A obituary in today's Guardian of the classicist Peter Walcot:
Peter Walcot, who has died aged 77, made a major contribution to the study of classics in Britain, both through his own publications and his untiring efforts to popularise the subject. In a series of influential books and papers, he explored the relationship between the earliest-known Greek writers and the literature of contemporary eastern cultures and, in later years, applied comparative anthropology and gender studies to his work on ancient Greek society.
Peter was born in London and educated at Wilson's grammar school, Camberwell, before reading classics at University College London. He obtained an MA at Yale before returning to UCL to study for his PhD. After national service as an officer in the RAF, he became an assistant lecturer in classics at University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University), in 1957. He was to spend the remainder of his career there, and was professor of classics from 1974 until retiring in 1996.
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