It’s Quite Interesting where Hiro’s class is now
IT LOOKS like any other photograph of excited young Oxford students, ready to start their university career.
But among the rows of faces is a future High Court judge, one of the creators of popular BBC quiz show QI – and the new Emperor of Japan.
The Daily Telegraph has unearthed the matriculation picture of Prince Hiro – as he was then known – with his Merton College classmates in 1983. They include John Mitchinson, head researcher for the British television panel game show QI, which he helped to found. Mr Mitchinson also co-wrote the QI book series with creator John Lloyd.
Also pictured is The Hon Mr Justice Andrew Baker, a judge of the High Court of England and Wales. His appointment was one of seven new Lord and Lady Justices of the Court of Appeal announced on June 27 2018. He read mathematics at Merton College before completing a postgraduate diploma in law at City, University of London.
He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1988 and invested a knight in the 2016 Special Honours.
Alan Davey, who was made a CBE, was also a classmate of the now-emperor. Following his studies at Merton College, Mr Davey started his career as an administration trainee in the Department of Health and Social Security; working his way up to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, where he held the position of head of arts division from January 2001 to April 2004.
Since January 2015, he has been the controller of BBC Radio 3.
Also featured is a House of Commons clerk who fell 60ft to his death from the balcony of his apartment.
Neil Caulfield – who had overseen complaints about the HS2 high-speed rail link – fell from the sixth floor of a block of flats in Deptford, south-east London, in 2016.
Mr Caulfield worked in the House of Commons’ Private Bill Office and was the senior clerk responsible for the passage of the Bill for the controversial HS2 rail link.
He had studied chemistry while at Oxford University in the Eighties with Naruhito.