| Administrative History | Mr. & Mrs. Archdale were both former Aberdeen University students |
| Description | Interview with Mr Arthur J. Archdale, and Mrs Sheena M. Archdale (neé Macdonald), on the 26 September 1986 by Colin McLaren
Transcript of Interview :
McL Mr Archdale, what brought you to Aberdeen University in the first place?
AA The war. I was a cadet in 1942 I came straight from school up to Aberdeen for six months and then after the war Aberdeen was the only University that would take me.
McL Why was that?
AA Well, I suppose because I didn't… They were very good about taking back all cadets. And that's why I came.
McL Were you from the University family, had your parents had University education?
AA No.
McL So you were the first?
AA Yes.
McL Had you discussed this possibility with teachers at school?
AA No, because we knew we'd have to go into the artillery or I don't know - something anyway.
McL Mrs Archdale, how did you come to Aberdeen?
SA I think because I lived in the area and because my father had been at University here. And it was the obvious place to go, if one was going to go to University.
McL Did you discuss it with him, do you remember?
SA I think it was just accepted from an early stage that if one could get here one would come here. I don't think anyone else was ever considered.
McL How did you decide what course you would follow?
SA Very flippantly. I think that it was a question of what people did at school. My family were very much a teaching family and I said "I will never teach" - and here I am teaching. I think it was perhaps … drifting into it rather.
McL How about you Mr Archdale had you thought in advance of what courses you would follow when you were here?
AA Not really. No I thought I would probably teach in a prep school, which I did. The course wasn't predominately in my mind.
McL What advice did you get from the staff here when you came about choosing your subjects, choosing your course, linking it to your intended career?
AA I don't think very much quite honestly. I started on the Science side and switched to the Arts, as I wasn't doing very well in Science. I don't think … I met Sheena at university. I think the advice came from you really more than anybody.
SA I think it was my brother who said "that chap first of all has two faults" One he was English and two he was struggling in the Science side and he should change to Arts, which he did with very much more success.
McL Was it to an extent any, even mild, prejudice against English people coming to the University? Did you ever encounter anything?
AA No. I thought Aberdeen was very good about that. There were quite a lot of English people up, just after the war, partly because they had been up on the RA courses.
SA I think the main prejudice came from my father and the question of getting married.
McL Can you describe the University as you encountered it? We are, after all coming to the end of the war, there are restrictions, there are presumably men coming back having done their military service. How did all this effect the structure of the University, the student community?
SA My memory is being in the faculty with I think of something like two hundred women and twelve men and then in the final year the men came back wearing an assorted collection of great coats with the buttons removed and made claim and we thought life began. That's my main impression of it.
McL Well, can I just follow up on that and ask if there was then anything divisive about this? When one thinks of the twelve men originally in the class. Was there a feeling perhaps rivalry or possibly some sort of gulf between those with the War experience and those without it?
SA They were very dedicated. The people who came back from the war were mature, experienced, dedicated, vintage material I would say. And it was a pleasure to be in that class, I realise now from where I stand that it was a pleasure to be in association with these people who had been through so much, and who were thankful to be alive, if you like, and thankful to be out of prison camps and just relaxing and enjoying life. That year which was second, third year I suppose was very different from … when we perhaps felt a bit guilty because we were not doing enough in the War. We had a privileged kind of experience.
McL Now you were one who came in this way. How did you feel coming to the University after your wartime experience?
AA I found it was a little difficult to start studying again. I was, and still am, mad on cricket and I thought I would revolutionise the University cricket - that was the main aim. Which I didn't succeed in doing.
McL Well we'll come back to cricket if we may.
[Sentence erased by C A McLaren 29 September.]
McL Having spent sometime being told what to do, as in one is in the services, having to then think for yourself and discipline yourself to apportion your time in study and so on?
AA No I wouldn't say that was a problem. One did have responsibilities in the army. I think it was just the difficulty of actually doing the work and not going out in the evening.
McL May I ask you now on a slightly more personal note about how you financed yourselves? Mrs Archdale?
SA I expect my father financed me entirely I didn't have a scholarship or a bursary. And I'm sure that he just financed my course. I had no help from anywhere else at all and I'm grateful to him for it.
McL Do you recall made an allowance of any sort?
SA Yes. I can't remember now what it was but I should think something like five shillings a week pocket money type thing that was for personal spending everything else was budgeted out. He drew up a suggested budget to which I stuck. I think it was, we operated on five shillings a week.
McL Now, clearly that was very inhibiting and then constricting?
SA That's right. Well it didn't seem to be, pro-rata I think it must have been quite a lot of money. I don't remember feeling very short of money.
McL Where were you living at the time?
SA In digs. In various places starting in Bedford Road and then going to Thompson Street, Hosefield Avenue and back to somewhere like that.
McL Were these principally areas of student lodgings?
SA That's right, yes. Yes with a landlady, a fierce landlady who was in loco parentis with [?] and to whom I am entirely grateful. I mean they were lovely people, I now realise at the time I think perhaps when Jonathan said "oh in by 10 o'clock" why. I don't think our parents would have had the least worry about whether we were looked after. Perhaps they did worry, but I don't think they need have done, in those days.
McL How about you Mr Archdale how were you financed?
AA A grant. I forget what it was called now but that was very easily sufficient. And a bit of money left from the war.
McL So you weren't quite as constrained in what you could or couldn't do as some of the students who were on a lot of fixed ...?
AA No because I was starting in '48.
SA I'm talking about starting '44. I'm also thinking we went home in the holidays, there was no question of travelling or doing things that our children did as students. It was very much home, washing sent home everything watched it was a very restricted lifestyle really.
McL So would you say that your main form of entertainment came in participation in University activities?
SA Yes. Student societies going to the Saturday hop, French Club that kind of thing is what I remember as pleasure. And working and getting on.
McL Well can I talk about working, getting on. Can I ask you first of all Mrs Archdale which teachers from your courses stand out in your memory?
SA Professor Roe at French Department.
McL Why is that?
SA Well I suppose it was his personality, I don't really know.
McL Can you describe it for me?
SA His personality? I think he was quite a forceful … the sort of person you thought you must listen to and his lectures were always stimulating and interesting. Also Professor Bickersteth of the English Department, I remember him with pleasure.
McL Can you characterise him for me?
SA Well, he was rather more austere and one would never have dreamt of being familiar to him like the Americans on the course. Some GIs were on the course at the time and they rushed up one day with cameras and said, "Say hold it Professor" taking photographs with a flash camera. And we were appalled because that is the sort of thing you wouldn't dream of doing, it's like singing in church at the wrong time or something. You wouldn't do that with him, I think in both cases they were quite formidable characters and perhaps one respected them for that.
McL Would you say that there was some sort of distance between the Professoriat and the students still?
SA Oh yes, I would say so.
McL Did you find the same Mr Archdale?
AA Oh I think so, yes.
McL Even though you were by then older and had had your own share of responsibility?
AA Yes, but one was use to people being in command of something and also obeying, in general, what instructions where there.
McL What teachers stuck in your mind?
AA Well I think Professor Jones is the one that comes to mind after all these years immediately.
McL Can you amplify that?
AA Well he was a great showman in the lectures and obviously was a man one would respect through his war efforts.
McL Were you aware of his contribution to the war effort then, obviously we all are now, but was it as talked about then?
AA I think so. Now you ask that I can't remember if it was afterwards or otherwise.
McL Because presumably something of what he was doing would have still have been secret and classified?
AA Yes. I think mainly it was the way that he obviously was a personality then became …
McL What other teachers impressed you, do you remember?
AA I can't remember many of the others, I regret to say. Professor Wright was Maths wasn't he?
McL Yes, subsequently Principal Wright.
AA I can't remember as much when I switched to English so I don't suppose they made a very good impression.
McL No. To what extent was the principal form of teaching still by lecture in your case Mrs Archdale?
SA Almost entirely. There was only tutorial work at the sort of advanced level, there were tutorials in French with real life Frenchmen, which was such a novelty after the War. I mean there were none about and you couldn't go to France and to see a real life Frenchmen talking in a serious context was really quite an experience. No it was lectures.
McL Did you ever meet the staff outside the lecture room?
SA Only at lunch occasionally. One lunched in the Elphinstone Hall, occasionally they were there, not the Professors but the more junior members of staff and they were usually very pleasant and very entertaining, it was good to talk to them socially although one didn't have the nerve one would have now, perhaps.
McL So the gulf was of awe perhaps between the Professors and students? But the assistants being perhaps younger were more accessible?
SA Not really. In my views staff and students were set apart. I would say.
McL Did you meet any of the staff outside lecture rooms?
AA Not really. There was one person who was very keen on cricket, his name escapes me now who came and watched and so on. Otherwise not very much.
McL Can we then talk about the societies that you joined? Mrs Archdale you said you threw yourself into a number of these?
SA I enjoyed the French Club and I was a member of the Lairig Club and that was good because we got a coach arranged cheaply in the budget to go up to Lochnagar and this side of the Cairngorms and that was very good.
McL What was the title of that club?
SA It was called a Lairig Club which was a mountaineering club at the time. I am not a mountaineer I enjoyed hill walking but there was some very experienced climbers in it and they organised, I suppose, the coach so we could go up on a Sunday and have a day on the hills and that was very enjoyable.
McL What about debating did you take part in that at all?
SA No, not at all. I went to the debates but I didn't take part.
McL What societies did you join Mr Archdale?
AA I think mainly on the sports side. I don't recollect being on any.
McL Can I ask you about this because I think it is a very interesting element. What would you say the University's attitude towards organised sport within the University was?
AA Not very good.
McL Can you amplify that please?
AA Well partly because a lot of the good players at the time did not play for the University. But they played for Aberdeen Grammar School FP's. I think the rugger had quite a good reputation but I played hockey and cricket. And the cricket was very poor.
McL Well, can we talk about this because after all this is an area which did maintain an interest in cricket in Scotland. One of the areas known for it - Bradman played his last match on Mannofield ground and so on. Have you any views on the dearth of cricket in the University? Was it the strength of club sides?
AA Yes it was the reputation of the side was such that people preferred to play for the clubs and also the people that were in Aberdeen because I lived at the time in Hampshire, the people who lived locally couldn't get into the other sides after the term had ended and thus had to play throughout, for the other side.
McL I should have, in fact, asked you earlier where you were living as a student and I didn't. Where did you live?
AA As a student in Aberdeen I was in digs.
McL Again just in the main lodgings areas?
AA Yes that's right in Polmuir Road.
McL Amongst the students themselves overall was there a strong sporting interest?
AA I wouldn't say particularly, it seemed - although this may have been a biased view - that it was the English students that ran the game.
McL Well I was going to ask you, from your experience subsequently, and your knowledge of schools and universities themselves. Would you say this was a marked characteristic, a difference between the universities in the two countries?
AA Between the universities in England? The standard was no way comparable and the local - talking of cricket because the local people on the whole didn't play much, so cricket is probably not the one to take. In hockey it was a stronger side and more people played but again they tended to play for the old school side and so on.
McL What were the facilities that were available to you in those days?
AA Reasonable. I think one of the characters that I remember was old Webbie, Webster the groundsman who was a really good old sort and there was a good cricket square
McL This was presumably at the back of King's was it?
AA Between the Pavilion and King Street, on that part.
McL Where it still is in fact.
AA Yes by the tennis courts. And squash was well organised and there was a good swimming bath there. If I remember rightly we used to have Wednesdays off.
SA Wednesday afternoons.
AA Coming from the Army and from Marlborough, there wasn't the discipline in the practice it was a bit too - fooling around.
McL I wonder if I could since you mention Marlborough, if fact just ask you a question, rather out of context but in case I forget it later. Is there any sense it which you could see this University when you came here as being perhaps more like a school than say an English university would be? It's a point of view that has been expressed by other people I just wondered how you would react to that?
AA I would have said it didn't really compare with the school at all. As Sheena was saying the contact wasn't very great between England. I don't remember any tutorials at all so it was more we'd turn up at a lecture at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock and that was about it.
SA But that was like a school, in the sense that you presented yourself at class and did exactly what they said. Very much so. And later on, perhaps again out of context, our daughter actually came here and I noticed how she carried on and her regime was completely different, much more in the way of tutorial much more in the way of independent studying, independent work.
McL Can I ask the two of you now, casting your mind back to the forties, the end of the War, the era of austerity, Socialism, the National Health Service. All these issues. To what extent where they the subject, Mrs Archdale, of debate and talk amongst the students?
SA Yes I think they were of considerable interest particularly the nationalisation of transport, I think that was one that was quite often discussed.
McL Why would that be?
SA Well I think that affected us directly. We had to get out to places like Peterhead, Fraserburgh. It wasn't quite the same the buses were different and if we had to send our luggage the lorry would have come in a different manner therefore effected us and then we were still late adolescents, we were still concerned in that personal way about these things. Certainly I think the National Health Service was also an issue because we thought it was a tremendous force for good and were pleased about it, the people I mixed with thought it was a splendid thing and the promised land.
McL Did you have any political affiliation yourself at that time?
SA No I think I come from Liberal Celtic Fringe tradition and I think that was re-enforced at home already and was sustained at the University but I wasn't an active political person.
McL Mr Archdale were you aware of these topics being spoken of or other related topics?
AA I don't think they were much in topics of conversation. Talking of 1947/48 the Socialists had been in since '46 I think hadn't they? Or was it '45?
McL '45.
AA I think that one had accepted it by the time we got up there.
SA I think the Parliamentary debates were interesting they used to have frequent I seem to remember quite often going to Parliamentary debates in the Union and following the discussion but not taking a tremendous part in it.
McL Could I ask you if amongst those who had had War time experience you talked much about your war time careers and experiences?
AA Not a great deal.
McL Was it something in fact that you quite deliberately didn't talk about?
AA No I don't think it was relevant to what we were doing at the time.
SA There were no people from your particular unit with whom to reminisce.
AA No
McL Could I ask you, you were aware of any sort of gulf, maybe perhaps too strong a word, between students who were comfortably off and students who had severe difficulties making ends meet. Was finance a fact that effected social mixing?
SA I suppose thinking about it now it was, but it wasn't at the time. At least I don't think it was at the time. I think everybody, everybody was impoverished and in the circle in which I moved and we tended to make the best of what we had, and enjoy life as we could but I think looking back probably there were gulfs, probably activated perhaps by the schools in Aberdeen. I think those who went to Aberdeen city schools, perhaps independent schools, set themselves apart a little or were set apart by their improved financial situation maybe that. That's from where I stand now I don't think at the time it was noticeable.
McL Mr Archdale you followed Science and then Arts did you make friends throughout faculties or were you aware faculty or subject dictating again the social mix?
AA I think that the friends I made were more again on the sporting side rather than through the work.
McL Mrs Archdale did the religious side of the University the Chapel, the Chaplaincy play any part in your life?
SA Yes I used to go the service everyday there was a little short service at about half past ten, eleven o'clock type thing and that was very good it was usually student lead and it was good. And I also went to a Youth Fellowship in Beechgrove Church on Sunday evening which was splendid, nothing to do with the University but it tended by a very large number of undergraduates.
McL Why was this?
SA I think because it was in digs land, I think and there was a man called, I can't remember his name Bethune was perhaps his name was a reverend - I can't remember his name but he was the minister there and a he was again a forceful personality who attracted people to the discussions and they were very worth while. Very stimulating and interesting and some people came from the training college as well so there was a mix across the student range and I remember them with pleasure.
McL Did you involve yourself in anyway the religious side of the University Mr Archdale?
AA Not a great deal.
McL You spoke of the Training College. What was your impression of it and of the students?
SA Well I went there after I graduated and thought that year there was an absolute swan, a doddle. It was just by comparison there was no intellectual pressure nothing very much to get excited about at all and you could just have a fine time and go out with this new Englishman you'd met and that was Training College for me. I don't think that was so at all for the girls who only went there. The girls from school who went there had a very serious and probably a satisfactory three years, but from our point of view it was rather a waste of time.
McL Did you go on to do a training college course?
AA No.
McL Can I ask you then on a more general retrospective view. Both you went into education you subsequently ran your own school together. What contribution do you think your Aberdeen University education made to your not just your careers but to your life as a whole, Mr Archdale?
AA Well I think it was very necessary stage in ones education and development and I can't put a finger on any particular part of it that played a great part.
McL Well, could I perhaps ask you, and feel free not to answer this if you feel you'd rather not, teaching in an English prep school, l running a respectable …, would you happily send boys to a Scottish University for that sort of education knowing more or less what it entails?
AA Yes I don't really know what it entails because when I was here there were no halls of residence and would think that as soon as that came in Aberdeen had an entirely different aspect to offer.
SA We thought enough of it to smile upon our daughters application. She wanted to come here because she had been brought here as a little girl and had seen it and when UCCA form time came she was going to Aberdeen. And we were rather surprised because she could have gone anywhere. And in fact from her point view it was wonderful, we enjoyed very much the renewal of the contacts with the place and would say her education here was infinitely superior to anything we had. Simply because of the residential aspects that had been introduced, the halls and the fact that you can do so much more in you are on campus rather than being in digs with landladies and that kind of restriction. At the time it was right, well for me in any case because I was so young and immature. Probably have gone absolutely berserk if I'd been in hall here. You asked originally whether it was a worthwhile experience? Yes for somebody straight from school not having being in the services it was the opening many doors and I enjoyed it very much. |