| Administrative History | Mr. Bower was a former Aberdeen University student |
| Description | Interview with Mr Graham Bower recorded on the 5 September 1986 by Dorothy Johnston.
Transcript of Interview :
J Mr Bower, perhaps we could start at the beginning. Could you tell me a little bit about why you came to Aberdeen University?
B Basically because I was born in Aberdeen and brought up in Aberdeen to the extent that I was at a prep school in Aberdeen and I was then sent to an English public school where I unfortunately lost my Aberdonian accent. When I was about seventeen my father died and I wanted to come here rather than go to any other university and it was very convenient.
J What did your school feel about that? Did it seem a strange thing for them?
B I don't think they could have cared less.
J But you came to Aberdeen then from an English school with what sort of entrance requirements?
B Prelims I was really behind here because it was a very poor public school, Malvern, and I was miles behind everyone else so I went to a private tutor in Aberdeen for a year then I took the prelims as they were called in those days, and as I'm very poor at maths I found after a couple of weeks I couldn't really face up to Maths and Nat Phil which was then compulsory and to avoid having to take that I took an Honours degree in History. I think at that time the Varsity was losing a great many students to Glasgow because of this compulsory Maths and Nat. Phil. Not only did it make it compulsory but it ploughed a very large number of students.
J This was for a general.
B Yes or an ordinary degree
J At what point did you choose to do the Honours course?
B As soon as I found I was going to have to do Maths and Nat Phil and they ploughed over 50 %.
J Did you meet many other students in Aberdeen who had a comparable background, who'd come from England and had difficulty?
B No. I think the Varsity was very fair in that in the prelims - I expect its sort of outdated now - in fact I can't fill up a census form properly now. For people who were very bad at Maths you could get a pass by compensation, which I didn't need but anyway I was very interested in History.
J This was in your first year was it?
B Yes.
J What courses did that involve?
B First year I took Medieval History with Professor Sanford Terry and that was his last year unfortunately because he was a brilliant lecturer, absolutely wonderful. He made all his characters come alive, anything or anybody he's every described in his lectures I remember to this day. But he couldn't wait to retire because he was an authority on Bach and he wanted to devote his energies to study Bach.
J Were his students very aware of that, that he had these other interests?
B I think he was quite well known for that but of course his ordinary history class was such a vast class, I don't know if people were particularly interested. I suppose 80% were women and as women I suppose 80% of the women were going to be teachers.
J So that course would have been a course taken by all the first year students?
B Yes it was part of the first or second year.
J It wasn't just the Honours?
B No.
J Who else do you recall of your professors?
B After Professor Terry I had Professor Black until the end. He was a very different kettle of fish, very uninspiring, very dull. That's not my personal opinion but it was the opinion of the very few Honours students. There weren't many Honours students and I do feel that really to be quite critical and honest we got very little help, very little tuition, very little contact with our professor.
J Was it purely a course taught by lectures?
B Yes
J You didn't have seminars?
B Practically nothing. Which I think, now that one knows more about what goes on in other universities, today of course it's a different world, but I think that was very lacking, very unfortunate.
J You had mentioned your difficulties in coming to Aberdeen.
B I had really no difficulties in coming.
J Well in having to do the prelims.
B Oh yes.
J Once you were in the course how did you feel that your standards compared with those who had gone through a Scottish education?
B Mine was very much lower than theirs. All these students who came from these various academies in Aberdeenshire had a very much better education than I had.
J Was the History course very much geared towards Scottish history?
B Not as much as it should have been, I don't think. We heard a lot about the religion or the 'isms', Calvinism, Zwinglism all these things, but basically there wasn't as much as there should have been about Scottish history I feel.
J What about classroom behaviour as such? You mention that you had two professors of very different characters, how did the students react in class to that, was there any …?
B They were bored by Professor Black.
J And did they show it?
B By then I didn't have him for the ordinary class, I had him for British History. What happened was the ordinary class with Terry listened very intently.
J Were students encouraged to ask questions?
B Oh no.
J There was no contact of that kind?
B No.
J Relations then with the professors or teaching staff generally would have been quite formal?
B Very.
J Would they have known you by name?
B Not if you were in the ordinary class. When you got to the advanced class perhaps there were a dozen of you then he would have known your name. But as there were so few Honours students, only about half a dozen my year, it wasn't very much of a relationship.
J To give an idea of the size of the community could you tell me how many of the other members of staff you would have known?
B Well in first year Professor Terry and then I took Constitution Law and History which was a course you could take either for Arts or Law with a Mr R M Williamson, who was very good. Then I had Logic with Professor Ferguson who was a very dull and uninspired lecturer and professor, and all the students were really fairly bored with the subject rather than with the professor. But he'd only be there two or three years, you probably have some notes about his predecessor, a Professor Bourtrie Davidson. He was quite a character, I expect you know about that, and how students referred to their father's notes and said "joke coming" and it came up. I didn't know him I knew his sister who was quite a character.
J Would you have known any members of staff who didn't actually lecture you?
B No.
J You wouldn't have encountered them?
B I don't think I ever spoke to Professor Ferguson.
J Was there any social contact with members of staff?
B None, frankly none. I think as an Honours student I went once to Professor Black's house and I met the Principal. But, I think it was second year I did Political Economy with Professor Alexander Gray and there was very close contact with his students even without really meeting him. He was very close to his students and his students were very close to him. He had a very good second in command who just died the other day, I had no idea she was quite so distinguished, called Annie MacDonald, died within the last few years. But he was outstanding and made subjects very very interesting.
J What about other aspects of student behaviour apart from the classroom itself, how did the students relate to each other?
B In what way?
J I was wondering specifically about ragging, was that something you came across at all?
B Well yes of course there was the Bajans thing. I don't know whether it still goes on or not?
J No. You have memories of that?
B Yes. As you know they called the first year the Bajans and took them off and tarred and feathered them. There would be repercussions to the extent that a number of the students had been fitted up with a new suit to come to varsity and then of course they were tarred and feathered in their suits sometimes and there was a lot of protest about that. The first year I was in the SRC we got complaints coming in about that.
J How were they handled?
B Very good naturedly.
J But compensation was not …?
B No. But they were just roped half undressed or put into courses or something and roped and dragged all the way along here to Union Street then up Union Street then left at the far end of Union Street and possibly tied to some railing.
J Was it normally done by second year students?
B Yes always. Second year students generally knew who they were looking for.
J That must have come as something of a surprise to you when you first … ?
B Yes it was surprising. I didn't suffer because they caught the students from my year from the Maths and Nat Phil and I wasn't there, although they were looking for whoever was the first year representative on the SRC didn't know who I was so I was not caught.
J So you became involved very early on in student activities?
B Well only with those in first year I got myself elected because nobody else had made an application. Without that obviously I couldn't get in because people knew a lot of people, I didn't really know many people, so I just did the first year, it was very interesting.
J Yes, the SRC was very active during that period.
B They were, very outstanding people, very good indeed.
J Did that help you to make friends in other courses and out of other disciplines?
B I knew a number of the SRC people, not very well, but of course doing an Honours degree to a certain extent you meet a limited number of students, you don't take students doing the ordinary degree - first year, second year and so forth - so you were a bit out on your own.
J What about living conditions?
B I lived at home. I was very fortunate. I saw some students' digs. Some were pretty awful.
J Was it quite common for Aberdeen students, they would have normally have lived at home?
B Yes.
J In retrospect do you think this is a good or a bad thing?
B I think I would have been freer if I hadn't live at home.
J But presumably when your contemporaries tended to live at home too it made less difference.
B Yes but there weren't such a large proportion from Aberdeen really.
J Were there not?
B No. You saw that when they had a rectorial election, you had to sit round in your nations. Don't they do that any more?
J I'm not sure. I don't think that they sit in their nations, I think the nations idea …
B Delighted in it all, those born in Aberdeen, when I say it transpired there weren't really many born in Aberdeen. They were always surprised when I went and sat there. Then so many miles around Aberdeen, then the rest of Scotland, then the rest of the world roughly, like the old medieval system which made it extremely interesting. I enjoyed it, a most interesting sort of link with the past.
J So you have vivid memories of the rectorial?
B Oh yes and rectorials of course, you've asked something about politics, I don't think very much came out about politics except during the rectorial election and in the Conservative Association and of course the Scottish Nationalists. There was generally a Scottish Nationalist candidate and he always did very well.
J The politics that would come up during the rectorial would mirror national politics?
B Yes, but I graduated in Arts in thirty three and Hitler was only just emerging then so there wasn't perhaps the same intense interest. I think there was more interest perhaps in the depression and things like that because it was difficult to get a job when you graduated.
J Do you think that most of your fellow students were actually quite apathetic?
B I don't remember them being particularly interested in politics though they may have been.
J What about the SRC, did it try to encourage an interest in politics?
B No, I don't think so.
J It was more concerned with social things.
B It was academic. It did a good job.
J Were there many students living close to you in the area of Aberdeen which you were in?
B No I can't say that there were.
J Transport to and from college, would you have gone by bus?
B By tram in those days. The only complication was if you had a class in Marischal between 9 to 10 which I had, then you had a class 10 to 11 at King's, so you had to run for the bus and arrive about five or ten minutes late with a great shuffling of feet I always was seen with two girls, I don't know what they were doing with Law [Logic?] but there was I always appeared with two girls, rather belatedly. They created a diversion.
J What about financial support while you were a student? Obviously we're talking about the period before grants, was this purely parental family support?
B I can't tell you about that because I was fortunate that I had some money from the family. My father had just died and compared to most I was very well off.
J Were you aware of students being in hardship?
B To a certain extent yes. And if you saw some of their digs, one girl I knew who was taking History lived in a miserable bedsitter in Dee Street with an old aunt and they shared an old truckle bed together, it was really quite awful.
J She would have eaten there would she?
B Yes.
J Was there anywhere where students could eat?
B You could eat at the Union I think. I didn't really, I went home.
J What about a place to work, would you have used the library or would you have gone home?
B Library a lot. The library was very very good.
J That's at King's?
B Yes. There was a marvellous women there called Maggie whom you've probably heard of, tall gaunt women, very lame and she'd produce any book.
J Yes I've heard the story.
B I think she got an honorary degree in the end, can't remember her last name.
J She knew where everything was.
B Yes. It was a marvellous library. For history students there was this journalist and reviewer of books, a J M Bullock, all the latest biographies came from him which was quite wonderful.
J You were very aware of that were you?
B Yes.
J Did you as a member of the SRC every come into contact with J M Bullock?
B No. I was only there for one year.
J He never appeared to speak at meetings?
B No.
J Your extra curricula activities, you've already mentioned the SRC, were there any other interests, musical or sport?
B I'm very unmusical and I'm very unathletic. I played tennis, it was the only thing I played here. I belonged to the Open Air Club. I think it's gone.
J I think it's gone, yes.
B But we went into the country generally by train and we walked and climbed for miles and miles and miles and spent the whole day. Marvellous really. It had a fairly big membership. I don't think it had a terribly good reputation but for no reason, there was no complications about it.
J It was purely an undergraduate …?
B Absolutely, yes.
J So it had a committee to organise these …?
B Yes. It gave a lot of people a great deal of pleasure.
J What activities do you think were the most popular amongst students, were many of them sporting?
B Yes they were, but I'm not a sportsman so I didn't take part in any of them. I think rugger was very popular and all those things but I don't know anything about that.
J What about the position of women students, you've mentioned several?
B I think from a man's point of view they were a bit fed up in Arts by being so swamped by the women, I think there were up to 80% rather than 50% yes I think up to 80% sometimes.
J Was any explanation given for this?
B They all wanted to be teachers. They wanted to come to Varsity the only thing to do at the end was to do teaching.
J Was there any barrier between the sort of social mixing?
B Not that I know of. Of course you sat at a different place in the classroom. The women sat in front, men sat at the back.
J What about the Union, because at one stage the Union was primarily a women's union?
B Yes. I didn't go to the Union much, I went to some of the debates, The Debater as they used to be called, but that's all and I don't know too much about that. They did have some good debates I think.
J To move on to vacations. Did your coursework spill over into vacations, did you have material to prepare during vacation or was that entirely free time?
B That was free time. Some students took holiday jobs which was more rare than now, of course they all do but a lot needed to make some money during vacation to pay for their fees and their board and lodging.
J What would most of those have done?
B I don't really know. I should think a lot went harvesting when they could.
J But you would have just taken holidays?
B Yes. I did some work.
J Would you remember, if you were still in Aberdeen would you have gone into the library during vacation and worked there?
B Oh yes.
J So you'd have met other students during vacation?
B Yes.
J While you were still in Aberdeen?
B Yes. But students doing an ordinary degree, once they had taken three subjects one year they'd finished with these subjects, whereas Honours you had to take them all again, so you had to do a certain amount to keep up to date.
J Your final year was quite an onerous one. We have mentioned briefly political affairs but I wondered were there any particular things that made an impact upon student opinion?
B I don't think so in those days. I didn't really know what happened between financial crisis and economic crisis. I started in twenty nine.
J Were students worried about their chances of getting a job?
B Yes. And I must say I don't really think that the at the end the Varsity helped very much.
J Was there any guidance given?
B No, not that I know of. We just sort of finished and we never thought to ask for help from anybody because you didn't know who to go to. I perhaps was fortunate in that my professor did at least offer me some sort of bursary or scholarship in Oxford, which I didn't take. He offered it to two of his students at Balliol because he'd been there.
J This was Professor Black?
B Yes.
J So you thought of doing that?
B Yes. It was difficult because my mother was a widow and it was difficult, she was a sick woman, to leave Aberdeen and also that to take a PhD would have been difficult for me in two years because the subject I would have been presented had been turned down by the professor so I would have had to start absolutely from scratch. Because he was very keen on the age of Elizabeth and that was his subject and all his students had to do a thesis on the 16th century. Which wasn't my century. As I hadn't started anything you see …
J You in fact went on and did a LLB?
B Yes.
J That was immediately after graduation was it?
B Yes. But then it was difficult to get a job. You could enrol for an LLB alright but you had to do three years' apprenticeship to get into a law office and during the depression it was very difficult. I got hold of a directory of lawyers in Aberdeen who were fixed to firms and I just went round each firm and asked for a job and the 48th took me.
J That's impressive. And this was while you were still doing your courses, the LLB courses? They were done concurrently with your apprenticeship?
B Yes. Most of the law students had jobs. I started second year Law because I'd done Arts and funnily enough I met here tonight one man, we were the two unemployed among the that years law. Everybody else turned up in their office pin-stripes while we unemployed were still in our plus fours. But there was a very good relationship between the professor of Law, MacKenzie Stewart. He was marvellous to his students, he was very good to them, they were very fond of him and he was very caring for his students. His son now of course is professor in the European Court.
J Would he have taken more interest in your career as a professional writer?
B Yes.
J But you then moved south?
B What happened was, I was late until I finished my degree and I couldn't qualify as a lawyer because I hadn't finished my apprenticeship so I couldn't get started in a job. So I went to Glasgow for a bit, then to Edinburgh and I was just getting going in Edinburgh in a firm of shipping solicitors, because I was interested in shipping, when war broke out. Then I'd had a smash up on a motorbike training to be a soldier and couldn't walk. To cut a long story short I was sent for an interview with the Foreign Office, the research department. I got a temporary job that turned out to be permanent a) because I had a history degree and b) one of the interviewers was a Scottish professor and I think he thought that because the whole of the department was Oxbridge it would be nice to have one that was not. I'm sure that's how I got the job. That happened during the war when it was very academic most people were Oxford dons at that stage. My first job for the Foreign Office was to go back to year 476, the fall of the Roman Empire, which Professor Sanford Terry had lectured about, because some eminent don in Oxford had written a very long paper comparing the fall of the Western Roman Empire with the fall of the West in 1939. Nobody wanted to read it, it was too long. I was given it to make a precis of, that was my first job in the FO.
J So my question how much use your Aberdeen education was excellent.
B Yes that did have a great … it was marvellous and then by the time the war was over and I was sent abroad to Austria, the Control Commission and then the peace conferences and different things it was too late to go back to the law. I was sort of settled there.
J In your later life you say that a lot of your colleagues were from Oxford or Cambridge, how did they view your Aberdeen credentials?
B They were all right. They respected the Scottish universities but the general impression you might say of the people you meet in England is it's a red brick university. So I was very careful to say that Scotland had four universities when England only had two.
J You scored a point there.
B One thing if I may before we run short of time. In connection with the university family I had an uncle who graduated in Law in 1891, and on the non-academic side the façade of Marischal granite came from my grandfather's quarries at Kemnay and when the architect produced a drawing showing these pinnacles and things it was said you couldn't carve these pinnacles out of granite. My grandfather said it could be done and he did it. So he's responsible for the whole of the façade. He died about a year before it was actually opened.
J But it was already erected sometime before.
B So that is my non-academic connection.
J Any continuing connections? Have you any relatives or family?
B None at all.
J I'm just wondering if there are any things we could look at in slightly more depth, I think probably we should …
END OF INTERVIEW
|