| Description | Interview with Mrs Elma McMillan, (nee Craig), MA of 1953. Recorded at a graduate reunion i on 27 June 2003. The interviewer is Jennifer Carter.
Transcription :
JC Thank you for correcting me about the date it's such an easy slip. I see you were at University, graduating in 53. Did you come up then in 1950?
EM 1950, I came up then. Yes that's right. I also did a conjoined qualification at the Teacher Training College.
JC So you were doing Education as part of your degree as it were?
EM Well not really. The only thing that that involved was a Wednesday afternoon, instead of going to games at the University, going along to the Training College and doing something like art or music.
JC I see. And how much did that help you towards the …?
EM Not a great deal. It was something of a formality. I wasn't a good student. I never considered myself a good student. I was terribly nervous of not passing, not getting my degree. And by doing that I wouldn't have lost everything if I had not been successful at the University. I would still have been able, I can't remember how much extra I would have had to do or if I could have done the equivalent of a PGCE year even though I had not got my degree. So it was an insurance.
JC A kind of insurance.
EM It was a kind of insurance. But for the practical value it was not great.
JC So coming up in 1950 with the idea of doing an ordinary MA, what drew you to Aberdeen? Were you a local girl?
EM I was local and my parents weren't well off in those days and so I stayed at home. And I came to University because this was the local University. Almost certainly I would not have been able to go away to University because of the cost. There were very very few grants available in those days.
JC Right, well the financial side is always interesting. But you say you stayed at home. Where was home in Aberdeen?
EM Well, it wasn't the best place either, it was in Torry and it was very difficult. It meant social activities were a bit curtailed just simply because of getting back there.
JC The distance across town and getting back at night, the buses probably stopped jolly early and that sort of thing.
EM The classes stopped early but … I'm sorry, you said the buses, yes. So in many ways, no that's not true I can't say I didn't get the most out of the University, I jolly well did. It perhaps wasn't exactly what the University had in mind.
JC Most of all the fun?
EM But it was good. I thoroughly enjoyed my time here.
JC So school was what, Torry Academy?
EM No, it was the Central School which was then renamed Aberdeen Academy.
JC Yes, and which is now a shopping arcade I think, just opposite Robert Gordon's College.
EM Yes it is, Belmont Street.
JC And that was considered, I think, was it not, the kind of most academic school other than the Grammar School in those days is that right?
EM Yes. Well the Grammar School was boys. The Central was mixed. So yes it was considered to be … The headmaster there who was on the University Court was a very severe man. He was a mathematician and since I couldn't count my fingers and toes and get the right answer he told me frequently that I was hopeless.
JC I see. Who was that? What was his name?
EM John W Robertson, commonly known as Jock.
JC Jock Robertson, right. So in spite of this rather severe schooling did you go up to University with the ambition of being a school teacher?
EM Oh yes.
JC You did.
EM Yes.
JC And was that because nobody had suggested anything else or because it seemed in those days a safe career?
EM Well both really. Yes, if you were climbing the social ladder you started with teaching and then you made your own way after that.
JC And schools in those days,(because we're almost exact contemporaries) were not big on careers guidance.
EM Not at all, no.
JC Right. So fine, you came up to University. With lots of friends from the High School, Central High or did you come up as a bit of a loner because you lived a little further away?
EM My friends who came up from school?
JC Or did you just drop them?
EM No, I didn't drop them all but I didn't cling to them either. I got to know people pretty quickly when I came up.
JC So you regarded University as a genuine new start in life, a new experience?
EM Yes.
JC Yes, that's nice.
EM And it was sort of the half-century, it was all quite an exciting time.
JC Yes, I remember that too. OK, so what subjects did you choose to study?
EM First year, well, what else would you study but what you'd been doing at school. French, Latin, Biblical Studies. I didn't do well.
JC Not English?
EM No.
JC French, Latin and Biblical Studies?
EM Yes. There were sort of, I can't remember if there were any restrictions about what you could take the first year, but you had to have Latin to graduate. So you started with that. You got that out of the way. And it was a shame really, my husband is a classicist and he, I'd never really told him about the Latin course here, it was too bad because Prof Noble was a marvellous lecturer and yet we didn't get the best out of it because we had to pass Latin.
JC Was that the Noble who went on to be head of King's College, London?
EM Yes. Peter Noble. He was very good, he was a very gentle, kind person.
JC Good. Yes but what a shame it was regarded as an obstacle rather than a pleasure.
EM Yes it was.
JC And the French and the Biblical Studies sounds unusual, perhaps it was expected because you were going into teaching?
EM No. I guess that was my choice.
JC That was your free choice?
EM Yes it was.
JC And who taught that in those days? Must have been before dear old Dr Lillie whom I remember well?
EM Dr Neil. Again a very very nice person, a very good person. Yes, I knew Dr Lillie.
JC A.S. Neil, have I got that right?
EM No, he was the headmaster. Bill Neil, William Neil.
JC And he was somebody who taught you, who on the whole, you liked?
EM Yes.
JC And French, Freddie Roe?
EM Yes. Again that was something we had to do. I didn't especially enjoy French.
JC You said you didn't do well in first year?
EM No I didn't. I failed French and Latin and had to retake them in the summer. Got them then.
JC That must have been a bruising experience for what you described as a nervous first year.
EM Yes it was. But fortunately it didn't hamper me because come the second year, well actually first year, I got involved with charities. That was probably one reason I didn't do as well in the exams as I might have done. And I got to know other people. And then the second year I got on to SRC and became very much involved. I suppose my first year too I got involved with Scottish country dancing. My leisure activities generally didn't cost me any extra money.
JC No, student politics and dancing were both free and charities of course.
EM And charities yes. So that really rather guided the way I was going. It didn't have to cost money. If I'd asked for it my parents would have given me but I knew they couldn't really afford it at the time. They did marvellously after that but that was a rough time for them. I didn't want to let them know. I tended not to tell them if there was something happening that I thought they might then offer to pay for.
JC Yes, I understand. How old were you incidentally when you came up? Were you a young entrant or an eighteen year old?
EM Eighteen.
JC Could I ask without being intrusive what your father's job was?
EM He was a fish worker when I started. He became a fish merchant subsequently.
JC Did your mother work as well?
EM No.
JC So that was hard going. And were there several of you in the family?
EM No, only me.
JC Just yourself?
EM Yes.
JC It sounds as if University really did work for you in some ways because obviously it gave you tremendous width of social contact for things you threw yourself into.
EM Yes.
JC But just to round off the degree bit, you did those three subjects in first year and then completely different ones in second?
EM Yes, what did I do the second year? English was second year. Dear, I've gone a complete blank. Third year was Geology because we weren't allowed to do it before, Geology. Oh Psychology, Psychology of course, Psychology second year.
JC English and Psychology second year.
EM What's the third one? Oh dear, how ridiculous.
JC Don't worry, I can't remember what I did.
EM That's something I ought to have thought about.
JC Don't worry, it doesn't matter.
EM I was thinking about more important things than subjects for a degree.
JC I was just interested because …
EM Yes, I'll come back to it.
JC One of the things it's quite hard surprisingly to establish for past timers exactly what was taught in what patterns? There's a conjoined degree which we were speaking about for example.
EM Yes. Had you come across that before?
JC I had in fact but you've explained it a bit more clearly than some other people. So you graduated successfully, fine, but you spent a lot of your time on what one might call non-academic things by choice?
EM Yes.
JC Tell me about the SRC in those days and what sort of a phase it was in then? It goes up and down with waves of militancy and activity.
EM It goes up and down. We weren't militant. No we were really rather conformist.
JC You were a conformist, OK.
EM But yes we were pretty active and I was on Chapel Committee and that led to …
JC You look as if you're thinking of an amusing memory?
EM Yes, I am thinking of an amusing memory. We had meetings in the Court Room at Marischal College usually and one of the people on the committee was Professor Mackinnon.
JC Oh the splendid Mackinnon, yes.
EM The splendid Professor Mackinnon. The snag was that the Principal, Principal Taylor, was not in the chair, he was at the side and this happened time and again and so was Professor Mackinnon and then the student representatives were round here. We could see was what Mackinnon was doing and the Principal couldn't.
JC So who presided if the Principal didn't take the chair?
EM Professor Hunter I think. I think it was Professor Hunter.
JC So what did Mackinnon get up to?
EM Oh, what did he get up to. Well, it would depend. He might get a piece of paper and tear it into postage stamp … I remember one day got a razor blade out a proceeded to do his nails with a double sided razor blade.
JC So you were just waiting for the blood to flow but it didn't.
EM He would pick up his pen, play with his pen and then …
JC Swallow it, yes.
EM All that. It's not terribly funny but when you're sitting rather overawed in the University Court room watching all this go on you can imagine you get the giggles and it all becomes a bit …
JC A bit hard to concentrate on the Chapel business, yes.
EM But the Chapel business, the big thing at that time was whether the Chapel should be painted white and that generated quite a bit of feeling.
JC What was the alternative?
EM It was a sort of mottled grey colour.
JC And white won I think did it?
EM White won, yes. But of course everybody resented change so nobody wanted change.
JC Were you a normal church goer?
EM Yes.
JC You were, so you had a church in Torry but you …
EM I did but then I did transfer my allegiance while I was a student and I'm afraid I then followed up other people from the University and became a member of the West Church of St Andrew which is also defunct now and that was a very lively thing. Well I suppose yes I was a normal churchgoer and again having no money to spare my social life revolved around the church very largely. So I wasn't terribly good but there was a lot of time spent on church activities.
JC And quite a lot of students supported the Chapel did they?
EM Oh yes, yes and of course we took part. There were always two student readers.
JC And collectors?
EM Yes.
JC Was there a little sort of bun fight after chapel or did that come much later?
EM No.
JC Did you sing? Was there a choir?
EM There was a choir but unfortunately I can't get up the scale and hit the right note at the top.
JC You were not one of the choristers.
EM I was not one of them no.
JC Was there a full-time University Chaplain then?
EM Yes. Iain Pitt Watson was the University Chaplain then.
JC I think he was one of the early ones. I don't think the Chaplaincy oddly enough was established until relatively modern times.
EM I didn't know that.
JC Yes, it was a benefaction to the University from somebody or other to pay a salary for a chaplain.
EM Wait a minute, there was somebody before Iain Pitt Watson.
JC Probably not more than one or two appointees?
EM Now what was the man's name? He didn't have the same dynamic personality that Iain Pitt Watson had but he was good.
JC So chapel was one sphere of activity, SRC was another. Did you stay with that, did you become officer bearer?
EM Yes.
JC What did you end up as?
EM I ended up as Junior Vice-President.
JC Great, good. And you were mostly concerned with student welfare type problems were you or concerned with what?
EM Yes, I suppose so. And then of course the other sphere of activity was Scottish country dancing down in the gym and I became a member of the University team for displays.
JC And became very fit I should think.
EM Well it did except that I ended up with TB.
JC What as a student or just afterwards?
EM In 1953. We started off doing the … Oh one of the things we did as SRC we arranged the first blood donor sessions here. We also arranged the mass radiography or it may have been the other way round I can't remember because I do recall somebody saying 'she wanted pictures of our lungs and now she wants our blood'. I think we had the first mass radiography in January 53 and then I went up to TC and they insisted we all had mass radiography and I said this is ridiculous it was done. And they found something. I was never ill but I was put on drugs then. Nine enormous things about so big which had to be dipped in water and swallowed every day. And everything you know, find out what she wants to do and tell her no she can't. So it was a bit dismal after all the fun I'd had at University.
JC I suppose if it hadn't been quickly cured it would have been a bar to teaching, wouldn't it?
EM Yes. In fact I think when I started teaching I was sort of on probation for that reason.
JC So, before that hit you you were a vigorous Scottish dancer.
EM Indeed, yes.
JC Also you said involved in the charities campaign. What did that involve? Rattling tins or were you an organiser?
EM We all rattled tins. Yes I was doing a bit of organising. I think I was persuading the shops to take the badges and so on.
JC Of course there was no question in those days of Halls of Residence?
EM Oh no.
JC How did you manage financially? You said there were no grants.
EM Well, I was lucky my birthday's in May and being a mercenary sort of character it was quite nice to get Christmas presents from the aunts and mother of money and that got me through the first six months of the year and then birthday presents in May.
JC Did you have to pay a fee for the University, do you remember?
EM Yes. I think we did. It wasn't high.
JC It was that first thing you had to provide for.
EM Yes.
JC And then did you give your parents money for …
EM I didn't give them money they gave me, oh I can't remember, about ten shillings a week or something like that for fares and food and lunch. I ate an awful lot of pies because they were the cheapest. We regularly walked into town.
JC You didn't take the bus you walked right across from Torry?
EM No. I'd take the bus from Torry into Union Street. I didn't always walk this way but I generally walked back into town.
JC Where did you buy the pies?
EM In the Refectory by the side of the Elphinstone Hall. That was where we ate most of the time.
JC Was the system in being then whereby the Elphinstone Hall was kind of open as a student dining room and there was a staff table across the top, or did that come later, or perhaps you didn't notice?
EM I can't remember I'm afraid.
JC Just interested because that's how it was when I came ten years later which you had a staff table across the top.
EM I don't think they ate with us.
JC We did then, it was a very good system.
EM I don't think so but I'm not sure.
JC It was a student ref?
EM Yes.
JC And not the café opposite or?
EM Jack's yes, we would go up to Jack's from time to time. We've just been talking about it this afternoon. How we survived …
JC It was appalling food they served, yes.
EM With the cat tasting the milk, licking its paw and the odd hair.
JC And given the restriction on finance you probably didn't spend a lot of time at the Union or did you?
EM No. I'd go there Saturday night and probably have a coffee.
JC Did they have Saturday night hops?
EM Oh yes, yes.
JC Did you attend them?
EM I went along to some of them too, yes. Yes, it was Saturday, I was never there during the week or hardly ever there during the week.
JC We've stressed a lot your relatively straightened circumstances as a student, how did that feel at the time in terms of relating with contemporaries?
EM I wasn't bothered.
JC You weren't bothered, that's interesting because there must have been some relatively well off people.
EM Yes, especially the English. They came with grants.
JC It wasn't a big issue?
EM No.
JC What about the gender relationships? Were women treated wholly similarly to men or was there any niggles there?
EM It never bothered me. No because that was how it was.
JC By then women were so established in the University. But of course there had been a lot of them dominant in the two wars.
EM Yes.
JC You just passed the post war generation in terms of the classroom. You didn't have ex-service men?
EM There were a few. Probably not doing the same classes as I was doing but probably doing other degrees. This reunion, I had reservations about it because I can't even remember who graduated with me because we knew an awful lot of people.
JC I sometimes think instead of doing decadal unions what they ought to do is to take say a period of three or four or five years.
EM I was suggesting that to Rachael but then of course you're still going to have somebody at the end of the period.
JC You've said graduation, did you graduate in the Mitchell Hall?
EM Yes.
JC And you did do that although it was an expense?
EM Yes. I can't remember. I sure did and I have a photograph taken by the Press & Journal. Yes, it is nice. I've brought that photograph with me.
JC So you stayed on to do the College of Education training and then went straight into teaching?
EM Yes.
JC And was it easy to get teaching work then apart from your little problem over the TB?
EM I think so. Yes, obviously everybody was a bit worked up about where you were going to teach. I wanted to leave Aberdeen but my mother wouldn't let me.
JC So you were determined to get a job near by or they were determined you should.
EM Yes, they were determined I should get a job .
JC Did you get a job in Aberdeen?
EM Yes I did.
JC Where did you start?
EM In Tullos. I did that for the two years then went off in the deaf world.
JC Before you went off into the deaf world. Just as a matter of interest did you stay with deaf teaching most of your career?
EM Yes. Deaf teaching then deaf lecturing.
JC In London?
EM Yes, London. Yes, I did quite a lot in my career. Yes I did some lecturing in London and then I did some research at Reading University. When that research fellowship came to an end I went to Newcastle and did some lecturing there but I really didn't like it and got back to London, got married about that time. Oh I was in America too. From the School for the Deaf in Aberdeen I got a two-year leave of absence to go to America and that was a great experience.
JC So your ordinary degree at Aberdeen wasn't so ordinary, it took you places. It was the foundation of a very good career by the sound of it.
EM Yes. I have a lot to be grateful to Aberdeen University for.
JC That's nice to hear. Just stepping back again for a moment to your student days, we've talked of several of the sort of social issues of the time, we haven't said anything at all about politics. Did they feature at all in your life at University?
EM Not really. I knew vaguely what was going on. It wasn't something that I was very interested in at all.
JC Were you very worried as a student about things like the nuclear threat or did that pass you by as well?
EM It certainly didn't pass by and there were some political issues. Some racial issues I think were going on but it wasn't something that I was deeply involved in, no.
JC Because that again is something quite difficult to capture from the past. You know what were the issues at the time that students sat and talked about.
EM We talked about all sorts of different things but nothing particular.
JC Is there any area of your experience that we haven't touched on that you think we should have done?
EM I don't think so at the moment.
JC Let's draw to a close then with a little anecdote, something that we were talking about before we started recording. We were recalling that 53 the year you graduated was the year of the coronation.
EM Sorry, can I just say one other thing. One thing that caused quite concern at the time, when we were reading the lesson in the Chapel we had to wear our togas. Oh togas were a big thing at the time.
JC Oh right there was a period of interest in togas. Were you supposed to wear them?
EM We wanted to wear them.
JC You were reviving the toga?
EM We were reviving the toga. When we were in Chapel we had to have a mortarboard and we did find some things crawling in it.
JC Oh dear, you mean you borrowed one each time?
EM Yes, there were a pile of them, a basket full of them. Colonel Butchart was quite incensed at the thought that we had insects in our bonnets.
JC Jolly horrid actually. I mean you can laugh about it now but it must have been very unpleasant.
EM Yes, we refused to wear them and that caused a bit of a scandal going into Chapel without our heads covered.
JC What did they do, renew them I hope or send them at least to the dry cleaners?
EM Yes, we got them cleaned. But you see in those days you wore hats when we went to Chapel.
JC Of course yes you would wouldn't you and gloves too I would expect.
EM Oh indeed, indeed. I remember being rather chastised by the President of the SRC at the time for wearing boots one day to go to Chapel.
JC Because it was a nasty slushy day and you weren't wearing respectable shoes?
EM Yes. Funny isn't it thinking about those sort of dress codes in those days.
JC But coming back to the togas for a moment, did you wear them every day or just when you were in Chapel.
EM No, we wore them.
JC So it wasn't a period when the students were expected to wear the toga regularly?
EM No. We wore them, we chose to wear them regularly. We had them and so we wore them.
JC Oh right until you actually bought one and wore it as an every day garment.
EM Yes. I can't remember where it came from. It certainly wasn't a new one.
JC It was probably second hand.
EM It was second hand but yes we wore them, we chose to.
JC When you were coming across town from Torry you came in a toga? And did that occasion any comment from people in Aberdeen or did they take it for granted.
EM They took it for granted.
JC So you weren't made fun of because you were a student by the little horrors down in Torry?
EM No.
JC Interesting. What proportion of the student population did actually wear a toga?
EM Probably not a vast proportion but a significant number.
JC And on that point of ceremonial, just getting back to the coronation, you were telling me great resentment in Aberdeen because there was no telly?
EM That's right. There could be no television here. It came only a matter of months after but not for the event, no.
JC So you had to go to the newsreel cinema to see it?
EM Yes.
JC That reminds me, not directly but indirectly, we've mentioned the names of various people who taught you and heard your opinions of them, which were all favourable by the way, was there any particular teaching that you thought was not good that you can recall?
EM I suppose I didn't enjoy the French department very much.
JC Was that simply because you were bad at the language or because you didn't feel it was well taught?
EM I think perhaps it wasn't well taught. Sorry, I've remembered now, Geography came into it and that was fun.
JC You enjoyed that? Field trips and things?
EM Yes, and Geology and Psychology.
JC Was that Rex Knight in Psychology?
EM Indeed yes it was Rex Knight.
JC Brilliant lecturer
EM He was. Absolutely brilliant lecturer and was always highly amusing to think that Mrs Margaret Knight was known as a dangerous woman.
JC Because of her atheistic views.
EM Yes.
JC Delightful person I got to know her when I joined the staff ten years later. So we've been bandying the names of these members of staff and you haven't revealed any of them as being terrible, perhaps they weren't. I was wondering about the kind of social relations between students and staff. Did you ever go to any of their homes for example?
EM Not at that time. I visited the Principal's in my SRC capacity and likewise the Secretary of the University.
JC That's interesting , Butchart?
EM No. Angus.
JC Aberdeen Angus. Did he invite students to his home?
EM Yes.
JC Just SRC students or?
EM I think it was probably SRC.
JC But the Taylors I understand entertained more widely than that, is that right?
Start of second side of tape
JC We were talking about the relations between students and staff and you were saying you don't recall going into anyone's home except on the sort of slightly official basis of SRC people being entertained by the Taylors and by the Butcharts. But you said you thought the Taylors maybe entertained students other than …
EM Perhaps, I'm not sure about that. One subject I haven't mentioned is Logic. Dr Bednarowski in those days saved the situation.
JC Because he was a delightful man.
EM He was a delightful man. He was a good lecturer. His English was slightly broken but that didn't matter.
JC And never became any better to his dying day.
EM No, perhaps not. The Prof was a bit more difficult.
JC Who was that? Not that it matters. Well, if we've covered the ground, that is very interesting. Thank you very much for your time.
EM It's been fun.
|