| Administrative History | James Kelman was a Buildings Officer with the University from 1957. |
| Description | Interview with J. Kelman recorded on 3 April 1985 by Colin McLaren.
Second part of this interview. Continuation from MS3620/1/23/1
Transcript of interview:
CM Do you remember which year this was?
JK I was just trying to think. I can't remember which year it was. Now it would have been I think in the late 60's. And I was informed; I went down, saw the chain and the padlock and there were two pickets placed at the side gates. And Tom Snow was the student who had instigated this lock-in. And he was there so I had a word with him, said I felt that this was a bit nonsensical and at the same time rather dangerous. I said ''We have, as you know Tom, the department of Biochemistry using a lot of very dangerous materials. If there was an explosion in there, how were the ambulances to get in? If we had a fire, we could have a fire, how …'' ''Oh we'll take off the lock''. I said ''Who has the key?'' ''I don't know''. I said ''Well that's just enough then. If you don't know where the key is, the place is dangerous''. So I said ''Find the key and open the gates again''. Oh no, he wasn't going to do that. And I eventually said, ''All right we'll open them ourselves''. So I got the Sacrist to go for a hacksaw and we sawed through the chain. I then said to the students, ''Let's come upstairs, let's discuss this matter''. And I said, ''I think that was rather a stupid thing to do that you did if I may say so. You needn't have done that sort of thing''. I said ''You could have demonstrated in some other way''. And I said ''If you have a reasonable demonstration going'', I said ''We would help you rather than try to stop you. But anything of this nature be assured we will really take the action that we need to take to keep the place safe''. And the same sort of thing happened when the new Admin. Office was occupied, but again I was to be barred from going into my room. But I said, ''Look I'm going into my room, I have a function to carry out and I said part of that function is to make things safe for you, the students. You are making this building unsafe''. And I said that ''If you are now allowing me in then I will have to get you to sign a document that you are accepting the responsibility and liability for the safety of the building and the occupants''. So eventually they let me in and in the end, I think it was a discussion that I had with one of the number that really convinced them that making a show of things up in the Elphinstone Hall they would remove.
CM Can I ask you one final question before we get on to any straight points that you may have? It seems to me that you perhaps more than anyone else in the University because of your connection and responsibility for the physical appearance of the University and the buildings are almost more in contact with the University's past than anyone else, you perpetuate it and you added to it by overseeing the growth to the buildings, is this a responsibility which you accepted, well with what sort of feelings did you accept this responsibility?
JK I think I can say that I accepted the responsibilities with a great deal of fear. And I must say that from time to time I had my periods of trepidation. There's no question about that at all. And I think the worst period that I had was at the time of the collapse of the frame of the Zoology Building when the responsibility really took on a greater importance.
CM How had this come about?
JK The collapse? It was a miscalculation by the engineers on a connection, an angle connection between the vertical stanchions and the wall beams. The consulting engineers had given a figure to the structural engineers who were McColls, the steel people of Glasgow. And they'd given them this figure which was just, instead of being the dead load, they ought to have given really two figures, the dead load as well as the super imposed. And they made no allowances for lateral pressure of wind, but the structural engineers had taken it as being the total. Now this resulted in the calculation of a connection of about little more than half its strength that it should have turned out to be. And whenever they, just when the contractors started putting into place the floor slabs the load became such that the connections just couldn't support it and there was a 49 miles an hour wind blowing that day. And I think that it probably had some effect, but in any case, wind or no wind the building collapsed. And the result was that the frame just went down just like a pack of cards and it was neatly piled, one stanchion on top of the other. And of course there were five workmen killed. So I think that was the worst period that I had to contend with during the twenty-one and a half years I was at the University. I'm a very good sleeper, I can switch off and go to sleep most times when needed, but I didn't sleep for a week that time and I was one of the witnesses at the Fatal Enquiry and the Procurator Fiscal said that he would just ask three or four factual questions to which I would give factual answers and he said I would be in the witness box for about a minute and a half to two minutes. But as it turned out I was in the witness box for over an hour with the Queen's Counsel for the various, for the contractors and the engineers and the architects and others firing questions at me and some of them attempting to swing the liability and responsibility onto the University, so it was something that I hadn't of course rehearsed, having been told that I would just have to answer three or four factual questions so it was rather an ordeal for an hour.
CM But that and the crack in the Crown Tower and obviously the other crises that must have occurred and then vanished, when you then look at the other side and you look back on your twenty-one years, what's your feelings, is it of relief that having discharged your responsibility, pride in having discharged it, just pleasure in having discharged it?
JK Certainly not relief. Pleasure, absolute pleasure I would say. A considerable amount, I've got to admit this, considerable amount of pride. When I walk through Old Aberdeen or if I'm in Marischal College I do have a great sense of belonging just running through me, and it's very pleasant. Also of course what really tied me more to the University was my musical contributions. When I came to the University I'd already sung for Mr Barrett-Ayres on several occasions and when I came to the University I had before that being fixed up to sing in a performance, sing a solo work in one of the performances, and of course Mr Barrett-Ayres sent along the normal cheque in payment but I immediately sat down and wrote him and returned the cheque and said from now any singing that I do for the University will be my contribution to the artistic life of the University and I just said that I hoped that that wouldn't, he wouldn't feel that he couldn't ask me to sing again, and I must say I enjoyed this. And that was the one thing that gave me complete relaxation and recreation and got me away occasionally from thinking about University buildings…
CM …And of course made a very substantial contribution to the musical life of the University?
JK Well I suppose it did. I sang a lot of the solo work for the Department of Music and really enjoyed it. All the Mozart operas and oratorial work. So I think that as well increased that sense of belonging.
CM Are there any points you feel now that you would like to draw attention to that we haven't covered?
JK One or two little incidents just which will probably be of interest.The work on the Elphinstone Hall, on the basement of the Elphinstone Hall to make the stack-room. We had to dig quite a bit below ground level course.
CM This is where the compactus shelves...
JK Where the compactus shelving is and one morning I just happened to be there at the time and there was a chap digging away with a spade. And all at once there was a heavy influx of water into the spade-mark and he stood back and the water continued to rise. And we found that the water table there was fairly high. The result was that we had to tack, that is waterproof just in tack form, the whole of the basement, but it was very interesting to find that the water-table there rose and fell with the tides.
CM Really?
JK Yes, that's quite a distance inland that we are but the water table was rising. I couldn't tell you now exactly how much there was of a rise and fall, but it rose and fell with the tides.
CM I knew King's had been built on marshy area, but I had assumed that it was on other of the burns that were in the vicinity and not a tidal....
JK Where the Taylor Building stands there was a very good well that supplied all the water for the Old Brewery. And we came across this well and of course we had to something about it. So I got the architect to bring the contractor on the job with a big pump and we saw just how much water there really was coming into it. And we took it down about 2ft 6 and the water level had been around 4ft to 5ft from the surface, and beyond that we couldn't take it. We had two pumps. And I think that indicated that the whole of that area is a large subterranean water system really.
CM It's quite surprising in fact that the oldest buildings of Kings have remained erect.
JK Yes. Yes. It is - I think the ground is inclined to change very rapidly from one set of conditions to another. This became very very evident to us when we were taking out the foundations of the Natural Philosophy building. The engineer had called for test bore holes at intervals. These had given no indication of a bad foundation. In fact they were through for the most part little gravel but on to boulder clay. But when we started excavating we found that in between the boreholes the conditions were running from boulder clay through gravel into running sand. So that had all to be excavated out and filled up with back fill and concrete until we got a solid foundation. Another matter that is probably of some interest is the outlying properties of Tarradale and Bettyhill. I think it was away back in 1958 that the Tarradale Trust, through the Education Department offered Tarradale to the University and I remember Professor O'Dell of the Chair of Geography coming into me one afternoon and saying that he had just come from a meeting where the Court had decided that they would accept Tarradale but that any expenditure had to be just very very small indeed. And he said ''Now I'm coming to you for help''. He said ''If we are to use this place it will require some improvement but I see a great future for it for research parties, not only the Geography side but Agriculture, anyone can use it'' he said. ''But'', he said, ''If we employ one of your Clerks of Works to look after the work or plan the work and see it through, it will cost the earth, so'', he said, ''I know you've spent a great deal of your time with agriculture estates and are accustomed to making a penny go twice as far'', so he said ''Will you promise to do this thing yourself and do it on a shoestring?''. And I said ''Yes, I will'', and we planned the improvements, carried them out. They cost very very little and were very very spartan of course. We got a lot of the timber that was being taken out of Marischal College and we got student parties up and we made, literally made the beds, got them made, any furniture that was being thrown out was sent to Tarradale and eventually the place was brought to a standard that it could take students, and then when it started to wash its face financially the money was ploughed back in until its at its present fairly high level. But the same happened at Bettyhill to great extent. We bought it for £2,000, schoolhouse, school with two large teaching rooms and one of the old wartime horse buildings and I got a grant of £2,000 odd from the UGC to equip it, and its proved a very helpful unit as well. But these two projects, because the Court said that one of their fears was the high administrative costs and I gave the promise to Andrew O'Dell that I would do the looking after of those myself and it meant Bettyhill visits I left here at half past four in the morning, drove up, did what I had to do and drive back again about six o'clock at night. But in order to save money we didn't stay overnight or anything like that. And well that was of considerable satisfaction to me to see just how these things develop, just with a bit of help.
CM Are there any other points?
JK I think that probably covers most of what I have to say.
End of interview |