Life Stories
Andrew Michael Armstrong Larkin
Andrew Michael Armstrong Larkin (1968 BA Modern Languages) died on 3 May 2025 aged 75.
Andrew came to Keble from Mitcham Grammar School to read French and German, but his studies often took second place to politics. The late 1960s was a time of ideological turmoil in which Andrew was deeply engaged, and he was elected JCR President in 1969 after a hard-fought campaign. Being six feet seven inches tall he was an instantly recognisable participant in demonstrations over the 1969 South Africa rugby tour, the 1970 Clarendon Building occupation, the Vietnam war and many other causes. In summer 1970, with contemporaries John Chanin (qv) and David Ball (qv), he rowed in the college 6th VIII (named at his insistence ‘The John Keble and Vladimir Illyich Ulianov [sic] Memorial Eight’) without conspicuous success. During his JCR Presidency the College celebrated its centenary, giving Andrew a platform from which to laud Keble’s comparatively egalitarian origins.
After graduating Andrew made housing and housing poverty the focus of his life, working initially at Brent Housing Aid and later at Shelter. He was one of a small group of activists who occupied the Centre Point skyscraper in London for a week in January 1974 in a protest against homelessness, leading directly to the formation of the Centre Point charity. He later moved to Australia where he served as housing adviser to the governments of South Australia and New South Wales. Among many other achievements he developed the legislative frameworks for the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office and the expansion of Community Housing.
Andrew frequently revisited the UK to meet his family (five children and six grandchildren) and was delighted when this coincided with a College reunion in 2011. In September 2025 his extensive family and many friends, including his widow Suzanne, gathered at the Boogaloo pub in Highgate to celebrate his life, after his ashes had been (clandestinely) scattered near Karl Marx’s grave.
Kindly provided by a College contemporary