On Wednesday 25 January, the Master, Senior Officers, Fellows past and present and innumerable friends gathered to help celebrate two milestones for Common Room Steward, Simon Cotterell. Not only has Simon just turned 60 years young, he is also marking an extraordinary 45 years’ service with Univ.

Starting work in College at the age of 15, Simon has, as Domestic Bursar Angela Unsworth noted, “Seen at least 15 generations of students matriculate and graduate; he also saw the current Senior Tutor as an undergraduate…”

She continued, “He has a good number of qualities for which we are eternally grateful. Simon has served generations of students and generations of fellows; he is one of the most loyal and committed people that we have on our staff and the last of the honourable old guard; you don’t stay with an organisation for 45 years without showing loyalty, dedication to duty, steadfastness, humility, humour – definitely humour! We are proud to have Simon with us and we will remain proud to have him as long as he wants to stay; we are privileged to know him and he is much loved.”

Whilst most might suspect that much has altered in four and a half decades of Univ life, Simon – who should certainly know – felt otherwise, saying, “Nothing’s really changed, fellows are fellows, I keep an eye on the Master and make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble, we still don’t tell the Domestic Bursar everything…”

We all look forward to working with Simon for many years to come.

Published: 26 January 2017

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