Swarthmore Lecture: Life stories

Gerald Hewitson, the 2013 Swarthmore Lecturer, talks to the Friend about the background to this year’s lecture

by Gerald Hewitson 24th May 2013

What was your initial response to the challenge of giving the Swarthmore lecture?  The first response was like Juliet’s, on being asked her thoughts on marriage: ‘It is an honour that I dream not of.’ As Juliet grows in the play, in her sense and definition of what her love and marriage to Romeo involved, so I think I grew – both individually as a person and in my sense of being asked to undertake the lecture.