Gail Trimble

Trimble was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, to Mary and Michael Trimble. Her father worked as a manager for British Telecom[3] and her mother was a magistrate at Staines Magistrates Court.[4]

Growing up, Trimble attended the Ambleside Infant and Middle School[4] before enrolling at the girls-only Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, London. While there, she gained 11 GCSE certificates followed by four A-levels at grade A: in Latin, Ancient Greek, English Literature and Maths,[4][5] plus one of the top five marks in the country with A-level General Studies.[6]

She was awarded a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 2000. She won a declamation prize at Oxford for Latin recital in 2001 and was also reported to give recitals in her lunchtimes at college as a soprano singer, and lecture on Ovid, Hellenistic poetry and Catullus.[5][7] Her research had been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.[8] In 2010, she was awarded a D.Phil. in Latin literature at Corpus Christi, Oxford on the subject of Catullus.[9] The title of her D.Phil. was 'A commentary on Catullus 64, lines 1-201'. Her doctoral project was supervised by Professor Philip Hardie and Dr Stephen Heyworth.[10]

In 2009, Trimble was elected as a junior research fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge[11][12] and held the position for a year before returning to Oxford as a senior faculty member.[2] She is Associate Professor in Classical Languages and Literature in the Faculty of Classics and Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College, Oxford.[13]

Trimble was one of the contributors to the 4th edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary which was published in 2012.[14] She is working on a commentary on Catullus' longest poem with newly edited text, to appear in the Cambridge University Press series Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries.[13] Trimble is also editing a volume on metalepsis in classical texts, after a successful international conference in September 2015.[13] In January 2020, she appeared on In Our Time (radio series) when the programme was on Catullus.

While a postgraduate student of Latin literature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 2009, she gained media attention by her performance on the BBC television quiz programme University Challenge. Trimble captained the Corpus Christi team from the second round onwards, and scored a high proportion of the team's points. In the rounds before reaching the final, Trimble had provided two thirds of her team's total points: 825 out of 1,235.[5] Corpus won with 275 points, beating Manchester's score of 190 points.[15] However, the team was disqualified after an investigation revealed that her teammate, Sam Kay, finished studying at Corpus Christi while the series was being recorded.[16] The winner's trophy was re-awarded to the runners-up, Manchester University.

Trimble appeared in Series 13 of the BBC Quiz show Only Connect in 2017, as the captain of the "Meeples" team, accompanied by husband Tom West, and brother Hugh.[17]

Trimble is a practising Anglican, and sang in the choir at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, in Oxford.[18] In March 2009, Trimble became engaged to Tom West, a trainee solicitor, with whom she has a child.[18][19][20]

In 2017, she was a senior faculty member in classics at Trinity College, Oxford.[21]

• "Trinity College Oxford: Gail Trimble: Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics". Retrieved 20 February 2019.