| Description | Interview with Mr John G N Fraser recorded on the 22 of June 2001 by Jennifer Carter.
Transcription of Interview :
[There is some conversation to test the sound quality first and some of the beginning of the interview is lost.]
Additional notes and corrections have been made by Mr Fraser and are added in square brackets [ ].
F I arrived at university in 1955 having drifted there from [Aberdeen Grammar] School because that was what you were expected to do [I sat the Entrance Bursary Competition and was happy to be awarded a £60 Bursary which brought some glory to the school, although I would have been even more popular with the Rector of the School if I had obtained a top Bursary of £70]. I would be able to do with some mathematical ability so that without any science qualification I signed up for the Ordinary Physics course, along with Second Ordinary Maths and Ordinary Greek in first year but I found Physics beyond me really.
C Quite difficult?
F And in the class examination at the end of the first term, I think I scored something like 47% which was a failure, and certainly much less than I'd been used to obtaining in school exams, and so I, at the beginning of the second term, I persuaded Professor Watt to allow me to transfer into the Ordinary Latin class.
C Which you'd done at school, of course?
F Which I'd done at school and although I didn't attend the then requisite - what was it? - 75% of the attendance in class, he allowed me to take Latin. So I did Maths, Latin and Greek to the end of that year. I still vaguely had the idea that I might proceed to Honours in Maths, perhaps on its own, I'm not sure if that was available, but I saw Professor Wright again at the end of the year and I'd found that my Maths ability, which had seemed quite good at school, was not quite so good at university. I did obtain a First Class Certificate in the Second Ordinary Maths class but I was certainly not top of the class, there were some people who did much better than I, including one of my fellow pupils from Grammar so I felt that I had rather peaked in Mathematics and so I abandoned that as a potential Honours subject and, of course, I'd found university so different from school in the freedom, I really didn't enjoy my schooldays too much because of the pressure I think, although I…[to achieve high academic results].
C School was pretty regimented in those days?
F Oh yes, very much so. The teachers seemed to have been there for donkey's years and they remembered my brother ahead of me who had always been a diligent student.
C Oh dear, that's always bad news!
F Quite a lot to live up to. I enjoyed the freedom of university but didn't abuse it to the extent of missing classes, I always made a point of attending classes, but I still didn't work as hard as I felt I should have done, at university. That applies to all my years there, I think. So, having kind of given up the idea of Mathematics, I thought I might obtain an MA degree and then go on to become a Chartered Accountant and there's a family connection in that my father, a local GP, had, as one of his patients, a senior partner in a local firm, Bower and Smith, a Mr Mitchell, who was also chairman of Aberdeen Football Club, so I thought I would just continue through the MA. And in the second year of the MA, I just kind of drifted through Logic and Psychology and Advanced Latin but the idea of becoming a CA didn't appeal that much because I was enjoying university life so much and an alternative was there in the LLB, so I thought I might proceed to MA LLB and I saw Tom Smith who was Professor of Scots Law.
C A very famous man afterwards.
F Yes, yes, I had further dealings with him when I worked in the University of Edinburgh. And with his advice I took Political Economy, which counted as a Law subject, and Scots Law and then Advanced Greek in my third year, again a rather strange combination. But at the end of that year I thought I would be automatically admitted to the LLB the following year, but Tom Smith had left.
C Oh dear.
F And hadn't completed any of the paperwork, and I found myself going along to Law classes in my fourth year at university and filling up the requisite registration forms and then being summoned to the office of one John Greig [Registry] because I had never formally been admitted to the Law Faculty. And it also turned out, contrary to what I'd been told by Professor Smith, that Political Economy didn't count as an LLB subject, it was a BL subject, it counted as a BL subject and I was wanting to do an LLB, and so I would have to spend an extra year at university - rather than taking the combined university degrees of MA LLB in five years, I would have to take six. But in fact I didn't mind that, so I had to re-enrol for Scots Law 1, which I'd already passed in the previous year, this time under Professor Ireland.
C Ronnie Ireland?
F Who became a great friend. And in that class, I had to turn up for the degree exam and write my name and sit for half an hour or so before going out, and I remember the half hour I used to write some scurrilous comments about my colleagues on the Law course and much to my surprise, Professor Ronnie Ireland showed these to the external examiner, who became Lord Birsay and this was apparently thought of as quite amusing, although I didn't think I'd much ability as a writer, but anyway I duly received that same mark as I'd obtained the previous year, so completed that year. I'm concentrating on the academic side.
C Sure, sure, we'll come back over the other later.
F [I took classes in] Constitutional Law, Roman Law and so on, and seemed to do reasonably well in these subjects and carried on, that's four years full time, and then in the fifth year I did, in fact, sign up as an apprentice with the CA firm of Bower and Smith and used to attend classes in the morning and go to the office in the afternoon, and it was mind-bogglingly boring work in the CA office. And by the time I'd been an apprentice for a couple of years, and then graduated in 1961, and by then I'd realised that CA was not really for me, but in order to remain a registered student in 1961/62 , I enrolled for Advanced Accountancy which was attended by CA students in 1961/62 - and my sole motive in that was to continue to play for the University Men's Hockey and Cricket teams which I was able to do and I was able to gain a miserable pittance by continuing to work at the CA office but I was, by then, looking around for jobs and attending interviews and the 'milk round' which some of my contemporaries found very lucrative in those days. They'd be invited to interviews.
C With expenses paid, yes.
F And they would perhaps go down to London for a fortnight and attend about ten interviews and claim individual amounts from each one. I did not do this ever!
C What an honest man!
F I remember having a couple of interviews with Unilever in London a first stage, and then a second stage, and IBM, and also the Colonial Office was still recruiting I find this hard to believe in 1962, so much has happened since then, but I was interviewed by a chap who asked me if I would like to be the only white man within 500 miles. I said 'no.'
C That ruled you out?
F I didn't think of myself as racist in any way, but that ruled me out of that. And then in May of 1962 I just happened to notice an advertisement in the Scotsman newspaper for an Assistant Secretary at St Andrews University and I got the further particulars and they seemed to want somebody with a Law degree and I'd been involved in the organisation of a number of societies and clubs and so on, and I thought that this might be for me, and perhaps that takes me beyond student days, but I did have an interview with Sir Malcolm Knox in the chair which was really a forbidding experience, because one of the questions he asked was, well, he initially put me at my ease, if you can call it that, by saying that I was far too young and inexperienced for the job that I'd applied for, but there was a more junior vacancy, would I be interested? And of course I was, and the one question that sticks in my mind is that he asked me was I an outdoor type or did I prefer cinemas and dance halls? And I could tell from what he said…! [what answer was required] And funnily enough I did go to the cinema quite a lot as a young bachelor in St Andrews
C But you kept that very quiet I imagine!
F I kept that very quiet but then I went on, and by July '62 I was an administrator in St Andrews University and that's beyond my student days.
C Well we might say something more about that in a minute, but I'm very interested in well, two things from what you've told me: clearly you didn't ever intend to practice as a Lawyer, you took the Law degree as an instrumental thing, a general qualification as it were?
F I can only…[agree] the Law classes were fairly small in those days, I can't remember any class larger than about 20-25, and pretty much a male preserve.
C Women hardly existed, yes.
F And the LLB people in those days certainly thought of themselves as an elite, because we were generally older than the average undergraduate, most were 20-21 going into the LLB, although there were one or two BL students who had come possibly straight from school. And we were not too far in age from some of our teachers because I remember helping Professor Ronnie Ireland to celebrate his 35th birthday, he was already a professor and he was a very sociable character and we had tutorials, I remember one of my contemporaries was Phil Love, he was in my - now Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool - he was in my tutorial group, and Scots Law tutorials took place in Professor Ireland's house in Don Street on a Sunday evening.
C Complete with liquid refreshment?
F Well, we worked from about 7 to 8 and then drank until the small hours and I well remember staggering up St Machar Drive with Phil Love and some others on our way home, because I lived at home for all my student days which had its advantages as far as things like washing and eating were concerned. One Monday morning I remember Ronnie Ireland coming in his diffident way, and saying 'Did I know where his shaving equipment and his toothbrush were?' Because at some stage during one of these tutorials, some of us, and I can't remember who, which individual or group of individuals it was, decided that it would be a good idea, on one of our many visits to the toilet to relieve ourselves after the beer drinking, had obviously decided to hide some of Ronnie Ireland's personal effects.
C In your pockets, or somewhere in the house?
F Somewhere in the house, I wasn't able to enlighten him.
C You couldn't tell him whether it was the bread bin or where you'd put them?
F But occasionally on these tutorials we'd be joined by Iain MacGibbon who lectured in Constitutional Law and who is a professor at Edinburgh, he lived near by in Don Street, and he would join us, and we did feel a part of, more or less a gentleman's club, without any female civilising influence at that time.
C And very much a company of equals almost?
F Yes, I think that was true. And you remind me when you say I had no intention of practising Law, I think there were two or three people, my contemporaries as LLB students, who were not intending to practice, one, John Mutch, I recall went into hospital administration in the early years of that, he just didn't seem to have any interest in practising Law. Another was a fellow called Alan Leiper whose father was in the fish business and he had a job waiting for him, he now is very high up the Salvesen empire and I know his daughter, his daughter's a teacher in Aberdeen and obviously he was, like myself, doing the LLB…
C As a good course?
F A good course. And Ronnie Ireland encouraged me to think of the possibility of an academic career and he actually found some money, I mentioned before that I had a bursary for my MA days, but I also had a bursary, I think it was a Davidson Bursary for the LLB, this was open to people who had included Latin or Greek in their first degree, Ronnie Ireland found some money for me to go to Oxford on some scholarship. But by then I felt I'd been a bit of a burden on my parents for a number of years and I really wanted to start earning money quite apart from the fact that any research I did would probably be in something like Roman Law which [was fairly limited]- I attended the Advanced Roman Law class as one of two, the other being a female…
C Who taught Roman Law?
F It was Professor Stein.
C Peter Stein?
F Yes.
C Who went on to the Regius Chair at Cambridge?
F Wonderful lecturer and very nice man, but not one to socialise.
C Not matey in the way of…
F Not matey, no. I remember taking the Advanced Roman Law class, that would have been in my second year LLB, I was second out of two, to Miss Elizabeth Gribble, who I think works in the Council, but I had won the Society of Advocate's Prize in Ordinary Roman Law so I was rather disappointed to finish second and last in Advanced Roman Law. So if I had gone on to Oxford I probably would have done some very abstruse or…[research].
C Limited research?
F Limited research and the chances of careers would have been pretty limited so I was quite glad to find a job in administration.
C Did you feel very different as an LLB student to what you had felt as an MA student? I mean I can quite see this marvellous picture you're painting of, you know, 'we're all chaps together in the Law classes' but was it the same when you were an MA student or was that more a pupil-teacher relationship?
F Oh, I think very much a pupil-teacher relationship, perhaps because of our inbred shyness and reserve, respect for teachers.
C And bigger classes of course.
F Bigger classes, teachers at school, I mean the Grammar School was obviously a boy's school with male teachers (I think there was one female teacher in my time at the Grammar School, in Geography) and the males were generally probably pretty near retiral age, but some of the lecturers did appear fairly ancient, such as Professor Cameron of Greek, who perhaps wasn't that ancient but seemed, seemed rather old - I think he used to lecture on Homer with a cigarette dangling from his lips which would not be politically correct these days - he seemed pretty ancient. And certainly one was in awe of people like, Professor Wright…
C Who seemed very grand even then, did he?
F Very grand, yes. I mean, he had lectured to my elder sister and she had stories about the way he treated late-comers to the class and this sort of thing. And of course Professor Jones in Physics (Nat Phil.) and Professor Watt was there in Latin who I thought was a splendid lecturer and I have a lifelong admiration for Professor Watt.
C But they were all certainly large dignified figures as it were?
F They were, I don't remember an Adviser of Studies at all, but there was a Regent scheme in the Arts Faculty, and I had as my Regent, Dr MacIntyre, I can't remember his first name, his wife, Sheila MacIntyre was also a lecturer in the Maths Department. I think, in fact, she did a lot of the teaching in Second Ordinary Maths, but he must have been Regent to, I suppose to a dozen or so students and I do remember going to his house once in Broomhill Road and his house must have been big enough that we had Scottish country dancing.
C Goodness, but that was really the only social contact you had with your teachers in the MA?
F In the MA? Absolutely, absolutely, I cannot remember any…[other] the Ordinary Latin class was characterised by being rather large, they met in the old quad and pretty much filled the 150 seater or so, and Ordinary Latin being compulsory there were a lot of people there who didn't want to be there, who occasionally wrote insults on the blackboard because they didn't really want to be there but they were still trying to struggle to get an Ordinary MA and just having marks like 1 out of 200 in the class exam, but nobody seemed to worry much about student progress in those days, people seemed to return and stay at university for a long time.
C Yes, I think that went on for some time after the period your describing then it was limited finally to seven years I think wasn't it?
F Yes. No Law was very much more…[adult].
C You were treated more like post-grads from the sound of it, although you were doing what was technically an under-graduate degree or had everybody in the LLB got a previous degree?
F Everybody had a previous degree, mostly from Aberdeen, there were one or two, Gordon Cochran, I recall, had an Oxford degree, somebody from Edinburgh, but mostly they were from Aberdeen and again mostly local people. When I graduated LLB, well it was LLB with Commendation - there was one student graduated with Distinction and there were three of us graduated with Commendation. One is now Lord Marnoch.
C Pretty good.
F So he did alright, but he was always intending to go to the Bar, I think. All my other contemporaries, other than the ones who didn't wish to practice, drifted into Law practices in Aberdeen to sell houses and so on, which sounded to me a very boring occupation but no more boring than looking at farmer's accounts which was what I was doing in a CA office and really wasting my time, because I didn't really have the motivation to go on in the CA and it would have meant a few more year's examinations, and I think I was getting tired of examinations.
C But staying with the MA a moment, I suppose as a fairly bright intake from school, you could really get by in the MA relatively easily?
F Oh I think so yes.
C And there were no tutorials, I assume, it was all lectures was it?
F No, there were tutorials in, yes there were tutorials in Logic with Professor Cross - Dr Bednarowski, of course, was another of my lecturers. There were tutorials, and I remember, certainly tutorials in Political Economy which I took in my third year MA, Ken Alexander was my tutor.
C My goodness, what distinguished teachers you had.
F Well, yes they didn't succeed at making me as distinguished but no, there were tutorials… I can't remember tutorials in subjects like Latin and Greek, apart from the Ordinary Latin class, Advanced Latin, Ordinary Greek and Advanced Greek all were fairly small in number so they more or less were tutorials they were held in that little part near the tennis courts, near the Pavilion.
C Oh I know, the sticky-out bit on the back.
F Professor Cameron, Hector Thomson of course, and Professor Watt, Dr Corbett. But there certainly were tutorials in Logic. Oh, I did Ordinary Psychology too, in third year, that was Professor Knight and his wife Margaret, and there we all knew that if we mugged up on the book, Professor Knight's book, we would pass. I'm afraid, I'm sure the MA pretty much was a continuation of school in that it was regurgitating lectures, lecture material.
C I understand, yes. That was very much of that period, I think actually. Probably wherever you went, except maybe Oxbridge.
F So I attended lectures and took my notes fairly assiduously. Professor Cross had the habit of dictating lectures at longhand speed, so we all had identical sets of lectures, which I think was probably not academically very sound perhaps, but it meant that while he was talking generally you could look out of the window then he would say…
C Pick up your pencils?
F Absolutely! And that was it, it was fairly regimented.
C And that was in the late '50s, early '60s. Yes, interesting, but as far as the academic side was concerned, you may have been treated as schoolchildren but on the other hand from what you told me before it sounds as if you had to make your own way in terms of course choice and bargaining with different teachers about whether you would get into their classes and so on?
F Yes, I don't recall anybody giving me any advice at any stage in the MA, or indeed in the LLB, because I started one, one year I started to attend a few lectures in Private International Law where the lecturer is a now very distinguished, I think in Dundee, Professor Ian Willock, but I found him quite incomprehensible and he didn't write up the references on the blackboard in the way that Professor Ireland and Peter Stein and so on used to do, so that if you had to look up a case you knew where to look, but Ian Willock, I'm afraid, distinguished as he was, just spoke at breakneck speed so after two or three of his lectures, I was able to quickly change to something like Mercantile Law where Bill Patullo, I think, was the lecturer, who I think was again one of the Ireland Crowd I can say, as far as the social side was concerned. So that yes, it was quite a change, because again coming to the MA initially, one or two largish classes like Latin, Logic, Psychology - Second Ordinary Maths was quite large even though there was a First Ordinary and a Second Ordinary so the Second Ordinary was kind of the Honours stream that you went straight into in the first year, but even it was, it could have been 30 or 40 I think. I think it combined with the Maths Advanced course, there were people who'd taken Maths [First] Ordinary the previous years so there were these older students there so I think that class might have been 50 or 60 strong.
C Was discipline a problem or in those classes did people keep up the old habits of stamping and scraping their feet and this sort of thing?
F Not really, not really.
C No, they sat like good little boys and girls?
F I think in the brief time I was in the Nat Phil Department Professor Jones encouraged a certain amount of hilarity occasionally but I think when Professor Wright or Professor Watt lectured you could have heard a pin drop. A nice character called Dr Neville Bowen who was a lecturer in the Maths Department, he used to vault [over a barrier] into the - there was a kind of pen from which the lecturers spoke in the first classroom in the old quad on the right - there was a barrier…
C Rather like a child's playpen?
F Yes, and he used to vault into that, he was a rather athletic character whom I socialised with later. Of course he was Honorary President of the Men's Hockey Club, a very nice man, I think he went down to Leicester University, an academic promotion. But I think we respected our lecturers. Perhaps the odd assistant lecturer might get a hard time.
C Yes, I noticed almost everybody you mentioned was a Professor, so there were presumably relatively few non-professorial staff?
F Yes, well…
C Or perhaps they didn't impinge so much?
F Not impinge so much, but as one remembers the names of professors and possibly because of my subsequent career when I met these people later in a different capacity I still felt respect. I could never imagine calling Professor Watt by his first name for instance. It's strange, as one proceeded through the administrative route in the University, there wouldn't have been a single professor I called by his first name in 1967 but by about 1990, I felt, I was virtually older than all of the professors, I knew them all on first-name terms.
C What did they call you as a student, Mr Fraser or John?
F Oh I think it was Mr Fraser in the MA.
C And then first names…?
F First names in Law. I have a feeling that Professor Wright called you by your second name I think.
C Called you Fraser?
F Yes, but he did that in the administration later.
C That was the old-fashioned way of course, not considered rude.
F Not considered rude at all, no it was what I got used to when I first worked in St Andrew's and even coming back to Aberdeen one or two people would call you that but not in any patronising way I didn't feel, it was perfectly acceptable.
C What did they do with the women, they were presumably Miss this and Miss that?
F Oh I think so, I think they were treated courteously.
C But not called by their surnames alone?
F I don't think so, no.
C Presumably in the MA there were a fair number of women?
F There were, yes, and of course it was a cultural shock for those of us who had come from school without having, in my case, having touched alcohol for instance or had a girlfriend…
C Or gone to a dance?
F Well, a school dance.
C Scottish country dancing yes?
F Chaperoned school dance, and having been to Madame Murray's Dance Class in our fifth and sixth years, which I think was an apprenticeship for most of us who then proceeded to the rather wilder university hops, dances, it was certainly a culture shock to leave the University in 1962 and [to find that] by 1967 things like hops had vanished into the distant past. I suppose they were probably called discos by then, but there had been quite a social change as well of course as the University expanding to such an extent in the '60's.
C Were the women in your day, in the MA, were they considered, did you feel them to be your equal with you, or was there still some sense that the women students were in some way different, odd, shouldn't be there, was there any of that lingering or were they just simply other students?
F I think they were just other students, to be fair. There was a curiosity value at first, shyness of the boys, but I think the girls probably had to - I don't say work harder - but I think they had to make themselves…[known] I think the girls themselves that I knew at University were on the whole fairly reserved [in that] they didn't seem to put themselves forward for many positions on things like the SRC or the UMC or the Athletic Association, but I think that changed while I was a student.
C That was already changing while you were a student?
F Yes, I think so yes. There were one or two 'lively' female students who did well academically, but I can't recall a woman being president of the SRC, well there obviously wasn't from Mary Esslemont's time right up until relatively recently.
C Yes, until about 15 years ago.
F There weren't many senior women in the echelons of the SRC. Obviously in the AA, I think there was a Women's President and the Union had a Woman's President. I feel they were treated equally, I don't know what the statistics are, but I would have thought we were still a predominantly male university in those days, I just don't know what the figures were in those days.
C I can't recall them, no
F I don't feel, I don't remember being outnumbered by women in any of the classes I was in, which would probably be the case in some of the classes nowadays, particularly Arts and Law.
C English and languages and also Law probably.
F Yes, yes.
C You said you lived at home all the time you were a student, did that mean that it was more difficult to feel like a student, as it were, or was this another factor in making you feel at the beginning of your time at university was a continuation of school or wasn't that relevant?
F I didn't really feel it was relevant at the time, because my parents didn't attempt to keep any sort of curfew on me, and I had my own key.
C So you were probably freer than some of the students in lodgings?
F Probably, yes because, as we said earlier, the students were in lodgings, or at home, and so many of the students lived at home that I just didn't really think about it, we were on the University premises roughly from 9 'til 5ish, either in the Student Union as well between classes or in the Elphinstone Hall, of course it was used for lunches in those days, and the Pavilion was used for coffee, so if you had a spare hour you were probably in the Pavilion or possibly in the Library, in the Geddes Bay for classics.
C You didn't do the thing which they used to do earlier and go home for lunch and come back for afternoon classes?
F No I didn't normally, no I don't recall doing that. No, I usually lunched at the Elphinstone. I'm trying to remember the timings of my classes…
C Maths would have been at 9?
F Maths was certainly at 9. Latin was in the morning too, and Greek was in the morning, so I was probably finished, apart from tutorials, at lunchtime so I may have well gone home for lunch.
C If you hadn't got to have something on the afternoon.
F Because I cycled. I cycled to University in those days, in my first year, before I maybe became a bit lazy after that and I lived fairly near the centre of town in Carden Place and I used to walk to Holburn Junction and take the bus, or tram indeed, tram until 1950 [1960?], tram to University Road or Regent Walk. I don't know why I ceased the bicycle because that would have kept me fit, because a large part of my spare time was probably taken up with sport at University because I hadn't enjoyed sport at school when it was compulsory, but when it became voluntary…
C You suddenly discovered it.
F And I seemed to become better at sport.
F …In cricket, my last two years at cricket I played for the University rather than the old school team, just because the captain of the cricket team was John Bain who later became President of the SRC and a doctor, and indeed a Professor of General Practice in Southampton, now Dundee in fact, and he was a good friend. And he persuaded a couple of us, who were reasonable cricketers, that we should play for the University in term time. The term was fairly short, I think we had 10 or 11 games and then went back to our old school sides. But the old school sides didn't appreciate this very much.
C You were considered interlopers.
F It was the same with hockey. I mean, by 1960/61 when I captained the University Hockey Team our regular First Eleven comprised entirely former pupils of Gordon's College and the Grammar School.
C Goodness.
F So we were very local in those days.
C And did you, incidentally, I meant to ask this earlier, did you find that your friends from school continued to be your friends at university, or did you shed that group?
F I shed that group to be honest. I mentioned before I didn't really regard school days…
C As much fun, no?
F And apart from one of my contemporaries whom I'm still friendly with, and whom I saw last week when he returned from Canada - he's a Nuclear Scientist - no, I would have said I made new friends…
C Good.
F But a lot of these were perhaps Gordonians.
C Because they would have been a very big group in the University then, wouldn't they?
F Yes, and through the Hockey Eleven, it wasn't entirely Gordonians and Grammar FP's throughout my time in the team, but certainly predominantly when I think back, the first year that I played in the University First Eleven in '56/'57, the captain was a Grammar former pupil and the next year it was a Gordonian, the year after that it was somebody from Blairgowrie and the year after that it was a Grammar, then a Grammar, and then the year after that a Gordonian. For the five years I played under captains who were mainly local people. But I became very keen on hockey which I had enjoyed reasonably at school, but I only took it up because it was the one alternative from rugby…
C Which you hated?
F You had to play rugby for three years because that was the traditional game of the school, and the only alternative was hockey after that, but I enjoyed hockey at university. But I grew physically from the time I left school, I was only 5'2" when I left school, I was 17½, fairly young, and I seemed to grow during the vacation to the extent that my school jerseys and so on didn't fit and sporting jerseys. But hockey…
C You were quick on your feet?
F Well, relatively, a defender, I preferred blocking other people and in hockey, certainly as far as my university days are concerned, captaining the First Eleven and winning the Scottish Universities' Championship in 1961 was the sort of acme of my university life as far as I was concerned. And then I captained the Scottish Universities' team the following year and we, we managed to beat the English Universities and the Irish Universities.
C Excellent, yes.
F Some achievement, particularly beating the English Universities and the UAU who were…
C A bigger pool to draw on, yes.
F One member of the team was one Brian Clark who later turned up at Aberdeen Geography Department.
C Oh goodness, yes.
F He was a hockey player in his younger days. It was funny, we met up again… we actually met up in St Andrews when he visited there, to visit one of his friends who was a lecturer there and he reminded me of this game when we beat the English Universities 3-2. So hockey played a part…
C Big part in your life. Did you do all the extra-curricular things, social things, Student Show, Charities?
F Well yes… I didn't do Student Show, Charities I joined in, quite enthusiastically but never held any office there. I was Sports Editor of Gaudie, in the days when I think the literary standard of Gaudie was higher than it is today, but being Sports Editor meant collecting reports on matches from the previous Saturday and these appeared in the following when ever Gaudie appeared -Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember - and I edited these, and then I became joint Editor of Gaudie in, I think it was the winter term of 1957, and that was a particularly bitter time because there was a Rectorial on and Rectorials obviously did cause quite a lot of interest at that time and the main contenders for this Rectorship then were John Bannerman, father of Rae Michie - who's just retired from the House of Commons - and Lord Hailsham.
C Was the contest fought on political lines or personality lines?
F Pretty much personality lines, and John Bannerman, being a former rugby international, had a lot of support from the Rugby Club, who tended to dominate the Union Management Committee. Rugby and medics seemed to dominate the Union Management Committee. And I was a member of the Union Management Committee for a couple of years, Sub-Secretary in my second year, so that was a certain amount of administration you might say, and it just seemed to be a very bitter campaign and I was co-editor of Gaudie with a chap called Ray Barton and we initially favoured Hailsham in our editorials, and the Bannerman people didn't like this at all.
C They came and beat you up did they?
F Well, I was kidnapped, I recall, but released on condition of good behaviour when I insisted that I wasn't really all that keen on Hailsham after all. That was, certainly at Rectorial Dances and so on, there were quite a lot of incidents of, not vandalism, but things like a pig being released in the Student Union - by Maitland Mackie, I think.
C He'd have brought one from home, presumably?
F Yes. My 'good old friend' Robbie Ewen was one of the keen members of the Bannerman camp.
C Yes.
F But I wasn't active in any of the Rectorial campaigns.
C And did they have a great Rectorial Fight in Marischal Quad?
F They had. I kept well clear of that.
C I suppose the Rugby Club came in handy there?
F Yes, I'm sure Bannerman won that and Bannerman did win the actual contest in the end but by a very narrow majority because in those days you voted by Nation and you had to appear in person in the Student's Union, I think on a Saturday morning, I remember that particularly, because three years later I was in Glasgow playing hockey and missed the Rectorial vote which Peter Scott won. But I made sure that when Peter Scott appeared to give his Rectorial address I was among those who rushed in with him into the Kirkgate Bar.
C And claimed your free drink?
F Yes, and Peter Scott, very stupidly, said 'Free drinks for the rest of the day'
C Whew!
F This was about 1 o'clock or whenever it was, after he'd given [his Rectorial address] and this was manna from heaven for the students, of course. But I had a couple of drinks probably and then went away for something to eat, came back (I thought to continue drinking) only to find that the President of the SRC, a Divinity student at that time had put a stop on this, because I think Peter Scott had, by then, run up a bill of some £300-400, I don't think he realised the capacity…
C Of the drinking public in Aberdeen?
F I don't think the University saw very much of Peter Scott, it didn't see much of its Rectors in those days anyway.
C No, no.
F But that was where the excitement of Rectorials, and Charities Campaigns, where again we dressed up and wandered round the streets and visited schools in a way that doesn't seem to happen nowadays.
C Not quite so much, no.
F We had an Outlying Districts Campaign where we'd dances in places like Banchory and Ellon and so on and we used to troop along to those, during the Easter vacation because, again in vacations, there were a lot of students around so the Student's Union probably stayed open.
C What did you do in vacations, in fact, apart from play sport?
F I probably played sport.
C You didn't take paid work?
F I did in the long vacations. I tutored Latin. There was a tutorial agency, Geddes Irvine, I think in Carden, was it Carden Place or Rubislaw Terrace? I tutored Latin because there were prelim exams in August and September and there were people still trying to obtain Ordinary Latin or Higher Latin for entry to university and I tutored about half a dozen students one year anyway and three of them passed, so that was something.
C That was an achievement, yes.
F I started by thinking if they needed tutorials they weren't perhaps very good anyway. I tried to keep one step ahead of them on the prescribed texts. I didn't… I was lucky enough not to have to work in the vacations.
C Yes, money was not an issue when you were a student, your parents supported you and you had your bursary?
F Yes, it didn't seem to be. I didn't appreciate enough what my parents did for me, but there it was.
C Did they give you an allowance or…?
F Yes, I…
C Can you remember how much as a matter of interest?
F Oh, I think about a £1 a week.
C £1 per week roughly, yes. It's interesting to know.
F I think it was about £1 a week my mother kindly gave me and I just took it without sufficient gratitude I think, but that would have been initially, I can't believe that she carried this on for years and years, I must have managed to accumulate some money some how, well, when I became a CA apprentice, of course.
C You were paid for that.
F There was the princely sum of something like 15 shillings a week. So I did, that was enough to support myself then, but I imagine that for 3 years I was totally dependent on my parents financially, apart as you say…
C From your bursary, which was a substantial one.
F It was.
C Did you have much sense as a student that there was a range of economic status among your contemporaries, I mean, were you aware of some people much richer than you, perhaps they had motorbikes or cars, maybe I don't know, maybe…?
F I wasn't really aware of this, one of my…[friends had a car]
C Or some very much poorer?
F I have to say I had no social conscience at the time, and I didn't, if there were poor students…
C They kept quiet.
F They kept quiet about it or I didn't notice them, and money never seemed to be an issue among my contemporaries, I mean in the Hockey Club there were some people… some people certainly got into debt through playing cards for money, there were great card schools in the Union, involving some of my friends from the Hockey Club, and I think they played for quite large stakes, in those days, but I didn't join those at all, I wasn't…[brave enough!]
C What did they play, as a matter of interest, poker or bridge?
F Poker and bridge were the two, poker initially and a game called brag but I never played for money, I realised my own…[limitations]
C And that was the contemporary form of wickedness?
F That was pretty much it.
C Was there a lot of heavy drinking or not?
F I think a fair amount of heavy drinking, but the Union didn't have a spirits licence in those days so it was beer drinking, people went into the Kirkgate Bar if they wanted stronger drink, or the Marischal Bar. I remember the Marischal Bar being the [drinking] hole for the students from the Highlands and the Western Isles. I was quite friendly with one student from Stornoway and he invited me to join one night out I remember, going with the Highlanders but they drank beer and whisky alternately and I was very ill after that and only went once, because I certainly wasn't one who could hold vast amounts of drink but there was a lot of beer drinking, and I'm afraid it was a kind of macho culture and the Rugby Club probably drank most beer. The Hockey Club were… well we did our share, but of course we were trying to keep moderately fit. We did have sessions in the Marischal College Gym once a week with one of the PE staff, to try and keep fit but then probably we undid all the good work by drinking but I know I made it a rule not to go drinking on a Friday night before games, this sort of thing.
C It sounds as though you had a very happy, and in the nicest possible way, a rather innocent life as a student.
F I think so, to be honest, yes, yes. I mean the licensing hours were such that you were kicked out of the Union, well after 10 o'clock, and you could go across to the Mitchell Hall to the hop which of a Saturday night of course finished at 11.30 so there was a limit to the amount of time for dancing and I think it must have been very rough on the girls, there was one Ladies Choice in the dance that they had - there wasn't very much time for dancing. You could go and ask a girl to dance she either said 'yes' or 'no' and you might want to walk a girl home if you could, but I don't remember having serious relationships in my earlier days as a student, I think it was, you began to feel your age a bit when you… in the LLB [course], the last year or two, if you had a girlfriend you were possibly looking at a future life partner, but the thought of anybody ever living together outside marriage…
C Or anything like that, yes, never crossed your horizon.
F Didn't cross your horizon.
C Or anyone else's, I would imagine?
F No, no. Girls nor boys, no and only in the last years was Crombie Hall opened so you had the residence people coming in and that was a new type of university living but I imagine that was…
C It didn't attract you and you presumably wouldn't have got in anyway as a senior student?
F No, no, I wouldn't think so and being local…
C Were you against it, because a lot of students were at the time, weren't they, there was a lot of opposition among the student body?
F No, I don't recall being particularly interested, I wasn't particularly involved in student politics, I was never a member of the SRC and I don't recall it being mentioned. In my years in the Union Management Committee, I was on for a couple of years, I didn't continue with that, that was probably my third and fourth years at University the UMC, I think I was attracted there by free perks, admission to dances and wearing a badge which I think I still have, but no, no I don't think I was conscious of any opposition to residence. There was a feeling that the people in the residences were rather posh and snobbish but…
C And always wearing their togas. Did anyone else wear togas by the way, or was it only in the residences by then?
F I only remember wearing a toga when I helped with the Student Show I would sell programmes, one wore one's toga for events.
C So you wore uniform for that, but you never went to lectures in a toga?
F I never went to lectures in a toga, and I think one or two people occasionally did, but they did suffer a certain amount of ridicule I think, which I think is sad when I see that students have managed to keep this tradition in St Andrews far more…
C But it's a very different city isn't it?
F Yes.
C Well John, that's absolutely fascinating, I think we should probably break off because we've had a good solid chat.
F I can't believe it's so long.
C I'm sure there's much more we could have talked about.
F Yes, I'm sure I've rambled on.
C Anything you really wanted to say that we haven't taken up?
F Well, I think, you know when I got Roddy's note I did try to think back and I think…
C We've picked up the main points?
F We've picked up the main points, hockey and Law certainly, Law and the academic side.
C To me the most interesting bit was the staff-student relations and the contrast between the MA and the LLB.
F And I believe, I think I can tell one story about Ronnie Ireland I forgot, that I did want to say. That he had a dog, a spaniel…
C Called Nell…
F Ah, so you probably know the story, that he went around the Chanonry shouting 'Nell…'
C 'Down, you horrible bitch!'
F Which just happened to be Principal's wife's name!
C Yes, yes, I remember, because I knew Ronnie too, as a colleague, but not nearly as well as you did.
F But when Ronnie Ireland, he must have been appointed professor, say, at the age of 34, because I remember his 35th birthday party, he said to me once that he was so happy here that he could never envisage leaving…
C And then he upped and went off and became a Sheriff.
F But I think part of that was due to the fact that the LLB became a first degree so that his first year students were perhaps 17.
C Schoolboys, yes.
F 18 years old, and didn't have quite the rapport, and also he might have got himself into a bit of trouble if he'd been encouraging 17 year olds to drink, and so obviously he became a bit disenchanted with life under Principal Wright I suppose. I don't know, I was sorry that he went, but I felt it maybe had something to do with the fact of the change…
C The changing University, yes
F The changing University. So again, he's someone… I enjoyed the company of Lawyers when I moved on, in Edinburgh University because I met up again up with Tom Smith and Iain MacGibbon. Iain MacGibbon I was particularly friendly with and that was when I again was contemplating returning to Law on the academic side. Iain MacGibbon was encouraging me to do that later on in my career when I was a little bit disenchanted with administration, as one becomes from time to time.
C Well, that's another story and perhaps we'll meet and talk about that on a different occasion, if you'd like to, because that would also be extremely interesting but thank you very much.
F Well, things do come back I suppose, but no, it's certain the happiest days of your life are student days without a doubt, as far as I'm concerned, some people do obviously enjoy their schooldays but I didn't so much really.
C But you really loved university?
F I did, yes. And because I loved the University, the only job in the University that I could aspire to in 1962 was in administration, where a Law degree was apparently of some use.
C Well, you must have been a bright young man, because university admin. posts were very few in those days, weren't they, I mean they weren't just easy pickings?
F Well, I was pleased when I was interviewed by Principal Wright - and a whole host of other people, Professor Burnett, and so on, and in 1967 Principal Wright was kind enough to mention that I'd had a distinguished academic record which surprised me because it wasn't as distinguished as it might have been if I'd worked harder, but I might have enjoyed myself less.
C Well, thank you, thanks very much.
END OF INTERVIEW
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