In June this year, Professor Roderick Beaton (m. 1970) was awarded a Knight Bachelor for services to History and to UK/Greece relations. We interviewed the now Sir Roderick about his life and career since Peterhouse, and what it was like to be recognised with this honour.

Sir Roderick is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA, 2013), a Fellow of King’s College London (FKC, 2018), and Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, a distinction conferred on him by President Prokopios Pavlopoulos in 2019. In 2023 he received honorary citizenship of Greece and an honorary doctorate from the University of Patras, and he is the author of many books and articles that relate in various ways to the Greek-speaking world. Four of his books have won the prestigious Runciman Award for best book on the Hellenic world; he has also been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Cundill History Prize and has won several other awards in Greece (Anagnostis, Daidalos, Epilogos, Vardinoyannis).

He told us: “It was at Peterhouse that I first began to study modern Greek, with the late Stavros Papastavrou in the 1970s. Stavros was a great raconteur as well as a scholar, and he fired up my fascination for all things Greek. Since then, I’ve taught and written about Greek history, literature and culture, but I never imagined that my work would be recognised with an honour from His Majesty ‘for services to History and to UK/Greek relations’. It’s true that mutual understanding between British and Greek people is very dear to me, though I’ve never worked as a professional diplomat. Anyhow, it all began at Peterhouse, and I remain, after all those years, a proud Petrean!”

Photograph by Danae Syreggela