RICHMOND SCHOOL AND SIXTH FORM COLLEGE STUDENTS LOOK BACK ON WALKING AND BOOK FESTIVAL TALKS 

Once again, we were very pleased to support the annual Richmond Walking and Book Festival, which recently drew to a close.  

Four History and English Literature students from Years 12 and 13 volunteered to write a preview of one of the talks that featured in the festival – we recently published these.  

The students attended the talks, and we can now look back on them through their eyes by reading their reviews.  

The fourth and final review is of a talk by local businessman and author Tim Clissold who talked about his new book, ‘Teach the People’ at Richmond Town Hall. 

Over to Maggie Longstaff, Year 13 student, for her review: 

“Tim Clissold, aka “Mr. China”, was interviewed in a rain-battered Richmond Town Hall about his new book “Teach the People”. 

The treatise of the book is that there is an asymmetry of understanding between the West and China – the Chinese learn English, study in the UK and learn Shakespeare in middle school, whereas we in the UK are willfully almost entirely ignorant of China and its culture. This ignorance is presented as both inherently shameful and economically suicidal, given the strength of China today. Mr. Clissold’s proposed remedy is simply to adopt a Chinese maxim here in the UK and “Teach the People”. 

The interview style, by former Richmond School teacher Oz Lynch, explored both what we should learn and how. Tim Clissold’s many in depth examples were delivered spontaneously in response to varyingly controversial questions from both Lynch and the audience, including from Richmond’s Baroness Hale, formerly Britain’s highest-ranking judge. Clissold’s responses were in some instances interspersed with Mandarin – the first time I have heard the language – and in all cases supportive of China, seeking, as he said, to help redress an increasingly negative bias to views here in Britain. 

Clissold was fresh off a plane from a negotiation in China on the day of this event, and all in the audience were impressed by the authoritative ease of a Richmond dweller at the peak of his powers – even after a long flight!”