Alan BanceAlan Bance, born in London in 1939, is Professor Emeritus of German at the University of Southampton, UK. He has two daughters, Georgia and Miriam and recently celebrated his diamond wedding to Sandra née Davis. Alan comes from a working class familyin London's East End. After attending prestigious Hackney Downs Grammar School, he majored in Germanistic at University College London, subsequently receiving State funding for Ph.D research, initially at UCL, and continuing at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His dissertation, The Post-war German Novel and the Concept of Realism was submitted in 1967, after he had begun his teaching career in Graz and Glasgow. From 1967 to 1981 he taught at the ancient University of St. Andrews, interrupted by a sabbatical at the University of Cologne. Alan took up the professorial chair at Keele, in Staffordshire, in 1981, proceeding to the professorial chair in Southampton in 1984. He served as Germanic Editor of The Modern Language Review and was President of the Conference of University Teachers of German in the UK and Ireland. Read More Read Less