| Description | Interview with Arnold and Winifred Burns recorded 3 October 1986 by Colin McLaren.
Transcript of Interview :
M Mr Burns, can you begin by telling me why did you come to Aberdeen University?
Mr B Well, why Aberdeen? Because I'd met the dean, of course, and why did I come to University? Because well it's a sort of family tradition, my brother and sister are both graduates, my father's a graduate, my great-uncle and my great-aunt were graduates and it was just assumed that I would go to university.
M All graduates of Aberdeen University?
B Yes, and then my brother went on to Cambridge and did his tripos at Cambridge and then after that he went to Potsdam University and took a degree.
M So you yourself must have had a fairly clear idea what university life would be like.
Mr B Oh yes, before I went up of course I had been involved in university things along with my sister. My brother was the eldest, then my sister, and then I came and I am afraid I indulged in modern university social activities with my sister.
M Mrs Burns, what brought you to the university?
Mrs B Well I have no connections with the university at all in the previous years. I always wanted to be a teacher and I really wanted to an English teacher so I had to come to university. But after my first year I decided that no, I was in too many other things and I thought I would just do an ordinary graduate's course but on my side I have no graduates at all.
M So did you get any guidance at your school as to what you should do, what you should read?
Mrs B Yes, English was my good subject and my teacher thought I should take Honours English and I think she was very disappointed when I decided to drop out.
M Was she an Aberdeen graduate?
Mrs B She must have been, she was an old lady then, she must have been in her sixties when she taught us, so I couldn't tell you.
M How did your parents feel about the prospects of having a university undergraduate as a daughter?
Mrs B My father died in the first world war so it was mostly a grandmother who brought me up and she was thrilled to bits you see because she herself hadn't had a university education and she was very pleased for me to have it.
M Well, Mr Burns can you remember your first day, what happened or can you remember anything of the induction process?
Mr B Oh dear, I think I spent my first day hunting around to see which classes friends were going to take so that I could take the same. I'm afraid my approach to the university was that I had to do some work and get through some exams but the main object was to play games and take part in the social life. So I think I started off you see to take Medicine and I took my, what was called then the pre regs year, and then just at the beginning of the next year my father took pretty seriously ill, so I did a rapid rethink and decided to take as good an Arts degree as I could.
M You had no sort of clear idea of a profession or …?
Mr B Or future? No never any. Originally, I had an idea of course in medicine but once I took the plunge and went into the Arts course I really wanted to get a degree and hope for the best.
M Did you discuss your circumstances with anyone at the University, the need for the change and for the problems of it?
Mr B No I just did it.
M Can you remember your arrival and the things that happened to you on your first day Mrs Burns?
Mrs B Yes, I met up with quite a crowd from my school, the Central School, so I didn't feel quite so lost as the people coming in from the country and the first day was just going around finding out where the various classes were and meeting old friends, new friends, it just was a hectic day altogether.
M When you started your course, Mrs Burns, there must have been some teachers on the staff who made more of an impression on you from their teaching ability and their personality, can you remember who those were?
Mrs B Yes an English , now who would that be em…Sam…?
M Professor Jack?
Mrs B Professor Jack, yes. Professor Jack, I thought he was an amazing person, Professor Jack yes.
M Why did he impress you so much?
Mrs B I don't know, he was quite different from anybody I'd ever studied under before and he was a very clever man of course.
M In what ways was he different?
Mrs B Well, it wasn't like school at all you know, he went on and on and on telling you things and sometimes forgot about you altogether, I think he got carried away. It was a tremendously big class, the English class, biggest class there was I think. I can't remember very much more about it.
M Which other teachers stand out in your mind?
Mrs B Geography teacher, Mr Macfarlane, and I am afraid he was a bit of a bore. Maybe I shouldn't say that. He had written a book and he just sort of read into this book all the time. Geography was not interesting. Geology I loved very much and History.
M Who taught you in History, do you remember? Was that Professor Black?
Mrs B No
M Was it before him, Professor Terry?
Mrs B Sandford Terry, he was a character. He went about in an ancient open top car with a basketwork sort of thing at the side with his umbrellas in it. Very old, he was a character and he was most interesting.
M Did you find the subject of Mathematics a difficult one?
Mrs B Oh very difficult. You see when I was going to take English I didn't require Mathematics but after I changed over I had to take Mathematics and that was the only thing I hadn't got a higher in, I'd only a lower, I found it very difficult.
M Can you remember who taught you?
Mrs B That could be found out from the …? [Calendar]
M Yes, yes.
Mrs B But I know I had to get a tutor for mathematics.
M Was it common for students who were having difficulty with a subject to get an outside tutor?
Mrs B Yes I think it would have been. I was very lucky in that my tutor was my old maths teacher at school though I couldn't do his subject, he was very very kind to me and perhaps because I was the head girl he thought that I shouldn't make a mess of things for his school, so he got me through maths. It wasn't my subject at all.
M Well thinking back to your first year doing the medical degree does anyone stand out in that volume Mr Burns?
Mr B Not in the medical side, you see it was chemistry and that sort of thing. I'm afraid not, I can't remember that. Afterwards though there were one or two who really …
M Well who stand out later on then?
Mr B Thomson the Nat. Phil.. man and Hector MacDonald ([to Mrs Burns] you didn't remember the name), maths and of course Thomson in Geology who was the finest teacher and lecturer I have ever come across.
M In what ways do you feel he was particularly expert in his teaching?
Mr B Well the main accolade I suppose is that I did a lot of work in his class and got into the Honours merit list but he was terribly interesting and at his lectures he made Geology, is a dead subject, but he made it come alive. He made everything so very very interesting.
M Did he use any form of teaching aid?
Mr B No
M So it was simply a lecture and no more?
Mr B Yes
M Did you every get a chance to look at specimens in the museums?
Mr B Well we had to in Geology you see, we had to see them and we had to recognise them and in fact we had exams throughout the term where a number of specimens were laid out and we had to nominate them. And they played tricks on us, they would put a bit of sulphur in with a bottle of acid so that we would choke on the fumes and so on! But I must say I really enjoyed Geology and Nat. Phil. and strangely enough enjoyed Maths but these were the things, of course, my inclination was with.
M Yes, what about subjects where you didn't have a natural bent, were you impressed by the teaching in those?
Mr B Let me see, Moral Phil, I took that by accident, I had done my homework very carefully to find out which one was at 9 and which one was at 11 and I slipped up on that one and I landed the 9 o'clock one which happened to Moral Phil and I could have taken Logic instead and I certainly wasn't impressed with the teaching there.
M Why was that?
Mr B Well, a lecturer can make a subject interesting or make it dull and I'm afraid and I think it was Laird I think we had, he tended to make things dull.
M Did you take Moral Philosophy Mrs Burns?
Mrs B No
M Or Logic?
Mrs B Yes, I took Logic. Logic had been difficult too, with me not being a Mathematical streak again I can't remember the name of the [lecturer]
M But as your course went on, you went into your next then your third year, and as you became more familiar with a smaller number of subjects, did your relationship with the lecturers and the professors change at all?
Mrs B Not really because you see taking an ordinary degree you just have one year at one subject, so I can't say it did. Sometimes the classes were a little bit smaller you know and you got to know your lecturer better but no I don't think it made any difference to the classes I took.
M Did you meet any of them socially outwith the Lecture Room?
Mrs B No, I never did.
M Mr B, did you meet any of your professors or teachers socially?
Mr B Curiously enough only Moral Phil. Prof. Laird gave a party once a year which took the form of a whist drive and I was at that. It was rather funny there, my best friend Tom Mudie seemed to be seated in the same place all evening and I was particularly lucky and I was whizzing round and round and indeed I got a prize, I got first prize for this thing and afterwards I asked Tom why he had been doing so badly and he said well the cigarettes were just sat there, so I kept them beside me. But none of the others. In those days professors were away up there above us nowadays they seem to have come nearer my age somehow.
M Were you aware Mr Burns of any ragging of professors in the medical faculty?
Mr B No, I don't think so, we were always very facetious about them amongst ourselves and amongst outside people but none of us would have dared to allow that to be seen by the professors we held them in more awe than we do now.
M And did you share that awe Mrs Burns?
Mrs B Yes, I really did.
M What of the Principal, were you aware of him at all?
Mrs B Oh yes, what a very high and mighty figure. We very seldom came in contact with the Principal. Saw him from afar but perhaps at a capping ceremony. We didn't see a lot of him.
M What of the university secretary, were you aware of him having a role in the university?
Mrs B Oh yes, that was Colonel Butchart wasn't it? Yes.
M Yes
Mrs B I came across him rather more because I was in the athletic association and he was a ? member of there but I don't think I ever talked to him actually about anything, no.
M Did you encounter him Mr Burns?
Mr B Yes oh yes. Butchart was an ogre in many ways and then curiously enough in later years we both sat on the Town Council Education Committee and before that for a short time during the war we were both in the same platoon at the Home Guard whether it made a difference but I got very close to him in the Education Committee and we were in several sub-committees together, he was an external member and I was a councillor.
M When you had the chance to see him then as the students saw him as you'd seen him in your day and then to see him more closely, how would you describe him?
Mr B Well in students days of course he was the man with the power of life and death over you and anything wrong you did or if you were late with your fees and applications for matriculation and so on, he was the ogre who was held over your head and that was it. He did advise us on some academic matter and then later on of course when I got to know him as a human being so to speak, I found him a very nice chap, very charming and we had very much the same views on education and other things.
M So do you think his manner in the university was an assumed one as for fitting his office quite deliberately assumed?
Mr B I don't think his manner was so very bad, it was one of these things like the Wizard of Oz, we were supposed to be frightened of Butchart and certainly he was fairly gruff and abrupt and he wouldn't stand any nonsense but when I look back to it now he wasn't an ogre at all but we were all brought up to think that he was.
M I see. Now Mrs Burns, where did you live when you were a student?
Mrs B In Aberdeen.
M Whereabouts?
Mrs B Leslie Terrace and that is the northern part of Aberdeen.
M Was that an area where many students lived ? Were you living at home or in lodgings?
Mrs B I was at home.
M You were at home.
Mrs B Yes, lots of students lived round that way, it's not very far from Erskine Street and Elmbank Terrace which were riddled with homes for students.
M Now did you encounter any problems living and working at home, did you have your own room?
Mrs B Yes I had my own room.
M So you were able to do your studying there.
Mrs B Yes, I could do.
M Mr Burns, where did you live or lodge?
Mr B In Aberdeen.
M Yes.
Mr B In Cranfield House in Great Western Road.
M This was with your family or in lodgings?
Mr B With my family.
M Yes, and you had your own room?
Mr B Yes. But I did not study enough you see - a very dicey question.
M Mrs B, to what extent could you say that being a student at home was in any way inhibiting for you?
Mrs B Well I suppose I thought regulations living with a grandmother were laid down for me. I did tell her where I was going, I think most girls did then, the time that you had to come in at night and she liked to know who you were with but that was all.
M Did you bring friends back to the house?
Mrs B Yes, I brought friends back.
M Mr B, did you find any inhibition from living and conducting your student life from home?
Mr B Oh no, not at all, I had a vast amount of freedom and I could take my friends back, in fact a lot of my friends came regularly, we had table-tennis sessions and so on and so forth.
M Did your family take an interest in the progress of your studies?
Mr B Em, to the extent that they wanted to know if I got through my exams or not. My father was a teacher, headmaster of one of the schools in town. But curiously enough he paid less attention to what I was doing than my mother did and I was allowed to go on my own as long as I didn't land them with any trouble and I'm afraid that meant that I spent far more time on games and social events than I should have done. My whole time there was a nice calculation about the minimum work I needed to go to get through the days.
M Would you say the minimum work was nevertheless a heavy load or was it in fact a fairly light load if one planned it correctly?
Mr B Well, it wasn't a heavy load, simply because I had three subjects that I had no difficulty with at all, maths , Nat Phil. and ? Geology and English I found quite easy except that we had a lecturer in Old English and I didn't like him and I didn't like Old English so I did nothing about it and went into the exam and found that it was a compulsory question which had dire results and I had to re-sit in Autumn. But none of these caused me any great trouble. I had a fairly good memory and history was a matter of memory, you could read notes up, memorise them, it didn't last long but you could memorise them sufficiently to .hang on till the degree exams were over. In Moral Phil, it was a different thing altogether and I had a little difficulty with it, I had to do some work on it.
M To what extent Mr Burns would you say your mind was stretched by the curriculum you followed?
Mr B Well I don't know that it was really stretched, I have said right through my life and will continue to say that what I learnt at university in a way of athletics and being president of societies and things like that as being of very much more value to me than anything I learnt in my various classes.
M Mrs Burns, would you say your mind was stretched and stimulated by the teaching you got in the different subjects?
Mrs B In English, yes and as I said in Geology which I liked and History. Yes, I read a lot of History outwith my class work, not in anything else I don't think.
M Well we've spoken about the fact that you both lived at home with your families. Could I please ask the two of you, Mrs Burns first of all, did you have any sort of financial problem or hardship as a student?
Mrs B Em, not actual hardship but I didn't have a bursary or anything like that, so money was quite tight, yes.
M Were you made an allowance by your grandmother?
Mrs B No, not an allowance I just sort of, well, I got half a crown a week which put me into the hop and then I wanted a bus ride, well it was a tram ride, in those days up and down, but I walked nearly everywhere.
M Most of your courses were at Kings, presumably?
Mrs B All of them were at King's except Geography and Geology and I was quite near King's, about a mile's walk.
M Mr Burns, did you have a bursary?
Mr B No
M So were you made an allowance or how was your money allocated?
Mr B Well my fees and so on of course were paid and any essential things I needed such as books and so on like that, they were paid from pocket money. I got half a crown which wasn't enough to pay my bus fares and things like that but then I made a lot of money on the side.
M How did you do that?
Mr B Well, various ways. I played hockey and immediately after the game was over, I had my bath, I dashed down to Broad Street Press & Journal with reports on my own game and various others and then I bullied the editor of the Evening Express into starting to cover dramatics and I wrote the weekly column on that and I did a very good line in repairing and making radios for dear old ladies who lived round about me.
M Was it common for students to have money-making projects going like this for them?
Mr B Well that was really the only source of income we had you see we didn't get the money that we get now. My half a crown wouldn't have paid my bus fares I don't suppose, so for example, I had a class at Marischal which finished at 12 and one at King's which started at 12, so I left one class slightly early and because the bus didn't leave until 12 I ran from Marischal to King's which was very easy in those days, saved the money so that I could then have a coffee and a biscuit in the afternoon. And we all worked that way, if I wanted to take a partner to dancing and I hadn't enough money, then my pals gave me from their supply and next day time we all clubbed for another one and so on and spread it round that way.
M Where did you eat most of the time Mrs Burns?
Mrs B Oh I came home to eat. I didn't have money to eat out. Maybe once in a blue moon we went for a coffee and a chocolate biscuit to the Auld Toon Café and one never to be forgotten time when we were in about our third year we used to go to the Palais and there was a tea dance there and that was just the acme to go to the Palais but that was about all.
M Did many students go?
Mrs B Not very many, it was always the same crowd. The crowd was super together, dramatic people, people who were in the students' shows you know, stayed together.
M But you went to the Shilling Hops, did you some time on Saturdays?
Mrs B Oh yes, we went every Saturday.
M Was that the sort of principal social event of the week?
Mrs B Oh yes, yes. That and the different societies you know.
M Yes, we'll come on to the societies in a moment. Mr Burns, you ate at home?
Mr B Yes or I didn't eat at all if I was too far away I skipped it and came home and raided the larder …
M Were you aware in any sense, this is perhaps difficult to put your finger on but were you aware in any sense of a gulf in terms of mixing between the students who were on comparatively meagre resources and those who were well healed, well to do.
Mr B No, I don't think that was there to any extent, there were one or two, and I mean one or two, who did attempt to put on airs because of their finances, but no it didn't work that way. You see people didn't think they were wealthy, they didn't give their family a lot of money to throw about or anything like that. And you didn't know whether somebody's family were very wealthy or not and you'd be at parties in their houses and from that you would know that they had a better house than you had but it wasn't something you had rubbed in.
M Mrs Burns, were your friends drawn from all faculties or were you inclined to mix with people studying similar courses to your own?
Mrs B Well to start with they were mostly people I had been at school with, the girls I had been at school with and then as I got to know other people, yes there were medicals, there were engineering, we mixed, yes.
M And Mr Burns, your friends were drawn right across the board, were they?
Mr B Oh completely, yes. You see, that is where the great education bit on the social side and athletic side came in, in the hockey team, we had medicals, we had engineers, we had divines and then in the various societies we had…
M Well can you turn to the societies and to the activities you took part in? Mr Burns, dealing first of all with the social and cultural organisations you were involved in, what were they?
Mr B The LIT, The Scientific Association and The Committee of Alma Mater … and what else, the Debater of course but that wasn't an intellectual thing in those days, it was Friday night letting off steam and a wonderful club called the Lunatics.
M Well, can we take these one by one and then say a little bit more about them? The LIT, Literary Society to begin with. To what extent was it concerned with the pleasures of reading and to what extent was it a serious attempt to keep up to date with trends in literature?
Mr B I think it probably tended to be a little trendy but then someone gave a paper every week and afterwards there was a discussion period and it was a very varied thing, some people would give a paper on an author and other weeks someone would give a paper on a particular publication and in general I suppose it really was to try and give us more pleasure in our reading,
M Yes. The Debater you dismissed as being largely a social occasion.
Mr B In those days it was. Later as a member of the town councillors I was invited to take part in a debate and I was completely surprised at the formality of it. At our time it was Friday night later on after the societies had had their meetings and it was quite an entertaining thing with a lot of speaking, absolutely packed to the roof and a few people who spoke regularly.
M Do you remember who the stars of the Debater were at that time?
Mr B Cathy Gavin … oh dear, there were one or two who spoke very seriously. A lot of the girls who could have spoken well were too timid to speak and one or two men who spoke quite seriously, people like Charlie Brown and some of the legal fellows and then there was some of the characters like Charlie Allen whom I never forgot, who sat right up the rails at the back of the balcony and then tended to throw the whole thing into disorder by making semi-facetious speeches. But downstairs, this is in the old Debater, there were huge settees and deep chairs and all the serious intellectual people went there and spoke from floor of the house and on the left-hand side of you towards the stage there were all the bajanellas and females and on the left-hand side there was a mixed lot of men and then at the cross bench at the top you had all the rogues and rascals who were there to make interjections and generally liven the proceedings.
M What rule did Alma Mater have in the University?
Mr B Well it was very important, I think it was Friday it came out and everyone was waiting to get their Alma to see who all had been mentioned and what sort of scurrilous things had been said about this person and the next person and then of course you got your sports reports.
M How important were theatricals and drama in the university at this time?
Mr B Well now that is an extraordinary question because I was president of the Dramatics Society for two years - before me there was Cathy Gavin. I think it was very important, we had a big, big membership and we gave one or two shows with the Dramatic Society. One year and we went the whole hog and took the then Palace Theatre and put on Barrie's Admirable Crichton and when we went along to book the theatre the management wanted to know how we stood financially and we said "Yes we have a bank account". We didn't say we'd minus £10! And every night the box office returns were brought to my dressing room which I shared with one or two pals, and half way through the show, on Wednesday night, great news! We had covered our costs.. Then of course the various different clubs, rugger clubs, soccer clubs and so on, they all did a show in the Debater every year to raise money and they were packed to the gunnels these shows. So the theatrical side was really very important in those days.
M Mrs Burns, we heard the various societies and organisations that Mr Burns was involved in, what were you involved in?
Mrs B Very few in the matter of societies, just the Dramatic and the Debater. I didn't belong to any other societies.
M Why was this?
Mrs B I don't suppose I was interested in the other societies and I had to work you see. If I was practising my athletics or anything in the summer I didn't have time and in the winter I just worked.
M What about the students' gala week, the charities week that we now have?
Mrs B Well, I was always in the students' show. I wasn't doing anything else. The show you see started two months before and we practised such a lot for it you see. I was in the dancing chorus there and we had lots and lots of practice for that.
M Who had the leading lights of the students' shows.
Mrs B In the girls, Doris Tindel, Kathy Gavin of course, and Stephen Mitchell, they were ? and then there were singers like Robert Henderson.
M Mr Burns, can you remember any of those, the leading lights in the shows?
Mr B Well she'd mentioned Stephen Mitchell, Kathy Gavin, Molly Mathieson, and Doris Tindel and ? Johnston and Arthur Murray ? John ? and let me see who else.
M Can you try and characterise for me the sort of humour of the shows, was it university-related humour or was it broader as it is nowadays and localised?
Mr B It was more university humour. I mean the songs we had - Rosemount Rosie was about a bajanella and digs in Rosemount and Stella the Bajanella these were all the songs that we did. I would think that it was very much more university-oriented than now. Now it is more, as far as I can see, as Scotland the What sort of approach. But in those days it was a very big thing, we had two dancing choruses - two female dancing choruses, a male dancing chorus, singing chorus of both sexes and quite a number of principals.
M I think you said you were in one of the very earliest
Mr B I said the opening was in the very first one and then I was in the show every year until I left.
M Now you both mentioned your participation in sport which clearly has meant a great deal to you both. Mr Burns, can you try and explain to me the importance that the university placed on sport in those days?
Mr B Well I don't know - by the university do you mean the official university or…..?
M Did the authorities assign it a special importance as part of the university way of life up here?
Mr B I think yes, I think so. I mean can recall the Principal coming to the pavilion at the university sports pavilion and so on, and I don't know what the situation is now but it was regarded as an important part of the education.
M And clearly Butchart himself being I think a keen sportsman presumably helped to advance it.
Mr B Yes and he attended the rugby matches with him being an ex-rugby man but also came and watched other games.
M Which sports did you follow yourself?
Mr B Well my main sport was hockey, I played hockey starting on the third team and finishing off as Captain in my last year, I played tennis not for the university at that time. I did quite a lot of swimming and a played golf.
M Mrs Burns, what sport did you follow?
Mrs B Hockey, I played hockey when I came up and then in the summer, athletics.
M Can you explain to me why hockey seems to have been so strong at this university?
Mrs B Well in my case it was because it was strong in school. I mean, I played for the Central School and we played against The Girls' High and St. Margaret's, both girls' schools, very keen, and when we were at school we used to go out and play Inverurie and all these people and we just grew up with it, I just think that hockey was a wonderful game and I was thrilled when I came to varsity and found that I could play in the second team to start with then worked my way up.
M Had you played hockey at school Mr Burns?
Mr B Well it was very funny, there was no hockey at my school, our sports master was a rugby snob and if you couldn't play first team rugby you were not to be considered. I damaged both ankles and I was told by my doctor that I hadn't to play football, rugby, tennis or cricket for a year and after the year he came to see me and said oh well I think you're doing very well, I think you could perhaps play a little tennis this summer and I said well I've been playing hockey all week because the former pupil's club had a hockey club. He said oh you're hopeless and left me that and I started playing for the school pupil's club. So when I came out the varsity I just naturally carried on playing then.
M Can you now tell me what facilities existed, I think for the women first of all Mrs Burns in the way of sports pavilions and accommodation?
Mrs B Practically non-existent, we had a little stone-floored, one little room tagged on to what was the men's pavilion and some little benches round the walls, and away in the corner one little shower, I don't think I'd ever seen a shower before that, it was the first time I'd seen one. Stone-floored, cold with no heating in the place - most of us didn't bother to take a shower, we got on our things and went home and had a bath. It was very, very primitive.
M Was the men's as primitive Mr Burns?
Mr B Yes, we had one room for each club and that had to accommodate visiting teams as well as ourselves, again just hard benches on the outside, quite a small room, probably smaller than this and we had one shower and then across the hall of the pavilion which wasn't very big, there was a pool which would have been about 8 feet square, 8 feet each way with about 2 and a half feet of water and half a foot in mud at the bottom of it and all the teams had to get in there to bath and the only thing was from there you had to come right across the main pavilion naked to get into your changing room.
M To what extent Mr Burns was sport the occasion of travel for you as a student?
Mr B Travelling - well as I said we played the other Scottish universities and we also used to play a school in Dundee, I forget the name of it, and we played RAF in Montrose and we played one or two other places round about, small ones and then we went to Ireland for a tour every Christmas and played Queens, Dublin and Lisnegarsey and Three Rock Rovers [Shamrock Rovers?] which was composed of ex-internationals but in Ireland it was really disastrous because the Irish hospitality was out of this world and we would go to have a game and you'd have a drink before you went on the field and they had a licence in one of the pavilions when you would come off and have a drink then you'd go back and face the second half and then you'd go back to the pavilion and then you topped up again and then in the evening there was always a special dinner and … these Irish!
M Well this prompts me to ask, reverting now to the social side of student life and bearing in mind the fact you'd mentioned both the limited allowances that you were on, to what extent was there much drinking in the student body in Aberdeen?
Mr B Well that is an extraordinary question, because of course we didn't have money to drink. On a Friday night we might have a couple of pints or something like that, and before we went to the Debator, and then the same on a Saturday night before we went to the Hop, we might have. I didn't have, I didn't drink very much at all, I couldn't afford it of course apart from anything else.
M Mrs Burns, what part did religion have in your life as a student?
Mrs B I'm afraid very little because I didn't take part in any religious studies at the university and I didn't attend King's College because I was very bound up in the church that I had always gone to from a little girl, I sang in the choir there and I taught in the Sunday School there so I had no memories really of King's for which I am a bit sorry.
M Mr Burns, did you attend the Chapel at all?
Mr B Only once when they married me but no, I may have been once or twice on some special occasion, but I didn't …
M Can I ask you both now what you did on your vacations, Mrs Burns?
Mrs B Well, I used to go out to Banff where I had an aunt in the Post Office there and it was a very different life because she was keen on golf and I used to play golf over there and then I met a crowd who were at varsity with me at the same time and we used to go out together and go to … get hold of bicycles and cycle around and play tennis, not very well but we enjoyed it with picnics, that is how we spent our time. And then I was also in what that was called the Girls' Guildry, it's called the Girls' Brigade now, and for one week of the holidays, I used to take a company out on a camp, but the Girls' Brigade don't camp in tents, they camped in a hut out at Keig, so that was my holidays.
M Mr Burns, what did you do?
Mr B Well, we on one occasion we went caravan touring, and then my father being a teacher of course we had long holidays and we used to take a house at Ballater for two months and had a marvellous time because things were different then. Now people come and stay a night and move on and in those days families used to come for long time and I had long-term friends that I used to meet there every summer from Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, England and we had a marvellous time.
M Now neither of you speaks of trying to earn in your vacation.
Mr B Yes that was, funny enough we were talking the other day about our grand-daughter who's working in her vacation and so on like that and it just struck me we never did and on the other hand as I told you earlier I earned all the time but I didn't do so much, I didn't take a job in the vacation.
M Neither of you speaks of any, or you haven't mentioned any desire, to have gone abroad at all in your vacation. Was it common for students to go abroad?
Mrs B Not as it is now. Students who were studying French or German had to go abroad but others didn't really, that was most unusual.
M Can I now ask you to think back to when you met your friends and talked amongst yourselves, to what extent Mrs Burns did you talk about or were you aware of current events, political events, social problems?
Mrs B Well for my part, I'm afraid we weren't. We were in 1930 when it came to the slump, we talked a lot about that, because it would affect us getting positions which it did for a lot of them, but no I'm afraid we weren't very much oriented that way, I'm sorry to say.
M Mr Burns, you mentioned the Debater was largely an entertaining occasion, did you either in those circumstances or amongst your friends involve yourself in political discussions?
Mr B No, not really. I mean there was a Labour club and I suppose a Conservative club and the only two really political things that I ever entered into was fighting in a peasemeal fight for an independent candidate but that wasn't really political at all, it was just because a particular bloke I knew was going to be on the other side.
M This was a rectorial election, yes?
Mr B Yes, and it was a very good chance for us both to get really stuck into other. And then during the strike a number of students drove trams and this, that and the next thing. And I was a dispatch rider and I can't recall ever having carried a dispatch but I got a hold of a motor-bicycle and I was a dispatch rider and I should think that was about the only political commitment that I had ever took in hand, it's funny and I got so stuck into it in later years.
M Would you say the two of you were typical or a typical of your year in this context?
Mr B On the political side?
M Yes.
Mr B Oh I would think very typical, anyone who started pushing politics and views about was regarded as an odd-ball.
M Why would this be, do you think?
Mr B I really can't say, we didn't think it was any of our business at that stage, we reckoned that was something that we would take up once we got our degree and then knew what we were talking about.
M Would it be fair to say as other people have offered the opinion, that your generation was perhaps more innocent?
Mr B Oh yes. I'm quite sure of it. I mean there would be no question of drugs, for example, and in every way I'm quite sure we were much more ingenuous than now. Now as far as I can make out the students know it all.
M And to what extent Mrs Burns did the, and you have mentioned yourself the clouds threatening employment perhaps incalcate a strong desire to work hard and get a degree as a means of taking on a profession and so on. How important did this become?
Mrs B Very important, very important when we realised what was in store for us. Because we graduated in 1930, the ordinary graduates that day, they didn't get a training centre then and 1930/31 was a very very bad time and I should think a third at least of our graduates didn't get positions and the ones who wanted to get Aberdeen of course, there was just no jobs going for them, we all had to go away and I found it very - it made me work, it really made me work.
M How would you characterise the Training Centre in comparison with the university?
Mrs B It was dreadful after the university, we felt so restricted, it was like being back at school again really. I don't know if it still is, but in those days it was, you were a very tight band, it wasn't at all like university.
M Mr Burns, how did you view the prospect of leaving university and seeking employment?
Mr B Well the prospect of leaving university I viewed with horror because I was enjoying myself so much and with regard to employment, I never really worried, I think. It shows how innocent we were in those days, I was just extremely confident that I would get a job.
M Had you by then firmed up ideas about what sort of job you would want?
Mr B Well curiously enough I had ideas about advertising and in my last year actually when I did decide to take Arts I took all my subjects in two years and I couldn't graduate because I hadn't put in the three years, so I matriculated and took a job with an advertising company and found that I was found out the world's worst salesman and I lately finished up writing, copying, printing up new ideas for advertising. That was what I did for my third year at varsity. And then after that a chap came and offered me a job.
M As?
Mr B A thing that I'd never even heard about - a firm in Aberdeen made electrodes for electric arc welding and I went in there to find out what it was all about which included going down to do sales in the Midlands but while I was there I started experimenting and produced a new flux so they set me up in the lab and things progressed from there and in the next year I'd invented a new machine for making the things and I was made Works Manager and the next birthday I had, I was made General Manager of the Company and we moved down to Glasgow, and I had a factory there where I installed all the machines - it was my own design and we had offices in Birmingham and London.
M I am a little surprised given your earlier involvement with newspapers with Alma Mater and writing the sports reports and amateur dramatic column that you haven't thought of journalist and pure and simple as a career.
Mr B Well I often wonder about that myself now, although really my main interests is in engineering, always has been and I think what happened was that year that I was doing the advertising, I got rather sickened of it. While I was there I was offered a job with the Daily Express as assistant to Max Aitken who later became editor with the Sun and the boss but by that time I realised just what a rat race the advertising business was, in that you did x pounds worth of sales one year and do x + 10% next year and so on. and so when I got the offer of this other job I jumped at it because it was the engineering side was what I really liked.
M You had never thought of taking a degree in engineering at the university because courses were by then available?
Mr B Another thing that I just can't understand because a number of my friends had gone in for that. Possibly with starting in medicine and then having to take this great rush, it was a case of take what I could get and ?
M I have no right to ask you and it is really the last formal question that I want to quote you in, and it is also a topic on which both of you have touched to some extent, but could you perhaps try and sum up for me. Mrs Burns first of all: to what extent you feel the university education you got, prepared you for your life in your career beyond the university?
Mrs B I think it was a very good preparation because we were meeting all sorts of different people, people from the country, people from the town, people like myself who didn't have much money, people who had lots of money and it rubbed off all the rough edges on you. It made you able to talk to people about different things, things you were interested in, that I might add and you saw other peoples' points of view which weren't always the same as you believed in. I think it was a very good grounding.
M Mr Burns, you have combined a career in engineering, with a career in local government, local authority work. To what extent was your university education a spring board for all of your activities and interests?
Mr B Well I don't know how much of a spring-board it was, I know it was most valuable, not the fact that I understood the binomial theorem but the fact that I had so much experience handling people, being the Captain of hockey, President of Dramatic and various committees, that has been absolutely invaluable both in my business and in the Town Council of course, and possibly the fact that I spoke regularly at all these meetings and at the Debater, and that I spoke on stage at dramatic societies, as far as the Council is concerned it meant that I never had any difficulty public speaking. As regard to my business, as I have said handling people was the most important thing of the lot, and that was something that I got from university not from my classes.
M Mr Burns, you went on and served in local government, to what extent were you able to form an impression of the changing nature of the university as a town councillor and as a magistrate?
Mr B To a great extent I spoke earlier about going back to take part in debates in town and instead the hall being packed to the gunnels with a lot of people who were enjoying themselves at the end of the week, it was now very formal and there was a handful of people attended. That's one sort of thing. I found the nature of the students were different, I mean I had students in front of me in Court that were doing things which we would never had attempted to do. We would do all sorts of stupid things, on a Friday night or after the Torcher or anything but I found them doing malicious things on the whole on their own, not as part of a group and the attitude had changed. I got the shock of my life when I was sitting at my dinner one time and I got speaking to the wife of one of our people in the Town House who was a psychologist at the university for students, and not teaching psychology, dealing with them. And I wondered why they needed a psychiatrist. And she said, "Well they have a very hard and worrying time" and I said "But why?" "Oh well, they have problems with their girlfriends and this, that and the next thing." And it shook me because we all managed to get through without having a psychiatrist helping us on. Quite honestly, I think they get too much done for them nowadays. I know it probably isn't regarded as a rather nice thing to say, but I think we did do better when we got our way out of our own troubles which kept us to a great extent from getting into them and we hadn't the money to spend, we couldn't have gone into the drug scene even if we wanted to. We couldn't spend so much money these people do. Even taking the different in the value of money, we couldn't have done it and yet we had - university days were the happiest days of my life, no doubt about it.
End of Interview |