| Administrative History | Mr. Hogg was a former Aberdeen University student |
| Description | Interview with Mr C. Gordon Hogg recorded on 5 September 1986, by Dorothy Johnston
Transcript of Interview :
J Perhaps we can start by asking you why was it you came to Aberdeen?
H Because I lived in Dingwall and it seemed to be the nearest place to come to.
J Was that true of most of your friends?
H No. My particular friends went to St Andrews and Glasgow and Edinburgh. There was only one girl came when I was here, came to Aberdeen at the same time as I did and she didn't do very well either.
J But to you it seemed to be the natural place to go?
H Yes. We knew Aberdeen. I had family connections with Aberdeen way in the dim and distant past. I had a grand-uncle who lived here and things like that.
J What about your school, was there any influence from them?
H Dingwall Academy, none at all.
J Did they concern themselves with where students went?
H None at all.
J No career guidance?
H Well not really. I was pointed in the sort of direction which in the end of the day was the wrong direction. I studied the wrong subjects. I didn't know what my capabilities were.
J To get on to the subjects you did study.
H I started off going into Honours Maths and stumbled at the first fence. I got through my first year without any difficulty but the second year I came a complete cropper and didn't carry on after that. I changed.
J Can you think, was there an obvious reason?
H There were several reasons. The first reason was, I don't suppose that my mind was the type of mind that did that type of subject. Although I was very good at it at school when I came to university it wasn't quite the same. The second reason was that I felt I'd never any contact with my teachers. I could never ask anybody anything. It's the same even nowadays. I've the kind of mind that assimilates things very quickly but I find there is really some simple thing which I just don't follow and if you don't follow that … now I can ask of course.
J Was that true in general do you think of courses here?
H I felt they were far too distant, distant academics.
J Who was your professor is Maths?
H MacDonald. Never spoke to him in my life.
J You didn't?
H No. I presume if I'd gone on to Honours I would have but I never did. The lecturer was a man called Mr Goodwillie who was a mystery to me. Others were alright.
J So others didn't feel quite as badly?
H No, I don't think so.
J What happened after your second year?
H I changed altogether and I was doing an ordinary degree. I filled up with English and Logic which I liked and I eventually got an Ordinary degree in thirty two. Then the question was what was I going to do next. I didn't want to teach and in the back of my mind knowing what I'm like now I should have been studying languages because I like languages. But I didn't know that then because in school I was put in the Maths and Science class and Latin. So I decided to do Law. The awful snag about Law was that in order to study Law you also had to take a Law apprenticeship. Mr Bower who is here too, he and I were both in the same boat, because we couldn't get anyone to take us on as apprentices. I got stuck in conveyancing for a whole year and was late in graduating there. Eventually I got an office with a lot of rummaging about and I qualified. After that I went to work in Glasgow and in Coatbridge on a very low salary and the war came. That really was the making of me. But the university itself …
J In what sense?
H I felt different. After the war I went into the fiscal service and found it was something I could do because I was good in court. I was like a jury man, I could do all that sort of thing.
J Do you think that this could have been anticipated had you had better guidance when you were at school?
H I've no idea. I always wanted to act you see, that's what I like to do.
J Did you act at college?
H Yes.
J You were one of the Dramatic Society?
H We used to do play readings too.
J Play readings to an audience?
H We did Restoration plays, that sort of thing, just for the sheer pleasure of reading them.
J Was this to an audience?
H No. To ourselves. In a funny little place in George Street upstairs called the Studio where we run out of pennies for the gas meter and things like that.
J Was this part of the Dramatic Society's activities?
H Partly, that sort of thing, yes.
J What about the plays that you put on?
H That was much further down the list. The big play we did when I was there was Hassan by James Elroy Flecker. None of the cast is here, none of the cast has turned up and some of them were terribly good. I wasn't good I was pedestrian actually but I had a hard neck, I was fit for anything. Then we did the Theatre shows. The first year I had a low profile, the second year I was in the university Theatre show, and the third year I was in the university Theatre show and we liked that. To crown it all, two of us, when there was a touring company called the Masked Theatre Players two of us helped out in Hamlet and we did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with professionals. It was wonderful. But my parents didn't think much of it. But I wasted far too much time bothering with these things really. I didn't know what study was, I never really understood the business of study. I should have talked about it to somebody.
J This was a lack of guidance here?
H Sure of it.
J Did you have any adviser, regent?
H None at all. Not until I went to Law and our Law professor was MacKenzie Stewart who died rather young. He was an awfully nice man, he did help me. He gave advice but until then I got no advice or help from anybody.
J What about your living conditions, did you have relatives?
H I came up in 1929 and I got digs at twenty five shillings a week in Rosemount. We got four meals a day, breakfast, lunch, high tea and supper. We never ate anywhere else, we never ate out or anything like that. My pocket money was half a crown per week and it was that for the whole three years and I'd no money to spend on anything.
J How did you manage?
H We did, we had to manage. At the beginning of term I used to have a little extra money, people gave us some extra money, maybe a pound or two to keep you going from the beginning. My actual income was a postal order came every Saturday morning for half a crown and that was enough. I never took the tram. I used to go with the Open Air Club, used to go climb the hills but it was only a shilling return to Banchory to get into the hills. It was a penny for a cup of tea in the Pavilion round the back of King's, in the morning in between lectures when I could afford it. I couldn't afford to join the Union for example. That was ten shillings but the extra things would have been far too expensive.
J What about getting from Marischal to King's?
H I walked.
J You would walk.
H I walk in the morning. Tonight I walked up Sunnyside. We left Rosemount, we had a shortcut down through the old Cooperative, down into Sunnybank Road somehow, across and down here. Finished at five to one, walked back to Rosemount, there at quarter past, had our lunch, walked down to Marischal for two o'clock in the afternoon. I was in Marischal in the afternoon at 2 o'clock and we never failed we were never late and it worked perfectly well. We never thought anything of it. That was the great thing. I was talking to Helena Mennie about it just now and she agreed with me that the whole thing was we had nothing to indulge ourselves with at all.
J Was your position fairly typical do you think, were you aware of other students being richer than you?
H I used to think the Highlands and Islands people were.
J Were richer?
H I think they had more money. I got a county grant of £32. I got a small bursary from the bursary competition, I forget, not very much, about £20 a year or something like that and that was the lot. My father wouldn't apply for the Carnegie Trust because you had to disclose your income and he wouldn't do it.
J So he had to pay your fees?
H Well he had to help anyway.
J So the county grant was partly for the fees.
H The county grant was partly for the fees and my digs had to be paid, that was £60 a year. I could never get any jobs in the summer because there was nothing much I could do that was available except beating in the shooting season. I did some government censuses. I was counting the cars and they wanted to test how many cars were using a road, that sort of thing. There was no money and that was the awful difficulty. I never had a dinner jacket or anything like that, I mean good heavens I couldn't go to dances or anything.
J But if you wanted to take a girl out?
H One did sometimes on the money one had at the beginning of term but that was that. One didn't have that kind of intercourse with the girls. Occasionally you would go to a dance but that was all the length you would get. That was the awful thing.
J The students who did have more money did that mean they led a very different kind of life?
H I don't know that they did. A lot more drinking went on. I don't suppose in my whole time at the university I drank more than two half pints of beer and I never missed it of course. I felt at a loss. I always felt I was just not able to afford things.
J What about after you had graduated with your Arts degree and when you had an apprenticeship?
H I got ten bob a week for that.
J So the situation improved a bit?
H But there was no grant then of course. Ten bob a week, £26 a year is not much. Until I got a job and that was in Glasgow, that was very lowly paid but I could live on it.
J When you were still here as a student, you say you didn't always work in your vacations, did you actually go home?
H Always went home. There was no work here in vacation. You must remember we were all separate units. If you walked down one of the streets in Rosemount whistling Gaudie half the windows would open at night, as a joke you walked down Watson Street and whistled Gaudeamus.
J Because they were all full of students?
H Yes. Mostly girls of course, but that was one of the things.
J Why mostly girls?
H I don't know why. They responded to whistles. There's something else I want to say, I don't know whether it's appropriate or not. First year students, those who had made a name for themselves already or earlier, especially athletics types and so on were taken over by the second year students on one special day and they used to be tarred and feathered or treacle was put on their hair and feathers put on and they were forced to take pretend doses of caster oil and what not. It was really quite rough. I don't know if they do that now?
J No they don't.
H I kept a very low profile to begin with.
J So you didn't participate in this on either side?
H No. I didn't care for that kind of thing.
J Apart from the Dramatic Society did you have …
H Yes I went to the Open Air Club. I wasn't an athletic person. I was always a member of the Scientific Society. I suppose I was a member of some other society.
J Who took the Scientific Society?
H We had lectures every week, they were very interesting. I loved all that. That cost a shilling.
J Where did these things happen, the Dramatic Society, where did you meet?
H The Dramatic Society we rehearsed usually, I can't remember where we rehearsed, I think we used the Debater quite a lot for rehearsing, that was underneath Marischal.
J Where did you put on your performances?
H In the Debater. I was also in the Debating Society and was Secretary for a while.
J The Debater was under Marischal you say?
H Under Marischal yes. None of my friends who were at The Debater are here tonight, I don't understand it. They've all vanished. It was a wonderful thing, we used to go there on a Friday night to The Debater, the Society was usually at 5 o'clock and The Debater was later at 8 o'clock in this huge place with a gallery all round and anybody could speak, anybody could join in the debate. It was a great thing. Nearly all men of course, some women came but it was nearly all men. It was a jolly good evening and all good clean fun mind you. Very serious.
J What sort of issues did you debate?
H I can't remember at all.
J Were you very politically aware?
H Not at all. No politics at all.
J Do you think that was a good or a bad thing?
H Good. Politics should take no part in the university, completely away from politics. The job I got after the war was such that I didn't require to have anything to do with politics nor even appear to be aware of politics as a procurator fiscal and no politics ever came across. I've been all my life, though I should have been a Liberal I've been a conservative all my life, and nothing to do with whose in power or anything at all. I'm Conservative and that's that.
J You didn't feel anything was missing at all there?
H None at all.
J What about rectorial elections, was that very much a matter of local politics?
H When I arrived there was a man called Sir Arthur Keith, a very famous anthropologist. I arrived in time to hear him giving his rectorial address and I was still there when they elected the following one and I supported G K Chesterton with some great success actually. I was considered quite a speaker but unfortunately someone else was selected, but who it was I can't remember. Terrible isn't it, can't remember who it was.
J Was G K Chesterton disappointed?
H I couldn't say, I never met him, he never came. He was always done at a distance. These people had some standing. They weren't some sort of music hall person.
J But if you didn't meet him was it not rather difficult to campaign for him?
H Well I can't remember now, there must have been somebody met him, but I wasn't one of the ones who met him.
J But would you campaign on particular issues that the Rector will do this or that?
H I don't think so, purely personality. Politics didn't enter our heads.
J What about the depression?
H Thing's were very depressed. My father was regularly working, he was a roads surveyor in Ross & Cromarty, but depression was very rife at the time, so much so that a lot of my friends who took ordinary degrees and became teachers went to England to teach because of the lack of work.
J Was it very much a concern amongst undergraduates that they might not easily get work?
H No it wasn't. No-one ever thought of it, no-one ever spoke of it. All my friends got jobs, some of them got very good jobs, some of them were very clever. I mix with the most clever people. All my friends were distinguished graduates.
J Did you keep up contacts with them?
H I never did, terrible.
J What about with Aberdeen itself, have you maintained any?
H I come up, my son lives in Methlick at the moment. He flies a helicopter out in the oil rigs.
J Have any of the rest of your family come to the university since?
H No. I've only one son. No connection at all.
J Do you think in retrospect …
H I thought it was good.
J You thought it was good.
H On the other hand I thought it was bad. It was difficult to know. There were times when I was on a great high and enjoying myself, but other times I had great periods of depression of not getting anywhere. And the awful thing was that after I qualified so many of my friends had good jobs and they were excellent jobs and I was just scraping the barrel until the war began. Then I was alright I got a commission in the war and then after the war I joined the fiscal service and there was no trouble from there on.
J Do you think that students who went to other universities may have had different experiences?
H I don't know. Most of my friends who went to other universities either lectured or taught - that kind of thing. The chaps whom I knew were at St Andrews particularly and Glasgow.
J But you have no regrets about having picked Aberdeen rather than …
H None at all. In retrospect it was great, and at times I shiver and I think how on earth I managed.
J What about relations with the town itself?
H I was just talking about that with Helen Mennie. You've met her have you?
J No I haven't.
H She's a terribly distinguished person. She was a wonderful first class Honours English. She's been in Cambridge since the 1920's. She went to Cambridge and never left Cambridge. She is a trustee of Robinson's College the new college that is put there and she really knows what she's talking about. We were talking together, I mean I can talk to her alright although she's still academically much more brilliant than I am but we agreed that in those days bands of students could wander around the town together without arousing any public dismay or surprise and people said 'it's these students again' and no-one worried about the students. Relations with everybody were good. There was none of this what appears to be agitation going on nor in my recollection did any political person every attempt to address us.
J Were you easily identifiable as students, did you wear a toga?
H I did some of the time but not all of the time.
J Was it something that most students did?
H No, very few. I was in the SRC of course. I did everything.
J Did you hold office in the SRC?
H No. I was just a member of the SRC. I was second year Arts representative and I was in the general pool for the whole university in the third year but when it came to the bit when I would like to have to go to places or to attend functions, I didn't go. I had no funds, I had nothing, I had no clothes, I couldn't do these sort of things. It was just not on. You wouldn't have need very much, a little, but whether my work would have done any better of course I don't know. But I would have liked to have discussed, I'm a discusser, I would have liked to have discussed things with people. I would have liked to have said "look I don't understand this, tell me what it is" and they would tell me.
J And there was no possibility of that all?
H None at all, unless I got a hold of some older student but they were all far too busy with their own work.
J Where did you work?
H In my digs.
J Not in the library? Did you use the library much?
H Not really.
J Did you work largely from your lecture notes?
H From my notes. Any reference I had to make I could make in the reference library in the city.
J So you'd use that?
H The university library I used to go to fill in time between lectures but I never used it.
J What about books for yourself, was that a burdensome expense?
H I had to buy one or two books. I used to buy them second hand. I got a little extra for that.
J That was a regular thing that students would hand down their books?
H Yes. I bought a heap of Logic and I bought one or two books on mathematics which I didn't understand. I can't remember much else. I always remember as my scientific subject in the first year I took an extra subject, I took Geology. We had a Professor Gibb. What an excellent man he was, he looked like King George V and he wore a beard. He always said "Gentlemen. Of course gentlemen embrace the ladies." He had been making that joke for years and years, so much so that a friend of mine used his father's notes in the same class with Professor Gibb. I will always remember Professor Gibb he was a courtly, very very gentlemanly lecturer. I'm sure he knew his stuff but Geology takes a million years to grow, and it was a million years before he changed his lecture notes.
J Did you ever have practical work?
H Yes.
J Did you go on field trips?
H We did a field trip yes. Just up the Dee or something in the afternoon, we didn't do much in detail it was only a one term subject. My best subject in university believe it or not was Forensic Medicine.
J Why on earth did you do Forensic Medicine?
H Because it was Law you see.
J Of course and who took that?
H Richards was the name of the man. It was very valuable to me later. I did proper legal work in the army and also afterwards being a procurator fiscal I did every murder in Glasgow except one from 1952 to 1960. So I knew a lot more about murder and sudden death and that sort of thing.
J You felt you were well prepared after this?
H Well prepared in that because I studied that, I really liked it. I could see so little point in some of the other things but I suppose it all helped.
J When you were doing a subject like that which was a professional subject surely it would have been easier to ask questions and have things explained?
H No I didn't need to ask questions I had the books. Excellent books. Marischal had a whole legal library which was terribly worthwhile That was a good library. Marischal College legal library was very good. I spent a lot of time there.
J When you were doing your LLB you would have used the law library.
H Funnily enough to do an LLB in Scots Law we had to attend a tutorial and I thought we would sit around and chatter. Not a bit of it. A very erudite gentleman whose name was Marshall, an awfully nice man, he lectured us on the Companies Act and he just read the Companies Act to us. That wasn't a tutorial. It was an apology for a tutorial. It wasn't his fault
J That must have happened once but did it happen …?
H The Company's Act is a very long Act, it goes on and on and on. You've got to know an awful lot about it.
J So you would come back the next week and have more of the Companies Act?
H Yes. That was pretty well all I can remember of his class.
J That was billed as a tutorial?
H Yes. That was what was called a tutorial.
J Do you have anything else on your list? We're probably just about to run out of time but if you have anything else?
H I found that it was the people that I liked and the doing things. The acting I loved.
J Who came to your shows?
H Students and members of the public.
J Members of the public?
H Yes.
J What about members of staff?
H I don't know. The members of staff they were on a different planet. Are you a member of staff?
J Well I suppose so yes, not academic.
H Don't you see it's quite different.
J Yes it is very different.
H I'm talking about 1929, it's quite different.
J What about student publications? Alma Mater that was still going?
H Yes. It was a very formal magazine, very well edited.
J And Gaudie?
H Gaudie came when I was at university. The thing that I feel about it is that all students can belong to the Union, it's part of the fee isn't it? Well you see we didn't. But the Debating Society was always held in the Union.
END OF INTERVIEW
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