Tribute to early OU student Alix Mackay

The scale of OUTS programmes – trips to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, USSR, Spain, Greece and America amongst others – was remarkable given that for over twenty years she had a particularly demanding day job with Special Needs Education in the Sussex area. Thus, all OUTS preparation and administration was done in the evenings and, usually, long into the night. But of all her trips the core of the OUTS experience was in Italy, and – particularly – in Florence, to which there were always at least five study trips a year.

Any student on A352, A353 and A354 who was lucky enough to go on one of these will, surely, remember the daily evening lectures lubricated with a deal of wine (both for the lecturer and the students), the picnic day up at San Miniato (always a regular feature) and – perhaps above all – the riotous Saturday-night evening of Art history-based charades up in the tower of the wonderfully eccentric Hotel Porta Rossa.

It was not a surprise that when she retired and brought OUTS to a graceful close in 2008, she retired, very happily, to her beloved Italy. It was there on the 1 October, 2011 that she died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack.  She will be much missed by many friends.

Warren Hearnden