys attending the Sunday afternoon talks and discussions. (She wishes we could find someone to speak about the religious dimensions of quantum physics. Can anybody suggest a suitable speaker?) She takes part in interfaith activities and, like several members of our congregation, attends events organised by the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford. Jennet has had lessons in the Alexander Technique for the last 20 years, which have helped to keep her body and life in balance. At the age of 78, she is still learning. She describes herself as “one of the luckiest people alive – I have my cottage, my children and grandchildren, enough money to live on, and an interesting life to look back on.” Catherine Robinson, September 2007