| Description | Interview with Charlotte Goodbody recorded on the 23 of June 2001 by Sheila Reid.
Transcript of Interview :
R So we'll start with just why you came to Aberdeen in the first place?
G Somehow it was just what I had always wanted to do. I wanted to come to the university here. My father had been here and I just wanted to come here. I was at school here and I wanted to come to the University.
R So no other university even entered…?
G I didn't even consider anywhere else.
R So it was following your father rather than anything else?
G Yes, well he was in the Territorial Army and he was actually an officer in the OTC and we used to go and see him parading and he talked such a lot about it and the University was always somehow very much part of our lives. He taught as an Associate Lecturer there, I think for a while.
R Ah, what did he lecture in?
G He was in Medicine, I think, I'm not awfully sure.
R That's really interesting, because rather than school, it was a home influence that turned you towards the University?
G I think so, definitely yes, I didn't think of going away anywhere.
R And did anybody else from school go anywhere else?
G No. In those days, it was just the end of the War and perhaps for financial reasons, it was much easier, you were living at home, if you went to the University here.
R And what school did you go to?
G It was the High School.
R You were at the High School, yes.
G And they just pointed you towards the University in a way, I think.
R I agree, I think that was the common experience.
[Break in recording]
G I remember myself, I knew of Oxford and Cambridge Universities and Aberdeen. I can't remember having knowledge of others.
R Yes. What courses did you follow?
G I went into to do science and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do Zoology or Botany, but I decided very, very quickly that Zoology was the - what I wanted to do.
R So why did you choose science in the first place?
G I think it was… I had thought of Medicine at one time, but science was what I - I enjoyed doing science at school.
R So it was something you felt you were successful at?
G Yes, I would. We did Botany and Chemistry at school, I didn't do Physics, so it was going to be… I was interested in animals and just thought I wanted to do Zoology, without any thought of what I might do as a career in that, but I just wanted to study Zoology.
R And when you came to university, did you have expectations of what science would be like, or was it a surprise to you?
G No, I don't think it was a surprise, but I loved Zoology from the start. As soon as I got to doing my subjects; I did Chemistry, Maths, Botany and Zoology and I just loved the Zoology and it was a pleasure, really, to learn it. So I just had to sort of get through the other subjects and then be able to do only Zoology which was what I wanted to do.
R So you had the ordinary subjects to finish with before going on to the honours?
G Yes, yes, that's right, yes.
R And you knew exactly what you wanted to do, very quickly in your first year?
G Very quickly in my first year I knew it was going to be Zoology. What line, what path of Zoology, I wasn't quite sure then, but it was to be Zoology.
R And did a path suggest itself to you during your…?
G Yes, well in our third year we had to decide what we wanted to do, and I decided I wanted to do something, some sort of perhaps economic importance, and I decided I would do Parisitology because I thought that was important from probably an agricultural point of view but unfortunately there was nobody in the department who was a Parisitologist but somebody from the Rowett Institute helped me. And so for my honours year I had to do a project and he helped me and I'm afraid I can't remember his name…
R No, but I think it's interesting that they were able to make that sort of arrangement so that you got the necessary supervision that was required for you to be able to complete the course successfully. And so was Parisitology something that you went on to practice?
G Well, I went to Edinburgh to do a PhD and I was going to do Parisitology there but I gave it up and I got married so I didn't do any more Parisitology. I'm afraid I did more Zoology, but I didn't do more Parisitology.
R Was that because it wasn't possible, given your personal circumstances, or was it a choice or… do you remember what happened?
G Oh well, when we, well I got married, I had a daughter and then we went to Jamaica and my husband was a Zoologist as well, I met him here in Aberdeen actually.
R Did you?
G Yes, and we went out to Jamaica together and he, in the department there, there was the professor, came from Edinburgh, and I had gone to Edinburgh to do my PhD and I knew the new professor quite well, and he suggested I would do some demonstrating so, I used to just keep up my work by teaching there, as a demonstrator, until the children grew up.
R Yes, so effectively you were just paying things ticking over…
G That's right. That's right, yes.
R I think, I'm not sure about you, but my experience even in the sixties, it was favoured [?], there were a lot of marriages, took place almost immediately you'd graduated, did that happen to you?
G I graduated in '51 and I got married in '53.
R You were two years into your PhD?
G I was two years in Edinburgh, yes. But I wasn't doing awfully well, I think if I'd been doing better I might have finished it, but my work wasn't going that well really, it was a pity, it was a wasted two years - no, I don't know if it was a wasted two years - but I didn't, I was sorry after the children grew up I was sorry I didn't have a higher degree, but I never regretted it, at the time I didn't regret it.
R If we come back to your experience at Aberdeen, rather than your academic experience - well partly it's to do with your academic experience - obviously you remember the special arrangements that were made for you to pursue an interest in Parisitology, are there any teachers that you remember in particular?
G Oh well, Professor Wynne-Edwards, who was the professor at the time was a really, I think inspiring person to be with, and the whole staff were nice in the department, there was Dr Carrick, Dr Neale and Dr Orkin. It was a very happy department I think.
R Was it a relatively small group of students, do you remember?
G Well, not so small up to third year, but there were only four of us in the honours year.
R And did Professor Wynne-Edwards, did he teach the ordinary class, do you remember that?
G He taught our first year class.
R He taught the first year class. So that was how you first encountered his personality as a teacher?
G Yes.
R And what was his discipline?
G Well, he was mainly interested in Ecology and birds and that was - he lectured well, he really enjoyed his classes.
R I think that's [?] and I think there was a tradition of the professors lecturing to the ordinary classes
G There was, there was. I think it certainly used to be that the professors taught the first year class, and that was the same in Botany - not in Chemistry, we didn't have the professor for Chemistry.
R So in fact the discipline of Chemistry wasn't as important or elevated as Botany or Zoology?
G Oh I don't think so, I suppose that was just the policy in that department, I know - I can't even remember who the professor was then, but we had the professor of Botany taught us, and the professor of Zoology taught us, and the professor of Maths, all taught the first year class, those were the three, the classes that I did.
R I remember it in the Arts Faculty as well. A question here which is quite interesting, because I'm not quite sure if I would know how to answer it, but it says here: 'the prevailing attitude that students had to authority.' I know, for example, when I came to Aberdeen, there was a great deal of socialising between, certainly junior members of staff and students, but at the same time there was a formality with the professors because I think they were part of an older school, but this was the sixties and things began to change then, but what do you remember of that?
G Well I remember certainly during the first three years I was, you know you had a great respect, I suppose, but in my honours year you were almost treated as a member of staff because the class was so small. There were just four of us, and we used to have coffee with the staff and there was quite a transformation between third year and your honours year. I don't know if in later years when the classes were very big - I know that the Zoology class was sometimes, say about forty in the honours class, well we only had four. And you were almost like a post-graduate student, you got to know the staff quite well.
R What difference do you think that made to you, as a student at that time, from the first three years and going to the final year, did you feel any differently?
G Yes, well we were able to go into the department in the evenings, in the evenings we could go in and get on with our work, we were doing a small project and there was a really big difference.
R How did that equip you, do you think, for post-graduate work?
G Very well I would say, very well. Because you knew really how to start tackling a problem and go on with it. I would say very well, yes.
R Where did you live?
G I lived at home, in Carden Place.
R All the four years?
G All the time, yes, I was at home. I used to do a lot of cycling in those days. I used to sometimes go on the bus, but I used to cycle over. I had Maths at King's and, of course, Botany was still where it is now, but Zoology and Chemistry were in Marischal.
R They were in Marischal?
G Yes.
R And I presume the traffic was much less?
G Much less, I wouldn't like to be doing all that cycling now. And I cycled to sport, I did a lot of sport.
R Yes, I think that was still quite an important part of the University when I was here. Did you feel that you were part of a small group in sport or did you feel that a large part of the student population took part?
G Well, the numbers were so much less, but it was lovely because you got to know students from other disciplines which I don't know if it happens so much now. I mean it was absolutely - I was never going to give up my Wednesday afternoon hockey, played for the University and I look back on it as a fantastic period, in my life, University and the sport that I played when I was at University.
R So that was a very important part of socialising?
G Oh yes, it was.
R And Wednesday afternoon was the designated…?
G Wednesday afternoon was the sports day and we were very cross in the summer term when Botany always had classes on Wednesday afternoon. I think the idea was that the evenings were so long, so you could do your sport in the evening.
R And did you travel with the Hockey team?
G Oh yes, to St Andrews the other Scottish universities.
R The other Scottish Universities?
G Yes, we very much played with them and we once arranged a tour and we went to Liverpool and we didn't go to Manchester - I can't remember where we went exactly, but it was north of England that the Hockey team arranged a tour and we played some other universities.
R How did you support yourself at university?
G My parents.
R Your parents supported you?
G Yes, I really didn't do - somehow I don't think the fees were particularly onerous - and my parents just supported me. I occasionally, I did once or twice do two small jobs, but nothing very much really.
R Yes, it's interesting that nowadays children at school start working.
G Yes, never entered my head.
R Did you do any other extra-curricular activities, do you remember when you were here?
G Well, connected with the University? I belonged to the Biological Society, well that was, I suppose, to do with my work, I also joined the SCM, I was in the Student Christian Movement, I used to go the Debating Society.
R Yes, was that still in Marischal in the Mitchell Hall?
G As I recall it was in the Union, but I forget sometimes.
R Never mind, I may be wrong, myself. I remember going to the Debating Society - in the Union?
G Yes.
R And did you, in terms of socialising, did you go to the Union to meet friends and so on, was that a focal point for meeting or was it through societies?
G Oh it was because we were working in Marischal so we used to nip across for coffee and lunch sometimes depending on what I was doing for lunch, I didn't always go home for lunch.
R Yes, cycling again!
G That's right.
R And did you, with these extra-curricular activities, did you go away, did you arrange visits, were there people come, was it again a meeting point or going out to meet other people?
G Well I suppose, things like the Biological Society you would meet people that you knew already, it was mostly Botanists and Zoologists. The SCM and the Hockey, the sport was really more you met people from other disciplines and you did know, knew a lot - well, having been at school in Aberdeen I knew a lot of girls who had been [?] in the Arts Faculty so we did know…
R It was possible to meet up in fact and socialise [?]
G Yes, I can't think of anything else that we did, although in later life I was interested in hill walking I didn't belong to the - there was a walking club I can't remember the name, what was it called? I can't remember.
R How did you spend your vacations?
G How did I spend my vacations? Well, the first two years, in the Easter vacation, I was in the Show, so that was always…
R Oh, the Student Show!
G We rehearsed always in the Easter vacation. The summer vacation: I used to go on a family holiday for the first two years I was at University, I think, and then I started to be a little more independent. And we also went on field trips on the first, I think it was the end of my first year, we went to St Cyrus with the Botany field trip and then at the end of my third year and fourth year, I went to Orkney with the Zoology Department on field trips there. On the very first field trips that George Dunnett did some of his important work on the birds, the fulmars in Orkney and that was very exciting. I mean that work was continued and probably still on going, it's a very long, long study of the fulmars there.
R Right, let me go over that again. Student Show, first two years and then it was work-related in a sense but it was something that was a vacation too?
G Yes, well it was work-related but you thoroughly enjoyed it. And I went on other holidays, too, I went with an old school friend to Switzerland and we went on a cycling holiday another year. So I'm afraid I didn't do any - apart from the two occasions I can think of - any money earning holiday. Perhaps I didn't spend my time wisely?
R It sounds, particularly with the research in Orkney, it sounds really very exciting to be aware… were you aware at the time that this was going to be important?
G No, no. I wasn't. It wasn't until quite a long time afterwards when we visited Aberdeen again, then again we heard about the work when it was published, the work on the fulmars.
R And was the Orkney trip for junior honours and senior honours was it?
G I think it probably was, I can't quite remember if the field trip was just organised within the Zoology Department and students just went on it.
R And were you aware that you were part of research team or did you feel that this was something that you were doing for yourself?
G Yes, I felt that it was something that I was doing for myself, we were being taught, we were taken to various habitats and shown them, and no, we went to Einhallow, the island where the fulmars were, and saw them but had really no idea it was going to be a big research project.
R Switzerland, how was that?
G Switzerland, oh that was fun, that was just a holiday.
R But it wasn't your first time abroad or anything like that?
G Yes, it was. Of course we hadn't been able to do that sort of thing during the War.
R So it was quite an adventure?
G Oh it was, it was a tremendous adventure. Yes. We went on one of the student, it was a student organised trip, I can't remember exactly how it went, but we had to, there were other students on the trip and everything was organised.
R So you arranged it from the University?
G I found out about it - it's a long time ago, I can't really remember! I don't know how it went.
R But I'm interested that it was something that emanated from being a student at Aberdeen and it was something that you could do from here.
G Yes, we met students, there were some students from Glasgow on it, we all met up together in, perhaps in London, and we didn't, I mean Elizabeth and I had gone as friends and we didn't, we were all completely free once we got to Montreux, we could do what ever we wanted.
R So essentially it gave you the organisation?
G It really gave us the organisation, the travel and the hotel and then you could do what you wanted.
R So really an adventure then?
G Oh it was. It was a big adventure. Yes.
R Can I just check the tape, to see how it's going?
G Sure.
R We've probably got room for one more question on this side. In your day - perhaps I ought to change over, I think this might be a big one!
R …no, I don't want to risk this running out, because the question which interests me, and I hope it interests you, is: in your day, how would you describe the position of women students?
G Well, we were very much in a minority, which I think has changed completely, but you know I didn't ever think about Women's Lib. or anything like that, I was quite happy with the position that I was in, I didn't feel that I was discriminated against in any way and I - I'm not quite sure if this is going to be a long answer to you - we were, as I say, in a minority but I don't think I thought about big issues like that, I enjoyed… I just was enjoying myself at university I think.
R And as an honours student, as one of four, were you the only woman?
G No, there were two women and two men.
R So there was always an equality between you in a sense?
G Yes, that's right, there was an equality there and I think when I remember it, the year before it had only been one honours student, and she was a woman too. There were one or two women members of staff, but not very many.
R Did you ever feel that there was any difference in treatment, between women and men, by the staff in your day?
G I don't think I ever noticed it as an under-graduate. When I went to Edinburgh, and I was engaged to be married, I did feel that the supervisor there thought: 'Oh she's going to married, she's not perhaps going to continue with her work' and I felt a little bit, now you mention it, I remember that - thinking that I, and in those days, people did quite often give up work when they got married, they didn't all but it was just really beginning to continue with work, so that would be the only thing I do remember when I went there and I said I was engaged and he said 'Oh, you're going to get married' and I felt perhaps…
R [?]
G A little bit, yes.
R But never while you were an undergraduate?
G Never, no, I definitely never noticed any discrimination.
R That's good. Within the under-graduate societies for example, did you think there was parity between the students, between male and the female students there or did any women students hold office, I presume in hockey…
G Did any students do what?
R Hold office?
G Yes. I was in the Athletic Association for a while and helped to organise an Athletic Association Ball I seem to remember, but yes.
R So there was plenty opportunity for women to become involved in the organisational aspect?
G I think so. I'm not sure that I noticed any…
R Good. In the fifties, you graduated in '51. It was post-war, so that was the big political event, up until the fifties, there was a lot of political and social change going on in Britain, did that make any impact on you as a student, do you remember?
G I sometimes feel rather ashamed that it didn't, because of all the social consciousness later on of the students taking political interest. I never had anything like that, I came up to university and I just loved it from the beginning - maybe it was rather selfish - I enjoyed my university days and didn't really think too much about politics.
R I think that usual in a period after the War and so on, there was almost a desire to get away from politics, that's been expressed by quite a few people of your generation. I don't know if that was a feeling that was prevalent or not. Do you now, when you say you're rather ashamed, do you now, would you now feel that you could take an interest?
G It's rather difficult to think that, but I think I might think that I would want to be doing, perhaps some sort of social work or some sort of help of perhaps take some interest in that. But at that time my life was just so full as I perhaps feel rather selfishly enjoying my work, enjoying the sport and I think you're right in saying, it was just after the War, there were a lot of ex-service people, a lot of ex-servicemen there, I think we had a wonderful time to be honest.
R Do you think that was a factor, the fact that there were ex-servicemen there? Do you think that they influenced the life of the University?
G Oh yes, there were hardly any, certainly male students who were not ex-service, I mean it was mostly ex-servicemen who were there. There were a few who were able to come, males who were able to come straight from school. We were able to, but of course there was National Service, they had to do and so most of the university places were given to ex-servicemen.
R So that in fact the male population was significantly older?
G Yes, definitely. I mean I was nineteen and most of the male students would have been twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, probably.
R With some experience of National Service or… no, National Service it would have been?
G No, they had been in the War.
R They had been in the War?
G Yes, they were ex-service people, most of them.
R Did you ever talk about it?
G No, I didn't. No. It's funny, and now I feel 'why didn't I, why didn't I ask them about their experiences?' But I didn't.
R But they didn't want to?
G And they didn't volunteer it, no. And that, I think, is quite interesting yes.
R Because it may have contributed to the political climate?
G Perhaps they just wanted to forget about it, I don't know, but I knew a lot of ex-servicemen, I kept up with them and I also knew, there was a German in the department, I think I'd heard that she'd had to cross the Channel in an open boat because she was opposed to Hitler, and I never really heard the story about it, and I was quite friendly with her, perhaps I didn't want to intrude on it, I don't know, I didn't ask her about it.
R Yes, I think though there was a social, not exactly a social taboo, but a reticence, I think perhaps about asking other people about their experiences?
G Yes, I think so.
R That's interesting and I hadn't realised that the male/female composition in the University was as significant as that, the age difference and the experience difference.
G Oh yes, definitely. Most of the male students were ex-servicemen.
R I think that's really interesting. Now we are going to move on, but before I do, you said that you regretted to some extent not taking any interest in politics and yet you had chosen Parisitology as part of your work, that's the thing that you wanted to do. For me, that indicates a social conscience, so therefore I presume, you had thought of that, what you could do to be useful?
G Yes.
R Before you would decide to do something like that. Do you think its - and I'm aware that I'm asking you leading questions now - do you think that that is something, I have sensed sometimes as a teacher that I'm doing good social work in my job, did you feel that way when you chose Parisitology?
G Well, that's what I thought I wanted to do and it would be of economic importance because I thought I could get into perhaps an agricultural institution and that was what my aim was.
R It was research in that way.
G Research in that way, yes. And that would have - could have been - of economic importance. But then eventually when I perhaps got involved in a bit more science and I eventually got involved in doing some pure science, which really has no economic importance but on the other hand it's very much the basis of applied research later on, you have to know the basic science. So I've changed my mind a little bit about that, I mean that was what I wanted to do at the time, because I thought it would be of economic importance, but now that I've seen the workings of a science department I see that pure science can be useful.
R Indeed yes. And it also advances the subject, the frontiers of the subject.
G Yes, I mean people may say that it isn't applicable immediately, but to be able to do the applied science you have to know the really basic work first which may appear to be at the time not of basic importance.
R I think we have gone over in what you did, in terms of finding employment after you married and went to accompany your husband to Jamaica. How difficult was it to get work?
G Well, when we went to Jamaica, he was in the Zoology Department and the professor there knew me from Edinburgh and he just asked if I would like to do some demonstrating so I was very much part time, and I was bringing up family as well, so this suited me fine. It kept my hand in, I wasn't - I was just earning a little pocket money - it wasn't a real career really, just demonstrating, but it just kept my hand in. And then when the children grew up, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in the department, so I was still in the department where my husband was and I used to run the first year practical classes, but I was never a full time member of staff, I was just appointed every year. So I never really had much of a career path really, I was just teaching the practical classes, that suited me fine, I liked it.
R Did you at any time contemplate working full time?
G Well, after the children grew up and I was a teaching assistant, it was pretty well full time, it was full time, yes. But I meant I was never on the permanent staff of the university, I was appointed every year for nine months, something as a teaching assistant, I wasn't a lecturer.
R Do you feel that, I presume in that sense you had to forgo some of the advantages of pension and so on?
G Oh, definitely, I don't get any pension.
R Do you regret that?
G I felt a little sorry when I was a teaching assistant, and I had not done my PhD, I didn't have a higher degree, so I couldn't go any further. My husband was a professor and head of the department and then he retired and the person who succeeded him was not prepared to promote me without me having a higher degree. So at that time I did slightly regret it, but I still was quite happy in the work that I was doing. And then eventually I gave up the teaching and I had a small grant to do some research and I was identifying animals from the deep sea, and I'm still doing that even although the grant came to an end, but the work is there and the department are willing to give me a room and I've been doing that. Although I'm really beyond retirement age! I'm still doing some quite interesting work and there's a lot… the department had collected these animals years ago and they had sat in a cupboard and nobody had - some of them had been identified - and now I'm looking at them, it's very, very interesting because I know there are species that have not been described before, unfortunately you really need an expert to identify them properly but I have been in touch with somebody who's working in Germany and we're going to publish a joint paper I think on one of the, a sponge that has not been described before. So that's quite fun.
R Absolutely. And did you initiate this particular research yourself?
G Well, no, the work had been done, oh way back. The department had got the use of two United States research vessels and they had decided that - it was for teaching students really how to use the equipment and they decided to make the use of two deep water sites off the coast of Jamaica, and so they collected the animals, and they were sorted and they were put in the cupboards and some people, whenever an expert had visited the department they'd perhaps looked at some of them and some of them have been identified. So I was available to look at them, and some of them had been identified, and so I was available to look at these. So I didn't collect them, they had been collected already. They were there, so I was just doing that. So that's been quite good.
R Have you had to quite a lot of updating of your knowledge in order to continue with this?
G Oh yes, I always feel I'm a 'jack of all trades, but master of none' because I'm looking at fishes, sponges, corals, worms, crustaceans…
R A whole gamut?
G Yes, so this is what I mean when something comes up that's rather difficult, you really need an expert to actually identify them so sometimes I can't do it.
R It sounds as if it must be immensely gratifying in a sense, to be involved in serious research again?
G It is, and yet it seems, I sort of think 'my goodness, here I am at seventy-two perhaps going to publish the first paper!'
R How wonderful! I think that's wonderful. I presume it's going to be published under the name of the university?
G Well, I'm collaborating with this person in Germany so it will be under both our names.
R Nevertheless, that's the way to go.
G So it will be from his organisation in Germany and the University of the West Indies.
R Well, there you go, I think that's wonderful. I think the last question really is interesting because we've gone through so much. It just asks what value your university education had for your subsequent career? But it sounds more like your subsequent life rather than just your subsequent career?
G Yes, well, my university career. I suppose I met my husband here, if I hadn't been here, I wouldn't have met him and he was a Zoologist as well so that I do feel that my university life on Aberdeen had an effect on what I did subsequently and it - I'm thinking how to put this, can you repeat the question again?
R What value did your university education have for your subsequent career?
G Well immense value, I think. Yes, because my husband being a Zoologist as well, I have understood the stresses and strains also of his, when he's had to work hard I have understood what he was doing and that I think has helped too, because I knew if he had to work late, and the research that he wanted to do, he had to do a lot of travelling, I've understood his interest because of my training as a Zoologist.
R Did you feel that your own training and research methods and your own experience at Aberdeen was valuable in what you did at the university - is it the University of Jamaica?
G University of the West Indies.
R In your own work?
G Oh yes, oh yes. I think so, but I do also think that you really start to learn when you start to teach, so although what I learned at Aberdeen was valuable - I think this is true for nearly everybody - when you start to teach, you really start to learn, but of course your university career is a start when you are teaching isn't it?
R Yes. Do you think that there were any values from Aberdeen in terms of academic discipline and so on, that you took with you that you could pass on to your students?
G Yes, I do , but I also know that the way the courses are taught now is very different from what we were taught then. We learned a lot about animals and now they seem to learn less and less about animals, they do a lot of Cell Biology, a lot of other courses, say Physiology. It's taught in a different way from the way that I was taught. And another thing was when I was a student I was taught very little Cell Biology because it hadn't been discovered. So after I went to Jamaica we had to learn a lot of Cell Biology and I found that quite difficult to learn things that I had not learned at University.
R Well I suspect if you're doing it without the academically structured environment that it might be quite difficult to do.
G Yes, Biology has changed amazingly since I was an under-graduate, I think.
R Do you think that all, everybody who trained at the time that you did has had to make adjustments?
G Oh, definitely, yes, definitely.
R Would there be any one thing that you experienced at Aberdeen that you would say you value above anything else?
G Just the whole experience. Everything that I had in my four years at Aberdeen I enjoyed, I can't think of anything that I didn't enjoy here, and I was disappointed when our eldest daughter came here and she didn't enjoy it in the same way that I had, no.
R What in particular happened?
G Well, I think the trouble was, well, half her trouble was it was so cold, having been brought up in Jamaica.
R Yes, of course.
G And it's different, from what it was like. It was small when I was here, I don't know if I would have enjoyed it so much, with the huge numbers that are around now.
R Yes, it's big, it's a big change, well, almost as much a change as you've been describing in your discipline I would think, that kind of sea change really. But it sounds like a wonderful, positive experience, your one?
G It certainly was, I could say. I really wouldn't have wanted to go, you ask me if there was anywhere else I would have wanted to go to, and I don't think so. I'm not sorry that I stayed at home and didn't go away and be independent, I enjoyed Aberdeen.
R Excellent, thank you very much indeed, thank you.
G Not at all.
End of Interview
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