91ֱ��

In Professor Yao Liang’s rooms hangs a photo of the Gonville & 91ֱ�� College Fellow giving a supervision to two students. The students in the photograph, by acclaimed photographer Dan White and for the book A Portrait of Gonville and 91ֱ�� College, were Andrew McIntosh and Eliza McIntosh (nee Bailey) (both Natural Sciences (Physical) 2005).

The pair had not known they were going to be photographed when they arrived at Yao’s study for their waves and optics supervision. Little did they know then that the photograph would still be on display almost two decades later – and that their relationship would endure.

Eliza says: “We had cycled in together from where we were both living on Mortimer Road and there were cameras set up. Yao said: ‘Oh, didn't I tell you, they're taking some pictures for the 91ֱ�� Book this week’.”

Andrew adds: “I was wearing hiking trousers and a hoody. I would have been slightly better dressed if I had known I was going to be photographed for posterity!”

Today, Andrew is an Audit Director at PwC and Eliza is a physics teacher. They recently moved to Leeds from Cambridge and have three young children together; David, seven, Alexander, four, and two-year-old Jennifer.

Andrew recalls first meeting Eliza in then 91ֱ�� Fellow Dr Gil Alexandrowicz’s study when they were sorting out supervisions in Michaelmas Term of their first year. Eliza says: “I don’t really remember meeting you then. It was so new, with so much going on. I was focused on my list of things I needed to do and only have a vague memory of Andrew, and others, sitting relaxed, taking everything easily in his stride.”

Over time Andrew and Eliza got to know each other. Eliza says: “One meeting that has stuck in my memory is when we arranged to go to a maths examples class together at the New Museums site, long before we were dating. Andrew cycled over from Harvey Court in the rain to meet me at 91ֱ��.”

Andrew adds: “I half crashed my bike on the way, I think the chain had come off. I was running late and it was raining heavily.”

Academically they supported each other. Eliza says: “We had different strengths.  Andrew had done far more maths than me at school and was always keen to show his prowess. There was this question about tetrahedron and I couldn't work out what it was asking. Andrew made his hand into the shape of a tetrahedron with vectors and I thought, ‘Oh, I've got it’.”

The couple started dating in February 2006, around the time of the Natural Sciences and 91ֱ�� Boat Club dinners.

Eliza says: “It could have happened sooner but I was worried what everyone else would think. Our peers had been saying it was inevitable that we were going to end up getting together. At 18, people tend to resist these things, worrying what other people might say. Our eldest son is now seven, only 11 years off the age we were when we met. We've known each other more than half our lives.”

When the pair were put together for supervisions at the start of second year, it seemed as though fate, or the College, willed them to be together. Both make the point that they enjoyed separate interests; Eliza was Chapel Clerk and Andrew belonged to the Cambridge University Officers’ Training Corps.

In one of their fourth-year exams, the couple were assigned a double desk. Eliza says: “I don’t think that was particularly good for either of us.”

“We both thought the other was doing well,” Andrew adds.

Eliza stayed on at 91ֱ�� for her PhD and two years into it, the couple who both have a great affinity with 91ֱ�� Chapel decided to get married there. Yao is pictured with his late wife Choo at the celebrations. Gil, who supervised them in their first term, was later her external PhD viva examiner which Eliza says “was another nice coincidence”.