Hugh Wilkinson
(1969-73)
I first came to Japan in Christmas Eve, 1945, having done a six-month course on written Japanese for naval intelligence (the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve!) and went home in the following September, having just met Rowland Harker one week before I left. I then spent three years in Cambridge University, and six years in the MRA headquarters in London. Then I came back with a part-time job at Aoyama Gakuin and Gakushuin Universities, found for me by Rowland; this was from 1955 to 1961. I went home again and eventually came back in 1967 with tenure at Aoyama Gakuin, and retired eight years ago.
I must have taught at LIOJ when it started, as I was teaching first at the Ido Gakko, and went to America with Sing-Out Asia in 1968. I used to go down to Odawara late on a Monday night, do a full day's teaching on Tuesday, and then go home in time for a private class in the evening. This continued until the "oil shock" in 1973 and after that I was not needed anymore! They were always interesting classes of businessmen at LIOJ, and we used to have good talks together over breakfast and lunch. I'm not sure how much they got from the formal study! We used English 900 in class and in the language lab. I have never taken to teaching the practical use of a language through textbook exercises, and I think I must have interjected other things, if only to say, "This is what Americans say, but I say..."
I also took part in the summer workshops, and you must be able to find me somewhere in the group photographs. I suppose it was on one of these occasions that we climbed Mt. Fuji-from 5-gome, of course. It was the second time for me, and I was glad I did it again, as it was cloudy the first time I went up. It was also one summer that I persuaded Norman Somebody to play the "Poet and Peasant Overture" with me. He did the difficult treble part, and I did the oom-pah-pah in the bass! I suppose it was also sometime around then when Rowland and Terttu got married. I think everything must have been done at Asia Center, though my memory is now vague.
May 2003
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