| Description | Interview with Sarah Keith, recorded on 23 October 2002 by Jennifer Carter
Transcript of Interview :
JC So, very nice to meet you, Sarah. Tell me, where did you come to Aberdeen from? Are you a local girl, or did you come from far.
SK No, I am North-East born and bred. I was born in Ellon, near Newburgh, which is where my family home was. My father is a teacher and he taught briefly in Logie Coldstone, which is near Tarland, in Aboyne, where I lived for couple of years. Then we moved to Whitehills, which is on the North East coast, when I was about five or six, and my family have lived in Whitehills ever since. Whitehills is about three miles north of Banff.
JC So you are up on that very, very attractive coastline.
SK My father's house is about five feet from the sea! It is actually slightly outside Whitehills.
JC No danger of flooding I trust!
SK No, not the house. The road round it sometimes gets flooded, but the house is usually alright.
JC And you went to the local school, Banff Academy, is the right?
SK Went to Banff Academy, and from Banff Academy to Aberdeen University.
JC Why did you choose Law? Were you very set on this as a schoolgirl, or did it come to you late on? Why this choice?
SK Not at all. I don't think I ever made any great career choices until I was about 20 - 22. As a child I wasn't very ambitious. I knew I was going to go to university. I think it was probably my parents that suggested law. My first love was History, which was my favourite subject at school. I did History, Latin, English, the usual arts subjects and that just seemed to point towards Law. So I thought, why not give it a go! I found I enjoyed doing it very much.
JC And you took what, a straightforward L.LB. or the Honours version.
SK I did the Honours version.
JC So that was a four-year degree.
SK A four-year degree, largely because I was being a student so much. In those days, most Law students tended to go for the Ordinary degree, partially because a lot of law firms in those days reckoned that Honour students were a bit too intellectual to make good practical lawyers. So taking the Honours was not a career choice, as such, it just a reason to stay at University before having to earn a living.
JC And you took the Diploma as well? How new was that when you took it. Was it a fairly new thing or had it been going some time?
SK I think it had been going for a good at least 5 or 6 years, maybe longer than that.
JC It wasn't new.
SK They constantly change it, but I think the course I did had been fairly settled. I think that they changed it the year after I did it, they changed it quite substantially.
JC And you say you love doing Law.
SK Yes. It is interesting. It is a fascinating subject.
JC Does it bring out a slightly competitive streak in you? Or are you not that kind of lawyer?
SK I am not that kind of lawyer. I am not a litigator as such. I do corporate and commercial law and have done every since a trainee. I never really did anything else. I suppose it is more contract based. Everything I do is contract based. Drafting things and making things happen.
JC So who do you think there were teachers who particularly influenced you when you were doing the law course or did you literary follow your own inclinations in the subject matter.
SK I think largely my own inclinations and subject matter. One or two lecturers I met on the way, I particularly liked working with, who are good lectures, but I don't think they really influenced in what I did. A lot of my influences I think looking back, were not hugely informed at the time. You know something I liked the sound of or somebody I knew was doing the same course. As I say I have had a bit of a lazy career until I left University. Things just tended to happen and usually worked out quite well, but I don't think they were hugely informed decisions at the time.
JC Now when you did the L.LD. were there a lot of choices within it, you know, you had to choose different options and things?
SK Goodness, it is so long ago now, I think you had to do so many subjects in every year and then you had maybe two or three subject a year where you had a choice in which subjects you took. For example, I did European Law, which I think, when I did it we covered some of the European Law in the core subjects or Scots Law, but it wasn't a compulsory subject in itself. I chose to do that and I think round about the time I did it, or not long after, it became a compulsory subject. Then it wasn't compulsory. That kind of thing.
JC And was the course in those days still very much still book and paper based, or were you already relying at lot on computers.
SK Not at all. It was around and you could use it and we got various tutorials on how to use it, but I don't recall using it very much. It was very much sort of going to the library and pulling out the books we needed at the time.
JC Lovely, especially for someone who liked History!
SK Yes, it was quite good. Although now looking back things like when we did our dissertations, I think just how much easier, or perhaps not easier, different, doing it nowadays if would be. We didn't have access to the internet or word processors. My father hand typed my dissertation, with his two fingers! But at the time people didn't use computers in the way they do now.
JC That is interesting. And the Law Library was in Taylor Building. So that was very handy for you. Did you use the main library much, or not?
SK Yes, we did. I think for some of our courses later on, in Honours in particular, all our material was in the basement of the main library, so we used it quite a lot.
JC By and large did you feel, when you were a student, that you were getting all the kind of academic support that you needed, both from your teachers and from the facilities.
SK I think so at the time. I don't recall every thinking we didn't have very good facilities. I think the Queen Mother Library hadn't long launched at Aberdeen University and it was a super library at the time. I don't know what it is like now. I know there are a lot more students now than there were then.
JC Greatly outgrown now. No where to sit down!
SK Is it? I don't think we really had that problem at the time. It was quite a modern up to date facility we had. The Law Library was great. It was always really well run and kind of easy to find your own way around. In Honours, you got your own desk assigned, so you always had a desk.
JS So that must have made you feel very posh, yes.
SK Oh, very grown up!
JC And the Diploma, when you went on to that. That was largely taught by local practitioners, wasn't it?
SK A lot of it, but we still had lecturers, but the tutorials, yes. Local solicitors would come in and give the tutorials. I found a lot of that a waste of time, I have to say, at the time.
JC Because they were not very good teachers?
SK No, not at all. I think they way it was taught didn't really prepare you for the practical life of being a solicitor. I don't think there was anything wrong with the people who were teaching it, I just don't think they had got it right yet. It was, for example, one of the things that you do, when you start off as a solicitor, if you are doing Property Law, you note title deeds. Now in the Diploma we had a conveyancing course and I remember having a book that had photocopies of title deeds in it, but I never connected that with the real job of sitting down, studying them and working them out. Looking back I remember when I started my traineeship and being asked to note titles, thinking what on earth do I do here, and going back and sort of reading notes and working it out, but I never connected the theoretical exercise with actually doing it. We did a very intensive tax course in the Diploma, which I think was probably academically the best side of the course, the rest of it I thought was more or less a waste of time. The tax one did stretch us and it was good.
JC And you had to go through the Diploma of course, as then it was a compulsory step, wasn't it?
SK Yes, even now you can't practice law unless you get your Diploma.
JC Are there particular teachers that you remember who you would like to say anything about, for good or ill?
SK There are some I remember. I remember Professor McCormack, he did Roman Law. I did Latin at school and it was always a subject I really enjoyed and Roman Law kind of extended that.
JC Jurisprudence and so forth.
SK Yes. I liked the Jurisprudence subjects. A lot of people thought they were a bit snooty about them because they weren't kind of "pure" law, but I really enjoyed them.
JC It is kind of interfaced with law and philosophy, isn't it?
SK Yes. They were very interesting. I remember Professor McCormack, he was a very good lecturer. David Lessells, I remember he was my form, or guidance, adviser. He was always very good, very useful. I didn't really have a lot of problems as a student, so he had a fairly easy job with me, but he was always good, he was always there.
JC He always pleasant and signed you bits of paper on time and so on?
SK Always what I needed. I also remember Professor Love, who did Conveyancing. I always enjoyed his lectures.
JC Sounds to me as if you were a fairly independent student, actually, who was doing your own thing very competently and not leaning much on other people. Would that be a fair comment?
SK I think it is fair comment. Again looking back, I should perhaps have taken advantage more of the people who were there, that I could have taken advice from, but I don't know whether I was independent or it just didn't occur to me to use these facilities or those people.
JC Did you get any work experience in a lawyer's office before you graduated?
SK None at all.
JC None at all. So you didn't have a vocation or anything?
SK No, nothing! It is quite sad looking back, but no I hadn't! I had no vocation and no ambition! I just fell into it.
JC Before we talk about what you did do, socially and so forth, I wonder if I could raise a general question. Looking at the dates when you were at University, the University was going through a very difficult period. Were you conscious of that as a student?
SK Oh yes! I remember various demonstrations. Margaret Thatcher was in power at the time and she was hugely unpopular with students. There was also a lot of talk about the usual cutting grants, I think changing the University year was a hot one as well.
JC That was in your time as well? That was very controversial wasn't it?
SK That's right. I remember demonstrations and taking part in sit-ins at the Administration Building at the time.
JC You were involved in that? Good!
SK But again, I don't know if it was because I was hugely politically aware, or if it was what you do as a student.
JC No, I just wondered, because for staff during the period, ending when you graduated, in 1987, I suppose 1985, 1986, were some of the most difficult years in the Univerisity's recent history.
SK Well that is interesting, because I only have the experience of the years I was there.
JC So it is interesting from the student point of view that, while you were conscious of it, it wasn't such a huge issue to you as it obviously was to us.
SK We certainly took part in all activities. Looking back now I can't remember a lot of the issues. I can vaguely remember what we were doing, so that makes me think that I was perhaps not as involved as I should have been.
JC You weren't a very political student? No?
SK I went along to the meetings but I didn't get involved in student politics as such.
JC What did you mostly do then? You said you loved being at university. You loved being a student!
SK I am ashamed to say that I mostly socialised, went out with friends and drank far too much!
JC You were of a drinking generation, that's interesting. Was that a kind of reaction against a rather small country school or was it just what everybody was doing then?
SK I don't think it was a reaction against my upbringing. It is what we did. It is what most students did. I think looking back on it, I really don't think we had many people telling us that it was a bad thing to do, or it was unhealthy. There is a lot more information now about what is good for you and what's not. I am sure there was then, but it certainly wasn't preached at us.
JC Not about drink then. You would have been preached at about drugs, I assume?
SK Drugs and smoking. Drugs were there, but I don't think that drugs were very prevalent.
JC Everybody just went out and got sloshed!
SK Yes, that's it exactly. I mean we are talking four or five nights a week steadily, which is quite a lot. Looking back, I just don't know how we survived it. I suppose you do when you are younger.
JC Wonderful to be young!
SK I know. I certainly couldn't cope with that now.
JC You kept up and did well in spite of that. Did you mostly move in lawyer circles. Or were you more eclectic.
SK More eclectic, I think. I had one good friend at the time who did law and who I shared a flat with, but my other good friends were non-lawyers. History of Art students, Chemistry students.
JC Any medics, as a matter of interest?
SK A couple, but not close friends. We have mixed with a few medics, but not very closely.
JC What do you reckon were your social networks. Were they based on where you lived, or your classes or societies you joined?
SK All of the above. To begin with, halls were hugely important.
JC Where did you start? Which one?
SK Dunbar Halls to begin with. I then shared a flat with 6 girls into Hillhead Halls and from Hillhead Halls into a flat. In Hillhead Halls the flats of 6, and the 6 of us had either all been in Dunbar or been had socialised at Dunbar Halls. One of my friends, Jane, I had been at school with.
JC Is that Jane Pirie?
SK Yes, she works at archives now. I think her room was opposite mine in Dunbar Hall as well.
JC So Halls were a very important starting base. Did you keep up with Banff friends apart from Jane, or did you, as it were, make a new start when you came to University?
SK A couple, to begin with. I have a brother who is a year older and at school we used to be friendly his group of friends, and those boys were at Aberdeen University and I kind of kept in touch loosely with them and going out with them, but only for the first or second year at University. By then I had made other friends at University and had moved on.
JC So it was just a terrific social experience!
SK It was, it was. You mentioned Societies. We were members of the Celtic Society, which was a ceilidh and drinking culture, and we went along to a lot of those social occasions. I was in the boat club at one point, as was Jane.
JC You were a rower?
SK Yes, that's right.
JC Jolly chilly up here!
SK I seem to remember so, but I think I gave it up as it seemed too much like hard work! It was getting in the way of socialising. I think I tried a few things. I can't remember what you call it now. I did swording……
JC Fencing!!
SK Fencing! Goodness …swording! At one point, but nothing much stuck. I think we all tended to try quite a few things, but again looking back, I wish I had taken more advantage of the facilities.
JC Sure, we always say that. So what did you do in vacations? You said you didn't work in a lawyer's office. Did you have to work for money?
SK During the holidays? Yes. Oh goodness, I worked as a cleaner for a local hospital, in Banff. That was Ladysbridge Hospital. It was mental hospital. I quite enjoyed that actually for one summer.
JC It wasn't scarry or unpleasant?
SK The hospital is about ½ a mile from Whitehills, where I come from, and it was quite familiar. I worked as a shop assistant. I worked as a cleaner. I worked as a waitress. I worked as everything! I worked during term time and during the summer vacation.
JC You worked during term time as well? That was relatively unusual in those days, wasn't it?
SK Yes, well a lot of people did work.
JC But you perhaps worked more than some? What sort of hours did you clock up in paid work.
SK I don't know. I usually had a bar job, if I remember, 2 or three nights a week and latterly I had a Saturday/Sunday job in a shop. There is a chain of shops called Duncan's Bakeries in Aberdeen. During the summer I would work as a relief shop assistant. I would go to the shop where someone was on holiday and then during term time I think I worked at the weekends.
JC That was quite a heavy commitment outside your academic and social lives.
SK That is what I did with my time.
JC If I could ask, how did you manage financially? You had a grant, presumably, in those days.
SK I had a grant, but not a full grant.
JC Did it cover hall fees?
SK Enough to cover hall fees, not a lot more. I also had a bursary, which helped. It was not a huge one, but it helped.
JC £150 or something?
SK Yes. But I obviously needed to work. I finished University with an overdraft of about £5,000.
JC That was quite a lot for those days.
SK For those days, yes. Most of my friends did as well. I don't think I was alone in that amount of money.
JC Were you lucky in going straight into work?
SK Yes, I got a traineeship. I think I graduated in June and I started work on the 4th of July. Independence day! The real world.
JC So you paid off your debt quite quickly?
SK Well not really, because trainees were not hugely paid when I first started. It was quite a low wage. The idea is you make the money later on. So I think it took me a good three years to pay off the overdraft.
JC Do you remember what your starting salary was as a trainee?
SK I think it was about £3,000.
JC That was low, wasn't it!
SK Yes. At the time again within the law, there was a lot of change going on with trainee's salaries, because there was a lot of competition from accountants. Some of my friends went on and did accountancy rather than become lawyers. It paid much better.
JC You went straight in at £17,000 or something.
SK Yes. Law was quite badly paid, although after my traineeship, it jumped quite significantly. I just kind of missed that jump.
JC You were in the wrong generation!
SK I can't really complain! Overall I am doing not too bad!
JC Well that is all extremely interesting and particularly those reflections on just where we were in time in relation to things like student grants and finance and so on. Did you ever need any of the student support services. Student Health or Counselling? Bet you didn't. I was just interested.
SK Student Health I went to for the usual things.
JC You didn't test out the University's welfare network?
SK No, not really at all.
JC Nor Careers presumably, as you knew what you wanted to do.
SK No! I told you I was a fairly boring student! Not much happened.
JC That sounds to me as if a lot happened, but it was to do with you rather than the system. Did you feel that. When you graduated, did you feel that you had had a sort of growing up experience or did you just feel it was all routine?
SK No, I definitely matured from starting at 17. I came from a very small village, a very small community and moving from there to the city and living with a lot of people certainly changes your perspective on things. So I certainly grew up. I think I did more growing up after university. You are so sheltered to a large degree. You are getting a grant, you have your circle of friends. You have a support network there if you need it. I didn't particularly need it, but it was there. When you are out on your own, that's it.
JC That's you in the big bad world.
SK Yes. I think looking back now, I not sure if it was me particularly, but I was quite naïve. As I say I kind of lacked ambition, largely because I don't think I really knew what lies out there. For example, I always regretted that I didn't travel very much when I was at University. I am trying to make up for that now.
JC Or learn a foreign language and that sort of thing.
SK Yes. Students nowadays, I mean I talked to some of the younger girls that I work with, and they are all terribly brave and backpacked through the world. I didn't even consider that as an option. Even when I left University there was no consideration that I would go off and do something else for a year. It was that I got a job and started life. I think it is so different nowadays, students have more choice, but then they don't have the grants we had.
JC Did you ever contemplate a university other than Aberdeen?
SK No, I think I did put alternative choices on my application form, but my father went to Aberdeen University, it was the local university, it was only 50 miles from home. It was a good Law School, I had friends going there. There didn't seem to be much reason to go somewhere else.
JC Super Sarah, is there anything else you would like to put on the record that we don't happen to have covered?
SK No I don't think so. I had a thoroughly good time at university. I think Aberdeen was a very good university. I visited some of the others and I think Aberdeen is quite lucky. It has a beautiful campus, which I don't think any of the other universities compare to. A lot of people like St. Andrews and Edinburgh but I think Aberdeen is beautiful. It is a small town community and apart from the cold Aberdeen is a pretty good place to be.
JC And you are now making your living here in international company.
SK Yes.
JC Great. It has been lovely to talk to you. Thank you.
SK Okay, thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
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