Lives remembered - David Kendall
From Chris Mullins
David Kendall (1945-2025) – an Appreciation
David Kendall was one of the first 122 students at Essex in 1964. For 1965-66 he was elected as President of the Students' Council (now Union) but still had to graduate in 1967, since there was then no extra year allowed for Union activities. The only perk was an occasional lift to London with Albert Sloman, the VC.
Dave was still in Colchester and around during the memorable spring of 1968, when student activity on the issue of Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) triggered: both a two-week period when the (Free) University was run by students, and also major publicity on the issue of UK involvement in CBW. This not only changed UK government policy but also culminated in 1969 in UN General Assembly resolution 2603 on the prohibition of CBW.
1968 also raised the question of what the function of universities should be, and how they should be controlled. At the time, Essex had only just been persuaded to have student members of Senate but still retained the right to reverse decisions once the students had left the meeting. After a major student campaign to remove investments that supported apartheid South Africa, the Senate agreed to do so and then reversed the decision once we had left the meeting.
The social life at Essex was also lively; Dave made some friendships for life. One semester we were able to meet at the Colchester house of Peter Strevens (Linguistics Prof.), who had lent his house to his niece, Jill Vyse (neé Woodhead).
Coinciding with the uprising of French workers and much political activity around the world, these were heady times. Dave became an active member of the International Marxist Group in London where he met his first wife Barbrö. After emigrating to Sweden in 1973, his first child, Anna, was born. Dave became a professional translator, in line with his lifelong interest in both languages and linguistics. He subsequently married Gunilla in 1987 and they had three children: Linus, Ellen and Simon, who are now spread around the world, from India to France and Sweden. Consequently, Dave was recently learning Bengali and later tackled German. In 2019 he moved to Uppsala, to be near his daughter Anna and the two grandchildren. He spent much of Covid cataloguing his extensive book collection.
In 2015, Dave, Rick Coates, Sid Shaw, and I joined up to attend the University's official lunch with the VC and other students from the University's first year. The events of 1968 were, by then, celebrated with an exhibition in the Hexagon, and marketed for student recruitment – with the slogan "Rebels with a Cause" on flags around the campus and on the front of the prospectus.
As a student, Dave had lived in a cottage in Rowhedge with Sid, and they shared accommodation in London after graduation. Unfortunately, shortly after the 2015 reunion, Sid broke his back, ending up in a care home in Borehamwood, where Dave, Rick and I met up to visit him in the following years. Dave was especially caring, going out of his way to visit Sid whenever he was in the UK.
In 2018, at a 50-year reunion of the Essex left of 1968 (www.essex68.org.uk), Dave reunited with Jill, who lives in Berlin, and they shared many trips around the world. Dave had just moved permanently to Berlin when he had a serious stroke in February 2025 and subsequently died from complications this June.
Dave remained a lifelong Marxist and intellectual, working as a translator to the end of his life. He was a trusted and considerate friend who will be greatly missed by Jill, his family and friends.
Chris Mullins September 2025
Essex: BA Physics (1967) MSc (1968) PhD (1971)
