Wednesday 27 March 2013

Eric Hobsbawm memorial

A message from Birkbeck and the Hobsbawm family...

There is to be a celebration of the life of Eric Hobsbawm on Wednesday 24 April, at Birkbeck College. There are two ways in which you can contribute.

We are gathering memories of Eric for inclusion in a memorial brochure. If you have a memory you would like to share, please email no more than 50 words to events@bbk.ac.uk by Wednesday 8 April.

At the memorial event we are planning to launch the Eric Hobsbawm Scholarships for Postgraduate Study. These scholarships will encourage the next generation of brilliant historians and enable the brightest students to access Birkbeck’s first class post-graduate study and research opportunities. We’re sure you will agree that this is a fitting legacy for Eric.

Birkbeck and the Hobsbawm family

1 comment:

  1. Gillian Hammerton24 April 2013 at 09:51

    I remember Eric Hobsbawm for his immense kindness .I was doing an evening degree at Birkbeck while practising as a full time barrister and was a single mother with a very young baby .At a time when many people had prejudice against single mothers he utterly did not.He was interested in hearing about Robert Graves my son's godfather and also that I had spent a year helping on a kibbutz in Israel when was I was a teenager.He never bragged he was never condescending as I know,he didnt look down on people as happens when they think they reach the dizzy heights,he was interested in others, in life in everything but not the cruel.I lit a candle in church for him the day I heard he died and I lit one this morning.I will plant a small tree for him I hope it grows.He was special and cared for the world and its history and contributed with unending intelligence to both. Birkbeck was so lucky in him and he in Birkbeck where he was and remains an iconic beacon of scholarship and humanity.
    I remember he once said "The only things you will regret in life is the risks you dont take and the books you dont read."

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