The Wivenhoe School

Essex University. We need to get out of here! We need to get away! W. suggests we head to Wivenhoe, the fishing village where he used to live as a student. We could find a pub, settle down for evening, and then walk out along the sea, and be revived by the ozone.

Wasn’t Wivenhoe where they all lived, the Essex postgraduates? Wasn’t it along the sea that they used to stroll, singly or in pairs, to be revived by the ozone? Walking out by the quay, you’d never know who you might bump into, W. says. You’d never know who had also gone outside, to take the ozone.

I’m taking the sea air, said one postgraduate to another. The ozone is reviving us, said one pair of postgraduate strollers to another.

W. thinks of the commemorative plaques that will one day be placed on the houses where the postgraduates lives. Here lived X, philosopher of Punnett Squares. Residence of Y, philosopher-historian of the Rue Saint-Benoit.

And he thinks of the streets they might rename, after particular topics of discussion. Bifurcation Street. Dissipative Structures Road. Teleosematic Avenue. Indeterminism Way.

And shouldn't Wivenhoe itself be renamed? Should it be called New Jena, or New Freiburg? Should it be called Paris-on-sea? Ah, but Wivenhoe will be regarded as sui generis, W. says. One day, they'll speak of the Wivenhoe School, or the Wivenhoe Discoveries. Wivenhoe will be a synonym of a whole style of thinking. A rebirth of thinking …