| Description | Interview with Mary Glen (nee Campbell), (MA 1943) 12 September 2003 and the interviewer is Jennifer Carter.
Transcription:
JC Thank you very much for coming and giving us your thoughts about the 1940's when you were a student. But tell me first what brought you to Aberdeen. Were you a local girl of did you come from afar?
MG No I came from Balmoral and when I finished at Banchory …because in those days you had to travel all the way to Banchory school after the 4th year onwards, so at the end of the 6th year it was university. So we had to live in digs of course because we couldn't travel.
JC Couldn't commute, and there was no question of any other university but Aberdeen?
MG No, no. My parents wanted me to go to Aberdeen. No there was never any question of any other…
JC No shopping around like they do today?
MG No. It is a different matter today completely.
JC You say Balmoral, I am of course intrigued. Could I ask what your parents did when they lived there?
MG Yes my father was a cabinet-maker there for the Queen, the King and the Queen. George VI in those days and Queen Elizabeth.
JC Did they work exclusively for the Balmoral Estate, or just do jobs for it?
MG No, no. Just for the Balmoral Estate. We lived in a house there, and my aunt was the housekeeper.
JC Oh great, great.
MG So we had lots of connections with the Royal family and of course Queen Victoria had left money for the Balmoral Bursaries, so I had the famous Balmoral Bursary.
JC Splendid, I have known one or two students since who have had them.
MG Have you?
JC Yes.
MG We had to live on a shoe-string of course because we had a grant from the County plus the Balmoral Bursary which didn't …. you couldn't lead a riotous life or anything like that!
JC What was it worth? About £40 a year or something like that?
MG I think it was £30.
JC £30 a year.
MG £30 and I had … I only got £20 from the County because I had the Balmoral Bursary.
JC So they knocked down what they were giving out …
MG But my friend got £60!
JC That was a cheat. You ended up with £50 to her £60.
MG I ended up with £50. Anyway we managed and we were very lucky for digs, because we were in digs with a couple who lived next door to a relative of mine.
JC Is that how you heard about it as it were?
MG Yes.
JC And were they regular student landlords and landladies?
MG Yes, but they had always had men before that ,so I don't think they were all that keen on having a couple of girls, but we all got on very well.
JC So in the digs where you lived, you lived with a friend from Banchory, is that right?
MG No, with a friend from Braemar. She is going to be interviewed today.
JC Oh good. So she came up to the same Arts Class?
MC Yes. So we had no sort of fear about coming to Aberdeen, like some of them had, because we knew Aberdeen well and it was a great adventure.
JC And did you stay in the same digs all the time you were here?
MG Yes.
JC You had your whole 4 years.
MG Well, 3 years at University and then a year at training college.
JC And you said that the digs where you lived were regular student digs. Were you the only couple or were there others.
MG No. There were no others. It was a bungalow. So we were the only couple. So we sort of slept and ate and everything in the same room.
JC And how much did you get for the digs? Did you get 3 meals a day, or was it just bed and breakfast?
MG No, no, we had 3 meals a day, but of course war time meals … I don't know how she managed really to produce 3 meals. It was breakfast and …
JC A cooked breakfast or just porridge?
MG No. Just porridge and a sort of …a proper lunch. She very often made soup from Bovril with some grains of rice in it.
JC To make it a bit more substantial.
MG Yes, and then we had high tea.
JC High tea, great! And she had your ration books I presume?
MG Yes. She did and when we went home for holidays we had to get emergency coupons. We had to go along to somewhere in Albyn Place, I think, there was this office and you went and got your emergency coupons.
JC And being country girls did you bring produce in from home? Did you bring in eggs or things to supplement the rations?
MG No, no. .. Oh, I think I used to bring honey sometimes, because we used to buy honey from a local man, in the honeycomb. So I would bring that sometimes.
JC Well that must have been very valued in war time when sugar was short.
MG Yes, it was a nice sort of extra. We both took sugar in our tea in those days too, which we have long since given up!
JC I know, the thought police don't allow that now!
MG No, it is bad stuff now, but nobody said it was bad for you then. They said sugar gives you energy, but now they say that it is energy that is spent quickly.
JC So how far was the digs from the University?
MG Oh, very near. It was on St. Machar Place. So we could just leave home about five minutes before and we were at King's, because most of our classes were at King's in those days.
JC Well St. Machar Place, I think, is where, I think, one of the other members of the class lives.
MG Isabel Middleton
JC Who died recently
MG Yes, she lived there. It was a little crescent. We lived in the first one and she lived in the last one.
JC Oh, right. So you got to know her quite well I guess. Walking down to King's together.
MG Yes, that's right.
JC So that was extremely convenient. How did you get home, by bus or train, when you went home in the holidays?
MG By bus, that was the cheapest thing. I think you got a return ticket and it lasted limitless time and I think it was 6/6d, which would be 32½p for nearly 60 miles.
JC Okay so we established you near King's and you came up with no sort of fear of the University. How much previous knowledge had you about it? Had you talked to people who had been students before or did you come fairly ….
MG Oh no not really, we came quite ignorant really.
JC Were you the only girls from the school who came up?
MG No there was one other girl and a few boys. One girl went to St. Andrews. Yes there were only 3 girls came. Some had gone because the war broke out and some who had intended to stay for the 6th, went up at the end of the 5th year.
JC So coming as a relative stranger, do you remember your sort of first impressions of the University and what happened on the first day and that sort of thing , or has all that gone?
MG Well the week before… we were doing what was the concurrent course, because in those days if your were teaching I think the course ended at Christmas instead of Summer, so if you did the concurrent course that entailed going once or twice a week in the afternoon to training college and doing subjects like needlework and that sort of thing, so that meant that you could finish in the Summer. So we had to go with a big sort of meeting at the training college, the week before we started at University and we met in with some of the girls from the High School who were sitting near us and we all got talking and we just formed a little group and went all the way through University.
JC That's nice. How many of you?
MG I think that at that time there would have been about 7 perhaps.
JC And you remained particular friends all the way through?
MG Yes all the way through and one lives in Wales now and we still keep up, but she can't come to the interviews as her sight is very bad.
JC It must have been all that needlework!
MG Yes, yes, something like that.
JC So you had in a sense had a pre-induction to University through the college. Was there a Freshers' Week then or was it all just straight into classes.
MG No it was straight into classes and at the end of the week we had the reception which was a sort of dance and you got to know more people then, more men!
JC What was the balance of men and women in your days because a lot of men must have been at the War.
MG When we went up, it was a very big year, there were lots of men, but they were all sort of becoming 18 and by the end of the year there was hardly a man.
JC So they were called up from University?
MG Yes, they were went up to University and the only men were people who were on sick leave, they were invalided out or something and there were only about 2, not in our year, but 2 sort of in the Arts group.
JC So I suppose the men in the University would have been mainly Medical students, would they?
MG Yes, they would.
JC Because they had been exempted from call-up.
MG Yes that's right, but we didn't come in contact much with Medics, because their classes were all down at Marischall and so on.
JC So as far as the MA was concerned you started the year with about 50/50 men and women and by the end of the year no men! Then did you get a fresh intake of schoolboys the next year, second year?
MG Yes , there must have been some, but then they would be there for a bit and then they would be gone.
JC So for most of your 4 years it was really an almost women's only campus.
MG It was, yes, yes. And of course it wasn't anything like the size it is now so we mostly knew each other. You were in some class or other with someone you know, because those were the days of Latin when you had to have Latin.
JC So your first year was what?
MG We had Latin, French and German that I did in my first year, that's right. And in the Second year .. what did I do? English, Psychology and History and in the last year … now you had to have a Maths subjects and that included Biology and Botany and all these things, so I did Botany, Moral Philosophy, that was another you had to do that or Logic, and I did something else the last year, but I can't remember what the last one was.
JC I notice you put off your difficult subjects till the last year!
MG It was stupid really, because they were compulsory. It all went off okay.
JC And do you remember particular people who taught you, not in all of the classes, but who are your outstanding memories of people who taught you.
MG The lecturers? Oh yes. French now what was his name…. Professor …
JC Freddy Rowe?
MG Rowe, that's right, yes. And we had Rex Knight and Margaret Knight, who later when I was teaching, a long time later, I found that she was a Humanist. We had no idea of that whilst at University.
JC She kept that dark at the time, did she?
MG Yes, yes, she must have because nobody ever discussed it at all. And Professor Laird, he was the Moral Philosophy. He was an eccentric. He used to come sweeping in with his gown and he would stand over a desk and fling his legs up in the air behind him! Terribly funny!
JC Was he a good teacher in spite of the mannerisms?
MG Oh, yes, yes, he was all right. That was quite a big class, but of course it was a compulsory subject and everyone had to do it sooner or later!
JC And most of the teaching was through lectures was it?
MG It was through lectures and then you had tutorial groups in French. We had another rather eccentric man called Dr. Lough? I was in his group for tutorials.
JC In what way was he eccentric?
MG Well he couldn't keep order very well. He would toss a bit of chalk up in the air and catch it. And then we had Latin, Professor Noble, Peter Noble.
JC The one who afterwards went on to London University.
MG That's right. He was a very nice man, very sort of homely person.
JC Did you know any of the staff socially? Did any of them ask you to their homes or was it a very formal relationship?
MG No, well everyone was given an Adviser of Studies, except my friend, Isma and me!
JC They missed you out did they?
MG We were missed out and I don't think they went to their homes, but I think they went for a sort of social meeting with them. But we missed out on that. We were afraid we would get Douglas Young who was a forbidding sort of … I think he was something to do with Latin and had a big black beard, which was very unusual in those days! But anyway we didn't have an adviser, so we managed to survive just the same!
JC And you mentioned History as one of your subjects. Who were the teachers there or do you not remember?
MG Yes, I can picture him, but I can't remember his name.
JC Would it have been J. B. Black, the professor there?
MG Professor Black, that was it, and it was mostly European history we did. I never seemed to do Scottish history after the primary school and that was in story form.
JC It was a great sadness and it has all changed these days.
MG Oh yes, yes, and a good thing to. But it was European and a lot about the French Revolution.
JC And of course Black was a specialist in Tudor England, the relations between England and Scotland so it was a pity that you never got any of that.
MG It is a pity that we didn't get any of that, I must say!.
JC And did you have tutorials in any subject other than French?
MG Just French.
JC The rest was all lectures?
MG The rest was all lectures and if anyone came in late for a lecture everyone stamped their feet in time, which must have been a bit intimidating for them! Frightening.
JC Were registers taken? Would somebody have noticed if you had not been at a lecture?
MG They just passed a sheet round and you signed the sheet.
JC But your friend could tick for you.
MG Yes, yes. In fact a friend could sign if you weren't there, but we did attend all the lectures.
JC I suppose, with the classes being so small, I suppose it would have been noticed.
MG We didn't have to sign anything for Psychology, but Rex Knight always said "I will know if anyone isn't there" and he probably did too.
JC He has the reputation of being a wonderful lecturer is that true?
MG Oh yes, a marvellous lecturer. Yes. We had to have all these loose-leaf notebooks for his class and all the different subjects. He was very interesting and he did quite a lot about Hitler doing his…. having his meetings at night when people were tired and more open to his suggestions.
JC How very interesting. I have never heard that argument before.
MG That's what he used to say.
JC You told me a bit about your money side and how you managed financially, and of course you didn't have to take any food from the University because you went home to lunch.
MG We went home and were so near to.
JC So did you buy a cup of coffee or anything at the University?
MG Yes, in the lounge.
JC In the lounge, which was where exactly?
MG It was at the Students' Union which was down opposite Marischal College on the corner.
JC So was that a sort of social centre for the University?
MG Yes, you could go there any time. In fact one big treat was we used to go every week and meet up with our friends and have tea and a chocolate biscuit and I think you got the whole thing for sixpence.
JC Was that at the Union or was it somewhere else?
MG At the Union and then we went across the road to Marischal and went to the Scottish Country Dancing class which was run by Mrs.Campbell, from Ireland. Her daughter had the same name as me, she was another Mary Campbell, but she was Mary S. Campbell.
JC And was Mrs. Campbell employed by the University or was she an outsider?
MG Yes, she was sort of the Head of the PE or PT as it was called in those days, and then Adele MacKinnon.
JC Oh she came in your time did she?
MG Yes, so I did my gym. I was so keen on gym I actually got up early and got down for the 9 o'clock class which was in the gymnasium at Marischal.
JC What other outside things did you follow apart from gym and Scottish Country dancing? Were you a joiner or a private person?
MG Not an awful lot but I was in the Choral for a while but that was about all really. We just sort of met our friends. And there was a Professor Lenzt [?]. He was in the French department and a young French girl arrived at the University, she had escaped, called Claudine.
JC Goodness how exciting.
MG And low and behold Professor Lenzt was quite an ancient, or seemed very ancient to us, and she married him!
JC He was probably about 40, do you think?
MG He was more than that, I think! Anyway she married him and we were asked if we would sort of befriend Claudine, so we used to. This was before they married and we used to meet her and go to the cinema sometimes.
JC The cinema was the main outside entertainment was it?
MG Yes it was really. It was the cheapest thing anyway. We once went with a rich friend to the Capitol cinema which was in Union Street and we paid the enormous sum of 1 shilling to sit up in the Balcony, yes, it would be the Balcony and we saw Pride and Prejudice from there.
JC How much do you feel your University life was affected by it being wartime, other than the removal of the men from the classes. Were you sort of worried about the War or were you thinking about it a lot or did it pass you by?
MG Yes, well I had a boyfriend in the War in the end of my second year he was killed and that really upset me a lot.
JC Had he been a fellow student?
MG No he was a friend from home, he was in Glasgow. He had already graduated. Otherwise it didn't really…we didn't worry much. There were lots of air-raids and things.
JC Did you do fire-watching and things?
MG Yes, we did fire-watching once a week. My fire-watching was at King's and we had a room where we all met and played some cards. There were some men there, that must have been in the 1st year. We played cards and I think we were allowed something towards supper and some of us would go out and get fish and chips. There was a fish and chips just down the High Street.
JC It was quite fun the fire-watching and very essential.
MG It was quite fun and I think that the fire-watching sort of died out in 2nd year.
JC Or maybe just the 1st year people did it?
MG No, it wasn't just the 1st year people because there were people certainly from the 2nd year certainly in my group. We had to learn how to do the fire extinguishers and things, for extinguishing incendiary bombs.
JC But you never met one I hope!
MG There were some fire alarms while we were on duty but we never had any contact with anything like that. But there were lots of bombs dropped and we were given a shelter, I think it was a Morrison one, that fitted under the table in the dining room, and we all went under that when there were air-raids on. There were air-raids during classes sometimes. The class was just abandoned and you went into the air-raid shelters at University.
JC Where were the University air-raid shelters?
MG In the grounds somewhere, underground I think.
JC And they were dug somewhere on the University.
MG Yes, yes, and they would be filled in afterwards.
JC I wonder where they were?
MG I just can't ……
JC On the playing fields maybe?
MG They certainly were not very far away from the classes, so that was usually the end of that class, which quite pleased us.
JC How political was your generation? I mean, were you just too young for having an interest in the post-was Labour movement?
MG No we were interested in the Labour and … what was his name….Atlee I think. But why did he come? We were all supporting him and went round on a lorry shouting something about supporting Atlee.
JC That is interesting because Labour wouldn't have been very strong in this part of the world, because their students were in the Avant Garde.
MG That's right, was this to do with the Chancellor?
JC Or the Rector, was there a Rectorial perhaps?
MG There was a Rectorial while I was there and everybody gathered in the quadrangle at Marischal College …
JC Can you remember who the candidates were?
MG Well I think it must have been ….. no it wasn't Atlee… it was Sir Stafford Cripps! They had a Cripps Rally and we went to this and got his autograph and Lady Cripps as well, Isobel Cripps I think.
JC Was he elected Rector, I can't remember?
MG I think he must have been. But there was this Rectorial Election and all the women gathered round the quadrangle, I think we were up. I think there was some sort of gallery, and the men were all down below and they had rotten eggs and things.
JC And they had a Rectorial fight.
MG Yes, there was a fight and all these eggs were thrown. We were cheering them on!
JC So there was enough men for that?
MG Yes, there seemed to have appeared from somewhere. I think that was the beginning of the 2nd year or the end of the 1st year that there was this Rectorial Election.
JC Were you a very political young woman?
MG No not really.
JC What sort of things did you discuss with your friends?
MG I don't think we discussed very serious things actually, it was mostly how we could make our money sort of last out and things like that.
JC That is very interesting and of course clothes would have been very difficult as well.
MG Clothes… well there was no case of having new clothes and things. There was no competition with what you wore. I mean you just … I was very lucky because my mother could make clothes. Before I came up she had made me some nice little suits and silky sort of things and you could wear … and she made a shirt and a dress, a patterned dress that could go with the jackets, so that made two outfits you see. I know I also had a suit tailored at Kerlads, I think it was, they were something to do with Falconers and I had this nice suit and the jacket would go with my kilt, which was Ancient Campbell, soft blues and greens. I could wear the jacket with that.
JC So you dressed fairly formally as a student, with the suit …?
MG Oh yes. No one had … we all had togas, a lot of us had togas.
JC So you wore those for warmth, I guess?
MG Yes, that's right. You didn't need a coat when you had them on and it was mostly jumpers and skirts. Nobody wore trousers. We wore trousers for our fire-watching but that was all. We would have never have dreamed of wearing them to classes!
JC But the hats had gone. You didn't wear a hat?
MG No we didn't have hats. You wore hats to Chapel on a Sunday.
JC You went to Chapel on Sundays?
MG Yes, we used to go to Chapel on Sundays. We used to … we weren't terribly religious, but we used to go to sort of lots of the churches. We would go to the Chapel in the morning and then sometimes we would go to maybe St. Machar's Cathedral, or there was another, very modern, church in King Street, we went there once. We used to go there to see what they were like realy.
JC Sermon tasting I think it is called.
MG Yes, but we weren't religious people or anything but it was all sort of …
JC It filled up part of Sunday!
MG Yes. And of course sort of jolly thing were the student hops.
JC Which day of the week were they?
MG There was a hop on a Saturday evening. It cost 1 shilling!
JC And they were at the Union.
MG And they were at the Union. Everything happened at the Union. And sometimes they would have to be abandoned as there would be an air-raid or something.
JC Did any of you smoke as students?
MG Non of my group did, but some did.
JC No body drank I guess amongst the women?
MG No, no. None of the women I knew anyway. No I don't think any of them drank, it was far beyond our means. But the men drank beer, well some of them did anyway. I know our lot who came from Banchory used to drink beer.
JC Right. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would have liked to talk about? I notice that you brought some notes with you.
MG Yes, well holidays. You were supposed to something useful in the holidays. So a friend of mine and myself we got jobs from my aunt at Balmoral Castle, because she had normally she had a staff of about 20 all the year, but when the court arrived she had to find lots of temporary.. and it was just so difficult in wartime because everyone was called up. So she went round all the labour exchanges getting who she could and we went as housemaids and we had a great old time. We were sort of spoiled really, but terribly early mornings! You had to get up at 4.30 am to light fires and do all the hoovering, so you were out of sight by the time the Royals appeared. This friend of mine and myself, we were in the Royal Visitor Suite so that was the Lady-in-Waiting and Royal visitors.
JC How modern was the castle then? Did you have to cart hot water or ..
MG Oh no. no. They had all that. There was central heating in the passages but not in the rooms, it was all fires and the King & Queen were terribly tough and they wouldn't have fires lit in the dining-room and people used to say that the poor guests were shivering.
JC And the full court came up then?
MG The full court came up.
JC For the summer holiday, even 'though it was war time?
MG Yes and there were lots of evacuees up there too. My friend and I decided to climb Lochnager one afternoon and the mist came down and suddenly through … there were always rumours about para-troopers, parachutes had been found, and through the mist, came these figures speaking in a language we didn't understand. We were scared stiff, and they came up, took one look at us and opened their back packs and took out flasks of hot coffee and buns which they fed us on. They said "You are English?" and we said "No, we are Scottish" and it turned out that they were masters from the Belgium School that had been evacuated to Braemar for the wartime and they thought we were having heart attacks because we had been eating crowberries on the way up and our lips were blue! So some people went to pick flax
in the holidays as their holiday job. You were supposed to do something useful for the country. Because we had the nice long Summer holidays when you were supposed to be doing all sorts of work then. We had to do practice teaching because of this concurrent degree.
JC So you were telling me that you did teaching practice during your holidays and I was asking did you immediately get a post.
MG Yes, you had to do your year at Teaching Training College of course and then all the directors of the different education authorities all over Scotland came up to the training college and then you were interviewed. Well I had applied for Stirlingshire, for some reason, I thought it wasn't too far away and yet not on my doorstep. So yes, I got a job, at Grangemouth first.
JC Was this primary or secondary teaching.
MG This was primary. I wanted to infants, so yes, I actually got the job doing I think it was 7 or 8 year olds and I got my move to infants the next … I did a couple of years then I got a move to infants and then I made friends with one of the teachers who father was headmaster at Bannockburn and he thought we should be getting more experience, we should be going abroad or something, but we hadn't done enough teaching so we went to England instead.
JC I see, that was abroad!
MG And there I was ever since.
JC Okay. Well that has been lovely. Thank you very much indeed. Is there anything else that we have missed?
MG No I don't think so. Most of the things that I had jotted down were about home really, about our experiences with Glasgow evacuees and things like that. Anyway that is all the University memories.
JC Yes, but tell me a little about your Glasgow evacuees. You had them at home, in your parents house and in the village?
MG Yes, they arrived and a little of committee had to apportion out and there was one big family of 5 and the big girl, the big sister, was quite an aggressive, ferocious sort of girl and she said "The McCalums are no to be split!". She wanted the whole family kept together, but they couldn't do that but I think they put some in one house and others in the house next door, but they swelled our Guide Company. We were able to have 3 patrols instead of 2! But they didn't stay terribly long, it just didn't suit them. They didn't like …
JC It would have been too remote I would imagine after the streets of Glasgow.
MG And the mothers …. There were no pubs or anything …. So they went off back. And then we had the Grand Duchess, of course, who lived in the house … the Grand Duchess of Zenia, The Tzar Nicholas's sister. So I had some connection with her, because I was deputed by the Guides to go and ask her if she would give a donation for a Whist drive that the guides were having and so she said that she would give an ashtray and gave this beautiful little silver ashtray that had been in the Tzar's house . She managed to escape with masses of rings and things, because she was a fragile, little thing, and her little hands were covered with big sparkling diamonds.
JC Her dowry!
MG Yes, something like that. So I have read lots about the Tzar's family since that. It sort of started me off and anything to with that.
JC A bit of Russian History.
MG Yes. So I must not take all of your time.
JC No, it was very nice to have talked to you. Thank you very much indeed. That's great.
End of Interview.
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