| Description | Tape 1 Side A: KENNETH WILLIAM GLENNIE born 19 February 1926 in Yeovil, Somerset, of Aberdonian parents. Details re parents' names, births. Paternal family were farmers. Grandfather, William Glennie, a grieve, later started carter's business, then returned to farming. Reference to Burn of Glenney. Uncle manager of Ministry of Labour in Aberdeen. Explains name Glennie. Recalls visits to grandmother, formerly an Edwards. Maternal family, Farquharsons, also farmers. One forebear, the 'fairy doctor of Carew'. Details. He was in the '45 rebellion, a former taxman, became farmer in Forres. Family can be traced back to 1200s. James D. Glennie was dominie at Kintore. Reference to written family history, Battle of the Boyne, Glennie's Bridge. Many Glennies migrated to US, Canada. Reference to family tree. Had older brother Dougal in South Africa. Describes childhood home, neighbourhood in Yeovil. Mentions attitudes to types of housing. Details re father, his education. Reference to JB Anderson, headmaster, father's move to London at 15. He was in fire brigade, was a wrestler, rower, joined London Scottish territorial army. Reference to passing jet aircraft. Father worked for I&R Morley, makers of gloves, stockings, became commercial traveller. Farquharson uncle captured by Germans in 1914, worked in POW hospital, repatriated, joined Royal Flying Corps as pilot in Egypt, decorated. Father joined Queen Victoria Rifles. Reference to white feathers. Parents childhood sweethearts. Mother a VAD, sent to France. Describes father who died from war wounds. Details. Mentions his work as commercial traveller. Aged 7 when he died. Recalls day of his funeral. Sent to boarding school for sons of deceased commercial travellers free of charge. Reference to Charles Dickens.
Tape 1 Side B: Describes mother, her close relationship with father. Recalls Aberdeenshire holidays. When father died she took in paying guests, usually academics from Reading University or National Institute for Research in Dairying. Got used to academics, their conversation. Contact with Pharmaceutical Society. Details re later work as lab assistant with Dr Mart Frute, 4th woman FRS in Edinburgh. Details re other personalities. Place of religion in family, link with Presbyterian Church. Feeling of Scottishness. Comments on own accent, effect of schooling. Mentions parents' lack of political activity. Depression years not difficult for parents. Explains. Mentions costs of housing. Father's attitude to saving. Recalls diet at home, procurement of food, rarity of chicken. Mentions father's war wounds, his planning for sons' futures at Royal Commercial Travellers' School (RCTS). Own attitude to wastage. Went to Number 9 prep school. Details. Mentions left-handedness, reaction of headmistress, Miss Blizzard. Recalls local neighbourhood in Reading, White Knights Park. Geological interest began in final school years. Recalls earlier interest in civil engineering, first involvement in geology. Recalls interest in war, listening to radio at school, reading newspapers. Spent school time in shelters during Blitz. Explains routine at night. Further details re RCTS, headmaster, teachers. Own attitude to discipline. Details re MBE awarded to geography teacher, Harry Dyer, later headmaster, for wartime reconnaissance work. Recalls other subjects, entry tests for Edinburgh University, including translation. Enjoyed sport, got school colours in several areas. Won swimming competition. Further comments on discipline, attitude to working with others. Mother main influence in childhood. Everyone at school sons of deceased commercial travellers. Did not worry about absence of father.
Tape 2 Side A: School (cont'd). Details re former pupils' society (including girls). Background to Engineering Cadetship, Wolverhampton Technical College 1944-6. Mentions army search for cannon fodder, their attitude to technical skills. Had good hands-on training. Feeling about loss of this. Reference to Higher National Certificate. Social life affected by blackout. Recalls brother's work designing guns with Vickers, feelings about V2, V1 bombs. Headmaster kept log of bombing interruptions. Joined Royal Signals for National Service 1946, went to Egypt, Libya. Death of mother at 58, return home. Went to live with uncle in Edinburgh. Joined TA signals. Reference to Cold War. Laboratory Assistant work 1948-9. Went to geology, physics evening classes. Did geology at Edinburgh University 1949-53. Recalls Professor Arthur Holmes FRS. State of geology at that time. Attitude to plate tectonics, continental drift. Mentions own experience in New Zealand. Mentions oceanic crusts. Recalls Donald McIntyre. Details re own work for MSc thesis re Lake District slates resulting in structure analysis, mapping, indicating continuity of structures to Isle of Man. Importance of first post-war geology. Few lady geologists then. Geology only really took off with discovery of North Sea oil. Mentions one BP manager's attitude to possibility of oil there. No study of North Sea geology. Mentions exception of Professor Wills, Birmingham. Things opened up by merchant shipping offshore surveys resulting in sea-floor shape, sea-bottom map. Details. Bright geologists joined Geological Survey, academia, dumb ones joined oil industry. Explains. Background to entry to Shell 1954, their attitudes to qualifications. Details re own thesis for Shell. First person in Scotland to get MSc. Reference to marriage 1953.
Tape 2 Side B: Was at school at RCTS with future wife. Details re meeting with her in adulthood, her personality, work as office manager, children, their names. Set up home in Edinburgh. Wife died 1973. Her attitude to own work in Shell. Details re training in The Hague with Shell. Shell's attitude to staff. Importance of training in photogeology, ability to get 3D image, feeling for structures, their ages. Mentions field trips in Canada, New Zealand, Oman. Recalls discovery of oil during war on Dutch-German border. During training time, head of Exploration was German. Details re him, his pro-Dutch war record. Lack of techniques then for studying offshore. Mentions work in Lake Maracaibo, need for good seismic. Development of out-step wells in North Sea. Recalls study, significance of source rocks, reservoir rock. Significance of key North Sea study in 1970s. Attitude then to source of oil, lack of knowledge. Mentions oil wells dug by hand in Burma, early American, Scottish oil experience. Recalls trip down English coalmine to sample shales. Significance of radioactivity in rock. Went to New Zealand 1965. Details re situation there, Shell, D'Arcy & Todd, discovery of Kapuni, Maui fields. Own work to study rocks, stratigraphy there. Details re areas covered, geological work, colleagues. Describes Claude Furze, his rough ways, eg pulling own tooth out. Went to Canadian Arctic 1959-62. Details. Worked there 3 years. Family went too. Details re life there for wife, her long times alone at home, small amount of social life. Took her on field trip. Sent on walking trip to Nepal 1962-3 to study foothills of Himalayas. Explains roving geology.
Tape 3 Side A: Since last recording has written books on Oman Mountains, Deserts. Details. Explains work sampling sand which then processed in India. Going to Saudi in September to give courses for Aramco on desert sediments. Reference to Abu Dhabi. Attitude to retirement. After going to Nepal did courses on turbidites. Reference to tsunamis. Recalls huge expansion of Groningen gasfield output, work with Shell as desert expert 1963. Explains provision of free domestic stoves. Details re size of Groningen, its reservoir rock, thought to be desert sediment. Summary of Shell appointments overseas. Explains importance of going to desert to study rock. Reference to Jaap van der Sijp. Explains Dutch names, influence of Napoleon. Sent to Libya. Reference to Eppo Oomkens, geologist. Later meeting with Esso, speculation over nature of North Sea geology. Explains Mississippi, McKenzie deltas, seasonal effects on sediments. Clues in Groningen field for North Sea. Procedures followed, details re lines of field. Effect of wind in Europe, Australia. Need for source rocks for hydrocarbons. Details. Mentions gas link to coal, situation in coalmines, location of gas in sediment. Explains evolution of salt seals. Convinced colleagues of link between North Sea and deserts. Reference to plate tectonics. Mentions work in County Durham on yellow sands, in Germany, India, Arabia. Reference to Brian Evamy. Recalls aerial reconnaissance trip in 4-engine plane. Continuing value of photographs taken then. Spent many years in field. Compares with today's geologists. Importance of hands-on geology, engineering. Comments on theory-based degrees. Details re family arrangements, leave, weekend work. Impact of work on family life, attitude of daughter. 1966 Reference to Oman, Steinman Trinity.
Tape 3 Side B: Steinman Trinity (cont'd). Set up separate Shell research company to work on Oman mountains. Details re photo-geology, slow mapping progress without roads, summer heat hazard. Slept in tents, portacabins. No families there then. Job speeded up through use of helicopters. Offered job as Chief Geologist of Shell UK. Turned down because of need to write up Oman work. Banned for life from future promotion. Mentions wife's death. Later went to London in relatively junior capacity, responsible for North Sea areas. Involved in publications. After joining Shell UK, 1972, sent on field trips to Scotland. Completed Oman mountains work, first desert book. Shell attitude to publication. Mentions wife's cancer. Reference to AEPG Distinguished Lecturer's Tour 1971. Senior Geologist, Shell Expro. Wife in Edinburgh, died 1973. Details re children, domestic arrangements. Sent to The Hague 1980, took younger daughter. Reference to brief remarriage. Recalls BP, Shell North Sea exploration. Mentions own writing related to mid-North Sea High. Recalls gas monopoly situation. Reference to Wedgy Benn, British Gas, discovery of Brent, Forties oilfields, turbidites. Little funding, staff for own work until late 1970s. Began giving lectures. Reference to PESGB (Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain). Example of production geology project, attitude of Esso Americans to cost, cutbacks because of development. Explains own responsibility for southern North Sea gas area, stratographic development of North Sea, Irish Sea. Recalls experimental Atlantic exploration, useful negative results. Recalls London colleagues, encouraging one to qualify. Evolution of Shell Expro. Recalls trip offshore. Detailed explanation of plate tectonics/continental shift, formation of south Atlantic Ocean, sea-floor spreading, research work of others. Reference to Open University.
Tape 4 Side A: Geological evolution of North Sea, England, Scotland, Iapetus ocean over 400 million years ago, Caledonian mountains, Appalachian mountains, Gondwana, Lorasia, swamps linking eastern Europe, Northeast United States, sea flooding, carboniferous sequence. Origin of coal measures, source rocks for gas. Development of desert conditions, dune sands. Evolution of salt, triassic era, continental drift. Mentions possible situation re ice ages. Development of Viking Graben, north-south trench with oil/gas fields, Central Graben, mid North Sea High, Ring Køving-Fynn High, Southern Permean Basin, Sherwood Forest, Eakring. North Sea an Atlantic ocean that failed to materialise. Explains. Mentions East Africa rift system. Late 1970s involved in organisation to train geologists, JAPEC (Joint Association for Petroleum Exploration Courses). Resulting book 'North Sea bible', Petroleum Geology of the North Sea. Training programme successful. Benefit of own background in geology. Details re book publication, writers, revisions, content. Example of North Sea 'plays', geological phenomena. Importance of correct geometry. Role of chalk in geology, its different forms, movement of oil. Subsidence of chalk platforms as oil brought out, need to build platforms up again. Effect on sea/ground level of taking oil, subsidence. Details re Groningen situation. Reference to global warming. North Sea dry 20,000 years ago. Evolution of sea levels, situation now. Recalls own work on Persian Gulf flooding, Noah story, Muslim, Christian sensitivities. Possible geological future of North Sea, ice age could overtake global warming. Reference to Professor Arthur Holmes. Cycle of ice ages, their effects. Past, potential future height of ice over Scotland, evolution of marine terraces. Compares effect of ice on Scotland, England. Impact of cold cycle on oil/gas production.
Tape 4 Side B: Possible scenario in with global warming, land shortage, consequences of this. Impact on North Sea depth, temperature of source rock; time scales. Possibility of ice age preceding global warming. World air movements explained in own book Desert of Southeast Arabia. Explains ice ages cycles, interglacial periods, previous natural global warming. Possibility of new North Sea oil re-accumulating. Recalls return to The Hague, early 1980s. Edited internal company magazine. Mentions ban from promotion. Visited Shell's Nepal operation. Details. Comments on Shell as employers. Expected to retire, asked to return to Shell UK as contractor 1985, technical chairman of conference on Petroleum Geology of Northwest Europe, first 'Barbican' meeting. Pensioned 1987, came to Ballater. Mentions daughter. Spent ca. 34 years with Shell. Comments on career as practising geologist. Continued lecture programme 10 years. Industry change from exploration to production. Reference to UKOOA (UK Offshore Operators' Association). Recalls scepticism re possibility of oil in North Sea, New Zealand. Reference to Maui, Shell in NZ. Details re prestigious awards. Mentions own publications, importance of North Sea 'Bible', books on deserts, Oman mountains. Attitude to work. Explains attraction of geology. Mentions use of palaeontology. Sense of ownership of oilwells by different occupational groups. Mentions Americans who spend lifetime on one field. Attitude to religion. Reference to Noah story. Current work with PD (Petroleum Development) Oman. Details re Steve Freiberger, Caroline Hearn, their careers. Future prospects for North Sea oil, dependence on economics. Mentions prospects for oil shales, tar sands in Canada, old Scottish mines, Venezuela, US prospects. Feelings about wind, tidal power, likely need of atomic power. Never bored in career.
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