The University Experience oral history collection is a fascinating set of interviews conducted between 2002 and 2003 by Neil Rafeek and Hilary Young, both researchers in the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, with members of academic and support staff and students who were at the University of Strathclyde and/or its antecedent colleges during the period of post-war education. A good cross-section of staff and students, both men and women, were recruited in order to capture the widest possible range of experience. Staff interviewees include cleaners, administrative staff, and professors, and students studying engineering, science and the arts are all represented. The interviews were subsequently used as material for the book ‘The University Experience 1945-1975: An Oral History of the University of Strathclyde’ by Callum G. Brown, Arthur J. McIvor and Neil Rafeek (2004).

Subjects discussed are wide-ranging. Attitudes to the move to University status in 1964 following the merger of the Royal College of Science and Technology and the Scottish College of Commerce is a frequent theme, as is the relationship, even rivalry, between the older University of Glasgow and the new University of Strathclyde. Teaching, lectures, labs, course development, research, computing facilities, campus buildings, women, student and staff social life, and the college and university community are also frequently discussed topics. Life at the Royal Technical College during the Second World War also features in interviews with some of the older participants.

The subject matter is not restricted to the history of the University however, but also includes broader topics such as family and class backgrounds, school, apprenticeships and employment outside the University, the City of Glasgow, politics, racism, sectarianism, class attitudes, gay rights, poverty, alcohol and drug addiction, housing and homelessness. There are also two interviews (ref: SOHC 12/18 and SOHC 12/32) which describe very graphically the interviewees’ experiences in the armed forces during the Second World War.

This guide presents some sound clips and extracts from the interviews to give a flavour of the remarkable variety of topics under discussion.

“…the people who were advocating that we should be taking up the issue of gay rights or equality for homosexuals, as it then was, had to explain ‘why’, they had to put a case for it. And we [the Labour Club and Socialist Society] listened to the case and thought ‘Aye, right enough’. And one of the things, I still use it to this day, that sank into my mind was the guy, to my shame I don’t know who he was, who said ‘Look, we’re taking up all this stuff about what’s happening in Chile and the miners, and death in Vietnam, but why should we condemn people for how they love each other, rather than condemn people for hating each other?’ And I thought ‘Right enough, aye, aye.’ And I’d never thought about that before, but again, it was partly because, to the best of my knowledge, I had never met anyone who was gay, but then you wouldn’t because they wouldn't tell you, you know. Up to that point it was like you were talking about someone from another planet, it was only, you know, later on I discovered that a number of my school pals and so on, you know, as it turned out, were gay but nobody would ever have come out at that time.”

Bill Speirs, Politics student, 1970s, and member of the Socialist Society and Labour Club

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/43)

"We felt we had this particular role to appeal to new groups of students, and of course the whole institution had a long tradition of mature students and at that time, I mean, a lot of these people, and it increased in the '70s, were people coming from the shipyards, a lot of them had been active in trade unions. The trade unions were actually giving them money to go and get degrees so we had a lot of very bright, very able people who were self-taught and it made for lively tutorials. Tutorials where you basically sweated that really you knew less than some of the students."

Professor Hamish Fraser, Department of Economic History, from 1960

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/2)

Pat Fraser: "You know if you think nowadays, you didn't wear trousers, trousers were out of the question, we'd on trousers, we were ahead of ourselves, but never as students. We went hostelling and we had trousers. I mean ah borrowed my sister’s; I didn't have any. And maybe you borrowed them? I can't remember. But you wouldn't wear trousers as a student. Everybody had dark skirts and I suppose a sweater really.”

Elizabeth McCudden: “A blouse and a cardigan.”

Pat Fraser: “A blouse and a cardigan.”

Elizabeth McCudden: “We dressed like our mothers!"

Pat Fraser and Elizabeth McCudden, Pharmacy students, 1950s

(Archive reference: SOHC12/16)

“Just that these people always came in early and everybody just knew each other.  It used to be even though they came in early the kettle was on for them, you know ‘thanks very much’.  I mean I felt that years ago with Sammy Curran.  Sammy Curran was, to me, my own personal opinion, was the best Principal this university had.  He would come in the Royal College and stand there and speak to the cleaners ‘What did you think of the television last night?’ , you know, I mean he came in , his office was in the Royal College, that’s where Senate Court and that all used to be, in the Royal College, and he would come in there and speak to, even all the workmen, he spoke to everybody, I mean he did, Sammy.  My own personal…, I think Sammy Curran was the best Principal. I do, do you no’…?”

Nan Stevenson, cleaner at the University, from 1960s

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/14)

“It was difficult [after the War], I had to go and live down in Largs for a while in a summer letting house and that was during the winter which meant getting up in the morning and coming into here, and getting back again at night and having to look for fuel because you couldn’t get coal, if you hadn’t stocked up during the summer there’d be none for the winter and with two kids, you always had to beg coal from the, or coke, from the gas works, and pick up bit of wood along the foreshore and fill the pram with it- oh aye, it was a desperate time just after the war.”

Stanley Tweddle, attended evening classes at the Royal College, 1930s, and rejoined as a student 1940s-50s

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/15)

"I went on to join the women’s club with a lecturer from Economics, Terry Wanless. That was set up in the early days of the University by professors’ wives who were worried about the very, very few women lecturers who were around. And the professors’ wives were educated women themselves, some of them worked in, you know, very good jobs but again, they would get married and they wouldn’t stay necessarily in their jobs and that, that had day trips out and places to go and visit. I remember going down to the, now where was it? Down to the Green, you know the People’s Palace, that was an outing from them and they would bring in little sandwiches and cakes and so on…”

Ann Mair, first Computing Officer in the Department of Politics, from 1970s

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/21)

“…in the Fifties and Sixties, your neighbours used to be very racist. Your Scottish neighbours I mean. If we were cooking and your windows were open your doors would be banged: ‘close the bloody window, we can’t stand this terrible smell of your cooking’, you know. Some people got some records from India and Pakistan and if they played records: ‘Put it off, this bloody music you are playing’ and things like that. But the funny thing is that the main objection to having a Pakistani or Asian neighbour at that time, to the Scottish people, was the smell of their cooking we have to live with and now that smell has become so popular. You see, this is what I always say is, that it’s the ignorance which breeds prejudice and which breeds racism. Once you get to know people then everything’s fine.”

Bashir Maan, studied Textile Chemistry and Accountancy, 1950s

(Archive reference: SOHC 12/31)