From James Harris
Katherine and I were undergraduates at the same place at the same time. I didn’t get to know her well then, but still, when I’d got a job at St Andrews, and had come up to look for a place to live, it was Katherine and Jon who invited me to dinner, partly so I could meet another soon to be new arrival, Daniel Nolan. That was the first of many meals, and parties, at their house in Anstruther. One thing about Katherine was how good she was at bringing people together. She wanted people to get to know each other, and helped make a department more than just a place of work.
Katherine and Jon had their twins, just a few days after I arrived in St. Andrews, and I remember not seeing much of her for a while. I don’t think pieces that I have read about her have made enough of the fact that she did all the things she did later — run three departments, edit a journal, sit on two REF panels, as well as teach and write — while bringing up two young children. I’m sure it wasn’t really, neither for Katherine nor for her family, but it all always seemed so effortless. She was doing more work than many of the rest of us put together, and she did it all so well. She never seemed stressed, and if she was stressed, I never heard of her taking it out on anybody else. She was always supremely effective in meetings, tactful, constructive, and wise — and, at the same time, always ready to laugh.
In addition to everything else, Katherine found the time to read widely, and also to watch an extraordinary amount of TV. She was serious, but never very serious, and gave you the impression that she certainly didn’t take herself too seriously. The last time I saw her and Jon here in Edinburgh was at a Vampire Weekend gig at the Usher Hall. From an early age their children were subjected to songs about mansard roofs and Oxford commas. Her family will be wondering how on earth they are going to manage without her. So are the rest of us.