| Description | Interview with James Kelman, recorded on 3 April 1985 by Colin McLaren.
Transcript of interview :
CM Mr Kelman, when did you join the University?
JK I joined the University on the 1st of March 1957.
CM And what had you been doing before then?
JK Well I had been for fully 19 years on the estate of Haddo, Lord Aberdeen's estate, where I was doing Factoring work and also carrying out all the reconstruction and new building work, that is preparing the plans and schedule of schedules of quantities and just seeing the whole thing through.
CM So why did you want to make a change?
JK Well, I had no intention really of changing jobs, but I happened to be that year the chairman of the local branch of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and one Friday in October I think, the beginning of October, the Secretary telephoned out to say that he had been asked by Headquarters in London to put forward names of suitable candidates for a job that was coming up at the University of Aberdeen, and he said two names had sort of presented themselves from the register, and mine was one of them, what did I think? I said I'd never thought of leaving Haddo. He said, well you'll have to think mighty quickly because I've got to let her know on Monday. So after I suppose three almost sleepless nights I decided to have a crack at it.
CM What did you know of the University in order to help you make the decision?
JK Well the only connection that I'd had with the University was through music, through my singing and I had sung for Reg Barrett-Ayres on one or two occasions and that really was my only connection with the University.
CM Who had been doing the duties for which you were subsequently employed before your employment?
JK Frank Burnett, who has just recently retired from the firm of F.G. Burnett, the surveyors and valuers in Aberdeen. And he left the University to go to South Africa where he was in business for a short time.
CM So what were the duties as described to you. What effectively were you employed to do?
JK Well, I went there with the title of Assistant Secretary Edilis and Lands. And I took it that I was engaged just to take on the carrying through of the building programme, which was expected, the extension of the various buildings and the erection of new ones. And eventually that is just what did occur.
CM So decisions were already imminent and in fact may indeed have been taken about the expansion of buildings?
JK Yes, when I arrived at the University a large part of Marischal College was empty. The Department of Chemistry had just moved out in 1952 to the new building in Old Aberdeen and the whole of the north wing, or most of the north wing and part of the tower were empty and preparations had been made for their modernisation, their reconstruction, mostly for the Department of Biochemistry. And these plans were well advanced; in fact the work had started in the first phase by the time I arrived.
CM To what extent and in what ways did the nature of your job change during your tenure of it?
JK Well, when I arrived in 1957 I think that I had a staff of six. This was quite sufficient at that time, because the programme just hadn't got properly under way. But it very quickly became apparent that things were going to change rather rapidly. And I think by the time that we were into the midst of the programme, the staff had gone up to about twenty-six, I think. I was very much against building up on staff much in advance of the actual workload coming upon us.
CM Why was that?
JK Because I had been moving around other universities by this time and I had seen that to appoint so much in front of the actual need meant that quite a number of the staff members were doing very little more than twirling their thumbs, and I think this got a wrong feeling into these people about what had to be done. And therefore I waited until we were overloaded before appointing additional staff.
CM When we talk of staff, are we talking of administrators or people with specific skills, Clerks of Works, draughtsmen and so on?
JK That included the Clerks of Works and the draughtsmen and the general administrative staff. I made a comparison with one other Scottish University when we were at the 3,000 student level. We were both at that level this time, and my staff amounted to twenty-six as I have said. In the other university it was forty-two and there was no duties of house- Factoring in that University at that time. We had this in addition, and when we were more or less through the expansion and tailing off, I had taken the opportunity of not replacing staff who'd retired or who had left the service of the University, just in anticipation of what the situation was to become. And I had a phone call from my opposite number in that same University asking what I was going to do about the superfluous staff, because he was by that time finding great difficulty in occupying their time. So I thought that it was wise just to anticipate a bit in advance. Because of the heartbreak that it could be to the members of staff. I did have some difficulty later on when the University as a whole was being asked to, well department's were being asked to shed staff, because I had already done my shedding, but when the request came to the University as a whole, I was expected to shed again and had quite a lot of argument to put up in order to retain the level.
CM Can we look at the University as landowner? How extensive were the University's properties when you came?
JK Marischal College, Old King's, New King's, the new Chemistry Building, Botany and Forestry. Those were the only buildings, apart from Foresterhill, of course, where the medical buildings were and are. And the land itself extended in Old Aberdeen to College Bounds, some of the houses in College Bounds, with the land behind, the hinterland, the area of land around Powis Gate going right through onto Bedford Road, the old market lands on which Chemistry and now all the other buildings were erected and the north and south playing fields. And of course everything more or less in the Chanonry area with the exception of number 10, and also number 11 and 12. Yes the two at the end at that time weren't in the ownership of the University; they were bought just a short time after I went to the University. And then of course the Cathedral Manse. There was also a market garden lying between Don Street and King Street just out beyond the Chanonry and that was it. The market lands, when I arrived in 1957, certainly had the first part of the Chemistry building, but the rest was let for grazing purposes annually to Aberdeen and Northern Marts and one of the first jobs I had to do was to let this area of ground, and I remember it was £24 per annum. And the cattle grazed there.
CM What about outlying properties such as rents in the town or Tillycorthie. Where did the University, to what extent was the University still able to draw money from these sources?
JK Well Tillycorthie Estate was bought in 1953 and of course the University also had Aldroughty Estate at Elgin, where the North of Scotland College of Agriculture were the tenants of Aldroughty Farm itself. The other farm, the farm of Woodside, was, and still is, let just to an ordinary farmer and the house is being used for staff holiday purposes. The rents were not very high. I managed to raise them just periodically and kept them sort of up to date after that. On Tillycorthie Estate of course there are three farms. It was an ideal area for a teaching department, agriculture teaching department, in a University, because there were the three farms, and the type of land ranged from good arable ground through to the hill farming type of land. And it seems a pity now that the University has seen fit to dispose of this farm. I felt, of course I'm maybe biased because I have a great interest in agriculture, but I think that the University having a Department of Agriculture within it has a certain responsibility I think to the farming community and it was possible on Tillycorthie farm, on the whole estate rather, to demonstrate to the farming community that farming could pay. It was also possible to carry out all the research and development and experiment on the farms for the benefit for the teaching department as well. And at the same time return rather a substantial profit every year. I think of one year the profit was £40,000 at a time when prices weren't just as very good.
CM The sale or recent events effecting the farm of course have reflected the University's financial position. To what extent when you demitted office was the University drawing effectively from its holding of lands in terms of revenue?
JK It was drawing very effectively from Tillycorthie which, and this is what surprised me, that the decision was taken to dispose of it, because of the profit that was being made on it, and I think that that profit could have continued. But from the house properties of course for quite a while after I went to the University they were really a drain on the resources.
CM Why was that?
JK Because the rents were far too low. And of course most of them, most of the houses were occupied by members of staff and when the Government set up the Rent Officers and Rent Committee structure. And it was possible to get fair rents fixed. The University was I think the first customer of the Rent Officer. And from then on of course it was possible to have the rents set at a level at which the properties were of some financial benefit to the University.
CM Who had decided originally the rents which you considered to be uneconomic?
JK Well, it was the University Factor, but I think it was University policy and not really the Factor fixing the rents at those figures because he thought that that's where they ought to be set and that the houses granted to some members of staff were a pre-requisite. They appeared to be a pre-requisite; in fact they were a pre-requisite because the rents remained so low. But there was a change in attitude I think towards members of staff who had University houses and I think the University Court came to the conclusion that it was rather an unfair arrangement that certain members of staff would get the benefit of a low priced house and others had to go and buy their own houses or pay the higher rents which were being asked for throughout the town.
CM Can we turn to the area of conservation of the University's older buildings? What priority did the University assign to the upkeep of its older buildings when you first came here?
JK I found that after having an opportunity to look at all the property, I found that quite a large proportion of the properties were not in a very good condition. Roofs were requiring attention, walls were requiring to be pointed, boundary walls were in a rather precarious state and I felt that that if we left them for much longer we might be faced with terrific expenditure, so I made the suggestion to the Edilis Committee which was approved by the University Court that we really get down to the problem of maintenance straight away, maintenance of those properties, and just gradually work through the programme which we did, and it certainly was a pretty expensive programme but it one I think that saved money in the end. One of the buildings which really gave me a shock was the Crown Tower.
CM Why was that?
JK Well I was wandering around one morning looking, just looking at the buildings just to see which ones would require attention next. And I was in the quadrangle looking up the Tower and I noticed that there was a crack right from the parapet almost one-third of the way of the way down the Tower near to the north-east corner on the east side. And we carried out an examination immediately and found that this crack was, or seemed to be, widening. It was a fairly old crack but the indications were that there had been movement fairly recently. So we had to put in reinforcement collars and tie the whole of the Tower together. The cause of the movement was the fact that on the north-east corner of the Tower, which is the corner that goes right down into the Chapel, there are no buttresses. If they'd put buttresses in of course they would have taken up far too much room in the Chapel so they left them out and what was really happening was that the pointing and all the mortar between the stones, especially at the top of the Tower, had just disintegrated. And the lack of the buttresses in that corner resulted in the Tower just starting to open up. Well, the reinforced collars didn't actually stop the movement entirely and eventually we had to rip out all the jointing at the top of the Tower and replace it by pressure using hoses and pumps. And we also had to tie the parapet around with phospor-bronze bands and just keep the whole together. We put on glass telltales across the crack and so far as I know they're still intact.
CM Here we have a situation which one of the outstanding monuments of the Northeast is in your charge and you look up and you see this crack, tell me what did it feel like?
JK It really shook me. I immediately thought, well I don't know how long that crack has been there. I just hope that nothing happens until we can do something about it. Well it took some time to get something done about it because we had to get engineers on the job and they had to prepare their schemes. And they had to do quite a lot of investigation work before they could even prepare their schemes. So all the time I was on tenterhooks.
CM Did the Chapel itself present similar problems or difficulties?
JK Yes the Chapel, the main problem that it presented was a woodworm attack on the roof and just in the course of an examination of the roof space which I carried out with one of the clerks of works we discovered that the woodworm had got quite a hold. So that had to be dealt with and then another problem was the disintegration of some of the stonework especially on the north and west walls. The south wall of course was damaged in the fire, the library fire and of course it was faced with granite so it was in better condition. But we just replaced the stones that were actually becoming structurally unsound. We didn't replace everyone, it was wasted a bit, or scaling, it had to be pretty far-gone before we replaced it.
CM And what of the two other old sections of the building, the Round Tower and the Cromwell Tower. Did they present difficulties?
JK They've presented very little in the way of difficulty.
CM Why would that be do you think? Because of their simplicity of structure?
JK Because of their simplicity of structure I think. We did have to do some work within the Cromwell Tower, but very little. And the Round Tower, it required almost nothing at all.
CM Were more problems to be encountered at Marischal with the exterior...?
JK Marischal, it was the interior more than the exterior that gave us the trouble at Marischal. When we were busy just modernising and reconstructing the various areas that from time to time were vacated, namely by first of all of course Chemistry, then by Natural Philosophy and Natural History when we were doing them we found that the structure just wasn't so solid as most of us thought. Under the Mitchell Tower, the bit to the east that is just into the Mitchell Hall area where there was on the ground floor an Optics Lab which was eventually turned into the Common Room that we had there, there was the floor which was actually acting as the ceiling of the Gymnasium. Now when the Physical Education people moved out to Old Aberdeen we started to reconstruct that area for library purposes and one of the men, workmen on the job came along to me one morning and said you'd better come along and see this floor and ceiling. And when I went along this was the part of the ceiling where the climbing ropes of the gym had been fixed. And he said that he had just plucked it out of the floor, or out of the ceiling. It had had very little hold at all, and we investigated it a little further to find that the concrete, the reinforced concrete was not really cement true cement and stone aggregate concrete but was brieze concrete. And I think the sulphur that had been left in the brieze had attacked the reinforcement until what we were left with was not the steel reinforcement but just the rust that it had left behind. And you could more or less pick out the aggregate, the brieze aggregate with your fingers. And we discovered the same construction in the north wing and had quite a bit to do there. One of the problems in Marischal College was that I think the architect when he was designing the buildings around the Quad had come to the conclusion that his highest ceiling height was for a lecture theatre which was about 16 ft. so therefore he just ran his floor round at that level most of the way. The result was that it was a lot of waste of space. There were small rooms, rooms maybe of 13, 14 ft. by 8 with a ceiling height of 16 and this was not only wasteful of space but wasteful of energy and heating of the building. So we ran where we could mezzanines right round and got about I suppose a quarter and a third more accommodation. But that was the greatest difficulty in Marischal.
CM One area where you also had a mezzanine is of course in the Library at King's. There is an element is there obviously of economy in this as it does as you say increase the space and help with heating and so on, but is there not a fear too in doing so you are spoiling the aesthetic effect of a building?
JK Completely. And I think quite a lot of consideration was given to this. I remember arguing with the University Grant's Committee representative over this. They were forcing us or pressing us at any rate to put in this mezzanine. And in the end I agreed with them that I would do it provided we got a grant that would cover a form of construction that could be removed and not damage the building should be decide at a later date that we would like to have the large open hall again and that's how it has been put in.
CM Yes. What about the environment of the College. I'm thinking specifically of Old Aberdeen, of the various small streets, the old houses, Wrights and Coopers Place, what has been the University's attitude towards the conservation of these areas?
JK Well I think that in Sir Thomas Taylor's time as Principal a considerable amount of interest was whipped up, mainly by him and he eventually got the Court to agree that the reconstruction of these properties and the restoration of Old Aberdeen should go ahead as and when money was available. He went to the McRobert Trust of course we all know, and got a grant first of all of £200,000 which allowed us to start on the restoration work in Wrights and Cooper Place, Grants Place, and on every occasion I think that when a property was bought for either for its land or for the building itself, great consideration was given to its amenity and aesthetics and probably restoring the property to something like its former glory. And then of course Sir Edward Wright went again to the McRobert Trust and got a further grant which allowed us to continue with the restoration.
CM Was this out of a shared enthusiasm on his part or simply the need to finish the job once it had begun?
JK Oh it was a shared enthusiasm. He was very very keen that it should go ahead and be completed and we tried of course to augment that money by applying to the Historic Buildings people. And I'm afraid that to begin with they proved a dead loss.
CM Why do you think that was?
JK I don't know. They didn't make available to us a great deal. It was only 5% which is a very very small percentage when one comes to think of it. They said we'll give you 5% but by the time they got all the approvals through and we were informed officially that we'd got this 5%, the cost of building had gone up by 5% which meant that the money did nothing. It didn't help us at all. And things improved after that and the following occasion when we made application for a grant we did get a reasonable sum and it was paid to us quite quickly, the thing was pushed through after I had explained that well the last grant was just wasted.
CM Some of the developments, and of course certainly some of the new buildings, I'm thinking of some of the restoration work has rightly won some awards and been commended, how does it feel to someone in the position you hold when this happens. Is it, does it mean something special to you?
JK Well it meant a great deal to me. My interest in Old Aberdeen started very early in life. I had a grandmother who was possibly a thwarted academic on the history side. She was a very keen amateur historian. I was born and brought up in Turriff and she resided there too. If my brother and I were in any difficulties over details of history we just went next door to my grandmother who not only gave us what we asked for but filled in all the details around this subject and she also had a great collection of books on Aberdeen and especially on Old Aberdeen and a great collection of photographs, quite a lot of Washington Wilson's photographs and we used to spend quite a lot of time there, a bad day and that's where we went up into my grandmother's attic, never thinking at that time that I would be involved in the way I was in Old Aberdeen, and therefore I got a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure from the work that I had to do connected with the restoration, and not only with the restoration but with the buildings that were put up for academic purposes.
CM We'll come to those in a moment. I want to talk now about the new buildings which were erected in your time and to begin by asking you if you could in very broad terms give me a picture of the administrative structure through which you operated and the stages that the very basic stages through which a complex would go from the time that a need for it was first perceived till the final brick was laid.
JK Yes. Well, in the early stages of the expansion, that is from about the time that I went there probably for another four years or so after that, the method was that the Senatus was asked to put up their requirements to the Court sometimes through the Edilis, and an application was made to the UGC for a grant. At that time the building programme, University's building programme that is, for the whole country, hadn't been really put down on paper by the University Grants Committee and in fact they didn't know at that time just how far things were going to be developing, but in those days the set-up within the UGC was a very very simple one and on the capital expenditure side there was a man by the name of Orom, H.J. Orom. He was called George for some unknown reason, but George Orom ran this more or less a one-man show in Belgrave Square at that time and it was the custom for him to ring up, he would have telephoned to William Angus and said ''Oh this application of yours, Angus, for such and such, well I've been looking through the requests and I think that we can manage to give you the money. You won't be able to start until such a such a date but you can take it that you can proceed now with the planning''. Now George Orom really did a marvellous job in the distribution of the monies at that time but it was quite evident that things were going to be very very different from that in a few years once the expansion had gathered momentum. And of course at that time it wasn't known how far Universities would have to expand, for example in Aberdeen when I went in 1957 the population, student population was just around 1700 I think and the intention was to go up to about 2000, 2225 or there about. But then the UGC in the midst of our, well I think it was after we started the work on the Taylor Building, came along and said could you go along to 2,500 and then it was 2,750 and then they came back at a later stage and said ''How far would you be prepared to go?'' And I think the answer at that time was 4,000 4,500. Now you will gather that the methods and procedures had to change drastically, both in the UGC and in Universities. So what actually did happen in the UGC was that when George Orom retired, they set-up a Technical Unit which included architects, surveyors and they brought in from the Department of Education and heating and electrical engineers to vet all the plans that were being submitted by Universities. Now I think it is true to say that Aberdeen University was responsible for the creation of such a unit in the UGC because of their behaviour over the Chemistry Building. When the University of Aberdeen decided to put up the Chemistry Building it was going to be on a certain number of floors. They got a grant for that, but I think Dr Butchart and Dr John Ross, who was Convenor of the Edilis Committee at that time, being two very strong-minded people decided that Chemistry was going to need another floor, so instead of going to the UGC and saying that this was required, they said ''We'll just stick on another floor'' and this was actually what happened, and of course the cost of putting on another floor at that late stage was considerable because they had to go back to the foundations and boost them up in order to take the extra floor. So there was a bit of a row between the University and the UGC and it wasn't very long after that the recommendation was made that the UGC should have a Technical Unit within its structure to vet plans. Now I was told at the UGC that it was the action of Aberdeen's University that they really decided then on the formation of this.
CM When the building is conceived, what part had the staff who would use it in the origination of the concept?
JK Well once the building was decided upon, a committee was formed, a sub-committee of the Edilis Committee - with the user, he was a member on that committee. It could be they had [someone] from the user department, it could be an appointee of his and in the early years this subcommittee could number eight to a dozen members. As well as that committee there was another one formed for furnishing and equipping the building. Now it could be another eight to ten members for some reason and this, well I felt that if we were to get through the programme that was going to be facing us we would have to alter this procedure otherwise we would have just run ourselves into the ground. So I remember speaking to Principal Wright about this and at the same time it was quite evident too that our own procedures within the office so far as the vetting of plans were concerned would have to change, because at that time the architect came to me, we went through the drawings, we then had to go to the secretary, go through them again, and then we all had to go over to the convenor of the Edilis Committee, who was the Principal and go through then once more. So this was all taking up a lot of time, it was becoming very frustrating for the architects. So Principal Wright and I came to the conclusion that the only way to get through the expansion and get buildings up on time was to have a much smaller committee and what we finished up with was one member of the Edilis Committee who was also of course a member of the Court who would act as committee convenor and there would be the Principal who was of course the convenor of the Edilis Committee and there would be the Buildings Officer, and in order to make sure that things moved quite quickly instead of the user, the head of the user department being on the committee, because a lot of work that would have to be done that wouldn't be involving him, he would be available or he could second someone to be available as and when required to come in and discuss detail on the planning. Now that member of staff whether it was the head of department or another member of the staff had to be available at all times. It wasn't a question of oh I could do it two, three days hence, it had to be done more or less right away. And everybody had to get accustomed to that sort of procedure if we were going to get through the programme. And that system worked very well. We'd no furnishings or equipment committee. It was that same group that did everything and the next stage of course after the preplanning when that small subcommittee was very much in action, was the submission of the sketch designed to the UGC when the figure was quoted as grant. Then things were developed on the planning side still further and I kept very much in contact with the UGC during that period advising them that certain things that changed and that we could expect to have an increase in cost here or we might be able to save this or that and the whole thing went through just with both sides knowing what was going on. So that when it came to the final drawing stage there was no time lost discussing or arguing with the UGC. It was a case of just more or less saying right, we agree that you can go out to tender.
CM You use the word 'programme' several times, which suggests that with the imminence of expansion there was a blueprint of some sort for expansion. Was this correct?
JK It was a blueprint that was altered very often. Of course I have said that from 1700 student population we were to go to 2250 and then 2500 and then up again and then even beyond that to 10,000 which of course didn't materialise but we tried to look about three years ahead. The University Grants Committee tried, but weren't entirely successful in giving us figures for three years ahead and there had to be chops and changes made, but we did keep a sort of rolling programme in front of us as the Senatus made its mind up on its requirements. Those requirements were inserted into our programme and we would have had preliminary discussions with the UGC on the revisions as they were made. So that we did have this rolling programme but it was always changing. We had always to make alterations to it right through from start to finish. It wasn't a fixed blueprint so to speak.
CM Can we now talk about the various groups who you would encounter in this progress that you described? To start off with the other departments of the administrative office themselves. Presumably Finance was a department which must have had a say in the debates on the buildings. What were your relationships with the Financial Department like?
JK Well, of course that is quite true. The Finance Committee and the Finance Section of the administration controlled everything to begin with. Again it became quite evident that this wasn't going to work very well and when the building programme got fully underway, it was very very clear that changes would have to be made. The control had of course been in the hands of the Finance Committee and administered by the Finance Officer, but with so many projects being carried out and also projects in the planning stages, it was quite clear that dual involvement of this kind was going to lead to confusion, delay, and in the end dissatisfaction all round. It was therefore decided that the finances of the entire Edilis responsibility, that is the capital programme including furniture, furnishings and fixed equipment as well as the purchase of property and the maintenance of all land and buildings would be taken over by the Edilis Committee and administered by the Buildings Officer and Factor. So that made it a much slimmer procedure and I think made the difference I would have said between eventual success of the programme and just a bit of a mix up.
CM Was the finance office happy to agree in this hiving off of this side of its work?
JK Mr Nelson, the Finance Officer, was, he realised that this had to happen I think and he and I of course got on very well together. We had our differences of opinion over how certain things should be done on the financial side, but on the whole we got on very well together and the procedure was very successful I think.
CM So that's one aspect of the work the other department principally concerned, what then of your relationship with the UGC. You've mentioned the facilitating role of Mr Orom in his early days, the change of structure, was the UGC in a sense upstructing the nature of the building until its use could be utterly justified, or was it looking for ways to help. Was it trying to filter out what was really inessential and stick to only what was really needed?
JK I found that the UGC was very helpful indeed, all along the line. I know that other Universities didn't find this. Quite a number of my colleagues in other Universities criticised the UGC rather harshly, but I can only say that I found the UGC more than helpful. They went out of their way to ease things for us and I believed in being honest and forthright, not trying to pull any wool over their eyes. If we were in a difficulty I would ask if I could come down and discuss it. It was very seldom, if ever that I came out of the office without having straightened the matter out with them and I would have said that the staff that they built up on the technical side were the right type. They did not go out to put obstacles in front of Universities where they might have even thought that the University was asking for far more than they actually required. They of course asked the University to put up their arguments and of course by this time notes on procedure for capital projects had been compiled by the UGC and were distributed to all Universities. This gave us guidelines along which we had to follow. And again I found that these were helpful rather than a hindrance. They had also calculated allowances for the various types of accommodation required by various University departments and they had also so far as residences were concerned, brought out a scheme, a unit scheme and unit costs, which again were helpful, although one had to go and argue with them for, well on points of site requirements. All sites are not the same, and again they were quite helpful. On furnishings and furniture and fixed equipment, again they had allowances. Now those allowances that were first published were far too lavish. I know that my counterparts weren't prepared to agree, because what had been happening in certain Universities up until this time was that the furnishing of the buildings that they were putting up had been handed over to the architects, and the architects were designing special furniture for those buildings. Now that is a costly business. In most buildings, most University buildings, you can get suitable items off the peg and quite a number of manufacturing firms by this time had realised that Universities require a lot of furniture and developing designs that were suitable. So this situation continued for a bit and I remember putting in an application for Physiology which had been done up at Marischal College and putting in an application for a grant and getting I grant I think of something like £40,000 for it. And going to the head of department and asking him for his list of required items, furnishing him with all those and finding that it had only cost £20,000, less than £20,000 it was. It went back to the head of department, Professor Malcolm, and I said ''Are you sure that you've given me a list of everything that you need?'' ''Oh yes, I think so, I'll have another think'', which he did and came up with an additional list which wasn't a very big one and I again said to him, ''Now this will be the last opportunity to do anything about it because the time has come for me to report to the UGC that the department has been provided with the furniture it requires and the remainder of the grant can be cancelled'', - because we couldn't use it for anything else. And he said ''I couldn't take another stick of furniture into the place''. Now that was a grant of £40,000 and we supplied the furniture for about half. Now when the UGC of course got the report from me that this grant could be wiped off, came back very very rapidly and said ''How is it that you've got all this left over, this money left over?'' And I said ''Well we've provided the department with all that it requires''. ''Well it must be substandard furniture'' and I said, ''Well I wouldn't say it was substandard, but if you think it's substandard come up and see it''. And they came up and went all through the department, came back to my office and I said, ''Well what's your opinion?'' and they said ''Well, our opinion is that our allowances are too high but could you send me a copy of all the prices of the individual items'?'' - which of course they could call for - and I did this and I remember Principal Wright coming back from a Principals and Vice-Chancellor's committee meeting and calling me through and laughing like he split his sides, and saying ''Yes, you've let the cat amongst the pigeons now''. And apparently this matter had been discussed at the meeting and the upshot was that I was put on the Furnishings and Furniture Committee. It wasn't a very happy situation because I was very very badly criticised at the first meeting by my counterparts on the Committee but I think they realised that well every building in a University needn't be a prestige building and that was what was really responsible for the creation of these enormous allowances.
CM That then prompts me to ask having talked about your relationship with departments and with the UGC, what was your relationship with the architects who were responsible for putting the buildings up?
JK Well I have always believed that an architect should be allowed to put forward his design without really having someone else coming in and just because this person doesn't agree with a particular part of the architect's design, that the architect has to go back and change it. There are always several ways of solving a problem and I think the architect should be given his head most of the way, provided he is giving the client what the client requires in the way of space and in the way of the nature of the space and also is providing the client with a building within the expenditure limit and also providing him with a building is not going to require undue maintenance in the future and is giving him a building that doesn't just look hideous to everybody.
CM But to all extent did the architects you dealt with meet these requirements?
JK Yes. On the whole this was the case. I think there was only one building which didn't, wasn't finished within the time allotted. It was late.
CM Which was that?
JK It was the Agriculture Building. And it wasn't within the expenditure limit. Now that's the only architect that I had any great difficulty with. Their attitude was ''Now that we have designed the building and we have accepted the contractors tender, the client should keep out of it'. Now that's just an impossible thing for the University I think. It's an impossible thing for anyone, I consider, and we even started that building, we had to start by the end of December 1964 and otherwise would have lost the grant and right up until that time the architect hadn't even got the foundation drawings completed. So what we had to do in order to make sure that we didn't lose the grant was bring the contractor in and get him to start excavations on the sketch plan. This was a bit of a doubtful action to take but there was no other alternative, and all through that contract, at the monthly site meetings I had to ask the question, are you going to finish within the time allotted and are you going to finish within the expenditure limited because it was quite evident by that time that things were going adrift and the answer was right up until the end, yes we will. But of course in the event they overstepped the expenditure by quite a large sum and they overstepped the time by over six months. But that was the only building that was not completed in time for the staff and students coming in to occupy.
CM Well what now of the staff and students, the users of the buildings. You've ultimately mentioned already the role that the user department had on the committee set up in the preplanning stage. To what extent would you say staff understood what they were asking for and how it was going to be provided?
JK Well, what I'd tried to do was to discuss with the appointed member of staff who was the liaison between the department and ourselves, discuss the requirements in considerable amount of detail, mostly with the architect present, and if that member of staff wanted any other member of the department to come along and explain, this opportunity was always given and this worked fairly well. The architect then went back and inevitably he had to come back again with further questions which I got answers to from the staff member and there was quite a lot of shuttling backwards and forwards like this but during the preparation of drawings all through the planning stage, the architects were here every fortnight so that no time was lost in getting all the needs of the department just sorted out and transferred onto paper.
CM When you speak of needs though was there any sense in which you feel expectations were sometimes unreal?
JK Yes. Until departments I think came to understand just how I worked with the UGC. I can recollect the Psychology Building for example. Professor Fraser came along to me with a list of accommodation. It was quite evident just from the first glance that I could never get a scheme of that magnitude through the UGC. It was even apparent to me that it was a, well the area being asked for was far more than even the Psychology department could use at that time even when we reached the ultimate figure of the student number. So I said this to Professor Fraser, and said, ''Now is this really the area that you do require?''. And she admitted that she had been advised by one of her counterparts in another University to make up a list of what she required and then add a very heavy percentage onto it. And I said if she really was anxious to get a building of a size that would suit her, then the thing to do was to argue with the UGC on those conditions, that this was the size that was needed, and that the various sections of the building had different uses and that their different uses should be detailed out and that we should go down there and discuss the thing with the UGC. And I spent quite a while with Professor Fraser going through each individual room and saying ''What happens in here?' ''Oh, for example all that's required in this room is a desk and two chairs''. Well my answer was ''Do we need 120 square feet?'' ''No, but that's the size that is allowed for a staff room and by the UGC''. ''Yes, but then you are asking for a large workshop and also a large store, so I don't think that we will get the large workshop and large store if we are going to have twenty rooms at 120 square feet that really could be twenty rooms at 60 square feet''. I said ''Would you manage at 60 square feet?'' and I paced off an area of the room and she said, ''Oh that's ample''. So we went to the UGC and I remember the UGC architect saying to me, ''Oh you could claim 120 feet for these 60 square feet cubicles that you have here''. I said 'I know we could claim that, but I said that if you look further down the list you will see that I am asking for 1,500 square feet of a workshop and another 1,000 squared feet of store''. ''I see''. ''All right'' we agreed. And that is really the method that I did have and I think that on very very few occasions did any department say to me that they thought that they were being done out of facilities or space.
CM Which building represents in your view your greatest achievement in terms of matching site, specifications for use, and I'm thinking in terms of perhaps on the scientific buildings with their particular demands for plant, and design and aesthetic appearance?
JK It's a very difficult one to answer. But I would say that one of the most pleasing buildings I think, building that has provided all the facilities, most of the facilities at any rate that were asked for, was the Edward Wright Building. I feel that it has fitted in there, its near to all the domestic architecture of Old Aberdeen and I think the architect Robin Dunn there has achieved an excellent result because the building, although it's a large building, looks domestic in character.
CM What then of the more dramatic buildings we have, and one thinks of the Nat Phil for example.
JK Nat Phil I think is a most pleasant building both inside and out. I think its outward appearance with that large dome is very suitable for a Natural Philosophy Building. Inside it's a very airy and very comfortable building in every aspect.
CM Were you to some extent with Nat Phil and with Zoology and with the refurbishing of the departments in Marischal aided as you've said you were with student accommodation by UGC guidance on allowances for various types of room and room use?
JK Yes. Although again the notes for guidance didn't really cover in detail all the different kinds of accommodation that are required by a University. They were, well I'll put it this way, that a fairly broad brush had been used. So, therefore, they were a guide but as in the case of the Psychology Building whereas we could have got 120 square feet we could do with 60, well its the same in every building I think adjustments were made, and if you were to go to the UGC and say, ''Well all right the allowance for this is such and such, but so and so is going to happen in this room and its not only going to be used for that, there are going to be other things that are happening here which will require more space. Can we have that extra space?'' And on most occasions they said ''Yes, but it would be nice to save a little on circulation in order to make up for it'' so it was put back on your own plate, so to speak, to find so much area, savings in area that would help to make up for it. The whole thing would come within the expenditure wouldn't it?
CM It occurred to me that these buildings in particular might have presented problems over the security of various substances that might be used in the building, or animal houses might have presented a particular problem?
JK Yes, will this is quite true.
CM We talked about the buildings programme and the expansion as it was viewed when you came in 1957, can we look now at the whole nature of the expansion of the University and can I just ask you in an overall way how effectively do you think retrospectively did the University respond to all the problems that expansion of subject and disciplines and numbers in the 60's required?
JK I think I would say that the University responded very well. I think it's right to say that there were many problems. For example, the residential problem. And what should we do. Should we try and buy up the properties throughout the town and use them as residences? Should we concentrate on one particular site? Should we use several sites in Old Aberdeen? And all that type of problem was thrashed out very very thoroughly by the University Court, the Edilis and Finance Committees. And at that time I think the views of all concerned were invited and encouraged. I did have the Buildings Officers conference in Aberdeen one year and it was interesting to hear what all my colleagues had to say about the Aberdeen development and many of them came back a few years after that to see how things had turned out. And they were full of praise for the University in the way that they had tackled the problem. They felt that as in certain other cases, the mistake of just plumping down on vacant sites adjacent to domestic property large academic buildings just hadn't happened in Aberdeen and that the whole of the area really tied very well together. Now this was the general impression that I got, but probably there are one or two sites that I would have liked to have seen built on. There are other sites that are built on that might have been better...
CM Well, I think you should be a bit more specific. Which would you have liked to have been built on first?
JK Well, I would have liked that site out on King Street really. The market garden ground built on. I would have preferred if we hadn't had to build on the north Playing Field. I would rather have made some attempt to get the Town Council to give back some of the ground that they took on the St Machar Drive, that is between the roundabout at Bedford Road and the railway. They put the pistol to the University's head in the 1920's, late 1920's and into the 30's and took all that area back for housing purposes. Now there was an occasion when some of it could have probably come back to the University again with a little more pressure. I'm doubtful whether I would have put Crombie Hall and Johnstone Hall where they are.
CM Why is that?
JK Because of the nature of the ground. It was a very very bad site. And I think that that is an area that could have been developed for amenity purposes just close to King's. I think that a considerable lot could have been done there. Again, of course it would have needed a good deal of money. But I remember when I first went into the University William Angus asking me to go out and have a look at the site of Crombie Hall and come back and tell him what I'd thought of it. Because the first Hall of Residence was not going to be built there. It was going to be where the Taylor Art Building is now. So I came back and said that I didn't think very much of the site and he said ''What makes you think that?'' I said ''Well first of all its water logged''. ''Oh it could be surplus water''. I said ''No, its not surplus water''. I said I had ascertained that it is moving water, subsoil and he said ''How did you find that out?''. I said oh, ''I just got myself a twig''. He said ''Are you a diviner?'' and I said ''Yes''.
CM Ooh
JK ''Well could I give you some advice? Don't say anything about that to our friends at the other side of the quadrangle''. ''But'' he said, ''Go on, tell me about the site''. I said ''Well there's a lot of peat''. '''And how did you find that out?''. I said ''Well all I had to do again take a branch of one of the trees and push it into the soil'' and I said ''It went down about 7ft into peat''. And I said ''We're going to have trouble in that site, I think''. ''There's a very heavy flow of water to the north-west corner'' and he said ''Well, thank you very much but we'll see if you're right when we stake out the foundations''. So when we stake out the foundations we did have great difficulty with water and that time the north-west corner there was a terrific inflow just where the wardens house is and all during the construction of the foundations we had to keep two six-inch pumps going full bore twenty-four hours a day for six weeks and the same applied to the site of Johnstone Hall. There was 16ft depth of peat there. So I think I would have put, I would have rather concentrated in having all the Halls together.
CM Were you in favour of small Halls rather than the large complex that one has at Hillhead where admittedly there is mixed forms of accommodation but where the principle of the small self-contained Hall as a unit has rather been altered?
JK I think if we'd stopped at about 3,000 I would have said yes, lets have single Halls. But of course single Halls are rather expensive. And with 10,000 of a student population in view, I felt and I think most people did that the only way to accommodate them as economically as would be possible would be to have most of them on the one site. And of course that is a very very cheap site at Hillhead. It only cost us £6,900 for 25 acres. Granted it wasn't serviced at that time, we had to spend £20,000 I think on servicing water and drainage, but nevertheless it was still a very cheap site.
CM You've spoken of buildings that you wish had not gone up where they had gone up. Which buildings, if any, would you have liked to have seen put up that have not yet been put up, which buildings are still required in the University do you think?
JK I still think that Aberdeen University requires more library space. I would have liked to have seen, I don't know if I would now...This is a very difficult one. I think that what I would have...but let's put it this way. I would have liked to have seen Botany and Forestry with better buildings. With a fairly large building replacing some of the substandard buildings that are there.
CM They were put up in the 40s.
JK Yes, some of them before that. And I think those would be the only two...Yes I think so, yes I think apart from those. I think for the present student number I think...I think though the students could probably do with a little more social space. I have never been able to decide within myself whether it would be better for the Students Union to be out in Old Aberdeen or left where it is. Left where it is then there is a very valuable link between town and gown. If it were to be taken out to Old Aberdeen completely that link would be lost and I think that might be a mistake. The students can't from year to year make up their minds. Every different committee, student committee has come to a different decision.
CM Your remarks earlier on about the site on Bedford Road and the relationship with the town makes me, reminds me, that perhaps in discussing the various parties involved in building and expansion we didn't in fact talk of the University's relationship with the local authorities. Has it been a harmonious one?
JK It has been a very harmonious one. I was just thinking about that the other night when thinking about how this interview would go. And I just jotted down for myself one or two notes here which say that the relations with the Town Clerk, the Director of Planning, the City Engineer, the Sanitary Inspector, that is now the Director of Environmental Health and the Director of Building Control, were all very amicable. I believed in discussing well in advance of any applications that we were likely to be submitting, discussing the whole proposal with the officials starting with planning and the water engineer and the roads engineer, all this was done well in advance, and I think that they in turn came to me well in advance of any proposals that they were going to have for alterations or changes in Old Aberdeen or around Marischal College or at Foresterhill and I think this eased the burden on both sides considerably when the applications were eventually submitted.
CM You've mentioned in the course of our interview both Principal Taylor and Principal Wright and it does seem to me that much of what you did must have depended on the support of the Principal. Can you characterise the two of them in terms of how you say them from your office?
JK They were two entirely different characters. Principal Taylor, I think so far as the Edilis was concerned had never expected that the University would expand to such an extent that it has. It was always thought that it would go to somewhere between 2,000 - 2,500 in those late 50's and the committee structure was very much the sort of committee structure that Principal Taylor felt was right. I found him to be very supportive. He right from my interview onwards till he died, he was very forthcoming with information that he'd gleaned from his visits to the UGC or to the Vice-Chancellor's Committee and I think that helped me considerably in getting a complete picture or as complete a picture that could be got at that time of the University of the future. When Principal Wright took over the reigns and not very long after that, of course the full load of the expansion was not very far away from us and it was quite evident that the Principal's duties were going to be very very onerous indeed. And I think he had a different approach to things. For example on committee structure as I have mentioned, we would have had those large committees if we continued on the same lines, but he saw that the committee structure had to change. He was again very supportive, in fact I found that he'd left things to me very much, provided I kept him informed and I did this well periodically and I think probably gave him as much information as he required. He said that he didn't want to be told every detail, he left it again to me to say what I thought he should know and I think the relationship between us was a very good one. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him through the expansion.
CM Were there any members of the Professoriats who individually made a particular contribution towards the physical growth of the University?
JK There was. I would have said that George Burnett, Chemistry was one who gave a terrific amount of, well made a very big contribution.
CM In what way?
JK In many ways. On the Court, on the Senatus, all the preparations that had to be made before the things came to the Court and the Edilis. So far as the expansion was concerned with the building side of it and then on the various committees. And he was always very much sought after by the Edilis for advice on this that and the next thing and I would have said that probably the greatest contribution, single contribution came from him.
CM What of the two Secretaries you've served under?
JK Well it was William Angus...
CM Oh yes, Butchart had retired.
JK He'd retired by the time I'd came so it was William Angus and William Angus was a very shy man. A lot people didn't understand this. He was very brisk and I think in many cases people just didn't understand that he was covering up this shyness. But I liked him very much; I got on very well with him. There came a time when the Principal had to say well, look I think we are at a stage on the expansion programme when everything must really be put on the desk of the Buildings Officer and that the Secretary would not come into the discussion so much. And it was a very difficult thing to have to face. But he made no difference with me at all. There was not indication that he was hurt over it and I went through every night a little after, about a quarter past five when he'd signed his letters and gave him a report of what was going on. Well not every day but most days. And it was the only way that we could have coped; there was no doubt about that at all. As I explained before, having plans seen by me, by him, by the Principal all at different times was really a waste of time.
CM Did you have a similar relationship with his successor Mr Skinner?
JK I'd a very good relationship with Mr Skinner and he accepted the situation and didn't try to alter it at all. I kept him informed just as I had done William Angus. And I had no problems at all with either Secretaries really.
CM So we've spoken of the plusses in a sense two Principals, Professor Burnett, two Secretaries with whom you've got on well, but were there any members of the Professoriat or indeed of the University whom you found were impediment to the successful and smooth growth of the University?
JK I don't think I could make it so strong as that. What I could say, and I'm not trying to slide out of the answer at all, what I would say would be that there were one or two Heads of Department who were not so easy to satisfy as others, and quite a number who had to, think of a better expression, we worked on, and by that I mean not wheedled out of what they wanted, but convinced that they could be given what they needed in a different way from what they had thought. Some Heads of Department were not very easily convinced and it sometimes took quite a lot of time.
CM How convinced were students that you were working for their welfare?
JK To begin with they weren't until I hit on the idea of every time there was a change in the SRC and on the Union and the committees there, I invited them along to my office for a talk, and explained to them that I was there to help them and to do all that I could to get what they needed in the way of accommodation and facilities and that I was always available if they had any problems, all the had to do was come along and discuss them and that seemed to work.
CM Did they have problems?
JK They did.
CM What sort?
JK Well accommodation for societies was one of the problems. Sometimes they got on the wrong side of the Sacrists who looked after the accommodation of course and this sort of thing had to be sorted out. Then when they wanted office accommodation and of course we'd bought 151 King Street and fitted it up for the SRC after having altered, you had to alter every year because every President had different ideas, this was after the Students Union accommodation and the space they had in Marischal College as an SRC room became inadequate. And 151 King Street has served up until now, I think the change is taking place at the moment out to Old Aberdeen, they would then again maybe say oh we have an Insurance Company who want to set up an office for student insurances, can we have space somewhere, could it be altered and this sort of thing...they had quite a lot of problems, the social space they were always very short of and could we improve this, could we improve that, could we remove a partition and make two rooms into one and this sort of thing so that they could have better facilities. And they came to I think look upon the Edilis section as a help rather than an obstacle.
CM But this of course was a period when towards the end the students were involved in some activities, demonstrations of one sort of another, which raised or must have raised the question for you and for the University as a whole of security.
JK It did, and there was one occasion when we were locked into Marischal College, padlocks were put on the gates.
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