| Description | Interview with Mrs Sheila R. Spensley, neé Fraser,recorded on 26 September 1986 by Colin McLaren
Transcript of Interview :
McL What brought you to Aberdeen University?
S In the first place?
McL In the first place.
S Well I think I was born and brought up in Forres. I'm afraid it was simple kind of automatic choice. It was the nearest University.
McL Had your parents any University connections?
S None at all. No.
McL Had any of your relations been here taking degrees here?
S No. Totally. I was from an uneducated background.
McL So, what advice did you get before you came here?
S None.
McL Not even from the school?
S Not really. I just sort of picked things up you see it was after the war. And teachers were just beginning to return. There quite a lot of changes of teachers to some of those who taken place of the more qualified men who had been taken away in the war were actually very good teachers but they didn't have the Honours degrees, I suppose. One in particular I remember in maths. We had to change back and have the qualified ones when they came back. And so there was a period when there wasn't a great deal of support. You had to … one knew that, the brighter ones, that if you got all your Highers that you would go the University. And I didn't know very much about grants, even.
McL How did you find out?
S I just sort of knew from other people in the class. I was a bit shy anyway I just think I just knew people in the class [who] were able to go to University and they weren't particularly well off so there must be a way. It was really as naïve as that. Actually, I wanted to dance and do something quite different. I had the Director of Education in Elgin - when I wrote to enquire about dance colleges and things he kind of summoned me and said, "What do you mean dance. You obviously must go to University". Because he had known me at a little country school. He used to go around. And if it hadn't been that he'd actually had some contact with me when I was about twelve in this little country school he probably wouldn't have noticed that I was wanting to do dancing. It would have only been teaching dancing something at that stage. So, that was advice. That was a point, yes I did get advice.
McL What help did you get from the University when you arrived, obviously rather innocent and at loss for guidance? What sort of help did you get at the University?
S I don't think there was very much in the way of student counselling or anything like that. There was none of that. And what I did was to do an ordinary Arts degree because it seemed to me that was simple. I didn't even see the point in doing an Honours degree, I thought you would get away with an Ordinary. Since there were certain subjects you had to do I just sort of did all the compulsory ones and the schoolie ones - French, Maths and Latin in the first year. So it wasn't until the second year that I did Psychology and then I found that, of course I started in the second year and I wouldn't get a grant to go on to do the Honours degree at that point so that's why I did Ed.B instead. Actually I ended up having to finance myself for the final year.
McL We'll come on, if we may, to the finance question in a moment. Just thinking of your first year which teachers in questions remain in your memory?
S I think Prof Noble who taught Latin.
McL Why is that?
S I had done Latin for quite … Latin was compulsory but I had already done Higher Latin so, I it wasn't particularly difficult. in fact I thought it was marvellous not having to translate English into Latin. His view, I remember, was that if they had to do Latin then it had to be made as enjoyable as possible and there was no point in getting us to translate English into Latin, so he concentrated a lot on particularly on Latin poetry and he was so full of enthusiasm for it himself that he kind of brought it to life a bit more and I find that really the most interesting period that I was studying Latin although I spent five years at that school it was pretty dry at school and suddenly it became quite exciting with him.
McL What other teachers stay in your memory?
S Well after I started Psychology of course Rex Knight was the person who made quite an impression on me.
McL I'd like to talk about him if we may, because it is a name that pops up with considerable frequency but I do find people have difficulty in perhaps defining what it was about him that made him, made such an impact on them? Would you have a go at it and see if you can try and describe him for me?
S Describe him?
McL In his teaching capacity.
S Well he was humorous, I think, and perhaps the way that he used the ordinary intake class to demonstrate tests and things which is always a bit interesting. People like to be in tests and he would see how intelligent they were. So he always did these tests. Some people liked them and some people didn't, especially IQs and things. I think he was a bit sort of a common man's psychologist or something. He reduced it to fairly simple levels. I mean, now I can see that at the time, it didn't seem like that but I think he appealed to the kind of Psychology now you get in women's magazines and journalist writing about the latest thinking in Psychology and so on. So he used quite a lot of these, he introduced and demonstrated quite a lot of, I think now, probably rather superficial findings.
McL To what extend did the comparative newness of the subject add an additional glamour to following that particular course?
S I think that it had a certain appeal of that kind and I think he made the most of that. The appeal to me was really something I didn't know much about. Much more instinctive kind of thing that this was something I thought this might be interesting and once I got into it I found that it was, although not in the directions that he encouraged. Certainly it was an area in which I actually went in the opposite direction to what he advised, ultimately.
McL Were you taught by Margaret Knight as well?
S Yes.
McL Can you describe her?
S Well, she seemed very serious. More academic and not such fun really as a lecturer but none the less one has quite a respect for the calibre of her work.
McL How do you think they were viewed? Or did you form any impression as a student of how they were viewed by the other members of the teaching body?
S I don't know my impression would be a reliable one. But I would have thought on the whole that they seemed to be very different characters. But probably, contributing together, quite a broad range to the department and I would have thought well appreciated in the department, but, I don't know that my view…
McL This is a rather a leading question. Would you seek an parallel between the University's view of the Knights and Psychology at that time? And the view that universities in general took, say of Sociologists and Sociology in the late '60's early '70's, is there any sort of parallel?
S I think that there was quite a lot of unease and a bit of joking about the Psychology Department. And especially from Philosophers and some of the science people to, I think . Which I think is just unresolved as far as I was concerned I could see and experience also that in doing these tests that there were a good deal more one, many more questions one would like to ask about them. It wasn't quite as simple as totting up the score and telling people what sort of people, they were. And so I could appreciate the criticisms but it was all but I suppose it was just beginning or they were certainly stirring up uneasy questions that were not being answered or resolved at all at that time, I don't think.
McL Did they teach wholly by lecture, or did you have seminars and tutorials at that time?
S I think in the ordinary classes it was just first year classes were all lectures. I remember having smaller groups once I was doing postgraduate and I maybe I should think perhaps the Honours year were doing it in small groups too.
McL At that stage there was at least the chance put the sort of questions you might have felt about what you were being taught?
S Yes. I don't know whether it was me at that time or just the general attitude of students at that time. But I think I was much more - just a kind of machine that was taking in everything that was being taught in readiness for putting it onto exam papers again. I don't think I did have [or] used seminars in the kind of way students do now.
McL Would you say the describe of yourself is one that would apply fairly generally to the student intake of your year?
S Yes, quite a lot. There were one or two people, especially in philosophy, who could think on the spot and ask questions but, I think there were very few. The rest of us were a bit cowed and nervous and not really wanting to be put on the spot. On having to think of anything really.
McL To what extend the teaching staff make any effort to overcome this, either through extra curricular meetings and activity, or through just own personally method of teaching to draw you out? Did they make an effort at all?
S Well, I mean it didn't strike me as being very marked I think there was a bit of gap between student and staff.
McL Where you ever entertained by staff in their houses?
S I think I can remember the day when I graduated I think we went to Dr Nisbit's house. After all we'd finished the exams or something like that. I remember one Professor in Biology inviting me, because I failed the ordinary Biology. Much to my surprise but not to his. And he invited me round to sort it out so that I could do the resit and it was really a matter of what he said that it was an Arts mind not appreciating how much detail was required in Science. Which was right of course, and once he pointed out that you just couldn't quickly skate over things and you had to go back into detail of every process. But he actually invited me to his home to sort that out. I forgotten what his name was now.
McL To whom did you feel you could go with a problem? To the staff or to those who were officially responsible for dealing with problems?
S Well, I think this is probably a personal attitude but I don't think I would have gone to many people at ll about problems I would have assumed it was up to myself to put things right and be available and being in a condition to be doing work properly rather than expecting anybody to help me with difficulties. I think that might have been a kind of a trend at the time. Perhaps that isn't the idea of student counselling. The idea of student counselling was not around at that time.
McL There was an advisor to woman students, Mrs Clarke I think? Who services clearly you didn't avail yourself of.
S Not at all.
McL Where did you live?
S I lived in the country near Forres.
McL But as a student?
S In digs in different places.
McL Can you remember which places they were, or are there too many to remember?
S There were quite a lot, yes.
McL Why did you move so often?
S Oh, to better places sometimes or people I was sharing with, very often I was sharing room and so if the person you were sharing with moved or left or something changed that meant moving too, in order to set up with someone who you wanted to be with.
McL Were you for the most part within student lodging areas?
S Yes, mostly round here.
McL Have the halls of residence come in to existence then?
S No, I think the medics might have had something.
McL Was there a feeling they were desirable. Or were you all exceptionally happy in lodgings?
S I don't think we were particularly happy but it was just a fact of life. People compared one lodging with another and one landlady with another and it was just part of life. But I think we were totally, now I realise, totally under the impression - and certainly everyone's parents were also under the impression - that one couldn't possibly fend for ones self and study at the same time, it was all going to be far too much. And that was clearly quite ridiculous. We were all over fed.
McL How would you characterise the landladies? Presumably these were landladies who took in students in a fairly regular basis. Did this affect their attitude towards you, do you think?
S At the beginning I had one, that I didn't like who really saw it is a very much commercial venture, and wanted everybody out in the morning, and don't upset the postman at all, running like clock work. I got out of that after about a term but, I think on the whole most of the other people I lived with were quite kindly, friendly people.
McL How did you manage financially?
S Well, I had my grant only and …
McL This was a grant from the local authorities?
S Yes. And that was barely adequate but, I managed on it - I had to manage on that.
McL Can you remember very roughly what you were paying for lodgings and for that sort of expenditure?
S I think it was about 3 pounds a week. And I certainly ... in '55, in my last year, when I was actually having to, not having a grant I did start going into a room when I provided for myself. And I think I was living on £2.10d a week at that time, and I thought that was about the best you could possibly manage.
McL How did you raise themoney when you were having to finance yourself?
S Well, I worked in the summer holidays and I think my mother also …
McL What did you work as?
S A waitress at Butlins, I think. That was the most lucrative thing that was had.
McL How else did your money go. There was lodging and there was food. Did you eat at the Union or did you …?
S Yes, always at the University.
McL Is that where most students …?
S Yes.
McL Were mealtimes there a social period as well?
S Yes, I think so, yes. Oh yes it was quite a nice meeting time.
McL How about entertaining yourself?
S I made very little use of cinemas and the theatre here.
McL Despite your early wish to dance?
S Yes. Again it was always a matter of money. There was very little actual dance at the theatre here that functioned at the time. See how much I could afford you know within even just a few shillings. I had to watch very very carefully.
McL So did you become a member of student societies then as a means of entertainment?
S Yes, I did. Actually I did quite a lot of that.
McL Which societies did you join?
S Somebody was just saying to me tonight that I seem to launch into everything. And I think that was to do with coming from limited background, a school, I think post war the schools were not flourishing very well, in a cultural way at that time. And coming into the University atmosphere was really quite exciting for me. So I just tried my hand at most things. I got involved with the Student Christian Movement for some reason althought I was never really a committed Christian. I was kind of interested and I had a sort of fringe link with them for a while. Scottish country dancing and I was a fencer, I was in the fencing club and…
McL How important was Scottish country dancing? One or two people have mentioned it as a sport as an active recreation. Was it a very popular format?
S No, it wasn't very. Not.
McL How important is sport in the University as a whole - to the University? Was it something which they encouraged students to participate in?
S Well, I remember, when I came in as a fresher being addressed by the President of the Athletic Association or something like that and being terribly impressed with the range of things available. He was very impressive about how you could start getting on with the sport you like or start a new one you hadn't done before; the sky's the limit. I started fencing.
McL What about activities such as debating. Did those interest you?
S I was very interested but I was much to shy to participate in anything like that. But I did go to debates, yes.
McL Do you recall who were the outstanding performers at the time?
S There was a chap called John White who spoke as if he was reading it from a book I remember. Tremendously smooth. Very accomplished. And there was somebody, what was his name St John Sherley? He was a Londoner.
McL Were they Arts students from other faculties?
S Yes, there were Arts students.
McL How much did students in the Arts Faculty mix with students in the other faculties. Was there any sort of division on a subject or faculty basis in the way in which you formed friendships?
S I think that the Medics and the Science people because the Arts students had to do a science. And I think there might have been a little overlap then in the first year. And certainly with things like the fencing groups had quite a number of medical students in it. So I think one would meet them through sports. But on the whole the medical students were in Marischal College after two years and then went to Forresterhill and then they had a separate life of their own. There was a tendency for them to be very much more separated of from the Arts people. And a tendency also I think for people to feel that a lot of Arts people didn't have to work or that it all came easily and there was no real work attached to an Arts degree.
McL Did you take part in the Show or the Gala Week?
S Gala Week. Yes I did do some things in the streets: dressing up that sort of thing. I never took part in the shows because that meant staying in Aberdeen throughout the holiday and that meant paying digs money and things like that.
McL Your interest in dance might have been something that would have otherwise would have attracted you?
S Yes.
McL Did you go home during the vacations?
S Yes. And unless I'd got a job somewhere.
McL What interest did your parents take in your University career, once you were a student?
S I think they were interested in successes being notched up and achieving the degrees and so on but I don't think they understood very much as to what it was about.
McL Don't answer this if you consider it a personal question but to what extent was there or was there not a tension between you as an undergraduate going home to family that was not University orientated?
S I don't think there was tension on that score, although at a much more personal level I think there was a great deal of difficulty with my father who was a very talented person who was also very frustrated and hadn't used his talents at all. I think he was always and even while I was at school always ready to threaten "you know too much it's time you were out of that school", that kind of thing. But I don't think he would have ever done it, but I always felt that there was a lot of rivalry …
ML … to what extend were your interests in current affairs and current events?
S That was something that I found quite stimulating that people could be interested in such things and take them seriously. There were questions about capital punishment at that time. I remember there was quite a lot about it, I've forgotten the name of the chap
McL Would this be about the time of the Ruth Ellis?
S No. It was another name. The last person to be hanged, what was his name?
McL Bentley.
S Yes, Bentley. And people were very concerned about quite a number of people in the US were concerned about that. I didn't feel I knew enough about it to sign a petition, I didn't sign it. Then there was Central African Federation. There was a lot of interest in that, which I became quite interested in myself. And quite amazed to think that here in Aberdeen it was important to take a view or to think about it.
McL What were the channel for expressing opinions? Are you describing conversations over coffee or Deating Society motions or political actions in some ways?
S I think both, these matters would have come up in the Debating Society but, people would be discussing them over coffee as well.
McL Had you joined a political party as a student?
S I was a Scottish Nationalist I think.
McL Why was that?
S I not sure if I actually joined or not. I knew a number of people there. It was a very very small group, I think at the time.
McL But it was quite active, I think, there was quite a lot of publicity wasn't there around that sort of time for the Nationalists. Wasn't this near the time of [?] ?
S Yes that's right. I thought that was great fun. But I don't think it was very formulated and organised it was just kind of emotional appeal at that time I think. I find it quite stimulating but I don't think it was highly organised society and I think they may have got a few people to come and speak and listen to that. It wasn't very significant party at that time.
McL How would you characterise the B.Ed. course in contrast or in comparison with your first degree course?
S Well, I think that was a time when one began to share ideas more with staff and the whole idea of study began to take a new dimension for me really. I began to realise that I suppose my attitudes had evolved over the years. Evolved from being kind of very much a school girl student and just being taken was feed in to me to thinking about what was being said to me. I think it was much more place for that in the Ed.B. course. People listening to your ideas even and taking them seriously.
McL Who are the principal teachers of it?
S Well Professor Nisbet in Education and there was Miss Fraser and she later became Professor. Rex Knight and Margaret Knight. There was another head of the Education Department, I've forgotten his name now. He taught us quite a lot too, European education, educational systems.
McL Did you have any connections with TC teachers or was that…?
S Yes, that was part of the training that you had. If you did the Ed.B. you did the joint teacher training.
McL How would you evaluate their contribution?
S I think it was better than I thought it was at the time. I think that most of the graduates did tend to think that they could free wheel a bit once they went to the TC. But on the other hand I think I did learn something about the teaching method and theory in relation to young children which I didn't really think was necessary at all, I thought you just went in and taught and I think it did stand me in good stead later on, the different teaching methods of reading and so on.
McL At what point did you see yourself having a career in education? Do you recall when this first came to be?
S No, I didn't really think of it. I did the Ed.B. really because I couldn't do a Honours Psychology degree. You know I thought at time I couldn't but, in the end I might have well as done. And so I did the EDb. I didn't get a job teaching in Aberdeen, otherwise I could have financed myself by teaching and doing the Ed.B. part-time. So I ended up financing myself and doing the Ed.B. in the ordinary time. That was really instead of doing Honours Psychology. It was Psychology side I was most interested in. But I did go down to London, I don't know why just really a kind of impulsive, intuitive kind of move. I taught in the east end for two years with a Scottish qualification and being a graduate as well at that time I was very highly regarded as being someone with far more qualifications than even the Head Master of the school that I was teaching in.
McL What level of school was it you were teaching?
S Primary school. But at that time, in England, very few primary teachers were graduates. And I got paid extra money for being a graduate and extra money for being an Honours graduate, over and above the salary for a primary school teacher, which I certainly would not have got had I been teaching in Scotland.
McL How well prepared do you think you were for daily life in a classroom?
S Well I'd just had the teaching practice in the holidays and a bit of thinking about what was happening in the classroom which I think was quite good, because I think I really was a bit unrealistic about thinking I could manage children quite well. I knew how to teach. I had actually been asked to do it. I been taken out of school when I was 17 because this little primary school in the country near my home that was without a teacher for a while and they asked me to fill in for several weeks. I just took over a classroom of 3 different classes and got on as best I could. So, I thought I knew it all, I didn't actually know it all and what I learned at the TC was quite useful. When I went into the east end, I was fairly able to cope.
McL Had you already thought of the possibility of building on a career in Psychology onto a qualification in Education or is that just something that arose?
S I think I had it in mind that I would be looking towards trying to get some further training in Psychology.
McL What I'm leading up to is to try and identify at what point in your University career this notion of Psychology really gelled as a principal interest?
S I think quite early on, I think that especially when Rex Knight lectured on psychoanalysis as well and I think it was psychoanalysis that I was interested in and didn't really set about in a kind of rational way of discovering what was the best way to proceed in furthering that interest was, but really doing it at a much more haphazard intuitive way which actually did end up in the right place. It wasn't really planned.
McL You said earlier that you took a divergent view from Knight's in pursuing your own interests. Could you say very briefly without becoming too technical in what form it diverged?
S He taught psychoanalysis and at that time Freudian psychoanalysis was kind of thought to be orthodox and Kleinian analysis was very new and very suspect. The Tavistock Clinic had Kleinians in it. Lex Knight didn't tell us very much about the Kleinians he said they were about mad. He gave me I think or one of my referees for applying to the Tavistock clinic and when I did apply I went back him and told him I taken on the training. He wrote to me and said, "I'm sure you are much too sensible a person to get carried away by the Kleinians". And that time I didn't really know what that meant, I didn't know just what was so awful about Kleinans. What in fact they were about. But of course in the course of my own development I very much am Kleinan, whatever that means now.
McL Is it therefore difficult for you to make an objective retrospective evaluation of the standard of Psychology as a University Department in Aberdeen?
S Well at that time when I look back now I think I can see it at that time Rex Knight's understanding of psychoanalysis was purely academic and hadn't, I'm pretty certain, couldn't have had an analysis himself and didn't know anything about mental hospital patients. I think he took the Honours students up to the mental hospital here just to look at somebody. But he didn't really know much about psychosis or mental illness and I think there's an enormous gap in understanding, if people haven't got that clinical experience and understanding. That's a very big gap.
McL You ,nevertheless, have been able to bridge that gap and go into this field. What part of your experience do you think finally qualified you to make this your career. You express qualifications, reservations about the teaching of Psychology at Aberdeen. Was the practical experience you had in the east end, do you think gave you a broader vision that enabled you to take part and work in the Tavistock?
S Well you know the Tavistock was purely a training …, recruiting graduates who had a bit of experience with children or with people in some other way that was really the useful, just general experience of working with people. The training was a training in clinical work, so they were starting with us from scratch really in out-patient work. So I built up a bit of experience in the course of that training and then more still when I started to work in mental hospitals.
McL Did you have much to do with Knight and his department subsequently, did you returned to visit them or meet them occasionally?
S No, I didn't really. That was mainly, I think, because I didn't move about very much as I married shortly after, just about the same time I began training as a psychologist and I had children quite soon so I always seemed to have young children and I didn't move away from home very much at all because of young children. I think that would have been more a reason than not to travelling so far North as well for a long time.
McL How then overall would you evaluate the impact and the contribution your University education made to your post-university life?
S Well I think it made a very considerable contribution I think I was extremely naïve when I began and therefore I think I didn't get as much or make as much of the opportunities here as I might otherwise have done, because I started further back the line I think than many people would have done and certainly much further back than my own children would be doing now going to university. But given that I think it opened doors all the way and that was the main thing really. I did a lot more developing after I left but it all started here, undoubtedly.
McL Would you again with hindsight see part of its value lying in the breadths of the University course?
S I'm a great believer in advocate on the Ordinary Arts Degree. I think that's very good, I like the idea of a full range of subjects, yes.
End of Interview
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