Obituary: John J. Macklin (1947–2014)

I first met John Macklin in the 1970s when he was a young lecturer at the University of Hull and I was a not much older one at another Yorkshire institution, the University of Leeds. Striking up a friendship came quickly and naturally. Although brought up in very different parts of the world (he in Belfast, I in Gibraltar), we were both products of the educational system of the (Irish) Christian Brothers, about whom we shared endless jokes but for whom we retained a common respect and deep affection. We both rebelled against our early religious indoctrination while remaining at heart spiritual sons of our educators even if thoroughly heterodox ones. Our research interests also turned out to have quite a bit in common. We were both hooked by the unconventionality of the noventayochistas (or Modernists, as we preferred to call them) and wondered why they had been excluded from the European family of the Modernist generation with whom they had so much in common. In 1980 we joined forces to give papers at the annual AHGBI conference (held at Nottingham that year) on the urgent need to ditch the 'Generacion del 98' concept as an artificial and catastrophic distortion of Spain's literary history. Unsurprisingly our elders and betters (notably Donald Shaw and Richard Cardwell) laid into us in the ensuing fracas in no uncertain manner. We stuck to our guns and had the ultimate satisfaction of seeing these respected figures eventually contribute their own considered reflections to our way of thinking. Since that time John and I shared ideas, worked on similar topics, and accepted a mutual influence. Alas, the joint book that we planned when I returned to Leeds to join him in 1999 was foiled by his departure in 2001 to become Principal of the University of Paisley.Although I regretted his departure, it was in fact no great surprise that John proceeded to greater things from his Cowdray Chair of Spanish at Leeds. Already in his first academic post at Hull he had shown clear signs of administrative flair, first as Faculty Admissions Officer and then as Head of Department. At Leeds, where he took over from me the Headship of the Department of Spanish 232 C. Alex Longhurst bhs, 93 (2016) and Portuguese when I moved to Exeter in 1987, he very quickly made his mark as an efficient administrator and held a succession of demanding managerial posts as Chairman of the School of Modern Languages, as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, as Director of Research in the Humanities, and finally as Deputy Vice- Chancellor for Teaching and Learning. He also acted as the Vice-Chancellor's representative at the time when the Santander Group of European Universities was being set up, a job which I concurrently happened to be doing for Exeter, and I well remember our sumptuous accommodation, lavish entertainment and gourmet dining (and of course rollicking discussions) during our meetings in Santander in those heady days when the EU could afford to pamper otherwise underpaid academics. John was in his element, always at the centre of the spirited affray, whether in the auditorium or later in the bar. He also played a key role in bringing the Instituto Cervantes to Leeds, a role which earned him the recognition of the Spanish authorities who made him a Comendador de la Orden de Isabel la Catolica. …