| Description | Interview with Alison J. K. Skene, recorded by Roddy Begg on 9 December 2004.
Transcription:
RB So Alison would you like to start by introducing yourself, your full name, date of birth etc.
AS Alison Jean Katherine Skene, date of birth is the 26 May 1939. My maiden name is Lamont. My father was Alexander Lamont from Ellon who was orphaned at the age of three, four, and was brought up by an aunt and left Ellon at 14 to find his fortune in Malaya, where he became a rubber planter. My mother was a Will and her father was James Will, who was the village dominee in New Pitsligo. He was in the next parish to Whitehills which is where Jack Webster's great grandfather, Gavin Grieg, was the headmaster. So they knew each other and they were great friends. In fact, my grandfather was one of the pole-bearers at Gavin Grieg's funeral. So going back with my mother's family of Will, they were nearly all graduates and they all became teachers. There was my grandfather who was the village dominee as I said, and his wife taught, I can't remember what subject, I think it was Maths, my grandfather was English and my mother and two of her sisters, Mary Agnes Will and Jean, Jeannie-Georgina, a name she hated, they were also teachers, although it was only auntie Jean and my mother who went to Aberdeen University. Auntie Jean married another graduate, called Colonel Archie White, who was a distinguished soldier who actually won a VC in the First World War.
RB So strong Aberdeen University connections.
AS Very strong. But none from my father's side. Being orphaned, his parents were actually in the hotel business, the New Inn, Ellon and the Station Hotel, Ellon. It is rather nice to go and visit from time to time. He had two brothers and a sister but none of them were graduates. Anyway ..
RB So your parents married and went back Malaya.
AS Yes, my father came to Ellon on leave and met my mother, who was at that time teaching at Ellon Academy, and they married out in Malaya in 1936, in Penang. Then my mother conceived me and came home to have me in Aberdeen and took me back to see my father for the first time at the age of 6 months.
RB So war had broken out at that time?
AS Absolutely. We travelled by ship, blacked out there and black-outed back in 1942 when Singapore fell and my father was unfortunately was captured by the Japs, taken to Changai [Singapore] and then up to the Siamese railway where he spent over three years.
RB Until liberation?
AS Yes. VE Day.
RB So do you remember your father coming back? How old were you?
AS Oh I do. Well by that time my mother had booked into lodgings in 3 St. Swithin Street so that I could go to the High School for Girls and so it was there that I met my father for the first time, whom I didn't recognise! He was like a skeleton wearing this enormous khaki great-coat and some kind hat, I can't remember if it was a Tam o'shanter type or what or a cairngorm, but anyway it made things difficult and because I was ousted and my mother, naturally, and my father were together and soon my brother appeared on the scene in January 1947, who was also a graduate of Aberdeen. He got a first in Russian, so he is a linguist, and so now he is in the diplomatic service and over in Venezuela as our British Ambassador.
RB And I think has possible recorded an interview in this series.
AS He may have done.
RB I think I am right in saying that Donald has …
AS Who was the interviewer, do you know?
RB Probably Jennifer Carter or maybe John Hargreaves.
AS Right. I will have to check.
RB Well if it is not so, well it should be and we will catch him next time he is in Aberdeen.
AS Well I know he has written articles for Gaudeamus and Aberdeen, I think, the first Aberdeen.
RB This is more about you. Did your father go back to Malaya?
AS No, when he came home he was 55, but he was due for retiral anyway. Let me think, in 1945 he would have been 55. Ten years older than my mother. So he would have almost been retiring anyway. He never went back. He didn't suffer too badly comparatively in that ..
RB The very act of survival meant that he was in the minority almost.
AS Absolutely. I mean he had a wonderful attitude to life. He was very philosophical and all the old clichés applied to him. Like "don't cross your bridges until you come to them" and "Where there is life there is hope" and it actually carried him through.
RB So your schooling was in the High School, but was that really your principal domicile? Had you family homes in the country still? Or had you moved to Aberdeen permanently?
AS It was a family home, in that it used to be inhabited by my grandparents. I only knew my grandmother, I never met my grandfather, and she was blind for the last year of her life. So I only knew her till about 1943 I think, and my aunt, Mary Will, she stayed on. So it was just Auntie Mary, my mother and I, living in the house together.
RB In the High School in your day were there a lot of girls going up university, or were you just one of a small handful?
AS I would think that three-quarters went to university, most to Aberdeen and most became teachers. So I don't know where the teachers are coming from nowadays, because in my ..
RB Well I think the number of teachers may be a bit constant but like everything else is grown tenfold, but it is true in your time and my time nearly a third of Aberdeen graduates were becoming teachers, and quite a significant proportion were also becoming doctors. So the professions were the main…and lawyers and ministers, it was a university that was providing the manpower for the professions primarily. But in 1957 did you still have soldiers back from the war in your year, or were you mainly all 18 year olds?
AS I don't remember any soldiers. No, I think that National Service stopped a year or two before that, I would have to check my dates.
RB I happen to know that, because I came up to University in 1959 and didn't have to be deferred, but if I had come up a year earlier I would have had to apply to defer, so there must have been people being called up in 1958.
AS Well there must have been.
RB But not everybody, but you were liable for call-up if you were a man. There would have been some coming back from National Service who were a little older, I guess.
AS There must have been, but I really can't remember, maybe more in Medicine?
RB Possibly. So what subjects did you study? Did you know what you were going to be?
AS I was just going to be a teacher. You know I was going to be a teacher, hopefully get married and have children! Very boring and traditional but following the family pattern! Well on my mother's side anyway! So I did a general degree, or I think it was called an Ordinary M.A. in my time.
RB Three-quarters of M.A.'s were Ordinary then.
AS Were they really?
RB It is the other way round now. Three-quarters are Honours.
AS I don't know if that is an improvement, or not, because at least with a general degree you did a variety of subjects.
RB What subjects did you do?
AS I did French, Latin and English. Then I did .. I think you had to do Moral Philosophy or Logic, so I chose Logic. You had to do one science subject, so I chose Zoology.
RB I did Geology!
AS Yes, it was either or wasn't it?
RB Yes that's it, those were the ones that the Arts people could cope with.
AS Well I think so, because you couldn't waffle in the exams with a science subject! What else did I do, Political Economy, which I found interesting.
RB Which subjects did you take through to more than one year. Did you …
AS French and English, yes. Which I enjoyed very much.
RB And did you go to France at all?
AS No, I should have done, but you see I thought I was getting married to someone else, and wasn't going to waste more time in Aberdeen when I could be in British Guiana. So that fell through and I taught. I was very lucky, because to begin with I was sent to Torry Academy, with my French degree, French-English, and taught everything but French and English! I taught Bible, History and Geography.
RB And I think that was in 1961.
AS Yes, that's right.
RB I have got notes you see!
AS That's helpful to me. Then .. I didn't mention that in between times I had actually spent a year at what was called Training Centre, TC, yes. We were allowed to smoke, that was one thing.
RB You were allowed to smoke! Did you learn that at Teachers …
AS That was incidental I think!
RB Did you enjoy that year, or was it just a bit of a waste of time?
AS A bit, a bit. I think there was room for improvement, shall we say. Very much so. There was Liz Donald's mother there, Mrs. Donald, one of the teachers and she was a much better teacher than she was at school than she was a lecturer at TC, I felt.
RB Louise Donald.
AS Yes, Louise Donald, who is my mother's vintage, they were friends.
RB They were almost our next door neighbours in Albert Terrace.
AS Yes, that's right.
RB I lived in 34 and I think they lived in 32. But again not to be diverted into other reminiscences. But before we leave university, I mean, we know what you studied and so on, but who were the characters? Do you remember any of the academic staff as standing out as particularly interesting people?
AS I liked my English professor and lecturer. There was Professor Duthie and a Mr. Michie, both of whom I admired, and I learned more Shakespeare in one week or one lecture from Professor Duthie than I had done in a whole year at school.
RB Most English graduates have great memories of Duthie although he had other problems of course which led to his premature death. Who were in the Logic department?
AS Oh, Logic was Professor Cross and he was wonderful because he waited until you had finished punctuating your sentences properly, I remember that.
RB Did you have to take notes?
AS Yes, you did, It was just like dictation. "Full stop", "next sentence"!
RB This is what I want you to have written down, yes!
AS Then there was Bednarowski. He was very difficult to hear because of .. to begin with he had a broken-accent, and he would walk from one side of the podium to the other, so you either heard the end of the sentence or the beginning, you didn't hear them both, so it made solecisms a bit difficult. But I managed to get a first-class certificate, which always surprises my husband! And then French which I enjoyed, there was Diverres and Dr. Abrioux, whose wife taught me at TC, and a Mr. Brown? I think was History.
RB Brown, yes, I think Ian Brown? [Could be probably be Alec Brown in French]
AS Could be, he is dead now.
RB Yes I suspect that most of the people we will talk about will have passed on by now. But Bednnarowski of course lived on until very late.
AS I know, I met him in Marks & Spencer's and he was so pleased when I said I knew him.
RB Yes, it is maybe only two or three years since he died but he was well into his late 90's, just a bit short of his time. But great characters. It was a smaller university than almost .. and I remember. Could you guess how many students there were ? I know the answer.
AS About 2,000 or so?
RB A bit fewer than that. Probably only about 1500.
AS Really?
RB In the whole University.
AS Amazing.
RB Did you get involved in the Union or were you one of these girls who went home to study?
AS I was a good girl! A very good girl! I was so glad that I went into the Student Show. I was a good girl because my fiancé was, for a short spell, at that time, in Glasgow and came up and he didn't like mixing too much, so I was …
RB You didn't go to the hops?
AS Oh yes I did! Oh yes. In the Mitchell and in the Union.
RB How many shows did you go into?
AS One. Only the one. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't know why I didn't go into more. I think …
RB It must have been you last year … it was my first year, but it must have been your last year's - "Follies Berserk"
AS No it was my first year, 1958.
RB Oh I see you didn't go in or you were not in "Follies Berserk"?
AS No I was in "April Showers". It was a wonderful experience. Great fun!
RB I am sure that I met you in my first year? Did you do the wardrobe or something?
AS No. I had no involvement with the show whatsoever, apart from 1958.
RB Anything else ? Study and show. Anything else that you did at university?
AS Lots of happy memories, but it was very conventional, for me anyway, and for a lot of my contemporaries in that I stayed at home. I went by two buses and on a Friday I had fish and chips at the Refectory! Jolly good. I think it cost a tenner!
RB 10 pence?
AS No, it wouldn't have been… 10 shillings ???
RB No…
AS 50 pence?
RB No it wouldn't have been that. No I think that the main courses at the union would have been 1/3d. or something like that. The same as a price of a pint!
AS Probably! It was very reasonably anyway!
RB I remember when a pint became more than a shilling, in my first year, and everybody thought that this was outrageous! Pints for 11pence and 10 pence!
AS About £2 now!
RB Yes. So we have cut back a little bit just to cover these points, but you had started your teaching career then in Aberdeen?
AS Yes, I was at Torry Academy and after three weeks I was invited, and I can't remember who phoned me, if indeed it was a phone call, to go to Aberdeen Academy to fill in for the French teacher who was having leave of absence for a sick mother. It was a Miss Minty, who was probably a graduate as well?
RB Yes, I know the name. This is the old Central School you are talking about? It has become Aberdeen Academy by then.
AS Yes. It was Aberdeen Academy in 1961. I can't remember how many years it had been that.
RB I think it had become Aberdeen Academy I think a year or two before that, but not long before it was still called the Central.
AS Yes, and Mr. Goldie was the headmaster. At that time it was the only co-educational Senior Secondary school in Aberdeen. They had some excellent teachers, it really was an excellent school. Really compared with Torry no problems concerned with discipline and if there were then you had so much backup, you know, it was a joy to teach there. I thoroughly enjoyed my .. and I was very lucky because, I shouldn't say this, but Miss Minty's mother survived for many years, and I was there until I got married and had my first child!
RB So she was on sick leave?
AS She was looking after her mother. She wasn't sick, it was her mother who was sick.
RB Oh, it was her mother who was sick. So how many years were you teaching at Aberdeen Academy?
AS Until 1965.
RB And by this time you had met and married your husband.
AS Yes, I had. My husband's first business was photography, and my cousin was getting married in 1962 and I was a bridesmaid and my future husband was the photographer taking the photographs at this wedding and that is how we met.
RB So a lot of us have got graduation photographs with Charles's name at the foot of them, because he was definitely the photographer for weddings, graduations and special occasions.
AS Of course! And he used to ask people when they were having the photograph taken to say "yes" rather than "cheese". So I said "yes" to him in more ways than one!
RB And swept off your feet?
AS Of course!
RB You married when?
AS 1964. 9 May 1964, so this is our Ruby year. Long time.
RB So you gave up teaching a year later.
AS I unfortunately I had to give up rather hurriedly, because in the December, in fact it was actually on Hogmanay of 1965, into 1966, I had a threatened miscarriage and was in hospital and wasn't allowed to go back to teach unfortunately. So I had a rather hurried departure, but Mr. Goldie was extremely helpful and understanding so were the teachers, both of whom I knew, who took my place.
RB So was that the end of teaching for you, or have you been able to go back at any time over the years?
As Not to teach French. I taught in the nursery at Albyn, where my children were, and the headmistress at that time, Miss Kidd, needed a teacher, a qualified teacher for insurance purposes, in the nursery department, again to fill in for leave of absence. Nicol Stephen's mother was having leave of absence for an illness. So I was there maybe 3 weeks at a time. I think three times altogether. Something like that over the years.
RB Where did you and Charles live at that time?
AS We started our married life in 6 Queens Gardens and we were there until 1973 when we moved up to Rubislaw Den North and we have been here ever since!
RB So how. Okay, we say you have become a mother. How many children?
AS Three children, Jennifer the first born, then Richard was born on St. Andrew's day, we should have called him Andrew, he was born in 1967, then my youngest, Pamela, was born on 18 March 1972.
RB And what has become of them?
AS Jennifer is now married to the Marketing Director of Glenmorangie. Which is rather nice! They live in Edinburgh, in the converted infirmary. She lives in the Cardiac unit, better than her friend who lives in the Sluice ! But it is a huge development and she is very happy there and she has two little boys, so I have two grandsons.
RB I can't believe you are a grandmother, but then I can't believe I am a grandfather!
AS It is going to be a mutual adulation …
RB And your other children.
AS Richard, he is a chartered surveyor. They are all graduates but sadly to say not of Aberdeen University. Two RGU and 1 Strathclyde. Richard did an extra degree at Reading. One track Land Economy, because at one time Aberdeen didn't do that. It was quite a new department in the early 1980's.
RB I would have to check, but I think Land Economy was well into the 1980s ..
AS Late 1980s maybe, yes. Now they do, but at that time he went down for his one year, because in between the two degrees he did his Gap year round the world, the usual thing. Then he went to Chesterton's Chartered Surveyors, out to Bangkok and Hongkong and now he helps his father. He knows a bit more about IT than his father does, so he helps in the finance and IT side and my daughter who is in.. the married one, helps part-time with the marketing side of things.
RB And the baby?
AS The baby? She is in London, she did Hospitality and Management, Business Management at Strathclyde and she's now, she has been working in the hotel business, but now she is in a business which headhunts for hospitality personnel. Which means her hours are more sociable.
RB So is Richard living at home?
AS He lives in what was the Grannie-flat.
RB So he is near, but not actually …
AS He is independent! But about to move into Whitehall somewhere!
RB So what, there is obviously a period of much closer connection with the University to come, but what was … you were a full-time mother, and what else?
AS Yes I was a full-time mother, in that I didn't have a job, other than the odd stint at Albyn, so I got involved very much with Junior Chamber wives, because Charles was very much involved with Junior Chamber, and we formed a wives group and that was very interesting. Then Charities I was involved in, MacMillan, Cancer Research, this sort of thing. St. John Association, Community Councils when they were set up, I was on that Committee for a few years, but I can't remember the exact years now? I think I stopped the Community Council when I was at University.
RB When you came on to the Court?
AS Yes.
RB You weren't tempted by local politics more seriously?
AS No. I am a follower rather than a leader!
RB Well thank you very much Alison, we have reached a natural point for me to turn the tape and then we can talk more about the last ten years and your closer involvement with the university when you came on to the University Court.
RB So as it were, Welcome back. So you have been a member of the University Court for 12 years, in the 1990s and into the new century. Can you recall how you got into the Business Committee, which I think was the route in for you.
AS Yes, I was involved a long time ago with the Alumni Association and I think it was Muriel Rust who suggested that I was young enough, you know, was a graduate and should become a member of the Alumni Association, so I became a member and then was invited on to the Committee. I was on that for several years and I think it was Molly Gauld who suggested that I went on to the Business Committee, and again I am very vague about the date.
RB So what would fix it in my mind, was Eric Morrison still Convenor?
AS Yes Eric Morrison was still there then it was George Morrison, and then it was Molly.
RB Molly herself.
AS Then it was Iain Olson now Joe.
RB Now Joe Leiper. The Business Committee's constitution I think normally means that you are a Convenor for three years or six, depending on how long you want to do it. So, you got in onto the Business Committee and from the Business Committee you became a natural candidate for the Court.
AS So it seems!
RB So it seems, Yes.
AS I had a phone call from the Secretary of the University of the time, I can't recall his name!
RB No, gosh. This is lost on me slightly, but I believe that I was sure that I was doing, under instruction, that this was a person that we ……
AS And I always thought that you really wanted me there! It was your idea. All these years I have been mistaken!
RB Well it was probably my suggestion, but I would have tried it on someone first!
AS Suddenly Ann Gauld was there, and I was probably replacing Ann.
RB Ann I think had come off and …
AS I proposed Ann. She asked if I would be willing to propose her in 1986.
RB So in 1990, did you have an actual election or were you just ….
AS Yes I did. If I had known …..There was somebody, Christie, who I think was Chemistry lecturer, was that the right name, so there was an election. There were more candidates than there were positions.
RB And you came on in 1990. The Principal was?
AS George McNicol, so it was rather nice .. he was my Principal for just the one year, but it was rather nice to be working with him.
RB So you .. in 12 years on the Court you have seen three Principals, so you are in a very good position to give us your absolutely candid views of the strength and weaknesses of the Chief Executives. What were your impressions from the prospective of a University Court member of the three Principals?
AS Well I think that George McNicol had a very difficult task to do, in that he had to make a lot of cuts and the financial situation I think was a bit tricky.
RB By 1990 we were through the worst?
AS Well I had this impression you see and then I was on the Court that year and my very first Court meeting there was a film, a demonstration film, I think on the finances of the University was shown and we had made a profit and I said to George "My goodness, I thought it was all doom and gloom, but to me it looks like boom, boom" you know. I got on all right with George, I know that he wasn't terribly popular, I think his PR could probably have been improved.
RB I think that is absolutely fair, the better you knew him the better you liked him, but if you knew him slightly or only as a figure then you probably didn't. He tended to get on well with people who got as close as being on Court. And, so he retired very soon after you came along.
AS Yes, that would have been 1991. Then a contrast in Principal could we say, was Maxwell Irvine, who was very jolly and first name terms which was complete contrast to George. So it was rather refreshing to have a completely different personality in the "hot seat" so to speak. We got on very well and his wife was involved in social events and I was sad to hear that she wasn't as happy as I thought she was in Aberdeen.
RB Yes, that tended to come out after the event, as a reason for his moving on. Grace wanted a bigger role than there was a for the Principal's wife, but how did he perform in the Court? Was he an autocrat?
AS No I think he was a listener and one example is that it always surprised me that you couldn't get married in King's College after 12 noon on a Saturday and at this meeting I asked why and I think it was Mike Meston, who was the chairman of the Chaplaincy Committee or something, and he made some comment and Max was very good, because at that point he said "Well I see there is something we have got to look into here, we are going to have a discussion with you know the Chaplaincy Committee" and he got something done about it and now you can get married in the afternoon. So I think he was a listener.
RB It would have been something to do with the Sacrists' didn't like having overtime on a Saturday afternoon or something like that probably.
AS Well it was probably something like that, or the football match was on, I don't know.
RB That's right there is always a difficulty with parking at King's on a Saturday afternoon when the football season is on.
AS There were obviously reasons but from a financial point of view it was .. anyway that was one example. I thought he was a listener and we had a good relationship. Strangely enough, and I have never thought of this before, but you didn't get to know him any better. He was so friendly at the beginning that you didn't get any more friendly. Do you know what I mean?
RB Yes, yes.
AS But you know we still get our Christmas cards.
RB And more recently?
AS And then another change of leadership was Duncan, who is in a completely different situation with first having come from the States and had this refreshing approach of "go get them and aim high" and "seek far and wide" which I think is to the benefit of our University, because when I was on the Selection Committee, which was one of the committees I was on, there were a lot of local people, or if not local national people, applying for jobs and it was in Duncan's years that we started to trawl more widely, I think. That is the impression I got.
RB Yes it was very much quite a sudden change it seemed to be the way was to advertise and just look at people who applied and now it is almost unnecessary to apply if you … if they want you they will contact you. It is maybe not formal head-hunters but the University goes out and gets people rather than the other way around.
AS You know this, we probably had horses for courses. We had the right person at the right time.
RB Well that is right. It has certainly been very successful in the last few years in getting the right people in. Your Court attendances were always of course just the things happened every 6 weeks or two months, but what Committees did you serve on, which Committees for the Court?
AS I was on Selection Committee, which was the Human Resources, at the time it was called Personnel, it changed its name, I think maybe in Duncan's time.
RB Maybe even a little before that time, possible ten maximum 12 years.
AS Which involved other Committees involved with, now what were they called, I would have to check, but all the ism's and new laws which had to be discussed and then the Grading Committees and that sort of thing and disciplinary hearings and this sort of thing. There were a lot of committees to do with Human Resources side of things that I was involved with.
RB How much of your week did the University Court business take up?
AS I was often asked that and it is very difficult to judge. Some weeks you would be.. have a Selection Committee every other day and sometimes it could take all day, particularly if it was a medical one because you had a much bigger panel and also you had the demonstration in the morning or the afternoon, depending on when the interview, probably in the morning and the interviews were in the afternoon, and lunch of course in the middle. English, they sometimes had invited me, probably because I was English and thought I would understand more than I would Nuclear Physics! But I think it could be three times a week and then there was maybe nothing for a fortnight. It was very difficult to gauge.
RB Quite a lot of homework to do as well I guess?
AS Oh, yes, you had to do your homework. All the reading and the … I used to have a plan where I had columns and then when I, particularly if there was 6 candidates, I used to draw little pictures of them, which were sometimes referred to just to remind others of what they looked like, particularly on my side of the table, because we were the lay people, you know, and the department had obviously met them all individually and knew them a bit better than we did. It was very interesting.
RB So from what you are saying, perhaps the greater part of your Court work was serving on Selection Committees?
AS Probably, yes.
RB I remember you were always very willing to come on to Administrative appointment ones, for which we were very grateful for to. Can you remember who is, as it were in their Chair now, because you were involved in that Selection Committee. Which Chair can you choose to do so?
AS Oh, I would really have to check on this. But there are a lot and it is rather nice, it is like pupils coming up and saying you taught me French! And now they say "Oh you were on my Selection Committee". And I sometimes don't recognise them! But I am delighted they have got on.
RB What would you say were the crucial decisions the Court took in your 12 years of Court.
AS How much time do we have?
RB Indeed! Maybe that isn't an unfair question because it will only become apparent later that these were crucial decisions.
AS Well, George was making crucial decisions in the way he cut things, and Maxwell's decisions were … very much an open-door policy wasn't he?
RB He had this scope to make investment decisions, there was enough spare resource to be able to say "Well we will put more staff in to Xology or something like that" so he was able to staff for example the building back of some strength into the Medical School.
AS I think now Duncan's strength has been, I am not saying this is the most important thing he has done, but he brought a corporate identity to the University, you know exactly where you are now, and it is more cohesive and I don't know if it his American approach or not, I don't know, but it seems more business-like and it does seem to be running quite smoothly. But you see I was never, Roddy, on the Joint-Resources Committee, which has now got a different title.
RB You were always very involved with the student side of the Court work and I think you were on the UMC [Union Management Committee] as the Court representative.
AS Yes, I was on the UMC Committee for many years and I am guessing now when I say 8. I think the year after Duncan came I suggested it might be someone else's turn because it was time consuming and I felt that sometimes I was hitting my head against a brick wall, but I have to say that nowadays the student sabbaticals are far better, far superior, I think because they are all graduates, but that is another discussion.
RB So the UMC met most Mondays?
AS Monday nights from 6.00pm and it could go on until 10.00 pm. But I obviously didn't stay until 10.00 pm. No I was willing to give them support and I was involved with their Star Ball to start the Star fund thing, the Student Hardship fund which is now doing very well and I know that Fiona has done so much for that as well and that was very worth while and I still am involved on the periphery with the students, and perhaps not so much the periphery, but with overseas students, where the Principal very kindly lets us go to Chanonry Lodge and it is very nice to be involved like that.
RB Right, other Court Committee work, what are they?
AS I was on the Library Committee and Continuing Education Committee, which is no more, of course, which was a logical one to be on again.
RB It tended to be, you know, lay members would either be there because they were going to be in Finance and Estates and Policy and so on, or the welfare side, but you have been playing horses for courses again.
AS Yes. I was more the welfare side.
RB And of course your service on the Court covered the three years of celebration, the Marischal Quatto and then the Woman's First Centenary and then the Quin. What were you first memories of that?
AS I remember, perhaps the one I was most involved with was the Quincentenary, but the year before, so for chronological purposes, perhaps we will start there, I was involved with the Womens Conference, "A Hundred Years of Women at the University". Molly Gauld was the convenor of the whole thing and asked if I would organise a schools competition, which was quite a daunting prospect, but because it was Molly, and because I knew I would get the support of University personnel, I said OK. And it was very interesting, it really was very worth while. It was quite time consuming, but to sum up, it was involving all the secondary schools in the Grampian region, which amounted to I think about 99, and there was a 50% uptake on the competition which was quite good, so I had two prize giving ceremonies, one in Inverness, Jennifer Carter thought that might be a good idea, having two, taking it up to Inverness and Audrey Baxter presented the awards and it was Annie MacKenzie from Grampian Television who presented the awards in Aberdeen. This involved all these school children who were potential graduates, in writing essays or doing a project on equal opportunities for women. So I was very lucky to have a good team, helped again by Molly as she knew who would be supportive. There was Don Withrington, Margo Shand, Marjory Rose and a Richard Dargie, who I think is quite senior now in Edinburgh education.
RB I thought you might have meant Brian Dargie. No.
AS No, Richard, I don't know if there is a relationship there or not. But anyway they were really supportive and it went well and we got wonderful prizes from computing firms, thanks to Wallace Anderson, I think his name was?
RB Yes it was, he was the Director of Computing Centre at the time.
AS It is all there.
RB It has always amused me that the reason that we had this centenary is because the law changed and all the Scottish Universities had had women studying at them but they couldn't be graduating students, so we celebrate this centenary as being 94, being 1884, but at St. Andrews for some reason, they celebrated it the year before! I think they managed to get retrospection so that the women who were studying at the university were allowed to graduate immediately, where we sort of played it more straight.
AS That's right they were allowed to matriculate but not graduate.
RB That's right, They could attend the courses and I think they could even take the exams, but they couldn't graduate. The law was changed and therefore all the Scottish Universities had a centenary, you would have thought, at exactly the same time , but it was played slightly different, but none the less it was a good thing to be able to mark. So that was 1994 and ..
AS So that gave me some practice, if you like, before helping to organise quite a few functions for the Quincentenary, and that was the whole year Although I was preparing for that in 1994 and the other one in 1993, but anyway the Quincentenary involved four events. First was the Student Show Reunion, no it wasn't, that was the second. The first was the Founder's Feast in February, then it was the Student Show Reunion in April, then in the Summer time we had garden parties in the Cruickshank Gardens, then the final, the climax of this season, was the Quincentenary Ball, which had four different venues, so you can imagine there was a lot to organise that year.
RB Yes, it seemed that…. It was fun at the time and now I look back on it and I thought… follow the diary… you were out every night, there were still things to be done, like managing the University!
AS I was going to say it must be particularly difficult for you when you had to work during the day and …
RB Well as I say it was fun at the time. I think you just got carried away with the euphoria. There was something to go to every night of the week, because everyone wanted to get in on the act. We had the Conference of European Rectors, ..
AS We had the Dalai Lama coming.
RB Yes.
AS Prince of …
RB Prince Surin and Princess Surin of Thialand ..
AS And the Sultan of Brunei.
RB That was not a good day!
AS Lots of stories. I know.
RB But it was a great thing to have lived through.
AS It was and absolutely to have been part of this was very special.
RB So that's the main involvement that you had with the Quincentenary. What other things did you do in your time on Court, in the last, more recent years?
AS In the more recent years? What have I been doing? I sort of been more involved if you like in the Elphinstone Institute and I continue with that as a member of the Committee now. I can't think what I was doing the last year or two of the Court. It is too recent!
RB Yes, it is too recent, it will all come…but you surprised me that it was more than two years since you have come off the Court. What are your connections with the University now, you are on the Alumnus Management Committee now?
AS I am on that now, I am on the Business Committee and I am on the Committee for the Friends of the Elphinstone Institute, and I am a Friend of the Library.
RB So how often do you go across to King's or over to the Lodge? Is it weekly or monthly?
AS Oh I think it is monthly rather than weekly.
RB Well I am sure that the University is very appreciative of all that you have done, particularly in those 12 years, from 1990 to 2002. Is there anything else about your memories of the University that you would like to put on record before we bring the interview to a close?
AS I think I still have a feeling of pride at every Graduation Ceremony. I go to as many as I am able to, I particularly make an effort if it is someone I know who is graduating and to come into the tune of Gaudeamus still stirs the heart. I just feel it such a worthwhile institution to be a part of and it has been an honour and a privilege to serve it.
RB For us all. Well thank you very much Alison I am very pleased that it was my lot to help you record your thoughts.
End of Interview.
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