Hues of Blue to remember

THE presence of author and long-running Radio 4 contributor Rabbi Lionel Blue within the university throughout the term has been evocative and enlivening for students at Durham.

In residence at Grey College for his second visit in as many years, he is proving to be popular and influential. This is due, no doubt, to his sage advice, borne from experience and conferred through an approachable nature.

Likewise, Rabbi Blue hails the students as mature and pays regard to their having little need to "put on any class or style", which he regards as having been the "problems of previous generations" of some undergraduates in Britain.

Of particular interest to students this week were the words of Rabbi Blue surrounding the pressures and hardships facing modern students, made during last week's Thought for the Day radio slot. Focussing on the issue of examinations, the Rabbi related to listeners his belief in the idea of two exams being set throughout the difficult assessment period held just weeks ago - "the formal written exam and the exam set by life which is underneath it".

The notion of a Thought for the Day, as Rabbi Blue puts it, is to provide for the development of "one thought to which to be referred in order to make sense of some part of life...expressed in a joke or a piece of humour so that it may stick (with the listener)".

Decisions surrounding the content of the radio slot pay much regard to the idea of, in his words, "reinforcing spiritual stamina" and promoting the "ability to pick oneself up".

Against this canvas, it has been especially heartening for students to have received a message seeking to specifically address an issue prevalent in their lives as they eagerly await exam results.

In response to Rabbi Blue's advice, counsel and friendship to Durham students, he explains that he, too, has been on something of a learning curve while in their association.

Indeed, he pays tribute to their ability "not to think in terms of age" and even asserts that their company has led to his feeling "much younger - owing to not finding myself to be that different at all from the students".

Rabbi Blue has inevitably also become taken with the city of Durham, which forms a scenic cultural and historical backdrop to his time and work at Grey.

He recalls meeting residents in areas around the city centre and has found them to be invariably very friendly. He also salutes the attempts of students to contribute to the life of the city and upholds their part to play in its ethos as a connection that is more than just an economic fact of life.

In contrast to larger cities where there is less of a sense of familiarity and physical intimacy, Rabbi Blue points out the potential of students and local residents to form distinct support groups for each other.

This thought forms one of many that Rabbi Lionel Blue will leave students as a legacy of his time in Durham.