Yesterday Pat Easterling, the professional mother figure
to many scholars of ancient Greek, died at the age of 92. She was not my PhD
supervisor, but, with Paul Cartledge, she rescued me way back in 1987 when I
was unable to obtain a satisfactory reference from anyone at Oxford University,
where I had done my degrees. Pat and Paul were at London and Cambridge
Universities respectively, but warmly agreed to write me the references that
got me my first postdoctoral position, at what was then New Hall, Cambridge. Paul always called her his 'fairy godmother'.
I had always admired her, because she was a long-time
supporter of the qualifications in Classical Civilisation that emerged in the
1960s and 1970s to make the ancient world accessible in state schools and
sixth-form colleges, but which were bizarrely looked down on by many snobbish Classics
dons. She was one of the small handful of academics who were enlightened enough
to see that equal opportunities and the future lay in such courses; I first met
her in 1984 at an event where we were both speaking at a deprived London
comprehensive school. She was psychologically astute, and ensured that Fiona Macintosh, who was to become my very close friend and collaborator, and I were brought together to teach on a Classical Civilisation summer school soon after that.
Once Pat had offered to write me references, she became, in my mind, my adoptive mother. She invited me to contribute a chapter to her wonderful Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy when I was still a very junior lecturer. She supported me unconditionally. I was amazed when she agreed to co-edit a book with me on ancient actors, and ensured we secured a contract with Cambridge University Press.
I cannot overstate how much I learned from her in the
course of editing that volume. Every Sunday afternoon for three or four years,
while I was also pregnant and dealing with tiny children, we had long phone
calls. In the course of these, she taught me most of what I know about theatre-related
inscriptions and papyri, textual variants in ancient playscripts that are
probably the result of actors’ changes in their speeches, how to use incomprehensibly complex Prussian editions of fragments and obscure Patristic authors, how to unblock sinks, roast potatoes, and make parsnip soup.
She showed me how to edit problematic drafts of
chapters written by proud or volatile contributors by posting them gentle, tactful, handwritten
notes combining praise with constructive suggestions. Her quiet humour shone
through all these conversations, especially when we compared our husbands’ quirks.
I learned to read her cues. Her response to papers or suggestions she did not
think much of was simply, ‘How fascinating!’, a foible I have often found
myself imitating.
Pat was a brilliant scholar and a perfect friend, but
she was also a moral exemplar. She was constitutionally incapable of being
bitchy (the harshest word I ever heard from her was when she called a man whose
sexism we were discussing a ‘pig’). She had one extraordinary quality, which
was to make everyone in a room with her—even the most contumacious and
rivalrous of phallocrats--behave exceptionally well. I seem to have the opposite
effect on people, and envy this virtue enormously.
From 2016 our Cambridgeshire home was only a short
drive from hers, and for years I would go to visit her for lunch every month. She
always served quiche and asparagus and rounded it off with a glass of chilled
Sauvignon Blanc. I treasured those meetings. Sometimes she came to us. I shall
miss her sorely.
