| Description | Interview with Miss Molly Gauld, recorded on the 11 October 2002 by Jennifer Carter
Transcript of Interview :
JC So Molly, do you think we should begin by you saying something about the General Council and its Business Committee and how it was when you joined and how it changed?
MG Yes, I think like many graduates at that time, and this is possibly still true to some extent, I didn't know anything about the General Council or the Business Committee and had to learn very quickly, because History was in a very difficult situation in schools. The University entrance regulations had been changed and the subject was greatly disadvantaged by the changes.
JC This was back in the 1960's?
MG Yes, in 1963 the problem became apparent to us. I will not go into the details of that, but that simply we felt that we had to go to the General Councils of the different universities and ask if they would alter the arrangements, and we did put up actual proposals, which we thought would not be unacceptable to most other subjects. We didn't want to put them in a situation where they felt that we were threatening them, and we didn't know how to go about it, but fortunately Dr. Douglas Simpson, who we knew, was the Clerk to Aberdeen General Council, because this was being done when the other universities : the four ancient universities. I happened to be Convener of the local history Secondary Schools Teachers' Association and as the Educational Institute of Scotland did not have a committee here, it was in Inverness that they met, we had the EIS people as well, and the geographers met separately and then the two Conveners got together, and we discovered, through Dr. Simpson, that we should put up our proposals to the Business Committee. Now the General Council was composed of all the graduates of the University, plus members of staff, and Honorary graduates were included as well. The Business Committee was elected by the General Council and it was a small body, just over 20, and they normally heard of any motions which people wanted to put up. It was much better if they heard of it, and it was better still if they would support it. So we went to see the Business Committee and they agreed that we could put the motion up, but they were not prepared to support it, because there were differences of opinion. So when we went to the General Council, the problem was that the Principal was one of those who had been involved in the University Entrance Committee and he had been followed by Professor Watt, the Professor of Classics and they were both formidable debaters and we had to put up a motion which in a way criticised what they had been doing! I remember Dr. Lesley Macfarlane saying "I don't think you will carry it, but do your best!" When we got there, there was a geographer from the Grammar who seconded, and I proposed and then Professor Hardgreaves, who was the Professor of History, and Professor O'Dell of Geography supported us, and we carried the motion by a tremendous majority.
JC Wonderful! And this was Edward Wright, was it?
MG This was Edward Wright. If I may have an aside, it was very funny, because Bill Watt as I came to know him, became the Chairman of the Governing body of the college where I was working and he invariably, when we had a Policy Committee meeting, because as Head of the History Department, I was a member of the Policy Committee, he used to always say something slightly sardonic to me to pull my leg and I thought it was very gallant of him to accept it as he did, you know! As a result of that the Business Committee had a vacancy because the General Council has the right to elect four assessors to sit on the University Court, and one of the members had just been elected as an Assessor so they wanted someone to fill his position until it came to the end of his period of office, and I was co-opted onto the committee, to my amazement, because they wanted to reduce the age, they said, of the committee! I must say that it was normal for people who were fairly advanced in their careers or else retired to be on the committee. So that is how I joined and in the early years it was Mr. John Milne, who owned Bissets, who was the Convener. He was an excellent Convener, but he ran it like a military operation and we very seldom met for more ½ an hour! Our family doctor was Dr. George Swapp and he joined the same time as I did and he said to me "We really are rubber stamps, Molly" and I thought that we weren't quite that, but certainly there wasn't a great deal of business, there wasn't a great deal of controversy in the University. There wasn't a need for a great deal of discussion.
JC What sort of things did the Business Committee and later the General Council discuss? It discussed what, the state of the University generally or more specific things?
MG Its constitution, it was set up in 1858, because there was worry, nationally, about the state of the universities. Professors not giving any lectures, and so on. Also unhappiness about the standard of exams marking, and so on. So the General Council had the remit to comment on anything that it felt was of significance for the wellbeing of the University.
JC That's a very wide brief, isn't it? So it isn't confined to regulations or anything like that?
MG No. It is a very general brief and it has the right to put comments to the Court and the Court must, it is required, to give a response.
JC So the Court, not the Senate? It is has no link with Senate?
MG It has no link with Senate at all.
JC That is interesting.
MG It was the Court, and it really could exercise influence if it was of a mind to, but it has no right to take decisions, it can only make comments and ask for them to be taken into consideration and of course it has its four Assessors on the Court.
JC That is quite a large proportion to be on the Court isn't it?
MG It didn't originally have as many, but in my time it has had four Assessors. So then John Milne was Convener for over twenty years, and when he retired Maurice Cramb took over and he decided that really it was better if we had an age limit, which would ensure that people were taking turns. It was passed by the Committee and then accepted by the Court and became the accepted procedure to have a Convener who was less than 65 years old and a Vice-Convener who was less than 60 years old when they actually stood for office.
JC That was fairly prescient of Maurice Cramb because in those days we were well ahead of the Nolan rules and that sort of thing, so that was good forward thinking on his part. He was a shrewd little man.
MG He was indeed. He had to give up fairly quickly, I think it was to do with ill-health, I am not quite sure.
JC He had very bad glaucoma and other problems.
MG There were problems, yes. Eric Morrison took over. Now that was one of the best things that ever happened to the Business Committee, because he knew the University inside out. He was a very shrewd politician in the best sense of the word. Very constructive. He knew exactly how to go about business and he was very keen to encourage more discussion. Long afterwards, well not all that many years after, a number years after, when I became the Convener, he confessed to me that it was jolly hard work getting people to discuss, because it hadn't been the custom. Eric, fortunately was Convener in 1981, when suddenly the University got into crisis. It was a financial crisis. During the 1970's we had been encouraged to expand the staff, because a large increase in the number of students was expected ,it never materialised and we were in actual fact very over-staffed compared with some other institutions and the government was getting concerned about making sure that the universities were being well managed financially, because they were getting concerned about the amount of money that was going to the universities. The University Grants Committee, which actually dealt with these matters confronted the University with the need to reduce its expenditure and this almost certainly was going to mean that there would be a reduction in staff. Each year you have two meetings of the General Council. One the winter meeting, which at various times has been in January and December, but back to December now after some years being January, is the one at which the Principal gives a report on the state of the University. That is supposed to make the graduates aware of the situation. The other is in the summer and the summer meeting is the one where the Convener reports on what has been happening and can ask for Deans, for example, to come and tell the General Council about new developments. Well, at the meeting in 1981, the staff decided to turn out in massive numbers, partially because they wanted to elect members to the Business Committee, because they saw it as a means of helping them to avoid redundancies and Eric Morrison and his Vice-Convener, Harold Watt, and the new Principal, Principal McNicol, were on the platform and they were faced with this massive turnout which was totally unusual.
JC And totally unexpected?
MG Very unexpected, I would think.
JC No forwarning of this had come?
MG I wouldn't have thought so. They may have thought there might be some more, but I think it would have been a surprise, although I don't have background information, because I was just a member at the time. I do remember looking round and thinking - good heavens, this is a tremendous crowd, and the Principal put forward and explained the situation and suggested that perhaps there would have to be some very serious changes and particularly that there might have to be reductions in the level of staffing, and there was a massive vote against as the result of the staff getting up and giving other views. You almost felt sorry for Eric Morrison and Harold Watt, who were having to conduct this and contain it.
JC Who were the leaders on the staff side? Or did so many people speak that it was difficult to tell…
MG I would find it difficult now to remember, I am sorry. I do just remember thinking .. I really didn't know the staff really well at the time, and I would have found it very difficult to name them.
JC Did some of them immediately get elected on to the General Council?
MG Yes.
JC So that would have been what Eric Salzen?
MG Yes, and eventually Arthur Berg, I think it was Arthur …
JC Yes, he was leader of the AUT or one of them.
MG Yes, he came eventually and we suddenly changed in character, because we had a number of staff, which was something we never had before, because they had no interest in the Business Committee, and this was really what brought the Business Committee into very vigorous activity because the staff were trying to get the support of the Business Committee and the Principal was trying to get the support of the Business Committee and the graduates. Really in that particular year, it became obvious that this could be a problem, but the situation settled a little and up to the time that Eric retired in 1984, it wasn't to difficult.
JC The University got over the first crisis and there were agreements about voluntary redundancies, and so on and so on.
MG Yes. You would know more about this than I do, because I was not sufficiently in the know to be aware of exactly what was done.
JC It was all very difficult but we seem to have reached a plateau again and then the first Research Assessment Exercise came and it knocked the University right off course again.
MG Perhaps I could go back a little and say that in 1982 Harold Watt became too old to stand as Vice Convenor and I believe it was Dorothy Kidd who was very keen that a woman should be Vice-Convenor and, I think, but I am not certain, she was slightly too old for it and she persuaded them that it would be a good idea if I was asked to be Vice-Convenor. Now I was in the middle of a college situation which was that we had just gone through the kind of exercise which the university was going to be facing, where we were for example in History, we put through over 90 people in the middle seventy's in one year to qualify as history teachers, and by 1980 the SED who had the right to decide how many people we could take into college, were reducing us to 6.
JC Good heavens. 6 History teachers!
MG As a result there were 3 B.Eds and 3 from the University and as a result we had to completely revolutionise what we were doing, go into school based in-service, do all sorts of things and we also had to ask members of staff to retrain and go into other areas. So I knew what it was like to be in a situation where this sort of thing had to happen and I wondered if I should stand because of the pressures I was facing with the department, but we were managing and I really didn't want to refuse Dorothy Kidd. I knew that in two years time, when the Convener-ship became vacant, because Eric would have to retire on age grounds, that Harold Watt would take over and so I thought I would be for 4 years, Harold Watt would have taken over, and if the situation was still difficult in college, I could just gracefully withdraw.
Well in 1984 I was all set to propose Harold, he had by-pass operations, they had been successful and very shortly before I was due to propose him, as the new Convener, he phoned me to say "Sorry Molly, I have further medical complications and I have been told by the doctor that I haven't to take on any more responsibilities. You will have to take on the Convener-ship."
JC And of course Aberdeen University Press was probably in great difficulty at that time?
MG I think that was possibly part of it, but it was also that he had just been told this.
JC Yes, but what I mean is his livelihood was the AUP and presumably that was his first responsibility.
MG So I became convener and it was a rollercoaster for the first year, but I knew that I was planning to take retirement if I could possibly get it in 1985, because the college Secretary told that was the best time financially. I wasn't terribly happy about the new degree which was coming in and a lot of the work I had been doing nationally was coming to an end and therefore it was, I thought, it was a risk worth taking. Little did I realise what was coming!
JC Poor Molly!
MG As a result of the Research Exercise, a swingeing cut was going to come, so swingeing that it looked as if the University could in actual fact become bankrupt and we were certainly going to be faced with massive changes. The staff on the Committee, which was determined to oppose this, and the staff members on the Business Committee were putting this, the Principal and the Court were desperately seeking means of dealing with this crisis and the crux came in 1986-1987. I was indebted beyond measure to Eric Morrison because I consulted him as he was still a member of the Committee and poor Lilian Morrison his wife was exhausted providing coffee, whilst Eric and I agonised over what we should be doing! He knew so much, James Michie was Vice-Convener, but like myself he wasn't so knowledgeable on all the ramifications in the University, nor indeed the contacts.
JC Yes, I was going to ask who the other players were at this very difficult period. Yourself, Eric, James Michie …
MG Yes, and now what we decided was, and Harold Watt was still on the Committee and was an Assessor, and was feeding information to us, to help us to know what was likely to be coming up in the Court.
JC And you still had then the people who had been elected from the staff, or had they dropped away?
MG No, no. They were very active.
JC So you still had Eric Salzen, Arthur Berg and folk like that?
MG And several others. So what we decided was that we must try and go for action and the action that we decided on was to form a small sub-committee, myself, James Michie, Eric Morrison and a new member, who was representing younger graduates, Joe Leiper, who had become the headmaster of Old Machar Academy. We had decided our work would be clerked by the new clerk was Roddy Begg, the Secretary . Now this was a great help to us, because previously we had a clerk who was good, but who was not really in the know. We now had Roddy Begg, who could again feed all the information, as he knew what was going on in every part of the University as the University Secretary, and we decided to meet the local MP's. Now two of them said that they were already in active with the Staff Committee, that was Malcolm Bruce and I think it was Hamish Watt, and they represented West Aberdeenshire and East Aberdeenshire, respectively. One was Liberall Democrat, the other was Conservative. We did however see the other four in the North East. First we went to see Alec.Buchanan Smith and he absolutely startled us by his vigorous criticism of the fact that there was no statement of the University's case that could readily be perused and that it was absolutely essential that we get a statement of case and then organise the graduates to write in about the situation, using that case statement as the basis of what they said.
JC Very good political advice, and he of course has had many connections with the University.
MG Very many. So you can imagine that this was immensely powerful advice. So, of course what did we do, we had to go back and start organising this and we got two sides of A4 put together in print and this stated the case as we saw it and then we went to see Bob Hughes and we decided to give him lunch at the University on a Saturday and we explained that we were interested graduates and we were paying for the lunch ourselves because we were so concerned about the University's situation we had a vested interested! He found this funny and then he said "Of course you do realise you taught my wife", to me, because I had taught his wife in my earlier teaching days at Inverurie and that was helpful in breaking the ice and we then started discussing and he said "You know they are drawing up this petition, and it doesn't matter how many signatures they get, it will not have any effect. What matters is that you write to MP's and they get worried about their seats." So he gave us other advice, but that was the bit I really remember. So alright, we will all have to go and write to MP's, this was the next thing and then we went to see Mr. Pollock, in Moray and Nairn, and he advised that not only write to MP's, but to write to, at least, the Under-Secretary of State for Education in Scotland and in London, and also send a copy of the letter to the MP's in the area, and they will all go and ask and you will then get a better reply. Then we saw the MP for South Aberdeen Gerry Malone and he was a junior minister and we gave him lunch on the same basis as Bob Hughes. He came in and he was obviously, I thought, you know, sort of going to find us a bit of an extra chore and when he came, I said, as I said with all the others, I said "Look, we have no experience of political campaigning", although by this time we were getting a little, "What advise can you give us which would help us to help the University" and there was a quite significant silence and he said "Do you know that you are the very first people who have approached me who have not hectored me" and he sat down and he said "Now look, write to the Secretary of State himself and send the letter to me and I will make sure you get a good reply". You see they would get clerks on to it, or junior ministers. He said "you really want to get somebody who can write a decent reply". I can't remember if the minister got his under-secretary or he wrote himself, but we got a very full letter back, which was most helpful. By this time we felt that we could begin to conduct a political campaign and it pleased the Committee because we felt that were doing something. It also meant that graduates who were writing into us, saying we were very worried about the University, we could write back and tell them we have a Committee and we are active.
JC And what responses were you getting all the while from the University to these efforts?
MG Well we were, I am not sure how much they were aware of it, but certainly we got one or two Vice-Principals to come and try and explain what was going on. But the situation changed, as a result of developments. For example the Principal got consultants, I think it was Segal, Quince, Wick - something, Wickstead or something, and I know it was Segal & Quince and that the other one began with Wick, and they put in a report about the management which stressed the need for change, and particularly integrating the financial and academic planning. The Principal had persuaded the Senate and Court to set up a new committee and Professor Wilkinson, who had been very active with the Staff Committee, joined that committee. Then they all began to work together, because one of the terrible problems was that the Principal was speaking to the Press, the Staff Committee was speaking to the Press and they were saying different things, and they were practically fighting with each other in public. I can remember in 1987, in the Summer meeting, getting up and saying that it was extremely valuable in any university to have active discussion about any matter, but that it would be very helpful if it was kept within the institution and not argued in public as it was having a bad effect on the attitude to the University, even amongst the graduates. That was reported in the Press actually, I still have a cutting of that. Then I went on to say how much I sympathised with the staff, that I had been through the same experience and it was a very difficult situation when redundancy was threatened, but at the same time, from my own college experience, I was saying this although I don't think I actually said that in the report, but in my statement to the General Council I said that it was clear that very considerably change was needed, otherwise we could be in such a financial situation that the University would be seriously effected in its status as a university in the country. That was the best I could do and I then was so relieved when this committee was appointed and began to come up with proposals. There were two other developments, which were very useful. We had the appointment of the new Chancellor, Sir Kenneth Alexander, and he was a very helpful, constructive influence behind the scenes. We got Phil Love, the new Senior Vice-Principal, to come and talk to our Committee. Now Phil was a trained lawyer and he was able to put the case in a way, which was so convincing, that the Business Committee, including the members of staff, were very impressed. We decided that the new Institutional Plan, which had been drawn up and which he spoke about, was one which we could support and actually the Principal went the length of letting us have it. Now this would be very unusual and is not something you would normally do, because in an Institutional Plan you might have...it is published and it might be that other universities could take advantage of the facts that we published. It might get out given to the Committee, but in actual fact the members of the Business Committee were very good about not publicising it.
JC Unlike some of the members of Court, who of course leaked Court meetings straight to the local press.
MG Well I wasn't on the Court then, so cannot comment on that! But in 1998 I myself became a Court Assessor and that helped me to understand what was going on better. So as a result of this the only comments we made were that we supported this Institutional Plan, but we were unhappy that Physics was being almost removed from the syllabus, because we thought it would be serious in the long run for the Science Faculty if there was not an effective Physics department, and we hoped that some means would be found to keep Music going in the University, although not necessarily at degree level. So that was quite helpful. I was of course on the Court by this time and could speak to it.
JC Okay, now we were talking about the height of the crisis and the way in which the Business Committee accepted the Institutional Plan, but criticised two aspects of it.
MG Well showed concern.
JC Showed concern, okay. So on we go.
MG Perhaps I could reflect at this point. It was inevitable that the staff were going to feel threatened, because I know how threatened we felt at college, when we were faced with a similar situation and I know that it was only when we decided to take drastic action that we began to have a positive outlook and everyone began to pull together. I knew that was important. Principal McNicol has emerged as being someone who was not very popular with either the staff or with many of the graduates and I certainly found it quite difficult sometimes to communicate with him, in the sense that he was rather a tense man, but I came to have a respect for him because he came to the University, and he used to ask the Convener and the Vice-Convener to lunch after a General Council meeting in the summer, and he told me once that had he realised just how bad the situation was he was not sure he would have come to Aberdeen! He came expecting it to be rather different. Faced with the situation, I came to realise that he actually saw very quickly what was needed, but he was not terribly good at persuading other people to understand the situation. He felt that if he explained it they should understand. I think, he was particularly lucky when Phil Love became his Vice-Convener, (Vice Principal) because he had the sense to use him as his voice, and he was able to explain the situation and the Principal really had the vision, but couldn't persuade people to accept it and I think perhaps historians in later years will see Principal McNicol as having really done a great deal to preserve the University as an institution of standing.
JC I entirely agree and I know it is also Duncan Rice's opinion, as I heard that from him, but it seemed to me at the time even that although McNicol had many unamicable characteristics, which partially complicated the issue because people disliked him personally in a way which was very unhelpful. Which was a pity. But I thought from the beginning when I saw him in action from the moment he arrived and we sat together at the table at the University Planning Committee looking at this appalling letter in 1981 and I think that he showed then, and throughout the whole of the rest of the crisis, through the 1980's, enormous moral courage. Which is a quality I greatly admire.
MG Yes, and we came to have a much more relaxed relationship as the situation became easier, and I believe at one point he actually more or less single-handed persuaded Swinnerton and Dyer that he was going to get reform and got interim financial support until we could get ourselves to a situation where were actually solvent, because we were in great danger of not being solvent.
JC Which motion Senate then rejected.
MG Well I wasn't involved. You were, Jennifer.
JC I was just mentioning that as part of the McNicol story, because like you, I think he will be treated kindly by history. I mean he was a man of great vision and great courage, and many unamicable characteristics along the way.
MG I think we have been very lucky with our Principals, because the next Principal whom I worked with for the first two years as Convener and then eventually for two years I was Vice-Chairman of Court, as a new body, and I had to work very closely with Maxwell Irvine. He was an ideal man to deal with the Quincentenary, because he was extremely good at personal relations and the Quincentenary brought quite a lot of prestige to the University as a result of all the people who came. Principal McNicol started all the planning and then it was carried on by Maxwell Irvine and that was good, and again I have found it good to be working, very briefly, not that I was any longer on the Court, but I was asked once or twice for discussions with Duncan Rice and it seemed to me that he was taking us into a new era. So I think we have been lucky in those respects. If I could go back to the Business Committee, I would like to take up one or two other developments in the 1980's, which came partially because we were really at the point where we felt we had to be active. The crisis that forced us into being very active compared with what we had been and we began to have more meetings.
JC Yes I can see that had been what had been, when you joined it, a very formalistic body had probably become quite different.
MG It was really fulfilling the remit that it been given in 1858!
JC What other sort of things did you get involved with?
MG The election of Chancellor was rather interesting because Eric Morrison who was really so far sighted, I can't speak highly enough of him, and I was so pleased when he got the Doctorate, you know the LLD in 1988, but Eric in 1982 had got through our new Ordnance, through the General Council and then through the Court, which gave the General Council the right to elect the Chancellor, which it had originally been intended to have. As a result when Lord Polworth decided in 1986 that he was going to go, we had to elect a new Chancellor. The Principal approached me and said he would like to be involved and he would like Court involvement and I knew perfectly well that this was not going to be terribly popular with the members of the staff on the Committee. So I, again in discussion with Eric and others, we thought obviously, you discuss it with your Vice- Convener and so on, Harold Watt, who was still active as an Assessor and very interested in what was going on, and by this time and had recovered his full health. We thought it best to have a Committee that would be free from the Court and free from the Business Committee. That we would try and get a name that would be acceptable across the University because we were a bit nervous about who might be elected, because some of the other universities had some very unusual people! We had so far been fairly lucky in that the election of their Rectors and we thought that this could happen with the General Council. The Rector is elected by the students, but this could happen, the General Council might elect somebody that might would not be able to be as much support to the University. Because you really need as Chancellor someone who has very good connections politically and nationally.
JC Apart from anything else, a contested election is extraordinarily expensive because of the postal ballot of all of the graduates.
MG That is absolutely true. But we weren't worried about that. We felt that we wanted harmony. It was coming to the point where harmony was important and I put it to the Business Committee which I called for a meeting on the same morning as the General Council meeting at which this would have to be reported. I persuaded the Committee, despite the fact for example, Professor Eric Saltsen still is not happy about what we decided, that this could be set up but if the Committee eventually was not happy with the person that we would put forward, then we would not put them forward. That's how I persuaded them and most people felt well we have had a final say, so okay, we will let you away with this and that was what was done. It was very obvious to all of us that it must be somebody who would be generally acceptable and we were so lucky because Sir Kenneth Alexander was just the most suitable candidate possible. He had been a member of the University staff in his earlier days, he had been Principal of Stirling University, he had been Chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. He had excellent political contacts and he was at the point where he more time.
JC Do we know where his name came from? Who originally suggested him?
MG I remember James Michie suggesting him fairly early, and the Principal suggesting him. They both at different points suggested him. So his name was put forward. This was very well received, by not just the Business Committee, but I think by the whole University community, and he was duly appointed and then we had the installation. Now this is something I want to say something about because I was going to have to present him for installation. I thought right, I will have to find out about his career. Well, I then discovered that he was being put up for an Honorary Degree and whoever presented him for the Honorary Degree would be talking about his career. So I had to find something else to say. So I thought "What will I say - better say something about the office". I happened to say to Eric Morrison that I was going to do this and he said there was an awfully good short article in the Review, I think it was for 1945, by the Principal of that day, Hamilton Fyffe, and that he had written this article and it was a very good one. I also went back to the Ordinances which had set up the General Council in 1858 and had mentioned about the election of Chancellor and the amendments of 1889 and I went through all the Ordinances which had anything to do with the General Council from then. I managed to get it from Roddy Begg, and I went back to Leslie Macfarlane's book on the founding of the University and went to see him and got a lot of advice and information from him and I put together something as a result. The Principal asked to see what we were putting together and I sent mine in and I think it was Iain McDonald who presented, I am not certain about that, but anyway that went in and it was only afterwards that the Principal confessed that he had asked you to do some research and that he had been going to talk about the nature of the office! As a result he very generously decided that he better not say anything and left me to give my presentation and it was a very, very splendid occasion. The University is excellent at putting on these official occasions and it was really good and of course Sir Kenneth Alexander himself was so approachable and it really was a happy day when we had the installation.
JC I always remember his role also later in the Quincentenary, he was so wonderful when we got the freedom of the city. Do you remember, wearing that silly hat so benignly.
MG I had the greatest respect for him and he gave me a lot of good advice over the years as well and I came to know him very well and his wife and developed a great affection for them as well as respect. Going over to the Committee itself, we decided that we would have to be more effective in our graduate relations, so we set up a Graduate Relations Sub-Committee to try and increase interest. Partially because the Principal was very anxious that there should be decent turnouts at the General Council meetings and we hadn't been getting as many as we might. We ended up in the end of the day, about 1988 I think, in having such a large meeting that we had actually to move into one of the very big lecture theatres in the Fraser Noble building. It was tremendously impressive. The Principal was quite excited about it when he saw the gathering!
JC So at this stage this was just interest in graduates to get them more involved in the University. This preceding any fund raising exercise?
MG Absolutely.
JC Okay that is an important distinction.
MG I think the Principal maybe, at the back of his mind, had the thought that it would be helpful.
JC That one day it would lead on to fund-raising?
MG So the Graduate Relations Committee gradually introduced, first we would have coffee, before a meeting, then we added drinks after the meeting and finally we had lunches in connection with the Summer meeting. It did become a convivial occasion as well and people did begin to come because they felt it was rather fun to attend. They had been rather nervous about it before and had really thought that they hadn't much to contribute. Our communications improved greatly, partially again from the pressure from the University itself. Harold Watt as an Assessor said to us that the Court was very concerned about communication with graduates and Gaudieamus resulted and the co-operation between the Committee and the circulation of the Principals report came. One of our problems was that in the crisis of 1981, to save money, we had agreed that we would not have two circulations a year about our meetings, only one, and that made it difficult because the circulation had to be in the Summer because of the election each year of a certain proportion of the members of the Business Committee and every second year election of Assessors was involved at that time too.
JC As a matter of interest, of those elections both to the Business Committee and subsequently of Assessors to Court, are they ever controversial? Are they ever contested, or are they totally sown up?
MC The Business Committee it has not been common for it to be contested. The Assessors - yes. We have had as many as five standing for the two Assessor-ships vacant every two years. It used to be that it could be done at the actual meeting and in the early days of my membership there was very seldom a contest, and in fact I cannot remember one, and so it was just done by show of hands, but in the 1980's this changed and therefore people asked for postal votes and when that started it was decided really we just had to have postal votes. So now it is just done by postal votes.
JC And who are the electors? Is it just the members of the Business Committee?
MG No. It is the whole General Council.
JC My Goodness!
MG Every member of the General Council has to get the papers and I hope that earlier I explained that members of staff are also members, but the only members of staff who are allowed to vote, for an Assessor, are the ones who are not on the Senate or not in the Court, but it has to be those, like lecturers and at that time assistant lecturers and they often made up in the 1980's quite a considerable element of the vote. I think in recent years they haven't been so active. But that was the situation. Harold Watt was very keen that we should have a further Roll of Graduates. It is a remarkable thing that there are three Rolls of Graduates, explaining about the fathers of graduates, what they did, what the graduates have done in their careers, and so on, and he wanted a further roll. But unfortunately the third volume did not sell particularly well and was extremely expensive. It had cost just under £40,000 to support it, from a bequest, and we didn't think that it was right in the present financial circumstances to go on. However, we did have a committee, which looked at it, and we came up with the idea of a graduate database and eventually we thought this would be part of our Quincentenary contribution. Harold was the one who initially started it, but he left Aberdeen after his wife died and he remarried. He went south and as a result Pat Booker, who had been at university with me and did history, took over. The body of graduates volunteered and really did a wonderful job and for historians of the future who want to look at the nature of the graduate body and the change in the graduate body, in the period when the University expanded, in the 1980's and 1990's and even in the 1970's, would get a great deal of information in what was gathered, but what has actually has gone on to the computer is fairly limited, because it has been taken over by the Development Trust and they have actually put it into their computer in a very limited form.
JC It is now the Alumni database, rather than the graduate database?
MG Yes. We did quite a useful job, considering it was done on a voluntary basis and that brings me to the Quincentenary Committee. We had small committee which looked at that and we decided that we should raise a small amount, the University didn't want us to interfere with its major fundraising, so we asked people to give a small contribution to provide something from the graduates. Initially it was going to be just a few seats in the quadrangle, outside the Elphinstone. They are still there. Also, special books that could be used on the lectern in the Chapel. Eventually we collected so much money that we presented one of the official chairs, one of the three official chairs that are used in graduation. The Robert Gordon University presented the other one. There are also plaques. So this is a permanent reminder of the graduate contribution. I really would like to just conclude fairly soon, but I would like to say something about the Committee of Scottish Alumni Associations. It was formed, in 1984, as a result of efforts by Edinburgh and Dundee by the graduate bodies there. Initially of course, it was the four ancient Scottish universities, plus the ones that had been created as a result of the Robbens Committee Report in the 1960's. Now of course it covers all the new universities as well, but in the 1980's this group met once a year. Totally informally and it was the Convener and Vice-Convener, or the Convener and Clerk or whatever was the equivalent in the new universities, and it was very useful to us, because we discovered, for example, it was hearing what they did in Glasgow, that led to us introducing lunches. You got ideas from other universities about how you might have a graduate magazines or journals, like the Gaudieamus. One of the things which came out of it was that the rest were appalled at the extent to which we appeared to have contact with the Court and work with the Court and get reports from the Court and make reports to the Court. They said that really did it not inhibit our ability to be independent. We said no. Far from that, it means that we are informed as to what is going on in the University, we get reports as to what is happening and apart from the Institutional Plan, which has areas in it which could give away commercial information which we didn't think it was desirable to give away, we got all the information, and we even got the gist of the Institutional Plan. Therefore we could comment on it and if we weren't very happy we said so. Another university, I am almost sure I am right, I think it was Glasgow, actually had the Business Committee and the General Council supporting the government's plans for university loans instead of grants, when the Court and the University were opposing it.
JC Goodness, and of course Glasgow notoriously had a contested election for Chancellor, not long ago, didn't they. Which again shows bad management, or lack of harmony?
MG We to this day feel that the fact that we have been able to feel that we could make a contribution to the University has been really heavily influenced by the readiness of the University because it wanted our support, to come to us. Now of course they are looking to the graduates to give financial support, even more emphasis on that, and I do think that, I want to finish up by saying that I do think that it is useful, it is to the benefit of the University that the General Council and the Business Committee are playing an active role, if a subsidiary one. I hope that, I think that, my successor was Ronnie Scott Brown, because James Michie was too old to become the Convener, and Ronnie Scott Brown had come on to the Committee, with the increased activity we began to get people like Ronnie Scott Brown, who was very experienced business man, to come onto the Committee and gradually we began to get more and more people onto the Committee who had very interesting experience either in business or in the professions. We have at the moment three headmasters, well one of them has just become in charge of all curriculum development and staff development in Aberdeenshire. That is Douglas Marr. We also have several medics who have good experience. We have really strengthened the Committee considerably over the years, and I feel it has been a great privilege to have had an opportunity to be involved.
JC Well that is extremely interesting and as I say it is an aspect of the University which no one else has spoken about at all and there are many other areas of your long experience, all in connection with the University we could explore, but this has been a long interview, so unless there is anything of special interest. I mean I would love to ask you for example, about your experience on Court.
MG That was very interesting too.
JC Because you told me that you ended up as Vice-Convener, is that right?
MG Well for two years. I wouldn't normally have, but we had as Chancellor's Assessor Lord Wilson, and he felt that when he first joined that he wasn't experienced in the University and therefore he didn't want to take on the Vice-Chairmanship, which was a new body, a new appointment. It was a very interesting exercise. I found it pretty daunting, because I didn't have the kind of… Most of the people who were in that position in other universities were men of very considerable business experience, heading very large institutions and it was really rather daunting, but I only undertook it if I got the agreement of Lord Wilson and Ronnie Scott Brown that we would discuss anything I was going to do beforehand. I got their advice in the background. I thought that was very important. Once or twice I was able to make contributions which hardly anybody else in the national committees which met, well the Vice-Conveners from Scotland and Vice-Chairmans from the Ancient Scottish Universities and Chairmen from the all the others. We met in England, at Warwick and then there was a Scottish group as well and when it was anything in education I was actually able to speak more effectively, as I had really been involved in educational matters both at national levels in Scotland for so long, but on the business side I really depended on their advice.
JC Most of the rest of the people you were with on that occasion were people with a business background?
MG Yes, enormous backgrounds. That was a most exciting period for me. I never expected ever to do anything like that.
JC Didn't know that such a body existed! Well, well. How interesting! Finally is there any sort general comment you would like to make about the changes you have seen in the University in your time of connection with it? I mean, is there any sort of big factor that you think has changed, either for the better or the worse. I mean it is unfair question in a sense, because it is such a huge range of change, of which I suppose the main motor has been size. I mean, the University has increased so vastly in size, despite a hic-up of the 1980's. Other than that, is there anything?
MG A tremendous change from the time I was an undergraduate. We were a very small body. Most of us came up from the Senior Secondary schools in Aberdeen. We all knew each other. It has been enormously valuable in one's career to know so many people that one was at University with.
JC The Aberdeen mafia!
MG Absolutely! That element has gone completely. It is now a massive institution with the majority of the students coming from outside. I personally find it very good you see. This introducing a personal attitude, but my whole attitude to education has always been that it is tremendously important to encourage everyone to realise their full potential. I felt this when I was teaching and it applied to those who were in a class where they were very disadvantaged educationally, right up to those who were going for university entrance, and I found those two groups the most interesting, because they were challenging. I feel this very strongly. So the new developments where you have so many more people getting the opportunity to have a university education, which, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable things I had in my life, my university education, this to me is very exciting. I also find it very exciting that Aberdeen now seems to be going so much for research at a very high level and I was very lucky when I was in the Court to be involved. I was the lay member who was on every Appointments Committee for the IMS for two years, and the two years when most of the early appointments and I am so delighted that the Medical Faculty has as a result ……
JC You were speaking about the way you were involved in appointments when you were a member of Court .
MG Well it was the IMS, the Institute for Medical Science, which was so important in bringing on the research record of the Medical Faculty which is so important to the University's wellbeing now. My cousin had been Reader in Medicine, my cousin Donal Gauld, and because of them, I was very interested in seeing how the Medical Faculty could be developed and seeing it thrive. So that was a very exciting experience too.
JC I don't want to launch into a sort of major chat about how you, the other things you did on Court, but I know that another of your long standing interests in the University has been in the position of women, both students and staff. Any sort of general comment you would like to make about that?
MG Only that it was interesting that we……
JC You must have been for example the first woman Convener of the Business Committee, right?
MG I was , yes.
JC Not the first member as a woman, but certainly the first Convener.
MG The first woman to Convener and Vice-Convener.
JC And then Vice-Convener of Court again. That was a first.
MG Yes. We had of course the Women's Centenary Celebration in 1984 and I was asked by Principal Maxwell Irvine to be the Convener of the committee which ran it and we had a very good academic committee, of which you were a member Jennifer.
JC I remember it clearly, yes, and all the problems!
MG We were lucky to get the academic staff really interested. It was quite amusing because other universities had not held quite so many events as we held, affecting the schools and getting together an exhibition of women graduates and what they had achieved.
JC Yes I remember that conference well. It had lots of problems, but it was very good.
MG Yes, the conference was run by Joan Pittock Wesson who really was excellent at running these conferences, but was short of money and I managed to get her £10,000, £5,000 from the City and £5,000 from Aberdeenshire, the Region, because they wanted to match the City. It was Margaret Smith who was instrumental in the City….
JC The lady who is now Lord Provost.
MG Yes. I was lucky as a former student of mine happened to be the Provost at the time and gave me a lot of advice. That was Jim Wynnes. Joan said that had made all the difference in being able to get people and we had three distinguished ladies who became Honorary graduates and really we had a very important occasion with these special graduations and the conference. I believe that Glasgow, Professor Bown of Glasgow, who was at it …
JC Lalage Bown. Yes, yes
MG She was so impressed that she galvanised Glasgow into doing something itself. So I think we had some influence there, but it was quite exciting that and it was very helpful that the Principal gave it so much support. So I would certainly say we have had some influence, not as much as we would like, but there has been an increase in the number of women professors.
JC Yes, very much so, since Duncan Rice was appointed.
MG Very much so, but it did start with Maxwell Irvine. It is now very much encouraging but still very far to go in getting any kind of equality, considering that more than half the graduates now are women.
JC Including of course in medicine.
MG I may say another thing that I am very pleased about. When I went through university if you didn't go to university straight from school, you more or less had no chance of going. Now I know the Open University opened up but a lot of people were not caught by that and I do think that the University runs Access courses and has had so many older people coming in has been terribly important.
JC Yes it has been a very interesting change, and Aberdeen in many ways, I think, led the way. That is a story that hasn't been properly told yet.
MG Well I think that is really as much as I can give you.
JC Well, that is super Molly. Thank you very much. You have been very patient and it has been, I think, an excellent interview. I hope it will look well when we transcribe it. Thank you very much.
MG Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
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