On looking back over nearly 20 years since I finished the DMan, it now becomes clear to me that I have Ralph to thank for showing me how to reflect deeply on life experience. In that sense, his long-term influence on me has been as much spiritual as intellectual. 


Of course it wasn't just Ralph on his own, but also the amazing collection of educators and students he gathered around him -- Patricia Shaw, Doug Griffin, the rest of the ever-changing faculty and the wider MA/DMan learning community. I am so happy to have been part of such a pioneering programme, with a professor who was both an original scholar and a group analyst. I will always remember how he mostly just sat listening in the large group, making only the occasional incisive observation, and hearing him give a coherent and illuminating talk without notes was always a treat. Conversations with him were memorable and sometimes awkward. On one occasion I was making a connection between literacy and abstract thinking, and he simply asked me a question: “What’s wrong with abstract?”. It has taken me 20 years to work out some kind of sensible answer. As if all that weren’t enough, Ralph was also so funny, modest and mischievous. 


When I read Chris’s email announcing Ralph’s death it was as if time suddenly stopped. Losing someone who made such a difference to so many lives feels momentous.

Alison Donaldson