| Administrative History | William R.M. Low was a former Aberdeen University student |
| Description | Interview with W R M Low, (MA 1954) recorded on 26 September 1986 by John Hargreaves.
Transcript of Interview :
H Mr Low, you came up to university I think from Kirkcaldy?
L From Anstruther to be correct, I was born in Kirkcaldy.
H Why did you choose to come to Aberdeen?
L There was a choice, St Andrew's University where I sat their bursary comp and Aberdeen where my father and an uncle had been graduates. My mother had also been teacher trained in Aberdeen. I sat the bursary comp here and I was successful in it, not successful in St Andrews and therefore I came here.
H What course did you follow, did you take the ordinary MA?
L No I took Honours MA in English Language and Literature.
H Was that your intention when you came up?
L I think so. In fact my uncle had done the identical degree in the 1920s and I admired him and he advised me and I think probably that's what persuaded me to do that degree.
H How do you recall your studies and your teachers?
L I enjoyed very much being at Aberdeen. I was a great admirer or several of the professors here. Professor Bickersteth was the head of the English department. He was primarily an Italian scholar I believe but had a breadth of vision and widespread knowledge of all European literatures and although naturally we did not have many lectures from him I was very impressed by him. Likewise in History, which I did in my first year, Professor Black who had come, I think, from Glasgow, was quite inspiring in Renaissance and Reformation European History. That did thrill me. It was a new field for me and it gave useful background too, for English Literature. And Professor Roe in the French Department, because I did two years of French studies, I was quite good at French. Professor Roe was also a thrilling personality, he was wonderful to listen to, a born actor. I was very impressed by these three figures.
H You referred to three professors and their lecturing, were taught still largely by lecturers? How much tutorial teaching did you get?
L In the first and second years entirely by lectures. In junior Honours and senior Honours we had tutorials but my view is that probably we were not so well conditioned by tutors as they are, or were, at Oxford for instance where I have some knowledge. I myself did not make so much progress under the tutorial system I should say. My learning was largely book learning and therefore probably more restricted but I was not quite so happy with the tutors who were allotted to me.
H Could you expand on that? Was it a matter of the personalities of tutors?
L No I don't think so. I'm sure that's not the case. Both were quite attractive men but I somehow was not inspired to express myself so well as I had been for instance with Professor Black. In the restricted space of a tutorial room I'm afraid I became rather tongue-tied and a bit restricted in my thinking somehow. I don't think personality came into it, probably at that stage I was not so coherent as I later became.
H A tutorial here means a group of how many students?
L No, it was an individual tutorial. In my experience here we did not have any group tutorial.
H What was the general attitude of students at that time towards authority as represented by the teaching body in particular? Were they deferential?
L Most certainly with one possible exception. I'm speaking of the English Department. Lecturers commanded great respect and there was a discipline in the audience which was probably due to the atmosphere of school I should say. We had by the early 1950s lost the influence of the ex-service men who had been the backbone of the university I imagine pre-1950 and we were fairly well self disciplined. Not many ripostes or cat calls or anything like that, the occasional hiss or witticism but no I shouldn't say we were a very responsive audience at all. We were really very well behaved.
H Were there any members of staff with whom you or your contemporaries felt you were on personally friendly terms?
L I think not. An exception I do recall once when celebrating an athletics victory at a local restaurant in Union Street, I do recall once meeting the man who became my tutor and we had quite a jolly evening with him.
H Who was that?
L That was a Mr Keir who was my tutor in junior Honours year. I suppose the catch-phrase is 'he let his hair down that night' and made himself look very human and we had quite a boisterous time with him. That made a very good impression I must say.
H But you never visited the homes of your teachers?
L It was the done thing to go to their home with Mr Keir. Now I don't say it was because of that night at the Athenaeum, no that was not a case. That was the way he worked. I think Mr Michie who was the expert in Scottish Literature, I remember going to his home but in my final Honours year that was not the case. One had tutorials at King's College in a staff room.
H Where did you stay during your studies?
L In all of my four years I was in lodgings not very far from King's College.
H Was that a congenial place in which to work and live?
L In my first place which was for three years, no. I used to go to the library to study. The library was open I think until about quarter to ten at night and I found that appropriate. In my last lodgings which were in Orchard Street, I could have studied there, but in fact I had got into the routine of coming down to the library which I did do very regularly but I could certainly have studied in my second lodgings very easily.
H Were there other students in these lodgings in each case?
L In each case one other student yes.
H Can you recall how much you paid?
L Yes I can. It's hard to believe but when I first came to Aberdeen in October 1950 the weekly digs cost one pound twelve and six pence which was everything bar the mid-day meal and we did have a mid-day meal Saturday and Sunday. But I think the landlady in that case was in it for the first time and she quickly revised it to one pound seventeen and six pence which I think remained at that rate until probably 1953 when it became two pounds. Then in my last lodgings in Orchard Street it was two pounds five shillings and they were very good, warm, lovely lodgings.
H What about your income as a student, did you have any?
L I had been fortunate to win a small bursary in the bursary comp which was £25 per annum. I picked up a local bequest in Fife which was another £30 per annum and a further £20 came from a charitable trust in the parish where I had been brought up in Fife, so that came to £75 per annum and the County Council gave me a further £50. So I had income of £125.
H Was that sufficient?
L Probably not but in fact it was easy to get vacation work in the summer on a farm nearby and I did very well at that. I worked the whole summer at hay, grain and potato harvests and so I came back in October each year fairly well off.
H Your fees were paid by Carnegie or by the County?
L No. I remember paying nineteen guineas per annum, that I paid myself.
H Was there in the student body, you were obviously as you say not well off, was there any distinction between rich students and those on a closer margin?
L Yes. We had great inconsistencies in the county grants between counties. I recall that Durham paid very generous grants and I further recall that Moray and Nairn was extremely niggardly. I had a brother who did one year at university who served on the SRC and he let me know of the great differentials applicable dependent upon county of origin which we all thought was very unfair and I don't think that was really harmonised in the time that I was at university.
H Apart from your brother, were you conscious of that, that there were students with more to spend in the bar or running cars which I suppose would be pretty unusual?
L Yes. I think certainly we found that English students had more than we had because of the different rates applicable there.
H What about extra curricular activities at university?
L I myself played a great deal of sport. In the opinion of some far too much because in Arts one had morning lectures, the afternoons and evenings were entirely free. I'd always been fond of sport so I got my fill of it here. My normal afternoon was spent in the library reading because if you did English Literature you had to read an enormous amount which I did very studiously. But apart from sport I went to the odd meeting of the History Society. I didn't go to the Debater because I did not think I would ever be a very good public speaker and I took no part in political activity. I did take part in the Rectorial campaign in 1953 I think that was, perhaps 1952.
H That was for Jimmy Edwards?
L The Jimmy Edwards campaign yes.
H Were you an Edwards supporter.
L No I was not, I thought Edwards was a very remarkable candidate, but he won. I backed the local Scots laird, Farquharson of Invercauld and of course he lost because the Scottish vote was split as Lord Lovat also stood. So if that was a lesson for late in life we learned it then.
H You didn't take any part in politics, was this because you had no interest or because you didn't like the company of the students who did?
L Not at all.
H What was the tone of student politics, can you remember?
L I think it was fairly a reactionary left wing. I do recall someone who had a copy of the Daily Worker, a Sudanese gentleman, and I suppose there was a communist party, a communist club, I can't recall. But no I was not attracted by that nor was I attracted by any other form of politics, not even Scottish nationalism. It just didn't come into my interests.
H There would have been a general election in your time in fifty one, did that make much impact on the student body?
L Not that I'm aware of. Very few of us were entitled to vote at that time and I can't recall any campaign. I do recall once members of the rugby club being asked to come along as stewards to a meeting addressed by Lord Vansittart , but I didn't go to that. I just wasn't interested in politics.
H After graduation and your national service you went into the Colonial Service.
L Yes. I had to go to Oxford University for a year on pre-career training. We did lots and lots of subjects, mainly legal, history, economics, anthropology. A vast number of subjects which we had to be examined in at degree standard, but I wouldn't have thought any of us could have failed. After all it was an investment by the Colonial Office, a course run by Oxford University, and I imagine we were needed so they made sure we passed.
H When did you form this career intention, had you always been attracted by Colonial Service?
L I had always thought that I would leave Britain.
H Always, meaning as a schoolboy?
L I'm not quite sure when I formulated the idea but it seemed perfectly natural to seek my fortune, if that's the word, abroad. It had been very strong in the family and very strong in Aberdeen. If you can't find something useful at home you don't complain about it you clear out and you cross the water to Canada or something like that.
H This was the motivation you thought that the prospects would be better abroad in a permanent capacity?
L Yes, certainly I did.
H When was the Colonial Service as such part of your thinking?
L At university. I remember once going to a meeting when two colonial officers on a recruiting campaign came to speak to us. I went along and I was very enthusiastic about it. I expressed interest. I think I got pamphlets from them and thereafter I thought it was the natural thing to do.
H Was this in any way encouraged or put in your mind by any of your teachers at all?
L I think not. I remember Mr Lothian, who was a reader in Literature, rather quizzically saying 'don't you think the Caribbean would be rather enervating'. He had a sort of mock Canadian accent and I said well many others have tried it I consider I should do it too. No I would not have been easily put off by going abroad.
H You went in fact to Solomon Islands, that was your first posting and you stayed there. Was that a choice?
L No. I would normally have transferred. There had been a tradition in the Colonial Service that if after seven years you had not made any career progression, or if you did not like the territory in which you were, you were entitled to move somewhere else. But when I had seven years in, that was 1964, there were very few colonies left or those which were left were quickly reducing the expatriate employment. I did in fact apply to go first to Hong Kong and then to Fiji but Fiji was surprisingly on the verge of independence and Hong Kong of course has a very competent work force itself from Asiatic sources so there wasn't much chance there. After about ten years I realised I would just need to soldier on in the Solomons and that is what I did.
H You referred to the vaguely vocational of courses you followed at Oxford, but would you say that doing a degree in English at Aberdeen was a good education for a Colonial civil servant or do you feel that those like the French who had an Ecola Coloniale more formal preparation?
L I suppose you can say it's a bit of a hit or a miss policy taking a university degree and hoping that you will fit into Colonial Service. You may have studied something which is completely inappropriate. I did English Literature and Language and therefore I could express myself fairly well, but it didn't necessarily follow that I would be able to grasp the niceties of relationships with 'subordinate people'. I use the term subordinate in inverted commas because they were not well educated but they were fine admirable people all the same. It is a bit of a hit or a miss policy but in my case I should say my course led to rigorous self discipline. This business of going to lectures in the morning and being left to yourself for the rest of the day makes you take stock and you must discipline yourself to get the work done. I later found, certainly in two very remote positions in which I was the Queen's representative, that same self discipline came into force and I think it was the university that did it for me.
H That's clearly one aspect. You almost seem to exclude another possibility just then when in the study of Literature or the study of History you seem to say didn't teach you anything about relations between people and the exercise of authority and the other great themes if you like of Colonial administration.
L Probably in History, after all it was Medieval, it was Renaissance and Reformation History which I did, possibly there you can start analysing man's motivation and his sense of order, subjugation to the Sovereign state and so on. Yes there may have been something there for a future Colonial administrator.
H Perhaps I could just ask you about the actual selection process for the Colonial Service?
L Yes, I well recall that day. I came up to London and was faced by a battery of very serious looking gentleman, whom I took to be civil servants, but later I became aware that they were not. In fact one of them whom I later met, the Queen's librarian at Windsor, and he had been on that selection committee.
H Sir Owen Morshead?
L Correct. I remember a very distinct Glasgow accent firing a question about the plays of James Bridie which I could not answer at all and I somehow palmed that one off. He apparently was a merchant banker, so there may have been others there who were not civil servants but who presumably had some gift in assessing character.
H They asked you questions related to studies, or related to your sporting activities?
L Yes. They asked questions on a great variety of subjects. Clearly it was intended to unsettle you or test your nerves, but I think I managed to cope fairly well.
H Thank you very much Mr Low. Is there anything else you would like to put on record about your university connections?
L I am very pleased that I came to Aberdeen, particularly because my father had been here and I'm afraid it's a matter of great regret that I've not been able to produce a son to come here. I've one son who is a Dundee graduate and another who is a Cambridge undergraduate. Both are medical men and neither could have been accepted by Aberdeen because they did not have the specialised qualifications which the Aberdeen medical people require. I am very sorry about that.
END OF INTERVIEW
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