| Description | Interview with Willie Thompson recorded on 28 June 2002 by Jennifer Carter. Plus a personal memoir for the Quincentenary History Project (this remains closed)
Transcript of Interview :
C So, Professor Thompson, I understand that you came up to University and graduated with Honours in History in 1962?
T That's correct.
C What drew you to Aberdeen, were you a local boy, or did you come here specially?
T It depends what you mean by a local boy. No, I grew up in Shetland, and Shetland students who qualified for university almost always went to either Aberdeen or Edinburgh and for me, Aberdeen was the more convenient and some of the people whom I knew at school were going to Aberdeen, that was a factor as well.
C And so you came, as it were, automatically from school, I mean, you know, anyone who was going to university that year would have come to Aberdeen?
T Or Edinburgh.
C Or Edinburgh, why did you chose Aberdeen rather than Edinburgh?
T Well, it's nearer for one thing. Secondly, from the very brief visits to both of these towns that I'd had before, and that was just once each in 1956, I liked the look of Aberdeen better and, as I mentioned, some people I was friends with at school were also going to Aberdeen.
C So you came down as a little Shetland gaggle then?
T Yes, that's right.
C How did one travel in those days, was it a boat?
T By the boat, yes, by the steamer.
C Direct?
T One or two people were flying, if they could afford it, towards the end of the four years I was here. I did actually fly once, but all the rest of the time I endured the martyrdom of the sea crossing and it's put me off boats ever since.
C You're a poor sailor, I assume, are you?
T I am now!
C Very, very, sick, how horrid.
T Yes.
C So you arrived in Aberdeen. Did you know it at all, or was it a strange city to you?
T No, it was a strange city. The only time that I had seen it before was on a school trip to Belgium in '56 and we spent a day in Aberdeen on our way back. So that's the only previous acquaintance I'd had with it I got a good impression of it, I liked it.
C You can recall your initial impressions can you?
T Oh, yes, very clearly.
C In those days, pre-oil, I suppose you came into the harbour full of fishing boats?
T That's correct, yes.
C And did students used to get up early and go and see the fish market and that sort of thing?
T Ah…
C Sometimes?
T Sometimes, yes.
C After a long night at the Union?
T Well, sometimes the fish market was opening by the time we were coming back.
C Yes, I understand, yes. And where did you stay when you arrived in Aberdeen?
T Well first of all, I stayed in lodgings, in, I think it's Springbank Gardens is the name of the street, with a couple of… a couple, Mr and Mrs… I think it was Stewart but I'm not sure, who let out their rooms, not always to students, but a fair number of students. But after that, in my second year - I stayed there during the first year - the second year, I stayed with some friends that I joined up with, I hadn't been with them in the first year, in, again it was in lodgings, in Torry. But towards the end of our first term - it wasn't my initiative, but I went along with it readily enough - four of us moved into a flat in Broomhill Drive, I think - is it Drive it is called? - off Holburn. And it was number either 17 or 21, I can't remember which it was of these, but it was one of these - and we lived in a flat above the people who owned the building.
C So you had to be pretty quiet?
T Well, we should have been, but we weren't, we were terribly rowdy, it was really quite disgraceful. And after two years, they'd had enough. So in the final year, the same group of us, we stayed in a flat in Constitution Street, we disgraced ourselves there again.
C Those initial lodgings, the ones which you found when came down from Shetland, how did you obtain those?
T The University had a list of…
C Had a list, and did you just put a pin in it, did you, or did you have Shetland connections?
T No, it was my father who put the pin in it really, I guess, my parents made the arrangement.
C Yes, because Shetlanders often have a kind of network, don't they?
T They often do, yes, but in that case it wasn't the network.
C No, it didn't work like that.
T It was just chance.
C Just chance, yes, and the lodgings…?
T Sorry, the name was Walker, it's just come back to me.
C Right. And the lodgings before you moved out and did - what sounds as if it was slightly daring, in your day, taking a flat?
T It was, yes, it was the beginning of a trend.
C But the lodgings, they were decent were they, I mean, you were reasonably fed and warm enough, or was it all a bit kind of meagre?
T Adequately fed, but monotonously. I'd a room to myself at first but that only lasted a few weeks because then another guy came who, because he was older I think , Mrs Walker thought he should have precedence, so he got the room to himself and I had to share one for the rest of the time, the year that I was there.
C Do you happen to remember after all this time what it cost?
T No.
C No?
T My guess would be that it was less than a pound, but I would be guessing.
C Amazing how prices have changed, well, I don't have to tell you that.
T I can tell you how much we paid for a lunch in the Elphinstone.
C Which was?
T One and ninepence.
C One and ninepence for lunch and that was…
T Sixpence for sweet.
C Right, so that would have been a main course and extra for a sweet. Excellent. And of course, all of the students and staff dined together in the Elph, didn't they then?
T That is right, the…
C Sort of vast table?
T The students dined along tables that ran lengthways, the staff along crossways, and I remember noticing a guy there who had a striking resemblance to Fernandel, the French comic actor, who was Ken Alexander.
C Goodness, who was a student then, or a lecturer?
T No, a lecturer.
C Lecturer in Economics. A wonderful chap, who, of course, ended up as Chancellor of the University.
T That's right, yes.
C And how much of a struggle was it for you financially, I don't…?
T It wasn't.
C It wasn't, you were ok?
T Had a grant, yes, and could actually even save on it.
C You could even save on your grant, that's an amazing change, isn't it?
T I was a fairly parsimonious sort of guy, but even so.
C Yes. Were the grants means tested at all, or was it just a standard grant?
T No, they were means tested.
C And you got a full one, did you?
T Yes.
C What happened in vacations, did you go home?
T Yes, I always went home, even for the short vacations, that's where I acquired my hatred of…
C All this awful sea!
T Of sea travel. And yes, I worked in the vacations.
C What sort of jobs did you do, do you remember them?
T Yes, ones connected with the fishing industry.
C What, working as a deckhand, or…?
T No, no, no, onshore. I was skinning dogfish.
C Skinning dogfish! Gosh, that's sounds particularly hard and unpleasant work.
T And then, one year, I - myself and a close friend of mine, whom I've kept up with ever since - we got jobs as Mental Nurses at a Mental Hospital in Surrey.
C That was interesting.
T It was very interesting indeed.
C A good deal easier than skinning dogfish wasn't it?
T Yes, yes.
C Or were you distressed and upset by what…?
T No, I think at that age one has a certain insouciance that one loses in later life.
C Sure, you don't imagine yourself in the situation of the patients.
T Yes, you said exactly what was in my mind, although I was refraining from saying it, yes.
C Good, well that gives me a nice picture about, you know, what you felt about the town and how things were for you. Did you take - I'm coming to the academic stuff backwards - did you take part in any of the sort of formal student social life, I mean, were you a sports person or…?
T I wasn't a sports person, but I was very much into the student politics.
C Right, ok.
T Or… not student politics. I was on the SRC, the Student Representative Council, for a term, but I was the editor of Gaudie…
C How long did you do that for, because latterly it's only been for one term?
T Yes, that was the same in our time. Of course, I was part of the group.
C Yes, the editorial team, before you became Editor.
T Before I became Editor, yes. And I was into the Labour Club which became the Socialist Society and I ended up as the chair of that, and the New Left, which was flourishing in those days, CND… in fact, if I hadn't been so much into those, I might have got a better degree!
C And what was the kind of balance of political opinion amongst students, I mean, were you an unusual person to be an activist and a left wing activist?
T No, there was a group of us, I wouldn't say… I think most students were non-political, it wasn't like it later became in the sixties, but we were a bit unusual, yes, but we weren't bizarre.
C No, and your friends didn't feel offended by your activities or anything like that?
T Oh, not at all, I usually got them to join the CND at least, if not the other.
C Did your CND activities ever lead you towards the edges of what was legal in demonstrations and things?
T Well no, well civil disobedience, that was all, which is all that CND ever went in for which is like sitting down at nuclear establishments. I did that a couple of times, but I was never one of those who got arrested, that was just a happenstance.
C So student politics and apart from the political bit, as it were, were you a campaigning student on issues like, I don't know, ones that concerned students in those days, you mentioned being in SRC, I don't know what agenda it had?
T Yes, things that concerned students, yes. I had a very bad scene in that regard, because, there was opened a student common room, just above the Elphinstone, I don't know what it's used for now.
C I know, it's what we call the Gallery now.
T That's what it's called, the Gallery.
C It sort of looks down into the Elph, yes.
T And, when I was on the SRC, I was made the Common Room Convenor. I didn't think it would be anything, just to see that the students were satisfied with the Common Room facilities. It turned out there was a group of card players who were told that they weren't allowed to play cards, and I was deputed to go and see the University Secretary to go and put their case.
C Right.
T And they did not feel I'd done a good job and they were extremely impolite about it.
C What you had to go back and say 'the ban continues'?
T Yes, that's right.
C Who was the Secretary, Mr Angus?
T I think it was Angus, yes.
C Or 'Aberdeen Angus' - he was quite fierce.
T Yes, he had a rather ferocious moustache.
C Yes, I can imagine that he would have been quite a formidable character - or it might even have been Colonel Butchart, mightn't it?
T No, it was certainly Angus, that rings a strong bell. So that was a rather unhappy business. But no, it was proselytising politically rather than picking up student issues. But there was an occasion on which a number of us, not me, because those of us who were known fire-raisers were kept away, quite deliberately, representations were made on behalf of the catering staff in the coffee shop in the Elphinstone because of the miserable wages that they were paid and a petition was got up and so on, and so forth, but as I say, some of us weren't allowed to sign.
C That must have been a pretty early example of Campus Union actively I would think?
T Yes, I think so.
C And did they get anywhere?
T Yes, they did, they got a rise.
C They got some advancement, good, that's very interesting. Do you know what the wages were?
T I'm afraid not.
C No, history doesn't recall.
T The history does not recall - or rather, I don't recall, you might find it in the Gaudies of the time, I'm not sure.
C Yes, you probably would. Gaudie is one of the few sources for this kind of, you know, nitty gritty student stuff.
T In fact, there was a series of editors, of which I was one of them, who were criticised from time to time for bringing too much politics into Gaudie.
C That's interesting, it was thought by other students that it should be apolitical then?
T Well certainly less political.
C Among your contemporaries, who were the kind of outstanding characters, because in those days, you must have know most students in the University?
T Oh yes, about two thousand was the…
C Or most except the medics, perhaps, were they already rather separate or not?
T No, they used to walk around, very recognisable by their scarves.
C So who were your contemporaries?
T My contemporaries, yes, actually if you look up the thing I wrote back in the nineties, you'll find that. Ones that I didn't know of that well, because they were in advance of me. But I liked - when I was at school I liked debating, I went to the debater, and the guy who was in the chair, was a formidable character called Neil MacLeod, he was big, he was red haired he was a very self confident - he died actually in the eighties, I don't know what he died of, but certainly prematurely.
C Oh dear.
T There was a character - there were two who I think were in their final year at that point, who I never got to know personally, Monty Johnston - no not Johnston, I can't remember his second name, but his first name was Monty.
C Monty?
T Yes, and he was very smooth, and he wore what were evidently expensive suits, and I think he must have been studying Law because he debated with a very lawyerly-like method. And there was a guy - and again I don't know his second name - he was called Jonathon, and he was Monty's foil, so to speak, looked a bit like Tom Baker's Dr Who, actually, but people that I was more closely acquainted, politically involved people. The leading character was a guy called Sandy Hobbs, who was a post-graduate, there weren't very many post-graduates, he was a Psychology post-graduate and he influenced me quite a lot. There was… he actually edited Alma Mater for a time, there was a guy who was the Editor of Gaudie, he did a couple of editions before me, a couple of terms before me, his name was Wilfred Heap, spelt H E A P. Peter Henderson, he was a couple of years in advance of me, but I knew him quite well, and he went to Australia, most of his academic career was in Australia and a couple of years ago, he was devastated by a stroke, so although he's still alive he's completely…
C What a shame, I'm sorry.
T Yes, it is a shame. And a character called John Ross, who became a lecturer at Glasgow University, but destroyed himself with drink, I regret to say, yes.
C Was there, incidentally, in parenthesis, was there heavy drinking among under-graduates in those days, or not?
T Sometimes, yes, sometimes. The student bar in the Union served only light drinks, beer, cider or babycham.
C So you couldn't get whisky there, for example.
T No, but you could get it round the corner in the Kirkgate or the Marischal or the Blue Lamp! All of which still survive I see.
C Yes, they do indeed, and the Beastie, just up the road from here.
T That wasn't one from my time, no.
C That wasn't a student pub in your day?
T No, but there was the Red Lion.
C That's it, the Beastie.
T Ah, that's what it's called - ah, the Beastie, the Red Lion, yes, I see.
C It's a sort of informal student name and has been since the nineteenth century, I believe.
T Oh really. So yes, there was no problem getting…
C That was just in parenthesis, but I wondered if drink was sort of a problem, because it would have been pre-drugs you know.
T Well this is interesting, this is very interesting actually. There was a guy called Maxi, I can't remember his second name, who was reputed to be a drug addict. Now he looked like your stereotypical drug addict: pale and hollow-cheeked, dirty, trembling, very untidy clothes, shambled about. People said 'that's Maxi the drug addict' that's all. And he was regarded as being unique because he was reputed to be a drug addict.
C And that was that unusual because he was pointed out in the street.
T Or at least in the University, yes. So the only drug of significance was alcohol.
C Interesting. Coming back to your contemporaries and so on, did you know about the great eccentric of those days, Robin Harper who's now our first Green MSP?
T I knew him quite well, yes, he was in the same year as me…
C And was he as eccentric as legend recalls?
T Yes.
C The last person in the United Kingdom to be a victim of scurvy I'm told!
T I didn't know that, but given his lifestyle it doesn't surprise me. He used to wear striped blazers, he was the only person I knew to wear striped blazers.
C And lived under a boat on the beach, or something?
T That maybe so, I can't recall…
C Or it may be mythology?
T It could well be mythology. Sarah Cockburn, does that name ring any bells with you?
C No.
T Have you ever heard of Claude Cockburn?
C No.
T Claude Cockburn was a renowned left-wing journalist in the thirties.
C Oh right, I've got it now, yes, ok.
T He was actually one of the people who set up Private Eye in the sixties. Well, Sarah was his daughter, by one of his (many) wives. And she was an exceptionally beautiful woman, I mean very, very, striking, she stood out. And she, she was supposed to have had a relationship with her professor, but whether that was true or not, I don't know, she studied Greek. I heard that she died a few years ago. Her mother was Jean Cockburn who was the original for Sally Bowles, you've heard of Sally Bowles?
C Yes, indeed, interesting.
T And she herself, she was about forty at the time - she looked old to me at that age - but she was also an extremely striking person, she was a very, very handsome woman.
C Speaking of that particular woman, I mean in your student days, I mean what was the balance between the sexes in the University, was it roughly fifty/fifty - at any rate in the Arts Faculty?
T Well in the Arts, yes, indeed in Medicine too, there was an awful lot of woman medics. My guess would be that it was around fifty/fifty, but, of course, it would be just a guess. Of course, Engineering had none.
C No women at all, I would assume. And Science probably tended more put towards men in those days, yes. Was there any, did you have any sense of how the women students were regarded by the generality of the University, in other words were they still seen as in any sense an oddity or had all that gone?
T Oh no, no, no, that had totally gone.
C They would all come up from local comprehensive schools, as it were, or…
T Well, we didn't have comprehensive schools at that time, but from local schools.
C Local academies.
T That's right, and Aberdeen was the only integrated Union in the Kingdom, I believe at that time, I think.
C Yes, I knew that I think. So by this time, there was no issue about women students?
T Women did not often go into the snooker room though. They began to, partly under our encouragement. This was looked at a bit askance, but nobody made a fuss about it.
C What about smoking, did students smoke in those days?
T Yes, they smoked.
C And did women smoke as well, publicly as men, or not? In the street, for example?
T My impression is not, but it is impressionistic.
C Yes, because it's interesting trying to date when these little sort of social customs changed, isn't it? Were women as forward as men in class, or was everyone in those days quiet?
T Oh well, there was never any rowdiness, I mean it would have been unthinkable to have created an uproar in the class…
C But in discussion groups?
T In discussion, yes, I think, possibly not, possibly not. The institution was the weekly dances in the Marischal, the Hops as they were called.
C Saturday Hops or Friday Hops?
T Saturday Hops. I don't know whether they still exist or not?
C I don't know I'm afraid, but they've existed into living memory.
T They were quite an institution.
C So thinking more then, of the academic side, did you have History in your sights from the time you arrived?
T From the beginning? Yes, I did, actually. I thought at the end of the first year I got a good mark in Psychology - I got a good mark in History too - got a good mark in Psychology and I was invited to join the Honours students for Psychology and I seriously considered it.
C That would have been Rex Knight's day, he was a powerful teacher I gather?
T Sexy Rexy! But, in the end, I decided to stay with History, but my friend, whom I mentioned before, Douglas Bain, he opted for Psychology. Now we also were lectured to by Rex Knight's wife.
C Margaret.
T Margaret yes, who was, of course, notorious for her atheistical opinions.
C That's right, I knew her when I came here, of course, nice woman, interesting woman.
T Nice woman, but she did have one serious fault.
C Which was?
T That her lectures consisted of readings from her book.
C So you held the book under the table and followed it paragraph by paragraph?
T Yes.
C Yes, I did that as an under-graduate with some of my lecturers too! So the historians in your day would have been, would it have been Sayles as Professor of History?
T Sayles was the professor when I arrived, but either it was toward the end of my first year or very early in the second year, he was succeeded by John Hargreaves.
C John Hargreaves, who already, of course, was a lecturer.
T He was already a lecturer, yes, I… He used to take coffee with the students sometimes, which was rather unusual for lecturers then, but the group of… well, some of the history class were sitting round taking coffee with him and we knew that Sayles was retiring and that a new professor would be appointed and I said 'any idea who it's going to be?' I mean he evidently knew at the time and wasn't allowed to say so, there was an embarrassed silence and then he changed the subject.
C How interesting, yes. And does that mean that you had the opportunity to do African History with John here, was that one of the things you chose?
T That was one, that was one of my first agitations. Until then, the only Special Subject, Honours Special Subject that you were allowed to do, was one on the Development of the British Constitution since 1918 or something like that, and the other was in Medieval History for which you needed Latin.
C Which you did not have, or did have?
T I didn't have.
C So that was shut to you then?
T That was shut to me, so it would have been the British Constitution. So a number of us agitated and we got two new Special Subjects, one of which was African History.
C And what was the other?
T The Glorious Revolution.
C With Doreen Milne?
T With Doreen, yes.
C Oh how interesting, yes. So what was the sort of standard pattern for History in those days, you would have done European in first year, British in second year?
T Let me try to recollect. We did European in first year, we did British Modern History 1 in second year and we did Leslie Macfarlane's course, European Medieval. Then in the third year we did British Modern 2, British Medieval - sorry, I say not Leslie Macfarlane's course in third year, it was…
C Kathleen Edwards.
T Kathy Edwards who did the European - and Political Theory and that was…
C Burns?
T Burns, that's it.
C From the Politics Department, very fine man.
T Yes, very fine man, everybody liked him. So that was the third year, as best as I can remember, and we had no exams in third year, Junior Honours year so it was called - no exams, great!
C Lovely. And then in fourth year you did a Special Subject?
T We did a Special Subject, I can't remember what else we did.
C Probably another option or something.
T When it came to the examinations, we were examined in everything, including…
C Stuff you'd done in Year 1?
T Year 1, yes. We'd ten papers altogether.
C Yes, hard going, but then History's always been a tough subject, hasn't it? You mentioned a moment ago that John Hargreaves was rather unusual in the fact that he did relate more to students than other people did, were there any occasions, for example, when you went to the home of a member of staff?
T Yes, including the Principal.
C Really?
T Smaller numbers in those days.
C This was Tom Taylor?
T Tom Taylor, yes, we were taken out to his house. I must say I didn't enjoy it much, it felt very formal.
C Did he take you in because you were on the SRC, or did he take all the students?
T No, all the students, he just took them in by rota.
C Goodness. And what sort of entertainment were you offered?
T Cups of tea and coffee, as far as I can remember, and biscuits.
C Rather awkward circulating around the drawing room?
T We may have had a sherry or not, but I can't recall that, yes, exactly. And shortly after first year started, we were invited out to Sayles' house.
C Goodness.
T There again we were served tea and coffee, biscuits by Mrs Sayles and her daughter.
C Right, so there was a real attempt by the staff, as it were, to get to know you socially?
T Oh, yes.
C Even if it was a bit stilted, probably, yes. Interesting because that, of course, died completely in the sixties, there is virtually no entertainment by staff these days, well, post-sixties. A little bit, a few of the old hands try, but hardly anything. That is very interesting, yes. And on what kind of terms were you with staff, I mean we've been talking of people like Kathleen Edwards and Doreen Milne. Were you on first name terms or not as students?
T I'm trying to remember. We were certainly on first name terms with some of them, Ken Alexander, for example, because he was part of our political circle.
C Yes, so that was because you knew him politically, not…
T Yes…
C We were talking about whether students called staff by their first names, I think you said that it was certainly not the case with Professor Sayles, but it might have been with…
T John, yes.
C Professor Hargreaves, yes.
T I think some of the Psychologists called some of the other staff by their…
C First names?
T There was a Psychologist called Arnold Bursill…
C Oh I remember him, and he was a first name man was he?
T Yes, but that was rather, not so much friendliness as contempt, actually, because the students didn't think much of him at all.
C Right. Who were you particularly influenced by in the days when you were an under-graduate, you mentioned that you were tempted to Psychology because of Rex Knight, but of the History teachers, who were your real mentors?
T I suppose, Hargreaves. Doreen, she did her best, but she was not a very exciting teacher, I'm sorry to say.
C I could imagine that, a rather inward person, then. And Sayles, himself, was he still lecturing to the first year?
T He was indeed.
C Because, of course, he was a Medievalist so he can't have known much about Modern European History?
T I suppose he had to have a basic working knowledge. Lecturing was the word, he dictated.
C Literally dictated the notes, goodness. Did others do that, or was that just Sayles?
T No, Sayles was the only one, but there was Professor Duthie - I did First Year English, History, Psychology and English - Professor Duthie, the English Professor…
C Subsequently Professor of English, well known drunkard, I believe?
T He was, no - you say, subsequently Professor of English?
C He was already Professor of English?
T He was, yes.
C He was already Professor.
T Yes. Well known drunkard, yes. The story is - this was after I left - that he broke down in front of the class and started telling them about all his personal and academic problems and men in white coats came and took him away. So the story goes. But anyway, what I remember, very distinctly, the first lecture with him was, we were all assembled, he came in and he stood at the podium and he didn't give a word of introduction, he just started off by saying - I can remember his words very clearly -: 'According to the German critic, Professor Schuking, Cleopatra was a wanton straight from the beginning of the play!' That was how Professor Duthie taught English!
C Sounds rather interesting actually.
T Yes, indeed. But he didn't say who he was, didn't say: 'welcome to Aberdeen University…'
C No, just went straight in, bang!
T Just like that, yes.
C Wonderful! Well I'm sure we could chat on forever, but are there sort of areas of your university experience that we haven't touched on that you think we ought to have done?
T That we ought to have done? We could go on for hours, I love being interviewed!
C Time just goes on, doesn't it?
T I suppose my successor will wait five minutes?
C A few minutes, I'm sure he will, yes.
T A bit hard on you, though, since you've got…
C Not at all, it's always interesting to me.
T Well, our love lives, I suppose - that doesn't really come into the…
C Well, it does indeed, if you wish to talk about it, tell me more - oh, and I should have remembered to ask you about Marwick, about whom you said you had very strong views?
T Yes, well, he was having an affair with one of his students whom I knew pretty well, actually, and he treated her very badly indeed.
C Oh dear.
T That's why he was disliked and, I would say, despised by…
C He was a young lecturer here then?
T He was a young lecturer here, that's right.
C I don't think he stayed long at Aberdeen?
T No, he didn't, he didn't stay very long.
C No, and it was one of your contemporary students that he was involved with then?
T Yes, it was the same year.
C What a shame, I'm sorry. That was why you have strong views about him?
T That was why, I mean, there are stories I've heard about him since that you would not repeat in respectable company.
C Ok, fine. But what about your more respectable love lives?
T Well, I don't know how respectable you would call them. I mean, I don't know how typical we were. I always thought of it as somewhat innocent bohemianism, but people who owned the flat and who were living below us, didn't. But… The Psychologists were having a farewell party, because my current girlfriend was a Psychologist, I was in that circle too, with my friend Douglas Bain, and John Shepherd was at our table, I mean the staff and the students were having a party together. So he was asking us how we got on, how we managed to cope with the workload and so forth, and then he said: 'and do you sleep?' Silence around the table. He meant it just quite innocently…
C Yes, 'do you have a good night's sleep?'
T Yes, a good night's sleep.
C Rather than who are you sleeping with? But you took him up the other way, no doubt?
T Yes, all of us around the table did, well, we realised it was innocent, but nonetheless... Well, as I say, I don't know how typical we were, but I was sleeping a room with two other guys, we each had our own beds, and there was sexual activity taking place between us and our girlfriends while others were in the room.
C Interesting, yes, not between the men, but between men and their girlfriends?
T Oh, no, no, no, that would have been unthinkable, yes
C That would have been absolutely taboo, would it?
T Oh, yes, very much so.
C That kind of activity, was that very different from what would have been tolerated at home in Shetland? I mean, was there a kind of big change there when you became an independent man at University?
T Well, yes and no. It was very common… Shetland had a comparatively relaxed attitude…
C Uhuh. Not like the Western Isles at all?
T Oh no, totally different, no resemblance whatsoever. No, it was very common for young women in Shetland to be pregnant when they were married. That was the case with both my brothers.
C That was the old custom, of course, wasn't it?
T Yes, it seems to have been carried on. But I don't think the idea of actually conducting sexual activity in…
C With other friends present?
T With other friends present would have been tolerated.
C No, but you people did that at university just as part of, as you say, a sort of mild bohemianism? Interesting. It sounds as if the landlords or landladies didn't exercise a great deal of supervision?
T No they didn't
C Did they give you a key and you came and went?
T Oh yes, that's right, as I said, we were on one floor and they were on the floor below.
C That was when you were in a flat, of course, but that wouldn't have obtained in digs?
T That wouldn't have obtained when we were in digs, no.
C In digs it was fairly strict was it?
T Oh yes.
C Did you have a key in digs?
T I had a key, yes I had a key.
C But they'd have noticed if you'd brought friends in and the friends had stayed overnight?
T Oh yes, indeed they would and you'd have heard about it!
C Right. Interesting. Talking of sexual activity, was there any resort to prostitutes in Aberdeen by men students, that you knew of? Obviously you didn't know everybody's lives.
T I don't think so, certainly didn't happen on any sort of regular basis.
C Or not on the sort of basis that it was talked about.
T From what Douglas said, he may once have slept with somebody who was not far away from that world, but he certainly didn't pay her for services or anything like that.
C No, I just wondered, because Aberdeen, after all is a seaport town and you know, not too difficult to find them.
T Well, actually, when we went to Glasgow… I mean this is, we'll need to go over and find your colleague, but just, as it were, to wind up on, when we went to Glasgow, there were three of us, my then fiancée and Douglas, and myself, and we got a flat which we didn't know at the time, this was in all innocence, but it was in fact a bordello.
C The landlord had not told you this?
T The landlord was… the landlord was, of course, in on it, and it was patronised mainly by American sailors.
C So they were knocking on your doors at inconvenient hours?
T That's right, yes.
C Oh dear. Well, well. Oh well, it's been very interesting talking to you and I'm sorry that we don't have more time at our disposal, but you have told me that you've done a written memoir as well. I don't know how much of the same ground we've covered?
T There's some overlap, but…
C Not too much?
T Not too much, no.
C That's excellent, well thank you so much for your time then.
T It was a pleasure.
END OF INTERVIEW
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