Concordia 27_cover section.indd

for the polar bears. If the ice has melted we can take a boat and if not we can take a snowmobile.” We took an icebreaking boat in the end. The one time I attempted to return the favour of a holiday suggestion, I asked if he fancied a trip to Japan in January. He replied with a picture — he was already there. Back on home soil, I had the utter privilege of being close to Jack for more than a decade. In that time, I grew to love Jack as a friend, and I want to thank all of those here who knew him through school for being by his side in all those years. I do feel slightly sorry for some of Jack’s teachers. He had what must have been to them the frustrating combination of an incredible intellect and power of reasoning, and an almost complete refusal to do anything on the curriculum. I remember on the eve of an important public exam I saw Jack in the library and wondered which subject he was revising. It turned out he wasn’t bothered with that and was finishing off a copy of Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. I was slightly dumbfounded, textbook in my hand, as he presented his flawless critique of the book’s characters — albeit almost exclusively translated into the language of online slang.

That summed up Jack’s time at Merchant Taylors' quite well. He hated the daily expectations of school, which led to a perception among some that Jack was quiet and reserved (a myth I can comfortably dispel having seen him belt out Frank Sinatra’s My Way in a karaoke club in downtown Bishkek). School for Jack was almost a bureaucratic impediment to all that he really wanted to discover about the world, something he did relentlessly, whether by flying round it or by rummaging through some of the most unusual corners of the internet. In fact, I should put a request in for the British Archives to requisition Jack’s phone. It should be studied for centuries. In the wee hours of our countless nights together, he would dig something out of the archive, directly downloaded into his files — a Yugoslav paramilitary marching song, a three-hour long Tarkovsky film dubbed in Portuguese, an underground recording of Siberian post punk from 1982 — there are cultural hinterlands only Jack has ever explored. For all the crazy destinations and anecdotes we have racked up together, there’s nothing I will miss more than just

sitting down together and laughing the night away. Talking about meaningless rubbish, gossiping about something or other, showing each other stupid clips, flailing our arms to wacky music… That was our real friendship, something we recreated endlessly from classroom to house to pub to hostel. But we can’t recreate it any more. Though Jack was more well travelled, well read, well loved, than many achieve in a full lifetime — he could have done and could have been so much more … if he had not left us not even 24 years into his life. My heart shatters at the thought that there’s nothing more we can live through together. In the words of Jack at the conclusion of our trip to Russia five years ago, thanks for the memes. Our comrade on that trip, Xavier, died

Concordia Winter 2024

61

three years ago. Perhaps they are somewhere out there on their own travels together.

But in the meantime, I will grasp every last memory we shared, knowing that there’s no world that wouldn’t be better with you around. Jack, I love you and I miss you. Max Kendix (2012–2019)

Obituaries

Max and Jack (back row) visiting Downing Street with A level politics students

For publication of full obituaries and tributes please visit https://development.mtsn.org.uk/obituaries