Ted Kenney and I were both classics scholars at CH and both products of the fearsome CH Head of Classics, Derek S Macnutt, who directed us into scholarships at Cambridge – although I followed this path some 20 years after Ted.
Ted became the Classics don at Peterhouse, Cambridge, early in his career in 1953, serving there until his eventual retirement and thereafter continuing in an "Emeritus" capacity. He was in fact my interviewer when I went to Peterhouse in December 1960 for the scholarship exams. I suppose that he interviewed all college applicants in Classics, although I had already made it clear that I wanted to switch to Economics, if accepted (which I did).
Due to the connection with Peterhouse, Cambridge, I came across Ted a number of times during visits to Cambridge over the years and his intellect always impressed. I last saw him in his early 80s, but he had reached the splendid age of 95 when he died in December 2019, just a couple of months short of his 96th birthday (or his 24th, if you wanted to joke about his being a leap-year baby born on 29 February).
The Times obituary for Ted (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prof ... -r798h8ksd) amusingly highlights the Fufu test that Ted was reputed to apply to all applicants in Classics that he interviewed. I don't personally recall this in 1960; maybe I was excused this because I was changing subject, or because of the CH connection, or maybe Fufu tests only started later in Ted's career at Peterhouse.
Since The Times is difficult to access on-line without a subscription, I've copied the relevant words about the Fufu test below:
The accomplished portraitist John Stanton Ward did a portrait of Ted + Fufu in 1993 and this appears now to be in the possession of CH at Horsham – possibly donated to CH by Ted. The portrait can be seen on the Web at https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks ... nney-69868Professor EJ Kenney obituary
Distinguished Cambridge Latinist whose loyal cat, Fufu, played an important role in selecting prospective students
Although prospective students thought they had come to Edward Kenney’s office to be assessed on their Latin ability, the object of their test lay purring on their chair. If the applicant turfed Fufu the cat off the chair, they had no hope of studying classics at Peterhouse, Cambridge. If they picked him up and gently put him on the floor, they stood a chance; if they stroked and nuzzled him, they were definitely in. The Fufu test was a whimsical instance of the unsparing attention to detail for which Kenny earned his scholarly reputation.