Christopher John Ash 1945 – 1995

Christopher John Ash was born on 5 January 1945 at Gorleston, a seaside town adjoining Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. He was an only child. His father, Kenneth William Ash, was the middle of three brothers. The elder brother was a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force who worked on rocket research and the younger was a Captain in the Merchant Navy. Chris’s father was Borough Engineer at Redcar on the North Yorkshire coast. His mother was Joan Evelyn Hadley, who worked at a Quaker school. Chris’s paternal grandfather was Headmaster of Middlesborough High School. After starting school at Wilton House School, Redditch, near Birmingham he continued at Newcomen Primary School, Redcar, in 1953. At Redcar he joined the St. Peter’s Church choir, whose choirmaster was his music master from school. He loved the dressing up and the ceremony of church services. He lamented that when his voice broke he ‘was left with a rather feeble and inadequate tenor voice’ – a dubious assertion at best. Continuing his musical interests, he learnt to play violin, piano and cello, to which he later added recorders, clarinet and bassoon. Later still viola and tenor horn joined that impressive list. His love of music continued throughout his life. From 1955 he attended Sir William Turner’s School at Coatham, North Yorkshire. He had taken the ‘eleven-plus’ examination a year early, as many bright children did, and he had the opportunity to become a boarder at York Minster Choir School. However, his parents decided, against Chris’s desires, to keep him at home. In his first form in high-school, he was in the top two or three of his class of thirty. His English master in April 1956, his first year of high-school, commented ‘he must be careful of the inexact use of words’ – a recommendation which seems to have had effect, for Chris loved the exact use of words – in English or other languages – and he used words well. When it came to entering the Sixth Form, he had to decide between Classics and Science. He certainly read and enjoyed classical literature, Greek and other, all his life, and enjoyed translating or debating Latin epithets. But he opted for Science as ‘more realistic’. He was surprised when his headmaster advised him to drop Chemistry and do Further Mathematics. However, Chris did hold his mathematics master, L. Page, in high regard and he followed the advice. For Pure Mathematics, in his penultimate year in high school, his other mathematics teacher wrote: ‘He has the ability and knowledge to be very successful, but he must guard against careless errors’. This comment apparently did not need repeating, as subsequently Chris was very careful. Encouraged by his school he got a place at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and a State Scholarship. His undergraduate career in mathematics was undistinguished. He got a Second¶ in Mathematics Finals, which was a disappointment to him, but it appears that he did not get much pleasure from the mathematics there. ‘The only lectures I enjoyed were those of Ken Gravett in Set Theory’, he has reported. Contemporaries in general would have regarded Gravett’s as the most entertaining and stimulating of all their lectures. Singing flourished and, having sung in various choirs, Chris became a member of Schola Cantorum Oxoniense. This small group went on overseas tours including one to Italy and made at least one commercial record with Chris singing. In 1966, he was awarded a (U.K.) Science Research Council award to do graduate study. By that time, Mathematical Logic was his preferred area of study. The subject had only recently been admitted into the