Out of the Burning House : Political Socialization in the Age of Affluence [1 ed.] 9781443830478, 9781443828581

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Out of the Burning House

Out of the Burning House: Political Socialization in the Age of Affluence

By

Sandy Hobbs and Willie Thompson

Out of the Burning House: Political Socialization in the Age of Affluence, by Sandy Hobbs and Willie Thompson This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Sandy Hobbs and Willie Thompson All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2858-0, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2858-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Chapter One................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 11 Aberdeen and its University Timeline..................................................................................................... 17 Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 21 My Background: Sandy Hobbs Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 35 My Background: Willie Thompson Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 45 University Years: Sandy Hobbs Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 65 University Years: Willie Thompson Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 83 Woodside By-Election and After: Willie Thompson Chapter Eight............................................................................................. 91 Different Roads: Sandy Hobbs Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 97 Reflections: Sandy Hobbs Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 103 Reflections: Willie Thompson

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 113 The General and the Particular Appendix A ............................................................................................. 119 The Social Sciences in the Contemporary World Appendix B.............................................................................................. 125 Anouilh’s Antigone Appendix C.............................................................................................. 129 Woman or Person? Appendix D ............................................................................................. 135 The Deceivers: An Analysis on Moral Rearmament Appendix E.............................................................................................. 137 Is Behaviorism a Humanism? Appendix F .............................................................................................. 145 Archives and Resources Bibliography ............................................................................................ 147 Notes........................................................................................................ 153 Index........................................................................................................ 159

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many friends provided us with support, encouragement and advice while we were writing this book. We hope they will be understanding if we single out only one for mention, Douglas Bain, socialist and psychologist, friend and comrade, who died as it was almost completed. We also wish to record our thanks to Kevin Hobbs, for his work in preparing the manuscript for publication. Thanks are also due to Amanda Millar and her colleagues at Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

In the third issue of The New Reasoner, the socialist journal founded by Edward Thompson and John Saville when they left the Communist Party, there appeared a translation of a poem by Bertolt Brecht1. Brecht relates how Gothama the Buddha answered pupils who asked questions about Nirvana with a parable of men who, when told that their house was on fire, asked if it was raining outside and if there was another house they could go to. One reader attracted by this poem was Sandy Hobbs, co-author of this book, who at the time was eager for change and involved in left-wing politics. He was struck by Brecht’s use of this a metaphor for political discussion and quoted it often. Seeing the need for a new society, like Brecht he was impatient with those who asked what “savings books and Sunday suits” would be like in that society. It was to crop up in discussions with Willie Thompson, the other author of this book, when their political paths began to separate. The authors of this book met as students at Aberdeen University in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They shared, and continue to share, a deep commitment to socialism. They remain friends, even although over the years they have expressed that commitment in different ways. They both believe that, although they were socialists before attending university, their years there had a major influence on how they conducted the rest of their lives. In this book they look at how their student experiences impacted on them. The accumulated years they spent at university cover roughly the period dealt with by Dominick Sandbrook’s book Never Had It So Good2. He characterizes it as “from Suez to the Beatles”. Despite his claim to the contrary in his introduction, Sandbrook’s book is essentially about politics seen from the centre of affairs. It is London-centred, often indeed Westminster-centred. In contrast, our aim is to depict events as experienced in a place which at the time seemed quite far from the centre of big events, be they political, social, cultural or industrial, in the era of Macmillan’s “never had it so good”. North Sea Oil had not yet been discovered and Aberdeen had not reached the national significance it was later to attain.

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CHAPTER ONE

Although some of the book is written autobiographically, it is not what is conventionally thought of as an autobiography. There are two equal authors (not a celebrity and a ghost). What we have written has some features in common with oral history. Although neither of us has been interviewed as would be the case with informants of the oral historian, each has responded to questions raised by the other about drafts we have written. We have interpreted politics very broadly, essentially because we believe that other aspects of society cannot be separated from politics. After our student days we have both followed academic careers, although in different areas, history and psychology. It may be that the contrasting preoccupations of these disciplines will have contributed to our understanding both of our own development and the wider processes in society and politics. A student does not enter university as a tabula rasa. In our cases, we were already predisposed towards the politics of the left. For that reason we have each written a chapter on our lives up to the point that we entered Aberdeen University. Insofar as these pages are autobiographical, they may raise the potentially embarrassing question of whether our lives have been important enough to merit such treatment. When around 1970 the young Theresa Hayter published her autobiography Hayter of the Bourgeoisie (the pun must have been irresistible), her left wing friends mocked her mercilessly. They pointed out that even Trotsky, for all his achievements, had felt diffident about writing an autobiography, since he repudiated any celebration of his own personality. Though they had a valid case, our answer is simple. The rationale of the book is different from one in which the development of someone of obvious achievements seeks to explain his or her own life. Neither of us would wish to suggest that the recital of our life stories in the conventional sense would be of interest to a wider readership. We have referred to our experiences so far as we believe they reflect upon wider developments and trends, illuminating the large through the small. Like E. P. Thompson, we believe that history is not just about the powerful and although we do not pretend to be as neglected as the poor stockinger to whose view of affairs Thompson famously sought to give a fair hearing3, we are self consciously acknowledging our position on the periphery of the politics of the time. This is not a rejoinder to Sandbrook’s Never Had It So Good. However, we hope that in providing some details on our political development in Aberdeen at the time, we help to create a more nuanced picture of the period than emerges in his book. Both of the authors see their lives as showing the influence of their time as students in Aberdeen. However, we

INTRODUCTION

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do not suggest that this operated in a crude deterministic way. The fact that we have both made our living as academics, engaged in teaching and research, was obviously made possible by our education in Aberdeen University. As students we were part of a small elite who went to university in Britain. Soon after we graduated higher education began to expand, which meant that people of our educational background were likely to be drawn into universities and colleges as teachers. We cannot ascribe our shared life-long commitment to socialism to Aberdeen’s influence but our experiences at the university probably had a big impact on the particular forms that commitment took. By this we mean not simply the academic courses we followed, psychology and history respectively, but also the people we met and the political experiences we underwent while students. Willie studied history and became a professional historian, but the Marxism which was to characterize both his political activism and his academic writing played little part in the teaching of the subject in Aberdeen at that time. Thus the sources of that side of his intellectual development must be sought elsewhere. Sandy’s studies as a psychologist brought him into contact with Behaviourism4, an intellectual tradition of which most people on the left knew little. Insofar as Behaviourism coloured his worldview, it may have made him less willing than he might otherwise have been to accept some of the common assumptions of his colleagues on the left. There are certain striking differences between the world today and the world half a century ago. Some of these might have been predicted. Others have taken us by surprise. If we lacked foresight, we can only claim that we have not been alone in failing to predict some of the ways in which the world would develop. Nationalism: While we were students, we came across nationalist ideas, but considered that they were trivial in comparison to socialism. Scottish Nationalism was politically weak at the time. It did not hold a single parliamentary seat. Fifty years on, Scotland has a parliament and is governed by the Scottish National Party, albeit one without a parliamentary majority. This change is indeed a striking one but even more striking has been the power of nationalism worldwide. Yugoslavia is a much more significant case history in this respect than Scotland. Religion: Both of us had rejected religion well before becoming university students. Our basic reason was the same. We just could not believe the claims of religion to be true. On the whole we saw religion as the enemy of progress. Our primary image of religion was the Christianity which seemed to dominate the Scotland of our childhood. Sandy, for a time, was actively involved in the secular humanist movement, but

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CHAPTER ONE

eventually became only a passive supporter. We probably both agreed that, whatever the faults of religion, capitalism was a much more dangerous force. The advocates of Christianity whom we met seldom impressed us with their intellectual powers and this probably encouraged us to believe that we were living in an age in which religious belief would gradually weaken and wither. From the perspective of the early 21st century this may seem a particularly naive point of view. Fundamentalist religion, both Christian and Islamic, is extremely powerful in the world today. Contemporary Russia, amongst other things, shows how unsuccessful were the attempts by the Soviet Union in its campaign to facilitate the withering of religious belief. Our fundamental misjudgment was to overlook the fact that religions take their strength from irrational forces. The intellectual limitations we noted in the spokesmen for religion were not necessarily signs of their ultimate failure. Science: The status of science today is probably linked to that of religion. Although there are some exceptions, on the whole religious belief is a barrier to scientific enquiry. It has been no surprise to us that science has made enormous progress in the last fifty years. However, even greater progress might have been made if respect for the methods of science had not been limited by the irrational beliefs to be found amongst the adherents of all religions, including the so called “New Age” variety. Feminism: The modern Women’s Movement is generally thought of as beginning in the late 1960s. Thus it is hardly surprising that feminist issues were not central concerns for politically aware students in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That they had any significance at all is perhaps something which is worth noting. It will be seen that we were confronting feminist issues before there was any sense that feminism existed as a movement. Here is an example of where an examination of the local will throw up trends that a “national” perspective might overlook. Capitalism: One aspect of the world that has not changed is the supremacy of capitalism. Needless to say, this is a matter of great regret to us, and evidence of the failure of the community of socialists to which we have belonged. Capitalism has seen the world economy grow enormously, but injustice and exploitation still exist on utterly unacceptable scale. Capitalism seems incapable of allowing the growth of the liberty, equality and fraternity which the French revolutionaries proclaimed as their goals. We see no reason not to continue to seek these goals. However, since successes so far have been so limited, a constant re-examination of how socialist ideas and strategies are formulated is necessary. This book offers a look at how the approaches of two minor socialists developed. We hope

INTRODUCTION

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it may contribute in some small way to an understanding of how past failures may be avoided. Since this is a book about political socialization, the interpretation of the events and actions described would be greatly assisted by having some knowledge of the outcome, in other words, what happened to the two people who are the central focus of the book. When reading about the youth of a celebrated figure, we may interpret the early life in the light of what we know of the later life. As we have said, we do not consider ourselves particularly well known outside quite small circles of acquaintances, so we thought it might help the reader if we were to give a short introductory account of our later careers.

Willie Thompson After completing the training for secondary schoolteachers at Jordanhill College of Education, I worked for two years in that capacity in Glasgow schools, but found that occupation failed to suit my temperament. Therefore, following a brief period employed by the Scotland-USSR Friendship Society, I entered Strathclyde University to pursue research for a PhD in economic history, which I completed in 1970, having the previous year been appointed to an Assistant Lectureship in Wigan Technical College, or, to give it its full title, The Wigan and District Mining and Technical College. An interesting sidelight on the period in Wigan is that I was elected secretary of the further education union branch, then the ATTI (Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions). However, in 1970, after the campaign against Barbara Castle’s intended union legislation, at the best-attended branch AGM ever, I was overwhelmingly voted out for too publicly supporting that campaign. In addition I was rebuked by the Principal for a reader’s letter in the local paper on the death of Les Cannon, the anti-communist leader of the electricians’ union, who lived in Wigan. The Principal even issued a press notice declaring that the College was in no way responsible. I also helped to produce an anonymous leaflet attacking Joe Gormley (whose local ground was the Wigan area) when he was being opposed by Mick McGahey in 1970 for the presidency of the NUM, over which Gormley threatened legal action if he ever discovered who was responsible. In 1971, with the opening of the Glasgow College of Technology as a polytechnic-type institution I secured an appointment there to teach history and remained working in that institution through its changes of name and status, eventually to Glasgow Caledonian University, until retirement in

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2001. The institution gained a somewhat unenviable reputation for the fact that its first three heads were forced out during the eighties and nineties by crises which resulted in their resignation, the first voluntary, the second coerced and the third by sacking. From joining the Communist Party towards the end of 1962, I remained an active member (during the first three years mainly with the Young Communist League) until the party disbanded itself in 1991. At the time we joined, the CP was repairing – numerically at least – the drastic loss in membership it had suffered in the crisis of 1956-57, and by the middle of the decade had recovered them, but thereafter the membership figures went into steady decline, at first slowly, then continuously accelerating. This was despite specific and sometimes quite significant successes, such as leadership of the UCS work-in and participation in the direction of the miners’ strikes of 1972 and 1974. In addition, the area I was directly involved in during my time as a postgraduate student, the communist student organisation, made considerable advances in both numbers and presence on university and college campuses, and was successful in gaining a leading role in the student unions both in England and Scotland. During the seventies my main Party responsibility was editing an irregular publication, Scottish Marxist, and I was also persuaded towards the end of that decade, to take on the editorship of the monthly newspaper of the Scottish Old Age Pensions Association, Scottish Pensioner. I used to joke that I was getting my old age over with early, but one of the things which astonished me was the degree of personality conflicts, infighting and factionalism within this elderly collective. SOAPA was virtually a Party fief, for, having been set up by the veteran communist miner Abe Moffat, it was supported by the Scottish NUM, which at that time was dominated by communists – though the party was careful to ensure that it kept itself in the background and the Association was fronted by suitably respectable labour movement figures. Subsequently in the mid-eighties I was the Scottish member of the editorial board of the controversial CP monthly Marxism Today, edited by Martin Jacques, which evoked a lot of opposition from its opponents within the party – then in a state of severe division. The journal’s critics accusing it of undermining the party’s working class credentials with its bourgeois-intellectual approach and commissioning of articles from anti-socialist authors such as Michael Heseltine. I also in this decade became closely involved with the CP’s History Group, which following the party’s disbandment converted itself into the Socialist History Society. I’ve continued since in that role. In addition, in

INTRODUCTION

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1992 I published a historical sketch of the history of the British Communist Party from foundation to demise. Since the early 1990s, I have published a number of books, the titles of which will indicate my interests. The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1990-19915, Glasgow Caledonian University: Its Origins and Evolution (with Carole McCallum)6, Postmodernism and History7 and Ideologies in the Age of Extremes: Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism and Fascism8.

Sandy Hobbs During the 1960s, I spent relatively short periods either teaching or researching at Queen’s College, Dundee (later the University of Dundee), the University of Strathclyde, and Edinburgh College of Commerce (later Napier University). Academically, I did not particularly enjoy my time there and I doubt if an impartial outsider would consider my work there of any particular merit. I had not been keen to leave Aberdeen when I took up the post of “Assistant” in Dundee, but it was probably valuable in the long run to broaden my horizons. I formed a number of long standing friendships there and, through my involvement in CND, got to know the cartoonist, Leo Baxendale. I wrote some scripts for his new comic Wham! and for a time considered the possibility of making that my full-time occupation9. Although I think I was not likely to have made much of a success of that, I was always glad to have had that insider experience of working in popular culture. My move to Glasgow coincided with the beginning of a Labour Government led by Harold Wilson. For several years I worked in the Labour Party but became progressively more and more disillusioned with it. Norman Buchan, whom I had met through the New Left, became a member of the government and our friendship made it hard for me to give up on the Party, but eventually I did. For a short time I was a member of the International Socialists, forerunner of the Socialist Worker Party, but found the atmosphere of that organization uncongenial. I achieved much more satisfaction working on the small, short-lived independent newspaper, Glasgow News. It was a time when awareness of health and safety issues in the workplace was gradually building and my contribution was to write a column as “Job Spy”10. By that time I had joined the Psychology Department of Jordanhill College of Education and was pleasantly surprised to find myself in an environment where I could be more effectively involved in research. Furthermore, I was able to collaborate with two fellow behaviourists. First,

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CHAPTER ONE

I was part of a team studying primary school pupils of Pakistani origin. This resulted in the book The Immigrant School Learner11. This work was followed by the Classroom Interaction Project, which involved the then fashionable technique of classroom observation. More important to me, however, was the fact that I was now able to adopt the stance of radical behaviourism which I had come to believe is the main hope for a scientific psychology. We cannot claim to have had the impact on primary school teaching methods that we had intended, but we published some papers which I felt honestly represented my standpoint12. While at Jordanhill I initiated research areas which I continued to explore when I moved to Paisley. Virtually everything that my collaborator, David Cornwell, and I wrote was either explicitly or implicitly behaviourist in orientation. Much of it could be considered to be in the field of the social psychology of knowledge. Sometimes we were concerned with folklore such as urban legends, jokes and children’s panic, but we also looked critically at out fellow psychologists. We found that some psychology differed little from folklore13. In 1975, I made another move, this time to lecture at Paisley College of Technology. For a period in the early 1980s it looked as if I might have to make another move, because a minister in the Conservative government decided he would like to close down the teaching of social sciences at the college, which was then directly answerable to the Scottish Office. We fought a successful campaign to resist his plans and social sciences steadily grew as the institution expanded. Going to Paisley turned out to be my final move as I continue my connection with that institution to the present. It is now part of the University of the West of Scotland. Although I retired as from teaching in 2002, I am now an honorary research fellow there. During these years my main fields of research have been Contemporary Legend and Child Labour. The similarity of the initials sometimes leads to filing problems! I had first written about contemporary legends in the 1960s but there was hardly any academic interest in such an apparently trivial subject and I maintained my interest essentially as a hobby. However, in the early 1980s I became aware that it was developing as a recognizable field of study. Thanks to the books of Jan Harold Brunvand14, public awareness of these stories grew rapidly. Thanks to the organizational effort of Paul Smith and Gillian Bennett a series of international conferences began to be held, resulting in the formation of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. I was an enthusiastic participant in these developments and found these scholars provided a remarkably congenial academic ambience.

INTRODUCTION

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I might have found myself specialising almost exclusively in this field had it not been an initially chance development arising out of my interest in the social psychology of knowledge. A basic question I asked was apparently simple. Since child labour is so common around the world, why are there hardly any psychologists studying it? David Cornwell and I wrote a conference paper on this, which was eventually published in the International Journal of Psychology15. This might have been the end of the matter had it not been for a chance meeting in the streets of Aberdeen with a former student of mine, the sociologist Michael Lavalette. He expressed an interest in undertaking post-graduate research and I suggested child employment as a topic. We soon discovered that, although many politicians denied the existence of any problem, there were some people campaigning for stricter protection of young workers. Thus our first short book on the subject, The Hidden Workforce, was published by the Scottish Low Pay Unit16. We soon found ourselves in regular contact with politicians, most of whose interest lasted only briefly until they moved on to some other issue. Our research was predominantly concerned with Britain, but my colleague Jim McKechnie and I soon found ourselves collaborating with international scholars and campaigners. We were invited to compile the final report of the International Working Group on Child Labour17. Research in this area is interdisciplinary so it is not surprising that our academic articles have appeared more frequently in journals of Social Policy than of Psychology. Another result of the breadth of approaches that we have encountered and adopted was our invitation to write the World History Companion to Child Labor18. We have constantly struggled to find funding for our empirical research although were eventually successful in obtaining the financial support of the Scottish government for a large scale national study. My involvement in this field continues and a number of projects are planned and, if funding can be scraped together, will eventually come to fruition. I have not forgotten my commitment to radical behaviourism and in recent years have formed closer ties with the behaviourist community, which is primarily based in the United States, of course. I am particularly satisfied to have become involved with the organization Behaviorists for Social Responsibility and the journal Behavior and Social Issues. Thus late in my working life I have had better opportunities to comfortably combine my espousal of scientific psychology and socialism.

CHAPTER TWO ABERDEEN AND ITS UNIVERSITY

Until the mid-1960s, Scotland had four universities, all of them “ancient”. In 1949, two of Aberdeen University’s geographers published a study of the “normal residence” of its students in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1913–4, 95 percent came from the north east of Scotland. In 1938–9 it was 92 percent. By 1948–9 it had fallen to 82 percent, but that still made it overwhelmingly a “local” university1. A study by H. A. Moisley published in 1960,2 comparing the Scottish Universities of the time, demonstrated the special nature of Aberdeen’s relationship with its catchment area. Considering students entering Scottish universities for the first time in 1956, Moisley found that Aberdeen city sent more students to university than any other city or county in Scotland (0.75 per thousand, the next highest figure being 0.68). Edinburgh was 0.63, Dundee 0.50, Glasgow 0.40. Moisley confirmed O’Dell and Walton’s finding that Aberdeen University (like Glasgow and Edinburgh but unlike St Andrews) had a distinctive catchment area. Moisley’s finding was that Aberdeen students entering the university made up 1.05 percent of the 16-19 age group (as measured by the previous census). With a city population of around 180,000 and a university student body of over 2,000, just over one in a hundred of those resident in Aberdeen during term time would be students. That may not seem a striking proportion, especially given that so many of the students were locals. However, staff and students made a disproportionate impact on the city’s life. The main theatre, His Majesty’s, was taken over for a week each year for the “students’ show”, sketches and songs with topical and local references. A similarly light-hearted event was the annual students’ charity week, culminating in The Torcher, a fancy dress procession around the centre of town. To many children in the town, a “student” was someone in fancy dress rattling a can and demanding money. In the period which concerns us, a rather remarkable bringing together of the university and the city took place when Rev. John M. Graham, the Professor of Systematic Theology, served as Lord Provost, from 1952 to 1955, and again from 1961 to 1964.

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The University had two main sites centred on King’s College and Marischal College. Historically these had been two separate, and small, institutions dating from 1495 and 1593 respectively, but they were amalgamated in 1860. Amongst ordinary citizens, the fact of this “fusion” about a century before had not necessarily been clearly understood. Students would often be asked whether they attended “King’s” or “Marischal”, giving location an inflated importance. Certainly, departments tended to be in one location or another, but students who attended classes in King’s were quite likely to find themselves later in the day in the environs of Marischal, where the University Union was to be found. Local people also tended to stress the vocational character of university education, as expressed in the question “What are you coming out to be?” Traditionally, that question would have had a certain appropriateness. Those taking the Master of Arts might well frequently find themselves as teachers unless they went on to study Medicine, Divinity or Law, in which case they would hope to “come out” as doctors, ministers or lawyers. However, the University now also had a substantial Faculty of Science, which taught degrees in the sciences but also Engineering, Forestry and Agriculture. Chairs of History and Psychology, subjects of particular significance for the present authors, had been founded in 1911 and 1946 respectively, so they were by no means part of the “ancient” tradition of the University. They were both in the Faculty of Arts. Social Sciences were not strong in the university at time. It was not until 1964 that a Chair of Sociology would be founded. Economically, the Aberdeen of the time was mixed. It was the centre of the rich agricultural region of North East Scotland. It was famous as a fishing port, although. according to the Aberdeen volume in the Third Statistical Account of Scotland (1953)3, the fishing industry, with around 2300 employees, was far behind shipbuilding and engineering, which employed 8500. Despite being rightly known as the Granite City because of the prominent use of that stone in major buildings, the granite industry employed fewer than 800 workers. Aberdonians did not find it easy to forget their position at the heart of a farming and fishing region. The smell of fish lingered over much of the town centre. Cattle and other livestock were driven through the streets to the slaughterhouse after arriving by train or boat. The runaway cow or pig was a familiar sight. The impact of large capitalist institutions was increasing at the time. Although most large concerns were owned by local companies, many of which had interlocking directorships, large national companies such as ICI and Unilever were also present. Some local department stores such as Esslemont & Macintosh and Isaac Benzie’s were locally owned, but Watt

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13

& Grant and Falconer’s had become part of larger combines. The North of Scotland Bank had merged with the Clydesdale, which in turn was controlled by the Midland Bank. The Northern Cooperative Society was an important institution for many families for whom the dividend paid to members was in effect a simple method of saving. The announcement of the rate of the next “divie” payment was major news in the local press. Unlike most Scottish cooperative societies, the NCS was not affiliated to the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society. However, like all Scottish coops, its was already coming under the threat of competition from supermarkets. The mixed nature of the Aberdeen economy gave some protection against the worst effects of the vagaries of the capitalist economy. In 1935, when unemployment in Glasgow was over 28 percent and in Dundee 27 per cent, Aberdeen’s was “only” just over 20 per cent. On the other hand, housing conditions did not compare favourably with other large towns. In 1938, residents in 58 per cent of houses had to share toilets with other families, compared to a figure of 32 per cent for urban Scotland generally. In 1951 it was estimated that 10,000 new houses needed to be built for the population to be “adequately housed”. This inferior position was eventually to become widely known at the time of the Aberdeen Typhoid Outbreak of 1964, when inadequate hygiene was seen as a major reason for the spread of the disease4. Aberdeen changed in several obvious respects during the period covered by this book. Particularly conspicuous were transport and entertainment. In 1950, Aberdeen was a city of trams and cinemas. By 1960, trams had gone completely, public transport in the city being taken over by buses. Private car ownership was also growing. Cinemas, which in 1950 had contained one seat for every ten members of the population, had cut back considerably due to the growth of television as a major medium of mass entertainment. BBC television first came to Aberdeen in 1954. By 1961, commercial television was also a local phenomenon, Grampian Television having its headquarters in the city. The first multi-storey flats were built at Ashgrove. Around the same time The Bamboo, Aberdeen’s first Chinese restaurant opened in 1961. In 1963 the quaint old building known familiarly as the Wallace Tower was removed from its site in the centre of the city to allow for the development of a Marks & Spencer store. It was re-erected in the Tillydrone area, but stood alone as a private residence. It now had lost most of its former character. On its original site it sat on the corner of two ancient streets and housed an old-fashioned pub in its ground floor.

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In terms of parliamentary politics, our period is one of remarkable stability. There were two city constituencies, Aberdeen North and Aberdeen South. The North was held for Labour from 1945 until 1966 by the flamboyant Irish lawyer, Hector Hughes, with majorities which never fell below 15,000. The South constituency was held by the Unionist Lady Tweedmuir, who won the seat as Lady Grant at a by-election in 1946, and held it until defeated by Donald Dewar in 1966. Throughout these years there seldom seemed much chance of either seat changing hands. Local government was slightly less stable and more complex. There was a tradition of keeping party politics out of the town council, a tradition which the rise of the Labour Party challenged. When local elections were restored after the Second World War, the main protagonists were Labour and “Progressives”, the latter regularly campaigning for low rates and supported primarily by people who voted Conservative in parliamentary elections. In our period, although the Progressives had won in 1951, Labour was generally in power, except for a few occasions when there was no overall majority. The surrounding parliamentary constituencies in Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire were also politically stable at the time, North Angus and Mearns, West Aberdeenshire and East Aberdeenshire were all held by Conservatives with substantial majorities. One of the most colourful figures to stand in these constituencies around this time had probably been the actor, James Robertson Justice, who was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in North Angus and Mearns in 1950. However, even more colourful was the Conservative, Sir Robert Boothby, who held East Aberdeenshire until created a Life Peer in 1958. Most local people at the time were probably unaware of the irony that the Prime Minister recommending the peerage was Harold MacMillan, with whose wife Boothby had a long standing relationship. The result of the by-election which was necessary due to his move to the House of Lords was not remarkable, in that the Conservatives retained the seat. Of greater significance was the fact that Patrick Wolrige-Gordon, the successful candidate, was an Oxford undergraduate aged only 23 years old. He became the youngest member of the House of Commons. His candidature represented to their opponents clear evidence of the class nature of the local Conservative Party at the time. He was the son of a local landowner and grandson of Dame Flora MacLeod, Chief of the Clan MacLeod. His twin brother later became Clan Chief. Patrick WolrigeGordon was more clearly a representative of his class than of his age group! Some local Conservatives soon came to regret their choice, as be

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15

became an enthusiastic supporter of the Moral Rearmament movement. His MRA activities will be discussed later by Willie Thompson. A glance at the timeline of major events could lead to the conclusion that nothing of importance was happening in Aberdeen at this time. However, as we shall see, many of these events did have reverberations in the city and the university.

TIMELINE

This timeline consists mainly of events significant in the political and social history of Britain, interspersed with events of particular significance to the authors of this book.

1954 April July October

Nasser becomes Prime Minister of Egypt End of rationing in Britain Sandy Hobbs enters Aberdeen University

1955 April May May May July September

Eden becomes Prime Minister of Britain Warsaw Pact signed First Wimpey Bar in Britain British General Election Ruth Ellis hanged ITV begins in Britain

1956 February March May July August October October

Khrushchev makes speech denouncing Stalin Makarios departs from Cyprus H-Bomb tested, Bikini Atoll Suez Canal nationalised Calder Hall, first British nuclear power station Hungarian Uprising Israel invades Sinai peninsula

1957 January February July

Eden resigns as Prime Minister Bill Haley starts first tour of Britain Macmillan makes “Never had it so good” speech

18

September October October Winter

TIMELINE

Little Rock school desegregation crisis begins Sputnik I Windscale nuclear accident Brecht’s Burning House poem published in New Reasoner

1958 January March April September October October December

Explorer I, first British earth satellite Last debutantes presented First Aldermaston March Notting Hill Gate riots Willie Thompson enters Aberdeen University First life peers enter House of Lords Preston by-pass, first British motorway opens

1959 January January May June September October

Castro overthrows Batista regime in Cuba De Gaulle becomes President of France Cod War between Britain and Iceland First Polaris submarine Lunik II lands on moon General Election in Britain

1960 February March April May October November November December

Macmillan “Wind of change” speech Sharpville massacre Civil Rights Bill, USA Betting Shops legalized in Britain Lady Chatterley trial Kennedy elected US President MacDiarmid Rectorial Campaign “Coronation Street” begins

1961 January April April

Contraceptive pill on sale in Britain Eichmann trial begins Gagarin orbits the earth

OUT OF THE BURNING HOUSE

April August September October

US failed invasion at Bay of Pigs Berlin Wall erected Private Eye published Sandy Hobbs moves to Dundee

1962 January February February June July July Summer October October November November

Hanratty trial begins “Sunday Times” colour supplement Glenn orbits the earth First legal casino in Britain De Gaulle signs declaration of Algerian Independence Telstar first communications satellite Willie Thompson moves to Glasgow Founding of Amnesty International Cuban missile crisis Glasgow Woodside by-election “That Was The Week That Was” broadcast

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CHAPTER THREE MY BACKGROUND: SANDY HOBBS

In October 1954 at the age of not quite 17 years and 2 months I entered the Arts Faculty of Aberdeen University, with the stated intention of studying for an Honours degree in Psychology and English. I considered myself a socialist and an atheist, but why? And why that choice of subjects? It is difficult to avoid beginning by looking at the clichéd answer – family background. My parents, Davidina (Ena) Blacklaw and Alexander (Alick) Hobbs, were both Scots. Each had emigrated to the United States, where they met each other. However, they found that life in Detroit during the depression was not so attractive, and returned to settle in Aberdeen. My mother’s parents lived in Dundee, so we saw them only at holiday times after what seemed to me as a young child a very long and anxiety-provoking journey. How did we know it was the right train? How did we know it was going in the right direction? My paternal grandfather, who had borne the same name as my father and myself (Alexander) had died a couple of years before I was born. His wife, my grandmother, Georgina Hobbs, nee MacPherson, lived in Aberdeen. I was born in her spare bedroom, and she naturally had a substantial influence on me. My earliest memory of anything religious was my grandmother’s injunctions on being good. “Papa”, my grandfather, was with God now and, like God, he could see what everyone on earth was doing. So if I were bad, even in secret, Papa would know and be very sad. I suppose I must have accepted this but all I can remember for sure was coming to doubt it. How could God see everybody at the same time? How could you live after you died? My grandmother was a regular churchgoer, my parents much less so. My sister Andrea and I were sent to Sunday School. It gradually occurred to me that my parents never made any reference to religion. For my grandmother, much of her social life revolved round the church. My parents seemed to conform to please her. After she died, when I was a

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teenager, links with the church were allowed to drop. I found this a great relief. Church had come to bore me. I suspected the sincerity of many members of the congregation and the intellectual level of the sermons was low. One that struck me as particularly silly was a comparison of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Christianity came out on top because, whereas the symbol of Islam was a crescent (something incomplete), the symbol of Buddhism was a tree (which will wither and die), the symbol of Christianity is a cross, which reaches out to the four corners of the world. I have a few happy memories of church, mainly hymn tunes which I particularly liked. Sunday school teachers were unimpressive. One took every opportunity he could to turn from religion to football, or, in other words from God to the Dons, Aberdeen Football Club. The fact that our church had a strange name, Albion and St Paul’s, and was Congregational Union rather than Church of Scotland, were minor pleasures too. It is perhaps a sign of the relative superficiality of the people I met in the church that it was not until many years afterwards that I was able to form any clear impression of what was distinctive about the Congregational Union, namely the stress on the authority of the members of the church as opposed to any hierarchical structure. (The nature of the Congregationalist movement only became clear to me many years after I had severed connections with it when I came a cross a second-hand copy of Escott’s A History of Scottish Congregationalism1.) I had previously worked out that the name of my grandmother’s church arose from the merging of two congregations neither of which wished to abandon its own name. Albion church had begun as a mission in one of the most deprived areas of the city. Sabbatarianism was the norm at the time. Cinemas did not open on a Sunday. Both work and leisure on the Sabbath were discouraged. My grandmother pretty much went along with this to the extent that she wanted no outward sign of work or pleasure on a Sunday. However, she seemed happy enough at, say, the playing of cards or dominos, especially if children needed to be entertained. There was a story that some people did home improvement work on a Sunday, using (silent) screwdrivers but not (noisy) hammers, but I don’t think my granny was as hypocritical as that. There was little sense that the church had any clear social philosophy. Missionary work was praised and funds were constantly sought for the London Missionary Society. However, the stress naturally was on bringing the true faith to people who had never heard of Jesus rather than concern for the material welfare of those people. My granny was active in the British Women’s Temperance Society, as I think it was called, which ran

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the Shiprow Tavern, a teetotal alternative to the many pubs in the rundown harbour area. I went with her sometimes when she was doing voluntary work in the Tavern, which I recall as dreary but not too unpleasant. Another temperance venture, of which I have memories that I find difficult to interpret, was an exhibition. At primary school one day the word “exhibition” came up. The teacher asked the class what it meant. Nobody knew, but I volunteered the fact that I would be attending an exhibition soon with my granny. The teacher saw this as a happy coincidence. I could tell the class about the exhibition afterwards. When my grandmother took me, I discovered that the theme was The Evils of Drink. For some reason I found this embarrassing. Perhaps I expected pretty pictures. I now dreaded having to describe it to the teacher and the class. To my great relief, the teacher forgot to ask for a report and I was spared embarrassment, although I still cannot quite put my finger on why I reacted that way. These references to my grandmother may give the impression that her importance in my life was as somebody to react against. This is misleading. Our relationship was warm. I don’t think I ever openly showed my dissent from her world view. Furthermore she told me stories and jokes which impressed themselves on me. In particular, she told me the story of Downie’s Slaughter. This concerned a group of Aberdeen University students who formed a dislike of an officious porter. They kidnapped him and subjected him to a mock trial at the conclusion of which he was sentenced to death. The climax of the joke was supposed be when, instead of an executioner’s axe, they brought a wet towel down on his neck. However, when they did so the victim died of shock. I later discovered this story to be legendary, which set me on the trail of one of my main academic interests, contemporary legends2. The earliest memory I have which could be classed as in any way political occurred some time before the end of the Second World War, and thus while I was less than eight years old. I spoke about the Germans as “bad” and my mother corrected me. It was not the Germans who were bad; it was the Nazis. I accepted the distinction but did not understand it. Were the Nazis bad people who had invaded Germany, just as we feared they might invade us? The concept of a group composed of people of a particular ideology was beyond me at that age. As to party politics, I must have been equally vague. On holiday in Dundee, in the summer of 1945, I was aware that my mother was more positive in her attitude to the new Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, than were her parents. I don’t recall the outcome of the 1945 election, possibly because it took so long to be declared. I do recall the 1950 election, mainly because of my father’s gloom. Arriving back from work to be told by my mother

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that Labour had a majority, he replied that it was not big enough. Of course, he was right. Labour lost power the following year. My father was an unswerving Labour Party supporter but not a party member. He never spoke about being a member of a trade union, although I assume it is highly likely that he was a member of one during the time he worked in the Post Office. As I grew older he took me to some political meetings at election time. I vividly recall a Labour meeting (I think we went only to Labour meetings) at which the main speaker was Donald Mackinnon, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the university. He spoke slowly and ponderously about the profoundly moral action of the Attlee government in giving India her independence. The audience was deeply respectful. I wonder how long that style of speaking continued to be accepted. The most consistent evidence of our family’s attachment to the left was the reading of the Daily Herald on weekdays and Reynold’s News on Sundays. Both of these papers disappeared in the 1960s. The fact that my parents had lived in the United States must have influenced me too. As I grew up I came across the widespread view that America was wonderful and people lived in houses like the ones we saw in the films. My mother and father had some happy memories of America but conveyed to me a much more balanced picture of what life was like there than some of my school friends seemed to have. There were many Hollywood movies of the time, like Sitting Pretty, which depicted life in spacious middle-class homes. My mother appears to have worked as a sort of nanny in such a house, but her memories were a mixture of good and bad. My parents did not own many books, though a lot more than our neighbours. They seemed a haphazard collection, Edgar Wallace, Ignazio Silone, Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book. There were early Pelicans (with dust jackets) bought around the time of my birth in 1937. Was this intended to be the start of a library? (My sister, Andrea, and I still have most of them.) Hendrik Van Loon’s The Story of Mankind3 with its utterly inept drawings and informal way of writing about history, was a book I returned to repeatedly, but most important to me was Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. It was not only an illustrated dictionary but a gazetteer and biographical dictionary as well. It made me early aware that a word could have two “correct” spellings, color and colour. I cannot pin down any particular intellectual influence stemming from my maternal grandparents. My grandfather to me was a slightly remote figure. There was little trace of his time spent at sea, as purser on the Shetland ferry service, unless one counts the binoculars with which from their window I could get an excellent view of a more modest ferry, the one

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25

which ploughed between Dundee and Fife. My grandmother seems to have been a “character” around the shops and auction rooms of Dundee, if my memories of how she was greeted are accurate. She had an interest in fortune telling, although I’m not sure how seriously she took it. I found visiting one fortune teller rather frightening. She lived in a tenement and her flat was very dark because she was blind and didn’t need her lights on. She was regarded as doubly gifted because she “read” tea leaves. This was quite a common form of fortune telling at the time, but of course not only was she “foreseeing” the future she was “seeing” the pattern of leaves in the cup. My aunt Mamie lived with my grandparents and I was probably closer to her than to them. She had been the youngest child and my mother the second youngest. My mother had looked after her younger sister Mamie when she was a baby, which created a special bond. (My mother had very deep family feelings. “He’s not heavy, he’s my brother” to her was an expression of a profoundly significant world view.) Mamie had a more positive intellectual influence on me than her parents. She too had some interest in the supernatural, owning a copy of The White Magic Book by Mrs John Le Breton 4, through which everyday problems could be solved by stages. “Where is the thing I have lost?” leading to an answer such as “Near where you last saw it”. It was a form of cold reading in print. In other words, it applied some of the same techniques on the page which fortune-tellers employ in their face-to-face dealings with their clients5. More important to me, however, was It’s Fun Finding Out, a collection of journalistic pieces by Bernard Wicksteed6 of the Daily Express. They were presumably reprints of weekly reports of his investigation of various topics (“Sociology, or who invented lipstick?” etc.). These light articles suited me nicely when I was about ten years old. The one that struck me most forcefully was “Why is a horse?”, a question suggested by one of his children. The whole book encouraged in me a belief that finding out things could indeed be fun, but that article alerted me to the fact that not all questions make sense. Years later, when I was a psychology student and the possibility of an academic career arose, my friend, Bill Hanton, said that he didn’t fancy spending his life finding things out. By contrast, to me that seemed an attractive way of going through life. I attended my local primary school, Holburn Street, where for most of the time I was at or near the “top of the class”. The teachers had this practice, which I took for granted, but now find strange, of periodically rearranging the seating in terms of academic performance, the best being at the back and the poorest at the front. There was a conventional way

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adults had of talking to children which presupposed that you didn’t like school. I found this somewhat embarrassing because I enjoyed most of my time at Holburn Street. Corporal punishment was the norm but it was used sparingly. I only recall getting “the belt” once at primary school, for going out of the school grounds at “playtime” to play “bools”, marbles. Since the school playground had a concrete surface, we were unable to dig a target hole for the marbles there. I have generally happy memories of my time there. My recollections of particular teachers are faint but they must have encouraged creativity. I wrote two plays which were performed in class, neither of which has survived. One was a comedy, The New Head, which, as I recall, was probably just an excuse to string together some jokes and howlers I had heard. The other, Guy Fawkes, seems to have been sympathetic to the conspirator, whose final words as he was led away were “Ah, well, it was worth a try!” At the end of primary schooling I won a scholarship to Robert Gordon’s College, an independent fee paying school which creamed off some of the brighter boys from the local schools. (I do mean “boys”, since it was then a single sex school.) Secondary education at that time was streamed both between and within institutions. Pupils seen as “nonacademic” went to Junior Secondary Schools; a minority of “brighter” ones went to Senior Secondary. Gordon’s College offered a senior secondary education, although some of the boys whose parents paid fees to have them educated there were not particularly academically inclined. Pupils were streamed from A (top) downwards. I spent five years at the school, moving from 1A to 5A. This may sound as if, as at primary school, I was one of the academically more successful. However, at Gordon’s College, I was always near the bottom of the class. (Not at the very bottom, otherwise I might have been relegated to the B class; promotions and relegations took place each year.) Objectively, I was doing well, always in the top class of a top school. However, my position in class gave me a sense of failure I had never experienced at primary school (and which I lost subsequently when going to university). I was impressed that the school had a history but the general ethos of the place I found uncongenial. The teachers seemed in the main to be politically and socially conservative, though I did form several friendships amongst my classmates. These were boys who shared some of my religious and political beliefs or had similar interests in the arts. I did not feel happy at that school and began to wonder where my future lay. Relatives visiting from South Africa suggested that the family might emigrate there, where my father could find work in a hotel they

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owned. The prospect of a change appealed to me strongly but my parents wisely decided against it. The Aberdeen Public Library was an important influence on my friends and myself as we entered our teens. We had very limited resources for buying books so we spent long periods browsing for books to borrow. Two which I took out over and over again were Herbert Read’s Surrealism7 and John Livingston Lowes’s The Road to Xanadu8. Read’s book had needed to be rebound, during which its pages had been clipped. It came as a great surprise many years later, when it was reissued and I could buy a copy, to discover that it pages were much larger. It had been published in commemoration of the Surrealist Exhibition in London in June 1936. Its contents included a variety of essays which I struggled to understand and a large number of paintings and sculptures in reproduction. The images were strange and the underlying impulse of the artists rebellious. The most important long-term impact of the book was probably the discovery that the surrealists were influenced by something called “psychology”, as expounded by Freud. This led me to explore psychological texts which were appearing then as Penguin paperbacks. I was quite attracted to Jung, through a second-hand account by Frieda Fordham9. However, my friend, Bill Hanton, drew my attention to a book in the library called Freud or Jung by Edward Glover10 who definitely favoured Freud. The Road to Xanadu also led to psychology, but in a rather different way. I was interested in the arts but was also developing a scientific mindset. Lowes’s study of Coleridge’s reading demonstrated the roots of the apparently magical Kubla Khan and Ancient Mariner. Suspicion of the idea of genius and inspiration not grounded in real experiences of the world may have already been in my mind, but Lowes’s book encouraged me to firm up that way of thinking, which I have to this day. I think it is important to record the ways in which I felt “apart”, not quite at the centre of things, different from most other people. Perhaps this is a common feeling in childhood, but there are a number of ways in which this “off-centre” position I experienced had an objective basis. We were poor, but not dramatically so by the standards of those around us. Our next door neighbour was a self-employed “tattie man”, who sold potatoes and other vegetables from a horse and cart. His son-in-law ran a car. They seemed well off. My father’s brother, David, was a rep for a textile company in the Scottish borders. He lived in a Hawick council house, but his life style seemed affluent compared to our own. On the other hand, we were not part of the mass of working class poor who worked at hard physical labour.

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We attended a church which seemed similar to the predominant Church of Scotland, yet not part of it. We lived in a tenement and, although most of the people I knew did likewise, this did not conform to the lives of most children in books on the radio or in comics. They lived in houses whose front doors were at ground level. We were Scottish, but images purporting to depict the real Scotland portrayed the Highlands (kilts and bagpipes) or the central belt (shipbuilding, Rangers, Celtic, Edinburgh Castle). Aberdeen was not quite like that. My accent was not the same as the “Scottish” accent we heard on the radio. It was not the standard received pronunciation of the London BBC. I fully understood the local Aberdeen accent and dialect, but I didn’t speak that way myself. I did have an accent of course, but because my mother came from Leith and both parents had spent some time in Michigan, it was not always easy for outsiders to tell I was an Aberdonian. Not typically poor, not typically Scottish, not even typically Aberdonian, I was in these ways a sort of outsider. Hence it was not too difficult for me accept the role of outsider in politics, religion and profession. In my teens I also began to develop another sense of being an outsider in a geographical sense. Although it must seem strange to someone like Willie Thompson, who had to travel many hours from the extreme north to reach Aberdeen, Aberdeen seemed to me to on the fringe of the world. For someone with developing interests in the arts, Edinburgh seemed much more lively. I went on a trip for a few days to the Edinburgh Festival in 1952, and although the specific events I attended did not have a big impact, it impressed on me that Edinburgh was a much more significant place culturally than Aberdeen. I didn’t visit England until I was 20 and it was many years later before I ventured to continental Europe. The reasons were partly poverty and partly timidity. However, I had no doubt that important things were going on “abroad”. Because I saw it as the centre of surrealism, an early passion of my teens, Paris seemed the intellectual capital of the world, a view strengthened when I discovered Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. With the exception of film, I think my contact with the mass media during my school years was unremarkable. While at primary school, my mother bought me the Mickey Mouse comic every week and the Rupert Bear annual at Christmas. I suspect that she thought the comics from D. C. Thomson of Dundee, such as Beano, Dandy, Wizard and Rover, were rather crude, but she did not object to me borrowing them from neighbours

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to read. Radio was an important form of entertainment. I listened to the BBC’s Children’s Hour and have fairly clear memories of “classics” of the 1950s such as Paul Temple, Dick Barton and Journey into Space. I suspect that radio is a particularly good medium for developing a child’s imaginative powers. When as an adult I bought an audio tape of a couple of episodes of Toytown, which I had listened to devotedly as a child, I was amazed to discover how simple they were. I had built a much more complex picture of what was going on than was actually presented on air. As I entered my teens, many friends were tuning into Radio Luxembourg, but reception of that station on my parents’ radio was poor. As a young child I did not go to see films often, although for a time I went to a Saturday morning kids club at the local Odeon cinema. I was taken to the accepted children’s films such as Bambi (and shocked my mother by not crying when Bambi’s mother was killed). My mother also used to tell me the story of films that she had seen. However, around the age of 13, fuelled no doubt with my earnings by delivering newspapers, I became almost obsessed with films. One way that this manifested itself was the keeping of records. For 1951 I have an alphabetical list of the feature films I saw, presumably compiled from notes that have not survived. Subsequently, I recorded the films in diaries and also kept notes of the credits. For a time I also recorded the stars given the film by the Picturegoer magazine as well as my own star rating. I subscribed to Picturegoer. Some of my more affluent friends also subscribed to Picture Show, but I regarded that publication as insufficiently intellectual in its approach. (Later, I graduated from Picturegoer to Films and Filming and then to Sight and Sound.) I frankly can remember nothing of some of the films I saw. Others I remember well but in many cases that would be because I have seen them again later. It would appear that my initial film going was not particularly discriminating. Musicals, thrillers, comedies, westerns and adventures all appear on the 1951 list. Most were from the big Hollywood studios, and many were from the downmarket companies such as Republic and Monogram. Of course, this was largely determined by availability. Virtually no non-English speaking films were on general release. Eventually commercial showing of “foreign” films at specialist cinemas made my viewing more international. I also joined the Aberdeen Film Society, the Aberdeen Film Appreciation Group and the film club run by the ScotlandUSSR Friendship Society. These societies were the only way of seeing films on a Sunday in the strictly sabbatarian Aberdeen of the time. There was little political motivation involved in joining the Soviet club. I was sympathetic towards the Soviet Union but not uncritical. That club

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sometimes tried viewers’ patience because of the unreliability of their distributors. One could turn up expecting to see a famous work by V. I. Pudovkin or Mark Donskoi and instead be shown a documentary on the republic of Byelorussia (as it was then called). How can one judge the influence these films had on me? The overall effect is clear. Film is the artistic medium with which I most identify. (At that time, many would have disputed whether film really was an art form.) The influence of particular films is harder to pin down. Disagreements with the Picturegoer’s ratings may be significant. It gave The Big Sky only 2 stars; I gave it 4. My impression is that the director Howard Hawks himself didn’t rate the film highly, but the theme of a small group struggling against natural hazards appealed to me. I saw Jacques Tourneur’s The Flame and the Arrow more than once. The theme of the outlaw (Burt Lancaster) carrying on an eventually successful fight against tyranny and injustice must have been in tune with my fantasies as a thirteen year old. I can still hum the theme tune to this day. It was not until many years later hat I discovered that the screenplay was by Waldo Salt, soon to be blacklisted for his membership of the Communist Party11. One film I saw in slightly unusual circumstances. A local film society advertised a special showing, on a weeknight, of some “avant garde” films. For some reason the venue was the Pre-Nursing College, which added to the surrealism of the night. My friends, Colin Fraser and Bill Hanton, and I turned up and were initially refused admission because the films had X-certificates. However, hardly anyone else had come to see the films, so the organizers decided to let us in. There were two shorts by Ian Hugo and Anais Nin, but the film that really knocked us out was Luis Bunuel’s L’Age d’Or. We found it difficult to follow, but the overall impression of an attack on conventional society appealed to us. A cow in a bedroom, a farm cart in a ballroom, a bishop being thrown from a window, followed swiftly by a wooden giraffe; these were not the stuff of the films we normally saw. We did not have the luxury of a second viewing of the film to help us to tease out the meaning. The only reference to the film I could find was a still in the Public Library’s copy of Paul Rotha’s The Film Till Now12 but Rotha did not discuss the content. I later described L’Age d’Or as best I could in a talk at school. Our English teacher was not amused. However, I do believe that the film, however poorly understood at the time, influenced my subsequent life. We were encouraged by L’Age d’Or to find out more about surrealism. This led us to Freud and, eventually, to the decision to study psychology at university. The long term impact of other films is less clear. Because, in my years at school, “foreign” films were becoming more accessible to me, I suspect

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that for a time I paid them more respect than I did the Hollywood films with which I had been familiar for some time. Yet, when I view again some of the works I saw in 1953 and 1954, I would say today that they were indeed worthy of respect. Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Jean Cocteau’s Orphée, Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, Robert Bresson’s Journal d’un curé de campagne, Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko. I have seen all these films more recently and I am not ashamed of my youthful admiration for them. Of course, I did not see the more run-of-the-mill films from France, Japan and Mexico, so Hollywood suffered by comparison. It was only later that I came to appreciate the American film noir of that period13. Just as I was about to go to University, the commercial cinema seemed to be changing, partly in desperation at the growing threat of television. In July 1954 I saw The Wages of Fear, that is, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la Peur, at a commercial cinema, the Odeon in Justice Mill Lane, and in September, even more remarkably, at the Gaumont, Union Street, a double bill commercial release of films by Bunuel and Vittorio De Sica. Admittedly, Indiscretion is not one of De Sica’s greater achievements, but Robinson Crusoe more than made up for it. As I entered the new world of academia I could also feel the doors of world cinema were opening to me. One point must be made about “foreign” films, however. I had never been abroad. Thus any film from overseas had a certain exotic appeal to me. This is obvious in the case of Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, say, or Rashomon, as they were set centuries ago in societies remote from my own. De Sica’s Ladri di Biciclette, however, is a more problematic case. It was a deeply political film, an outstanding example of neo-realism, but to me it had a contradictory attraction, as it showed the strange world of Rome, a place I was not to visit until many years later. Would it have seemed to me so marvellous a piece of work if it had been set in Glasgow? Of course, although I saw many outstanding films of world cinema, I learned about many more which I longed to see but feared would be lost to me forever. One such was Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, made during the war in Mussolini’s Italy. I knew of it because it was discussed at length in Vernon Jarratt’s The Italian Cinema14, one of a handful of books on the cinema held in the Reference Section of the Public Library. This adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, had been made without obtaining the film rights of the book, one of many reasons which led me to believe I could never see it. Times have changed and luckily proved me wrong. I now own both a video recording of the film and a copy of Barrett’s book.

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In my later years at school, I can recall many passionate discussions with my schoolmates on issues which were important to us. I can also recall a sense of frustration that we could do little other than discuss these things amongst ourselves. Opportunities for action or more public debate were limited. I can only vaguely recall a little public demonstration on the day that Derek Bentley was hanged. He was a young man who carried out a robbery accompanied by a younger friend who, while running way, shot and killed a policeman. Bentley was legally guilty of murder, but many people, even amongst those not opposed to capital punishment as such, saw it unreasonable of the law to hang someone who had not actually pulled the trigger. His youth aroused sympathy too. Our public demonstration amounted to little more than wearing black ties to school. There was little chance of directly debating on behalf of atheism or socialism, but occasionally an opportunity might arise of a less direct sort. In my university years, I think I was rather embarrassed by my schoolboy attempts to express my ideas. I destroyed the talk I gave inspired by L’Age d’Or. I don’t have any record of the conference organized by the Aberdeen University Student Christian Movement at which my friends and I rather perversely praised not atheism but Buddhism. I think we may have thought that an openly irreligious stance would throw in doubt our sincerity in volunteering to attend. And we had been reading a Penguin on Buddhism by the inaptly named Christmas Humphries.15 However in a diary-cum-notebook from my University years, I find that in late 1957 or early 1958 I had copied out a speech I made at the school debating society in February, 1954. The text is accompanied by critical comments, written from the vantage point of what I now saw as my superior later knowledge, but I must still have felt some residual respect for the arguments I had made. Looking at the speech again, more than half a century later, it is difficult not to feel embarrassed by its naivety. On the other hand, I can see it as a stage in my intellectual development. The debate was on whether religious education should be permitted in schools. I spoke against. My main arguments concerned, on the one hand, the practicality of fair religious education and, on the other, the “psychology” of religion. On the first, I assumed that the audience would agree that religious indoctrination was a bad thing. From that base, I argued that it would be impossible to devise an educational programme which was truly fair to the varieties of religious belief. I imagined hundreds of ministers and priests fighting for lesson time. I suggested it would be impossible to find suitable alternatives, namely teachers with not only enough knowledge of religions to expound them but also sufficient lack of commitment to present

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different religions fairly. What most embarrassed me as a student of psychology looking back on the debate was my reliance on Jung for the psychological part of my case. I quoted Jung as saying that everyone has a “natural religious function”. An individual’s religion should spring entirely from “personal, original experiences”. Hence the teaching of religion was inappropriate. I was privately a long-standing atheist when I made this speech, so I must have had objections to the concept of “natural religious function”. However, I may have realized that there was nothing to be gained by appealing only to my fellow atheists, probably a pretty small band. The argument I used had some chance of appealing to the seriously religious in the audience. We won the vote at the end of the debate but I cannot tell whether my contribution to the debate had any impact on the outcome. Within a year, I had left school and had entered an environment where I felt much less need to hide my real beliefs.

CHAPTER FOUR MY BACKGROUND: WILLIE THOMPSON

Early Years I arrived from Shetland to attend Aberdeen University towards the end of September 1958, aged 19 years at the time, my schooling having been delayed for a year on account of the Second World War. My parents were both from peasant families in adjacent townships on the island of Yell, the second largest in the Shetland archipelago. They were in fact related to each other; indeed there was a substantial degree of inbreeding among the rural population – there are a brother and sister who are related to me as first, second and third cousins through different lines. However there does not appear to have been among this population any of the hereditary physical or other problems often associated with that kind of situation. A standard life-cycle for many of the rural population was for a young man to spend a decade or two as a merchant seaman before returning to settle upon a croft. Both my father and mother had numerous siblings: every one of the brothers was a merchant seaman; likewise the husbands of all the sisters, and with a few exceptions they ended their lives as crofters. My mother’s own career however was somewhat untypical. Unlike all her sisters, who remained in Shetland and married crofter/seamen, my mother (she was born in 1912) left the islands to train as a nurse in Edinburgh. While doing so she took up amateur flying, having been introduced to this, it seems, by a boyfriend. He however, fatally flew his plane into a hillside. Subsequently she was for a time a private nurse to the Duchess of Hamilton – I have no idea how she came to be in that position. She later married my father, and they lived in Edinburgh where, having given up seamanship, he worked in a brewery. Six weeks after my birth in April 1939, and for reasons of which I’ve no positive knowledge, but may have been related to her medical condition, they returned to Yell, intending this as a permanent move.

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However on the outbreak of war my father joined the army. He was stationed in Lerwick, Shetland’s capital (its permanent population then was around 6000) throughout the war, and my mother with her child moved there, living in rented accommodation.1 The islands were highly militarised – barbed wire, Nissen huts, marching soldiers, barrage balloons, searchlights, military aircraft and vehicles constitute my earliest memories. It would appear, though of course I would have been incapable of formulating a notion at the time, that my mother was a deeply unhappy woman – as well she might be, for she was mortally ill at the time with tuberculosis. TB was rampant in the islands in the early part of the century, but none of her siblings were infected, so the probability is that she contracted it during her nursing career. One of my memories of the period is sitting with her looking out of the bedroom window onto the main road, watching a hearse waiting for the body of a young woman from the house next door - she too, I think had been a tuberculosis victim. A few years later, shortly after the war, a teenage girl from the flat above us also died (I’ve forgotten the cause) – three premature deaths from two adjacent buildings. In terms of religious denomination my parents were Methodists, but not very observant, and I’m sure that the first time I was ever consciously in a church was when my new brother, who was born early in 1943, was christened. I was informed of the existence of God – referred to as ‘the Good Man’ when named to children – and the devil, the ‘Bad Man’. The Good Man was a background figure, and if my mother ever mentioned heaven or hell I don’t recollect it. However the Bad Man also sometimes came into our conversations, though I’m uncertain of the role he was supposed to play – some kind of bogeyman figure I suspect. On one occasion I was in Yell with my mother and we were walking along one of the rural roads there, when my attention fell on a nearby hill, bleak and brown, as they tended to be - Yell is mostly composed of peat. I asked if the Bad Man lived behind this hill and was assured that that was indeed the case. I then asked, if one were in his clutches, one would be required to eat an entire bathful of soup – having for some reason developed a strong aversion to soup. Again this was confirmed. In the course of 1943 my mother became terminally ill and was hospitalised in the Lerwick sanatorium. She was most unfortunate in being just too soon for antibiotics, which could have saved her. Accordingly I was sent to live with relatives in rural Shetland at the northern tip of the main island (my baby brother went to another couple). I went willingly, for I very much liked these people, my mother’s brother and his wife (who

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had no children) and his parents-in-law, and the rural ambience of Sandvoe, as the township was called. It consisted of five quite closely grouped houses, each with its adjacent and outlying agricultural and sheep-reading ground – their total population at the time was thirteen including myself. Sandvoe itself was part of the larger district of North Roe, incorporating three such townships and other more scattered crofts. My mother died towards the end of 1943. I can recall being told of this and can also recall not being very much affected. She had become a distant figure and I was very content to be where I was. My aunt was much occupied with the crofting work and consequently I spent a lot of time with her parents, who lived in a small cottage nearby. Her mother, though not overly pious, was somewhat more religiously inclined than her husband, daughter or son-in-law, and it was from her that I received the first intimations of the Christian faith beyond the existence of God and the devil. She would sometimes take me to the (presbyterian) church about a mile from Sandvoe (of course I understood nothing of the services - and experienced them as profoundly boring). On one occasion she informed me that the Good Man had been nailed to a cross and consequently dead for three days, after which he had ‘lived up again’. I was puzzled, though I didn’t inquire, as to how the world could have continued to function while he was dead, as I’d acquired the presumption that the Good Man was responsible for all the processes of nature. Clearly my instruction had failed to distinguish between the Persons of the Trinity. My father remarried early in 1945; again I found this interesting rather than a source of emotional disturbance. The family was then reunited in Lerwick, to which I was (unenthusiastically) taken. Subsequently my stepmother had two children. Until 1951 we continued to live in the same wartime accommodation (the day we moved to our own larger council house was the date of the Attlee government’s electoral defeat) and until that moment for three years six individuals were sleeping in one bedroom.

Primary school On account of the circumstances I had lost a year of schooling and therefore first joined the Lerwick infant school the day before my sixth birthday. Although infant school children were not physically punished, nevertheless pedagogy was highly traditional as might be expected. The first charge of the teachers was to make us speak English while in the classroom and eschew our Shetland dialect with its different pronunciation, constructions and range of words. However, being the age we were, we

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picked up the new linguistic forms readily enough – and of course listening to the radio must also have had its influence. The juvenile subculture at that age was relatively tolerant and relaxed. Even so some kids suffered bullying and on occasion outright cruelty of a verbal sort. The difference between indigenous Shetlanders and children with the names of the Scottish fishing community was apparent. The latter tended to be rougher and tougher, especially the male ones. Some of them were multiply deprived to an extent evident even to five and six year olds. One little girl, whose name was Chrissie Watt, had her raggedy drawers hanging out beneath her skirt. On one occasion the class was rising to depart at the end of the school day and we all began to chant in unison, ‘See Chrissie’s knickers! See Chrissie’s knickers!’ There arrived in the islands also a few years later a small community of travellers, or tinkies as they were always known, constantly being harassed by the local authority (actions which my stepmother disapproved of) and moving from encampment to encampment around the perimeter of Lerwick. A couple of the kids during that time were at our primary school, one of them, a girl, in my own class. There was no communication between them and the rest of us; they were regarded as inherently dirty and coarse jokes by the boys were frequently made at their expense. However they were not molested in any fashion nor even taunted with the jokes, for that would have been to recognise their presence – they were simply ignored at all times, treated as not being present except for being laughed at when they stumbled over questions in class. It would have been quite inconceivable to have befriended any of them. None of that – or anything else I experienced at the time – caused me to think about social issues or divisions. There was certainly a class structure in Lerwick, but it was not one evident to a child; there being only one primary school in Lerwick, where the offspring of the local bourgeoisie shared the classroom with those of highly impoverished families – my father was by then a telephone linesman (poor, though respectable) and one of my close friends the son of the town’s leading solicitor. People like the tinkies were seen simply as social anomalies, we did not consider how they got to be that way, nor have any conception of a structural relation between the well-off and the impoverished. My father and stepmother never discussed politics (except that I once heard him curse the lairds who oppressed our ancestors) and I don’t to this day even know how they voted – though I suspect it was Conservative. They did not put our accommodation problems into a political context and so I did not perceive it in that fashion. I can’t identify when I began to be aware of

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political issues, but this awareness developed in the first instance from the reading material that came into the houses of my parents and relatives. These were mostly of a conservative slant (though not purchased on that account). With the two Shetland weeklies (one Conservative the other Liberal) and the North East local paper the Press and Journal, I bothered very little, being more interested in Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express (where I first encountered the word ‘science’ in the Rupert Bear children’s strip) and the Sunday Post, the latter from the then ultra-Conservative Dundee D. C. Thomson stable. The monthly Readers’ Digest, which never failed to carry an anti-communist piece in every issue, also figured. It was from these sources that I picked up my initial political notions: I was strongly committed to the idea of freedom – at first a diffuse sentiment then more fully articulated for me by Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia – and became convinced through the periodicals mentioned that that was what Conservatism stood for and that freedom was necessarily underpinned by economic private enterprise. However my closest friend at school was a boy called Douglas Bain (the elder brother of Aly Bain the renowned fiddle player) whose parents were resolute Labour supporters and so was he. I can recall having lengthy enjoyable political arguments with him, doubtless utterly naive on both sides – I remember nothing of their content. Somewhat later he and another pair of friends would express sympathy for the American Indians in the cowboy films shown in the local cinema and take the side of the Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya. They were also derogatory regarding royalty; at the time of the 1953 coronation, which I found quite exciting, Douglas composed a doggerel rhyme as follows: The Queen and the coronation, That’s the talk of all the nation. We are supposed to be patriots, But if we are we are idiots.

None of these arguments overturned my own political convictions – I was hoping for a Conservative victory as late as the 1955 election – though doubtless they were helping to erode them.

Secondary school and political consciousness By the time of these events I was in secondary education. At the time the eleven plus operated in Shetland, where it was termed the ‘Control Exam’. One ‘senior secondary’ school (equivalent to English grammar schools) existed in the islands, known at the time as the Anderson Educational

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Institute, it had been originally the foundation of Arthur Anderson, a Shetlander and successful businessman, one of the founders of the P&O shipping line.2 Students who lived too far from Lerwick to commute daily were accommodated in two adjacent hostels. (‘Junior secondary’ education ending at 15 was provided in Lerwick at a department attached to the primary school and at local establishments elsewhere in the islands). Round about 1955 or thereabouts a cousin of Douglas lent me some volumes which his father had obtained in the 1930s from the Left Book Club, and these I read with great interest, getting a very different perspective on imperialism from the one I had been accustomed to from Lord Beaverbrook’s newspaper, though the volume which interested me most was The New Propaganda by Amber Blanco White – which I assumed to be a pseudonym, though it wasn’t; (originally Amber Reeves, she was the original for H. G. Wells’s Ann Veronica). I was also reading assiduously the newspapers and periodicals in the reading room of the Lerwick public library, including out of interest the Labour ones (I forget whether I read the Daily Worker, or even whether it was displayed)3. At some point between Eden’s electoral victory in 1955 and the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in the summer of 1956, when reading either the Daily Herald or Reynold’s News I realised that private enterprise was not a question of competition but monopoly and had nothing to do with freedom. Accordingly I concluded that I was on the left, and in the autumn school term wrote an essay defending Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. I still didn’t greatly approve of communism, at least as it was practiced in the communist bloc, but my views on that shifted somewhat as well in a more sympathetic direction – paradoxically again through the Readers’ Digest. I reached the conclusion that the journal’s unrelenting attack contained all sort of incongruities and contradictions, particularly a very lame explanation of why the Red Army had won in World War II. Viewing some particularly absurd US anti-communist propaganda films in the local cinema and reading a book called The State of Europe by an American author Howard K. Smith4, (later he was to chair the KennedyNixon television debate) who was generally opposed to communism but nevertheless provided a balanced view of the European scene post-1945, reinforced this attitude. I spoke from an increasingly communist viewpoint in the school debating society – partly for the sake of being provocative – and in my final year happily played the role of a communist in a sketch during the Christmas cabaret. In my pre-teen years one of my favoured authors had been G. A. Henty, a Victorian imperialist author of boys’ fiction celebrating the .

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achievements of British empire-building, though he also wrote medieval romances, which I preferred. It seems that he is currently being republished in the USA by a group which wants to inspire American youth with imperial ambitions. During my teens I was also fond of reading pulp science fiction. Much of that was time wasted, but I think that nevertheless, the stories being about contemporary issues whatever their formal setting in time or space, it strengthened my appreciation that not only was the past different from the present, but the future would be different again.5 One novel, published in 1955, envisaged a future where civilization had survived a nuclear war, the gender roles were reversed, with the world governed by a Matriarch, most food was soya or seaweed based and there existed an environmental movement called the Greens (with capital letter) – doubtless in analogy to the Reds who troubled American citizens’ sleep during the McCarthy years.6 I was a believer in Progress, a concept reinforced by the Children’s Encyclopaedia, strongly aware that the technology of the present was very different from that of the past, and rather approved of wars on account of the fact that I believed they tended to promote technological advance. At school my reading was entirely eclectic and indeed rather chaotic – science7 and fiction as well as science fiction, history as well as historical novels,8 politics, philosophy and elementary logic – all were grist to the mill. So far as the last of these was concerned, the volume written by Robert Thouless, Straight and Crooked Thinking, I found particularly impressive. It will be seen that my social attitudes and political consciousness were developed entirely through reading and to a lesser extent discussion, but certainly not experience or even involvement in any of the political organisations which existed in Lerwick. My family were poor, working class people from a peasant background, but I did not formulate the fact in those terms, and in the days of the post-war welfare state that status imposed few barriers to class mobility, mostly via the educational ladder even though in my own case I tended to find secondary education boring apart from history and so to neglect my scholastic duties. I had absolutely no experience of the labour movement, whether trade union or political. Certainly this was not absent in Shetland, at least in Lerwick, but it was undoubtedly low key. Things had been different at one time – prior to 1914 Lerwick had had a flourishing SDF branch grounded among the fishworkers, but by my own time anything resembling revolutionary politics had long disappeared. The town did have a Labour Party branch and elected a few councillors, but these were a minority group.

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Fishing was the principal, and indeed the only large-scale, industry (herring was the principal catch) but its structure in Shetland was not particularly favourable to labour organisation. The boats tended to be owned and crewed on the basis of family and social circles; the main category of shore fishworkers, the women gutters, were itinerant, and of course not continuously employed. The coopers, who made the barrels, corresponded more closely to the traditional male industrial workforce, and that indeed was the background of Douglas’s father and one of the reasons for his strong Labour commitment. The most prominent Labour spokesperson in the town when I lived there was in fact a local shopkeeper. Some schoolteachers were known as socialist sympathisers (I recall the same teacher who aborted religious discussion as described below, defending the closed shop) and there was one locally renowned working class intellectual, whom however I met only when I was well into my time at university, after I had had some letters published in the local press. His name was Peter Jamieson, and he lived alone in a flat crammed to the ceiling with all manner of books, journals and newspapers. He had been instrumental in the early fifties in founding a cultural journal, The New Shetlander (it still exists and flourishes) but though its left-wing emphasis was clear it did not make a big thing of that. Certainly I was not politically influenced by it.

Religion Our other major intellectual concern was religion. Initially I did not question the concepts of God, heaven and hell or the bible stories we were told in school, but I greatly disliked being made to attend Sunday School (except for the Christmas party when we received gifts; one of mine, when I was ten or eleven being a volume called Flights into the Future, which got me interested in space travel). I disliked even more having to attend rehearsals for readings from the bible, pious poetry and suchlike, connected with the church’s festivals. I also recall feeling dubious about the manner in which the Israelites treated the inhabitants of Canaan when our school scripture lessons dealt with that conquest, and likewise about Samson’s treatment of the foxes which he sent running into the fields with their tails alight. My father and stepmother were observant Christians in a routine sort of fashion – they despised any hint of fundamentalism, so at home my siblings and myself were never too much bothered by religious pressures. A certain degree of Sabbath observance was exacted – especially Sunday School – but apart from that it was not too onerous and somewhat

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contradictory; we were permitted to play with certain toys but not others – such as toy guns or playing cards. My aunt and uncle in North Roe, with whom I always spent the summer holidays, were even more minimally concerned with the faith (except for avoiding crofting work on Sunday); they never mentioned religion, either positively or negatively. On one occasion I recall our family visiting some other relatives, who were readers of the Daily Record. The issue I saw there carried a report of the Margaret Knight controversy and denounced her editorially in the most vituperative terms. I failed to see what the hysteria was about – I didn’t agree with Mrs Knight then, but reckoned that her views deserved a hearing – after all it was a free country, supposedly. However what sent me on my future path was again a question of deriving a logical intellectual conclusion. Once I began to discover evolution – once more from the Children’s Encyclopaedia – the question, not surprisingly, presented itself: at what point in its evolutionary development, and in what manner, does the human species acquire an immortal soul? The question answers itself. That was decisive. For a short time I was slightly reluctant to admit to myself that I must be an atheist – my stepmother had always scorned that category of person, but one day – appropriately enough while walking to Sunday school – I recognised that there was no good reason to accept God’s existence. There was reinforcement from other directions as well – at Sunday school we became acquainted with the story of Jeptha’s daughter. He was an Israelite commander who vowed that if God gave him victory he would sacrifice the first thing he met coming out of his house – which of course turned out to be his daughter. Accordingly she was sacrificed – no ram in a thicket for her; she was only a woman. I concluded that this must be a most disreputable deity. These developments did not create tensions at home, for I didn’t make an issue out of the matter or attack my parents’ convictions, even despite my stepmother’s disapproving comment when she saw me reading Margaret Knight’s Morals without Religion.9At school though it was a different story. In our final two years Douglas, myself and four others – all boys – formed an atheistical circle, and the issue came into the open when our teacher who was about to conduct the scripture lessons inquired if anyone in the class had difficulty with the Christian tradition. The contrasting positions were advanced, he promised to continue the discussion in subsequent meetings, but the following week it was announced that the class would instead be set to turn verses of the psalms into metrical verse. We were convinced that this unwelcome turnaround was because our teacher was losing the argument, but perhaps he had

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instructions from on high, because he was in most respects an admirable individual. Further influences, in relation to religion, philosophical issues and social concerns more generally, were the non-technical writings of Bertrand Russell, which I borrowed from the Lerwick public library. These I found greatly illuminating, as well as being clear and readable. They reinforced my conviction that religion was superstition with no foundation in reliable evidence. I especially liked the paradoxical question – is an action moral because the deity commands it or does s/he command it because it is moral? It also occurred to me when reading, in his History of Western Philosophy, of Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence, that if it proved God’s existence on the grounds that existence must be an attribute of the highest possible good, it would equally prove the nonexistence of the Devil. Accordingly I began my time at Aberdeen University with a welldefined set of beliefs and attitudes (though not so well defined as to stop me applying to join the university air squadron because of the interest in flying which had persisted since my wartime childhood – and I had enjoyed the Biggles novels.10 Fortunately I was rejected). In my case the clichéd answer of family background evidently did not apply.

CHAPTER FIVE UNIVERSITY YEARS: SANDY HOBBS

Going up to University in October, 1954, I had an immediate sense of entering a more liberal environment than school had been. The early classes in my chosen subjects, English, Modern European History and Psychology, were interesting and did not appear too taxing. At the Freshers’ Fair, I joined several societies and subsequently spent a few evenings each week at their meetings.

Morals without religion The first event which clearly meant that I had moved into a different adult world came only a month or two after started university. One of the clubs I joined was the Psychological Society, naturally enough, since I planned to take psychology to the honours level. My friend Bill Hanton and I volunteered to produce the posters to advertise the society’s meeting. This was accepted enthusiastically by the committee, not because I had any particular ability as a poster designer (Bill was rather better than me) but because to other people such work was a chore. The committee tried to get as many outside speakers as possible but sometimes had to fall back on the small staff of the Psychology Department. It was in the spirit of “It’s about time we asked her again” that they approached Margaret Knight, part-time lecturer and wife of the head of the department, Professor Rex Knight. She explained that she would shortly be doing a couple of radio talks which would only be broadcast in the London region, so it would be simple enough for her to adapt them for the Psychological Society. The subject would be “Scientific Humanism” although the title of the radio talks had been “Morals Without Religion”. As the date of her meeting approached it became clear that she had overnight become famous, or rather notorious. There was an outcry in the popular press that she was undermining the moral fabric of the nation. She had the honour of being lampooned in the Daily Express by their

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cartoonist Cummings1 The cartoon was pathetically unimaginative. A juvenile delinquent was in the dock and his mother was pleading “But I brought him up according to the principles of morals without religion”. I wrote a letter to the Express defending her. My parents were rather anxious about my drawing unwanted attention to myself. Mrs Knight’s notoriety made the business of creating posters easy. Bill Hanton’s including a cross cracking and falling over, to indicate the portrayal of her as someone attacking Christianity. I too had a cross, but not a broken one, although it was decorated with quotation about Mrs Knight from the press. They went up, but not for long. In the introductory Ordinary Psychology class one day, Prof Knight asked if “Mister Hanton” and “Mister Hobbs” were present. When we indicated that we were, he asked us if we would have a word with him at the end of the lecture. No mention was made of what “the word” would be about. Were we in some sort of trouble? I suppose this must have been the first time either of us had spoken directly to him, or indeed to any “Professor”. In retrospect, I see his approach as masterly. Speaking in a man-to-man tone, he outlined his problem. He had seen our posters. They were excellent pieces of work. But there was a problem. As you know, my wife has had a good deal of publicity recently, he explained. Quite unexpected. This placed her under a good deal of strain. He wanted to protect her as much as possible from attack. We knew, as he did, the potency of the cross as a symbol in Christianity. This would arouse strong feeling, however irrational they might seem to us. He would have to have the posters taken down and hoped we would understand. I think Bill was inclined to take a stand against censorship but I was just happy that we were not really in trouble. Rex Knight’s manner was probably what clinched it for me. Here was an important, powerful man sharing the objective, critical approach to Christianity we had developed on our own as teenagers. We could all share a sense of superiority over the ridiculous reaction of Christians to what was actually a very moderate set of talks. The posters came down. And, of course, there had never really been any need for the posters. Mrs Knight’s moment of national notoriety meant the meeting would be packed, advertised or not. It would be some time before either Aberdeen or its University would see organized groups of humanists, (in both of which I played a part) but when they did there is little doubt that Margaret Knight’s pioneering work had been an important influence. However she had another sort of influence of a less tangible sort. Soon after the radio talks, as Willie mentioned in the previous chapter, she published a short book, Morals

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Without Religion and other essays2 The book contained an account of reactions to her broadcasts, including a statistical analysis of the content of the many letters she had received. This impressed me as a “scientific” attitude which I wished to share. A relative living in rural Aberdeenshire wrote to my parents asking whether I knew how he could get hold of it. He had lived all his adult life as a secret and lonely atheist, unable to share with others beliefs which he thought were unique. Hearing about Margaret Knight, however distorted the press’s image of her might be, had been a sign of hope for him.

Drama The other society in which I was active in my first year was the Mermaid. Set up as a play reading group, and consisting to a large extent of the same people who made up the Dramatic Society, I suppose it appealed to me being the closest I could get to expressing a direct interest in films. As well as play reading, the Mermaid started to put on a couple of performances a year in early January, the Christmas Vacation giving a good opportunity for rehearsals. That first year I had a spear carrying role in Lysistrata by Aristophanes. To my extreme satisfaction, the play was mildly shocking. One lady in the audience was heard to say as she left that “It was not at all suggestive, just openly dirty”. From then onwards, I was a regular bit player. Having no obvious talent for acting, I did not aspire to leading roles but occasionally I would hit it off reasonably well in one of these minor roles. One example was Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, transposed to an Edwardian setting. Serving my time in this way, it was eventually decided that I could have a chance to produce, of which more later.

Suez and Hungary In my first years as an undergraduate, politics in the university were pretty moribund. Suez and Hungary changed that but, in my case, it took some time before I became very active politically. I attended a big student debate on Hungary, where a sole Communist made a rather halting defence of the Soviet Union. I never took part in the University Debater because I believed that its conventions raised form above content. However, I regretted missing its debate on Suez, in which the Chair of the Conservative Club spoke in defence of the Eden Government but then voted against it. His position was that as a Conservative official he had an obligation to ensure the party’s stance was explained, but voting was a

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matter of conscience. There was a rather selfish reason that many of us had for being concerned about Suez. My friends and I all had our period of National Service deferred to allow us to study. We were apprehensive that that if the conflict escalated, deferment might be suspended and we might find ourselves in the army! As it worked out, Anthony Eden’s ignominious climb-down meant we could continue our studies and, because National Service was abolished a year or two later, I never had to face up to military life. Eden resigned as Prime Minister soon afterwards. The news came through on Wednesday, 9th January, 1957, when the Mermaid Society were presenting a production of a play called The Sky To Me. This was written and directed by Charles Barron, who also acted in it. Charles was soon to become a prominent figure in the drama circles of North East Scotland. The programme noted that although the play employed “English names, dress and manners” its setting might any country “oppressed by cruelty and savagery”. Hungary in 1956 and France in 1431 were mentioned as examples, the latter being a reference to Joan of Arc on whom the central character of the play was loosely based. Many of the audience found the news of Eden’s resignation distracting. The cast contained most of the stalwarts of university drama of the time. I note from the programme that the parts of two “revolutionaries” were played by Sarah Cockburn and Douglas Kynoch. Willie Thompson explains Sarah’s link to Isherwood’s Sally Bowles in the next chapter. Douglas, who was to make a career in broadcasting, was a devout Christian and an exponent of the Doric dialect of the North East. Playing the part of “a soldier” was Derek Brechin, an old school friend of mine. I don’t recall his performance, but I do recall a related incident. He called at my home to borrow a book by Albert Camus on what happened to be the day of the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising. I mentioned to him that Hungarian radio had been broadcasting appeals to the West, listing people they hoped might support them, Camus being one of them. Derek was not one of my “political” friends, but he shared the poignancy of the moment.

Psychology My notion of what psychology was before I started to study it systematically at university was essentially confined to Freud and Jung. I soon realised that there was much more to the subject and that many psychologists were deeply critical of the Freudians and Jungians. Although, in the first couple of years, I was not taught by any experimental psychologists, I soon formed the view that experimental

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psychology was the approach which was most compatible with my desire to approach issues scientifically. I abandoned my planned joint honours in Psychology and English. By the end of the first year, I was convinced that the modes of thinking in Psychology were much closer to my inclinations than were the methods of English. I took advanced English in my second year, perhaps as an insurance policy. Two years of English was a requirement for teaching the subject in school. In my second year, I also took the course in Political Economy. I found the subject interesting and I was reasonably good at it. My tutor, Fraser Noble, later the University Principal, suggested I change my honours plans, but I already saw myself as a psychologist. The leading experimental psychologists in America, Hull and Tolman, were described as “behaviourists”, and they regarded the study of learning as the central issue in psychology. Although the Psychology Department at Aberdeen was small, it was possible to make fairly direct contact with mainstream experimentalism. Daniel Berlyne, who had worked with Hull, spent a few years in Aberdeen and although I was never taught by him in a formal class I heard him speak at meetings and was an experimental subject for him. Robert Leeper, an associate of Tolman’s, and John Oliver Cook visited the department, the latter being particularly impressive as he examined the philosophical underpinnings of psychology. In my final years as an undergraduate, R. Leslie Reid arrived. He was a radical behaviourist who had worked with B. F. Skinner at Harvard. Although I never felt very close to him personally, by bringing me into quite intimate contact with Skinner’s work, he had an important impact on me. Skinner’s concept of science and his approach to research appealed to me and although his growing fame was largely based on his research on pigeons, he clearly had a strong desire to apply his findings in society at large3. I soon came to regard myself as a radical behaviourist and I have retained that position ever since. Although it was often difficult to see how this standpoint should guide one’s approach to particular problems, I believe it was helpful to me in my political life. Although often working very closely with Marxists, I could never accept the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism. Radical behaviourism taught me to question taken-for-granted words and concepts. I found some of these amongst my colleagues on the left.

General Election, 1959 In 1959, by now a postgraduate student, I looked forward to the forthcoming general election with a certain amount of optimism. I was not

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a member of the Labour Party but I fervently hoped for a Labour victory. An opportunity to help towards that goal arose through my contact in the Aberdeen Humanist Group, Tom Fyfe. Unusually, for a Labour Party activist, Tom was always immaculately dressed. He was the manager of a gentleman’s tailor shop, Hector Powe, on Aberdeen’s Union Street. Whenever I had occasion to visit him at the shop, I sensed his embarrassment at being seen with someone whom his customers would doubtless have considered to be dressed like a beatnik. Although on the right of the party, he had joined the Aberdeen Left Club, like many people regarding it as essentially an intellectual forum rather than a political movement. Tom was neatness personified and wrote in a beautiful italic style. It is not surprising that he was attracted to what was known as the Reading System of running an election campaign. Developed successfully in the Reading constituency, it involved recording the results of canvassing on specially designed carbon sheets which were then used on election day to direct waves of “knocking up”, aimed at ensuring your support actually went to the polling station. He asked me to run the Reading System in part of Aberdeen South where there was an outside chance of Labour getting close to Lady Tweedsmuir, the sitting Conservative. This meant that I spent the election period in an office in the Trades Council building in Adelphi, directing a team of canvassers, many of whom were my friends from the University Labour Club. The hours spent in Adelphi were often rather lonely, enlivened by the occasional sounds of Buddy Holly’s posthumous hit I guess it doesn’t matter any more, and by visits from the adjacent office of my future wife, Lois Kemp, the daughter of the Labour candidate in West Aberdeenshire. I didn’t canvass myself and I didn’t attend any elections meeting. However, I did attend the count on the evening after the polls had closed. It was a bad night for Labour nationally and in Aberdeen too. Conservative party workers at the count were remarkably sympathetic towards the downhearted Labour activists. What made it worse for me was to hear our candidate, Peter Doig, speak for the first time. He seemed utterly hopeless. He later made it to the House of Commons, representing a Dundee constituency, but he never gave me any reason to change my low opinion of him.

Smedley’s Some people with no great enthusiasm for the military life have argued that National Service was often a beneficial experience, helping to broaden the outlook of the reluctant recruits. If that is true, the fact that I missed out on it, might seem a loss. If so, I had a compensation. The nearest

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approach I got to a “National Service” experience was working during the summer months at Smedley’s canning factory in Coupar Angus. Two of my friends worked there in the summer of 1955. I was too young, not yet having turned 18, but they came back so full of enthusiasm for the place that I was certain I would go the following year. I worked at Smedley’s for three years running and in 1959 went back for a weekend to socialize with old friends who were still working there. We lived in wooden huts furnished with bunk beds. There was seldom hot water in the showers. We worked from before seven a.m. (and thus before breakfast) until the day’s work was completed, which was sometimes after midnight. Sunday work was limited by the firm’s lack of enthusiasm for paying double time. The only guaranteed leisure time we had was Saturday evening. All production was shut down to allow us a night out. One Saturday afternoon while we were cleaning the production line for canning peas, one of my colleagues discovered that a hopper of peas had been forgotten. To start up the production line to allow them to be canned would have taken ages, and of course we would have had to clean up again afterwards. None of the managers were around so we quietly flushed the peas down the drain. The production statistics must have looked bad that week. Coupar Angus and the neighbouring town of Blairgowrie were not major centres of entertainment. Apart from the pubs, there were a cinema in each town and Saturday night dances. On the whole student incomers seemed to mix quite well with the locals. There were other visiting workers, Irishmen from, I think, Donegal, who did most of the outside work. This was the age of restrictive licensing laws. Pubs closed early and hotel bars open on a Sunday were open only to bona fide travellers. One of the bars in Coupar had a room, popularly known as the “after hours” bar, which had no windows on to the street and was therefore suitable for illegal drinking when the bar was supposedly closed. An hotel outside the town did an enormous amount of business on Sundays, without requiring customers to go through the boring process of recording their names and the details of their mythical journeys in a Bona Fide book. This was lawbreaking on a scale that I had never experienced in Aberdeen. The nearest contact I had previously had with socially accepted illegality was the street corner bookie’s runner. Students came to Smedley’s from different parts of Scotland but the group which made the biggest impact on me were from Glasgow School of Art. I say “group” but perhaps this wrongly implies that they were homogeneous. In fact they varied quite a lot. Painting and Drawing people didn’t necessarily get on well with Ceramicists. On the whole, they seemed much more sophisticated and streetwise than my Aberdeen

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friends. Several of them were musicians and some arranged gigs locally. I suspect that in some cases it might have been their first professional engagements. A poster advertising “The Jimmy Guy Trio” was treasured by the eponymous leader of that group. I got on well with most of them. I have few photographs of my time at Smedley’s but one shows me sitting at the ruins of Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane which some of us happened to visit on the 900th anniversary of Macbeth’s death on a rare day off. Three of those in the picture are Glasgow School of Art students with whom I happened to get on well. Closest to at least some of the important features of my outlook on life were probably the gentle motorcycling potter, Ian Mackay. Ian’s girlfriend, and later wife, Liz Johnstone, a painter, fitted perfectly to my image of what a Parisienne art student must look like. The painter-pianist, Andy Ferguson, had fantasies that after graduating we could all set up some psych-artist business and maintain the spirit we shared at Smedley’s, but that, sad to say, was a hopeless dream. I owe him something comparatively concrete, however. When I visited Glasgow to represent the University at a meeting of the British Association, he showed me round Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s amazing Art School building, which at that time was much less prized than it is now.

Left Wing Politics Towards the end of the 1950s I became more directly active politically. For example, I took a more active part in the University Labour Club. One meeting stands out, although I did not realise its significance at the time. It was an annual general meeting and there were two candidates for Chairman, neither of whom I knew particularly well. Both were students in the department of Political Economy. One was a pompous fellow, who had more the air of a potential Tory MP than of a socialist. The other was Peter Henderson, an unmistakable figure around the campus, invariably wearing a black leather jacket and tight black jeans. His father was a former trawlerman who had become a full-time official of the Transport and General Workers Union. The vote was expected to be close, basically a right versus left affair, but coloured by the fact that Peter did not tolerate fools gladly and did not try to win over the unattached. Peter won with my support, and that seemed to be that as far as I was concerned, but to Peter my support seemed to mean a lot. That summer, he worked in London, but wrote to me regularly and from then on we were seen on the campus as a team.

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As well as Peter Henderson, I met a number of other fellow students through my engagement in Left politics who impressed me. Many of them have remained life-long friends. Lois Kemp, whom I married in 1961, was mainly active in CND, as was Kristin Maclennan from Blairgowrie. Kristin’s sister, Marion, was one of the founders of the University Humanist Society. Her future husband, Peter Hall, I first regarded essentially as a jazz musician in the traditional style, although he later became a folksinger and collector. He was a fan of George Bernard Shaw and did not take kindly to my comparing Shaw unfavourably with Jean-Paul Sartre. Allan MacLeod differed from some of us in that his friendly manner made him acceptable to conservatives and the non-committed to a degree which more tough-minded socialists such as Peter Henderson and John F. Ross were not. The Shetlanders, Willie Thompson and Douglas Bain, eventually surprised me by moving towards the Communist Party, as described later by Willie himself. I had started reading, and selling, Universities and Left Review from its first appearance. Jack Brand, a political scientist a little older than myself, came home to Aberdeen on a visit and pointed out that New Left Clubs were being formed in various places. He suggested that I contact Ken Alexander, who had recently joined the Political Economy department. Ken was on the board of the New Reasoner, which was in discussion with ULR about collaboration. I wrote to him, not sure if he knew who I was, but he did and he explained that he had been contemplating doing something about an Aberdeen Left Club too. The Aberdeen Left Club came into existence with Ken as Chairman and myself as SecretaryTreasurer. This was the start of an important phase in my life. Ken was dubious about the idea of calling ourselves a “New Left”. He felt that was a name that needed to be achieved rather than adopted. In other words, other people should see the movement as new, and give it the name. However, whatever the name, to me it meant the opening up of new horizons. I travelled about Scotland more than I had done in the past and met people such as Norman and Janey Buchan. They were former communists who soon became prominent in the Labour Party. Norman became an MP and served both as a minister and as an opposition front bench spokesman. Janey became first a town councillor in Glasgow and then a member of the European parliament. Both of them had wide interests but their whole lives were deeply coloured by their political instincts to an extent that I seldom found in other people. They maintained their political values and avoided the rightward shift which seems so common when left-wingers get a taste of authority. They would remain life long friends. Another who did so was Jean McCrindle, also a former

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communist, but more importantly a pioneer of modern feminism4. This was several years before a Women’s Movement developed in Britain and Jean met a good deal of resistance on the left. I appear to have been one of the few men who was sympathetic to her arguments. Ken Alexander, for example, said to me that full equality between men and women would be impossible “because of the nature of the sexual act”! The New Left organized speakers’ tours, which meant visits to Aberdeen by leading national figures such as Edward Thompson, John Saville and Stuart Hall. The movement’s interest in cultural matters appealed to me. Ken organized Ballads and Blues concerts5. Arnold Wesker began his Centre 42 campaign aimed at involving trade unions in cultural activities. Janey Buchan and I met Wesker in Edinburgh and we had a memorable time with him. The campaign gradually faded away as did the New Left. However, my experiences at the time meant that, long after its death, I still considered my political position was “New Left”. A substantial proportion of the people who impressed me in the New Left were former communists. As far as I could judge, they had lost none of their ideals but were in revolt against an authoritarian party organization. Meeting them made me feel that I had something to learn from Marxism, but their descriptions of how the Communist Party operated convinced me that it was not an organization I could possibly join.

The Affair of the Union Staff Wages Allan MacLeod was one of the most prominent figures on the left at Aberdeen University in my time there. This prominence had several sides to it. First, he was tall with red hair, and an unmistakeable member of any demonstration, be it against the nuclear weapons or against apartheid. Secondly, he was a “gut-feeling” socialist, quick to react against any injustice he saw around him. Thirdly, he was extremely extroverted, with an easy knack of talking to anyone irrespective of social background. A profile of him in Gaudie, the student newspaper, referred to him as having been adopted as a “pet mascot” by the University Tories!6 It was because of these last two qualities that he and I found ourselves collaborating on one of the few political campaigns of my student days which could be seen as ending in success, although admittedly a small one. Allan and I were among the many students who ate lunch in the Refectory at King’s College. This service was provided by the University Union, so waitresses and kitchen staff were paid by the Union, of which we were members. In principle, the Union was run by a Management

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Committee (UMC), which was responsible to the members. All matriculated students at the university were automatically members of the Union. In practice the running of the Union was largely in the hands of a full-time official, known as the Provisor. Allan often chatted to the waitresses and on a few occasions the amount they were paid was mentioned. To Allan, the wages seemed pathetically small and he said as much to fellow students. But was there anything we could do about it? Aware that we did not have any precise information about the exact rates paid, in November 1960 he and I decided to approach the UMC asking for information. The reply we got indicated that they believed that wages paid compared “very favourably” with standard rates, but the Committee was unwilling to provide us with details. Allan and I went to see Willie Kemp, father of our fellow student Lois and a local full-time organizer of the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers. (He was also my future father-in-law, but I didn’t know that at the time.) Willie couldn’t become involved officially because none of the staff were members of his union (or any other union) but he helpfully supplied us with a copy of the current rates stipulated by the Refreshment Wages Council. These rates were mandatory only for the normal run of commercial employer and the University Union was exempt. However, the UMC claimed to respect the Wages Council rates in practice. The question now was how to get the Provisor and the UMC to treat us seriously. Since we were both notorious socialists, it seemed to us that the best strategy was to stress that this was not simply another case of trouble making by the left. We composed a letter calling on the Union to supply us with the appropriate information, to which we were entitled as members. We could have accumulated many signatures from our left-wing friends, but chose instead to draw on as wide a support as possible. In political terms, we obtained signatures from Nationalists, Conservatives and Liberals, as well as people active in many aspects of University life who were not identified with particular parties. One such was David Buchan, at the time regarded by his friends as an aspiring poet and playwright, but later to become one of Scotland’s leading folklorists. Gaudie published an “interview” with me7. In fact I wrote both the questions and the answers! My stress was that the staff were formally our employees, so it was correct that we should have information to allow us to make informed judgements about how they were treated. Angus McIntyre, who I think was a Conservative, wrote a front page piece in Gaudie, supporting us and raising the possibility of a Special General meeting of the Union membership.

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The UMC seems to have realized that we had wide support and that we were not going to go way. They gave in to the extent to agreeing to have a meeting with Allan and myself. Naturally, it was a rather tense affair. We took the line that, since the Union claimed to pay Wages Council rates and these rates were in the public domain, the committee should acknowledge that we already “knew” what the staff were paid. We showed them that we had a copy of the official rates, which momentarily gave them confidence, since they felt they could demonstrate that they were paying the “standard” rate for the job. However, once we started to discuss specific categories of employee, it quickly emerged that there were small discrepancies, in each case the rate being paid being marginally less than the official Wages Council figures. Then the explanation became clear. The copy of the Wages Council regulations which the UMC had brought to the meeting had actually been superceded a month or two previously by a new document, a copy of which we had obtained from Willie Kemp. The staff were being paid a lower, out of date, rate. Since the UMC stance was that it paid Wages Council rates, it was obvious that they would have to take account of this new information which we had brought to their notice. I saw this as a minor victory, but Allan’s natural inclination was to push for more. I saw no likelihood of the UMC being swayed by concern for social justice, however well argued, and managed to persuade Allan that we should make a dignified withdrawal, having achieved a moral victory by showing ourselves to be better informed than the committee. A month or two later, the “moral” victory was confirmed as a material one, when Gaudie’s front page headline read “Union Staff Wages Increased”. The article announced small increases in pay, some of them pitifully small, but nevertheless they were increases. Some staff were quoted as being pleased. It seems likely that at best all we achieved was that wages rises which would have come about eventually came about more quickly. That might have seemed the end of the matter had not author of the article, Theresa Rogers, interviewed the Provisor, Mr Aitken. He took the opportunity to attack us for getting involved in something we didn’t fully understand and “going behind the backs” of the UMC. He also claimed that that labour relations in the Union were good and that staff resented “young people who don’t know the cost of running a home” enquiring into these things. There was no acknowledgement that he had failed to realize that the Wages Council had raised its rates. His stance was so ridiculous that I felt the need to reply and wrote a long letter which was published in Gaudie. One of the points I made was that his claim that labour relations were good should be seen alongside his admission that it was difficult to recruit and retain staff. I suggested that

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high staff turnover might be linked to the lack of an adequate system of joint consultation or negotiation, as well as to poor pay and conditions. Some staff were apparently quite taken with my suggestion that labour relations in the Union were still in the nineteenth century! His claim that staff would resent our involvement because we didn’t understand the cost of running a home was just not worth a reply. It would have made sense if we had been arguing for a reduction in their pay, but not otherwise. This was the end of the affair. I remember it not so much for the actual wage increase achieved as for our success in gaining widespread support for a social issue in a time of student apathy. On the other hand, it seems remarkable now that we do not appear to have attempted to persuade any of the staff to join a trade union.

Hugh MacDiarmid Rectorial Campaign Before going to university I had little awareness of Scottish nationalism and little contact with those who considered themselves nationalists (as opposed to those who simply wanted Scotland to beat England in the annual football match). One of my schoolmates came from a nationalist family, but all that I can remember of his nationalism was his policy of always buying five ha’penny stamps instead of a single tuppence ha’penny one. Since a ha’penny stamp cost as much to produce as a tuppence ha’penny one, the intention was to seriously undermine the economy of the Post Office, and through that of the British state. At University, I soon encountered people who were willing to make an intellectual case for nationalism. One was a Canadian who had adopted Scottish nationalism. Perhaps he had some Scottish ancestry, but that was hardly raised. His key argument was that we were entering an age of nationalism. This I could not accept. Socialism, to me, necessarily involved a sense of international solidarity. We could find no common ground. I cannot say even now that he was right in what he advocated. However what is clear to me now is that I profoundly underestimated the importance of nationalistic or cultural attachment. In this failing I was not alone. In an interview by Tariq Ali with Dorothy and Edward Thompson shortly before Edward’s death, Dorothy reflected on their underestimation of the extent to which people were willing to fight for their cultural interests rather than for their economic interests8. I was not particularly hostile to Scottish nationalism, merely considering it a distraction from the main socialist goals. I had no qualms, therefore, when an opportunity arose to collaborate with them. This was the campaign to have the poet Christopher Murray Grieve, who wrote using

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the name Hugh MacDiarmid, elected Rector of the university in 1960. The Rector, at least nominally, was the chair of the University Court. Rectorial elections were an opportunity for students to express their political views in a way which could have a significance for the running of the university. “Political” must be treated in a broad sense. A recent Rector had been the comedian, Jimmy Edwards, elected in 1951. Edwards received 430 of the 1008 votes cast. His nearest opponent, Lord Lovat, received 370 votes. Paul Robeson, who can be considered the “left-wing” candidate, polled only 104. In 1954, the most left-wing candidate, the Anti-Apartheid campaigner, Rev. Michael Scott, did rather better, polling 330, but still lost to Rear-Admiral McGrigor (392). In 1957, there was no obviously left-wing candidate but the Liberal, John Bannerman, possibly with leftwing support, beat the Conservative, Lord Hailsham. They polled 421 and 393, respectively. A third candidate that year was Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who probably owed his nomination more to his appearances on television that to his contributions to archaeology. In the year of our campaign, besides MacDiarmid there were four other candidates. One was another television personality, Cliff Michelmore. Sir Colin Anderson, an industrialist, was presented as “The Students’ Grants Protector” because he had chaired a government review of student grants. Donald Campbell was described as having done “great service” to British science and British engineering. Rather strangely, it was claimed that a special merit he had was that he had “time to spare”, presumably acquired through driving so quickly! The eventual winner was Peter Scott, the ornithologist and artist. Campaigning took many forms. Articles supporting the candidates appeared in Gaudie. It was clear that MacDiarmid had support in the editorial team. MacDiarmid’s portrait, written by Willie Thompson, appeared earlier than those of the other candidates. The editor, Alan Mackenzie, signed an editorial supporting MacDiarmid, who also received rather more space than the others. Willie’s portrait acknowledged that MacDiarmid had been an unsuccessful candidate for the Rectorship of St Andrews, but asked what could one expect of an English Public School! MacDiarmid’s status as a “nonconformist” was stressed. A vote for him would undermine current claims about the apathy of students. We also needed cheap printing facilities for leaflets. Here the nationalists had an important contribution to offer. We were introduced to a small printer who had a press at home in a prefab9. We spent an evening discussing printing, politics and the Rectorial contest, during the course of which the printer conspiratorially produced the pistol he intended to use in

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the forthcoming nationalist uprising. This did nothing to persuade me to join the nationalist cause. The election itself was run on archaic lines. We did not vote directly for the candidate of our choice. Each student was assigned a “Nation” based on his or her place of birth. Each Nation met to elect a fellow student who became a member of a small electoral college. The voting was close: Scott, 277, MacDiarmid, 248, Michelmore, 188, Anderson, 187, Campbell, 85. MacDiarmid came near to an undemocratic victory, in that although not the highest in terms of overall votes cast, he fell just short of obtaining the two votes in the electoral college which could have meant victory. The distribution of votes probably gives a pretty fair indication of typical student interests and values of the time. Furthermore the turnout was only around 40 percent and the votes cast were marginally less than in the three previous elections. Perhaps the claims about the apathy of the average student on social matters were correct. A party for MacDiarmid had been planned at the home of local Communist, Margaret Rose. Of course, the hope had been that it would be a victory party, but the atmosphere was not at all downbeat. MacDiarmid was encouraged to give a speech. He suggested that it was probably just as well that he had not become Rector, since certain individuals would probably have died of shock. (I think he had in mind particularly the dourly Presbyterian, Principal Taylor.) One of our leaflets had reproduced a letter of support from Compton Mackenzie in which he described MacDiarmid as the greatest Scottish poet since Burns. MacDiarmid mentioned this in his speech. It was a view with which he disagreed. He considered himself the greatest Scottish poet since Dunbar, implicitly claiming thereby to be greater than Burns, The evening convinced me that MacDiarmid was an eccentric who could not be considered a satisfactory guide in matters political. There was one further tiny link between myself and the great man. Ken Alexander persuaded Grieve to join in an appeal to set up a memorial fund for Lewis Grassic Gibbon at his old school in Stonehaven. A joint letter from the two of them was to be circulated. Ken, recognizing my superior skills in typing and layout, his own being appallingly bad, asked me to produce the letter, which I did. I’m not sure if Grieve ever even saw it.

Alma Mater For a year or two in the late fifties and early sixties, the left took control of the Aberdeen student magazine, Alma Mater. I contributed to several issues on subjects such as film, the Marquis de Sade and the state of

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Psychology. Since it was common for an editor to nominate his successor, I was made editor following the nomination of the previous editor, Roy Johnson. (It had in effect become an annual publication.) My aim was to produce an issue which reflected my concerns at the time, education, politics, science and feminism. My diary-cum-notebooks of the time contain notes on these and many other topics. The education material was rather muted, as was the politics, but I did feel quite pleased to have published a debate on the possibility of a scientific aesthetics between fellow psychologist, Billy Brown, and Roy Johnson, who as well as being a fellow member of the Labour Club was a mature student in the English department. I was on Billy’s side, believing that eventually psychology would be able to successfully deal with questions currently considered the territory of “the humanities”. It was something we debated passionately in the little group of psychologists who met regularly at the home of Eva Foote. Eva herself contributed an article on “Woman or Person”. There was also an article on women’s magazines, by Joan Taylor, another mature student of psychology. This was well before the emergence of a coherent women’s movement in Britain and, whatever their flaws, these were pioneering efforts. Eva found it quite difficult to formulate her arguments, because she had few precedents to guide her. The final version of the article was in effect a collaboration between the two of us, but only her name appeared on it (see Appendix C). It was probably my friendship with Eva which made me receptive to the feminists ideas I heard expressed by Jean McCrindle and later by the pioneers of the women’s movement. Eva and Joan were writing ten years before Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch10. Eva lived with her husband, George, and two children on a council estate. In 1958, the local Aberdeen newspaper the Evening Express carried an article on this strange phenomenon, a “mature” mother of two going to university to study psychology. It portrayed her husband as supportive. The journalist seemed particularly impressed that he “ate out” rather than come home for lunch and he even sometimes cooked his own tea! In fact he found the situation hard to handle and didn’t seem too happy about the kinds of friends she had made at university. Eva borrowed my rather battered hardback copy of The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir. When she eventually returned it, I noticed its almost pristine condition. When I mentioned this, she explained that George had thrown my copy on the fire and she had bought a new copy to replace it. I suppose that I was aware that “my” Alma Mater was a kind of climax to my student life, although I was still around to contribute a piece on censorship to the next number, edited by my nominee, the socialist from Bacup, Lancashire, Wilf Heap11. Censorship was one of my special

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concerns at the time. This arose in part from my interest in developing a scientific approach to culture. A key claim made to justify censorship was that certain works produced harmful effects on the audience. This seemed to me an issue on which the traditional approaches to culture had to face up to scientific standards. Can such effects be demonstrated? The answer, as in so many scientific debates, proved complicated. However, this was in itself inspiring. It was a pleasure to point out weaknesses in the arguments and evidence presented by the supporters of censorship (and of some of the opponents as well!).

Antigone As well as “my” Alma Mater, another sort of climax came when I produced Jean Anouilh’s Antigone for the Mermaid Society. On the whole, the group of students interested in the theatre were not particularly politically aware, although as already mentioned Charles Barron did write a play linking Joan of Arc to the Hungarian Uprising, very soon after the latter events. It was obvious to them that I didn’t draw a sharp dividing line between politics and the arts. When I had an opportunity to select and introduce plays for reading, I chose works by Sartre and Brecht. Another kind of revolutionary gesture was to introduce a reading of a screenplay (Tennessee Williams’s Baby Doll, the only one I could find!)12 rather than a piece written for the theatre. Anouilh’s play Antigone was a suitable work for production. It had a political theme (which suited me), it required no complex sets (which suited the Society) and it had a juicy part as the female lead. This last was significant because we had one outstandingly good actress, Margo Shand. At the rehearsals, anyone could read for any part and there was one newcomer who read the part of Antigone quite well. Margo could tell she was good and saw her as a rival. She came to me afterwards and talked about the role and, although she didn’t express it directly, she seemed afraid I wouldn’t cast her in the part. I told her she was my first choice and if she hadn’t been available I would have considered abandoning the play. The Narrator was Wilf Heap and Creon was played by Harry Hill, who eventually became a successful professional actor in Canada. My faith in them was justified. I asked my friend, Derek Brechin, to tell me frankly what he thought of the production. He said Margo and Harry were first class, and in other respects, I had done the best I could hope to with the material available. Two reviews stood out for very different reasons. The editor of Gaudie asked a French student to review it, which was fine. Unfortunately, he also thought it would be amusing to print the reviewer’s appallingly bad

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English uncorrected. The result was that it was largely meaningless as a review. A local newspaper reviewer described Margo and Harry as the best performance he had ever seen by amateurs13. That was probably how most people saw the play. The political side made less of an impact than I would have hoped. In compensation. Peter Henderson and I wrote a critique of the play for a little magazine we were involved with at the time (See Appendix B). The rather grandly titled CAR Contemporary and Arts Review was largely the creation of Roy Johnson and, typical of little magazines, it lasted for only a few issues. However, it appeared more frequently than Alma Mater and thus allowed contributions to be relatively up to date. The piece by Peter and me appeared just two months after the production. We were mainly critically of the references to fate in Anouilh’s play. I had made some cuts in the text to play this down. However, we did acknowledge the play’s power in representing a genuine type of political and moral conflict. My production was more Brechtian than Anouilh no doubt would have appreciated, in that the intention was that “the audience would observe the action without becoming emotionally involved”.

Buying Books I have tried to convey my intellectual development in my student years by pinpointing certain activities in which I was involved. However, I think it might also illuminate my interests and opinions of the time, if I mention another sort of activity, book buying. I began buying books while still at school. What I could afford to buy was clearly limited by my poverty. Almost all my purchases were either paperbacks or secondhand. The range was very wide, politics, novels, history, art, plays, but they had in common one feature, cheapness. When I went to University I was slightly better off, partly because of my grant and partly from summer vacation earnings. However, with the exception of textbooks, I still bought relatively cheap volumes. From time to time, I would buy something rather more expensive, but this required careful planning. It would also sometimes be a sort of celebration (finish of exams or results coming out). Because these relatively expensive books were few in number they may cast light on what my preoccupations were at the time. Two of them were by Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins14(which ended up being burnt, as I described earlier) and The Second Sex15. In the University Library, there was a copy of Les Mandarins, which I borrowed for a long period of time, but I struggled with the French text. Buying the translation was partly a response to the frustration of not following the

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nuances I was sure were in the novel. The Second Sex for a considerable time had been on display in the window of Willie’s Bookshop. Willie Leitch, the proprietor, was a former Communist who was said to have opened his shop with financial assistance from the Party, but who made the business pay by selling “dirty” books and contraceptives. His usual clients clearly didn’t find The Second Sex an interesting proposition (at the price set), so Willie was probably relieved when I eventually came up with the cash. I read it avidly, but found parts of it unconvincing. I have an affection for the book, but there are many subsequent books which present feminism in a much more satisfactory way. Sartre’s Being and Nothingness16 was another expensive purchase. I bought it in Cambridge while attending a conference of the British Psychological Society. It was an object of great curiosity amongst my friends, but I don’t recall anyone asking to borrow it and, in truth, I could hardly recommend it to them. I am glad I had the opportunity to examine this book at leisure but, although I continued to admire Sartre as a creative writer committed to engagement, I could not adopt his philosophical underpinnings. There is an irony here because I was impressed by the idea of an author who tried to make literature, politics and philosophy all part of a single big system. However, in the end Sartre’s system did not satisfy me. By the time I read Being and Nothingness, I was already steeped in Skinner’s writings, which clearly must have helped me resist Sartre’s philosophy. I am not sure how clear I was at the time about my reasons for rejecting Sartre’s philosophy but I now see that his debt to Hegel was an important factor. I could not accept the idea of the dialectic as a fundamental philosophical principle. This too was an important reason for my rejecting Marxism as a system. This does not mean that I did not learn a lot from the insights of Marxist and Existentialist writers. Two of my “big buys’ may be seen as due to my deep desire to understand culture from a scientific stance rather than employing the perspective of the humanities. Neither of these books is in itself “scientific” and the authors are clearly part of the “humanities” tradition. However, Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy17, and The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren18 by the Opies each took a stance which implicitly challenged some common assumptions. The main topics of these books were, respectively, commercial “popular culture” and children’s folklore. Even to regard these as worthy of attention was a slightly radical position and one which appealed greatly to me. The initial attraction of Hoggart’s book was partly that I knew him to be politically associated with the New Left. Peter and Iona Opie, as far as I could judge, had no particular political position. However, it was their book, rather than Hoggart’s,

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which made the lasting impression on me, encouraging me to develop my interest in folklore and become part of the small scholarly community of British folklorists. Hoggart’s book seemed to me to lack any systematic methodology. His style of writing was in no obvious way to me any advance on Orwell’s writings on topics such as boys’ weeklies and comic postcards. In contrast, I found the approach of the Opies exciting and fresh. They had employed questionnaires. They presented some of their results as maps. They explored the thoughts and actions of young children. These and other features of their work seemed to me to be signs that research on such topics could eventually have a scientific character. I have had occasion later to offer some criticisms of their book19 but this cannot detract from the deep attachment I have to it. In so far as one can judge these things, it has been a substantial influence on me and I continue to consult it to this day.

Leaving In my final year as a postgraduate student, my mother was operated on for cancer. I found the period of her illness and recuperation quite disturbing. This contributed to my failure to complete my dissertation on time, although I had in fact lost interest in a subject chosen in haste while preparing for my honours finals. As universities were expanding at the time, it was possible to enter academic teaching without a PhD and I applied for an “Assistantship” at Queen’s College, Dundee. I was appointed, but only because the interviewing panel’s favoured candidate did not accept the pay they offered. At the interview I was surprised to be asked about my politics and was told that one of my referees had mentioned my reputation for eccentric dress. Apparently Rex Knight had been worried that I might turn up looking like a “Left Bank intellectual”. In fact, I wore a suit. When I saw him after my return to Aberdeen, he told me that if I had not got the job in Dundee, he would have offered me an equivalent post at Aberdeen. I would have preferred to stay in Aberdeen but he was probably right to say it would be beneficial for me in the long run to broaden my horizons. As it turned out, I did not find the atmosphere at Queen’s College very congenial. I had imagined that my move from Aberdeen would be a temporary one, but as it turned out, I never lived or worked there again.

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Aberdeen and its university Quite apart from the university the city of Aberdeen itself made a favourable impression on me following my arrival. I found the grey granite facades of most of the buildings visually attractive – even the remarkable wedding-cake appearance of Marischal College – and of course the excitement of discovering new things and places was especially appealing. I was astonished by the number of cinemas – an interesting observation in view of Sandy’s comment on their reduction in the preceding years (Lerwick had had only one). Aberdeen’s heavy industry was limited in extent, a circumstance which in combination with the granite building material made it look comparatively clean – something I was made conscious of when visiting Edinburgh, and even more so on bus journeys to Glasgow for CND demonstrations. I had of course no idea of what the physical character of a university would be like, and while in Shetland had visualised it as looking something similar to a school – a single building, as were the Shetland schools. A pictorial calendar in our home had once had a photograph of Glasgow University’s central building – I assumed that was the institution’s full extent. Consequently when I came to appreciate the reality in Aberdeen I was impressed both by the actual number of buildings, their size, the range 1 of its library (again I had never previously encountered anything similar) and the social facilities on offer – modest as all these things would appear by present day standards (apart from libraries of course, where the reduction of paper volumes now appears to be the order of the day). By and large I enormously enjoyed the four years I spent as an undergraduate at Aberdeen, though not of course with unqualified delight: there were naturally the usual mishaps and disappointments of student life – embarrassments, frustrations and annoyances of various sorts. As to why I meant to attend university, the answer is that, both in the local

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educational context and within our family environment it seemed the natural thing to do if one had the qualifications. There was to be sure very little family history of higher education, although a cousin with whom I was quite friendly had graduated from there a few years previously. My stepmother’s sister had enrolled at Edinburgh University in the late 1920s (though she hadn’t completed her degree) – and this at an earlier period, with parents of social background similar to my own. In Scotland that kind of thing was by no means unusual; I can think of other instances among people I know and it crops up in literature as well. In Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song for example, the female central character is the daughter of a small farmer whose labour force is his own family, yet he hopes that she might train as a teacher ‘and be a credit to him’. My own family no doubt thought along similar lines. My cousin mentioned above did indeed become a schoolteacher, and while I was at secondary school I had been pressured by my uncle in North Roe to declare what I wanted to be in adult life, and for the sake of peace I had said a schoolteacher. Indeed at the time I had no idea what other possibilities there might be for a graduate, and so when I enrolled schoolteaching was what I expected to do – though without any enthusiasm. However it then appeared to be a long time in the future. Since arriving in Shetland from Edinburgh in infancy I had only once been out of the islands, this on a school trip to Belgium in 1956 (which was paid for with my National Savings certificates) and in the course of that we had spent a day each in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, though I don’t believe the comparisons made then influenced my choice of university. Shetlanders entering tertiary education tended to divide fairly equally between Aberdeen and Edinburgh with very few choosing Glasgow or St. Andrews. (It should be understood that in those days the minimum Highers qualification provided automatic entry). My own initial expectation was that I would go to Edinburgh, the reason being that I believed that Latin – which I did not have – was necessary to study History at Aberdeen – in order to read medieval documents – but not at Edinburgh. Before application however I discovered this not to be the case. My cousin, who had taken some of the History courses, commented that the only old parchments he’d had to deal with were some of the lecturers. However, I cannot recall precisely why I finally opted for Aberdeen. It was the choice of the school companions to whom I was closest, including Douglas Bain, but I don’t remember now what was the decisive element – perhaps it was simply that Aberdeen was nearer. At any rate it seems clear that there was no strongly motivating force one way or the other.

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Aberdeen University had been founded in February 1494/5, when the local prelate, Bishop Elphinstone applied for and received the necessary Bull from the Borgia pope, Alexander VI (criminal even by the standards of Renaissance popes). A physical remnant of that era is the university chapel and, peculiarly, the bishop’s tomb sits not inside the building, but on the lawn outside. This feature is a consequence of the fact that Elphinstone, for all his ecclesiastical and other attainment, remained ashamed of his bastardy – he was a priest’s son. He therefore insisted that he should be buried under the floor of the chapel without any monument.2 In the nineteenth century however it was decided that such an eminent personage deserved an appropriate tomb, and so a fine bronze one was ordered from Venice. On the tomb’s arrival however it was discovered that it was too large to be got into the chapel without knocking down the wall (and would have completely dominated the interior) and so was placed instead on the grass outside,3 so in reality the tomb is empty. When I was an undergraduate I never entered the chapel and never gave any thought to this peculiarity, only learning about it four decades later. The fact that people were never buried inside Shetland churches may have unconsciously influenced my lack of curiosity. Aberdeen in 1958 was a small university, around 2000 students. Halls of residence did not exist, though they must have been under construction or advanced in planning for they opened a couple of years or so later. During my first year I lived in lodgings run by a couple that were active Conservatives and used to invite their lodgers to local Conservative social events. The lodgers themselves were an interesting social mixture; they included, of those I can remember, three students, a journalist, a nuclear engineer, a shipyard apprentice and a professional racing punter. I once asked the latter how one would get on if one always backed favourites, and his reply was that one would lose slightly: to make a living from it one needed expertise and judgement. During my three subsequent years I shared a flat with three other (later four) students, including Douglas. The first one that we occupied, in Broomhill Road, we were evicted from for rowdiness, and the same would have happened with the second, in Constitution Street, if we had not been graduating. In Broomhill Road we had an arrangement that each week a different person was appointed to be responsible for the evening meals paid for out of a collective kitty. The arrangement appeared to work tolerably well, and one aspect of it was that each of us competed to see who could combine adequacy with the least possible expenditure. I had several overlapping though distinct circles of friends, which can be designated as firstly the four people with whom I shared the flats –

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apart from Douglas these were engineering students; secondly a number of the students studying honours history; then, and most importantly, the circle of left-wing acquaintances – who made up an informal social collective as well – forming the Socialist Society; and lastly there were some miscellaneous individuals who fell outside those categories. These included psychology students whom I knew through Douglas, who had opted for that discipline, and one of whom, Noreen Butler, I later married.

Curriculum and academics During the initial year of the Arts degree all students had to study three subjects, their honours choice if honours were intended, and two others. It was customary at that time for the head of department/professor to conduct the major part of the first-year lectures. The History professor was G.O. Sayles, a renowned medievalist, who was nevertheless lecturing on European history from 1815 to 1939, thus he was teaching outside of his specialist field to conform to this well established tradition. His lecturing technique in this instance was simply to dictate his lectures, word for word, and evidently this was his standard technique with the first year, for when I compared my cousin’s notes with my own they were identical. When I had enrolled at the university I had never had any thought of studying psychology (nor had Douglas) and in addition to History in the first year I had put down on my application form English and French. However I had no particular wish to study first year French, having no great talent for languages, and when I saw my advisor of studies,4 he suggested psychology as an alternative possibility, a suggestion which I quickly accepted. Thus it was that I first encountered the famous Margaret Knight; the professor was her husband Rex. Together they had written the introductory psychology textbook, and Mrs Knight’s lecturing methods were even more startling than those of Professor Sayles – she would simply read from their textbook. On the other hand, when I went to hear her at a public lecture arguing for a non-religious approach to life she spoke very ably and dealt with questions spontaneously and effectively. Her lecturing style was in sharp contrast to her husband’s. His approach was very casual and he often wandered off the point. The English professor’s name was Duthie, and his style was no less remarkable, though in a different way. At his initial lecture, his very first meeting with the class, without a word of welcome or introduction to the theme he placed himself at the lectern and began, ‘According to the eminent German critic Professor Schucking, Cleopatra was a wanton right from the beginning of the play...’ At least it stuck in the memory. Some

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years later, I understand, he broke down in front of the class and began to tell them about his marital problems. That was the end of his academic career. He had a drink problem. In retrospect the number of texts we were invited to study (in full) for the first year English course appears formidable. They included Anthony and Cleopatra, King John and The Tempest, some relatively lengthy poems such as Samuel Johnson’s ‘Vanity of Human Wishes’ and Dryden’s Absalom and Achipotel; Milton’s Samson Agonistes, Comus and the Areophagitica, Fielding‘s Tom Jones, Stevenson’s Weir of Hermiston, and David Livingstone’s Travels. In addition there were lengthy selections from Swift’s Tale of a Tub, Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and others which I’ve now forgotten. I did not read them all, nor, I imagine, did most students. By comparison, the reading for both History and Psychology was much more limited. At the end of the initial year I had the choice of following either the History or the Psychology honours stream (I never considered English). I deliberated on this with some uncertainty, for I had found first year psychology both enjoyable and illuminating. In the end I opted to stay with History, the main reason being the necessary use of mathematics in statistical computation and I had no talent for maths. The honours history degree which I entered from the second year consisted of courses covering the entire span of English history from the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth century to the outbreak of the Second World War and of European history over the same period with the curious omission of the centuries between the end of the Byzantine Empire and the Congress of Vienna. (Some years afterwards the interviewers for a post for which I was applying ridiculed the breadth of this degree, declaring that it couldn’t have had much depth). There was also a course each on US History, Political Theory and a half-course each on Historical Method and Scottish History, topped off in the final year with a special subject. When I entered the degree and for a couple of years thereafter choice over the latter was confined to two options – medieval universities, for which naturally some command of Latin was essential, or Commonwealth constitutional history which all the students in my year assumed would be boring beyond measure. Accordingly we made representations and – possibly helped by the fact that Professor Sayles had retired – these were taken on board and the range of choice widened. To the existing two options were added the 1688 revolution and the partition of Africa. In previous years the number of honours History students had been very small – in 1961, I believe, three or possibly only two. In my own final year it had expanded to half a dozen or so. The character of the finals exam was that we sat a paper in every course we had pursued – including

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the modern European history of four years earlier, which had not been touched upon since. At that time there were only three grades of honours – the second class category being undivided. Also at that time attendance at graduation was compulsory and a student could not graduate without being present in person at the ceremony. One student, who was a member of the Close Brethren sect, was even deprived of her degree because its rules forbade participation in any ceremony alongside non-believers and consequently she refused to attend. It is also worth mentioning in passing – Sandy’s full account does not include this aspect – that rectorials then included an event the like of which health and safety today would never now sanction – an organised and ferocious battle in the Marischal College quadrangle between the respective supporting groups on a two-by-two elimination basis. Douglas and I participated enthusiastically (Sandy sensibly refused to do so). Noone was seriously injured, but the participants (all male of course) emerged dripping with oil and other messy substances and another of our flatmates required several stitches to his face, the scars of which for a long time remained discoloured by the oil. Of all the university staff the most bizarre was undoubtedly the Professor of Moral Philosophy, Donald MacKinnon, of whom anecdotes about his eccentricities were legion and who was reputed to be phenomenally knowledgeable. Although I had no idea of this at the time, he had been a close friend of Iris Murdoch, whose short book on Sartre I came across in the university library and which was the first volume on Sartre that I had the opportunity to read. Indeed existentialism was being much discussed among the students at that time and on one occasion it was arranged that MacKinnon would give a series of general interest talks on this theme. The first of these was packed out, but nobody could understand a word of what he said and consequently the second was so poorly attended that the series was thereafter abandoned.

Extra-curricular activities My first acquaintance with existentialism however had been at a talk given at the psychology society by my co-author. I think, though my recollection is vague, that I asked a critical question in the discussion which followed, but the themes he introduced certainly stuck in my consciousness and subsequently became an abiding interest. In the main, although I found the academic side of my university time reasonably stimulating and profitable, my principal enthusiasm was for extra-curricular activities, especially ones associated with the student body – or at least part of it. I lost no time in

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joining the university Labour Club – later it was renamed the Socialist Society – and shortly afterwards I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. While in Shetland I had given scarcely any thought to nuclear issues apart from reading about them in pulp science fiction novels and when the Suez crisis had appeared to threaten possible nuclear war I had not felt greatly disturbed. It was an exhibition mounted by CND in a hall close by the student union building, with photographs of atomic devastation and the human results in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which changed my attitude – though in the context of the times I would undoubtedly have arrived at the same point before long. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament thereafter achieved widespread (though naturally not universal) support among students and included a number of staff members as well. It would be impossible to suggest any actual figures, but support extended well beyond students who identified themselves as being on the left (these latter being with very few exceptions from the Arts faculty). A fair proportion of the history students wore the badge apart from those who participated in demonstrations, and this was true also of my engineering flatmates. A leading figure in the dramatic society, who was unknown to me in any other context, to the best of my recollection wrote an anti-nuclear play which was actually staged in the student union, though its reception was less than overwhelming, and Margarhita Laski’s anti-nuclear play The Offshore Island was also staged. A CND branch also existed in the city and in addition to that an Aberdeen Youth CND, with local demonstrations and initiatives (such as the exhibition which propelled me into joining). We also participated in Scottish events – the demonstrations held in Glasgow regularly received a busload of Aberdeen participants – and took part in the Aldermaston demonstrations. I also tried to recruit support in Lerwick, specifically the local provost (a Labour Party stalwart) and the Methodist minister – in both cases without success. The last Aberdeen event I was personally involved in occurred after I had graduated and moved to Glasgow, but made a visit for the occasion. This took the form of a canvass of a council housing estate to try to sign up supporters. I detested this form of activity, not on any principle but because I found it horribly uncongenial. The circumstances on this occasion were not improved by the fact that the response was worse than poor and the weather was unfavourable. CND in any case, though it continued and continues to survive, was on the slide as a nationally significant organisation.

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New Left Sandy had also been responsible for launching the New Left in Aberdeen in collaboration with Ken Alexander, then a lecturer in the Department of Political Economy, whom I had noticed on account of his resemblance to the comic film actor Fernandel before I had any idea who he was. Thanks to Sandy’s initiative, copies of the New Left journals New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review were on sale on the counter of the student coffee shop, though I found them a little hard going at first, being almost totally lacking in background for the themes which their articles discussed. The club’s speakers included the historian Edward Thompson and journalist and author Mervyn Jones5. I think the playwright Arnold Wesker may also have been one of them – certainly he addressed a meeting in Aberdeen, though that may have been the Young Socialists. Another was Ronald Segal a South African exile and the editor of the journal Africa South – naturally we shared the hopes then invested in the African liberation movement in the years of most rapid decolonisation. At some point in 1962 I travelled with other colleagues to a discussion in Dundee – it wasn’t a formal meeting – with Lawrence Daly, who had been until 1956 the rising star of the Scottish communist miners, but who after his break with the CP had made a major impact in Fife with the organisation he founded, the Fife Socialist League, winning NUM positions and council seats at the CP’s expense as well as making a respectable showing in the West Fife constituency at the 1959 general election with Daly as the candidate.6 My impression from that discussion was that he sounded less than optimistic regarding the political future, and, though there was no hint of such intention during that meeting, in the autumn he took the decision to close down the FSL and join the Labour Party. It was indicative of a general trend, for the New Left as an organisation went into meltdown during the course of that year, leaving the journal New Left Review as its only surviving element. Certainly a significant left-wing presence was developing among the Aberdeen students at during time I studied there, though I cannot judge whether this in any way represented a foretaste of what was to emerge in the sixties. The Labour Club/Socialist Society was a fairly flourishing organisation – and very male-dominated. A 1960 photograph of an ‘annual dinner’ – held in a chip shop – a satirical imitation of a formal one sponsored by the Liberal Club, shows fourteen individuals without one woman among them. At the time the Labour Club/Socialist Society was able to hold meetings with large audiences (when Stuart Hall made a visit

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to speak on Cuba it was standing room only). Other speakers included the Cuban ambassador (aged about 25) shortly after the Revolution. Despite the point made above, the first intimations of feminism were beginning to appear. There were articles in the student cultural journal Alma Mater, and at the end of my second year I bought the translation of (the second half of) The Second Sex which had lately been published, and found its argument entirely convincing – though of course this did not eliminate in me the ingrained sexism characteristic of the times. The university Labour Club/Socialist Society was fairly detached from the labour movement in Aberdeen, though not altogether without some relationship. Few of our members, though they might come from working class backgrounds and have parents who were politically left-wing or were local union activists or officials, had had any deep involvement. Peter Henderson’s father however was a national T&G official, and upon graduation in 1960 Peter himself (he studied economics) went to work for a few years as a research officer at Transport House. I don’t recall that we ever invited any trade union official to speak to our meetings and – though my recollection is vague on this – only one local Labour Party activist, Bob Hughes, who later became an MP. Although we participated in local and General Election activity we were never involved in giving assistance to official strikes, and the only occasion when, apart from demonstrations, we were on the streets as a collective was the picket of the local Co-op which had been selling products sourced from South Africa. However the establishment of the Young Socialists in 1960 was to bring about a certain change.

Student journalism The weekly student newspaper Gaudie and also Alma Mater had during this period a series of left-wing editors and regular contributors. As a result of this, at the beginning of my second year I was invited to join the Gaudie editorial team (and also, separately, became a member of the Student Representative Council – as it happened in that instance there were no other candidates for the second-year Arts constituency). It was the standard practice at that time for a Gaudie editor to serve for one term and for retiring editors to nominate their successor, who was then appointed by the Student Representative Council (the editors during my time were all male, as were most of the editorial team). At the end of the first term of the 1959-60 session I was nominated as the next editor (a more experienced member of the team having declined the responsibility) but was opposed on grounds of inadequate experience, and the SRC took

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the unprecedented step of bringing on again a former editor during that term. He arranged that along with another student I should do a series of reports on aspects of university life. One of these was on sex in the university – and that number sold out completely and immediately. (I gave away my copy, so cannot comment now on its quality.) Gaudie articles were written either by individuals who were specifically asked to do so, or by students who dropped their contributions into a box fixed in the student union for the purpose. The back page was a sports page which was written quite separately by the sports editor and his colleagues, then submitted to the editor, who in this instance had responsibility only for the layout. The text was delivered to the commercial printer who was contracted to the university, and who printed the material in long galleys, subsequently collected by the editor. The printing machinery fascinated me and I loved the odour of the printing ink when visiting the print shop. In a small office at the back of Marischal College the galleys were cut up and pasted to fit into blank pages the same size as those of the newspaper, leaving appropriate spaces for photographs and display adverts. A particular evening of the week was set aside for this task, and advertising posters were prepared by hand by two female students who never had the recognition they deserved for this responsibility. During the time I was associated with Gaudie the editorial staff was overwhelmingly male in composition, as were all the editors. The paste-ups were returned to the printer, with corrections marked on a separate set of galleys. The completed paper, of normally eight pages, was sold on Fridays at 3d – roughly 50p in present-day values – on refreshment counters in the student union etc, and at a number of stalls around the two colleges. On one occasion the printer refused to print an article in its submitted form. The article in question was advocating a boycott of goods from South Africa or those produced by South African firms, and he refused to allow us to name the companies involved, for fear, so he said, of legal action. We had to take out the names, even though they had appeared elsewhere. In my second year there occurred the affair of the Camphor novel. This was a university novel by ‘James Garford’ (a pseudonym), set in a Scottish university, which, though unnamed, was unmistakably intended to be Aberdeen, where the author had been a mature student. It created something of a sensation, though not on account of its literary qualities, which were undistinguished, although few had the opportunity to actually read it. Although it did not use any of the words which were to soon to be pivotal to the Lady Chatterley trial, it was unrestrained in its sexual references and was far from complimentary towards the university – the

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principal character, for instance, when invited to go swimming in the university pool replies ‘I prefer to catch my syphilis first hand’. Camphor was given a full page review in Gaudie under the title ‘University life with the lid off!’ by a mature student from our circle, whose name was Roy Johnson and who judged it to be ‘very bad’, but it never appeared in the bookshops, for the university authorities took grave exception and threatened legal action. The publishers gave way and the novel was pulped. Years later it did appear, but in an expurgated form. I was appointed editor for the third term of my second year and soon attracted criticism for producing an over-politicised and aggressively leftwing paper which failed to reflect the interests of most students – for example lengthy articles discussing Moral Rearmament7 ran over three issues. No doubt the criticism was justified. However an attempt I made to respond to readers’ preferences did no better. It was suggested that a gossip column would be a fine idea and, somewhat reluctantly, I accepted this and, tongue-in-cheek, asked Sandy to write it. The result was an uproar as some of the students referred to were extremely offended – and directed their anger not only at myself but also at a former editor, who was wrongly assumed to have written it. Sandy’s aim had been to parody the gossip columns of the popular press, but he failed to get his point across. The general approach I was favouring, of what nowadays might be called ‘in your face’ leftism was provocative, lacked finesse and was almost certainly less than influential. Consequently, when some of the leftwing students at Sandy’s instigation took up a serious issue, the low wages paid to the women who served behind the counter of the student coffee shop at King’s College, the more notorious lefties, including myself, were – quite sensibly – excluded from signing the petition that was sent up to the university management.

Students Union and student culture At that time the students union was unusual in being unisex and also in that all students were automatically members. The union even produced an annual handbook giving the address and telephone numbers of all its members – an unthinkable notion in the contemporary world – though (so far as I know) there were never any complaints of anyone being harassed or stalked because these details were in the university’s public domain. There was however, when I first arrived, an informal gender separation in that women did not enter the snooker and billiard hall – or at least play on the tables. That ended however when a number of us deliberately decided to ignore the tradition. It has to be said that though there was some initial

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murmuring among the regular patrons there was no significant hostile reaction. The student union building, was then located at the corner of Broad Street and the Upperkirkgate, and controlled by a management committee, the UMC, entirely separate from SRC or the university authorities. Order on the premises was maintained by two imposing uniformed elderly gentlemen who were authoritarian but discreet, and exercised their function without having to rely on the assistance of heavies. The difference then in cultural standards from what was to develop later can be seen in the fact that the bar served only beer, cider and Babycham – no wine or spirits. However students who wanted stronger drinks had the choice of three commercial pubs virtually next door to the union. A few years before I enrolled a number of students had been expelled from the university for making their own alcohol, popularly known as ‘feek’ – which I’m told was diluted and flavoured alcohol from the laboratories; a most dangerous concoction. The shift in one dimension of culture between the early sixties and what came later is perhaps well demonstrated by the assumptions made about illicit drugs. There was a student called Maxie – I don’t believe I ever discovered his surname – who had all the appearance of a stereotypical drug addict; emaciated, isolated, pale, unshaven, shambling, looking as though he had slept in his clothes. He would be pointed out to newcomers with comments along the lines of – ‘that’s Maxie the drug addict’. Whether he actually was is another question, but the implication was that indulgence in drugs was something exceptional and certain to lead to addiction accompanied with physical and social collapse. Halfway through my second year the first student hall of residence, Crombie Hall, was opened. Neither any of my close colleagues nor myself felt any temptation to apply for admission – there was a degree of inverted snobbishness here, we regarded it as catering to bourgeois tastes and designed to induce adherence to traditional academic norms. We particularly despised the encouragement to wear what was termed a ‘toga’ – a short sleeveless student gown of red material (with different collars for men and women) – they were compulsory at dinners in Crombie Hall. These garments never became very popular and only a small minority of students wore them at classes or around the campus. On the other hand, student scarves were very common. There was a general university one in the shape of a large square of thin material and also specific faculty scarves, longer and thicker.

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Political attitudes One evening during the second university term of my initial year I attended a meeting of the student humanist society. Afterwards, as I was taking a coffee in the Union coffee shop, I was joined by another member of the audience, a psychology student whose name I’ve forgotten. After a few opening remarks he pointed to my watch and asked me why I possessed such an item when I could sell it and donate the money to charity. He had ready answers to all the objections I advanced. A lengthy and quite enjoyable argument proceeded from this around the question of how a socially conscious individual ought to behave, and he pronounced himself to be a disciple of Tolstoy. The discussion made a considerable impression on me and I reflected at length over what lessons if any I should draw. Eventually I concluded that in the Russian context Lenin’s perspectives were much more relevant to the exploited classes than Tolstoy’s, since by establishing a revolutionary government the former was in a position to make an immensely greater difference to their situation. I was firmly convinced that in the end it was a question of power and who held it. I wasn’t aware at the time of Mao’s aphorism that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, but if I had been, it would have seemed to me to sum up the reality. I had read Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and hadn’t forgotten the remark of the Soviet inquisitor Gletkin (he had all the best lines in the novel) that Gandhi’s activities had done more to hold India in subjection than all the British military power. In short, I valued the Soviet Union because it stood for the state power which confronted and posed an alternative to capitalism; and while conscious of its shortcomings hoped that these would be overcome with time – a view in which I continued (though with diminishing confidence) up to the hour of its collapse. Sandy once jokingly remarked to me that my views appeared to reflect the old left more than the New Left; on the same or another occasion I referred disparagingly to the US journal Dissent, a collection of whose articles I had bought in the university bookshop. Sandy then noted that this was a Marxist publication, and astonished, I replied along the lines that I couldn’t imagine how a publication expressing such vehement hostility to the USSR could possibly be Marxist – my knowledge of the history of Marxism was clearly very limited (though I still believe that Dissent’s Marxism was in reality a species of Cold War liberalism). It is probably appropriate to add that at the time I didn’t regard myself as a Marxist, nor think of the New Left in that light either. Once again it was the impact of what I read that changed my outlook. Douglas had mentioned to me that The Communist Manifesto – recommended

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reading for the philosophy course on which he enrolled out of interest – was a very striking text. Shortly afterwards Unwin published a volume called The Essential Left, containing four texts from Marx and Engels to Lenin. The first of these was The Communist Manifesto itself, and it made an enormous impression as soon as I read it. It defined in a simple manner a perspective on world history which I had only vaguely grasped beforehand and which seemed wholly convincing; moreover a great deal of it, particularly the opening paragraphs, struck me as no being less pertinent to the mid-twentieth century than it had been when Marx and Engels wrote it. A little later I obtained the first volume of Capital (the Charles Kerr edition). This, I’m sorry to say, I had because I’d borrowed it from the library (borrowings weren’t recorded) of the mental hospital in Surrey where I was employed on a summer job, and unintentionally carried it back to Shetland when I returned. I ought to have returned it by post, but at the time that didn’t appear to be worth the trouble. Again I was greatly impressed, this time by Marx’s explanation of exchange value, surplus value and the manner of capital’s reproduction and growth. I still think he got it right. Even so, attracted though I was, out of diffidence I didn’t regard myself as being sufficiently versed in the theory or deeply enough informed to lay any claim to being a Marxist. Although Sandy’s values and mine in politics and social relations were pretty well indistinguishable our conceptions of how they could most adequately be realised were beginning to diverge. As the anecdotes recorded in this volume suggest, for someone coming from a non-political background at a time of intensifying political discussion among young people (represented by the issues of Suez, Hungary and the Bomb) a lot can hang on contingent events and developments. Perhaps if I had arranged, when in charge of the Socialist Society, to have Ken Alexander, one of the CP rebels in 1956, to speak on the Communist Party, its policies and internal regime, then matters might have turned out differently – or perhaps not. I was also chided by Sandy for disparaging local history, which I referred to as a ‘parochial’ concern – my concerns tended to be with broader, more general and more sweeping themes, which I regarded as interesting whereas local ones were not – a naive, blinkered and foolish attitude, needless to say. During one of our summer vacations Sandy and I exchanged a series of letters which set out our respective political and theoretical perspectives, and the above considerations were to the forefront. Sandy’s argument in relation to Marxism was, in brief, that while it incorporated important

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insights, overall it was more of a theology than a scientific approach – particularly so far as dialectics were concerned. While acknowledging some of his criticisms my view was that these related to accretions (particularly Stalinist ones) rather than to Marx’s original ideas; to which Sandy’s response was that Marxism had to be judged on its historical practice rather than its original exposition. These discussions were going on, it should be noted, less than five years after the Kremlin had bloodily crushed the revolution in Hungary and when surviving revolutionaries were still being persecuted; only three years after Imré Nagy’s execution. At the time of these events I had been as horrified as anyone, and I never took seriously the official communist story. Rather I had come to conclude that one had to choose sides and the US-led West was even worse, moreover such a thing was most unlikely ever to happen again. A better argument, though it did not occur to me at the time, would have been that if Khrushchev had held back he would have himself been overthrown by his own hardliners and the consequences for the Soviet bloc would have been even worse. Aberdeen was divided into two parliamentary constituencies. Aberdeen North was very solidly Labour, whilst Aberdeen South was somewhat less impregnably Conservative. The 1959 general election, the occasion of Macmillan’s ‘never had it so good’ slogan, was my first experience of political activity outside the university, canvassing and attending at polling stations in Aberdeen South. In the flat we shared everybody adopted left wing postures to a greater or lesser extent, though only Douglas and myself were activists in any sense. A photograph of Aneurin Bevan was displayed on our kitchen wall, which caused some embarrassment to one of the engineering students when, after having applied for holiday work in a nuclear establishment, he was visited for vetting by a security functionary.

Young Socialists and Communists Partly as a result of defeat in 1959 the Labour Party, feeling the necessity to engage the following generation, established a youth organisation, the Young Socialists. In advance of the formation of the YS, the Socialist Society, which was no doubt expected to play a significant part in the formation of an Aberdeen branch, was invited to a weekend discussion in a Cruden Bay hotel with two Labour Party officials (Sandy and Peter suggested that I might initiate the formation of a branch in Shetland to add numerical strength to the left). Thereafter they and Loïs were closely involved in the initial controversies and conflicts with the Labour

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hierarchy which accompanied the youth organisation’s establishment, particularly around the YS national conference, to which they were delegates. The existence of the Young Socialist branch brought for some of student socialists at least a degree of contact with the local Labour Party, though as far as I know it never amounted to very much – certainly my own involvement was extremely limited and consisted of no more than attending a few meetings – I felt no attraction towards becoming organisationally engaged; the student milieu and the Young Socialists were quite sufficient to suit my taste. The Aberdeen YS branch (where the gender balance was somewhat more equal here than in the university society), met regularly first in the city centre at a trades council premises in the Adelphi and later in Woodside, in the north western part of the city in a premises owned, I think, by the Labour Party. The meetings on the whole were well attended and attracted a significant number of people both from the university and outside it. Not all meetings were political in content. Following the Lady Chatterley trial we had the proprietor of Aberdeen’s pornographic bookshop (an ex-communist) to speak on pornography – which he defended energetically. Like the Young Socialists nationally, the Aberdeen organisation was characterised by conflicts between rival political tendencies. At first the argument was between the right and left of the Labour Party, much affected of course by the concurrent emergence of CND and the New Left. By the start of my final academic year in October 1961 the left had prevailed and the Aberdeen Young Socialist branch was safely under its control. At that time Donald Dewar, later Scotland’s first First Minister, very much identified with the Gaitskellite wing of the party, was being adopted as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Aberdeen South. He came to a meeting of the Young Socialists – presumably at his own invitation or one from the constituency Labour Party which it would have been impolitic to refuse – to try to persuade us to support his efforts to win the seat. He received a very hostile reception and was in effect told that we would refuse to do any electoral work on his behalf because he was a right wing bastard. Afterwards were rebuked for our attitude – but from an unexpected direction. The criticism did not come from a right-winger, for these had effectively given up on the Aberdeen YS, but from a member of the Young Communist League who had been present at the meeting (the communist position was of course that a Labour Party candidate should always be supported where no communist was standing). There was in

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Aberdeen a Communist Party branch and a Young Communist League one. Evidently they had taken note of the appearance of the Young Socialist organisation, and after it began to meet in Woodside YCL members started to attend the meetings aiming to make political friends and influence people, adopting a friendly disposition and – seeing that they were received amicably – advancing their arguments in a relaxed and uncontentious style. We also found ourselves acting in concert with YCL members in CND-related activities and I was pleased enough to agree to accompany the YCL branch chair as a YCL-sponsored delegate to a ‘peace’ conference in London run by the British Peace Committee, a CP front organisation and former rival to CND (it was my first experience of air travel). We happily displayed CP posters on the walls of our flat – much to Paul Foot’s disapproval when he saw them on a visit to Aberdeen. Later the Trotskyists of Gerry Healy’s Socialist Labour League also targeted the Aberdeen YS, but that was after I had graduated and moved to Glasgow. Prior to these YS encounters I had had only passing acquaintance with the Aberdeen communists outside the university. I had once seen a dozen or so taking part in a poster parade in Union Street, shouting at intervals the slogan ‘Remember Belsen now!’ At some point I also visited a book sale which that branch was running in the Adelphi building, and it was there I first bought any communist literature. The person behind the table selling the material was Jean Cockburn, (née Ross) the former wife of Claude Cockburn (though I had no idea of that at the time or of who Claude Cockburn was) – she was the model for Sally Bowles in Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and the film ‘Cabaret’, and looked nothing like Liza Minelli. The CP branch in Aberdeen, I was later to discover, had among its most high profile members a family of spiritualists – which could be regarded, I suppose, as a tribute to the party’s multicultural comprehensiveness. There were a few communists among the students in the university (none, so far as I know, among the staff). I knew of a couple on my first year there, one of whom was Claude and Jean Cockburn’s daughter, Sarah, who was a student of Classics. She was later to become a barrister and writer of detective novels under the name of Sarah Caudwell. She died in 2000. In my second year two communist mature students entered the university, and they aspired to set up a Communist Club. Student clubs were required to be authorised by the SRC, and the proposal duly came before that body. The SRC members there treated it as something of a joke (the two communists were not present in person); I argued in its favour on the grounds of general democracy however objectionable their politics

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might be. If my memory serves, the application was turned down, though I think a subsequent one was successful shortly afterwards. I would hesitate to suggest that what was happening at Aberdeen University during those years was an early example of the radical student wave which manifested itself in the later sixties, but clearly it was not totally unrelated. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the New Left – the former connected at some remove and the latter very explicitly emerging from, the traumas of 1956, were both the product of and to a significant degree responsible for, a increasingly prevalent left wing mood – principally among sections of educated young people but by no means confined to them. (Both movements reached their peak in 1960.) Certainly along with many others I myself, primed in advance, as one might say, was caught up in this. I do recall that as early as the vacation between my second and third years I had debated with myself whether or not it would be a good idea to join the Communist Party. I had been impressed with the communists I had encountered, but the principal incentive I felt to do so can be summed up in the words of one of the characters in Simone de Beauvoir’s fiction – ‘The USSR is the best form of socialism because it exists’. Very probably the main deterrent at the time was that it would mean putting myself at odds with the colleagues whom I was closest to, who would most definitely not have favoured such a move. I was also dismayed by some of the Soviet actions such as the explosion of a 50 megaton nuclear bomb close to the time of building the Berlin Wall, and the previous year Khrushchev’s breaking up of his summit with Kennedy after the USA refused to apologise for the U2 spy plane incident. At the time I had a forceful argument with one of the communist students, stressing that no matter how justified the Soviet grievance, the importance of this summit was so great that they ought to have swallowed their indignation. Nevertheless, without doubt, political seeds were germinating which resulted in me joining the CP, along with Douglas and Noreen, a few months after graduation.

CHAPTER SEVEN WOODSIDE BY-ELECTION AND AFTER: WILLIE THOMPSON

Glasgow and its Young Socialists The autumn after graduation Noreen, Douglas and I left Aberdeen for Glasgow. The motivation was a piece of political romanticism – we saw Glasgow as the heart of proletarian Scotland and its labour movement. We had had signed up for a year’s teacher training at Jordanhill College of Education, though I was hoping that instead of pursuing a schoolteaching career I might hope to succeed Jean McCrindle as the WEA tutororganiser in the west of Scotland. (I did manage to be interviewed, but made a thorough mess of the occasion – the rejection was probably just as well as I doubt in hindsight whether at that time I could have made a success of the work). We initially lived in bedsits (Douglas and I shared a large room) in one of the houses of what had clearly once been a relatively upmarket terrace. The house had a front door and indoor stairwell (rather than being the typical Glasgow ‘close’ of an open entrance giving access to six or nine different flats depending of the degree of affluence) but the entire terrace was now in an advanced state of decay. The top floor of the house was uninhabitable and only some of the other rooms were occupied. In the communal kitchen one left footprints in the grease on the linoleum (what was left of it) and the gas cooker, which might well have dated from Victorian times, was also thickly smeared with grease. The contrast with what we had been accustomed to in Aberdeen, even in the relatively insalubrious final flat which Douglas and I had inhabited, let alone the scrupulously maintained house and bedsit Noreen had lived in, was dramatic. As it happened, this turned out to be no more than two minutes walk from the room which served as the premises of the local Labour Party and the Woodside Young Socialists, and we lost no time in establishing contact. It also happened to be Paul Foot’s branch, though I don’t recall

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him attending many of the Young Socialist meetings – it could be a memory lapse on my part or he may have crossed the age limit for YS membership. There were also meetings in the flat he and his wife Monica then occupied in the Hyndland area. At that time he was a journalist with the Daily Record, the Scottish version of the Daily Mirror, and wrote feature articles under the name of Pat Roller. Another member of this YS branch was a charismatic individual of film actor looks and passionate intensity called Vick Vanni, who was to play a role in what followed. A by-election was shortly to be held in the Woodside constituency, and it became evident that especial importance was attached to this. Although the Profumo scandal was yet to erupt, the Macmillan government’s credibility was significantly eroded. His appointment of the feudal relic (and Neville Chamberlain’s PPS) Lord Home as Foreign Secretary in 1960 caused disbelieving astonishment, and a minor economic recession had been accompanied by the mass sacking of a third of his cabinet in July 1962, less than three months previously. Woodside, held by the Conservatives, was a near-marginal constituency and the calculation among the Glasgow left was that a victory there by a left-wing, nuclear disarmamentsupporting candidate would demonstrate that left-wing candidates could gain parliamentary seats from the government and might revive CND’s flagging fortunes, on the slide since its defeat at the 1961 Labour Party conference. Because of where the election was taking place the Young Socialists were naturally to be at the centre of events.

Political surprises We were not long enrolled in the branch and participating in the election preliminaries before we became acquainted with aspects of left politics that while we lived in Aberdeen we had never suspected existed. The Woodside YS branch, we discovered, adhered to a group called the International Socialists, of whom we had never heard, inspired by someone called Tony Cliff, who was first mentioned to us on the assumption that we would recognise the name, but who was also totally unknown to us. The particularities of this group astonished us no less when we learned that their distinguishing characteristic was the idea of ‘state capitalism’, namely the belief that the Soviet Union (which they invariably referred to as ‘Russia’) and all the countries of the communist bloc were in fact capitalist in nature, with capital being concentrated into the state instead of being distributed among individual capitalists, so that the exploitation of the workforce was identical in principle to what went on in avowedly

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capitalist nations. At that point – things were to change later – they esteemed Rosa Luxemburg most highly of twentieth century Marxists. The three of us discussed this at length among ourselves and reached the conclusion that such an interpretation of the communist states could not stand up to the evidence of how their economies and societies actually functioned, but it also motivated us to read more extensively on Soviet economic history. We also encountered, once the election campaign was underway, a group of somewhat eccentric Trotskyists based in Govan, who called themselves the Left Fraction of the Fourth International in Opposition. They dominated the Govan YS, working inside the Labour Party and were followers of Harry Selby, a local barber, whom we never met. Selby stood unsuccessfully for parliament in a by-election in 1973. He became an MP in 1974 and retired in 1979.

The by-election The selection of the Labour Party candidate was no less dramatic than the campaign itself. The hopes of the left were in vested in Neil Carmichael (his father had been a close ally of Jimmy Maxton). What would be required was to get a sufficient number of supporting delegates at the selection conference, for he was certainly not the preferred choice of the Labour Party hierarchy; one of their most notorious hatchet-people, Sarah Barker, had come north to represent the London interest in organising the selection. From the Scottish side, the person in charge of the overall campaign was Will Marshall, the secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, also a hardline right winger and he was assisted by an apparatchik of similar sentiments called Jimmy McCrandle, if I remember the name rightly. For some reason Douglas, Noreen and myself were all elected as delegates – I forget what qualified us to be, possibly either as Young Socialists or members of the Labour Party teachers’ organisation, which we were quickly induced to join. At least we had been party members for two or three years in Aberdeen and were actually living in the constituency, whereas it was rumoured that the right wing were signing up individuals with no previous affiliation who lived far away from Woodside. On the evening of the selection the Woodside Hall was packed with delegates. Sarah Barker was on the platform though I don’t recall that she chaired the meeting – I believe she introduced it. In alphabetical order the candidates – all male – delivered their addresses – Carmichael was evidently nervous, though he performed adequately. The right wing preference, a man called Arthur Houston, a friend of John Smith and Donald Dewar,

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made a mess of his presentation, putting forward as one of his assets the claim that he was an able television performer. Probably it made little if any difference, the votes were overwhelmingly decided in advance. The voting was by elimination, most democratic in principle. Houston was soon disposed of, and Carmichael’s most serious rival was a nominee of the T&GWU, who naturally secured the votes of their delegation. In terms of charisma he was seriously challenged, but was believed at least to incline towards the left, so from our point of view he would have been a tolerable second choice. In the final run-off however Carmichael won decisively, and as Sarah Barker looked as though she was being sick into her water glass, we left the hall rejoicing. We were all additionally gratified when Vick Vanni was appointed as Carmichael’s election agent. Up to this point our best hopes had been entirely fulfilled.

Lost illusions The election campaign itself soon returned us to reality. The moment of disillusion arrived at Carmichael’s first public meeting, when, after his banal opening statement, someone in the audience asked him pointedly whether, if he were to be elected, he would continue in the House to advocate nuclear disarmament. (We suspected that the question was not spontaneous but had been prearranged by Marshall and McCrandle). Clearly shaking with nerves Carmichael stood up to answer and declared that once elected he would support whatever the party’s policy might be – nuclear disarmament had of course been rejected the previous year. Vanni was chairing the meeting. He gave no hint of reaction and remained wholly impassive and inscrutable. We were aghast and appalled, and concluded that the right wing had succeeded in capturing both the campaign and Carmichael. Indeed it was soon made clear that Marshall and McCrandle were running the campaign, that the Young Socialists were to be sidelined from any decision-making and that Carmichael, whatever his private feelings might be, was willing to go along with this. One evening some of us expressed our resentment when the evening’s election work was over and we were left behind in the headquarters. Using felt pens – a new invention at the time – we began to satirically alter Labour Party posters and pin them to the walls. The one I remember was printed, ‘Intelligent Women are joining the Labour Party!’ We added beneath it – ‘and are promptly being expelled!’ We had planned to remove the posters the following morning before officialdom arrived, but unhappily they reached the office first and

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surveyed our artwork with horror and extreme anger. We were forcibly censured, and to our great annoyance Carmichael joined in the outrage with a phrase we particularly objected to, ‘you’ve had your fun!’ and telling us to behave in future. I forget what was Vanni’s reaction, but it certainly was not one of support. Nevertheless the Young Socialists continued to participate in the election campaign, though without the enthusiasm which had formerly seemed to be likely. We heckled the Foreign Secretary, later Premier, Lord Home, when he came to speak in Glasgow. We canvassed, took part in street meetings, at one of which we heard Paul Foot speak most effectively, mocking the bucolic names of the bleak and shabby streets in which it was taking place. We also engaged a form of political activity now wholly obsolete, whitewashing slogans on the streets at night – it was, unlike flyposting, actually legal, or at least believed to be, provided that whitewash was used rather than paint, which would be difficult to remove. On one of these occasions I was out doing it with Norman Buchan, the renowned folk song collector, who had recently been adopted as a parliamentary candidate in Renfrewshire. He had been one of the Communist Party members who had left the CP in 1956 and I asked him to explain what was wrong with that party. I found his answer unconvincing – perhaps the circumstances were unpropitious but more likely it was that I was insufficiently open-minded. In the middle of the election campaign the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted (I was at that time doing my initial schoolteaching practice in Knightswood secondary school). I was wholly convinced that we were doomed – after all the Holy Loch nuclear submarine base was not many miles to the west of Glasgow and certain to be a nuclear target when (rather than if) war broke out. We listened to every radio bulletin we could, even trying to pick up Radio Moscow (I can’t remember whether we succeeded). One night during the crisis the St Andrews Halls burned down and the enormous glare was clearly visible from our kitchen window. The effect of this on our nerves can be imagined. Another evening Douglas returned from conversation in a pub with some of Harry Selby’s Trotskyists, marvelling at their perspective of welcoming the imminent nuclear armageddon thanks to their conviction that the final conflict between capitalism and the ‘degenerate workers states’ would bring on the world revolution with speed and certainty. I marvelled no less at the manner in which the public in the streets were going about their business not seeming particularly concerned. It was at a protest demonstration, which I was treating as purely gestural, that the news came

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through that the crisis was defused on account of the Soviet Union giving way. I found this hard to credit, though nonetheless relieved for all that. Carmichael won the by-election comfortably and remained the MP for Woodside and later Hillhead until defeated by Roy Jenkins in the 1980s, after which he ascended to the House of Lords. The election was to have a considerable amount of fallout at least among the Woodside Young Socialists and possibly more widely (a comment in the New Statesman years later referred to its importance as being worth exploring). Vick Vanni, having behaved with impeccable orthodoxy while Carmichael’s election agent, followed this up by abandoning the Labour Party and 1 joining the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which we gathered he had been intending all along. So did another Woodside YS member, recently joined, whose name escapes me. The SPGB was a minuscule group which had split from the Social Democratic Federation in 1904, were proud to term themselves ‘impossibilists’ and regarded themselves as the only socialists in the UK, all other parties and individuals which claimed that designation being capitalist in reality. They had from the first denounced the Bolshevik revolution and defined the USSR as state capitalist – it is unlikely that Max Schachtman in the thirties or Tony Cliff in the fifties, who reached the same conclusion, had even heard of them (though this is disputed). They were enormously proud of having changed neither their outlook nor policies in any particular since their foundation and held the perspective of converting by propaganda a majority of the electorate to their outlook after which they would be elected to government and institute the socialist society. During our time in Aberdeen, one of our engineering flatmates received one of their leaflets on an Aldermaston march we attended in 1961 and sent for some of their material. The covering letter expressed the hope that he might be the person who was to introduce socialism to Aberdeen, and the literature impressed him initially; however Douglas and I soon convinced him that this party, of which we had no previous knowledge, was, on the basis of its propaganda, evidently quite divorced from reality. In fact applicants for membership had to pass a test in the SPGB version of Marxism before they could be admitted. Nevertheless, they had at the time quite a visible presence in the centre of Glasgow (it was rumoured that they were financed by certain bookmakers) and some of the adjacent areas. They would flypost hoardings and vacant premises with their posters advertising public meetings and had a squad of street speakers, all of whom were capable orators. Their preferred mode of discourse was sneering sarcasm directed both at capitalism and its overt supporters as well as any form of non-

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SPGB socialism. I think they also ran a candidate in the by-election, who polled very few votes. The Monument confirms that the SPGB never canvassed voters and took a severe view of candidates who received votes from non-believers. When we arrived in Glasgow street meetings at the weekends were a regular feature; the various speakers were arranged all along the corners of Sauchiehall Street. The YS engaged in it as well, and I was very nervous at the thought of having to take a turn with no previous experience of outdoor speaking. However during the two months we were members we were never asked, possibly because we were somewhat distrusted as outsiders and not International Socialists – on one occasion we were subjected to something like an inquiry or trial in either Paul Foot’s house or Carmichael’s (neither of these being present as far as I remember). However we rehearsed our record in Aberdeen and were ‘cleared’, at least provisionally.

Joining the Communist Party The Carmichael by-election was also to have a significant influence on our own futures, though I find it hard to judge whether it was merely a precipitating factor in a development which would have occurred in any case or whether it made the essential difference. We had been thoroughly disillusioned by what had happened since we had joined the Woodside Young Socialists and by what we had seen of the Labour Party in action. Though we appreciated the left wing sentiments of these Young Socialists we felt no ideological sympathy for their IS interpretation of Soviet reality, a standpoint which we regarded as fantastical. In St Andrews Halls (it must have been one of the last events ever held there before it burned down) we attended a debate between Paul Foot and a Trotskyist Brian Biggins in which the former clearly had the worst of the argument. We were somewhat better inclined towards Trotskyist positions, but we didn’t share their denunciation of the Soviet Bloc regimes as betrayers of the 1917 revolution, so requiring a subsequent political revolution as necessary to right matters – we viewed that analysis as hopelessly exaggerated. Our own views were probably best represented in Isaac Deutscher’s writings, that the USSR and the other socialist countries – as we thought of them – could be brought back to the original principles of the revolution through a process of more or less controlled reform. A long night was spent in argument between ourselves (this was even before the by-election poll). Douglas and Noreen had concluded that the Labour Party was a hopeless case, a political carcass, and that we should join the Communist Party at once. I was much more hesitant and argued

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that perhaps we should try a little longer to see whether anything left wing could be made of the Labour Party. Eventually we agreed on a compromise – we wouldn’t join the CP forthwith but would visit its Scottish HQ and enquire about procedures for, and the implications of, joining the Party, obtain some of their literature and then think it over some more. Thanks to my YCL-sponsored trip to the British Peace Committee rally in London earlier in the year I knew where the Party offices were located, at that time close to George Square, and the following afternoon, which was November 15, we set out together. Because we had previously met Jim Whyte the YCL secretary – the post was a full-time one – when he had been speaking in Aberdeen, we made our way to his office, one of the half dozen or so in the premises which constituted the Party’s Scottish headquarters. The outcome was all too predictable, and we duly emerged signed up and carrying our Party and YCL cards – Jim Whyte was not the sort of person to let slip such an opportunity, especially when the Party was in the midst of a recruiting drive. We derived a certain amount of amusement a few days later when, having delayed announcing our defection, we participated in the Labour Party parade in support of Carmichael and made sure that we were near the front. I wrote at once to Sandy, telling him what we’d done, explaining our reasoning and expressing the hope (though recognising that this was most improbable) that he might make a similar decision. Sandy’s reply indicated that he wasn’t entirely surprised, and then setting out the reasons why he believed it was a mistaken course of action and ending with the hope that I’d not remain in the CP for long. Rereading the letters we exchanged I think now that his arguments were the better ones, though at a personal level I’ve never had occasion to regret it – whether it was the best approach in terms of political effectiveness is rather more problematic.

CHAPTER EIGHT DIFFERENT ROADS: SANDY HOBBS

Over our years together, Willie and I had many discussions on politics, which naturally remained unrecorded. However, when we were apart we sometimes carried on these interchanges by post. There were letters at two stages, summer 1961 and autumn 1962. During the summer vacation of 1961, Willie returned to Shetland, while I remained in Aberdeen. We exchanged letters which may in retrospect be seen as containing indication of a political division between us which occurred just over a year or so later. My letter of 10 July started with “a bit of criticism of your political approach”. I suggested that Willie tended towards the “general” and the “global”, referring to Willie having objected to dealing with the parochial “a term which you have used for example with reference to the History of Trade Unionism in Aberdeen”. I had recently bought Kenneth Buckley’s book, Trade Unionism in 1 Aberdeen, 1878-1900 I objected to this tendency in Willie on two grounds. It was too remote from political action and it was out of line with the realities of science, which involved progress being made by modifying theories through the accumulation of evidence. I saw a danger in treating any theory as “fixed and overriding”, citing the classical Marxist view of society as an example. Willie’s reply is dated only 10 days later, but he began by apologizing for the delay, which arose because of the need to take advantage of some good weather to bring in “peat for the winter firing”. He accepted that he had a preference for the general and the global and suggested that the difference between us might be “a reflection of the fact that we deal so to speak professionally with different aspects of human behaviour”.

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He was referring to my field, psychology, “mankind at his most particular”, and his own, history, “mankind at his most general”. However, he went on to argue that “it is issues at the most general, national & global level which exert the most profound and intimate influences on our day to day lives”.

He said it was “just possible” that the history of Trade Unionism in Aberdeen is vital to our understanding of the contemporary situation, but it is “highly unlikely”. However, he emphasised that his objection to the parochial is not valid for every situation. Willie also defended Marxism, suggesting that I had fallen into “the error shared by all too many professional Marxists of confusing Marxist method in general with particular theories propounded by Marx or his disciples”.

My response dealt with two issues. The first was the need to think tactically as well as strategically. The example I used was the struggle to get unilateralism accepted in the Labour Party. I argued that “A strategy does not provide a unique answer to every tactical question”.

The second issue was the nature of Marxism. I said that Marxist political organizations tended towards dogmatism and suggested that when E. P. Thompson, Ken Alexander and John Saville left the Communist Party they were following a pattern which was often repeated. I also cited the controversies described in Joravsky’s Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932, as an example of “the natural tendency of an authoritarian party to favour a clique”2. I placed the blame for Marxism’s inadequacies on the “confused and confusing” concepts, “dialectics” and “materialism”. Willie’s reply on 10 August 1961 may in retrospect be read as containing signs of the direction in which he was moving, culminating in his entry into the Communist Party. Whilst agreeing on the need to be empirical and tackle problems at different levels, he made a point of ascribing the present “mess” of the Labour Party as due to “it’s refusal to have any general theory”. Also telling is the following passage: “Do you remember the fable you used to quote about Brecht’s burning house? I think it applies here. If we are to take our chance on unprecedented and revolutionary acts whose exact outcomes we can’t foresee, then we must treat theory in a similar fashion.”

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This, of course, is a reference to the poem by Brecht mentioned at the beginning of chapter one3. Willie quite rightly interpreted this as an expression of impatience with those who wanted to cogitate rather than take explicit action. The fact that I was fond of the poem at the time indicates that this was a feeling I had too at that time. It probably accounts for the fact that I devoted more energy to the Labour Party and the New Left than to Humanism. Involvement in them gave me a greater sense of commitment and constructive action than I felt in the Humanist movement. Of course, Brecht’s poem essentially revolves around a metaphor and, as I have argued elsewhere, metaphors are not in themselves good guides to action4. Willie and I interpreted the poem differently. Neither of us could claim to have arrived at the “correct” meaning, as it is inherently ambiguous. I still enjoy the poem but have grown much more wary of the dangers of free floating metaphors and would not quote it as a guide to action today. In autumn of 1961, I left Aberdeen to teach psychology at Queen’s College, Dundee, at that time still part of the University of St Andrews. There I met up with Peter Henderson who had come to Dundee to teach economics. We both became involved with the small student left in the University there and joined the Labour Party, the Young Socialists, the Dundee Left Club and CND. Peter and Jane Henderson and Lois and I had flats in the same tenement building owned by the University. These flats were the focus of a good deal of political activity. Willie had a further year in Aberdeen to complete his honours degree in history. In the following summer, after graduating, he, Douglas and Noreen, moved to Glasgow having elected to undertake teacher training at Jordanhill College rather than stay in Aberdeen. Then occurred the events described by Willie in the previous chapter, the climax being their decision to join the Communist Party. On 21 November, Willie wrote explaining their decision. Referring to a visit from Allan MacLeod, he indicated that he knew I was already aware of what they had done but was uncertain how much Allan had said. “… I don’t know if he explained our motives adequately to you, and I think for old times’ sake, if for nothing else they should be explained to you. … Basically, we have come to these conclusions, that there is no future for the Labour Party or the Y.S. [Young Socialists] or for us inside it. We were in the Labour Party because of these two assumptions. That one day it might start to put forward left-wing and genuinely socialist policies. That despite all its faults it was the only working-class mass organisation.

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CHAPTER EIGHT However careful consideration of the Party’s history coupled with the events of the past few weeks here in Woodside of which you know has now convinced us that the first assumption is false, and the second contains a gap in logical thinking. If this party because of the nature of its leadership and policy can be nothing but a reactionary and misleading influence then what is the point of getting militants to join it? In short, what do you do with the people you contact through this mass organisation? As for the Y. S., it is inevitably dependent on the adult party organisation. We had our disagreements with the Woodside Y. S. but we’d have been only too happy to remain & work with them, only so far as we can see, they will, like the Y. S. in general have to knuckle under in the end or face expulsion. The party bureaucracy will let you be left-wing, militant and socialist so long as it doesn’t matter…, During this election the Woodside Y. S. discovered this fact. You won’t find a more militant group in the entire country, but they had to fight the election on the bureaucracy’s terms. They’re logical, after all, you see, if you press them far enough they’ll say “Why are you in the Labour Party then?” as Dewar did in Aberdeen5 If the Y. S. remains within the Labour Party it will, when the pressure comes on, either have to knuckle under or be broken, this is already beginning to happen in Aberdeen. Outside the party they will never amount to anything more than a collection of insignificant sects. The only alternative which remains is the Communist Party. It’s not that we believe that it’s the perfect movement by any means, but such a thing isn’t to be found in this society, and the C. P. is the only Marxist body in this country which amounts to anything. There isn’t going to be a revolutionary situation in any sense of the term in this country Europe or America for a long, long, time. Until such time, our function so far as we can see it, is to keep such a movement in existence and as vigorous as possible… In the last few years we have been living our political lives under an illusion, an illusion generated by what I will term “New Leftism”, the belief that moral protest is going to solve our problems and be the determining force in international affairs. It isn’t going to work. My own opinion is that this amorphous movement is due to disintegrate, and most likely C. N. D. as well as it begins to realise its political impotence…”

My reply is dated 25 November. It began by indicating that Willie’s move did not come as a complete surprise. I went on criticize Willie’s argument on two grounds: “In defending your new position you do not do justice to your old. Did you really believe (a) that the LP might start putting forward leftwing policies,

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(b) New Leftism involves a belief that moral protest is going to solve our problems?… I support the Labour Party because (a) it is possible to bring pressure for marginal but worthwhile changes for the good (b) because through the YS particularly it is possible to try to sustain and develop socialist thinking and analysis… ‘The only alternative is the Communist Party’… This argument is completely unsupported in your letter, yet crucial to your conversion. I can only ask you to cite your evidence… The CP is a sect whose methods and analysis are inadequate for modern Britain. It is different from and stronger than other sects for one clear reason – it wears the reflected glory of the Soviet Union…”

Recalling my feelings at the time, I was particularly put out by Willie’s characterization of the New Left as a movement advocating merely moral protest. My vision of the New Left was quite different from that. However, it would be difficult to state categorically what the New Left stood for. There were many different strands and the fact that it was not an organized party with a distinctive “line” meant that any individual could characterize it in whatever way they chose6. The reader will no doubt conclude from the content and tone of these exchanges that there was little prospect of us agreeing at that time. We were set on different paths. Nevertheless, over the succeeding years those paths crossed or merged. For example, we travelled together to the AntiVietnam demonstration in London in October 1968. We have occasionally carried out research together. One project was a survey of socialists’ opinions on Nationalism in Scotland at a time when it was beginning to gather strength7. Another involved interviewing old Communists on their recollections of the period generally regarded as difficult for their party, between the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 and the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 19418. Willie’s critical but sympathetic study of the New Left in Scotland was largely based on my archive of the period, although I did not participate in the writing of the article9. I contributed to Our History Journal while Willie was editor10. On the other hand, it would be misleading to stress only these collaborations. Anyone looking at our writings as a whole would clearly see major differences. Much of Willie’s work is overtly political and from a Marxist perspective. Most of my writing carries its politics only implicitly and in it other intellectual influences are probably greater than Marxism.

CHAPTER NINE REFLECTIONS: SANDY HOBBS

It may be helpful to the reader to make a point that may not be clear, or may even be misleading, from the rest of this book. Although Willie and I were friends at University, and remain friends, neither of us would have regarded the other as a closest friend. The slight difference in our ages became exaggerated by the fact that I was particularly young when I started university. Thus when Willie began his studies, I was already in a relatively senior position as a first year postgraduate student. We were in contact a good deal in the political sphere, and this was more than a mere casual contact, as can be seen from the letters we exchanged quoted in the previous chapter. However, we each had day-to-day dealings with other people who must have had substantial influence on our thinking. In my case, I would point out the small group of psychologists somewhat older than me, including Eva Foote and Billy Brown, as particularly important. We were socialists, as was Willie, but we were also strongly committed to the importance of scientific psychology and to scientific humanism. This expressed itself in part in our activity in the Aberdeen Humanist Group. I edited the group’s newsletter. Billy, Eva and I conducted and published a survey of humanist and secularist organizations in Britain. Although Willie shared our atheism, I don’t think he ever had this degree of commitment to humanism as an organized force. Similarly, when Aberdeen Left Club was formed, we both became members but my involvement was much deeper. I worked very closely with Ken Alexander. Together we shared most of the organizational chores. I travelled around the country meeting many people I found interesting and stimulating. Jean McCrindle, Edward Thompson, Norman and Janey Buchan have already been mentioned. To these might be added Lawrence Daly, a miner and another ex-communist, who founded the Fife Socialist League and later became General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers1.

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These points may help to place our divergent political paths in context. When Willie joined the Communist Party he did so as someone who had no particular recollection of the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising2. Not only were my memories of 1956 vivid, I was spending a good deal of time in the company of ex-Communists, for many of whom the events in Budapest were the last straw which moved them from internal critics of the Party to open dissent. Similarly, as far as I am aware he had not come under the influence of approaches, such as that of Skinner and other scientific psychologists, whose ideas would make me sceptical of the claims of Marxism as a system of thought. I have drawn attention to these personal influences which were at work on me in the latter stages of my time in Aberdeen. To an extent they were conflicting influences, not because they were incompatible but because they were rival calls on my time. Put crudely, I had to prioritize my concerns and interests. I have already noted than when I moved to Dundee I was involved with the New Left, CND and the Labour Party. Later when I moved to Glasgow, my commitment to the Labour Party was strongest. What I have not said, but the reader may have inferred, is that my involvement with humanism as an organized movement declined. I never took a simple decision to give politics priority. I did not change my view that atheism was a necessary part of my belief system. However, I think I was influenced by the immediacy of the political problems we faced. From the quotations from his letters cited in the last chapter, the reader will know that Willie had a great sense of the urgency of the political situation. Although, in comparison to him my sense of urgency must have seemed weaker, nevertheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat of nuclear warfare generally had a substantial impact. It was probably these factors which made me sympathetic to Brecht’s image of the burning house. Thus, whilst I was critical of the path Willie chose, throughout the sixties and early seventies I shared with him a sense that it was necessary to be actively involved in order to participate in the big political events of the day. By the mid-seventies I had lost that feeling. This was partly a question of political disappointments and partly a realisation that political activity could involve a huge investment of time and effort with virtually no sense of achievement arriving at the end. I left the Labour Party and spent a couple of years in the International Socialists. This was in response to a claim, which they could not sustain, that the original group around Tony Cliff wanted to build bridges with others on the left. One incident sums up the factors which led me to drop party politics. The International Socialists decided to form a teachers’ organization in Glasgow, employing the name “Rank and File” which was already in use

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in England. For reasons which I cannot say I understood, others on the left, including hard-line Trotskyists, the Communist Party and some people who were unaligned, joined this group. I turned up at a meeting of 50 or 60 people to discover that neither the secretary nor the chair of the organization (both IS members) had appeared. There were no minutes of the previous meeting. The IS full-time organizer, with whom I didn’t get on particularly well, suggested that I should offer to chair the meeting. This I did and there followed a tough two hours in which I tried to reconcile the points of view of the disparate groups present, and compensate for the lack of any record of previous decisions by the group. Afterwards in the pub, I was receiving congratulations all round for my handling of such a tricky meeting. I was pleased and exhilarated, being quite proud of my abilities as a chairman. Within a short time the broad left Rank and File group had collapsed. I had strained to use whatever skills I possessed and had achieved nothing. From then on, I responded to specific situations, such as the arrival of Chilean refugees, but felt that whatever hope I had of doing good would be from researching. Furthermore, my research would not be at the cutting edge of current political issues. Insofar as I was contributing to the achievement of the socialism I earnestly desired, I was playing a long game. However, there was one clear advantage of this way of life over party politics. When a piece of research was concluded and a report published, however little the immediate reaction, there was a sense of accomplishment and a hope that in the long run the work could contribute to a growth of understanding. At about the same time, my wife Lois, quietly dropped her involvement in the Labour Party. She had grown up in a fiercely political Labour Party household. Both of her parents were deeply involved in the party. Unsurprisingly, Lois had become constituency party secretary and she was the candidate’s agent in one of the General Elections of the 1970s. However, after dropping out of party political activities she became heavily involved in Glasgow Women’s Aid and played a big part in getting the first refuge for battered wives set up in Glasgow. Despite the difficult struggles this involved, and the fact that she necessarily had to deal with women who were suffering greatly, I could see that she found this work profoundly satisfying. It was important, pioneering action. But how did it fit with the great struggle for socialism? In one sense it was a small scale campaign but, unlike so much of what happens in party politics, the results were tangible. I have already referred to the fact that my explorations of psychology and related fields had led me to adopt radical behaviourism. One of the key aspects of behaviourism is that it is implicitly critical of the common

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terminology employed in many areas to describe human affairs. This has meant that a good deal of my research might superficially appear negative in that it questions ways of discourse and undermines myths, including myths about the nature of behaviourism3. Although my life after the Aberdeen years is not the main focus of this book, it is probably worth pointing out that the varying intellectual forces that influenced me then left me in difficult position. Most people in politics are not interested in psychology of any sort, let alone behaviourism. I started out to write a review of a book by Skinner for Socialist Worker once, but gave up. The range of things that needed to be explained was too great. In my psychological research and teaching, I have collaborated with many people. However, I have worked with only three people who were really close to my position, David Cornwell and Sheena Crozier at Jordanhill and Mecca Chiesa at Paisley. Because of this, much of what I have had to do has involved compromises. However, a much more important point I would make is that those on the left who have not explored psychological questions, and they are the great majority, have fallen down in their socialism. In the mid-1960s I wrote some articles for the magazine of CND in Scotland on “Campaigning and Persuading”4. The contents were not very original, in the context of psychological writings on the subject, but I was trying to encourage unilateralists to realize that it was not sufficient to try to perfect our arguments, we needed to consider how to make them as persuasive as possible. That meant trying to understand the psychological processes whereby peoples’ attitudes are formed. I got little response, apart from close friends such as Leo Baxendale and Ian Grant. Indeed, I found some hostility to the idea of raising such matters. I do not exempt myself from this failing of the left. There was some academic writing on working class Tories in the late 1950s. This should have been a topic of major concern to the left, but few explored the phenomenon. I think there was a feeling, which I did not entirely escape, that members of the working class who voted Conservative were simply dupes, who had been tricked into failing to see their true class interests. We did not explore sufficiently the non-economic influences which moulded peoples’ behaviour. I must confess too that for a time my view of the politics of Northern Ireland was essentially that those who voted Unionists were “simply” workers who had been successfully misled by the local ruling class. Yet it does not take too much effort to see how powerful “religious” or “cultural” factors are in determining political allegiance5.

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From the perspective of today, fifty years on from the period I have written about, it seems that I was mistaken to give up active involvement in the humanist movement. I think I may have had a sense that religious belief was on the wane, that it would gradually wither away. I may have wanted that process to take place more quickly, but I was fairly confident of that trend. What I failed to grasp was that I should be analyzing not simply the content of religious belief but the social psychological processes which made them influential. Religious beliefs are to me strictly speaking “nonsense”. I do not mean the word to be abusive but simply a description of the standing of religious statements. Rather than say “I do not believe that God exists”, I take the view that the concept of God is incoherent. The methods of science provide us with a far superior route to understanding people and things than allusions to supernatural forces. However, to conclude that no more than this need be said about religion is quite unhelpful. The vast majority of people do not adopt a religion as a result of hearing reasoned arguments. Most people continue in the religion in which they were brought up. It is part of their culture and it is as a part of culture that religion needs to be understood. There are many obvious reasons why people should be most comfortable with people who talk, dress and act like themselves. The problem is that, when circumstances are right, this preference can end up as Sunni and Shi’ite, Protestant and Catholic, killing each other. It is a tragedy that socialists have devoted so little attention to this fact and to finding ways of overturning these powerful forces. As a psychologist and a socialist, looking back on my work, I regret that I have not devoted more effort trying to contribute to the understanding of such a crucial issue. It is probably worth stressing that for a long time I felt intellectually isolated. It was very difficult to convey to fellow socialists what I found intellectually stimulating in the work of Skinner and his colleagues. He was an American and did research on animals. These were apparently insuperable barriers. I was aware of the existence in the United States of a small number of psychologists who were sympathetic to both behaviourism and Marxism, but what I knew of their writing did not seem to be likely to persuade my British socialist friends6. My fallback position was something I think I learnt from Sartre: write (and speak) to an audience. It was not my intention that everything I wrote would display the full breadth of my intellectual position. All that was necessary was to try to be as persuasive as possible without actually engaging in bad faith by denying a profoundly held position.

CHAPTER TEN REFLECTIONS: WILLIE THOMPSON

In this concluding section I will try to draw together the various aspects of Aberdeen University’s social environment which contributed to my own formation as a social being and pointed towards the rather divergent political course which I took on shortly after graduation. In Age of Extremes Eric Hobsbawm has argued that of all social formations the era of the fifties and sixties in Western Europe, ‘The Golden Age’ as he terms it, came nearest to realising the aspirations of the nineteenth and twentieth century working classes. In Britain it saw the virtually unchallenged triumph of full employment and the welfare state with all their consequences, despite the not infrequent dark corners of continuing poverty and repression. Beatrice Webb’s aspiration of no longer seeing beggars in city streets was realised at last. Hitherto undreamt-of opportunities opened up in the educational sphere, with adequate public support made available for those capable of passing exams – though that too had its downside in the character of the school structure. In towns like Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews their universities were major employers and generators of income, vital to their economy. Aberdeen was not in the same category, but being a comparatively small city its university was economically as well as educationally important, and for the surrounding geographical area as well as the city itself was the main provider of advanced tertiary education. The overwhelming majority of Aberdeen students were school-leavers, though there were a number of mature students as well, one of whom had been an officer in the King’s African Rifles and, in the student union management committee, opposed proposals to boycott South African products. Another had signed up for post-university employment in the Milk Marketing Board in order to get funding (he later bought himself out). In terms of gender student numbers, impressionistically at least were relatively equal.

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Socially, so far as I could judge, the majority of my contemporaries were of a lower middle class or skilled working class background, though it must be acknowledged that I was moving almost entirely within a fairly restricted social circle. Of people I was close to and whose backgrounds I can remember, Douglas’s father was a cooper, Noreen’s a vehicle engineer for the Post Office, two had fathers who were union officials, one a teacher, one a relatively prosperous small businessman in Shetland, one was from a farming background in Kincardineshire. Certainly I didn’t know anybody who was extremely rich – decades later we learned that Allan MacLeod’s mother was, but he didn’t have access to her wealth and his lifestyle was no different from the rest of us – nor were we acquainted with anyone who came from a seriously deprived background. By the standards of the present time student support was extremely generous – I didn’t know anyone who had paid employment during term time, as most students nowadays are compelled to do; then they appeared to live quite comfortably on their grant together with parental contribution if means testing required the latter. Personally I was even able to save a little from my grant. To a student arriving from Shetland the cultural opportunities offered by the university seemed magnificent. In addition to the formal curricula there were clubs available for every discipline (or that was how it seemed) as well as the range of other interests, from student journalism to formal debating and much in between, including theatre and cabaret, as indicated in previous chapters. Sport naturally was well catered for, but I had virtually no interest in that. I did once go to a session of the chess club, but played so badly that I never went back again. A music room was provided in the student union but I had no interest in that either.

Politics Outside my academic work politics were my consuming interest – indeed too much so for the good of my final exams. Oddly enough in view of what was to happen in the later sixties, it did not occur to us to try to establish an organised presence in the university’s formal institutions apart from its publications – certainly not the Student Representative Council or the Union Management Committee. The initiative to support the catering staff which Sandy describes was a one-off episode – our activities, including our regular meetings, were directed towards political issues on a broader scale, though apart from demonstrations the one occasion I can remember of actual outside activism by the Socialist Society was the previously mentioned picket of the nearby Co-op for its refusal to boycott

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South African products. The MacDiarmid rectorial campaign, to be sure, had political overtones, but that was the work of a broader grouping, including some very right-wing individuals. There was also a significant right-wing presence among the students – though nothing much further right (as least as far as one could detect) than mainstream Macmillanite Conservatism). A Conservative Club flourished, and unsurprisingly in the military societies, the Officers’ Training Corps and the Air Squadron, none of the members adhered to the left and many were outspoken conservatives. I suspect, though I have no way of confirming this, that if any lefties applied (both Douglas and myself had initially tried to join the Air Squadron) they were detected and eliminated at their interviews. A Liberal club or society also existed, as did a Scottish Nationalist one. My impression is that the active members of these political clubs were for the most part quite amiable with each other on a personal level – certainly I had a moderately close friend who was a Liberal; I was also on relatively good terms with one right-wing Tory and was always pleased to converse over coffee with some of the Scottish Nationalists. I did have some bitter political arguments with right-wing students, but none of those were the club activists.

Religion Sandy has stressed the importance to him of anti-religious humanism and notes that I shared his atheist views but suggests that I didn’t regard it as such a central issue. In this he is correct. During one vacation Douglas and I wrote letters to the Shetland newspapers attacking some godly outpourings in relation to the Lady Chatterley trial, which had been reported there – letters which were printed (no doubt to the embarrassment of our parents, certainly to mine, who nevertheless held their peace)1 but we were more concerned with opposing an attempt to set up a civil defence volunteer force at around the same time and concentrated on that instead in our newspaper correspondence, resisting attempts to provoke us into further religious discussion since we reckoned that would be a diversion. (Whether there was any connection or not, the Shetland civil defence attempt had to be abandoned for lack of volunteers). I’m wholly in agreement with Sandy in concluding that religion is nonsense in all senses of the word and that all religions without exception are pernicious superstitions and the monotheist ones generally the worst. I’m doubtful whether religion in itself is ever a source of conflict – in cases where it appears to be it is usually the badge for other purposes and projects, but it undoubtedly intensifies the ferocity of such conflicts, and,

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worse if anything, it poisons the minds of its adherents and for those who take it seriously requires them to believe ninety-nine impossible things before breakfast. I too was of the opinion that religion, lacking any rational basis and a hangover from humanity’s barbarous past, was destined to fade away as science, education and welfare progressed. I was perfectly aware of the impossibility of either proving or disproving the existence of a deity but reckoned that one could nevertheless estimate probabilities, and, as I’ve made clear, I had no religious disposition, so the absence of a god or gods caused me no angst, nor did the prospect of total extinction. Who, if they really thought through the implications, would wish to exist forever? Our subjective problem is that human life is too short – we’ve barely begun to live before the grim reaper calls or our bodies begin to decay – not the fact that it fails to be endless. At the university I did not have any close acquaintances of serious religious views and would be unable to relate strongly to anyone whose supernatural conviction was at the centre of their life (though I might respect and even admire people like Bishop Tutu or Bruce Kent who were better than their faith). Most acquaintances at the time of course had a religious background of some sort and some of my friends may have been – probably were – mild believers and intermittent practitioners, but that was no problem. (I never at that time met the Aberdeen communist spiritualists). Certainly Christian societies were active in the university, the Student Christian Movement, which was mainstream and perhaps tended towards political radicalism (John Ross, when I first knew him was a member) and the Scripture Union, which was for true believers and biblical literalists. I imagine there must have been a Catholic organisation, but I didn’t know of it. I had a distant friendship with a Catholic mature student and used to argue with him about politics but not religion, though I once asked him what he would do if any of his recommended texts were on the Index. He replied that he would seek his bishop’s permission to read them.

Moral Rearmament In the course of my second or third year Moral Rearmament made a drive for recruits in Aberdeen, and the university was an especial target. Moral Rearmament was the creation of Frank Buchman in the thirties, when it was known as the Oxford Group; a religious organisation trying to appeal to all faiths on the basis of hard right political agenda, vehemently anticommunist. Though it welcomed anyone willing to join up on its terms it

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aimed especially at the highly educated and even more especially at persons of influence and was financed from sinister sources. The evangelist it sent into Aberdeen University was a young man called Patrick Wolridge-Gordon from an aristocratic background – he was also a Tory MP. He was introduced to us – I think – by Allan MacLeod, and was very naïve and very sincere, taking in good part all the ridicule we directed at MRA and gently exhorting us to see the error of our ways. Out of interest, and at Patrick’s urging, Douglas and I went to see an MRA film called The Crowning Experience (MRA had no sense of irony) of such patent absurdity as to make the most vulgar Stalinist socialist realist production look sophisticated by comparison. A short while later MRA put on a play in His Majesty’s Theatre, featuring its star actress and attended by some of the MRA hierarchy, including Peter Howard, who later assumed the leadership after Buchman’s death. A number of us, including Douglas and myself went along to heckle, usually by laughing at inappropriate and sententious moments and in due course got thrown out. We were most satisfied to see the incident reported in the following day’s Press and Journal. Shortly afterwards Patrick walked into the union coffee shop to join us and upbraid us for what we’d done. We gave no concessions on that, but grudgingly acknowledged his courage in coming to make his point to a group of hostile and mocking individuals.

Culture In referring to available cultural amenities it is important not to overlook cinemas and bookshops. I liked the cinema well enough, though it was never a major preoccupation. One cinema in Union Street concentrated on foreign films and there I saw La Dolce Vita – I forget what others I may have viewed there, though I’ve always regretted that I didn’t see Hiroshima Mon Amour, which was showing on one occasion; I’ve never had the opportunity to see it subsequently. When I heard from Peter about The Seventh Seal it sounded like a must-see production and I was extremely impatient to do so, but didn’t get the chance until the mid-sixties, and then it did not disappoint. So far as bookshops were concerned, the University bookshop, Bissett’s, had its main premises across the road from Marischal College and a second-hand establishment at King’s. The first of those sold the recommended texts for our courses and I also picked up many others of interest. I patronised the second-hand premises as well, and likewise another second-hand bookshop elsewhere in the city, and so expanded my interests and understanding. In Bissett’s main shop I did encounter some

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very peculiar material, the one that most sticks in my memory was a volume by someone who actually believed in witchcraft – not the relatively harmless nonsense of current New Age adherents but the kind of thing the Inquisition targeted, and who esteemed highly the Malleus Malificorum, the fifteenth century handbook for persecutors. Less scary but again decidedly odd was the pamphlet by a group of right-wing Tories, at the time Macmillan’s government was facing its initial troubles, advocating alterations to the electoral system to ensure that Labour would be permanently excluded office. Finally, in discussing cultural contexts, it’s appropriate to note the sexual ambience of the time and place. I’ve previously mentioned the contemporary unconscious sexism, which I unconsciously shared and some male students were avowedly misogynist, including one with whom I was on moderately friendly terms, though I suspected that it was more of a pose than a reality. Another was in the habit of referring to his girlfriend as his ‘tart’. There must of course have been many gay and lesbian students (one with whom I’ve kept up an acquaintance quite recently came out) but none revealed themselves at the time – on the surface everyone was exclusively heterosexual. Homosexuality (though not lesbianism) was of course illegal at the time, but that did not prevent openly gay subcultures existing in other universities. Institutional opportunities for potential erotic contact were plentifully supplied. In addition to informal meetings during the university day frequent house parties went on everywhere and every Friday evening wellattended dances were organised either in Marischal College or in the union – the former being attended not only by university students – as well as formal balls from time to time. It is hard to imagine that there were no untoward pregnancies, but I never heard of any, apart from one hearsay rumour of an abortion (the head of Aberdeen’s gynaecology service, Sir Dugald Baird, attracted criticism for his progressive attitudes to such matters). It is impossible to say whether there were any significant differences in modes of behaviour by Aberdeen students at the time compared to their counterparts in the years since 1945 or perhaps since 1914. My guess, but it is no more than that, is that there probably was less inhibition as presbyterian and general cultural constraints began to weaken.

Attitudes and their consequence Writing these chapters has caused me to reflect more than I’ve done previously on the reasons and processes which led me to take the turnings

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I did in my public life and the part played in this by my experiences during the time I spent at Aberdeen University. How far did social and cultural context contribute to the fact that I joined the Communist Party and remained with that organisation for three decades until it disbanded? The answer I arrive at is that it certainly had some bearing – the reading we did while we were there may well have been critical – but these years were building on a foundation which had previously existed and was established during our schooldays. Douglas and I were, to the best of my knowledge, the only Shetlanders of our generation, whether or not they were students, who took that route, so it was evidently a very individual thing. Other than our reading, the only other substantial element I can think of was the good impression made on us by the communists we met through the Young Socialists. I can’t speak for Douglas and I imagine that the process which took him to the same decisions may have been somewhat different but in my own case I think I can trace the line of thought, though not its remote origins. During all the lifetime I can recall I’ve felt an especial detestation of injustice and I’ve automatically identified with its victims. What was the source of this disposition I can’t be certain. From the time I went to school I was an unhappy child, both domestically and at the school, and desperately wanted to be in North Roe rather than Lerwick. My aunt and uncle would not have been averse to such an outcome, but even if my father had been willing in principle, it would have been socially impossible and made him the object of scandal. Not that I formulated the situation as suffering from injustice; rather I took it for granted as an unfortunate fact of nature; all the same it may have influenced my basic attitudes. Prior to any political consciousness, particular objects of abstract hatred were either reported or fictional authority figures – usually parents, but it could in some circumstances even be adult children – who maliciously frustrated others’ life projects, whether it was choice of occupation, choice of sexual partner or whatever (not that I was in any personal danger of encountering situations like that). Moreover forgiveness and charity for serious injury held no appeal for me: vengeance appeared a wholly appropriate and satisfying response. Initially as a teenager I favoured capital punishment but two executions in particular shocked me profoundly and, along with the reading I was doing, changed my attitude – those of Derek Bentley and Ruth Ellis, both being particularly monstrous. A little later it was the aftermath of a third, to which I’d paid no attention at the time, that made me perceive what I’d seen up to then as two individual instances of gross injustice as being instead part of a very sinister system. This was the execution of Timothy

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Evans and the subsequent revelation that the murders had in fact been committed by John Christie. What captured my attention was the desperate efforts of the authorities, the judicial apparatus and their spokespeople to avoid admitting that they’d hanged the wrong person – the Daily Mail even tried to argue that there must have been two separate murderers living in the same house. In other words the reputation of the discredited legal system was being seen more important than human lives. It can still be seen in the institutions of the state – military, police, prison service, doing all in their power to cover up and never admit fault when they’ve killed someone they ought not to have. Somewhat later I saw the character of the ruling class illuminated in two arguments which were seriously advanced during the early nineteenth century and no doubt still represented their real depraved sentiments – namely that rank and file soldiers should deliberately be made as miserable as possible so they wouldn’t mind being killed; and that the poor should be taxed as stringently as possible so they would be forced to work hard while the rich were taxed very lightly if at all so they would accumulate resources for investment. It was natural that these sentiments should assume political shape, but that left open the question of exactly how they would be expressed. As can be seen, emotional feeling was certainly not absent from the combination, but there was another consideration. I’ve been told, even before I can remember, that I was always asking ‘why’ questions and I can well remember that I always wanted to know how things worked; consequently as soon as I understood the concept I was passionately interested in science and would undoubtedly have pursued a scientific career if my maths had not been so poor. I can recall very vividly the occasion – I’d have been either fourteen or fifteen – when I was seized by the conviction that there could never be separate spheres of truth; science must always have the last word. In consequence I was drawn to a politics which, as well as standing for justice and emancipation, appeared to be free of superstition or obscurantism. The arguments regarding Marxism in Sandy’s letters, which he’s cited, did give me pause, but I concluded that he probably misunderstood the concept of dialectics, that it was actually quite banal and anyway not very important. It was only in the eighties, when the CP was breaking up, that I realised that it contained a significant number of members who did in fact treat communism as a secular religion, were indifferent to evidence and whose disposition, leaving aside the content of their belief, was no different from that of dogmatic fundamentalists. In overall terms I would reckon that Aberdeen University and the student ambience when I attended there provided a very congenial (and

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privileged) environment in which, even apart from the academic dimension, to develop political, social and cultural understanding. How one used that opportunity and what happened thereafter were of course different matters. In my own case, it certainly had in many ways profound consequences, though I would judge that in terms of outlook on the world it reinforced rather than altered my direction. My time there had, politically speaking, given me access to a range of literature which, outside an academic environment, it was most unlikely that I would have had the opportunity to become acquainted with. This had confirmed and given sharper focus to the dispositions I had formed and the ideas I had acquired during the later years of my time in Shetland. The interactions I had with the people I encountered in Aberdeen, both at meetings and public events and in informal discussion – not to speak of events in the world at large – all tended in a similar direction. However this fails to explain why I ended up in the Communist Party. Except for Noreen and Douglas, my friends in Aberdeen whom I greatly 2 respected and was closest to, most certainly did not take any similar step. I’ve indicated above some of the influences which drew me in this direction, but I don’t think these in themselves offer a sufficient explanation. The Communist Party of Great Britain (to give it its full title) was after all a feeble and politically marginal organisation, unable since 1950 to win any representation in Parliament and controlling not so much as a single district council. Admittedly its record in the industrial field was somewhat more impressive, but at the time we joined that too appeared to be on the ebb, with the ETU ballot-rigging scandal having occurred only the 3 previous year. However, in our conception we were not enrolling in a weak and insignificant British political party but the UK section of an international movement which was embarked on the route to the socialist future and with the additional merit of holding political power in over a dozen states comprising a third of the world – and apparently proceeding from strength to strength. In principle there was nothing to prevent me from being (in a critical fashion) well-affected towards the Soviet bloc but continuing on the left of the Labour Party, and a slight difference in contingent circumstances might have well have resulted in that outcome – the same being true for Noreen and Douglas. More substantial reason can perhaps be found in disillusionment arising from the Labour Party’s rejection of British nuclear disarmament and the subsequent decline of CND, accompanied by the even more rapid decline of the New Left. In addition, the Cuban Revolution and the gangsterism displayed by the US government in regard to Cuba and the Congo strengthened our categorical political rejection of the West

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and the political parties inside its orbit. We could not take seriously the IS notion of ‘Neither Washington nor Moscow’ – we had reached the view that one had to choose – nor the ultra-revolutionary fantasies of the Trotskyist sects. When the Party closed down in 1991 I voted in favour of its disbandment but was grieved that there was by then no meaningful alternative and regretted that the USSR and the Soviet bloc collapsed instead of being reformed and that the Asian communist states reverted to capitalism (or in North Korea, effectively fascism). Joining the CP was certainly the most significant public decision I ever took, and its echoes still carry on in some of the projects I’m currently involved with. Although this text is concerned with experiences in Aberdeen I’m dealing with at it some length because, as Sandy surmised, although it took place in Glasgow and was precipitated by the events of the Woodside bye-election it was the result eventually of what had happened during the four years I spent in Aberdeen and the previous nineteen in Shetland. Rather disappointingly perhaps, I’m not therefore able to give a conclusive answer to the question of decisive motivation. The most I can venture is that my experiences in Shetland and Aberdeen University established a necessary foundation but I suspect that if I had not arrived in Glasgow at the time I did, life would, for better or worse, have followed a different course – and the same would be true for anyone who was active in the CP for any length of time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE GENERAL AND THE PARTICULAR

We have each in our “reflections” referred to some of the possible influences which moulded our beliefs and actions. Our main aim has been not to stress our personal experiences but to illustrate our general belief that individual life histories have an illuminating distinctiveness which should not be ignored when one seeks to build a broad picture. Is it possible to draw on these, our own memories of a particular historical period, to help towards an understanding of how political lives are formed?

Location Early in this book, we noted our disappointment that Sandbrook’s Never Had It So Good did not actually live up to his promise not to treat political history in a London-centred way. The basic facts of our lives before and during this period might expect Aberdeen to have a significant influence, if location is important. Neither of us was well travelled. Suppose someone were to supplement Sandbrook’s account by adding in this self-consciously Aberdeen-centred picture of the period, what modification in the picture drawn would be likely to emerge? We suggest that the new account of the period would be rather subtler. It would be difficult to conclude from Sandbrook’s Never Had It So Good that anyone would be actually drawn to the Communist Party at this time. Yet Willie Thompson was by no means alone in making that move. Modern feminism is generally thought of as emerging in Britain a good deal later than this period. However, Sandy Hobbs’s account of his circle show that feminist issues were already being raised. Secular humanism, with which Sandy was involved for a time, has no place in Sandbrook’s picture of the Britain in those years. Margaret Knight’s broadcasts provide a useful illustration of the way national and parochial events may interlock. Her talks were broadcast only in the London region of the BBC but press coverage made them a national phenomenon. That she was “local’, by residence though not by origin,

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clearly had the effect of making it easier for like-minded people to get the Aberdeen Humanist Group off the ground. However, the group was not unique; similar organizations appeared across Britain. The Aberdeen humanists may have been pleased that they had amongst them a national figure of the movement, but it seems doubtful whether that had any particular influence on how successful the Aberdeen group was in its recruiting and proselytizing. The question may be asked: was there anything about the specific character of Aberdeen which was likely to have given a distinctive colour to the development of the socialist-secular-scientific perspective of the authors of this book? Aberdeen’s relative isolation from centres of power has already been noted. However, that should be balanced by the realization that the mass media had already developed to a state where “big” national and international events had a speedy impact. We have noted how Eden’s resignation as prime minister distracted the audience at a play being performed that same day. The impact of the special social and economic character of Aberdeen is worth considering, although quite how it would influence the young socialist students the authors were at the time may be difficult to determine. Aberdeen had a substantial working class, regularly elected a Labour MP, and had a thriving Trades Council. Yet at the time there were no major industrial disputes locally. The student Labour Club (later Socialist Society) was affiliated to the local Labour Party but in practice there was little interaction between students and the Labour movement locally, the 1959 General Election campaign being a notable exception. Students became involved in CND and Anti-Apartheid, national and international issues rather than bread and butter trade union ones. Aberdeen apprentices were part of the national apprentice strike of 19591, but there seems to have been virtually no contact between students and the strikers. This may have been the result of a view of politics which was broad and international rather than concerned with the coal face of the class struggle. (This despite the fact that the idea of a class struggle was taken for granted in our circles.) The lack of contact with organized labour was paralleled by a lack of contact with hard core Marxist theory. Marxism did not feature at all prominently in the teaching in the university at the time. Although Ken Alexander may still have considered himself a Marxist in those years, like E. P. Thompson and other ex-communists in the New Left he was not expounding basic Marxism but rather seeking to reshape Marxism2. Trotskyism, in any of its various forms, was largely absent from Aberdeen at the time.

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Age It is hardly a matter for debate to say that every individual necessarily carries the influence of the time into which he or she is born. However, the precise way in which such influence exerts itself is more problematic. We were born only a couple of years apart but any significance that attaches to that may have been magnified by the fact that there was a four year difference in entry to the university. Sandy and his school friends had been eager to escape from the uncongenial atmosphere of school as early as possible. It may be that 1956, the year of Hungary and Suez, is of crucial importance here. Memory of those events is a striking difference between us. For Sandy, the older, recollections are vivid. Their effect on Willie, the younger, was minor. Unlike Willie, our socialist colleague John Ross, who entered university in 1957, one year ahead of Willie, speaks of Hungary as having been a key event in building his political awareness3. It may also be argued that the differential impact of Hungary was cumulative. One byproduct in Britain was the creation of the New Left. As we have seen, Sandy’s involvement in that movement brought him under the influence of ex-communists, some of them charismatic. Contact with those individuals deeply critical of world communism, based on their experience “on the inside”, made it highly unlikely that Sandy, like Willie, would be drawn into that orthodox communist movement. Age may also been seen as contributing to different levels of involvement with organized humanism. Being a psychology student in Aberdeen at the time of Margaret Knight’s radio broadcasts in 1954, made it highly probable that Sandy’s pre-existing atheism would be transformed into activism. By the time Willie entered the university four years later, Margaret Knight’s “scientific humanism” was no longer the hot topic of the day. Thus, Willie, no less of an atheist than Sandy, was not enticed into the humanist movement to anything like the same extent that his older friend had been.

Academic disciplines Although we have followed careers in different academic subjects, we share a commitment to the scientific method. It is perhaps worth exploring whether a “scientific” historian and a “scientific” psychologist are quite the same thing and whether our choice of disciplines might perhaps reflect differences between us of a sort often labelled “personality”. One point should perhaps be stressed. The structure of the Arts degree at Aberdeen at the time allowed the student to pursue a variety of subjects in the first

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year. As it happens, each of us studied both Psychology and History. In theory, each could have chosen to follow the other’s chosen subject. In Sandy’s case, the likelihood of such a switch was small. He had not studied History to Higher grade at school and scraped through that subject. Willie has indicated that he did not find the introductory Psychology course particularly attractive, although his close friends, Douglas Bain and Noreen Butler, both of whom later joined the Communist Party, chose to follow through that subject to Honours level. In our account of our debates following Willie’s decision to join the Communist Party, one clear difference which emerged was Willie’s preference for analysis at the general, molar level, in contrast to Sandy’s belief that the analysis of the small and the local had have general implications in the long run. It is possible that this preference of Sandy’s is linked to his commitment to psychology. The subject as taught was presented as essentially an experimental science. Laboratory work was an integral part of the course. Most experiments are in themselves essentially trivial. They are certainly usually small in comparison the general principles drawn from them and the applications envisaged, witness Skinner and his pigeons. There is a certain satisfaction to be had from successfully carrying out an experiment which may have been attractive to Sandy in a way that was not the case with Willie. Sandy came to be only a very critical and cautious exponent of psychological experiments, but his commitment to the psychologist’s general ways of thinking remains. Willie has largely followed a different intellectual path which, nonetheless, can still claim to be scientific. These paths may sometimes lead to the same end. In our case, it is to a rather critical view of post-modernism, for example. The final point to be made about the influence of academic disciplines must be to stress that Willie’s two colleagues who made the same move into the Communist Party had both studied Psychology. Thus the discipline issue cannot be seen simply as Psychology versus History. However, they did not follow Sandy in embracing Behaviourism, so Behaviourism versus History may be the more crucial distinction.

The student in society From the perspective of the early 21st century, it is probably necessary to stress one aspect of the position of the university student in the midtwentieth century. The proportion of the population attending university at the time was so much smaller than later came to be the case. Students were a tiny elite. Obviously, individual attitudes to being in such a position

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varied with one’s general political and social beliefs. However, one thing which most students at the time shared was a sense that obtaining a degree was likely to provide an entry into employment. Amongst Arts students, whatever their aspirations, realistic or fanciful, there was a sense that, if nothing else turned up, one could always teach. This meant that even for students such as ourselves, from families living in fairly modest circumstances, there was not any great sense of anxiety about earning a living in some way. Achieving university entrance was a key first step, whilst passing exams was the crucial next step. These points are worth making when considering students such as ourselves who were committed to socialism of a broadly revolutionary kind. We had not come to socialism because we had been confronted by overwhelming economic oppression. This is not to say that we were entirely unaffected by our immediate economic circumstances. However, to return to Brecht and the Buddha, economically we were not in a burning house. The need to leap from the flames was not a description of an immediate urgency we ourselves faced. Rather it was the world in general which we saw as metaphorically in danger from the flames and thus requiring change through drastic action.

APPENDIX A THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

This paper by Willie Thompson was published in Alma Mater, LXXII, Spring, 1961. It gives an indication of the types of issue which were preoccupying him at that time. In the nineteen-thirties it was written: “The reason why, in contrast to the physical sciences, there is so much obscurantist opposition to the social sciences is that, while the former deal only with the facts of dead matter, the latter are full of potential dynamite.” This writer, living in a world of social and political chaos, with incipient barbarism just around the earner, looked forward to the day when a rational application of economic, historical, psychological and sociological knowledge would diagnose the sickness of modern society, and from this diagnosis go on to prescribe a cure. He saw the social sciences as the instruments which would eventually fashion a sane world. Alas for these hopes! The social sciences are no longer regarded as disreputable parvenues, they have advanced to a position of respectability, but in doing so they have taken an entirely different course from that which our author envisaged. Instead of being taken and used to provide the data and the theory for an overall reconstruction of society on a planned and rational basis, social science is being used to tinker up the minor breakdowns in present society, to make it run as smoothly as possible within its contradictions—often they achieve their object by a particularly immoral and vicious technique which we shall discuss in due course. Social science and its scientists, instead of changing our system, have become absorbed by it, far from a means of altering the social order, they have become forces for its perpetuation. They have become the apostles of conservatism and dedicated priests of the status quo. For some social scientists this merely involves a passive acquiescence in the present order of things, among others it amounts to a defence of the status quo for its own sake.

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In practical terms what does all this mean? The best way in which we can begin to gain an understanding of the role of the social scientist is to consider what work he performs and who employs him. Let us start with economics, as it is the most venerable and long-established of the social sciences. It emerged with the industrial revolution. In what way has the position of economists altered? It is extremely illuminating to compare their position and influence before 1945 with what it has become since. The early political economists took a broad view of their subject, they postulated trends and directions in the economy as a whole and in society generally. What sort of influence did they have? One of them, Karl Marx, has had his doctrines accepted as gospel over one-sixth of the earth's surface, The theories of Keynes have in some degree been accepted as the basis of our presentday economy in Britain. On a smaller scale, much of the policy of the social services to-day is based on the work done by academic social scientists between the wars, work which was undertaken from motives of political commitment when the chances of seeing their theories put into practice were remote. Compare their position and influence with that of present-day economists. Marx and Malthus were household words in their own times. What intelligent layrnen could to-day give the name of a single notable economist? Nowadays they are to be found predominantly on the staffs of the giant industrial corporations and as advisers to Government boards, These firms and institutions employ them to solve their financial problems and this is the limit of their function. Judgment on the ends which their work is serving is not their province. Psychologists (apart from those who have devoted their lives to the physical side of the science with whom we are not concerned here) do “market research,” a polite euphemism for the science of teaching advertisers to lie more subtly and with greater effect, or else they are to be found in industry using their training to solve problems which arise because of the “human factor,” or doing what is known as “vocational selection,” i.e. selecting the person best fitted for a particular job, which would be all very well if done for the good of the individual selected, and, indeed, this may occur incidentally, but the driving motive is not so much concern for individual welfare as to solve the staffing and personnel problems of the bodies concerned. Such psychologists have become purely and simply mere engineers, only working with mind instead of matter. Sociology has followed a similar course, and the role of the sociologist is essentially similar to that of the psychologist, the difference being that he deals with groups rather than individuals. The tasks of sociologists have grown even more pronouncedly in the direction outlined, especially in the

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United States where their main activity seems to be in the sphere of “human relations”. The idea is to ensure that, by skilful manipulation of the human material, specific organisations and enterprises run smoothly and with the least possible amount of friction, The result has been that in industrial disputes a horde of experts now intervene between management and labour. Taking all these trends into consideration we can see a certain pattern emerging, Formerly the social scientist was a free agent, he might be scorned by the authorities he wanted to educate, but in return for this he had an autonomous position, he could use his knowledge to analyse society and to construct models of what he considered a good one. However, he failed to gain any official backing for such schemes and so has traded his intellectual independence for the position of a subordinate employee of a group within the social system, where he has no control over the ends of even that particular organisation (let alone society as a whole) but has become what is called an administrative technologist whose function is only to find the most efficient means of implementing decisions over which he has no control. Further, his horizon is definitely limited in that (he has to work within the political outlook of the organisation which employs him, for, as Norman Birnbaum has said,1 “Economists, asked to advise on increasing productivity in a newly liberated Commonwealth country, do not usually suggest the nationalisation of British owned industry; specialists on labour relations called into industrial disputes do not propose the introduction of workers’ councils, the psychologists doing motivational research do not find that the human personality might be done less injury in another cultural milieu.” And, finally, the unplanned, ad hoc, employment of social scientists by any agency which can afford to buy them has led to a fragmentation of their work and forces it to be concerned with the solution of problems essentially limited in scope, often trivial, almost always of marginal utility to society. This point can best be illustrated by drawing an analogy: imagine, for instance, what it would be like if, all chemists spent their lives ensuring that one brand of soap powder was a slightly different shade of blue from its rival. In sum, what has happened is that the dynamic of an overall coordination of these sciences integrated for the purpose of achieving a general social transformation is drained away into strictly marginal activities. The social sciences have been turned into a lubricant of society as it is and effectively emasculated of their promise. It might have been supposed that social scientists would be bitterly resentful of this status. They are not. Instead they hug their chains. One of their number, Professor Karl Popper, has produced a philosophical

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justification and defence of the prevailing situation, and contends that any alternative application of social science would be wrong headed and dangerous.2 Professor Popper's actual postulate is that any attempt at what he calls “Utopian” reform, i.e., any attempt to remake society according to a preconceived plan is doomed to failure, and doomed in its failure to end in tyranny and the totalitarian state. From this cardinal assumption he goes on to draw certain conclusions in support of his thesis. The first is naturally that where social reform is undertaken it must not be Utopian but piecemeal, A priori he insists that social planners must not have in their minds any final aim to which society is being directed and of which their reforms are an interlocking part. Instead, each particular isolated problem must be treated as such and must not be related. to others of a similar nature or to the social context in general. For example, suppose we have an overcrowded and decrepit school. What is to be done? According to Prof. Popper build a bigger and better school. On no account should there be a nationally planned programme of education, even less any attempt to analyse and treat the causes of the social malaise which permits the educational scandals that flourish in Britain. Professor Popper then goes on to put forward some more propositions related to, but not directly dependent on his first. These are that: (a) there must be in matters of social reform a rigid distinction between the ends sought and the means employed in achieving them, or as he would say, between facts and values. After this follows what is perhaps the most important of his deductions, that (b) social scientists must not pronounce on the purposes of social reform, but must confine themselves strictly to engineering the changes decided upon by others. I do not propose to discuss the validity of these conclusions (though I believe them to be mistaken), Instead, let us examine their practical consequences. The fact that these beliefs are generally accepted has had the effect of depriving social science as such of any independent voice in affairs, almost indeed of an existence in its own right. Social scientists are attached to this, that, and the next agency, but there is no co-ordination of their work. The result has been as we have seen, to place them in a subservient position and make them the pliant tools of whichever interestgroup happens to employ them. Consequently there has been on their part a submission to the contemporary world, the present prevailing social situation is accepted as the best possible under the circumstances. There is a dogmatic refusal to admit that any radical alteration of society could ever be desirable, not only in the present, but for all the foreseeable future...

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The most that will be feasible are minor modifications here and there which must be proceeded to with the utmost caution. From this it follows that if individuals are out of step with the environment, it is the individual, not the environment, which must be at fault. “We are going to cure you, Winston...” This attitude is indeed the first step towards a rigid conservatism, and the role of the social sciences is not what the people of the thirties in their shortsighted naiveté believed it would be, a rationalisation of the material world for the benefit of the people who inhabit it, the emphasis has been put on altering (some would say perverting) the individual to fit society. Thus our economy is not supported by a planned growth and organisation of production and distribution, but by a gigantic and fantastically expensive advertising campaign urging us to buy! buy! buy! so as we don't have another recession. Industrial disputes are no longer solved by removing basic grievances, but by the machinations of “human relations” experts who manipulate human beings so as to secure acceptance of these grievances. But society inevitably changes, and the social scientist as much as anybody else is an agent of these changes; his activities inevitably mould the form of society. What he has done is to abdicate any conscious control or intelligent direction of these forces and changes. Renouncing all moral or political comment, he has been content to put his talents at the disposal of the highest bidder. What set of circumstances could bring about this sorry state of affairs? Physical scientists also prostitute themselves to power-crazed governments, The usual excuse given for their behaviour is that their only concern is for the truth to be found in their work, and they have no responsibility for the uses to which their discoveries are put. The same argument cannot apply to social scientists. The very nature of their work, the fact that they deal with society in the here-and-now means that the problems with which they are concerned are at the very centre of our life and therefore controversial in character. The findings of social science cannot be neutral or amoral, they all will have political implications. Therefore, if the social sciences were to be made innocuous to the status quo, something more was needed than was required for the physical sciences. This has been achieved by making social science respectable within a framework of orthodoxy (social scientists can be reformers provided that they operate within limits prescribed by authority), by avoiding a coherent synthesis of its findings and by the development of a philosophy which enshrines this state of affairs and eschews moral judgment.

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The intention here is not to suggest that there has been a deliberate plot to destroy social science. Special circumstances and factors rather than deliberate intention has given rise to the conditions outlined above. Of these the most important has undoubtedly been the Cold War. The connection may not at once be obvious, but, when explained can be clearly seen. An ideological struggle leads to an inevitable hardening of attitudes on all sides, and each participant tends to exalt his own values to the intolerant exclusion of all others. In such circumstances any profound criticism easily comes to be seen as anti-social if not actually treasonable. Social scientists are probably the section of the community most exposed to this chilly wind, and especially in the United States, where the highest social premium is placed upon political orthodoxy, social scientists are among the most eager conformists to be found. Nevertheless these trends must be reversed, and for a very good and cogent reason, nothing less than the future of our society depends upon it. No civilisation survives indefinitely, sooner or later all have declined and fallen. Therefore for social scientists to drift with the stream of history is the height of irresponsibility, for sooner or later we are inevitably bound to drift to disaster. Now, for the first time in history, we have sciences capable of analysing and guiding its direction, a correct application of them could mean all the difference between our era being just another historical episode or the beginning of a new world. Should social scientists continue to refuse this role they will have been guilty of one of the great treasons of an time.

APPENDIX B ANOUILH’S ANTIGONE

This paper written by Sandy Hobbs in collaboration with Peter Henderson appeared in CAR, Contemporary and Arts Review, 3, March 1960. It thus appeared a little after Sandy’s production of the play. It is impossible to write a play without a point of view. Consciously or not, an author's attitudes are bound to come through in his work, for, as Arnold Wesker says, ‘Every action you do, every judgment you make, every character you perpetrate implies a value'. It may be that there is some value. in attempting simply to describe a problem or situation, but this is not to say that the appearance of ‘objectivity’ is necessarily a good thing. Anouilh’s Antigone is a case in point. Anouilh presents a conflict, in personal terms, between Antigone and Créon, in general terms. between a desire for complete personal freedom and the requirements of a stable society. Neither attitude is ultimately preferred to the other. Now it may be claimed that Anouilh is simply presenting s problem. In fact, however, he is not treating the situation as a problem at all (the word ‘problem’ implies the possibility of a ‘solution’). Anouilh presents a conflict and suggests it is inevitable. A fataliatic tone runs through the speeches of the Chorus and also in many of Antigone’s speeches. Chorus: ‘when your name is Antigone, there is only one part you can play’, ‘in a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone’s destiny is known’. Antigone: ‘he will do what he has to do, and we will do what we have to do’. This is not a religious fatalism but simply a belief in inevitable tragedy resulting from conflicting aims. Here we have a viewpoint. and it is this viewpoint which can be considered as the crucial flaw in the play, whether social or artist criteria are emphasised.

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First. the artistic. There seems to be an uncertainty as to whether the audience should be emotionally involved with the characters or not. If a tragedy is inevitable, can anyone be blamed or criticised? And it completely different attitudes are regarded uncritically, can we sympathise with both protagonists in the tragedy. Anouilh might have aimed at an alienation-effect, i.e. dispassionate viewing of the situation by the audience, but he does not. The presence of Chorus could have helped such an effect, much of the Antigone-Créon duologue and of the prison scene is written suitably, but many of the earlier passages between Antigone and the Nurse and Haemon are full of rather sentimental emotionalism.’ Secondly, and more important. the social. To believe a conflict is inevitable is not conducive to very deep analys1s of the situation. This shows up at two levels. At the less significant, there is the question of the portrayal of the guards. They are shown as uninterested in the outcome of any conflict, only doing a job. In fact, a group of handpicked palace guards would surely be definitely committed to the present regime. More important is the very restricted view of the social forces which can operate in this type of situation. The most significant lack is the absence of any kind of constructive revolutionary or even reformist. Antigone’s revolt is purely personal and, although Créon refers to the general good, he has a crude belief in the ability of imposed order to produce general wellbeing and he speaks contemptuously of the ‘featherheaded rabble’. In effect, Anouilh’s attitude in completely bourgeois. Antigone’s dislike of the inevitable compromises involved in social living leads her to the only position where she can escape such compromise — death. She has no idea that society can be improved. Créon is not a fascist but simply a benevolent bourgeois dictator. Certainly, if children are brought up like Antigone and a governmental system requires a ‘strong-man’ the conflict is ‘inevitable’. But Anouilh has forced this outcome by assuming that society is otherwise constant. Society is not necessarily like that depicted in this play. Unfortunately, Antigone never even hints at this. We do not necessarily expect plays to try to solve problems for us but at least we might hope that they don’t pretend they are insoluble.

Note on Production Despite the faults already mentioned, the play contains a large amount of worthwhile material descriptive of the conflict. In the Mermaid Society production, the aims were to reduce the emphasis on inevitability and to achieve a modified alienation-effect. For the former, parts of Chorus’s

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speeches were cut. For the latter, the more emotional parts of the opening of the play were cut or modified and the duologue was presented as primarily an argument. The hope was that the audience would observe the action without becoming emotionally involved.

APPENDIX C WOMAN OR PERSON?

This paper appeared in Alma Mater, LXXI, Spring 1960. It was attributed to Eva Foote, but was actually jointly written by her and Sandy Hobbs, who edited that issue of the magazine. The paper gives an indication of the feminist thinking to be found in the group of psychologists who met at Eva’s home.

The Problem ‘A man is better pleased when he has a good dinner on the table than when his wife talks Greek’ (Samuel Johnson). This was recently quoted (albeit facetiously) as an argument in favour of making girls’ education less academic and more a preparation for marriage. Perhaps the desire for such ‘preparation’ indicates the high standing in which marriage is held. But do we really value the human relationship involved when we talk so glibly about ‘preparation’ or are we only paying homage to a social and economic system which only superficially serves the good of humanity. Is it love we value or simply the traditional social mechanisms which surround it in our culture. The ‘preparation’ of a person for a situation can only be justified if, first, we know the, situation is inevitable, secondly, if maintaining this situation is beneficial to society, thirdly, if it favours the needs of the individual. I propose to argue that none of these conditions is fulfilled in the instance of educating girls for a ‘feminine’ role. It is not necessary to explain that it is in the interests of society economically that all ability is used to the full - just as it is in the interests of the individual. It is surely unnecessary to show that segregated or differentiated treatment of sub-groups of humanity produces double-think, prejudice and conflict between people who have difficulty in understanding each other. Only if it can be shown that girls, because of their sex, require some special treatment for some specific abilities and disabilities are we justified in considering their education apart from that of boys.

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At present the best education (i.e. to the highest level and of the most varied sort) is still the prerogative of boys. Many more men than women go to university, despite the complaisant assertion of ‘equal opportunities.’ In secondary schools it is only in the narrowly academic field that girls have the same opportunities as boys. Most technical subjects are denied girls unless they live in a specially favoured area. There are few girls' schools which can adequately teach science. Yet they all cater for some form of domestic or role-playing training (depending on social class, you have laundry-work or finishing school). Girls are treated en masse as if they were a separate species. We feel justified in this because most women marry-an equal number of men do too, but that is thought irrelevant. Somehow in recent history we have come to glorify the female role as the symbol of the closest of human relationships so that by attacking it we are thought to be attacking these relationships themselves. But is a good cook any more human a person that a good scientist? Is a flower-arranger more capable of love than a historian or an engineer?

Sex Differences Are there any established sex-differences, apart from the physical ones, which are not simply due to conditioning? Within one society we cannot determine which differences between men and women are innate and which are due to environment, since differences in the roles society assigns to men and women will create different values and personalities. Different behaviour is encouraged in girls and boys from their earliest infancy, often unconsciously, by the adults around them. Thus, differences in attitudes, emotionality, creativeness, independence, assertiveness and so on are either encouraged or stifled from the beginning. What we measure later in life is the effect of this influence. By comparing people in different societies, we can show just how important the expected role is in determining personality. A number of studies of primitive societies by Margaret Mead and others have shown that when these roles differ (for both men and women) their characteristic behaviour differs accordingly. A test specifically designed to measure masculinity–femininity was developed in U.S.A. but it has been shown to be useless even in Britain—a comparatively similar society. Thus, no generalisation can be made about sex differences outside of a particular society. Having, I hope, indicated sufficiently my arguments against any innate sex-differences in personality, I must stress that I am not claiming that there are no observable sex-differences at present. Men and women in our

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society are in fact subjected to different pressures and their influence is apparent in different ways. This is true of all sub-groups of humanity who are differentially treated. The tastes, interests and behaviour of groups of manual workers will be in many respects different from those of middle class groups, So different have their respective environments been that these differences will be reflected even in physical characteristics, as can be seen by comparing the physique of, say, the Glasgow and North of England working class of the last generation with that of the average for the middle class. Their attitudes to education will differ too. To use only one criterion, there is more wastage of university material as a percentage of the group among the children of non-skilled labourers than those of professional people. Both by enlightenment and economic pressure, this has come to be accepted as a social evil and some efforts are being made to right this. The efforts are inadequate as yet, but nevertheless, most people agree they should be made. With the education of girls this is obviously still not the case, Lest I give the impression that I wish all variations of personality between people to be eliminated, I must point out that I have been referring above to group differences. Individual differences exist as much amongst women as amongst men. Where these are inevitable or valuable they should be catered for in the educational system. Where they are irrelevant or harmful for society, it should be the aim of education to eliminate them.

The Forces Against Equality The arguments against equality in the sphere of sex - as in the economic sphere - are weak in reason but strong in motivation. Perhaps those who consciously wish the subjugation of women to continue are in the minority but the habits of thought which remain ill the majority die very hard. In Western culture woman’s role has evolved out of a long tradition. There have been periods when, economically or biologically, a rather rigid division of labour between the sexes was called for. When most of a woman's life is taken up with pregnancy and child-bearing, her other activities must necessarily be limited. This is no longer so. When domestic life involved a good deal more skill and effort and was concerned with a far wider range of activities, it was economically sound to have half the adult population exclusively concerned in it. This again is no longer the case.

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The concept of ‘femininity’ contains within it the idea of hearths and kitchens and cradles. We so much take for granted this traditional view of women that myths regarding the special aptitudes and ‘instincts’ of women in these spheres are accepted without question–and certainly without evidence. Traditionalism, here, is supported and supplemented by Christianity and we have suffered for two thousand years from the misogyny of St. Paul who gave the philosophical polish to a religion originating in a patriarchal society. This is the broader social background to anti-feminism, but we have to remember the forces acting at a more personal level. In men, there are three main types. First, the most obvious. It is so very much nicer to have the sordid monotonous tasks of meal-preparing, housecleaning, clothes-mending, etc., etc., alloted to someone else. There are few men who don't look on a wife as someone to take over where their mothers left off. It is taken for granted that a woman should feel a vocation for this side of marriage: otherwise, she is a failure as a woman. If she has any other values, in the sense that men have values, they must be subordinated to her primary function—looking after her husband. It is therefore not to be wondered at that most women have no deep concern about the broader social issues. Their ‘careers’ are too often time-filling hobbies. Their education is not likely to be taken seriously by anyone but themselves, so only a few survive the social pressures upon them. The second type of personal motive is also very obvious. Having enjoyed for so long the glories of being the 'superior' sex, it will take much more than a few scientific facts to persuade men to relinquish it. Just as with the European's attitude to the negro, it is those who suffer most from personal failure who must cling to their ‘superiority’ in at least one sphere (e.g. the poor whites in the Southern states). It is easy to find rationalisations for such beliefs in our society for women are obviously not playing an equal part with men. Even in university most of the more positive activities like running societies are largely neglected by women, But we must not mistake this for natural inferiority but rather look for the factors in their past education which have led to this negative attitude. The third of these motives is that concerned with attitudes to sex. However enlightened we may think ourselves, sex is still a sphere of ambiguous attitudes, set apart from the intellectual and aesthetic values. Now women feature in men's lives largely as objects of sex. They are the sex. They are the embodiments of the more mysterious aspects. Thus, they have projected on them all these ambiguous attitudes. Women, on the other hand, are taught that their biological function is to be the focus of their lives. Making themselves sex objects is a serious business leading to

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their final object - marriage and motherhood, They have magazines devoted exclusively to this and their education is specialised in this direction. With men this is not the case. Marriage is only to be a part of their lives.. Thus it is not difficult to see how men can come to think of women largely as objects serving a purpose. It is true that most men treat women with considerable respect and gallantry, but this is an indulgence and often a patronage. It is no substitute for true status. Many slave owners treated their slaves with more consideration than they later received as free men but it didn't make their position less intolerable. It is asserted in defence of the status quo that women are really better off in their present position. They have little responsibility and many privileges (so has my pet cat, but I don’t want to change places with him). Simone de Beauvoir shows the argument in its true context: “Like the carefree wretches gaily scratching at their vermin, like the merry negroes laughing under the lash, and those joyous Tunisian Arabs burying their starved children with a smile, woman enjoys the supreme privilege: irresponsibility." This brings us to the motives in women which favour conserving the present situation (and which provided the fierce opposition to the suffragettes half a century ago). The irresponsibility of being concerned solely with developing the self as an attractive object, of being concerned solely with one's personal life while the world goes by, is an attractive, but immature, privilege. Yet because of her early upbringing and education, a woman is forced to look on such a position as her goal. Thus woman can so rarely enter wholeheartedly into pursuits which require a true involvement with external affairs. This hardly encourages the revolutionary, or even reformist, attitude which is required if women are to participate in the process of their own emancipation.

Conclusion Perhaps one of the saving graces of our society is the high value placed on personal relationships. But are we being true to our values by furthering a social system which by its very nature makes the closest of human relationships if not impossible extremely difficult - or are we simply covering up reality with a gloss romantic blanket. Is not the vital part of love the ability to give oneself to another? Yet by encouraging women to give themselves entirely to marriage we render it impossible for them to continue to have anything to give. The moment that precious, wellprepared person is given up to marriage that person ceases to exist. Can

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we honestly believe that the typical middle class wife with her concern for trivialities has much more to give than her physical presence? Do we consider the underprivileged working class woman who has become part of the domestic machinery is enjoying or participating in our ideal relationship. Only between equal, responsible and adult people can the best relationships be achieved—where there is as much to be given and enjoyed by each. Unfortunately, this is neither recognised nor made apparent to the young girl. Her femininity is given in supreme importance. By all means let us preserve femininity but let us call it by its true title sex appeal - and accord it only that part of our attention it deserves. Men can satisfactorily be themselves as people and lose nothing sexually. Women are continually having to decide whether to sacrifice a part of themselves to one way of life. Whatever the outcome of such a decision, it always demands a loss. If a girl chooses marriage and gives up a career or part of her education her family is likely to suffer later. If marriage is sacrificed the effects are too well known - -even her career will be regarded as a way of compensating and she will be unable to be involved in her work apart from the glory gained from it. Not until both men and women are educated to accept each other as equal human beings having very similar needs and qualities, can they have the advantage of true mutually beneficial relationships. Not until both sexes take on full responsibility as members of society can we begin to settle group conflicts.

APPENDIX D THE DECEIVERS: AN ANALYSIS ON MORAL REARMAMENT

The following was a piece written by Willie Thompson, and appeared anonymously in the weekly student newspaper Gaudie during the time he edited it in the early summer of 1960. The previous Easter, Moral Rearmament had made a big publicity drive throughout Britain, distributing the pamphlet attacked here to a great many households throughout the country. This reaction was based entirely on the pamphlet’s content, as he had never previously heard of the organisation. Presumably the visit to the university by Patrick Wolridge-Gordon and associated events noted in our text, was part of the same MRA initiative. Now that East-West tensions have slackened somewhat, now that the Summit Conference draws near and it seems that at last some form of modus vivendi may be reached between the two power blocs, some words need to be said about a publication which you will doubtless have received through the post a week or so ago. It is called Ideology and Co-existence and is published by an organisation known as Moral Rearmament. It is almost impossible to find words to describe the despicable lowness of this disgusting publication. The purpose of the movement seems to be to find an alternative ideology to Communism, it is little more than a glorification of the worst aspects of the Western world. Basically its theory is a “change of heart” among the people of the Western and four vague principles of absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute selflessness and absolute love. The second of these it leaves absolutely undefined and the other three in absolute vagueness. Its practical policy is such as would have met with the approval of Senator Joe McCarthy, an uncompromising intensification of the Cold War and armament to the teeth. (How this fits in with the principle of absolute love is left conveniently unexplained.) Its hero is Dr. Adenauer, who makes arms deals over the heads of his allies with the hero of Guernica, it laments the downfall of Chiang Kai Chek, attributing it to falsely got-up malevolent opinion in the West. Never so

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much as a word of apology or excuse does it give for the McCarthy episode, and the while former Nazis crawl back to positions of power in Federal Germany, while the remnants of democracy bleed away in Algeria, while Africans are being butchered en masse, it dismisses antiSemitic outbreaks as a Communist plot and preaches ideological solidarity in a “free world” containing such havens of freedom as Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Algeria and Formosa.

Insult This movement, Moral Rearmament, is an insult to the hopes of millions of men and women panting to be free of the shadow of the H-bomb and the tightening screw of the arms race. As might have been inferred, its chief backers are brass hats and politicians like Adenauer, men who have a vested interest in hate and a divided world. But the most sinister aspect of the programme remains to be mentioned. Anyone who does not wholeheartedly accept the ideas of Moral Rearmament, anyone who suggests that it may not be necessary to pursue the struggle up to and including nuclear war, anyone who suggests that Communists may be human beings is implicitly branded as a Communist or Communist stooge and is, presumably, to be purged. All the troubles that confront the Western world are ascribed to “Communist infiltration,” the perfection of Western institutions are never once questioned. Whether a movement which claims that one of the four main aims of Communism is to weaken us by corrupting our moral standards deserves to be taken seriously, I leave the reader to judge. The foregoing condemnation is quite apart from the basic impracticability of trying to bring about any sort of “change of heart” on a large scale.

Real Alternative Moral Rearmament is a sham and a deceit practiced by a group of selfish and irresponsible power-seekers upon its sincere but utterly misguided followers. It is a giant advertising campaign attempting to reverse the trend of world opinion in the interests of a group of militarists and professional “red haters” who make Mr. Macmillan appear like a shining angel of light. I would be the last to deny that the west does indeed need an ideological alternative to Communism, but this campaign of Moral Rearmament proves, if it proves anything at all, that there is only one such alternative—democratic Socialism.

APPENDIX E IS BEHAVIOURISM A HUMANISM?

Sandy Hobbs became convinced of the radical behaviourist position in psychology while still a student in Aberdeen. However he did not write explicitly from that standpoint until the late 1970s when he became involved in educational debates. This is an outline summary of paper presented by Sandy Hobbs and David Cornwell to the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Scottish Branch, Glasgow, 22 November 1980. The text was distributed to participants at the meeting and was later used by both authors as a teaching aid. The title echoes Sartre’s paper “L’existentialisme est un humanisme”. The figure has been drawn by Kevin Hobbs, based on an original by David Cornwell. 1.In this paper we suggest that behaviourism has been misconstrued by many critics. Misunderstandings have arisen from a failure to appreciate several crucial theoretical distinctions. In the resultant confusion, behaviourism has been misrepresented by non-behaviourists and segregated as an inferior approach to the study of human activities. Such discrimination is unfortunate and unjustified. For discussion between people with different ideologies and theoretical systems to take place, some common ground must appear to exist. Language, concepts and values must seem to have sufficient similarities to render fruitful dialogue a possibility. We argue that the prospects for such dialogue with behaviourists have been underestimated by adherents of other views. Even when non-behaviourists appear to confront behaviourist ideas, they frequently show serious misconceptions of a sort presumably held by those who do not even attempt to enter into the discussions. Our main argument is that behaviourism (in the sense explained below) is worthy of a place within humanism (in the sense explained below). 2. BEHAVIOURISM as an historical development has displayed changes through time and amongst participants. Differences between psychologists who identify with a “behaviourist” movement are reflected, for example, in the contents of professional journals. These range from basic laboratory

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research (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior) through applied studies in psychotherapy, social work and education (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis) to discussion of conceptual issues (Behaviorism). Although often portrayed as a static, homogeneous approach to human nature, behaviourism is actually an evolving, heterogeneous set of assumptions, attitudes, concepts and methodologies. “Behaviourist” work may be distinguished from other psychological approaches by certain preferences in terminology and in methodology. It is these terminological preferences which give the behaviourist movement its name, since there is a bias towards words which denote the mutual interactions between individuals and environments. Phenomena which non-behaviourists describe in terms of mental events, subjective states, inner processes or psychic forces are regarded by behaviorists as activities involving individuals and their surroundings. There is a behaviourist bias against words which imply on the one hand that behaviour is rooted in spiritual or supernatural forces, and on the other hand that behaviour is reducible to the operation of biological or physical variables. 3. A terminological bias may make it easier or more difficult to tackle certain types of phenomena. However, it cannot be assumed a priori that a given terminology is entirely incapable of dealing with a given phenomenon. Thus, failure to use a term such as “mind” does not per se mean that the various events or states to which that term is applied by other people are not described or understood by behaviourists. Similarly, when an ethical judgement is made on behaviourists’ activities, it is inappropriate to assume that simply because they use distinctive terminology in selfdescription (e.g. “control”, “manipulate”) they are necessarily acting in less humane ways than other people who use some different terminology. 4. HUMANISM is used in this paper to refer to the common ground between people of different theoretical or ideological standpoints. For example, we note that certain Marxists and certain Christians believe that meaningful mutual discussion is possible. Given that substantial differences exist at least superficially between these systems, we suggest that “humanism” is an appropriate term to refer to areas of reciprocal acceptance. Such discussion seems to us to presuppose the belief that some common goals for humanity and some common categories of thought exist. Any other way of describing common ground would presuppose the correctness of one theoretical framework. There are limits to the areas of mutual acceptance between adherents of rival systems. Marxists may speak to Christians without accepting the Inquisition or the possibility of Divine Intervention, Christians may speak to Marxists

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without accepting the Soviet Secret Police or Historical Materialism. Dialogue with certain adherents of rival systems may be deliberately avoided when there appears to be little possibility of common ground, This may occur if a person assumes his viewpoint is the only correct one, if his ethical standards are absolute and inflexible, or if for some reason he does not desire any kind of compromise with the other party. 5. Some of the various ways in which non-behaviourists tend to encourage the exclusion of behaviourist ideas from humanistic discussion may be found in a recent article by Clark (1979) on education and behaviour modification. What purports to be a discussion of behaviourist ideas in education is essentially a denigration of such ideas. 6. Clark treats behaviourism as theoretically naive, uncritical and monolithic. For example: (a) He says that the “parent theory” of behaviour modification is Skinnerian behaviourism. In this he fails to note that other forms of behaviourism exist and hence fails to indicate the existence of debate within the movement. (b) He concentrates his critical analysis on a small number of handbooks and guides. In this he fails to acknowledge different degrees of theoretical sophistication and thoroughness. (c) In quoting behaviourist research on verbal conditioning indirectly via an introductory textbook, he disregards the existence of a body of behaviourist writing critical of that research. 7. Clark claims not to be concerned with assessing what he calls the, “facts” of behaviour modification, i.e. actual research reports and case histories. He nevertheless apparently considers himself justified in making speculations about possible outcomes. For example, he suggests that after using behaviour modification a teacher may find the class “in as big a shambles as ever”. No specific report on a class is dealt with. Similarly, without referring to any actual research, he suggests that the use of behaviour modification to stop lying would be limited to lying itself and would have no broader beneficial results. More generally, Clark says that the outcome of the systematic application of behaviourist ideas in education would be that the only ways of handling problems left would be “drugs and psychosurgery”. He uses strong emotive language inimical to behaviourism, e.g. more than once refers to it or its implications as a “nightmare”.

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8. In dealing with Skinnerian theory, Clark misconstrues certain aims and misinterprets certain concepts. (i) Explanation. Clark complains that Skinnerian concepts fail to explain the phenomena with which they deal. Yet Skinner (1950) quite explicitly indicates that it is not his intention to deal with “explanations” of the sort Clark means. He offers an alternative approach which Clark omits to mention let alone criticize. Skinner suggests that psychologists should try to build their understanding of learning by the observation of certain functional relationships between data. He criticizes explanations of observed facts “which appeal to events taking place somewhere else, at some other level of observation, described in different terms, and measured, it at all, in different dimensions”. In opposition to this, he advocates a type of theory based on the collection of “uniform relationships” and representing the data in “a minimal number of terms”. Thus it comes as no surprise to Skinner to be told that he has not “explained” learning. (ii) Reinforcement. Clark criticizes the Skinnerian concept “reinforcement” as empty in that it neither provides a basis for advice to the teacher nor is it a satisfactory way of dealing with research findings. He quotes Poteet (1974) as saying that what is reinforcing for one pupil may not be reinforcing for another nor will it necessarily be reinforcing for the original pupil on another occasion. Clark treats this as implicitly admitting that the concept lacks practical reference. However, it is not an admission that what is reinforcing is a random matter but rather a caveat against reification ·of the concept. Since individual experience and situations differ, it is unlikely one will find reinforcers which work for all people on all occasions. That is not to say that one cannot find some reinforcers which work for many people on many occasions. In dealing with a study by Isaacs (1960) in which behaviourist techniques involving reinforcement were used to teach a mute patient in a mental hospital to speak, Clark claims that the results achieved do not actually fit behaviourist theory. He also says that what happened in this case was “something much better described as encouraging the patient to speak”. In so doing, Clark not only misreports the authors’ use of additional concepts to account for the patient’s progress, but also fails to realise the complaints of vagueness, ambiguity and lack of analysis which he makes against the authors of the report could be made even more strongly against his own unexplained and unanalysed concept of “encouragement”.

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Figure I. Skinner has argued that mentalistic concepts gloss over the details and complexities of behaviour. He offers alternative concepts (shown to the left of the figure above) which he considers will be more useful in a scientific description. (Illustration adapted from Skinner’s 1955 paper, What is Psychotic Behaviour? In B.F. Skinner, Cumulative Record (2nd edition). New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1961, 202-219.)

(iii) Control. Clark takes the fact that Skinnerians use the term “control” to refer to the relationship between, say, psychologist and patient, to mean that Skinnerian psychology necessarily involves morally unacceptable forms of manipulation. Furthermore, Clark assumes that such manipulation will necessarily be conservative in that it will be used to serve the interests of those currently in positions of power in society. Since the term “control” arises from the relatively successful techniques used to influence laboratory animals, Clark seems to have wrongly assumed that Skinnerians believe that human beings in the world at large are readily induced to do almost anything by environmental manipulation. The view imputed is that all human behaviour is reduced to conditioned reflexes and the availability of alternative possibilities of action is minimized. What such an

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interpretation overlooks is that the processes to which Skinner refers are not merely presented as techniques for influencing behaviour but as normal ongoing natural processes. Thus, if we deliberately seek to use techniques of shaping, say, to induce someone to act in some particular way, our probability of success will depend on the relationship between what we do and the other “natural” influences which impinge on the individual, in the past and currently. In using the term “control”, Skinner is not opposing “freedom of the will”, but arguing that the phenomena usually covered by terms such as impulse, wish and will are better understood in terms of concepts which refer explicitly to the actions of individuals in their environments. Skinner may or may not be correct in his ways of describing natural processes. Insofar as he is correct, the knowledge at his disposal is no more and no less liable to be used in elitist, conservative interests than any other knowledge. 9. The purpose of this paper has been to encourage genuine dialogue between behaviourists and non-behaviourists, unimpeded by false assumptions, carelessness and emotionally charged rejections. It has not been our purpose to defend any particular aspect of behaviourist theory or practice. Behaviourism is probably no more free of error or malpractice than any other historical movement. For dialogue to be productive, good will is needed on both sides. No doubt a case could be made criticizing behaviourists’ failure to bring about such interaction with other standpoints. Our present remarks are directed to non-behaviourists. Behaviourism is open to influence from outside. Behaviourist ideas and practices could be changed and improved with outside interest. However, this can only come about by people in other intellectual traditions actually coming to grips with what behaviourists are saying and doing.

References A. This paper arose out of a debate between the authors and J.V. Smith in the Journal for Further and Higher Education in Scotland. These articles contain material relevant to the issues raised in the present paper: S. Hobbs and D. Cornwell: A psychological approach to psychology teaching, 1977, 2:1, 21–25. J.V. Smith: Behavioural science: a plea for pluralism, 1978, 2:2, 37–47. D. Cornwell and S. Hobbs: Trial and error: a response to Smith's paper, 1978, 3:1, 35–42. J.V. Smith: Positivism, politics and psychology: a reply to Cornwell and Hobbs, 1919, 4: 1, 22–26.

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S. Hobbs and D. Cornwell: Behavioural technology: what is to be done? 1980, 4:2, 21. B. Works referred to in the notes: Clark, C.: Education and behaviour modification, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 1979, 13, 73–81. Isaacs, W., Thomas, J., and Goldiamond, I.: Application of operant conditioning to reinstate verbal behavior in psychotics, Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 1960, 25, 8–12. Poteet, J. A.: Behaviour Modification: A Practical Guide for Teachers, London: University of London Press, 1974. Skinner, B.F.: Are theories of learning necessary? Psychological Review, 1950, 57, 193–216.

APPENDIX F ARCHIVES AND RESOURCES

Glasgow Caledonian University Both of the authors have deposited political papers relating to the period covered by this book in the Special Collections of the Glasgow Caledonian University Library. Descriptions of the contents are available on-line at www.gcu.ac.uk/archives/hobbs/index.html The files include Aberdeen Left Club, Aberdeen Young Socialists, CND Scotland and Fife Socialist League. www.gcu.ac.uk/archives/thompson/index.html The files cover many aspects of Willie’s activities in the Communist Party.

University of Aberdeen The Oral History Archive of the University of Aberdeen contains transcription of recordings made by staff and students who were in the University at the period covered by this book. Accessed on line at: www.abdn.ac.uk/historic/Oral_history_about_archive.shtml Of particular relevance are the following: Willie Thompson (Tape 159), co-author of this book. John F Ross (Tape 135), fellow member of the Socialist Society. Ken Alexander (Tape 125), Lecturer in Political Economy, Chair of Aberdeen Left Club, later Chancellor of the university. Roddy Begg (Tape 126), later university secretary, acted in Sandy’s production of Antigone. He gives an outsider’s view of the left wing

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students, citing Wilf Heap as “leader” and typify the group as wearing “black leather jackets” and “always looking serious and solemn”. He probably had in mind Peter Henderson and Willie Thompson. Donald MacKinnon ((Tapes 39 and 49), Professor of Moral Philosopher, Labour Party supporter, and legendary “character” around the university. R. V. Jones (Tapes 97, 98, and 99), Professor of Natural Philosophy, i.e. Physics, also a celebrated “character”. Betty Fraser (Tape 40), Lecturer in Psychology and later Professor, discusses the Psychology department of the time. John Nisbet (Tape 177), Lecturer in Education and later Professor, also discusses the Psychology department. Fraser Noble (Tapes 32, 36 and 37), Lecturer in Political Economy and later Principal of the university, taught Sandy. “Buff” Hardie (Tapes 213, 214 and 215), was an earlier graduate, but was a notable figure in university circles as the producer of the annual Student Show at His Majesty’s Theatre. He also performed in and wrote for local revues and subsequently became a member of the successful “Scotland the What” act. Sandy asked his permission to print some of his review lyrics when editing Alma Mater, but he turned down the request. The student publications mentioned in the text, Alma Mater, CAR Contemporary and Art Review and Gaudie are available in the University Library.

Shetland Museum and Archives Willie Thompson’s fellow Shetlander, Douglas Bain, wrote a regular diary during his years at secondary school, which gives a vivid impression of life at the time. Willie himself is frequently mentioned. A copy of the diary, annotated by Douglas when in his late sixties, is held in the Shetland Museum and Archives at Lerwick. Catalogue information at: www.calmview.eu/ShetlandArchive/CairnView?Overview,aspx?s=Dougla s+Bain The catalogue number is D1/419.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexander, Kenneth. 1960. Power at the base. In Out of Apathy. Edited by E. P. Thompson, 243-286. London: Stevens and Son. Barltrop, Robert. 1975. The Monument: The Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. London: Pluto. Baxendale, Leo. 1978. A Very Funny Business. London: Duckworth. Birnbaum, Norman. 1958. Social constraints and academic freedom. Universities and Left Review, 5: 47–52. Brecht, Bertolt, 1957–8. Buddha’s Example of the Burning House. The New Reasoner, 3: 55-56. —. 1961. Tales from the Calendar. London: Methuen. Brunvand, Jan Harold. 2001. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC–Cleo. Buckley, Kenneth. 1955. Trade Unionism in Aberdeen, 1878–1900. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. Chiesa, Mecca and Sandy Hobbs. 2008. Making sense of social research: How useful is the Hawthorne Effect? European Journal of Social Psychology. 38: 67–74. Cornwell, David and Sandy Hobbs. 1976. The strange saga of Little Albert, New Society, 35: 602–604. Cornwell, David and Sandy Hobbs. 1984. Behavioral analysis of metaphor. Psychological Record, 34: 325–332. Cornwell, David and Sandy Hobbs. 1991. Defining the pun. In Spoken in Jest. Edited by Gillian Bennett, 199-214. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Cornwell, David and Sandy Hobbs. 1999. Defining film noir. Reflections, 1: 96–106. De Beauvoir, Simone. 1953. The Second Sex. London: Jonathan Cape. —. 1957. The Mandarins: A Novel. London: Collins. Dickinson, L., A. Hobbs, S. M. Kleinberg, and P. J. Martin. 1975. The Immigrant School Learner: A Study of Pakistani Pupils in Glasgow. Slough: NFER. Escott, Harry. 1960. A History of Scottish Congregationalism. Glasgow: Congregational Union of Scotland. Fordham, Freida. 1953. An Introduction to Jung’s Psychology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

148

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Garford, James. 1960. Camphor. London: Faber & Faber. Glover, Ernest. 1950. Freud or Jung. London: George Allen and Unwin. Greer, Germaine. 1970. The Female Eunuch. London: Paladin. Hobbs, A., W. P. Brown, Eva Foote and Elizabeth Bowden. 1959. Humanism in Great Britain: A Survey of Local Organizations. Aberdeen: Aberdeen Humanist Group. Hobbs, Alexander. 1974. Downie’s Slaughter. Aberdeen University Review, 45: 183–191. Hobbs, Sandy. 1964. Campaigning and persuading. CND Scotland, 1, 2, 3 and 6. —. 1984. Psychological aspects of oral history. Our History Journal, 8: 36. —. 1987. Folk tales and ‘mentalities’. Our History Journal, 11: 5–7. —. 1988. Clyde Apprentices’ Strikes. 38–41 In Workers City. Edited by Farquhar McLay, 38–41. Glasgow: Clydeside Press. —. 2005. Beyond rumor and legend: Some Aspects of Academic Communication. In Rumor Mills: The Social Impact of Rumor and Legend. Edited by Gary Alan Fine, Veronique Campion-Vincent and Chip Heath, 207-222. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Hobbs, Sandy and Mecca Chiesa. 2003. Errors of omission and commission: The analysis of misrepresentation in secondary sources. History and Philosophy of Psychology, 5: 46–56. Hobbs, Sandy and David Cornwell. 1986. Child Labour: An underdeveloped topic in psychology. International Journal of Psychology, 21: 225– 234. Hobbs, Sandy and David Cornwell. 1991. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren: A study of scholars' reactions. Folklore, 102: 175– 182. Hobbs, Sandy, David Cornwell and Mecca Chiesa. 2000. Telling tales about behavior analysis: Textbooks, scholarship and rumor. In Experimental and Applied Analysis of Human Behavior. Edited by Julian Leslie and Derek Blackman, 251–270. Reno NV: Context Press. Hobbs, Sandy and Sue Kleinberg. 1978. Teaching: A behaviour influence approach. In Understanding Classroom Life. Edited by Ray MacAleese and David Hamilton, 47–67. Slough: NFER, 1978 Hobbs, Sandy and Jim McKechnie. 1997. Child Employment in Britain: A Social and Psychological Analysis. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. Hobbs, Sandy, Jim McKechnie and Michael Lavalette. 1999. Child Labor: A World History Companion. Santa Barbara CA: ABC–Clio. Hobbs, Sandy and Willie Thompson. 1968. Socialism and Nationalism in Scotland: Some Opinions. Glasgow: Red Dwarf Pamphlets.

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Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1994. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph. Hoggart, Richard. 1957. The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto and Windus. Humphries, Christmas. 1951. Buddhism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hyman, Ray.1977. Cold Reading: How to convince strangers that you know all about them. The Zetetic, Spring–Summer, 18–37. Jarratt, Vernon. 1951. The Italian Cinema. London: Falcon Press. Jones, Mervyn. 1970. Joseph. London: Jonathan Cape. Joravsky, David. 1961. Soviet Marxism and Natural Science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kenny, Michael. 1995. The First New Left: British Intellectuals After Stalin. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Knight, Margaret. 1955. Morals Without Religion and other essays. London: Dennis Dobson. Koestler, Arthur. 1959. Darkness at Noon. London: Four Square. Lavalette, Michael, Jim McKechnie and Sandy Hobbs. 1991. The Forgotten Workforce: Scottish Children at Work. Glasgow: Scottish Low Pay Unit. LeBreton, Mrs John. 1919. The White Magic Book. London: C. Arthur Pearson. Lowes, John Livingston. 1930. The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination (2nd ed.). London: Constable. MacKenzie, Hugh (Ed.) 1953. Third Statistical Account of Scotland: The City of Aberdeen. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. Marx, Karl. 1906. Capital: A Critque of Political Economy. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr. Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels and Lenin. 1960. The Essential Left: Four Classic Texts on the Principles of Socialism. London: George Allen and Unwin. McCrindle, Jean (2009) Laurence Daly, The Guardian, 30 May. McCrindle, Jean and Sheila Rowbottom. 1977. Dutiful Daughters: Women Talk about Their Lives. London: Allen Lane. McKechnie, Jim and Sandy Hobbs (Eds.) 1998. Working Children: Reconsidering the Debates: Report of the International Working Group on Child Labour. Amsterdam: Defence for Children International and the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Moisley, H. A. 1960. The domicile of Scottish university students. Scottish Studies, 4, 71–83. O’Dell, A. C. and K. Walton. 1949. A note on the student population of Aberdeen University. Aberdeen University Review, 33, 125–127.

150

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Opie, Iona and Peter Opie. 1959. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Popper, Karl. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Read, Herbert (Ed.) 1936. Surrealism. London: Faber and Faber. Rotha, Paul and Richard Griffith. 1951. The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema (2nd ed.). London: Vision: Press. Sandbrook, Dominick. 2005. Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles. London: Little, Brown. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1957. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. London: Methuen. Scottish Home and Health Department. 1964. The Aberdeen Typhoid Outbreak 1964. Edinburgh: HMSO. Skinner, B.F. 1938. The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. —. 1950. Are theories of learning necessary? Psychological Review, 57, 193–216. —. 1953. Science and Human Behavior. New York: Free Press. Smith, Howard K. 1950. The State of Europe. London: Cresset Press. Thompson, E. P. 1968. The Making of the English Working Class (2nd ed.) Harmondsworth: Penguin. Thompson, William. 1978. The New Left in Scotland. In Essays in Scottish Labour History: A Tribute to W. H. Marwick. Edited by Ian MacDougall, 207–224. Edinburgh: John Donald. Thompson, Willie. 1992. The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1920–1991. London: Pluto Press. —. 1994. Postmodernism and History. London: Palgrave: 2004. —. 2010. Ideologies in the Age of Extremes: Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism and Fascism. London: Pluto Press. Thompson. Willie and Carol McCallum. 1998. Glasgow Caledonian University: Its Origins and Evolution. East Linton: Tuckwell. Thompson, Willie and Sandy Hobbs. 1988. British Communists on the War, 1939–1941, Oral History, 16(2): 28–33. Thouless, R. H. 1953 Straight and Crooked Thinking (revised ed.). London: Pan. Tubb, E.C. 1953. The Mutants Rebel. London: Panther Books. Ulman, Jerome D. 1991. Toward a synthesis of Marx and Skinner, Behavior and Social Issues, 1(1): 75–90. Van Loon, Hendrik. 1926. The Story of Mankind. Garden City, NY: Star Books. White, Amber Blanco. 1939. The New Propaganda. London: Gollanz.

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Widgery, David. 1976. The Left in Britain 1956–1968. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Wicksteed, Bernard. 1947. It’s Fun Finding Out. London: Daily Express. Williams, Tennessee. 1957. Baby Doll: The Script for a Film. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

NOTES Chapter One 1

Brecht (1957-8). The translation was by Arnold Hinchcliffe. The poem is probably more widely known in Britain by its appearance in Brecht’s Tales from the Calendar. 2 Sandbrook (2005). 3 Thompson (1968). 4 Particularly as expounded by Skinner (1952). 5 Thompson (1992). 6 Thompson and McCallum (1998). 7 Thompson (1994). 8 Thompson (2010). 9 For an account of Wham! see Baxendale (1978). 10 One issue dealt with was asbestos. Files of Glasgow News are held in the library of Glasgow Caledonian University. 11 Dickinson, Hobbs, Kleinberg and Martin (1975). 12 Particularly “Teaching: A behaviour influence approach” which I wrote with Sue Kleinberg (1978). 13 For example, second hand accounts of the famous “Little Albert” experiment, see Cornwell and Hobbs (1976). 14 Brunvand has published several books on the subject but his approach is consolidated in his Encyclopedia of Urban Legends (2001). 15 Hobbs and Cornwell (1986). 16 Lavalette, McKechnie and Hobbs (1991). 17 McKechnie and Hobbs (1998). 18 Hobbs, McKechnie and Lavalette (1999).

Chapter Two 1

O’Dell and Walton (1949). Moisley (1960). 3 MacKenzie (1953). 4 Scottish Home and Health Department (1964). 2

Chapter Three 1 2

Escott (1960). Hobbs (1974).

154

NOTES

3

Van Loon (1926). LeBreton (1919). 5 Cold Reading is widely discussed today, but I first became familiar with the concept in the work of Ray Hyman. See Hyman (1977). 6 Wicksteed (1947). 7 Read (1936). 8 Lowes (1930). 9 Fordham (1953). 10 Glover (1950). 11 My knowledge of Salt is based largely on internet sources such as IMDb.com. 12 Rotha and Griffith (1951). 13 Film noir is a problematic term. I have managed to combine my pleasure in these films with a scholarly interest in the concept (Cornwell and Hobbs, 1999). 14 Jarratt (1951). 15 Humphries (1951). 4

Chapter Four 1

This was a sub-let in a two-bedroom ground-floor council flat built shortly before the war and tenanted by a widower whose family had moved out. It had a substantial garden front and back (the flat above had its own separate one). The tenant occupied one bedroom room and we had the other one and the sitting room. The kitchen (with gas cooker and separate solid fuel stove) and bathroom were shared. Only the lighting was electrical, there were no power points. The radio ran on two large batteries, a ‘dry’ battery and an ‘accumulator’ – a mini-version of a car battery, which had to be recharged frequently at a garage. 2 Its foundation stone in 1862 was laid to the accompaniment Masonic ceremonies, as was the primary school in 1902 and the Town Hall in 1882. 3 Mosley’s periodical Action was displayed among the other papers. 4 Smith (1950). 5 I’ve been intrigued recently to discover that the covers of many of these novels and magazines can be seen on the web. 6 It was written by the astonishingly prolific E. C. Tubb, who died in his nineties in 2009, and was entitled The Mutants Rebel. 7 Even mathematics, for although I was lamentably bad at mathematics I was nevertheless interested in the concepts behind number and enjoyed two texts called Riddles in Mathematics and How to Lie with Statistics. 8 The historical novels of Magaret Irwin and Jane Oliver, focused on medieval and early modern themes I particularly enjoyed. 9 Knight (1955). 10 Their author, W. E. Johns, can be considered a conservative, even reactionary writer – though in one novel Biggles and his followers fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil war, albeit reluctantly.

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Chapter Five 1

The Cummings cartoon appeared in the Scottish Daily Express, 14 January 1955. Knight (1955). 3 Skinner’s laboratory work was outlined in his book The Behavior of Organisms (1938). He applied his approach to human behaviour in Science and Human Behaviour (1952). I was particularly impressed by his paper “Are theories of learning necessary?” (Skinner, 1950) which clearly differentiated him from other behaviourists. 4 See, for example, McCrindle and Rowbottom (1977). 5 The performers were predominantly local singers and musicians, such as Jeannie Robertson and Jimmy MacBeath, with the occasional visitor, one being Dominic Behan. 6 Gaudie, 3 February 1961. 7 Articles on the Staff Wages affair appeared in Gaudie on 25 November 1960, 2 December 1960, 3 February 1961 and 10 February 1961. 8 A Life of Dissent, produced by Tariq Ali, a Bandung production for Channel Four, 1993. The specific reference Dorothy Thompson made was to “racial, national, ethnic, religious” differences. 9 I am not sure that we actually made use of that printer. Material from the campaign that is kept in my archive at Glasgow Caledonian University library bears the name of a commercial printer. 10 Greer (1970). 11 There was a symposium on “Obscenity and the Arts” in Alma Mater, LXXII, 1961, to which I contributed a paper entitled “It ought not to be allowed”. 12 Williams (1957). 13 The Antigone reviews in question appeared in the Aberdeen Evening Express, 14 January 1960, and in Gaudie, 22 January 1960. 14 De Beauvoir (1957). 15 De Beauvoir (1953). 16 Sartre (1957). 17 Hoggart (1957). 18 Opie and Opie (1959). 19 Hobbs and Cornwell (1991). 2

Chapter Six 1

Since that time the university library has changed its location not once but twice. This information was given orally (though Elphinstone’s illegitimacy is well known). I have been unable to find a written reference. 3 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/421988 4 In Aberdeen university at that time they were termed ‘Regents’. 5 His most impressive book was Joseph, a fictionalized biography of Stalin up to 1941. 2

156 6 7

NOTES

He was later to be elected Secretary of the NUM. See Appendix D.

Chapter Seven 1

The history of the SPGB up to the late sixties is recounted sympathetically in Robert Barltrop’s The Monument: The Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, Pluto. (The title refers to a derogatory comment by Tommy Jackson, a former member who became a leading Communist activist and writer).

Chapter Eight 1

Buckley (1955). Joravsky (1961). 3 Brecht (1957-1958). 4 Cornwell and Hobbs (1984). 5 A reference to Donald Dewar, later First Minister of Scotland, who had recently been adopted as Labour candidate for the Aberdeen South seat at Westminster. 6 Kenny (1995) distinguished several major strands in the New Left. See also Widgery (1978). 7 Hobbs and Thompson (1968). 8 Thompson and Hobbs (1988). We found examples of people joining the party in its period of supposedly low fortune after the Hitler-Stalin pact. 9 Thompson (1978). 10 Hobbs (1984), Hobbs (1987). 2

Chapter Nine 1

See McCrindle (2009), Widgery (1978), Thompson (1978). Laurence Daly’s archives are held in the University of Warwick. 2 Willie’s comrade and friend, Douglas Bain, is a remarkable contrast. His diaries of the time contain many sympathetic references to the Hungarian resistance. Unlike Willie, Douglas lived in a home where there was support for the Labour Party. A footnote he wrote later, mentions that when he joined the Communist Party in the early 1960s the official line was still that Soviet troops were helping to suppress a counter revolution. “We agreed to differ”, he added. 3 Papers on the misrepresentation of behaviourism include Hobbs (2005), Hobbs and Chiesa (2003) and Hobbs, Cornwell and Chiesa (2000). Other areas of psychology subjected to critical analysis include the so-called Hawthorne Effect (Chiesa and Hobbs, 2008). 4 Hobbs (1964).

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5

Strictly speaking, I consider “religious” factors may be seen as an aspect of “cultural” factors, since most people’s religious affiliations arise because of processes of acculturalization. 6 See the journal Behavior and Social Issues. A rare example of someone who combines Marxist politics and Skinnerian psychology is Jerome D. Ulman. See, for example, Ulman (1991).

Chapter Ten 1

One anonymous wag published a poem in the correspondence, which went as follows (I’m quoting from memory) Workers arise! Throw off your sexual fetters! Read Lady Chat with fine words of four letters, Like ‘Tory’, ‘hoot’* and other naughty nouns, Follow each week her amorous ups and downs, While Mellors hoists his flag marked CND, Leaving his game politically at sea. It is the Bain of intellectual life To haul in politics to sexual strife. Workers beware! Frustrate their knavish tricks Contaminate lust with politicks! * Douglas had referred to ‘not giving a hoot’. 2 A more distant colleague, a non-university member of the YS, also did so some years later. 3 Our colleague Peter Henderson in a conversation I had with him denounced the Party on this occasion for not standing by the convicted ETU leaders, arguing that it should have denied any criminality and presented these leaders as victims of bourgeois (in)justice –Sandy suggests that he may have meant it ironically.

Chapter Eleven 1 Sandy Hobbs discussed this strike in his contribution to the book Workers City (Hobbs, 1988). 2 Alexander (1960). 3 In his contribution to the Aberdeen University Oral History project.

Appendix A 1 2

Universities and Left Review, No.5 (Birnbaum, 1958). The Poverty of Historicism (Popper 1957).

INDEX

Aberdeen, City 1, 11, 114 Chinese restaurants 13 Cinemas 13, 22, 29, 65 Economy 12, 13 Public Library 26, 30 Tramcars 13 Aberdeen Film Appreciation Group 29 Aberdeen Film Society 29 Aberdeen Football Club 22 Aberdeen Humanist Group 46, 97, 113 Aberdeen Left Club 50, 52, 72, 97 Aberdeen North Constituency 13, 14, 79 Aberdeen South Constituency 13, 14, 50, 79 Aberdeen Trades Council 50, 114 Aberdeen, University of 2, 3, 11, 65, 66, 67, 145-146 Air Squadron 44, 105 Arts Faculty 115-116 Chairs, Foundation of 12 Chapel 67, 105 Chess Club 104 Conservative Club 47 Crombie Hall 76 Dramatic Society 47 English Department 68, 69 Freshers’ Fair 45 History Department 68, 69 Humanist Society 46 Labour Club 52, 71, 72, 73, 114 Liberal Club 72, 105 Lord Rector 58 King’s College 11, 12 Marischal College 11, 12 Mermaid Society 47, 48, 126 Psychological Society 45 Psychology Department 48-49

Torcher 11 Scottish Nationalist Club 93 Student Christian Movement 32, 112 Student origins 11, 103, 104, 116-117 Student Representative Council 73 Students’ Show 11 Students’ Union 75, 76 Union Management Committee 14 Aberdeen Young Socialists 79-82 Aberdeenshire East Constituency 14 Aberdeenshire West Constituency 14, 50 Africa South 72 Age 115 Age d’Or. L’ 30 Age of Extremes 103 Albion and St Paul’s Church 22 Alexander VI 67 Alexander, Ken 53, 54, 59, 72, 78, 92, 97,114, 145 Ali, Tariq 57 Alma Mater 59, 60, 73, 134 Anderson, Sir Colin 57-58 Anderson Educational Institution 39 Anouilh, Jean 61, 62, 125-126 Anselm 44 Anthony and Cleopatra 68-69 Anti-Vietnam War demonstration 96 Antigone 61, 62, 125-126 Apprentice Strike 114 Aristophanes 47 Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions 5 Attlee, Clement, MP 23, 24, 37 Baby Doll 61

160 Bacup 60 Bain, Aly 39 Bain, Douglas 39, 40, 43, 66, 67, 68, 78, 82, 83, 103, 105, 109, 111, 116, 146 Baird, Dugald 108 Bambi 29 Bannerman, John 58 Barker, Sarah 85 Barron, Charles 48, 61 Baxendale, Leo 7, 99 BBC 14, 28 Beano 28 Behavior and Social Issues 9 Behaviourism 7, 8, 9, 99, 125-131 Behaviorists for Social Responsibility 9 Being and Nothingness 63 Belgium 66 Bennett, Gillian 8 Bentley, Derek 32, 111 Berlyne, Daniel 49 Big Sky, The 30 Biggins, Brian 89 Biggles 44 Bissett’s Bookshop 107 Blacklaw, Davidann 24 Blacklaw, Edward 24 Blacklaw, Mamie 25 Blairgowrie 51 Bona Fide travellers 51 Boothby, Robert, MP 14 Bowles, Sally 48, 81 Brand, Jack 53 Brechin, Derek 48, 61 Brecht, Bertolt 1, 61, 92, 117 Bresson, Robert 31 British Women’s Temperance Society 22 Brown, Billy 60, 97 Brunvand, Jan Harold 8 Buddha 1, 117 Buddhism 22, 32 Buchan, David 55 Buchan Janey, MEP 97 Buchan, Norman, MP 7, 97

INDEX Buckley, Kenneth 91 Bunuel, Luis 30, 31 Burns, Robert 59 Butler, Noreen 68, 82, 83, 102, 111, 116 CAR 58,146 Cain, James M. 31 Cambridge University 109 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 7, 71, 100, 111 “Campaigning and Persuading” 100 Campbell, Donald 58, 59 Camphor 74-75 Camus, Albert 28, 48 Cannon, Les 5 Capital 78 Capital Punishment 109 Capitalism 4 Carlyle, Thomas 69 Carmichael, Neil MP 85-89 Castle, Barbara 5 Censorship 60, 71 Chiang Kai Chek 134 Chiesa, Mecca 100 Child Labour 8, 9 Children’s Encyclopaedia 39, 40, 43 Children’s Hour 28 Chilean refugees 99 Christianity 22 46 Christie, John 109 Church of Scotland 32 Clark, C. 139-141 Classroom Interaction Project 8 Cliff, Tony 84, 98 Clouzot, Henri-Georges 31 Clydesdale Bank 12 Cockburn, Claude 81 Cockburn, Jean 81 Cockburn, Sarah 48, 81 Cocteau, Jean 31 Cold Reading 25 Coleridge 27 Comedy of Errors 47 Communism 40 Communist Manifesto 78

OUT OF THE BURNING HOUSE Communist Party 1, 6, 53, 54, 81, 82, 89, 90, 96, 111-112 Congo 111 Congregationalism 22 Conservative Party 14 Conservatism 39 Contemporary Legend 8, 23 Cook, John Oliver 49 Cornwell, David 9, 100, 128 Coronation 39 Corporal Punishment 25 Coupar Angus 51 Crozier, Sheena 100 Cummings 45 D C Thomson 28, 39 Daily Express 25, 38, 45 Daily Herald 24, 40 Daily Mail 109 Daily Record 43, 84 Daly, Lawrence 72, 97 Dandy 28 Darkness at Noon 77 De Beauvoir, Simone 28, 60, 62, 82, 131 De Sade, Marquis 59 De Sica, Vittorio 31 Detroit 21 Deutscher, Isaac 89 Dewar, Donald, MP 14, 80 Dick Barton 28 Dissent 77 Doig, Peter M 50 Dolce Vita, La 107 Donegal 51 Donskoi, Mark 30 Downie’s Slaughter 23 Drugs 76 Dryden 69 Dundee 23, 24, 28, 64, 93 Dundee Left Club 93 Dunsinane 52 Duthie, George 68 Duvivier, Julien 28 Economics 121

161

Eden, Anthony, MP 47, 48 Edinburgh College of Commerce 7 Edinburgh Festival 28 Edinburgh, University of 66 Education 127-130 Edwards, Jimmy 58 Electrical Trades Union 111 Ellis, Ruth 109 Elphinstone, Bishop 67 English 48, 49, 68, 69 Escott, Harry 22 Essential Left 78 Esslemont and Macintosh 12 Evans, Timothy 109 Evolution 43 Exhibition 23 Farming 12 Female Eunuch, The 60 Feminism 4, 53, 60, 127-132 Ferguson, Andy 52 Fernandel 72 Fielding, Henry 69 Fife Socialist League 9, 72, 97 Film noir 31 Films and Filming 29 Film Till Now, The 30 Fishing 12, 41 Flame and the Arrow, The 30 Flights into the Future 42 Folklore 63 Foot, Paul 81, 83, 85, 88 Foote, Eva 60, 97, 127 Fordham, Frieda 27 Fortune Telling 25 Fraser, Colin 30 Freud 27 Freud or Jung 27 Fyfe, Tom 49, 50 Garford, James 74-75 Gaudie 54, 56, 58, 61, 73, 74, 114, 146 General Election 23, 39, 49, 50, 72, 79 Germans 23

162 Gibbon, Lewis Grassic 59, 66 Glasgow 52, 83 Glasgow News 7 Glasgow School of Art 51, 52 Glasgow Caledonian University 6, 7 Glasgow College of Technology 5 Glasgow, University of 65 Glasgow Women’s Aid 99 Glover, Edward 27 God 326 43, 44 Good Old Cause, The 7 Gormley, Joe 5 Graham, Rev. John M. 11 Grampian Television 14 Grant, Ian 98 Greer, Germaine 60 Guy Fawkes 25 Hailsham, Lord 58 Hall, Peter 53 Hamilton, Duchess of 35 Hanton, Bill 25, 27, 30, 45, 46 Hawick 27 Hawkes, Howard 30 Hayter, Theresa 1 Heap, Wilf 60, 61 Hector Powe 50 Henderson, Jane 93 Henderson, Peter 52, 73, 93 Henderson, Peter, Sen 52, 73 Henty, G. A. 40 Hill, Harry 41 His Majesty’s Theatre 11 History 48, 52, 115-16 History of Trade Unionism in Aberdeen, 1878-1900 8 History of Western Philosophy 44 Hobbs, Alick 21, 23, 24 Hobbs, Andrea 24 Hobbs, David 27 Hobbs, Ena 21 Hobbs, Georgina 21 Hobsbawm, Eric 103 Hoggart, Richard 63 Holburn Street School 25 Holly, Buddy 50

INDEX Home, Lord 84, 87 Houston, Arthur 85 Hugo, Ian 30 Hughes, Bob MP 73 Hughes, Hector, MP 14 Hull, Clark L. 49 Humanism 45, 137-143 Humphries, Christmas 32 Hungary 1956 46, 79, 97, 115 ICI 12 Ideologies in the Age of Extremes 7 Immigrant School Learner, The 9 Indiscretion 31 International Journal of Psychology 9 International Socialists 7, 84, 98, 99, 111 International Society for Contemporary Legend Research 8 International Working Group on Child Labour 9 Isaac Benzie 12 Isherwood, Christopher 81 Islam 22 Italian Cinema, The 31 It’s Fun Finding Out 25 Ivan the Terrible 31 Jacques, Martin 6 Jamieson, Peter 41 Jarratt, Vernon 31 Joan of Arc 48 Job Spy 7 Johnson, Samuel 69, 127 Johnson, Roy 59, 60, 62 Johnstone, Liz 52 Joravsky, David 92 Jordanhill College of Education 5, 7, 83, 93 Journal d’un cure de compagne 31 Journey into Space 28 Jung 27, 32 Kemp, Lois 50, 51, 55, 99

OUT OF THE BURNING HOUSE Kemp, Willie 50, 56 Keynes, John Maynard 120 Knight, Margaret 43, 45, 46, 47, 68, 113, 115 Knight, Rex 45, 64, 68 Kurosawa, Akira 31 Kynoch, Douglas 48 Labour Party 23, 40, 50, 91, 94, 96, 114 Lady Chatterley’s Lover 106 Ladri di Biciclette 31 Laski, Marguerita 71 Latin 66 Lavalette, Michael 9 LeBreton, Mrs John 25 Leeper, Robert 49 Left Book Club 40 Leitch, Willie 62, 63 Lerwick 35, 37, 109 Cinema 65 Infant school 37 Public library 40, 44 Livingstone, David 69 Lodgings 67 London Missionary Society 22 Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book 24 Lore and Language of Schoolchildren 63 Lovat, Lord 58 Lowes, John Livingstone 27 Lysistrata 47 Macbeth 52 MacDiarmid, Hugh 57, 58, 59, 104 Mackay, Ian 52 Mackenzie, Alan 58 Mackenzie, Compton 59 Mackinnon, Donald 24, 70, 146 Maclennan, Kristin 53 Maclennan, Marion 53 MacLeod, Allan 53, 54, 55, 56, 93, 104, 106 MacLeod, Dame Flora 14 MacMillan, Harold, MP 14, 135 Malthus, Thomas 124

163

Mandarins, The 60, 62 Marxism 49, 77, 78, 79, 85, 92, 110, 114, 120 Marxism Today 6 Mau Mau 39 McCallum, Carole 7 McCarthy, Senator Joe 134 McCrindle, Jean 53, 60, 83 McGahey, Mick 5 McGrigor, Rear Admiral 58 McIntyre, Angus 55 McKechnie, Jim 9 Mead, Margaret 140 Mee, Arthur 39 Metaphor 93 Methodism 36 Michelmore, Cliff 58, 59 Mickey Mouse 28 Midland Bank 13 Milton 69 Moisley, H. A. 11 Moffat, Abe 6 Monogram Pictures 29 Moral Rearmament 75, 106, 134135 Morals Without Religion 43, 46 Murdoch, Iris 70 Nasser 40 National Service 47 National Union of Mineworkers 6, 97 Nationalism 3, 58 Nazis 23 New Head, The 26 New Left 7, 53, 63, 73, 96 New Left Clubs 53 New Left Review 72 New Propaganda, The 40 New Reasoner 1, 72 New Shetlander 41 Nin, Anais 30 Noble, Fraser 5, 144 North Angus and Mearns Constituency 14 North of Scotland Bank 13

164 North Roe 37, 43, 66, 109 Northern Cooperative Society 13 Northern Ireland 100 O’Dell, A. C. 11 Olvidados, Los 31 Opie, Iona 63 Opie, Peter 63 Orphee 31 Orwell, George 64 Ossessione 31 Our History Journal 96 Oxford, University of 58 P&O shipping line 39 Paisley College of Technology 8 Paisley, University of 63 Pakistani Pupils 9 Paris 28 Paul Temple 28 Pelican Books 24 Pepe le Moko 31 Picture Show 29 Picturegoer 29, 30 Political Economy 49 Popper, Karl 121-122 Postman Always Rings Twice, The 31 Postmodernism 7 Postmodernism and History 7 Poverty 27 Pre-Nursing College 30 Press and Journal 38 Progress 40 Progressives 14 Provisor 55 Psychology 2, 48, 68, 69, 91, 115116, 124 Psychology of Religion 32-33 Pudovkin, V. I. 29 Queen’s College, Dundee 7, 64, 93 Radio 28 Radio Luxemburg 29 Rank and File 98

INDEX Rashomon 31 Read, Herbert 27 Readers’ Digest 39, 40 Reading System 50 Rectorial Elections 57-58 Refreshment Wages Council 55 Reid, Leslie 49 Religion 3, 32, 33, 41, 100, 105, 106, 130 Republic Pictures 29 Reynold’s News 24 Road to Xanadu, The 27 Robert Gordon’s College 31 Robertson Justice, James 14 Robeson, Paul 58 Robinson Crusoe 31 Rogers, Theresa 58 Rome 31 Rose, Margaret 59 Ross, John 53, 106, 114, 145 Rotha, Paul 30 Rover 28 Rupert Bear 28, 39 Russell, Bertrand 44 Sabbatarianism 22, 29, 41 St Andrews, University of 58, 103 Salaire de la Peur, Le 31 Salt, Waldo 30 Sandbrook, Dominick 1, 2, 113 Sandvoe 36 Sartre, Jean-Paul 28, 53, 61, 63, 101 Saville, John 1, 55, 92 Sayles, George 68 Science 4, 39, 110, 115-116, 123 Science Fiction 40 Scotland-USSR Friendship Society 5, 29 Scott, Michael 58 Scott, Peter 58, 59 Scottish identity 28 Scottish Low Pay Unit 9 Scottish Old Age Pensions Association 6 Scottish Marxist 6 Scottish Pensioner 6

OUT OF THE BURNING HOUSE SDF 40, 88 Second Sex, The 62 Segal, Ronald 72 Selby, Harry MP 85, 87 Seventh Seal, The 107 Sex Differences 128-129 Sexuality 108 Shakespeare 47, 68-69 Shand, Margo 61 Shaw, George Bernard 51 Shetland 35-36 Dialect 37 Economy 41 Ferry 28 Museum and Archive 146 Shiprow Tavern 22 Sight and Sound 29 Silone, Ignazio 24 Sitting Pretty 24 Skinner, B. F. 49, 63, 100, 101, 140153 The Sky To Me 48 Smedley’s canning factory 50-52 Smith, Howard K. 40 Smith, Paul 8 Social Sciences 119-124 Socialist History Society 6 Socialist Party of Great Britain 88 Socialist Worker 100 Sociology 14 South Africa 26, 72, 74, 102 Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, 1917-1932 88 State of Europe, The 40 Stevenson, Robert Louis 69 Story of Mankind, The 24 Straight and Crooked Thinking 41 Strathclyde, University of 7 Suez 1956 40, 47 Surrealism 27 Swift, Dean 69 Taylor, Joan 60 Taylor, Principal 59 Tempest, The 69 Tenements 27

165

Third Statistical Account of Scotland 12 Thompson, Dorothy 58 Thompson, E. P. 1, 2, 57, 72, 92, 114 Thompson, Willie’s mother, father 35, 36, 38 stepmother 37, 38 Thouless, Robert 41 Tolman, E. G. 49 Tolstoy, Leo 77 Tourneur, Jacques 30 Trade Unions, Aberdeen 91, 92 Transport and General Workers Union 52 Travellers 38 Trinity 37 Trotsky, Leon 1 Trotskyism 84, 85, 89, 114 Tuberculosis 36 Tweedsmuir, Lady, MP 14 Typhoid Outbreak, Aberdeen 13 Unilever 12 United States 21 Universities and Left Review 72 Universities, Scottish 11, 66 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders 6 USDAW 56 Uses of Literacy, The 63 Van Loon, Hendrick 24 Vanni, Vick 84, 86, 88 Visconti, Luchino 31 WEA 83 Wallace Tower 12 Wallace, Edgar 24 Walton, K. 11 Watt, Chrissie 38 Webb, Beatrice 103 Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 24 Wham! 7 Wheeler, Mortimer 58 White, Amber Blanco 40 Whyte, Jim 90

166 White Magic Book, The 25 Wells, H. G. 40 Wesker, Arnold 54, 72 West of Scotland, University of the 8 Wicksteed, Bernard 25 Wigan Technical College 3 Williams, Tennessee 61 Wilson, Harold, MP 7 Witchcraft 107 Wizard 28 Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick, MP 14, 106, 107, 134

INDEX Women’s Aid 99 Women’s Movement 4, 60 Woodside By-Election 84-89, 112 Woodside Young Socialists 83 Working Class Tories 100 Yell 35, 36 Young Communist League 6, 80, 81, 82 Young Socialists 73, 79, 80, 82, 83, 93, 94, 109