| Description | Interview with Michael Hodgson, recorded on 25 June 2001 by Jennifer Carter.
Transcript :-
C Right Michael, perhaps we should begin by asking what drew you to the University of Aberdeen, because you told me that you were born in Newcastle and largely raised in Edinburgh. So why did you choose Aberdeen?
H In a way Aberdeen was the place to go from my school. A lot of people went to Aberdeen University. Being from Edinburgh, you didn't go to Glasgow, it's the wrong side of Scotland, you didn't go to Dundee.
C Stirling?
H Stirling, no it was the same, it was Aberdeen if you didn't go to Edinburgh, if you wanted to get away from, then it was Aberdeen.
C Was there any disadvantage in that, from coming from a school which sent so many students to this University did you feel you were moving as one of the pack or was that rather reassuring?
H In a way it was a little reassuring because you knew there would be going to be people you knew in Aberdeen. But at the same time, I lost contact with most of them when I came up here, so in a way it didn't make any difference at all.
C In the end of the day it wasn't the sort of protective device you needed but it was nice, when you applied, to know it was there?
H Yes, I think that was exactly it.
C Interesting, yes. And how much did you know about Aberdeen University before you actually applied, did you visit, for example?
H Yes, I came up for an open day and I remember I'd done quite a few of the open days around Scotland and it was a miserable, grey day and I have to say (I now love Aberdeen) but the city in the rain is not the nicest - it doesn't rain a lot here - but it was grey, I got thoroughly drenched about four times, I got lost, I lost my group, I lost my meetings, everything went completely disastrously and on the way home, I remember thinking 'I really don't want to go there', but when it came to filling in the UCAS form something said 'there's something about Aberdeen that you liked'. So despite all that I ended up coming here and I've loved it ever since.
C That's very nice to hear, well, I won't go into my own role in all of that, but I'm delighted it worked for you. And so you knew a bit about the University, what about the specific courses you chose, you ended up doing your honours MA in Accountancy and Management, was that settled from day one, or did you change along the way?
H It was originally going to be just an Accountancy degree, a single honours in Accountancy, I'd done Accounting and Finance at school, and Management and Information Studies in sixth year, both of them, and did somewhat better in the Management so I decided to try and change the structure of my degree to be an Accountancy and Management joint which I'm very glad I did, actually, and it's a credit to the course that you could actually do that. On my first day here I went to my advisor and said 'actually I'd like to do Management as well' and he said 'no problem, it's done' and that was sorted, that was history.
C That's very good, isn't it? It's one of the traditional Scottish things, that I, as an English person, very much approve of, that you can move about like that in the system.
H It gives a lot more flexibility, so if you don't enjoy a particular aspect of your course you can study less to an extent in that and more to an extent in another area, it means your more likely to stay on if you discover later that you didn't actually want to do.
C Yes, sure, no I'm sure that's right. Nevertheless, you were choosing two subjects, as your principal subjects that you hadn't had a lot of experience of at school, I mean it's not like choosing, lets say, History or French which you've done for five years, you know, you probably only did them at the end at school. So was it a shock when you actually started doing them?
H Not really, it could have been I think the whole different environment of a university as against school is a bit of a shock, not having people to constantly make sure you were actually doing the work you're supposed to be doing and that could lead to a lot of laziness in your first term, followed by the shock of exams and then harder work after that, but on the whole I really enjoyed the courses in first year so it fitted quite well.
C Any particular University teachers stand out in your memory as being either good or awful or was it all just a grey blur?
H Right. There are bits that I remember, some of the teachers. A lecturer, Neil Geoghan, who still recognises me now, even though he taught me for one term in first year, five years ago now.
C That's pretty good in a University this size isn't it?
H It is. He knew me, he knew my girlfriend at the time, and he would still enquire about her, stuff like that, the way he knew people, that was quite astounding.
C Sounds as if he has an unusual gift for it, I would think.
H I think so. And other than that, just a few, complete contrast to my advisor, Alex Arthur, who didn't recognise me despite my frequent visits to him.
C To change course?
H To change courses and so on, but other than that they sort of merge, to be honest. I'm sure they will stand out more…
C Not necessarily, I'm sure it's one of the differences between the sort of interviews we do with people like yourself who are at the coalface still almost, and graduates of many years ago, because in the old days the sort of names of all the Professors were obviously terribly important to them, you know, and that sort of thing. But thinking also of the contrast with graduates of an earlier time, I mean, did you have any social interaction with the people who taught you, or did you just meet them in the classroom?
H There were a few, there was, his name escapes me right now, but the last tutorial was always held in the St Machar Bar, with the class - had to be done - hope I don't get him into trouble for this one, but it was always done, it was part of the course almost that the final tutorial was always done in the pub and he might let slip something that he thought perhaps might be in the exams even although he didn't set them, and it was it made a much more relaxed atmosphere, made you feel that you were a 'grown-up' almost now, you were studying at university, you weren't at school, so it was something that I remember.
C A sort of rite of passage?
H Yes, almost was actually, people who were teaching you saying 'let's go for a drink' instead of 'no, don't drink' it was a big change.
C And did you ever go into the home of a member of staff while you were a student?
H No, I don't think I did, that's something I think that was very separate, you've got your lecturers and your tutors and the teaching staff were there for you when you needed them, but home would have been something that would not be done.
C Yes, people kept that separate, yes, that's interesting. I'm told the separation really dates from the 1960's, and prior to that there were at least formal attempts to entertain students at home. So that's interesting isn't it, you didn't have any of that, you were spared the Professorial tea?
H Well, I think the teaching staff just wouldn't be comfortable with it, and they put in a lot of work and a lot of time so when they go home they probably want to go and forget.
C Wash the students out of their hair, yes, sure. Interesting. What about the facilities for study here, you've talked a little bit about the staff and what you've said is extremely interesting but what about stuff like computer support, the library, that sort of study facility, did you find that good or was it difficult in any way?
H I found on the whole that it was very good, there were a huge number of computers compared to what I was used to, but enough if you were to plan your work correctly. If you were one of the people who left their work, like me, to the last minute, then there were never enough computers because everybody leaves their work to the last minute and that's when the network will go down so you won't be able to print, so on the whole it was fine, there was enough computers with the right software and a lot of variety. For Accounts there were the Sage programmes and all your spreadsheets, everything you really needed was there a lot of computer-based teaching. And the library facilities were, the room for Accountancy and Management, it was a small room but there was everything you needed was to hand.
C Oh that's great. Did you come up from school with a fairly good computing knowledge, at least keyboard skills or not, did you have to take the introductory courses when you got here?
H I did have to do the introductory courses, I found out later I shouldn't have, I'd done Higher Computing so I knew…
C At least in theory…
H A fair bit about it, so I didn't need to be told, 'this is a computer and this is how it works' but I did still need to know how to use the internet, I didn't know that. Email which I use on a daily basis now, I didn't understand or I didn't think I would ever use actually when I first came up here and started learning it
C Amazing how it grows on you isn't it?
H It is, it's terribly addictive I think.
C Good, so by and large you'd put a tick in the box that says the facilities were good for study. What about the other facilities the University offers? I've heard a good deal of criticism, for example, about sporting facilities not being up to much, I don't know if this is an area you're at all into?
H Has to be said it wasn't an area I came across until, I was never particularly sporty and whatever I did in terms of that on a very social basis and not in a particularly competitive way because I was never any good, so I didn't really come across it.
C OK, what about non-sporting things like food, I mean were you, did you find that you could get things to eat when you needed in the Central Ref. or wherever, I don't know what the current patterns are for students?
H I remember, say way back in first year, I lived in Hillhead Halls, and there was, the canteen was still there, and I seem to recall going in for stovies and chips and it was a bargain price, it really was, so I used to eat there a fair bit and not cook any dinner myself, I lived in self-catering. But that was something I remember in the evenings if I got home late - from a hard day's studying, of course - then that was very handy. There's enough on campus, there's the Central Ref., there's always going to be the Aul Toon Bakers and so on, it's great, there's enough to get everything you need it's very locally based on Campus, very good for that.
C Yes, that is one of the pluses I think for Aberdeen that the sort of facilities for living are so close to where most of your classes are, and that's relatively unusual for biggish universities these days so I think we're very lucky in that respect. Right, you said you had your first year in Hillhead, was that in hall, a so-called hall or in a so-called flat?
H In a flat, a self-catering flat.
C And you'd chosen that, or were you allocated it?
H I chose that because I'm a picky eater, so I didn't want to have to eat at set times and I didn't want to have set meals, I thought if I live by myself, I've got the variety I require.
C And how did it work out, sharing with five other people? Perhaps you'd never met any of them before?
H Never met them before. I seem to recall there was a guy from Manchester, and Manchester and Newcastle didn't get on, there was a local lad and a guy from Portugal, who was only there for the term and another two people that I never saw…
C Although you shared a flat with them?
H Although I shared a flat with them. One was very, very quiet, a bit of a strange one, he was very quiet, small, meek kind of lad and I seem to recall he didn't think there was anyone in the flat, and there was Heavy Metal music coming from his room, very loudly, it seemed completely out of character for him, but then again he was so quiet you didn't know what his character was, but again, I didn't spend a lot of time in my flat in first year I had the facilities there, but I had friends that I'd already met, people on the course that I went on, so I just spent a lot of the time not with my flatmates. In a way I lost out there but in a way, but I honestly don't know how many of them remained.
C So what did you do about accommodation after first year, did you move into a private flat from then on?
H Yes, it was private flats from the start of second year onwards.
C So you've told me negatively that you didn't really go on relying on schoolfriends, and you didn't use your flatmates as a sort of nexus of friends, so what did you regard, looking back what was your network, was it class?
H In the first year or two, it was mainly class, the lectures I went to obviously, there was about in first year I was studying with a 150-160 people who were doing the same Accountancy course. There was 150 or 160 doing the Management course and there was about 50-100 who were doing both so you spent a lot of time in the same rooms with the same people and you just got to know them that way.
C Gradually got to know them. They became your network of friends?
H That's right, you start by leaving a lecture with your eyes rolling, looking at someone saying 'I didn't get a word of that, did anybody understand?' And they'd all look 'No, let's go to the pub!' So that was where it sort of built from really.
C So you were able to take the work as it were, fairly lightly in a sense from what you were telling me, I mean it was in your capacity and you didn't perhaps sort of slave?
H I didn't have to slave over it. I'd done both Accountancy and Management at school so I had a slight background knowledge which was a bit of an advantage. A bit of a disadvantage if you were learning it from the start, you had to work hard to learn it from the start, but if you already knew bits of it, you didn't have to work so hard which meant you didn't pick up on the differences between the teaching. But it wasn't something that I had to focus completely on which is just as well because I think a lot of university is not just learning your degree it's everything else you can do when you're here.
C It's the life skills bit isn't it, yes and the friends. So what sort of social activities did you take part in, at the beginning, I know where you ended up, as it were, but I think you said to me that you were interested in Charities from day one, is that right?
H I'd always been interested, I'd seen the information in the Fresher's Handbook and the fliers and so much coverage around campus there were so, they seemed to be absolutely huge and definitely the thing to do. But I didn't actually get involved for a while, I found the office quite daunting, it was full of people who knew each other very well and it was a bit daunting really to go into, so I hadn't really been involved at all, it had been much more social just involved with a group of mates, almost a follow-up from school in that you've just got your friends and you just do what your friends do and they do what you do and you just spend time like that. And then eventually it changed, and I moved into the Charities Campaign.
C And you took part for a couple of years and then ran the Torcher, you told me, is that right, and finally were President as a sabbatical?
H That's right, yes, I got involved, I think it was the start of my third year and eventually decided that was it, if I was going to get involved I had to do it now, and walked in to the office and said 'Give me an event to run' which they did, it was a pub crawl which was quite simple to do, it has to be said, it was very successful and I was hooked. And I remember looking at the then President and thinking, 'I want to do what he does, that's just great, the whole thing was just great' I just wanted to be involved.
C That's very interesting. How much was this, if I may put the two things in opposition, I mean how much was it idealism in the sense that the Charities is obviously a terribly good thing, like working from Oxfam or whatever, and how much was it a career plan, that you felt that this was a way in which you could do well and it would serve you well on your CV and your future life? Was there any of that, or was it all idealism?
H I think it was the CV that finally dragged me into the office in my third year, I was trying to write a CV and realised that I hadn't done anything, and I thought 'I've got to do something' and I went into the Charities Office to put something on my CV but then it changed once I'd done something, in the sense that I'd put in a couple of week's work, a couple of hours a day in organising this event, which went very well, and I raised about £850 for local charities which was fantastic and they told me where that sort of money could go, it could buy a computer facility for the Deaf School or for, what it can go towards, because it's such a diverse area, the local community, it just hit from that and the fact that I was having fun doing it, that was what hit me. So although it started out as a purely selfish 'put something on my CV' it very quickly became the fun of it and the fact that it was doing a really good job.
C So we must come round to this again before we sign off to find out what you're intending to do next and whether it's influenced that career, but just before we get there, one or two other things about you being a student. Obviously someone who changed courses a lot had to see a good deal of his advisor, but you said yours wasn't really a huge success, except I suppose he was ok at the technical level was he in telling you what was available and so on?
H He was very good at telling me the options, telling me what I needed to do, I think he remained my advisor for two years and then I moved on to a different one, and obviously because I at the start went from doing Accountancy to doing the joint honours, and then towards the end was more geared towards the Management side I did speak to my advisors a fair bit and they did know
C The rules?
H The rules, what you could do, what you couldn't do, how you could tweak things and just the ways to get what you needed out of your education basically.
C Oh well that's reasonably good. What about the other support services which Aberdeen has always rather prided itself on, you know, the Chaplaincy, the medical service, blah, blah, blah, did you ever have occasion to use any of them and have any impressions of them?
H I had to use the medical service in my first week here, actually not for myself but for my then girlfriend who was quite ill and I have to say that they were very good, there was one doctor in particular, again whose name escapes me, but he's now left and retired.
C Bill Irvine?
H Bill Irvine, that's the very one.
C Nice man, yes.
H He was fantastic. I know of people who would wait an extra week for an appointment just to see him, but on the whole I found the Student Health very good actually.
C And you never had to use any of the other networks?
H Not really.
C Had a perfectly normal student career?
H Fairly normal, fairly innocuous, didn't need to speak to anyone else, with the exception of the Career's Department, of course.
C Were they helpful?
H Very good, Locker Madden is, I almost say a genius at what he does, he knows his stuff incredibly well.
C That's very interesting, yes.
H He talked me through the correct way to write a CV and the correct way to word things on your CV
C So this was all one to one stuff?
H All one to one in interview. I'd gone in with the CV I'd had and he'd taken a look at it, and said 'You've got a lot of very good things down there, but I wouldn't have looked at this twice basically' and told me how to emphasise things and re-word it so that it would catch employer's eyes, hopefully.
C Very interesting, and has it done so, can I ask, i.e., what are you moving onto when you leave in a month's time?
H Not yet, but that's because I've only just recently started applying. My current job, I've been so involved in, that the rest of my life's kind of taken a back seat so I'm a little late in applying but I'm fairly sure I will.
C What sort of thing do you think you'll do when you do, general Management, charities administration, what sort of thing?
H There's a huge range of things that are quite attractive, I would love to go into management consultancy, it's very competitive to get into
C Jolly well paid when you're there.
H It's very well paid if you get there, but I think it's the variety, you get to do an awful lot, you get a lot of control, responsibility from the start, and I've had a lot of responsibility and I've had a lot of variety so going for something mundane without some responsibility would drive me insane, I need something, the responsibility, the variety of that. Failing that, I'm looking at marketing, PR, advertising, that side of things. Again I've had a lot of experience of that in my last year so that sort of area.
C Well, very good luck with it, I hope that goes well and that you find the things you've done at university are, in fact, pluses, as I'm sure they will be. But with such a busy life at university, coming back for a moment to two things on the more social side, did you see much of Aberdeen or the surroundings of Aberdeen while you were here, or did you spend such a student-focussed life that you didn't?
H I was very lucky in the first two years, actually in a way I wouldn't have lived my student life any differently. I was very lucky in that I had a car which meant that…
C Ah, that was going to be my next question, so you could get about?
H I could get about into the rural areas where you can't normally go without one, I got a chance to, I've driven up to Nairn, and I've driven west. I just get in the car on a Saturday when I wasn't working and just say 'we'll just follow this road and see where it brings me out.' A lot of lovely villages, old castles, the scenery's gorgeous, especially out west, there's a little place called Lost
C I know, I live near there.
H You live near Lost? I found that, and I had to stop and take pictures, I was surprised and it was…
C Did you get to the gallery, or hadn't it opened then, the Lost Gallery?
H I don't think it was open.
C Because that's super if you ever go back there, there's a wonderful small art gallery, Lost at Lost.
H I'll have to get back out there then. It's just such a lovely area, you get such a variety, from mountains, to hills, to the sea in Aberdeen, is quite unbelievable.
C Were you relatively unusual among your contemporaries in running a car in the first two years.
H I think I probably was there was a lot less people had cars than those who did not, again I was just very lucky in that I'd had one towards the end of my school life so I was very, very lucky in that respect. It helps you win friends, but that's another story!
C You can always give people lifts, yes.
H It was just a convenience thing, I was used to living out of Edinburgh so to get into Edinburgh you had to drive, you could get the bus, but they finished running very early in the evenings so it was something I was used to.
C Does this mean that you were relatively financially comfortable yourself or did you have a financial struggle?
H Was in the first couple of years, for the first two years I would go out a bit less than a lot of other people, because I'd to pay my car insurance and I'd have another, it was an extra sort of bill, but if someone would spend £20-30 on a weekend going out or on a night going out then that was my insurance for a month so I'd have my car insured for a month or one night out less or I wouldn't use a lot of petrol, I wouldn't drive it all the time, it meant that I had the use of the car but I didn't necessarily go out quite as much as some others, I did have a part-time job when I came up here as well
C Right from the beginning?
H I think my loan and my grant, well in the first year my grant covered most of my accommodation and then what I worked for was the going out, the running the car, and the rest.
C Did the grant/loan situation change in your lifetime or not? No it didn't I suppose you got a grant right through?
H I just got the grant right through to the end, but it decreased very slightly year on year, and my costs increased somewhat, a lot, every year so by the time I left I was in a lot of debt, I actually ended up, I didn't have the car at the end of my university career.
C A lot of debt, could we quantify?
H A huge amount of debts.
C Like?
H Over £10, 000.
C That's a lot, isn't it, that's a daunting amount, how are you going to pay it off?
H I don't know. It's going to involve getting a high-paid job, probably in management consultancy!
C Yes, indeed, Arthur Andersen here we come.
H Arthur Andersen, Accenture, that would help an awful lot. But in a way I'm luckier because I don't have to pay it back until I earn over £18 000 or thereabouts.
C So it's not an immediate worry?
H So it's not immediate.
C But it's there in the distance?
H But it means that if I take on a job that's over £18 000, ideally it's got to be a fair bit over £18 000, or it's got to be just below so I don't have to pay back the loan.
C Thinking of students younger than you, who you probably got to know in various ways as they went through the University, I mean did they find the financial bit even more daunting than you?
H I think so, if you're not getting a grant then it means that all the money you have, you have to pay back, and the fact that it's due back after £10 000 is terrifying, I mean on £10 000 which is roughly what I've earned over the last year, you don't have enough money to pay back a loan, you don't have enough money for an awful lot, you can get by, but you don't need any extra bills, so that's why in a way I think I'm very lucky that I finished when I did.
C Sure, sure
H I would have to think twice about starting university again.
C If you were beginning again now, that's a very serious indictment of the system, isn't it?
H It seems a bit foolish to me, the Cubie Report - I have to say I didn't get into student politics a lot - but the Cubie Report says something along the lines of you need £4000 a year to live on pay it back after you earn £25 000, and that makes sense, and I can see if you said £4000, pay it back after you earn an average graduate amount that would make sense, but £10 000 just seems awfully low to be paying back what can be a lot of debt. I have to pay back £150 a month when I start paying back my loans and I couldn't do that on £10 000 per year.
C Indeed. So what did you find yourself on the one hand running up debts for? Was it mostly social life, or was it actually living, you know paying for your bread and butter and your lodging, or was it because you became much more social as you were involved with things to do with charities and so on and so forth?
H I think it was a combination. I could have got by with less debt if I had done less at university but the point of being here is to make the most of the experiences you can gain. And the way I saw it, I was going to be in debt anyway, might as well be in for a bigger debt.
C In for a penny, in for a pound?
H Exactly, I think by my third year, my rents and my bills, just to live in a flat and pay the electricity and gas in the flat, not to eat, just to pay that was more than my grant was, which meant I had to work to pay to live in the flat, so I had to work to buy my food, I had to work to buy any going out or anything like that. It just meant that you had to economise as well.
C Yes, what sort of socialising did you most do, I mean I'm told that the night clubs and so forth are the great in thing with students these days, was that so in your experience or not?
H There's a lot of good clubs, the Union was very good, in that it's nice and cheap so your money goes further and it tends to be that you'd spend the time wherever would do you the best deal. The pub Archibald Simpson's does doubles for very fractionally more than a single, so if you were drinking something that is not a pint, that's a good place to start. And it's just a case of don't go to the expensive places, but it would be pubs and clubs.
C Which were the expensive ones you avoided?
H Which were the expensive ones? Anything towards the west end of Union Street is usually more expensive, they've opened up Bud's Bar which is expensive, Beluga's very pricey, anything up that way is usually more - not necessarily if you go down Holburn Street the prices cheapen down a bit, but not to the extent that the student market ones which are usually a bit cheaper.
C And this is the main entertainment for students, is it, to go the Union or to go to a night-club or?
H It has to be said it is, it just reinforces the image of lazy, drunken students really, but it's a way of relaxing, you don't necessarily have to get incredibly drunk or anything.
C No, it's just fun.
H It's just a good way to socialise to be in a different atmosphere rather than in your own flat which is often not particularly nice or somewhere else, it's a nicer place to spend your time, and then, usually a club. But it depends on your musical taste it has to be said. Aberdeen's very good, I would say it's got one of most places that you need if you're into a particular type of music, you will find a place for it, but not being a huge city, you might not find more than one place for it, but you still have enough variety to cater for all tastes.
C That's great. And what sort of jobs did you do, to pay for your way through university?
H Right.
C If you can remember, there were so many probably.
H There were quite a few. As a student you have to work in Macdonald's and they were recruiting when I lived in Livingstone near Edinburgh when I was at school so I took that job which meant I could transfer up here which meant when I came here I knew I would have an income, I did that for…
END OF SIDE ONE
SIDE TWO
C So people whom you…
H The people who you work with are very good friends because you have to cope with such, I wouldn't say bad conditions, but the job itself is somewhat…
C Pretty exploitative I would think.
H Almost, so you become very good friends, it's like these team-building exercises where they go into the mountains and are starved for three days, when they come back down, they love each other because they've gone through the same…
C Hell together.
H Hell, yes. It's amazing, I won't get side-tracked on to that, the customers are the worst aspect because although so many people discuss how stupid the staff are, in my experience the customers, on the whole, I won't say every, but on the whole they're scarily worse.
C Would be a useful experience for someone going into management?
H It is, it gives you a lot of experience of what motivates people, what doesn't motivate people, how to deal with awkward customers etc. It's very good for that and I have to say that it did change me a lot, I was incredibly shy before I worked there and by the time I left I was about level 9 but it's very very useful, but you can only do it for so long before you start to get very sick.
C So it eats into your time for study and everything else.
H It does that as well, in a way it's quite lucky it's quite flexible you can go along and say that you need more hours the next week and you can get them but on the other hand it's day in and day out the same so you need something different.
C And never difficult to pick up a job in Aberdeen I would imagine?
H I didn't find it that way, when I left there I started working for, who did I work for next? I think I went to work for the University Development Trust next, I'd applied to them and got turned down, and I was shocked, because I'd never been turned down for a job before and I just didn't expect to be, so I looked at my CV and realised I needed to do more stuff, and that's kind of when I joined Charities as well and then I applied again the next term and got straight in and really enjoyed that. And it was completely different, basically involved calling alumni of the University and to start with you were just checking that you had the right details, re-establishing contact and that sort of thing and you might have to meet, well not meet but speak to a huge range of people, people who'd done a teaching degree here and gone onto teach, people who'd done their teaching degree here and gone on to run corporations somewhat strangely, people who'd done all sorts and had just, it was almost like you knew what their life was up until they graduated and then, even although they could be very similar, from the information you had, to the next person, they could have done completely different things, it was very interesting.
C So you weren't actually asking for money, you were just the friendly bit?
H Well, you'd start with the friendly bit and then you'd ask for money.
C Because that must be quite awkward actually, mustn't it, or did you not find it so?
H I didn't find it so bad because I could see where it was going to and I could see the difference it made, there was a lot going to Student Hardship and I could appreciate that, I had a lot of friends who were at the time in a lot more debt than I was so I could appreciate the situation that it was going to, and if you've enjoyed university and you've benefited from the time then you might want to make a donation to it and support it, but it's something I would probably consider when I left, maybe because I worked for them, maybe not.
C Once you've paid off the debt?
H Once I've paid off my own debts, it was, to start with it was awkward but then when you saw it from the angle of the good it was doing, then it became quite easy. It's a bit like standing on the street shaking a bucket, to start with it's difficult to ask people for money but when you think about what you're doing with that when you get it all in, it gets a lot easier.
C And of course in this last year, you've been in a sense an employee, if I can put it like that, as a sabbatical officer?
H Yes, almost an employee of the University, it's the way Aberdeen Student Charities is set up at the minute, it's very confusing. We were always somewhat hazily linked to the SRC but of course the SRC is no more this year, it's the Student Association, and when they altered the constitution, it was impossible to build Aberdeen Student Charities into it.
C Oh, so you floated off as an independent organisation?
H So we're a completely independent organisation at the minute.
C That's rather challenging.
H In a way, it's great, it means that if the Student Association go big for the NUS, there's a deal with the NUS where you can only promote NUS-approved companies, then it means an independent Aberdeen Student Charities can get sponsorship from all of their rivals which is potentially lucrative. But it also means that if you would like to get some money from the Student Association, it's practically impossible, so it just brings out different challenges and in a different environment to previously, but we still work very closely with the Student Association, it's funny, we're interlinked but we're separate.
C Did you have, when you as it were, floated free, did you have to build in things like more strict financial controls and that sort of stuff, because that must be one of the problems of running Charities, mustn't it, there must be an awful lot of opportunity for sloppy accounting and leakages at various levels.
H I think in the past it's been sloppier, depending on who's been in charge. It was fairly, there were no strict rules on accounting procedures and everything, with an accountancy background, you'd think I could sort that out, but it was done just before I did, the Union took control of it to make it a bit more accountable, obviously if you're running a charity and you've got other people's money, you've got to be very accountable and it meant that we had a much more structured way of doing it.
C Good, so that had all been looked after before…
H So it had all been linked in with the Union before I took over, so it was as I say linked but separate, it was very handy to have actually.
C Super, well just a couple more questions I'd like to ask, one you may not see the immediate force of, but it's partly for historical reasons I'm asking this one, and a couple of things you've said also prompt it. You mention, for example, at one point how your supervisor, in a particular stage in the course, took you all off the St Machar Bar, and at another point you mentioned that you've never had any problem getting a job, a paid job, I mean. I wondered if this, in your experience, would be equally true for women, in other words, were women students in any way disadvantaged by either a greater difficulty in finding paid employment, query? I don't know, or by the fact that some lecturers at least regarded the Machar Bar as a natural place to entertain which not all women students would find very conducive? Any thoughts about that?
H For employment, I wouldn't have thought there was any disadvantage, in terms of the alumni annual fund in the Development Trust in the University there were more women than men, the majority of the callers are female, possibly because they've got a better telephone manner, possibly because they come across better in that sort of area or possibly because they were the best candidates, I don't know which it is, but from experience, from a practical being there experience I'd say there were more women than men, so I don't think in any other areas it really makes a difference unless you're doing heavy labouring in which case male or female, you need to be pretty strong, so typically you're going to be male, it just comes down to the area you're working in, bar staff for example, a lot of students do that, probably a 50/50 split, I wouldn't honestly know.
C No, I was just interested from your experience because you've moved about the scene quite a lot.
H From what I've seen I'd say it doesn't make a huge difference, obviously depending on what you're going in to, a lot of telephone work tends to be females, because I think they're maybe better on the phone.
C Or it maybe they go for it because it's work in a sheltered environment?
H Quite possible.
C What about the position of women students in classes and so on, I'd imagine you're courses were more male than female, or am I quite wrong about that?
H It was pretty much 50/50, possibly more female than male, but then I notice females more than males, what would I say? The majority of my friends are actually female so I would say that, probably a 50/50 split.
C That's interesting, so you didn't feel in your day that women students were under any form of disadvantage that you can immediately think of?
H Not really at all, it seemed very equal.
C Well, that's interesting historically, you see I'm comparing what you're saying with what some of our graduates in the '20's said, you know?
H What might of interest there then. We had to do, Aberdeen holds a bi-annual Women's Festival and as part of my Management course we were asked to design an evaluation strategy for it, which basically involved looking at the whole organisation of the whole festival, planning how to evaluate it, setting it up so that they could actually then go ahead and do what we wanted, or do what would best evaluate it, and I think they had initially asked for an all-female group and our lecturer had refused to do that and said that he wasn't going to do an all-female group whereas in the past you might have found maybe an all-male group would be asked for, almost a role-reversal. So again there was a group of eight, four guys and four girls, which was great in a way, in a way it was very terrifying for me, having to do a presentation to a large group of women who, I have to say some of whom were somewhat man-hating. Definitely learned some skills on that one!
C Good.
H Yes, I don't think there would be a difference. The St Machar Bar, I have to say I haven't been in it very often so I don't know what it would be like, the last time I was there I was actually taken there by a female friend, she said, 'let's go to the Machar Bar', so, although I think it's always been traditionally a very male-dominated pub, and I think it always will be, it might change slightly.
C So women are enough welcome there for it not to be an issue? That's interesting. One big catch-all question at the end and then we can see if there's anything I haven't covered that you'd like to talk about, but my big catch-all question is, reflecting back on your five years with us, do you sense any general change in student attitudes that you can pick out as of interest to you, socially, politically, we've talked about money, that's obviously a changing one, the economic circumstances of students, but have you been conscious of any changes on the social, political fronts, anything like that, not necessarily involving yourself, you understand, but looking at students as a whole?
H I have to say politically I haven't seen anything, at the minute because I'm in charge of a recognised Scottish charity, the organisation has to be non-political, so I tend to just ignore it almost, I gloss over it, I would say everyone assumes and there seems to be a very high level of student apathy, but I think it's just, if you get a low turn out from students, or if you get a low response, it's just seen as apathy, but there's more to it than that, I think there is a lack of time.
C People are very busy?
H People who are studying often want to get the very, very best degree because it's a very competitive job market and if they're not studying, they're wanting to develop a lot of skills because it's a competitive job market or alternatively they're working part time because, going back to the financial, they're financially struggling so there's not a lot of time to get involved in something that doesn't obviously reap very clear benefits very quickly. I'm not entirely sure, I would say that people do as much as they can, but you'll always get people who merely want to come here, get a degree and get drunk while they're doing it.
C Are there still some of those around?
H There's still a few around it has to be said.
C Old lags, yes.
H It comes down to the person, the individual, it's difficult to generalise when I've seen such a diverse group of people over my last five years, that, I've maybe been exposed to more people than an average student, I don't know.
C Yes, I would guess, yes.
H But, because I've seen such a diversity, I find it difficult to generalise.
C No, what you've said is very interesting. So is there anything that you would have liked to talk about that I haven't happened to touch on?
H I don't think so. I'm trying to think who this is going to be heard by.
C Historians in 100 years time, roughly will be one of the groups, that's the one we're primarily aiming at.
H I think most of it has been covered. In case records get lost, which is quite likely, from before now, I'll say that at this stage, Aberdeen Student Charities Campaign is entering its eighty-first year of the Student Show and the Torcher Parade we haven't got a lot of pictures from between the '20s and now, we've got no idea what was done before the '20's, we're trying to archive and keep track of things right now, it's just to get an idea of where it is at the minute. We're currently on about £50 000 a year, which isn't bad for students, really. There are always costs involved so we raise more but we have to spend some and the Torcher Parade comprises 45 floats or there abouts, the Student Show is all done in Doric, just quick things that I would like to say at this stage, that I don't think will change, I think the Student Show will always be done in Doric for as long as people know how to speak it.
C Well, it's probably one of the instruments that keeps the language going.
H I really hope so, it's a great thing to watch and to be involved in, even slightly, I haven't been involved heavily, but to be involved in slightly I have to say has been great. I saw four out of six performances this year and I still laughed at the last one so it's got to be good. I cannot think of what else needs to be said.
C Well that's a super concluding statement and thank you very much for the whole interview, Michael which I've found fascinating, I hope you've enjoyed giving it.
H I have thank you.
C Good.
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