| Description | Interview with Mrs Helen McLachlan recorded on the 5 September 1986 by Colin McLaren.
Transcript of Interview :
C Tell me why you came to Aberdeen University?
M I came because my father had come to live and work here
C Had you been at University before coming here?
M Yes I was one year in Glasgow University
C Now what was it like coming from Glasgow to Aberdeen
M Entirely different
C In what ways?
M Well I went to Glasgow, I didn't know a soul, it was big, it was sort of impersonal, and at the end of the year I, I'd only made a few friends, certainly I wasn't living in the city, I was travelling and when my father came to Aberdeen, I thought I would transfer, and I did. And the smallness of the University as it was then, and the general you know, the general University life to me was so much better.
C We'll explore that in a moment.
M Marvellous time!
C Just initially, where did you, what course did you follow and why did you choose it here?
M I had started to do arts in Glasgow so I carried on, my subjects were carried on.
C Was it a very similar set of subjects?
M No, it was very different.
C Can you remember the difference between them?
M The big difference was that I had to do maths which was my bugbear. I had failed lower maths, I had to decide whether I would stay in Glasgow or whether I would come to Aberdeen and do maths, which I was scared of. You know it was conjoint, maths - nat. phil. I had failed in those days, so I decided I would try it.
C And what happened in the end?
M Well I got my degree, the last Easter.
C And how did you manage with maths?
M I got a first.
C Who was teaching you do you remember?
M I can't remember.
C Which teachers stick out in your memory of the courses you took?
M Professor Black I think, we did History.
C Why is that?
M I can't tell you why, he made his history lessons exciting probably, but of course the lecturer in my day was Rex Knight.
C Tell me about Rex Knight?
M Well of course as you probably know it was a husband and wife team doing the psychology at that time and he was just so generally hypnotic I think you would say. He had probably one of the largest classes in the University at the time. Because psychology was a comparatively new degree subject I think, and you felt that he just looked at the class and knew whether they were all present or not, you felt the register was never needed, he would know and then he was fascinating.
C Can you describe his manner of teaching
M He was quite unprepossessive to look at, he was a short, stoutish little man, baldish, balding but I don't know he was just his personality came over I think.
C He would be teaching through lectures all the time not in tutorials so you never had a chance …?
M No, Mrs. Knight took a tutorial I went to.
C What was that like?
M She was very interesting, very good looking, very handsome, tall handsome lady and as I remember
C Had she by then established a reputation as something of a radical in her beliefs and her humanism?
M No I don't think so, I don't remember that. She was Rex Knight's wife and assistant in the department. In fact I think that was about all the department at that time.
C To what extent did Knight seem to be a representative of a new discipline, were you aware of this as part of the attraction perhaps?
M A comparatively new subject to take, no I don't think so. It was just a very popular class, nobody ever dreamt of missing it, you know and …
C How much then was this the subject and how much Knight?
M Oh, that's a difficult one. I think an awful lot of it was Knight, and the way he presented it, because it was comparatively early stages then.
C Do you think in some ways he stimulated people to go further in the subject. Did he build up a school in that way?
M Well I only did a one year you see then I departed from it. I was only in the University two years.
C So not something you felt yourself you wanted to take further?
M Well I thought it would be useful, I was going to teach, so I thought it would be useful.
C Who else impressed you or stimulated you?
M I had Professor Jack for English but he was a very old man at that time, it was just before his retiral, but there was something sort of professorish about him that was quite attractive.
C What do you mean by that?
M I don't know, he was just a character, I don't know. And then I had Professor Bickerstaff, when I did my second year of English but I don't really remember him. I think Professor Jack made much more of an impression although it was just my first year.
C Would you say, or to what extent would you say, that your feelings towards the professoriate were of awe or disinterest in the sense, they do seem to have been rather a little removed, don't they?
M Possibly in those days they were, just as teachers were removed from children.
C Did you have any dealings with them on an extracurricular basis, did you go to their houses?
M Actually you know, as far as I remember, yes I did. Also I had a friend whose father was one of the Professors, Rosemary Blackadder, her father. I visited their home.
C He was a professor of Engineering?
M That's right, and Grace Swainson's father was Professor of Music, and who else, I can't remember. I think, I can't remember. I do remember going to someone's house for a supper, it might have been Professor Black.
C What about the figures like the Principal, did they seem very remote?
M Oh now, he was very remote, yes.
C Did you, where did you live when you were a student?
M When I was a student here, I, well my father's manse was in Carlton Place.
C And you lived at home?
M Well that was why I came here.
C Yes, well now do you think this was in some ways, did this limit your social life as a student in any way?
M Not at all, I was able to bring people home.
C Did you ever wish you had been in lodgings and had the …?
M No, and I will tell you one very interesting person I did bring home. I think it was a Professor of Hebrew who wanted to get a student out of concentration camp, a student who was studying to be a rabbi. I can't remember exactly what happened but I got on, I volunteered to take him. I had been on holiday in Germany on, or maybe it was because it was my father was a minister in the town, but we got this fellow straight out of the concentration camp, his name was Fackenheim, Emile Fackenheim. I have a picture of him and I had to take Emile on the tram with me to the University and generally show him around. He attended some classes and of course was bright and picked up the language very quickly and he did eventually bring his parents over. They visited just in the nick of time as it were in 1939.
C Well that prompts a question that I was going to ask later, but I will ask it now. To what extent were you and then perhaps you can say something of your friends, aware of current political events at the time?
M Well this brought it home to me of course the fact that we got this fellow straight out of the concentration camp.
C Now when you say brought it home to you, that suggests perhaps you hadn't been as concerned?
M Well no I had been in Germany in 1938, no I was aware of it. I was fortunate my aunts took me on a trip to Germany in 1938 and looking back at the little diary that I kept then, although I was, sort of introduced to the home of an SS man, and were entertained there one evening, and I spoke to several soldiers, but I remember being in a church once where the caretaker of the church, and the silence of the church told us, although everything appeared to be wonderful on the surface, there really was terrible. That was in 38.
C And is this the sort of thing you would have discussed when you came home to Aberdeen?
M Yes.
C And where you aware of other students having either similar experiences or at least wanting to know about it?
M No I don't think any, very few people went abroad in those days really as a summer holiday. It was a treat from my aunts, it wasn't my parents and it made quite an impression. That probably was what prompted me to put my name down as one of Emile's hostesses, but I didn't expect to get him first. I thought the Professor of Hebrew you know, or whoever it was that was engineering his release, would probably be the first to have him, but something went wrong and we got him first. And I remember two things were, how amazed he was, this is a little insight into pre-war Britain, that I could go on the tramcar and say "Pass" without showing it. In those days, you couldn't do it now, that was enough. He couldn't believe that they would trust me to have had a pass in my pocket. And then he was at the Police for some reason or another and the policeman shook hands with him, it was marvellous.
C Your mention of the pass, this was a student pass was it that you had on the trams?
M Yes.
C Living at home I suppose you didn't have to do your own budgeting in quite the same way as the student on a grant?
M No
C Can you offer any sort of insight into how students found themselves in terms of the cost of living and making ends meet, and before you answer can I just check how much tape we have, we have plenty yes. Were you aware of people having difficulty making ends meet?
M I wasn't really aware of it. Now most of them were in private digs if they didn't live in town with their people, or couldn't commute, but I wasn't really aware, well I knew that it was a struggle for my father on £300 a year or whatever it was then, but just the Carnegie grant you know, which you know about, nine pounds a year or whatever, and there wasn't, a difficult but …
C Did you have a room of your own in the Manse?
M Yes, all was big enough
C And you did your studying there?
M Yes.
C So you didn't use the Library?
M Not so much, not so much as I had in my lonely year in Glasgow. I spent most of my life in Mitchell Library in Glasgow, everybody scattered, nobody stayed.
C They didn't in Aberdeen so, where did they congregate then? Were did you make these friends at Aberdeen?
M In Aberdeen?
C How did it come about?
M Well I was on the committee when the new Union was opened and that was a great source of social life, just generally the Union, the Women's Union and here and then that new Union was opened at the corner, the corner of Marischal Street, is it still there?
C Yes.
M I was there and Anna Neagle came to see it, I remember, the first month I think it was opened and I met interesting people there, Evans of the Broke I think came, and I have got a picture in my bag with Tyrone Guthrie, because I did Shakespeare with the Divinity Students for two years.
C Can you explain that, Shakespeare with the Divinity Students?
M The Divinity Students. Well at that time there was a divinity student who had been a professional actor and for the charities week he put on Shakespeare in a sort of, with his professional expertise. We did the Taming of the Shrew in 1939 and then the first war year, I was at training college by that time, we did Midsummer Nights Dream. Touring as far as Elgin, you know we went round all the little, probably they still do it, and oh dear I can't speak about Shakespeare.
C Why I was asking about the societies you joined, and then you met at the Union. What other societies were you in?
M The Debating Society I went to that, and the Country Dance, it was very very popular, both with the fellow students as well as the girls it was a very popular one
C What was life like in the Debater, what was the standard of debating?
M I thought it was very good.
C On serious topics or frivolous?
M No serious topics. Again I remember Simon Mayer, he became a minister, he was a very good debater.
C Were lawyers and divines to the fore in the Debating Society?
M Not especially as far as I remember, no I think of the divines as Shakespeare.
C Going back to the friends of yours, now you were at home, you had your room in the Manse, but presumably as well as meeting in the Union you went and saw them in their digs, what was the standard of accommodation like in lodgings for students?
M I must admit most of my friends were at home.
C Were they?
M Yes.
C Do you think there was a tendency for people in digs to congregate together and for home based students to congregate together?
M I don't know I never thought of that before but I don't think I was in many, you know offhand remember anybody's digs in Aberdeen as such, mostly their homes I was in.
C And if I may ask, did your parents give you an allowance as a student?
M No I don't think, oh well they probably gave me something for bus fares and who knows, I never had very much.
C And to what extent did they take an interest in the progress of your studies, or to put it another way, were you rather conscious of having to be seen to be working in the house, or were you free from any sort of parental interference?
M Oh I was free from parental interference. Actually my father was a late entrant and had studied after the First World War, did a shortened course and didn't have a degree and I always felt that bothered him. He didn't have a degree and his ambition was to have a family who'd have degrees
C I see, yes.
M That was quite interesting. He did a five year course you see, two years in the arts, I don't know why he never did a later degree, so I was encouraged.
C Were you involved, obviously the conversation in the Manse suggests it, were you involved in any of the religious organisations in the University?
M No, I was in the church.
C How did you spend your vacations?
M Well I've just told you about the exciting one in Germany
C That was typical?
M Then well, no the next one was my 21st birthday present in the summer of 1939, I went with a student party from here and I think it was nine guineas it cost, to go by bus from here to London, across to the Cité Universitaire and stay there and see the sights of Paris. We had to get out, we were told so we were among the fleeing hoards back from the continent at the end of August 1939.
C Otherwise apart from these forays abroad, how were your other vacations spent, or does that account for them all. It probably does, doesn't it?
M Those were my only two exciting ones, before the war. Before that it was family holidays where my father took somebody else's manse, you know and they came in, and we had a month that way, with him working all the time.
C What would you say was the position of women students in the University?
M Now how exactly?
C Well, for a start, were your friends mainly other women students or would you mix fairly freely with men and women students?
M I had friends of both sexes, yes.
C Did women students congregate together at all in any way?
M You mean socially?
C Socially, yes.
M Well we had our new Union of course, there was always table tennis I remember, I wasn't very keen on that and, there were so many dances and …
C But you were never aware either from teachers or from other male students of any feeling perhaps it was odd for women to come and want to do degrees, there was never any overt sexism of that sort?
M No I think I was too late for that.
C Now you decided to be a teacher and you went to TEC, did TEC students and University students mix a great deal, or …?
M No.
C You say that quite firmly, that is why?
M I hated TEC.
C Why did you hate it?
M I don't know, I felt I had reverted to the school room again.
C Was this because …?
M It was a lecture room but the whole atmosphere seemed to be school roomish again, you know and I was always very grateful that I had been out of it for three years, rather than had gone straight through.
C So you found the degree very broadening?
M Oh yes, and I became the first exchange teacher from Scotland.
C The first?
M Among the first batch after the war.
C How did that come about?
M Well by that time I was teaching in Ayrshire and I did start in Aberdeen and I was telling my first class about the first month of teaching, I had a little boy in a tenement who was smashed by a Nazi bomb, so that was my own christening of fire for teaching. I went to Ayrshire and they wouldn't let me go on exchange, so I applied for Edinburgh in 46 and in 47 I went to Canada.
C You went to Montreal?
M To Montreal, how did you know that?
C Well it is in the Roll of Graduates, that you went there.
M Oh is it?
C Oh yes.
M I didn't know that.
C That was one of the real things I wanted to know how that came about.
M I just wanted, I had had a little taste of travel as I told you, and in the war I was in a reserved occupation and I just longed to travel, so I got it that way, fourteen months.
C What about the other members of your family, I think you said there were other children who also took degrees?
M My sister took a degree.
C At Aberdeen too?
M She was one year in Aberdeen and she, by that time as I say, my parents had moved to Ayrshire, and my mother had become a semi-invalid so she transferred to Glasgow. So she is a classical graduate.
C When you look back on your university days, how valuable was the education you had here, in equipping you, not just for your specific career but for coping with the wider problems of life and a career?
M Well I have had, I was left a widow with two sons 18 and 15 and the older one went to St. Andrews and the younger one went to Edinburgh, so altogether we have the four Universities more or less and I always felt I could sort of you know - I knew what they were talking about.
C Yes. You yourself having gone to TEC, then become a teacher, presumably had no great difficulty in finding employment, but was that true of most of the students of your time?
M Oh it was very difficult in 1940 when I came out. I think I was probably the only one who got a job in the city and I went as a sort of, I had been offered a job in Ayrshire, and I went as a sort of plea. As I said my mother had become a semi-invalid and I wanted to stay at home and I went to the office at the last minute and said "Look I have a job in Ayrshire shall I take it or is there any hope of one in the city?" They gave me a choice of two. That was how I landed in Torry, and that was where the bomb fell as I said.
C And this would have been the same for other students, they would have had this sort of problem?
M I think, yes, I don't think anybody else. I think they had all to go out of town.
C Thinking back now to the sort of questions I have asked and the things you have been thinking about, is there anything you would like to tell me that I haven't covered?
M About the University. I haven't been back to Aberdeen very often except for my reunions but I always have had a very soft spot for it, although it was only two years long.
C Well thank you very much indeed Mrs McLachlan, I am very grateful to you.
END OF INTERVIEW
|