| Administrative History | Mr. Currie was a former Aberdeen University student |
| Description | Interview with Mr Alan Currie, recorded on 7 September 1986 recorded by John Hargreaves
Transcript of Interview :
H Mr Currie, why did you choose to come to read engineering at Aberdeen University? There are other entrances into the engineering profession. Was it a deliberate choice?
C Yes it was. I think I came to Aberdeen because I was originally born here and although I lived in Brechin, some forty miles away, Aberdeen was still a home love as it were, rather than going to Glasgow or somewhere else. So that's the reason I came to Aberdeen. My parents who were hit by the slump in the thirties moved to Brechin from Aberdeen and they made quite an effort to give me the chance to go to university. I left school and went to Hall & Co, the shipbuilding company, in 1941 and had to get a special release from the state because this was a reserved occupation during the war, to go back to school then to come to university.
H Did you have an apprenticeship with Hall's?
C No, only for a year, in fact it wasn't, it was only three months. My father came up on holiday to Aberdeen from Brechin and said would you like to go to university so he'd to get me out of Hall's and then I went back to school for another year to get further passes and then I joined Aberdeen again.
H You were clear that it was engineering that you …?
C Yes, because without having had the opportunity to go to university at all I had already started in the engineering industry in shipbuilding as an apprentice so that I suppose was always in my mind.
H During this period there wasn't a professor of engineering.
C There was only Dr Grassie who was head of the department.
H He was a university employee?
C Yes, he worked in the university and he was there all the time I was there. That's one name I do remember.
H Tell me a little more about him. Do you remember him as a personality as well as a name?
C I suppose his name stuck because he was a very good leader and he was also a nice person, a nice personality, he was always approachable. I suppose that's why he has stuck in my mind rather than many of the others. In fact I've been talking to colleagues tonight about some of the other people and they don't really click.
H The others were in other university departments or in Robert Gordon's?
C Engineering was one of the odd ball crowd. We commuted between King's College for Maths to Marischal College to Robert Gordon's and it was a yo-yo affair between the three places.
H How were you dividing your time between the university and Robert Gordon's by the time you were fully into the Engineering ?
C I suppose a larger percentage, from memory, would have been at Robert Gordon's College because they had the laboratories there, the engines, the refrigeration plant and so on. King's College I think died afterwards. I don't mean that unkindly, it almost ceased to exist after the first two years as far as we were concerned and we were then between Marischal and Robert Gordon's.
H Was Dr Grassie a civil engineer?
C No I think he was mechanical but that could be checked in the records.
H What did he teach? Was it mechanical?
C It was mechanical engineering, yes.
H Who taught the engineering drawing part of the course?
C That's a good question, that's where the forty years back tends to let the old brain down. The only other person I remember, and it's rather strange, he wasn't a lecturer at all, he was a demonstrator. It's funny that that name has stuck because suddenly out of the blue many years afterwards I met him down in the London area where he'd moved.
H And the name was?
C Jack Rae. Then he moved to Cardiff and he's now dead. He died a year ago I think. You see there's the two extremes of people, funny how these thing's stick.
H Do you remember any of your teachers in the supporting courses, in Maths and Nat Phil?
C No, really I can't. We've been through that in the last hour and half upstairs. Is that unusual that people can't really remember?
H I don't think it's as unusual as a university teacher would wish it to be. I think it's probably not entirely so.
C I suppose if you ask somebody now, twenty years ago they would remember, but as you go onto forties you've no chance. I met a lady tonight who graduated in 1924. There's no chance she's going to remember who they were, I don't think.
H No, sometimes it's the people who are memorable in a sense who one would like to know about?
C When I filled in this form I tried to think who I remembered and it was only Grassie and Jack Rae.
H Could I ask you something more general about your studies before we come to the other aspects of your life at university? Do you think it was a good preparation for your subsequent career? Were you well educated by Aberdeen or did you educate yourself after graduation?
C I think I was well educated at university but I don't think that it was the actual subjects that were important, it was the ability to think. It was no good teaching you structural engineering or mechanical engineering or chemistry or something, yes it had its place, but that training and the whole of the course enabled you to think. Because when you went into engineering in business, although you must have been applying what you'd learned it was an entirely different field, a different ball game as the Americans say. It obviously must have stood me in good stead.
H Do you feel that your studies were much disrupted by war time conditions?
C They were crushed because we started in October 1942 and we finished in March 1945. In the first year in forty three we were allowed to go away for two months or something to Metropolitan and Vickers in Manchester as one of the vacation scheme things but after that there were no holidays apart from the Hogmanay, Christmas and things like that. So it was crushed but I suppose in a way you had to work harder.
H What about other aspects of your student life? I was a war time student myself, did you feel you lost much?
C No, I don't think so. There was still a very good social life at university, in fact probably too good at times, because everybody had to suddenly say 'my god the exams are in a fortnight's time' and cram things in.
H Where was your social life centred?
C The Students Union mostly.
H In the bar or in societies?
C Remember though in the 1940s although alcohol and beer were cheaper you couldn't drink vast quantities except on special occasions. But yes the bar. The Saturday night hops were always popular so you can put two and two together.
H It was largely a student circle you were moving in?
C It was almost always in student circles.
H Did you have family in Aberdeen still?
C My grandparents were there. I lived with them in Crown Street and I went home once a month to Brechin provided there wasn't an important dance on that night.
H Can you recall financial details ?
C Yes. I remember the actual figures of a grant. £30 from the Angus Education Committee and £33 or £35 from the Angus Endowments Trust and my fees of course paid by the Carnegie Trust. Apart from books, that took part of care of living. Of course living with relatives, grandparents, that cost was not as high as if you were living in lodgings.
H You paid your grandparents?
C I think my father did. I was never involved in that. The social life of course, my father always tried to give me a little bit more than I was entitled to. My mother never really knew about that.
H You obviously weren't a rich student?
C No I wasn't, my father was a cabinet maker.
H But you were probably better off than some?
C There again I think that's true but then of course that was a parental thing. They were keen that I should make something better than he was and therefore they were prepared to encourage and support. In fact I don't think I ever worked when I was at university, like you hear students having to work now to keep themselves going.
H You didn't have vacations.
C That's right. You were at university, you got a Saturday and a Sunday off mostly and that was it.
H Were you paying for your apprenticeship ?
C Yes we did. I can't remember how much. It wasn't a lot because when I started work after graduation I was only earning four pounds three shillings and sixpence.
H How far were you conscious of the war? Did students pay much attention either to military operations …?
C Yes, I think there was always the political scene in university in arguments and discussions about the Russians and the Germans and the British and advances and losses and air bombing and so on. There was always a discussion. I wouldn't say that overcast everything else but it was always there. People took - the word interest is not particularly correct - but they took an interest in what was happening.
H Were there political societies active? Did you join any yourself?
C No I didn't but I think there were. I think the Communists were fairly strong for a time but nobody paid much attention to them. There were always debating societies and so on.
H Did you attend these?
C No I didn't. I had two purposes in life. To enjoy the girls and dances and to graduate.
H Men were probably in relative short supply were they?
C I suppose that's true. I hadn't consciously thought about that but yes I suppose they were. Also we were fortunate and lucky to go to university when there was a war on. We were perfectly able-bodied. We started off with thirty four in the class and twenty one graduated. The rest failed and therefore were either down the mines in the Bevin scheme or into the Forces.
H You spoke as if it was a largely male class in engineering, was it?
C It was only males, yes.
H Do you know if there had been women students in earlier years?
C Not to my knowledge, no. We were lucky in being a reserved occupation, because when we graduated or were about to graduate there was a Major Walters came up from London to interview us all and his opening remark was "I want three for the Forces and the rest of you are in essential industry. Now don't get excited you're not getting a choice, I've decided whose going into the forces" and that was the end of the conversation.
H And you went into?
C He asked me to go to Metro-Vickers again because I'd been there and I said "No thanks, too big, dead man's shoes. I'd rather go to Parsons in Newcastle". He said "That's quite a good choice and I agree with you, you're going" and I said "But they might not want me" and he said "They've got no choice when I write to them" So that was the way it was, an allocation of labour. I had to stay there for three years as part of the scheme. We used to get railway warrants to come home on leave.
H Were you paid at a professional level?
C Yes if you could call it professional, I had four pounds, three shillings and sixpence.
H But that would have been the starting salary?
C That was the starting salary as a young graduate and then in two years, 45 to 48, I ended up at six pounds, three shillings and six pence. But of course there was also overtime to be added too.
H Anything finally you would like to add or any good stories from your student days that you have been able to recall?
C I don't think I could do any of that … It was a worthwhile exercise. It was enjoyable. It was hard work. It was difficult in war time because we did have an occasional air raid over Aberdeen but not as much as the south obviously and of course that stay at university did very well for me in subsequent years.
H In other words, you would not have got on nearly so well if you'd done an apprenticeship ?
C No chance whatsoever.
H Thank you very much indeed Mr Currie.
End of Interview
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