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INSTITUTE MATTERS John Trim 1924-2013 Achieving Gold IN JANUARY 2012, CIOL EXAMINATIONS MANAGER DARYL LUCAS SET OUT TO RUN 50 RACES IN AID OF BRAIN TUMOUR UK. BY THE END HE HAD COMPLETED 60 Running 50 races in a year was always going to be a challenge. 'That's almost a race a week!' someone pointed out. However, although it was tough at times the experience was very rewarding. 2012 was Olympic year and so my sporting challenge was even more special. By the end of it, I had raised more than £2,000 for Brain Tumour UK in memory of Lesley Hall, a friend and CIOL colleague who sadly died in 2011. There were many memorable races but the most amazing was at the end of March when I took part in the National Lottery Olympic Park Run, which ended on the track inside the Olympic Stadium. In April, I ran my fourth London Marathon and, in May, completed the Bupa London 10,000. I actually ran past Mo Farrah in that race, although he was going in the opposite direction about 6km ahead of me on his way to victory. Vol/52 No/2 2013 FINISHING LINE: Daryl runs inside the Olympic Stadium in March In September, I participated in the Great North Run from Newcastle to South Shields, running the world's biggest half marathon in less than two hours and finishing in the top third of the field. I met Dame Kelly Holmes twice. She was there to present me with my medals after the Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge half marathons. My last race of the year was on 30 December and so, with perfect symmetry, I had completed 60 races – one for each year of the Queen's reign in her Diamond Jubilee year. In doing so I ran 414.5 miles (667km), a figure that you could double when you take into account the training. A big 'thank you' to everyone who has supported me in my 'Going for Gold' challenge. John Trim was born into a modest background in East London (his father was a docker and his mother a secretary) and won a scholarship to Leyton County High School, where he became fascinated with language learning. During the war, he studied German at UCL and, after four years in the infantry, he took up an academic career – first in the linguistics department at UCL and then at Cambridge, where he eventually became Director of the Linguistics department. In part because of his 'Christian and socialist' upbringing, John believed strongly that knowledge should be used 'for the benefit of people'. He used his understanding of phonetics to work with and help speech therapists, and was one of the first academics to be involved in the BBC's language programmes. From 1978 to 1987 John was Director of CILT, the national centre for languages, and encouraged the development of the Graded Objectives Movement and the Festival of Languages. He was instrumental in uniting the language organisations in the Association for Language Learning (ALL). For more than 30 years he worked for the Council of Europe, where he was one of the main authors of the seminal Common European Framework of Reference. Even after his official retirement in 1997, he continued to work actively in support of languages and languages for all. John was Chair of BAAL (the British Association for Applied Linguistics) and an honorary member of AILA (the International Association of Applied Linguistics). He received honours from universities around the world. For him, one of the greatest came in 2012, when he was made a Fellow of ALL in recognition of his services to language teaching. Although he was ill and in pain, his inspirational acceptance speech will stay with all who heard it. John will be remembered for many things: his major contributions to our discipline; his support for change 'from below'; his enthusiasm for ideas; his respect for others and his undiminished love of humanity. We will also remember the mischievous twinkle in his eye and the silences which, in John's oral discourse, became an art form, often to be followed by a paragraph of devastating clarity. He died peacefully on 19 January, several years after his wife Marion, and is survived by his daughters, Elizabeth, Caroline, Deborah and Alison. APRIL/MAY The Linguist 33