ABSTRACT
Bryer inspired that kind of confidence. His brilliant first-year lectures and radio broadcasts recruited a cadre of special-subject students who were seduced into further work by being asked to catalogue the slide collection, or read a seal, or give a party or look after a visitor. He led by example: we learned to dream collaborative research projects by seeing how he set up the demography project; we learned to build bricks without straw by looking around us. He looked after his people too. If you showed signs of writer’s block just before finals you were given a treat, like a visit to the Serbian church in Bournville, or taken home to Liz’s good cooking; if you could not face looking at the degree results, you were told the result en route to see the new coin collection. If you showed signs of not accepting a job you had been offered somewhere in Ultima Thule, Bryer turned up at 8 a.m. on the doorstep in Oxford to make sure that you did. Bryer focused always on what was important. His academic supervision was acute and detailed, but he inspired rather than directed; he gave infinite amounts of rope for students to shin up to the heights. How would the QAA have regarded this supervision style? I like to think that they would have benchmarked student support and guidance, for all time, on this paragon of good practice.
