Nan Dunbar

NAN Vance Dunbar was a classical scholar of distinction, and a woman of wide interests and the warmest personal relationships. She was born in Glasgow in 1928, and her local and family connections remained important to her all her life.

Nan attended Hutcheson’s Girls’ School, and there developed a passionate interest in Greek and Latin which saw her taking books along when accompanying her father to football matches, and peeling potatoes for the family dinner with a text propped up in front of her.

With the help of scholarships and by virtue of her brilliance, she progressed from school to Glasgow University - the first of her family to go to university - and there won several prizes. In 1950 she graduated with first-class honours, and was named the year’s most distinguished arts graduate.

She then went to Girton College, Cambridge, and took first-class honours in both parts of the classical tripos. In 1952 she was appointed to a lectureship in Greek at Edinburgh University, where she began her work on Aristophanes’ Birds . She had kept her link with Girton, and returned to Cambridge in 1955 to teach and continue her research.

In 1957 she was appointed lecturer in humanity (Latin) at St Andrews University, where she spent eight happy years and made many lasting friendships before accepting a Fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1965. At Somerville she was not only a dedicated and inspiring teacher, but a committed member of college society, holding a succession of important offices, including that of vice-principal.

She brought a refreshing directness to all she did, and the ease with which she could establish an immediate rapport with people of all kinds helped in the business and the social affairs of the college.

Nan lectured on a wide range of classical texts, and she kept up her compositional skills by providing apposite Greek and Latin verses for a variety of occasions. However, her main interest was ancient comedy, and her most important achievement, a labour of love and unremitting commitment over 30 years, was the edition of Birds, which appeared in 1995. She brought new insights to the text, and her commentary was meticulous and thorough. She was especially well-equipped to appreciate and communicate the comedy of expression and of situation in Aristophanes’ play. She also accepted with enthusiasm the need to become a serious student of ornithology, so that she could discuss with authority the problems of identification of the poet’s bird characters.

Nan was a demanding teacher, expecting the highest standards of scholarship and commitment from her pupils, as from herself, but she was also kind and understanding,generous with her time as a tutor and as a friend.

She was extremely out-going and sociable and loved entertaining. As a young lecturer at St Andrews, she advised her nervous flatmate that professors and eminent visiting lecturers could safely be invited to dinner, and would enjoy, if not the basic Good Housekeeping recipes, then the company and the conversation. She would take on any challenge, and became involved in long, erudite and witty correspondence with public figures, such as CS Lewis and Hugh Trevor-Roper.

But she enjoyed all kinds of company, including that of children, the families of her siblings and her friends. She was a generous and loved god-mother to several of them.

Nan was involved in the wider field of public affairs, working for her church and for political causes. In retirement she gave help in a local primary school (with optional Latin lessons at lunch-time). She never did anything by halves; her commitment to what she believed important and right was unswerving, whether it be political debate or humble church chores.

Few academics could match Nan’s combination of intellectual brilliance and willingness to take on the practical things which make the home and the world function.

In 1972 Nan married Mervyn Jones, then working in the Foreign Office in London as an expert in Hungarian affairs, whom she had met when he was a young lecturer in Glasgow. They continued their individual careers, but particularly enjoyed holiday travels in Britain and abroad devoted to their common interest in bird-watching. Latterly they had been settled together among their Oxford friends.

Nan died on 3 April at home in Oxford. Her life was one of solid and varied achievement. Those who knew her well will mourn the loss of such a lively and challenging companion, such a sympathetic and encouraging friend.