| Description | Interview with Mr W. Nelson, former Finance Officer of Aberdeen University. Fourth interview recorded on 27 February 1985 at his flat in Aberdeen by Dorothy Johnson.
J To begin with the different personalities that you encountered in your years in the university: perhaps the obvious place to begin is with the Principals. Could we start perhaps with Principal Taylor?
N Yes. Before we make any comments on personalities, I would like to make the general point that this is my personal view, and personal views are always fallible, and some of the things I may say might be very much resented by those about whom I say them, but I shall try to be fair. Principal Taylor was a very fine man. He was deeply religious, but he was not narrowly so. He was one of the very earliest in the Northeast of Scotland to advocate and strenuously work for the ecumenical movement among the various Christian churches. He was an extremely upright and honourable man, but like so many upright and honourable men, I think there wee occasions when he would be taken for a ride by men who were less so: for the very good reason that everybody judges everybody else by himself, and it would never have occurred to Principal Taylor that anyone with whom he was dealing was not as honourable as he was, as it was possible for the - shall we say - somewhat sharper people to take Principal Taylor for a ride. That is not in any way intended as derogatory towards him but rather derogatory towards those who took him for a ride. He as a very fine character, who in fact died prematurely while still in office.
J When you say that people could take him for a ride, can you give an instance of the sort of occasion you are referring to?
N I'd rather not try, because Principal Taylor was appointed just after I came in 1948 - all that's a long time ago and it wouldn't be right to try to remember individual instances. But I can remember the general impression that was given, not in any way that Principal Taylor was a weak man but it was possible to put things across that with a less honourable man it wouldn't have been possible to do.
J In these days with the kind of crises that seem to regularly face the university, one is very ware that people like Principals must be forward-looking and have an idea of how they see the University developing in the immediate and more distant future. Would you have been aware of how Principal Taylor saw Aberdeen University developing into the 'fifties and 'sixties?
N Not really. I can't remember the date of Principal Taylor's premature death, but his period of office as Principal was, if I remember correctly, before any question of expansion arose. That there would be a gradual expansion as the world returned to normal after World War II was accepted but any great expansion to the sort of numbers that were put forward by the Government at a later stage - that all happened later.
J Thinking of Principal Wright by contrast, did you form any impression that he had a particular plan in mind for the development of Aberdeen University?
J He, as far as I can remember, - and you must remember that in all these things you are asking me throw my mind back many years - he would have been, and was, in favour of Aberdeen University's expansion. I don't know whether this is the right place, when talking about Principal Wright, to be talking about university expansion in general? [Affirmation, J] The numbers, again I keep on having to repeat that I have been out of the university for ten years now and I am out of date, but I think it is round 6,000 students now. There was a proposal to have Aberdeen as the Scottish expansion university, not the much larger Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, but Aberdeen. And it was 12,500 I believe was the figure that was put forward by the Government through the UGC, and the UGC indicated to Aberdeen University that it would be quite in order if staff were engaged what was then 'now' instead of later when the increased number of students arrive. Aberdeen did that, then the Government policy was altered and the 12,500 students vanished into thin air and Aberdeen was left with a very high proportion of staff to students as a result of having obeyed the indications given by the UGC. There was a lot of soreness within Aberdeen University because of the position that it had been put into through having played the game according to the rules indicated to the University at the time.
J Were you already aware of this, the fact that the plan would never really come to fruition when you were still at the University?
N The expansion to that kind of size certainly happened long before I left.
J The fact that the full expansion did not happen, were you aware that that was going to be the case?
N Yes. The Government's policy had been changed by then.
J Does that mean that perhaps the crisis that we have met over the last few years was anticipated by people like yourself, who were aware of the discrepancy between the high staff numbers and the comparatively low student numbers in Aberdeen?
N Well, everybody knew it. When I say 'everybody', all the Court members, for example, they all knew that Aberdeen had been put in this most unfair position.
J Were any steps taken to try to cope with it?
N It is almost impossible, as you know, to dismiss anybody in a university unless there is gross misbehaviour; staff were not cut back. Aberdeen continued to carry a high proportion of staff to student numbers, and therefore when we came to the contraction, when the Government grants were cut, Aberdeen was very unfavourably placed.
J But there was no effort earlier than that to argue for more natural wastage, for freezing of posts, for reduction in that sort of way?
N It's so painful a procedure that it was never adopted. Aberdeen just carried on with this high proportion of staff to students.
J And do you think that any people were really worried that the Government sooner or later was going to force some rationalisation on the University?
N Worried but not sufficiently worried to d anything about it. It was one of these clouds on the horizon that hadn't yet got sufficiently big to cover the whole sky.
J Returning to Principal Wright, you had of course known him earlier through Court business.
N I had known him first for many years as Professor of Mathematics and he was an exceptionally clever man. His standing nationally as a mathematician was extremely high, and because of his very great mathematical ability he was on all kinds of government commissions and bodies of that sort where the higher mathematics was essential. He was appointed a Professor at the extraordinary age of 22, which was a national record and which has now been equalled by his own son who has also been appointed a Professor at the age of 22, so it seems to run in the family.
J When you first met him in his new role as Principal, did he conform fairly well t what you had expected from his behaviour as Professor of Mathematics and as a member of Court, or was there any change in the way he conducted business as Principal?
N Well, it was really the same as when he had been on the Court as a Senatus representative, where - I don't think it would be right to say he was troublesome, but certainly he was active, and he was forever bringing up things when he was sitting as Professor that needed airing, and he had already shown that he was stiff and did not enjoy having his views countered.
J Was he an ambitious man?
N I'd say, very. When I say that, he was not improperly ambitious, but he most certainly wanted to make his mark on the university world as a whole and in particular on Aberdeen University.
J He was active politically in the University?
N I think he always was, before he was a Principal.
J Would you like to make any further comment about him as Principal?
N Well, he wasn't one man; he was two. In a meeting, if everything went as he wished it to go, he was perfectly pleasant; if a decision was taken by a meeting - as I have said, there were never any votes, just the sense of the meeting - that was contrary to Principal Wright's views, he didn't like that one little bit, and he could be extremely disagreeable, publicly. On the other hand, after having been like that in a meeting, if one then saw him in his room he was a totally different man, affable, telling funny stories, joking, smiling, and you couldn't believe that this was the same man who had been in the Chair at the meeting that had just finished.
J As Principal, was he quite impartial about the different areas of university development? He came from the Mathematics Department - was there ever any suggestion that certain areas would be favoured by him over others?
N Well, I think I would rather answer that the other way round. I can remember that he felt that the Medical Faculty had - I won't say 'got away with murder' But the Medical men are very dependent on acquiring outside funds for their research and very often they had to acquire very large sums of outside money. This tends to make them good at business and some of the less politically active Faculties, for example the Arts Faculty in money matters isn't particularly active, though many of the Arts Professors are extremely shrewd, but as a Faculty as a whole it isn't thrusting financially. The Medical Faculty was, very. And Principal Wright certainly had the view that the Medical Faculty had got away with murder in the past, and, as I remember it, he tended to clamp down on the Medical Faculty as he saw it in order to restore the right balance between Faculties. Another thing that ought to be mentioned over the question of the Medical Faculty, is that they could always claim that at the end of the line there was a patient, and there was this 'social' benefit that they could always claim to their advantage if they were competing for limited funds with other Faculties.
J Moving from the Principals, I think perhaps to the University Office. Could we look at the various Secretaries that you worked with? You have already told us a few stories about, in particular, Colonel Butchart and Mr Angus, but perhaps we could look at them one after the other and in rather more detail. Colonel Butchart was in office when you arrived, is that correct?
N Yes. I think that it is quite right to call him Colonel Butchart because he was very much like an old Victorian Army Colonel - an absolute fire-eater - and he ran the University Office as though it was a body of troops on parade, and he was either the Colonel or the Sergeant-Major roaring his head off at them. He very largely ran the University himself. He had no filing system whatsoever. He sat at his office desk, and on the floor, in a semi-circle behind him, there were papers up to about this height and he knew where every paper was. When any subject came up he just dived into this semi-circle and produced the necessary papers. But that was the University filing system; there was no filing office, there was no staff in charge of filing, you couldn't ring up the filing room and call for a file, you had to ask Colonel Butchart if he could produce these papers, and he always could, but it was a highly individual system, nobody else could possibly have worked it. But the filing system in his day was really typical of him. He was also an extremely sharp man. He came from a lawyer background - he was one of the firm of Butchart and Rennet (who I think are now taken over by someone else, I'm not sure) - and there are lawyers and lawyers. Some who would never dream of sailing close to the wind, others who would sail as close to it as they could. Colonel Butchart tended to belong to the second category, so much so that in the end of the day he got himself into really hot water with the UGC by adding, without asking their permission, an extra floor to the new Chemistry Building; which as the work had been done, there was the extra floor, it had to be paid for and the only people who could pay for it were the UGC by producing x hundred thousand pounds more than they believed; and Colonel Butchart was summoned up to London and when he came back he was quite quiet.
J With his legal background, did he get involved himself in convincing at the University?
N Yes. He did a lot of buying and selling of property largely farms. When I came to the University first, there was a very large body of farming property owned by they university. We have now, broadly speaking, sold them off.
J Was that very much something that Colonel Butchart favoured?
N Yes. He believed that you couldn't go wrong if you put your money into land.
J But what he did was sell it.
N It wasn't sold in his day. The Court policy, when Dr Butchart retired, in the buying of farms changed.
J So while he was till Secretary the University was buying farms.
N Yes. Broadly, there was quite a lot of farm-buying while he was Secretary and that ceased when he retired - and indeed was reversed and the farms were sold off. And now, of course, the University has sold off its own Tillycorthie.
J This aspect of colonel Butchart, this sailing close to the wind, are there any other stories of developments in the University which would illustrate that?
N As I have said, such stories are not fair because those about whom they are told are not here to deny them. But there was one story shortly before Colonel Butchart retired, that he arranged for the purchase of a house in Old Aberdeen at a price that astonished everyone because it was so high, and no one cold understand why Colonel Butchart had agreed to buy this particular house at that high price. And then people started grinning and they said, 'Ah yes, of course, Colonel Butchart is retiring next year and he owns his own house in Old Aberdeen and he has already announced tat he is going to move, and the obvious body to buy this house is the University; and when he offers his house to the University, just you watch, he'll quote this other house he ahs just bought as justifying the high price he will ask for his own house'. And dammit, he did.
J Extraordinary, when he retired, was that the end of Colonel Butchart? Did he ever come back?
N No, it was the end. He bought another house in King Street, and while he was clearly still interested in university affairs, he did not intrude.
J Socially, was the University Office a fairly close-knit body at that stage? Would you and your staff have mixed with Colonel Butchart socially?
N Colonel Butchart was a great boy at a party. He was very good. Of course he dominated the part and nobody else could get a word or a shout in edgeways. He would probably end up the evening dancing the sword dance on one of those table, he was the life and soul of any party. But those were the days when socialising didn't really happen at the University Office, it might have in departments but that is something that I just don't know. No, in his day there really wasn't any socialising.
J There wasn't a big Christmas party of something like that?
N No. All that came in later.
J So these parties that you refer to, and when he was the life and soul of events, would these have been private parties?
N Oh, probably parties given by professors or something like that - when all the boys got tight.
J From all accounts the change with Mr Angus must have been quite noticeable.
N Quite noticeable. Dramatic - traumatic, if you like - because Mr Angus was a totally different character, he was nothing like that whatsoever. Outwardly, he was forbidding - he had the misfortune not to have a very handsome face -that scared people off, to begin with. And he was very gruff, and could terrify people just by the way he glared at them, and if they rang him up he would always say the same thing: [Snaps] 'ANGUS' - and that put most people off before they got a word out. But he was a tremendous worker, he was totally devoted to the University, he never left the Office at night without a great heap of papers under his arm, which he brought in the next day having gone through them - he didn't bring them back not having looked at them as so often happens. Unfortunately, he did try in many ways to do other people's jobs for them, and in the early years of Mr Angus's Secretary-ship he and I waged a constant war which of course he could always win because he was senior - I had to do as I was told. He wouldn't leave me alone to get on with my job and, if necessary, he would come in and put things right if I had made a mess, but he never gave me a change to make a mess, he would do my job for me and this because so acute that in the end I had, in effect, to threaten the boss. I told him that if he didn't stop doing my job for me, I would complain about him to the University Court. I knew perfectly well that the Court would support Mr Angus because he was their senior official and the one who would get his knuckles rapped by the Court would be me, but I didn't mind that because the Court would also know that here was Mr Angus publicly unable to control his own staff, and I knew that and he knew it, so after that he left me alone.
J Was this quite early in his career as Secretary?
N About midway through, I suppose. Oh, in the end we got on very well, I think we came to understand each other. One rather surprising thing about Mr Angus was that he was an excellent cook, particularly with cakes. He was a real dab at making sponge cakes, his sponge cakes never came out of the oven flat, and while he didn't go so far as to wear a chef's tall white hat, he did put on an apron; and when I saw him fishing his cakes out of the oven the whole thing struck me, what with one thing and another, as more than a little odd.
J I can imagine. How on earth did you manage to see this? Were you on visiting terms with the Angus family?
N By the end, yes. As I say, we had our rows early on and I think we tended, even though of course he was senior and I had to do what I was told, we tried to keep off each other's toes, I think by the end.
J When you refer to this domestic incident, was this when you were living in Old Aberdeen, would he have been a neighbour of yours?
N No. The Angus' asked my wife and myself round for a meal a certain amount.
J And he would do the cooking?
N Yes - in his apron.
J Can you think if any particular way in which his work as Secretary contrasted with Colonel Butchart? For instance, you have mentioned the filing system, or the lack of it, under the Butchart regime - did this suddenly change with Angus?
N Oh, yes. All that was put on what you might call a proper basis. It was only a man with the character and the extreme brainpower of Colonel Butchart who could have run his system.
J What was Angus's background? Was he, too, a lawyer?
N No, he was what you might call a professional Secretary of universities. He came, I think, either from Durham or Newcastle University where he may have been Secretary or Assistant Secretary, I am not sure; but he was a rather surprise appointment. Of the half dozen on the shortlist he had been put down as the least likely, but in fact he got it. There is one thing that I don't think anyone knew about Angus, that in World War II he got blown up and after that he always suffered from ill health, and he suffered from constant pain. His hands started folding up and he couldn't open his finger, he was like this [demonstrates]. All that background tended to make him irritable and people didn't know that it was pain as much as anything else that was causing him to be so brusque.
J I realise that this question is rather off perhaps your own department, but I am just curious about how the Secretary's office functioned. If you wanted to contact Angus about something, would you ring him and get him directly or was he protected by some sort of personal assistant or secretary?
N I don't know whether he had any system on direct approach. He always had a secretary who sat in his outer room, but I tried as far as I could - and Angus always made himself very accessible, if you wanted to see him you could - I tried to go through and talk to him about something rather than ring him up, but those who didn't know him were definitely scared stiff.
J You have referred to his capacity for work. Was it your impression that he expected the same of his junior staff?
N I think that's a human failing, that people do judge others by themselves and if you're a hard worker you can't see any reason why the others shouldn't be too.
J Do you think that the university administration would have grown more had Anus worked you less hard, had he asked for more staff?
N I don't know that he really took a great interest in the numbers in the various sections within the Office. It was really for the person who was in charge of that section to make his own requests for additional staff if he wanted them. My tendency, on the Finance side, was the reverse: I tried to keep my numbers down and to spread the financial work out into departments and bring the departments in on the financial side, partly for their financial education and partly for contact. So many university offices are completely isolated from the academics.
J Moving from Angus, on to Mr Skinner - this must again have been something of an abrupt change?
N It was. Mr Skinner is a most genial man, affability itself - anyone less like either Colonel Butchart or Mr Angus you can't imagine, in fact all three Secretaries were totally different. His background was Civil Service - he was, if I remember rightly, in charge of the Scottish prisons before he came to the University. I can remember, on one occasion, I was trying to get an answer out of Mr Skinner about something and he started laughing, and he said, Ah, well, there's something to be said for having an idle man as Secretary, isn't there?' What could I say? I couldn't say 'yes' and I couldn't say 'no', so I kept silent. He laughed even more and said, 'Aha, no comment'.
J Was this something that he rather prided himself on, the air of not being terribly busy?
N He was extraordinarily competent. I can't remember his botching any single bit of business he had to handle, but he never went out looking for work, he waited for the work to come to him; so that, because that was how he liked to handle things, it probably gave an impression of not working as hard as his predecessor. He was an extraordinarily fast reader. If I gave him a draft that I would like him to look at, and I had one copy and he had the other, even though I had written this draft and knew what was in it, he had read his copy long before I had read mine. Some people, I think, have the gift of reading a paper just by looking down the middle of the line and they take in what is at the sides.
J Did you feel that things were better managed under his sort of leadership than with Angus's very close…?
N Unfortunately, both Colonel Butchart and Mr Angus antagonise people, and abrasiveness, while it may be necessary sometimes, can slow down the works. If you have someone like Mr Skinner, there's not perhaps abrasiveness, but the wheels may slow down simply because they are not being pushed hard enough. It's a very fine balance to try to assess. One thing that I ought to say is that all three men were highly competent.
J Perhaps we could consider some of the people that you worked with in the University Office. Within your own section, for instance - Mr Charles.
N The top people in the Finance Section were really my Deputy, Mr Hetherington, who was in a way separated from the main office, but only in a way, in that he was fairly and squarely in charge of all Halls of Residence and Catering - everything to do with the living and eating of students - and this was a kind of sub-section that [Mr Hetherington had] he looked after, and he did not take part in the general running of the Finance Section. He had nothing to do with salaries, the accounting, apart from such accounting as was called for the Halls of Residence and the catering. It was particularly necessary that someone should be in charge of those two activities because they are open taps, money can just flow out with enormous losses on running Halls of Residence and catering. Mr Hetherington fortunately was also qualified, as well as being a chartered accountant, which was of course very useful in running the costing of the halls and catering. But within the main body of the Finance Section the senior person was Mr Gerald Bremner, who was diligent, methodical and thorough, and you couldn't have a better person in charge of the general office than he was. The accounting which was in my day done not on computers but on accounting machines - national cash register machines - because I didn't think that computers were then at the stage that made it suitable for finance work to be put on the computers, although they are now: Mr Charles was in charge of these machines and of the actual writing up of the books. He was another rather odd character. He had a furious temper; he roared and shouted, you could hear him through the granite walls bellowing his head off, and often I picked up the internal phone and got on to him and said 'Will you be quiet!' But on the other hand he was extremely kind and if any of the junior girls were getting into a tangle with their work, he would just take his coat off and put it all straight for them. He was also well-balanced with Mr Bremner because while Mr Bremner was method and accuracy themselves, Mr Charles was speed and slapdash themselves; and while I always left the preparation of the draft University Accounts to both of them, I knew that when they came to me in draft I would have to watch out for two things: Mr Bremner's overcautious and Mr Charles's slapdashness. And I was able to control all this, I think effectively, by not checking the University's Annual Accounts at all - I didn't check that the total charged up for salaries was correct, I simply worked on the differences from the previous year, the pluses and minuses. They had to show me what the plus or minus was made up of, and the excessive caution on the one side and the slapdashness on the other very often showed up by their being wrong. So I think my method of working with the accounts was quite effective.
J Is there any other member of your department who deserves mention?
N How far down do you take it? No, I think not, though there were many other members of the University Office who would be worth mentioning.
J Perhaps we could turn to some of them. You have mentioned already in various contexts, in connection with the various building, Mr Kelman.
N Now, Mr Kelman and I were buddies because among the senior people in the Office we were the only two who were very strictly not academics. I was a chartered accountant, he was a chartered surveyor - in other words, we were both members of a professional body and to both of us the University was the oddest possible place in the world. Nothing else exists in the world like a university. You had to know how it worked and you had to know how to get on with people. He and I always regarded ourselves as the two 'outsiders' because we were the two non-academics, we had never been in a university until we took up our posts, we had never seen a university. I knew so little about how a university functioned that when I was first considering whether to apply for the financial post, I had thought, 'Oh no, it's no good, I don't know any Latin'. I knew nothing whatsoever about a university and how it functioned, nothing. And Mr Kelman had been Factor at Haddo House, he had a great deal of practical farming and land and building experience, but had had nothing to do with universities. He and I quarrelled like mad because I always thought it was grossly unfair that the advantage was all on his side in the Principal Wright was Convenor of the Edilis Committee, and therefore Mr Kelman had the Principal's ear; and therefore in any discussion which was how much money did the Edilis get, where I was suggesting a lower figure than Mr Kelman wanted, he could go to the Principal and get this higher figure, and I didn't like this at all; and I used to tell him that Edilis was greedy and he used to tell that Finance was stingy. But that didn't alter our friendly relationship.
J When you say you think the Edilis was 'greedy', do you think they got involved in things that they shouldn't have got involved in?
N No, the thing that used to nark me was that after I had spent a lot of thought and a certain amount of energy in various economies so that quite a nice, comfortable little annual surplus was made, it was promptly all, on the Principal's recommendation, allotted for the future requirements of the Edilis committee - this used to make me mad.
J What would you have preferred - that it simply grew, or that it went on something else?
N This is an important point: it is not the function of the university to save money, its function is to spend every penny it has got; it has got to spend right up to its available income, subject of course to putting away reserve as may be required, looking ahead to future possibilities. I would have wanted to have put the surplus away to build up various reserves, I would not wanted it to go as it did, but they got it down to the Edilis Committee.
J And most of these projects were for the major building…?
N On the Edilis side? Well, they needn't have been, because the UGC gave very generous and very often 100% grants for building work, and I think Mr Kelman was an extremely shrewd and capable man and he was perfectly well able to handle that sort of financing himself.
J So the money that was going to Edilis from University funds, was that going to buy up properties in Old Aberdeen … this sort of thing?
N Yes.
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J You were telling me on the last side of the tape about the funds that were used by Edilis for various projects, and I think mentioned houses that had been purchased.
N There is one point that is particularly important for Aberdeen University, that is its ownership of house property. I used to know the number but it's several hundred houses are owned, mainly located in Old Aberdeen. While I know that a certain amount of property has been sold recently, that is for financial stringency reasons and not general policy. But by and large, Old Aberdeen is owned by the University. This has a great advantage in that it enables the University to provide houses for many of its new staff and it also intentionally keeps a contact with the general public because it has always been a matter of University policy that Old Aberdeen should be a mixed community - it should not be as, for example, St Andrews so markedly is, a wholly university place. It has always been Aberdeen's policy to see that there are ordinary members of the general public who live in houses in Old Aberdeen. For the purchase of such property much of the extra funds that were allotted to the Edilis were devoted.
J The other members of the University Office whom we haven't mentioned yet - Mr George seems to have been an important man.
N Yes. Mr George had almost to a day the same length of service as I had. He had been there for six months before me. By common consent among Mr Kelman, Mr George and myself, Mr George was accepted as the senior - not because of being an academic when the other two weren't, but because he was dealing with students and all three of us kept very firmly before us that the purpose of a university was teaching and research, it wasn't putting up buildings or paying salaries or anything like that, these were merely two pieces of technical work. The senior of us was Mr George, because he dealt with students.
J When you say he dealt with students, could you perhaps tell me a little more about his function? He was described in the Calendar merely as Assistant Secretary.
N Assistant Secretary (Academic), I think.
J That comes in later. Did he clerk for Senatus as you did for Court?
N That's right. Within the Office there were really three sections: Senatus, Edilis and Finance.
J I can see that in clerking for Senatus he certainly had contact with members of staff. How would he have had contact with the student body? Directly?
N [Pause] Directly and indirectly. Everything to do with the students and everything to do with the Faculties passed through Mr George's hands. He controlled all admissions to the University, he dealt with everything on graduations, he was definitely in charge of the Graduation Ceremony, and he took students through from first matriculation to graduation.
J So he would have been a familiar figure to the students?
N Oh, yes. Well, one has to hesitate before one says that, because I don't think really that the students are aware of the University Office at all.
J Mr George, in so far as I have seen his name on papers and so on, remains a fairly cloudy figure. Can you tell me anything about his personality, how this was reflected in his work in the University Office? Was he an easy man to work with?
N Oh, very. George and I never had a cross word all the time we were there. But just as Mr Skinner didn't go looking for work - he waited for it to arrive on his desk - Mr George more or less had the same policy. He also had a highly competent secretary.
J Is this significant?
N Mr George is unfortunately now dead, but so far as I could make out - I may have missed something - he never did a stroke of work in all the thirty years I was there. As I say, he had a very competent secretary.
J How did he react to the changes in Secretary? Would you have known that? For instance, you refer to Angus and yourself and Angus's dislike for delegation - did he try the same sort of thing with Mr George?
N I don't know, because the Senatus side, unlike the other two, was very much - out on a limb isn't the right expression because the Senatus side is what the University is all about - but it wasn't really connected in working arrangements in the dame way as Edilis and Finance were, which were very much interlocked because it was Edilis that was spending the money. I think that Mr George was a very amiable, affable man and he got on with everybody.
J Would he have been in attendance often at Court meetings?
N Never. Just as I was never at a Senatus or a Faculty meeting.
J But if a matter which was being sent to Court from Senatus had to be spoken to, the Senatus representatives on Court…
N Would speak to it, yes. This was one of their functions. There was a laid down procedure in all business arriving at the Court where bodies lower than the Court had to make formal recommendations and communications which normally went through just on the nod because everybody, or a sufficient number of the Court members, had been at the other meetings and knew what it was all bout, and could speak to anything where any query was raised. This meant a lot of very difficult timing. If you had a committee meeting just a few days before a Court, there was a great rush in getting your communications prepared for the Court meeting - but it could be done.
J Other members of the University Office who come to mind - perhaps Mr Greig, in the Registry?
N He was very much a power in the land because it was to him that the students really went on the first place: when they matriculated, when they entered the University for the first time, it was to Mr Greig's Registry that they went, and it was to Mr Greig that they paid their fees. Mr Greig then handed the money over to the Finance for banking and all the rest of it. But it was actually to Mr Greig… probably I should think, Mr Greig was the first contact that the average new student made in the University.
J When you say 'Mr Greig' do you mean Mr Greig's office?
N Yes. Mr Greig himself, rather like Mr Angus he frightened a lot of people, but he was always up at this front desk and he was always prepared to talk to any student, so I think it is fair enough to say that t Mr Greig personally was the first contact that the average student made in the University.
J His responsibilities were limited to Registry concerns?
N That is right, and that covered the registration of the fees, taking down the details and so on. One must remember that students are not like pupils at a school, they are part of a university, they are as much part of the university as the Principal is. They become part of the university when they first matriculate.
J One of the things that has puzzled me in handling student records, particularly the more recent ones, is the continued distinction between Registry and data processing. In connection with Mr Greig, would you have any comment to make about that?
N I don't quite know what your difficulty point is.
J In that data processing seems to handle the same sort of information, it seems almost as if certain aspects of Registry are duplication of the work that goes on in data processing.
N When you say 'data processing', do you mean work on the computer connected with students?
J Yes.
N Well, this touches on a central trouble with computers, which needs very careful thinking out to make sure that two things don't happen: that the people in charge of the computers don't become over ambitious and try to bring on to their computer things that other people are already doing and can be done perfectly satisfactorily by manual or other machine methods; and also the tendency for computers to overgrow, they are a bit like these monster plants that you see in some of these horror films that grow to about 100 feet high and start eating al the people. Computes are insatiable. That is not to say that they are not highly valuable, but the dog has certainly to be kept in its kennel.
J Was there any suggestion when the Data Processing Centre was established that the recording of student registration and student activity should be a part of its remit?
N I wouldn't like to try to answer that question, because it didn't come on to my side - that was a student matter which wouldn't have come my way at all.
J Mr Graham of course is the officer who was in charge, form the start, in data processing. Have you any comment to make about working relations with him?
N Well, put it this way, if I had been on the Selection Committee I think I would have appointed another candidate.
J Would you like to elaborate on that at all, or would you prefer not to?
N I'm expressing personal views and those about whom I express them aren't here to contradict them, but I didn't think Mr Graham was competent - it's as simple as that.
J Was any of your own reluctance to see the introduction of computers into your own department connected with this impression?
N Partly, but basically it was not anything to do with Mr Graham or anybody else, any other member of staff, I wasn't satisfied that computers at that stage were small enough to stand on your own desk so that you could have control over your own affairs. Computers were then at the stage where there was one great centralised computer and everything had to be put on to it at perhaps 3 in the morning.
J One name I can think of at least remains - Mr Simon, the Legal Officer.
N Mr Simon is a sad case. He ended up in court and he has been struck off, he is no longer a solicitor, there was embezzlement of funds, and he is of course not now a member of the University staff. Another legally qualified man has been appointed in his place. He did have ill health, he had a bad leg, but it's not an exaggeration to say that he didn't attend to his business at all.
J Did you personally experience difficulties because of this?
N Considerable difficulties, because legal answers were required. I remember over some question, the detail of which I forget now, on feu duties, was the only occasion in my working life that I have ever gone to by boss and complained formally about another member of staff, but I had to on this occasion because I couldn't get any answer out of Mr Simon, who was only coming in about two days a week.
J What was the response to your complaint?
N Nothing.
J And the situation continued? Did this surprise you?
N No. Because the Secretary concerned was Mr Skinner, who never forced matters. Whether he spoke to Mr Simon I don't know, but there was no change.
J Did the University at large know that Mr Simon was coming in as little as perhaps two days a week?
N No, this was known round the Office because the Office was having to deal with him, but the academics wouldn't have known there was no reason why they should know.
J But his work somehow continued to be done?
N He had a succession of very competent secretaries who covered for him.
J This seems to be a theme that has come up in a number of different areas - the 'competent secretary', the clerical backup. Is this something that you would think was characteristic of university administration? Was it any different from your experience in business elsewhere, do you think it is just a fact of life?
N Oh, in business elsewhere if you were incompetent you were fired or you went bankrupt, it's quite simple. If you weren't competent you couldn't be carried, you just went BANG, you were finished. But I think in universities - well, not universities, but say the Civil Service would be the same (I know one of my daughters who has had to work with Civil Servants finds exactly the same thing) and even in national newspapers, I know of cases where men who ought to be fired on a question of competence are simply moved sideways and a job is made for them. I think it goes on in all organisations, except those that are strict business where you have got to make a profit and if you don't make a profit you are bust. The only standard there is simply that of competence. If you are not dependent on making a profit there is this element of a certain proportion of people, instead of being sacked, they are carried.
J Is this something that over the years you became tolerant towards, or would you have wished for more stern disciplinary measures against…?
N The latter.
J Do you think that your colleagues would have felt the same, that they too would have preferred that incompetent colleagues were dismissed, or was there a feeling…?
N Well, I came from business outside and if you weren't competent or if you didn't do your job for one reason or another - you took t drink or whatever - you got the push. That was not the outlook in the University which was to cover if there was anyone who wasn't delivering the goods. This went among the academics too. I can remember the Consultant in Dentistry at Foresterhill who was a University appointment too: he took t drink, he was just a flat alcoholic and he died of drink but up at Foresterhill they covered for him for years. He never came in because he was blotto. But someone else did the job for him and nobody said anything.
J Within your own department did you ever have to discipline or did you ever try to dismiss any junior member of staff?
N Yes. For theft.
J Well, that's a clear-cut case, there would be not querying about that.
N No.
J Did you ever have a feeling that some of this was connected to the size of the establishment? Sometimes when I hear people talking about Aberdeen as if it was in the 'thirties and 'forties, they imply that there was a more sort of 'family' atmosphere, that everybody knew everybody.
N Oh, yes certainly. And this is one of the things where I think there has been a loss in moving the Administrative Building to Old Aberdeen. Certainly there ahs been a gain in being among a larger body of academics in Old Aberdeen that at Marischal, though you mustn't forget that Marischal had got many academic departments there - the administration was just restricted to part of the granite front, all the back courtyard was academic department. [Loses thread] The smaller any organisation is, the easier it is to be on family terms, which has disadvantages - you may quarrel the more, as families always do.
J Yes, and perhaps cover for your colleagues.
N I am inclined to think that covering happens as you get lager, because if it's large you can afford to cover for someone, you have got more people who can do it. In a small organisation each individual stands out more.
J There is one other aspect which again I have heard mentioned in connection with Aberdeen, and that is that there were some occasions when jobs were found for people, not quite 'jobs for the boys' but perhaps somebody came back after the War or there was somebody who was a graduate and was known to members of staff, perhaps even related, and, without any sort of corruption being involved, they were appointed and perhaps without fair competition. Is this something that you would recognise at all or would have any experience of?
N Well, I've thought sometimes that what I think is known as 'going through the motions' took place on appointments in hat there was one candidate who was outstanding or who had connections of the kind you have mentioned and where the unspoken intention was to appoint that person who, as I say, might be outstanding and the best candidate, but to do that without advertising and taking applications from others would look too much like favouritism; so the motions were gone though and the other applications were put to all the work and trouble and also had their hopes raised to some extent when, in fact, it was already booked for somebody. I don't say this was widespread but there was a certain amount of it.
J Are you thinking of administrative jobs or academic ones?
N Both really. Let us take for example, Professor GM Burnett, Professor of Chemistry, who was an outstanding chemist: he was an applicant for the Chair of Chemistry in Aberdeen, and it was quite clear to anyone who had got any eyes in his head at all that Burnett was the man, but it would have been wholly improper to have appointed Professor Burnett to the Chair without advertising the post, without taking in applications from other possible applicants, and in fact for that Chair, if I remember rightly, there was a particularly good man applied from Canada who very nearly upset the intention to appoint Professor Burnett, but in the end it didn't. But the fact that the intention to appoint Professor Burnett was so nearly upset by an unexpected applicant from Canada really proves, I think, that there were no misdemeanours going on. But, as I say, there was this element that very often you knew jolly well in advance who the job would go to.
J Speaking of Professor Burnett brings me to the next group of people I was going to ask you about: people like Professor Burnett whom you might have known through their service as Senatus members on Court. In that particular context, would you comment on Professor Burnett?
N I knew Professor Burnett very well, from the working point of view, because there's a subcommittee of the Finance Committee, the Equipment and Materials Subcommittee, which allots grants to the departments for buying equipment and for buying materials. And Professor Burnett was its Convenor; and it is one of the subcommittees that in fact (not in theory but in fact) is a one-man committee, because there is so much work, there is so much detail that you have to know, there are so few people who are really competent to judge whether the Department of Biochemistry needs an electron microscope, or whatever, that there are very few people who can be found to act as a Convenor of that committee. Professor Burnett, who was very knowledgeable, was its Convenor and therefore I worked with him very closely, perhaps as closely as with anybody else.
J That must have been a job in which the Convenor would have to be quite impartial about his own department's needs. Was this something that he found easy?
N We're all human. We're all aware of our own needs and perhaps we recognise them sometimes.
J In Court itself was he an active member?
N Yes. Usually the Court and the Finance Committee, which of course, is the same body sitting, in that awful jargon expression, 'with different hats on' (though not now, this has been changed, the Finance Committee and the Court do not have the same membership, but in my day they did) - on any of these bodies there are always three or four people who count most. We have talked bout some of them already: - Dr JA Ross, Dr JN Milne, Professor Burnett, Professor Campbell. There's a small body of people who, though all members of the Court are equals and the Principal, on the Court, is only the first among equals (the old joke ahs it, some people are more equal than others) there's always a small group who matter most and if you are lucky forgetting the work through, they see eye to eye. If they happened to fall into differences, then the meeting can go on till six or seven at night.
J Do you think that in general the Senatus representatives to Court filled their responsibilities as well?
N They did. They did not speak or vote as a group. Certainly they were the best informed on the mate that had come in as communications from Senatus which, of course, included the recommendations to the Senatus from the various Faculties. But they didn't act as a body, they didn't act as a clique or anything like that, they simply acted as well-informed individuals on academic matters.
J Perhaps we cold consider one or two of the others. Professor Witte?
N Yes, he was a Senatus assessor to the Court for many years. I can't remember how often the Senatus assessors are appointed - is it once every three years, or four? Let's say three. But there is a limit to the number of times you can do a three. Let's say Professor Witte was on the court for six years. He was a very good Court member because - he was Professor of German - and he never talked nonsense, which is quite unusual, most people every now and again will talk rubbish: usually if it is a subject they are interested in and they have a reason for thinking up every argument they can lay their minds to. I never heard him talk nonsense.
J Was he somebody who would have talked with an informed background about things that didn't concern the Arts Faculty? Would he have been equally valuable in other areas?
N People generally recognised that they could only really speak for a section of activity. If they were an Arts Professor they wouldn't normally talk on Medical matter or a Science matter. The Professors who were on the Court and who came from that particular background were listened to and not disagreed with unless they were obviously out.
J Professor Witte - would you feel that when he spoke he was one that was listened to ad had influence?
N Yes.
J Would you say the same for Professor Watt - WS Watt?
N Well, let's say Professor Watt went up and down with Latin. When Latin was compulsory he was quite a formidable figure; when it became optional he became less so.
J Was this evident on Court?
N Yes.
J In what way?
N Well, everyone knew that Latin was no longer compulsory.
J Was he not often speaking really for Arts? Was it as sectionalised as that, the interest of the individual members?
N You can't be hard and fast. By and large, people did speak and speak sensibly and knowledgeably about the part of academic activity that they knew bout, and it would only be if they were most exceptionally going off the rails that anyone not in that Faculty would chip in with a counter argument. You see, by and large, the University Court, unlike, shall we say, what was then the Town Council and is now the District Council that fights political wars as hard as they can - and this is the point where one has to give full marks to Colonel Butchart. Colonel Butchart would not tolerate cliques, and though he was only the University Secretary that didn't prevent him stamping on the most illustrious professor, nothing prevented Colonel Butchart from doing that sort of thing.
J Would he actually have said: 'This is a sectional interest you are putting forward.'
N Colonel Butchart would say anything, and as he terrified everybody, people didn't oppose him.
J To return to Professor Watt, was he a man of influence on Court?
N Well, yes and no. He tended to nullify what should have been his influence by sarcasm, which is a very dangerous thing to have done because it is the one thing that will make you an enemy. It's not forgiven. And he was very sarcastic. This of course reduced his influence, because influence depends on having friends.
J What about Professor O'Dell?
N He was Professor of Geography, and the thing that he was most pleased about was his more or less single-handed landing the acquisition of Tarradale House for the University as Nature Centre, not only Nature; it was the Napier family who owned Tarradale House, they were very noted soldiers and they had a very valuable library which, of course, you will know. This was really a one-man effort by Professor O'Dell.
J He had contacts with the family, did he?
N I don't know the inner personal side, but it was he who managed to interest the University in the acquisition of the Tarradale Estate.
J Was he generally a man of influence? I have heard his name mentioned in connection with other incidents.
N I think he was of influence in library circles.
J His name is also associated with the St Ninian's Treasure.
N That is right.
J Is this something that would at any stage have found its way before the Court, perhaps not in your time?
N Professor O'Dell died prematurely. He died while I was still at the University. Yes, I had forgotten about the St Ninian's.
J Was he an easy man to work with?
N Oh, yes, he was a nice chap - a bit like Professor Witte.
J Did you get the impression that most of these professors were friends?
N Well, it's the old family business - brothers and sisters.
J So they stuck together?
N Yes.
J What about Professor Jones, RV Jones? He was on Court too.
N A sad story. Professor RV Jones's future finished when World War II finished. He never trained on after that. His great days were during World War II when, of course, his career was absolutely outstanding, but his career thereafter didn't match it, and I think he knew it and I think he was a disappointed man. And, of course, just like Angus and his apron, Professor Jones was a great player of the mouth organ. He as a great boy at a party.
J But he doesn't remain in your mind as a particular influence on the Court?
N I think that he had an unhappy private life which we obviously don't want to go into, but in the end he believed in all sort of queer things - the Moonies, flowering [flying?] object, all slightly unscientific.
J Professor Cameron, of Greek, must have been there from the very early days.
N Yes. He died prematurely, too. It's surprising, as with film stars, how many university professors die of cancer, and I think that all the premature deaths we have talked bout have been from cancer. Professor Cameron was one of them. I liked Cameron because he was a great humorist, he always liked having jokes and he lightened the proceedings round the Court table sometimes.
J Despite the presence of Colonel Butchart?
N I didn't give the impression that colonel Butchart wasn't a humorist, he was, but it was a somewhat robust sort of humour that he went in for.
J What sort of humour did Professor Cameron go in for?
N His great lark was setting at their throats Doctors J Ross and JN Milne who were both highly inflammatory, just like a barrel of gunpowder into which you would drop a match and up it all went. He used to set these two at each other's throats, have them roaring down the table at each other - this was huge fun.
J What sort of things did they disagree about? Were they matters of principle or were they just personalities that couldn't get on?
N Oh, personalities. They got on fine, they each knew the other's worth, but that's no reason why you should agree with the devil.
J Did it ever impede work?
N No, it was rather refreshing really. I think everyone felt a bit better after a good row down the table.
J You mentioned Dr Ross before and his contribution. This is Dr Ross of Crombie Mills? I don't think you have said much about Dr Milne.
N They are both dead now, of course. Dr Milne was really a fiery character and I used to suffer from him personally a great deal. As always, people mellowed with passing years. It was all right by the end, but in the early years I used to cop it from Dr Milne continually. There was one occasion I remember, when I did think I had got my own back on him: I don't remember what the point was about, it was nothing and I hadn't done it anyway but never mind - he said, 'I wouldn't employ you as an office boy in my organisation' and I replied, 'As a matter of fact, Dr Milne, I wouldn't take the job'. He went absolutely white with rage, he couldn't say word, We ended by getting on fine. These tempestuous people seemed to have one characteristic in common - they don't mind a bit if you stand up to them, but if you lie down then they'll trample on you.
J Both these men, Dr Ross and Dr Milne, must have given a tremendous amount of time to university business.
N And time for which they were not paid a penny. They were both businessmen. Fr Ross ran Crombie Mills, Dr Milne ran the Central Press. And every minute that they spent on university business was financial loss from the point of view of their business. This applied to all the business men who took part in the university government - they all did it at the expense of their own pockets, which nobody else did. The professors who were Court members did Court work to some extent at the expense of their research (if you are sitting on a committee you can't be doing your research) so there is an equivalent loss, I suppose, but the most direct financial loss was borne by the business men and always borne with the greatest willingness. I never once heard any of them complain.
J What do you think their motivation was?
N They liked being associated with the University because it was something - and we must remember that we have both been in the University, so we are used to the University, we know what it is like, it is not odd; but to an outsider it is extraordinarily odd, and because it is odd it is all the more interesting, and it's most interesting of all to see that despite its oddness it still worked, somehow, the wheels do turn round, even though you have often got to push them rather hard.
J Do you think they were men who had a strong sense of the history and the traditions of the University?
N The answer to that is 'yes', but also of the Northeast. Both Dr Ross and Dr Milne were Northeasters, particularly Dr Ross who always, even in his old age, appeared to be a Northeast loon, sort of thing. He had made innumerable visits to the United States and they hadn't rubbed off….
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