| Description | Interview with Mrs Roberta Morgan, recorded on 10 March 1994 by Mary Williamson
Transcript of Interview :
MW: Mrs Morgan, you were born in Fraserburgh, and then you moved to Aberdeen, did three years training in the High School in Aberdeen before going to University. Were many of your fellow pupils going to University? Was it quite common?
RM: Oh, yes. In the class I was in, I think we all went to the University, after the sixth year. And, there were some very bright ones. There was Hilda Cusiter took a first in Classics, Eleanor Mitchell took a first in Modern Languages, Edith Witte took a first - but she was only a short time in our class - took a first in Modern Languages.
MW: A very clever class.
RM: It was. We were a small class, in the sixth year. We had all got our Highers, all our exams; we were waiting to go up to the University. I think we couldn't go up until we were seventeen.
MW Was it something you had always wanted to do, go to University?
RM I think so.
MW So it wasn't the school that sort of made you, it was something you wanted to do yourself?
RM I think we were all inclined academically, and we had such wonderful teachers. Even in Fraserburgh I had very good teachers. I still remember many of them. And I think we just were inclined to work, and enjoyed it.
MW Did you find coming to Aberdeen from Fraserburgh, did you find it difficult to mix with the locals?
RM Yes, oh very. And not only was it difficult to mix, but we were different, because we were dressed differently. And my Mother had just bought for my sister and myself new winter coats, which were green with brown fur collars. We thought they were very smart. But, of course, all the other girls were in school uniform. And my Mother grudged very much having to buy new clothes for us. So we felt out of it. We felt conspicuous. But it soon passed. And I still have the friends of these days ... I still am in touch with Hilda Cusiter, Eleanor Mitchell, Ellen Brown, oh, goodness me, all of them I think, I could name many more, but we still keep in touch, those who are alive, a diminishing number.
MW And when you went to University, did you want to do French and German?
RM Well, as I've said to you, I started off on this conjoint compulsory Arts subject, conjoint Nat Phil and Mathematics, and then thought, No, I would be better to have a bash at Modern Languages, as that was a bit difficult.
MW So it was French and German that you graduated in. What other subjects did you have to do along with them?
RM Well, I did Latin, Logic, and, in the third year, Junior Honours year, I took an extra: Political Economy.
MW Can you remember any of the lecturers that you had during your time?
RM Yes, I do. I remember in French we had Dr Linscott; we had Monsieur Casati, of course, the Frenchman, and the professor was Professor Shears, who was a delicate Englishman, tall; I can see him yet, he had/ he was very typically professor, shy man, we didn't really have much comings and goings. We didn't with our lecturers in those days. We were very much the taught, and they were the ones we listened to. Dr Linscott, I don't remember what his subject was, particularly, but he was a young man, a lecturer probably; I think he did French literature with us. And then Casati did our texts from French; a very lively Frenchman he was. And then there was a Dr Lentz, Emil Lentz, who was, I think, an Alsatian, with indifferent English, and we used to make an awful fool of him. He mispronounced words, e.g. he said inevit'-able; so we all said inevit'-able; and he didn't know; just as students, young people would. Well during the first summer holidays Dr Linscott took ill on holiday and died; Professor Shears died on the first day of our Finals; and, well, M Lentz went on, I suppose, but I can't remember him any longer. But that wiped out the French Department. And Casati thought he would get the Chair, but he didn't. But anyhow, the French Department as we knew it was completely finished when we graduated. There was nothing left.
In the German Department there was a Dr Breul, who was a distinguished graduate of Oxford, I think. He was a graduate of Oxford; but then he went on to be a lecturer there. And his father had been a professor of German before him. And he was a great big man, with a black beard, but a very quietly spoken man. He didn't look ... His appearance belied his manner. And we had a young lecturer from Germany [Gunter Weydt] And then, of course, we had Bruford as the Head of the Department, Reader in German. And he went to Edinburgh to be Professor of German, but in Aberdeen he was Reader in German. And his assistant from Germany ... Bruford went away about the third year, I think. And he was replaced by a Dr Yates, who brought from Germany his own lecturer from - was it Chemnitz, or somewhere? - in any case, his name was Willy Witte. And, well, Yates was a very handsome man; oh, yes, he really was a stunner; he was tall and handsome, and Bill Witte was also quite a handsome man. Well, I can remember them all. I remember Bill Witte was lecturing on Goethe's Faust, or something, you know. They all made their mark, because they had special subjects. Now, Dr Yates went on as Reader in German until he developed Parkinson's Disease and then had to give up. And by 1950? Oh, it was after the War, Bill Witte got the Chair; it became the Jaffray Chair of German, and he was the first holder of it. Now his wife was Edith Melvin from Turriff. She was in our year. And the first day - I don't think you should record this - but on the first day, when he came in to the lecture room, here we were all sitting scribbling, when we went out into the passage afterwards, Edith said, "That's the man I'm going to marry". And we said, "Oh, go on".... And she did! She came from Turriff. Now there was an academic family: her mother was left a widow quite young, with five. And Bertie Melvin - they're all graduates of Aberdeen - Bertie Melvin became gas or water engineer in Bristol. George Melvin became head of languages in Tain. Edith married Bill Witte and lectured in German during the War. Marion got a first in languages and married Eric Morrison who was in the Army. And the youngest one, oh, she was an awfully nice little girl - I've forgotten her name, but it will come back - but she married into the Army, and she died just a year or two ago.[Katherine]. Well, of course, we watched this romance growing all the time. It was very much on Edith's side, though. We wouldn't have dared to speak to a lecturer, you see. But he was a very good speaker of English. His English was perfect. There was no hint of an accent. I don't know where he learned it, but he spoke - you never knew him, did you?
MW No, I didn't, no.
RM Well, he never made a mistake. His English was impeccable. And he delivered very good lectures. He died two years ago. [I also remember well Professor Gray in Pol. Econ. and his lecturer Miss Annie Macdonald. She was a delicate-looking lady with a slightly Highland accent. She and her aged father had a small holding near Cults. My husband and I visited her there later. She had a very big garden to look after. So she can't have been so delicate.]
MW Was the standard of lecturing pretty high, when you look back?
RM I think so. We weren't critical, but I think it was. I mean they all worked and did the job.
MW But you didn't really come across them in a social sense at all. There was really very little mixing.
RM Well, we had our societies, of course, and there was a German Club. The funny thing about that German Club was it met in the - there was a German Society, I think, as well as a German Club - and the Club met in a place called the Old Palace Restaurant in Union Street, and we would have met maybe once a month. And then it was German songs and German poetry. And there you had an opportunity a bit to meet the lecturers on a different plane.
MW I presume that you could only speak German at these clubs and meetings.
RM Well, you were supposed to. I can't remember. I can't remember.
MW Besides the German Club did you have time to join any other societies?
RM Oh, heavens.
MW Too busy studying?
RM No, I didn't study enough, I think. When I look back, I think - but you can't do other than be yourself.
MW No, that's true.
RM If you're not inclined to study, well, that's too bad. But I don't know why I... Well, I was first / I was head girl at the High, that was the first thing, having been at the school only for three years. And, so, the girls in my class knew me, and when we went up to the University the first thing was I was put on the SRC. And so, I was fine pleased to do that, and I became the Junior Vice-President.
MW Were there many women in the SRC at that time? or were they still rather a just one?
RM One a year. But I didn't get the length of Mary Esslemont who became President. I was Junior Vice-President. But in the first/ in the second year at University, too, because of that I was asked to help with the Gala Week -- Theatre productions; and I was asked to go on the Union Committee. I finished up as President of the Union, Secretary of the Shows, and still in the SRC until '31 when I had to stop, because I had to get on with some work. But I still have nightmares that I haven't read all the books! But you see I gave so much time to that - that I got a Second. I don't think I would ever have got a First, anyhow. But if I had given a bit more time to it, I might have. But I wouldn't have been the person I am, you know.
MW You don't regret not having made more of your time?
RM I'm not really all that intellectual, I don't think. Nevertheless, I've never stopped doing French and German. I still read German at night. I've got a German book by my bedside. And ...
MW So, they obviously instilled in you quite a love for these languages, that you've kept them going?
RM Oh, very much so. I think it is the greatest possible gift, if it is a gift; or the greatest possible subject to choose, to go out and live abroad for a year with strangers, which we had to do. We had no money. And my father was as generous as he could be, but he was educating three, all born within three years of each other. And I still went abroad, au pair into families, and I never got a bad family. They were all wonderful.
MW Whereabouts did you go?
RM Well, in 1928, that was just when I left school. When did I go up? '28?. That was just when I left school, that's right. I had my eighteenth birthday in June, and I left school that month. And that year it was a Dorothy Henderson, who was in my class at school, who had gone to the University - there were two went from the Fifth Year, Babs Simpson and Dorothy Henderson, and Dorothy Henderson wanted an au pair job and she advertised in a French paper. And she picked the one she wanted, and then she gave me the others. And so I got one, you see. And, that would have been about the month of May, I suppose, in 1927. And my Father and Mother - my Father was a herring curer - so they were up in Shetland for the summer, then they went to Yarmouth, you know - chased the herring. And, I remember, I think it was a telegram we sent in those days, "Could I take this job?" And I got a letter back saying, Well, yes, you can, but don't speak to strangers. And I thought of it so often in my after life. If I hadn't spoken to strangers, I wouldn't have spoken to anybody! From the minute I left Aberdeen, everybody was strange. And I, eighteen, just eighteen.
MW It was quite an adventure at eighteen.
RM I suppose it was, but it was no more of an adventure than the young do today, going away.
MW Yes, but I think they lead not such a sheltered life. As a eighteen year old in the '30s or the '20s would be quite different?
RM Well, it was different, yes. But my... as I say, my Father was keen. My Mother was a teacher. But it was my Father who wanted his daughters and his son to be educated.
MW But you enjoyed your au pair time, did you?
RM Oh, yes. The first one, most extraordinary thing, was in a beautiful house, in ... very near Compiegne, where they signed the Peace, you know; the Forest of Compiegne was very near. And this man was a manufacturer of furniture. And they [the Ruel family] had a chateau. And I went to this Chateau du Soupiseau, - what was the name of the town? Anyhow, it was near Compiegne. And I can remember yet - oh, the journey to London, the ticket was bought through - My Mother and Father weren't here, you see, so I had to do this on my own. My Grandmother and my Aunt always came to keep house, and so I went to Miss Ferguson, who was in Paton's Travel Agency - I think most students went to her. And she was always late; she was always in a muddle. And my tickets never came and never came, and she came running along the platform and she said get on the train and I'll bring your ticket. Well, she did. There was a Mr Noble in Paton's, and the pair of them came along the platform just at the last minute, and she put me in the charge of two ladies. She said, "This is a young lass going off to France. Will you see that she gets across London safely?" And who was it, but Miss - oh, now, they were the two who ran St Katherine's Club. Anyhow, they said they would see me safely across London, which they did. They were going to Victoria, too, I think. But, as they left me at Victoria, they gave me an orange, and - it seems a silly thing to remember - the things people do remember! It's running down, we're speaking too much.
MW No, it's all right. No, not at all.
RM I had a round hat box of American cloth - that was the fashion - and a suitcase. And the bags were clutch bags, you know. And I had this orange! And I was so shy, I didn't know what to do with it; I didn't want to eat it in front of people. And I got on the Channel crossing at Newhaven with a delegation, or whatever you call it, of people going to Lourdes. The stretchers were all over the deck, and the nuns were there. And the two nuns came and sat beside me. And, I suppose they thought I must have looked so lost, maybe I did. Well, I still had this wretched orange, you see. The porter had taken away my luggage. You know, you had to look for the number of the porter, and then when you got to the other side, you looked for the porter with that number and you got your luggage. And, anyhow, I went away maybe to the loo or something and I left the orange lying, but the nuns came after me and said, "You've left your orange". I arrived in Paris with this blessed orange! It really must have been quite funny. But they gave me a little paperbacked Gospel of St John, which I still have.
MW This was the nuns, that gave you this.
RM They said, there I would find God. It was in French. So, I still have it. Well, now, I got to Paris, and I was met by Peggy Bain, who was an ex-High School person, who became Head of Manchester School for Girls and had a doctorate of the Sorbonne. And, I think, it was Miss Gelly, my French teacher who asked if she would meet me in Paris and see me on to the train for Compiegne, which she did. She was a very clever lady. And when I was met at the station by this very elegant Frenchwoman and a typically French man, I suppose, and a little girl of about three, I thought, oh, I'll never learn, you know, Madame was so elegant, and so perfumed, and so perfect. And I thought, "Oh, crumbs". Well, we got to this chateau where they lived - and it really was a chateau - beautiful place. It was the place where Rostard had lived and the first performance of Cyrano, Cyrano de Bergerac was given from the balcony - the balcony scene was done from there, with Sarah Bernhardt - so I was told. Well, he had a furniture shop, was very well to do, I think. And my job was supposed to be to teach this little thing. But, of course, that wasn't possible, so I was just a companion to her mother. And most extraordinary things happen in this life, but many, many years after, oh, in the 1970s when I was already widowed and living in a flat in Forest Road, I was a member of the Franco-Scottish, and there were a lot of French people coming to Aberdeen, and I invited for dinner four French people. And in the course of the conversation one lady said to me, where did I go?. And I said, "Oh, I went to this family called - I've forgotten [Ruel] - at the Chateau de Soupiseau". And she said, "You don't say so!" And I said, "Yes, well that was the name of it." "Oh," she said, "Paulette is my best friend." This was the little girl. But after that there had been four - three other children added. And I couldn't believe it. What a coincidence! Life's full of coincidences. It really is. And, I was so taken aback to think. Well, then Madame wrote to me, and I still have the letter she wrote, an old lady, telling me about this family who had done so well, but I only knew Paulette, who has done very well, too. And there, forty years on, I was ... Yes, wonderful. But she died. She was an old lady. She died soon after. And I think Paulette would have inherited the Chateau, but I lost touch with them. Now, I'm speaking too much.
MW No. It's very interesting. You were saying that you were involved in the SRC. Did you find that you were sort of patronised by the men on the Committee at all.
RM Not at all.
MW No, you didn't find that at all.
RM But I was very quiet. I wasn't a speaker. I never wanted to be heard in public, or anything. So I just did the job that was asked of me, and that was it.
MW Did you go to the Women's Union, at all?
RM Well, I became President of the Union, that was Skene Terrace.
MW Were you in the building? - Yes, in Skene Terrace. Were you involved in the running of the building there?
RM Oh, yes, very much so. Very much so. We had a lot of hairy episodes.
MW It always seems to have been dogged by money troubles, the Women's Union.
RM Well, I was never aware of money troubles. I had a very good committee, mind you. They did the work. I was just a sort of representative. Well, there was Colonel Butchart, kept an eye on everything. And there was - not Theodore Watt, that's the University Press, but his brother - I've forgotten his name, Harold, Harold Watt, I think, he had a son called Harold; and Macdonald, Professor Macdonald, Mathematics, blue-eyed Highlander, sharp as a needle, and he looked after the Aedilis Committee, I think. Well they were on our Committee. And then we had students, you see. And we pretty well were guided by them. I can't ever remember making any big decisions. Well, once we had a horrible decision to make: Lady Adam Smith, who was on the Committee, Mrs Gray, whose husband was Pol Econ, Professor Gray, and little Mrs Macfarlane, Geography, whose husband was a lecturer in Geography - these were the outside members, then there were just the students, you see. And we had this place in ... Skene Terrace, that's right - big building, lovely building. And we had five residents at the top of the house, and a housekeeper, Mrs Grant, who looked after the house and the behaviour of everybody who came and went, and then these five upstairs had bedrooms up there. I still, when go past, see the fire escape. What goings on there were on that fire escape!
We had one of the most popular students of that time, Jean Sinclair, and she had cousins in New Pitsligo, but Jean, herself, was doing an Arts degree. And she came from Cairo. She was educated in Aberdeen, and she went on holidays to aunts who lived here, but her father had the British pharmacy opposite Sheapherds Hotel in Cairo. Her mother was Greek.
MW Exotic.
RM Yes, and Jean was an awfully good actress. She was in the Student Shows. And she was full of life and full of enthusiasm. Golden, curly hair and blue eyes. Oh, she really was lovely, and she was in all the Student Shows. Well, you see, she broke an awful lot of hearts. And she took an awful lot of chaps up the fire escape when she came home at night. And in the end of the day another resident complained, who wasn't being given so much attention. And poor Jean was asked if she would just leave the Union. And none of us wanted that. But the elder members of the Committee thought that it was for the good of all that she should go. Well, I kept in touch with her until she died very young. She left a son, and she had married. Oh, no. She got a ... She was asked to go to Elstree for an interview. She thought she would be an actress. And, you know, she got as far as the gates, then her heart failed her, and she came away. She went back to Cairo to her Mother. And by that time her Father had died and her Mother wasn't recognised by the British people - she was Greek - and Jean found the way out and married a teacher at the French school. Now many years again - that was Jean, she died in the Brompton of TB about 1942, or so. But she left a little boy. And I heard nothing of her after she died. She came once back to Aberdeen, and I saw her then. But my son is a partner in James and George Collie, the lawyers, and when he came back to the firm, having done his apprenticeship in Edinburgh, he went into Geoff Collie's room one day to hear Geoff say, "You might find out if anybody remembers Jean Sinclair". And at that David said. "Oh, my Mother; I've heard her speak about Jean Sinclair." "Well,", he said, "here's a letter from her son, asking if there is anybody in Aberdeen who would remember his Mother. And this was Michael Low. And from then on I've heard from him every Christmas. And he's a vicar in Poole, and if Jean had told … if anybody had told Jean that her son would finish up a vicar in the Church of England, she would have been amazed. That's what he does.
MW Another strange coincidence.
RM Yes. Now that's more about Jean than about me. But I'll go on.
MW Now, the students didn't have that many facilities at King's in the way of restaurants or canteens, or ...?
RM Oh, yes.
MW What sort of things did you do at lunches and ...?
RM Oh, yes. The Women's Union ran a little coffee shop, in Cromwell Tower, upstairs, a Mrs Mundy; they had the shop in Old Aberdeen, and they used to bring down coffee, and we had a little bar, and we did get that.
MW So you could have lunches there, or was it really only coffee breaks?
RM Just coffees.
MW And what did you do at lunch times?
RM We came home. We didn't have afternoon classes, you see. No, not in our subjects. I don't know if anything went on at New King's in the afternoons. We would have just come home, or worked in the Library, or taken sandwiches, I suppose. But we did have a coffee bar. And it was the Mundays who ran it. And we could have coffee in the SRC rooms.
MW Where were the SRC rooms?
RM To the side when you go into the Mitchell Hall. There is a building.
MW This was in Marischal.
RM That was the SRC room, to the side there. And I think that there were women. Women had it on Saturday mornings for teas. I think the men objected. Oh, I wish I could remember about that. There were awful protests about it. And some of them. Oh, we must have allowed men to have coffee, too, because some of the medical women objected, because they had to use the lavatories and they would come into this room to go to the lavatory and all these men were sitting there having coffee. I can't remember enough about it to tell you more. I think there was some trouble.
MW Did you find that the students in your day took any great interest in world events. I mean, were they as politically active and aware as they seem to be nowadays?
RM Oh, nothing like today. Of course, we weren't forced to be members of the Union. You know, you paid your Union fee if you wanted to be a member, whereas during the War, the Second War, everybody had to be a member of the Union. And people then pretended that they were a member of a union by being a member of a student union, when they really weren't. You know about that difficulty?
MW No.
RM Well, now how can I explain it? I know one of my friends had a son who went to a holiday job, and he was asked if he was a member of the union, and he said, "Oh, yes". "Which union?" and he said, "Well, the students' union in Aberdeen". But at that time it wasn't organised as it is now.
MW Did you take an interest in, say, the League of Nations?
RM Oh, yes. I was a member of the SCM, which was a very flourishing - the Student Christian Movement - and it was a very flourishing movement and active in Aberdeen. And, as a result of that, we were also, what could it have been, we weren't affiliated, that's not the word, but we knew about the International Student Service, which later became a very Left movement, but it wasn't in our day. And it was through the ISS that I went to a student conference in Krems, in Austria. I was in Germany that year - it must have been '28 or '29 - and I went from Cologne, joined the delegation coming from all the universities in England. Well, they weren't all on that train, but some were. And we went to this conference in Krems, on international student service. You see, it was just after the First War, and this was to help students of other countries to travel.
MW And what about the General Strike? That was a bit earlier than your university days, but did that make an impact on, say, your school community, or
RM Not very much. No. I would have been twelve; wasn't it '22?
MW '22, yes.
RM You see, I was only twelve. I sort of have a vague recollection of something at Union Terrace, but I really don't know.
MW '26, that was another big Strike.
RM '26 was the General Strike. What was it?
MW The General Strike, and also the Wall Street Crash, and all these things sort of happened round about the '20s. No?
RM No, we were very isolated. Country cousins!
MW What do you think you gained most from your years at university?
RM Oh, the wonderful friends I've made.
MW Friendship.
RM Well, I found my husband there, too.
MW You met him while you were at University. What, in what, how did you come to meet him?
RM Well, it's a very odd thing. But, my sister had a friend who was doing medicine. And he said to her one day/ he invited her to a dance, and he said "Would your sister come with a chap I would like to come and get a partner?" And that was how I met my husband. And, we were married before my sister. And she never married that chap. But he's still a friend of mine.
MW Did you use the Library much when you were at University?
RM All the time. We were there every day.
MW Did you find it a pleasant place to study?
RM Oh, very. I've always borne a grudge against the University for destroying that library. And then they appealed for money to restore it! Oh, it was a beautiful library. It was the main entrance, and then there were different sections. And Modern Languages was up there. Of course, you could sit anywhere; but that was the Modern Languages department. And the place was always full of people.
MW Did you find the staff helpful?
RM Oh, very. Miss Brown! Maggie Brown, and Miss Best, of course; she was wonderful. She was a very gentle... She got an LL.D. from the University, I understand. These are the two I remember. I don't remember Douglas Simpson.
MW He was maybe a bit later.
RM But he must have been there.
MW That's right, yes he would have been. Some of the sacrists at the University have been characters. Do you remember any of them?
RM I remember three. Spiller, was at Marischal. A small build of a man; an Englishman, I think, with a daughter and two sons; and they lived through somewhere, you know, when you went into Marischal, to the left, there was this sacrists' box and you rang a bell, and the Spillers lived there somewhere, I think. And then at King's there was Harvie, who was ... Now wait a minute, let me not get mixed up. There was one like a Falstaffian figure. What was his name? I think he was Harvie. There were two. One was this, as I say, a Falstaffian figure, a big cheery man, and the story goes of him that, when Sir George Adam Smith got his title, Lady Adam Smith had gone into the University on that day and Harvie had said, "And when do we call you Your Ladyship?" "Right now, Harvie." What was the name of the other one who was at King's, at New King's? I've got a photograph of him somewhere. [Mr Christie]
MW We'll check the records and find out his name.
RM And he was New King's.
MW Did you find them helpful, or were they very much sort of dictators in their own ...?
RM Oh, no. No. They were good, especially the one at New King's if you were racing to get into the lecture room, you know, he would open the doors. Oh, no, they were all very helpful.
MW They looked after you really.
RM Yes.
MW And the rectorial in your time was Lord Birkenhead, the Earl of Birkenhead. Do you remember any events?
RM Well, that's all I remember, just what I've told you.
MW Yes. I didn't record what you had told me before, so if you would like to ...
RM Well, I just remember that he arrived at the Joint Station and students went to meet him. And I rather think that it was a decorated cart. And one student, June Imlay, was the one who sat with him. And they drove, I suppose, up to Marischal College. And then there was this awful rectorial, where far too many people were admitted to the Mitchell Hall, and there was shouting, there was pandemonium, and then this hen was dropped from the ... And that shocked everybody, of course. I don't know who did it, of course.
MW They never found out who had...?
RM Oh, maybe they did. I don't know. That's all I remember.
MW When you left University, you did teacher training?
RM Yes. Now, wait a minute now.
MW In Aberdeen?
RM Yes. Did I do it immediately? Yes, I did. I went straight, in '32-'33. And then I spent a year in France and came back. And there weren't many jobs in 1934. I taught at the Central, taking the place of a lady who was ill. And then I had a permanent job in Helensburgh. But by that time we were courting, and I came back to Aberdeen, to be at St Margaret's.
MW And, of course, married women didn't teach.
RM No. So that was the end of that.
MW Did you enjoy teaching?
RM Yes, I did.
MW Was that the profession that most of your fellow students took up?
RM Yes, yes. There wasn't a great variety in those days. And it was the exception if they didn't do teacher training, really, if they did any special subject like that.
MW Did any of them go on to become lecturers at the University, or to do research?
RM Well, Edith Witte did. She married Bill Witte.
Oh, yes. Isabel Ross in Beaconsfield Place. I don't know how you are selecting people whom you are interviewing.
MW It's really just almost word of mouth; you know, if we hear about somebody, who knows somebody that would be willing to do it and ...
RM Well, I think Ellen Brown, who was at school with me, lives in Countesswells Road, she became head of - oh, now, I've forgotten what she called herself - community services, anyway, in Aberdeen. She did a social work training, and went to Birmingham, and was in social work, and came back to Aberdeen, and was head here of that Department.
MW Ellen Brown?
RM Ellen Brown. What's her address? I'll look it up and tell you. What are we at the moment?
MW Well, I think that's really about all the questions I have, unless there is something that you particularly would like to add.
RM I don't think so. It's all very much of personal memories after that.
MW Well thank you very much indeed.
RM Oh, I was speaking about Isabel. You said, were any lecturers? Well Isabel Ross, who lives in Beaconsfield Place, who has recently converted to Catholicism, she became lecturer and Head of Women Students in Exeter and retired from that post, when she retired. She is a year or two older than I am. Her memory is good. You might be interested to hear what she has to say. And then, Kathleen Beck-Shire. But, if it's student days, of course, - is it student days only?
MW Yes, student days.
RM Yes, oh well, I'm not so sure.
MW Well, thank you very much for sharing all the memories that you have with us.
RM A lot of rubbish inside here.
MW Not a bit. It has been very interesting.
END OF INTERVIEW
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