10:30am Friday 11th December 2009
By Gill Oliver
H aving your likeness cast in stone for posterity is normally the preserve of Roman emperors, kings, lords and statesmen — but now a retired local government expert from Oxford has just joined these illustrious ranks.
Hubert Allen is looking around his home for a suitable place to display the life-sized limestone bust of himself, thanks to a competition run by Oxfordshire Limited Edition.
Readers were offered the opportunity to have a statue worth £3,500 made by Great Milton-based Stoneworld using the company’s new StoneGenie scanning and robotic mason system.
They were encouraged to nominate someone and explain why they thought that person worthy of being set in stone. Valerie Exhall suggested Mr Allen, who lives near her and her husband in Old Marston village.
“If ever there was an unsung hero, it is this man. He is a wonderful person who lives in the most modest way imaginable,” she pointed out. “Even after he retired he was asked to go out to different countries and use his knowledge of government. He speaks many languages and is brilliant beyond my ken.
“He always does so much for everybody else, so I thought this would be a very good idea to show how much we all respect him,” she added.
Mr Allen, who is in his late 70s, said he was surprised when retired occupational therapist Mrs Exhall chose him.
“I plan to put a plaque on it to explain it is a gift from Valerie Exhall. I feel rather humbled and overwhelmed by her generosity.
“She has two nice sons but I imagine it would be hard to choose one and not the other. And her husband didn’t want to do it.”
“Everyone says it is an excellent likeness of me,” he added.
“My wife, Phoebe and I get on very well with Valerie and her husband David and they are amazingly generous.
“The four of us get together and have a nice meal and they are kind in many ways,” he added.
There is a tradition of travelling and living overseas in Mr Allen’s family. His mother was born in Mexico and his father’s family lived in China and he has spent most of his own life abroad.
His parents were both teachers with the colonial education service and he was brought up in east Africa.
He attended primary school in Kenya before coming to St Edward’s and later St John’s College in Oxford, where he studied modern languages and English.
His father, mother, uncle and grandfather also studied at Oxford.
“Father and his father were at St John’s and my mother and my wife Phoebe’s mother were at St Hugh’s, which is how we met.
“We were linked to Oxford so when my parents were looking for a house for their retirement, they settled in Old Marston village. That became our family base whenever we were in England which wasn’t often because father went on working in East Africa until he was in his 70s and I was abroad most of the time. When I came back to this country and retired I took over the house,” he said.
His master’s degree in local government studies and ability to speak French, German, Spanish, Swahili and African dialect Lwo meant he was in demand for consultancy work around the world.
He has worked for one week or more in at least 42 countries, including Africa, Albania, Bolivia, the Solomon Islands and Bhutan.
For 14 years he was director of training for the International Union of Local Authorities based in the Hague.
He and Phoebe, who taught at Cheney School, have three grown-up children, including Oxford professor Myles Allen who is one of the country’s leading experts on climate change, and six grandchildren aged from one to 12.
Back in Oxford, he spent several years in charge of Oxford’s committee for Church Action on Poverty and is a trustee for the Oxford Carers’ Centre and a council member of Churches Together in Oxfordshire.
The last word should go to Mrs Exhall who entered and won the competition.
“It was interesting to see what a computer could do. It is done with the front of the face slightly elevated. If there is one thing Mr Allen does not do, it is put his nose in the air, so we all had a giggle about that.”
For more information about StoneGenie and Stoneworld, call 01844 279274
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