Julie Adams
Profile
My father was an electrical engineer in the RAF, so my two brothers and I grew up on air-force bases in Britain, Germany, and Cyprus. I spent the first four years of my life in Germany, and here began my love of the German language. When I lived in Cyprus between the ages of 6 and 10, our school concerts were held in Curium Roman Amphitheatre – and there began another lifelong love: singing in choirs. I am never happier than when I am speaking German or singing choral music, preferably simultaneously!
Career path … After a gap year spent working in Germany and Austria, I started a degree in Applied German and Russian. After graduation I went into teaching and five years later, in 1992, moved into teacher training, preparing foreign-language teachers to work in inner-city secondary schools. I am immensely proud to have worked at the University of North London – a pioneer in outreach to local communities, part-time degrees, and courses for mature students – throughout its entire ten-year history until its merger with Guildhall, and I still do part-time work for its successor, London Metropolitan University. I left my full-time job in 2001 in order to move to Oxford with my partner, Ian Page. He is an electrical engineer and academic computer scientist turned entrepreneur, managing an investment firm which funds scientific ventures. We travel to Silicon Valley in California on business quite often and could see ourselves living there for longer in the future.
I wrote my first book while researching for my Doctor of Education degree, and this kick-started my writing career. So far I have published more than 20 books of educational materials for learners of foreign languages, and I am currently writing a teachers’ book for Oxford University Press. I also contribute to teacher-training courses around the country, and I am an examiner for GCSE German and Russian, which keeps me busy throughout May and June every year. Although I enjoy being a writer, I want to continue teaching. At present my immediate contact with children takes the form of voluntary work with six-year-olds at an after-school ‘Good Values Club’ at New Marston Primary School. With two friends I have devised songs, stories, and activities to teach children five key values: Love, Peace, Truth, Right Action, and Universal Respect.
I am currently writing a science fiction novel for teenagers, about a girl training to be an astronaut (sort of ‘Harry Potter in space’!). There is an element of autobiography in the story, drawing on my childhood on RAF bases and my late brother’s training as a fighter pilot. I wanted to be an astronaut, and I still do!
Spiritual path ... Although we were not raised in a religion at home, I chose to attend Sunday School, and my social life when living in a Wiltshire village, aged 10 to 13, consisted of singing in the choir and bell-ringing at the parish church. I was always interested in religions, and in early Christian history in particular. From school in Cyprus we were taken to see places mentioned in Christian history, so the New Testament seemed quite real to me. I figured out universalism for myself at around the age of 8 in Cyprus, as I watched Orthodox Greeks kissing icons and was told by evangelical Christian groups that these people would not be ‘saved’. But the Orthodox Christians thought that they were doing the right thing, and I realised that they couldn’t both be right.
As I went through my teens, I started to spot discrepancies in Christian theology and became disenchanted with what seemed to me to be pointless ritual, and a state of affairs in which the medium had become massively more important than the message. I encountered many church members who valued piety more than good values. (I don’t like calling them Christian values, because it implies that church people have a monopoly on them.) I was very influenced by Gore Vidal’s novel Messiah, an account of the origins of a (fictional) religion. I have read a lot about early Christian history, and I think that Jesus was a real, historical person with some wise teachings, which have been obfuscated by layers of reverse-engineering to make his story fit the model of the Son of God.
I helped to run a Church of England Sunday School for a few years, which was very fulfilling, but then I stayed away from organised religion for several years. I was introduced to Unitarianism in 1997 by a boyfriend in London. I was thrilled to find a religion with hymns expressed in non-sexist language, some of which even reflected my sense of having been born from stardust, and my perception of The Universe as a divine power. Also you could make up your own mind about Life, the Universe, and Everything (to quote my hero, Douglas Adams). The relationship with that boyfriend didn’t last, but the religion did, so when we parted I visited several Unitarian congregations in London and chose Golders Green (led in those days by Revd. Peter Roberts), because of its lovely family atmosphere and varied forms of worship.
When I met Ian, I described Unitarianism to him as ‘Quakers with hymns’, and as another keen singer he thought this sounded pretty good. Whenever we are in California we try to attend Unitarian Universalist services. In most areas you have a choice of half a dozen or more congregations, all within a short drive. We particularly like the large, vibrant UU congregation in downtown San José, with their outreach programmes and English courses for immigrants. They also have a choir; we rehearsed and sang with them at Christmas 2005, which was a lovely way to join in the life of the church.
Myles Hartley’s appointments as organ scholar and musical director at Harris Manchester College have been great for me, reintroducing an important element into my spiritual life. Ian and I both sing (he bass and I alto) in the chamber choir that Myles has founded. Myles is an excellent teacher, and we both enjoy singing under his direction. My aspirations for the Chapel Society? I would like to start a campaign to move us all forwards in chapel to fill up the pews near the front! Most of all, I would love to see a congregation full of teenagers and young adults, such as they get in Californian UU churches. My favourite hymn? The inspiring words of ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee’, set to the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. I like it so much that I made it the ring-tone on my mobile phone, and I want it to be sung at my funeral eventually. March 2006