Ambassadors have recently arrived in London to represent both the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The South Korean Ambassador is Dr Lee Kae-shik, and the North Korean Mr Ri Yong-ho. Both have been offered honorary membership of the Association.

The current list of members of the Association stands at 61, but it is suspected that some of these are nominal members only, and an updating of the membership list is planned. It is particularly hoped to enrol more corporate members.

Good progress has been made with the production of BAKS Papers volume 9, and publication is expected shortly. A British Museum Research Paper is also forthcoming, containing illustrated papers from the BM/BAKS workshop on North Korea in December 2002. Full details of both volumes will appear on the Website when they become available.

North Korea is beginning to appear on the tourist trail. The Chollima Group (www.chollima-group.com) markets itself as '1^st choice for DPRK tourism and products', and Regent Travel are planning a joint tour to North and South Korea next year which may be accompanied by BAKS President Dr Hoare.

On behalf of BAKS, Dr Hoare has joined with the presidents of the British Associations for Chinese and Japanese Studies in condemning the decision by Durham University to close its long-established Department of East Asian Studies. In 2002-3 around 15 students were learning Korean at either beginners' or advanced level, and although a teacher has again been sent by Korea Research Foundation for 2003-4, it is feared that Korean will no longer be offered after 2004. Durham has a high reputation for training many high quality students in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and the University's decision - taken despite strong protests from all over the world - is particularly regrettable as the East Asian economies begin to revive, and the importance of the region can scarcely be exaggerated.

Korean traditional music was well represented at the 2003 Edinburgh International festival, and included a complete p'ansori performance. Accompanying lectures were provided by Dr Keith Howard, and it is hoped to append a report on these events here in due course.

It is with deep regret that we record the death of Roger Tennant on 30 June 2003. Richard Rutt has sent the following obituary:

Roger (Father Charles Roger Tennant) died on 30 June 2003. He was born in Tasmania on 8 April 1919. When he was 17 he came to England with his mother to study aircraft design at the studio of the colourful aviation pioneer, Noel Pemberton Billing (1881-1948). Roger¡¯s two Planes Explained booklets, the second of which was called Plane Facts and Features, proved very popular in their day. Neither is dated, but both were 'war economy standard' publications. During World War Two he served in the 6th Airborne Regiment and was parachuted into France. He was wounded and ever afterwards suffered from shrapnel effects, though he was reluctant to talk about this part of his life. His passionate interest in aircraft remained to the end of his life.

After the war he entered Lincoln Theological College and was ordained to a curacy at St Peter¡¯s, Belgrave, Leicester in 1951. Two years later he answered Bishop Cooper¡¯s appeal for priests to go to Korea, where he arrived in June 1954, shortly after the truce was signed at Panmunjom. Seoul was a dusty place with no metalled roads. Even the main thoroughfares were pitted with craters. The central area was a wasteland filled with piles of rubble, among which were pathetic little markets and odd stalls selling all kinds of leftovers from the sacking of the city. People were living everywhere in cardboard boxes. The new priests who entered the mission that year were housed in an old palace building that had no proper heating and no proper windows, only the traditional wooden lattice screens with rice-paper pasted over them. Each room was divided across the centre by an internal screen. Roger promptly gave the inner section of his room (intended as a bedroom) to a refugee man with two sub teenage children, a boy and a girl, who stayed with him for a couple of years. It seemed that Roger never did anything by halves. When he had finished his language study in 1956, Bishop Daly sent him to Chinch¡¯on in the centre of the country. There was a long established parish there, with a largish church and clergy house. A visitor described Roger as ¡®living in a series of empty rooms¡¯. Even allowing for the fact that Korean houses had very little furniture, Roger¡¯s house was strikingly minimalist. In 1959, after a furlough in England and Australia, he moved to Anjung on the east coast, a poorer rural area where he soon won the affection of the people and worked contentedly for two years. He had already begun writing, especially for the progressive Church magazine Prism. In 1961 he published in London a life of Christ called Born of a Woman, which finished at the crucifixion, to the dismay of some of his readers. At the same time he had worked hard to restart Anglican work for lepers, which had been closed down by over-eager country policemen. In a few months a village for forty-five lepers had been built at Masok, some twenty miles north of Seoul. He then visited his parents again, and in 1962 decided he ought to stay in England with his aged and frail mother.

Returning to Leicester diocese, he became vicar of the village of Bitteswell, near Lutterworth. Agnita (Hong Myonghui) soon came from Seoul to be his wife. Again doing nothing by halves, Roger invited the whole village to the wedding, as well as the Korean ambassador, who turned up with a carload of champagne. They had two children, Leo and Charlotte, and their vicarage became something of a centre for Koreans in England during the 1980s. Leo, and eventually Esme his granddaughter too, were brought up to share their father¡¯s unquenchable support for Leicester City Football Club. Keenly interested in Joseph Conrad, Roger made Conrad the subject of his PhD in 1975, then in 1981 published Joseph Conrad, a life that has become a standard work, and in 1983 an edition of The Secret Agent. He also wrote a Korean novel, The Litany of St Charles, published by Michael Joseph in 1968. He recast it as Cast on a Certain Island (Doubleday, New York, 1970). Agnita and he worked together on a number of English translations from Korean literature. In spite of his theological questionings, he kept the gentle Tractarian tradition of his parish, so that he was regarded by some of them as a bulwark of high orthodoxy in a district strongly coloured by evangelicalism and liberalism. He was certainly never trendy; but it was pastoral sensitivity and care that earned him the love of his people. His sermons were notoriously brief.

In 1988 he retired to live in the nearby village of Ullesthorpe. He never lost his interest in Conrad, but on retirement set about writing A History of Korea (1996), the first book of its kind to appear in English, and still not rivalled by any other. It is a vivid and highly readable book with lyrical passages that show how Roger loved the land. He kept abreast of everything that happened there, even during the increasing deafness of his last years. Always a man of few words, Roger¡¯s few words could be pungent. He was also a very faithful friend. Another friend once described him as ¡®a loving Franciscan priest with a Dominican mind¡¯.

RR 09 August 2003

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