My first year at Exeter

I went to Exeter after a year taking a MSc at Strathclyde.  I lived in the centre of the city in Balmanno Building, Rotten Row and it was.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed my year in Scotland which I saw as a return to my native heath, albeit many generations back.   The research I did there for my dissertation on Scottish Nationalists was highly productive.   I could have stayed at Strathclyde for a PhD, but my prospective supervisor disliked the English.  It was a race to get my MSc dissertation submitted and then travel down south overnight 'on the cushions'.

Exeter was a big contrast to Glasgow. At the end of the 1960s was a rather sleepy county cathedral town, although much of the historic heart had been destroyed in the blitz.  The M5 was still on the drawing board.   As for the university, it had a quite strong contingent of minor public school boys who couldn't get into Bristol.  There was even said to be one hall of residence reserved for those who had been to public school.  A very different city and university to the Exeter of today.

My first year at Exeter was probably the least happy of my life.  This is not to say that there were no positives, but the second year was much better.   I didn't know the town so I was pleased when a local contact suggested a bedsit in St. Thomas's across the river.  It was a decent bedsit in a nice area, but it was 25/30 minute walk into the university, not that I minded that.

A PhD is necessarily an isolating experience, no one else is as interested in your topic as you are, but we were a small cohort at Exeter.  As there were no training courses for PhD students in those days, it took me some time to actually meet fellow PhD students like Mike Hawkins.

One positive was that I was able to hit the ground running with my work, essential as I had only two years funding left.  I had come to Exeter because I wanted Jeff Stanyer as my supervisor and he didn't disappoint.  He was thorough, encouraging and meticulous. 

Jeff Stanyer (right) in conversation at the 2016 reunion

I also became friendly with Terry who was working as a research assistant: indeed, her boss banned me from her office for distracting her, but we just went off to the Northcott Theatre for coffee.  Although Terry came from a very different background from me (girls private boarding school), we got on well (she was engaged to a politics PhD further on in his studies).

When we walked across the marshes in 2016, I asked Terry what her recollections were of me.  She said that I was the sensible person in the room (not so difficult in a university).  However, she (and her friends) thought I was uptight.   I think that I was still afflicted by imposter syndrome in a university environment, particularly one like Exeter.  I had confidence in my intellectual ability, but was socially less assured.

Terry made an effort to give me a cooler image.  Her parents owned a company producing suede goods and she let me have a suede jacket at cost.   I loved it, but Jeff Stanyer thought I was more suited to the kind of old fashioned sports jacket worn by train spotting gricers.  In 2016 Terry recalled selling the suede jackets in the rain at Glastonbury several years later.

Terry came to my 70th birthday party (as did Annie and Mike Hawkins).  Her former fiancé was also there, but did not recognise her and asked her name which she described as 'interesting'.

Subsequently I had to give evidence at the Sennedd in Cardiff on a couple of occasions and took the opportunity to have an early evening meal with Terry.  On the last of these occasions, probably knowing we would not see each other again, we hugged for a long time prompting the taxi driver to ask 'what's the story with that one?'

Thinking back on my friendship with Terry, I recall that my parents had adopted a sister for me when I was about seven.  Her father was a widower and when he found a new partner he wanted his daughter back.  My parents (rightly) agreed, although the LCC wanted to fight it in the courts.  I can still remember seeing Karen walk down the road with her father and I tbink that ever since then I have looked for a sister figure iny life.

My PhD was data heavy and in that first year I had to use a machine called a counter sorter. (They are so retro, I couldn't find a picture of one).  This involved putting through a set of data cards (one for each local authority in England, many more then) through  this machine, some of which inevitably got chewed up.   Tabulations had to be noted down manually and any statistical tests worked out on paper.

I did try and get involved in some university societies and I became secretary of Amnesty International. I enjoyed the film club.   I visited the Isles of Scilly for the first time in 1970 with my parents and in later life I was to enjoy them a great deal, inspired by my original visit.

It wasn't a wasted year, because I made great progress on my PhD, but it wasn't a happy one.

Second year ar Exeter here: https://uniexeter6971.blogspot.com/2023/09/my-second-year-at-exeter.html

The 2016 reunion

The title of this blog is inspired by a comment by my late colleague Roger Duclaud-Williams, 'nostalgia ain't what it used to be.'   Psychologists warn us about the phenomenon of 'rosy recollections', so I have not simply portrayed my years studying for a PhD at Exeter  (1969/71) in a retrospective pink glow.

On August 7th 2016 my former fellow Exeter University PhD student and later Warwick colleague Annie Phizacklea drove across Leamington to collect me for a trip to Exeter for a reunion.  We talked continuously all the way to Exeter.   Annie dropped me off at the former eye hospital where she had once been a cleaner, now an up market hotel.  She went to her sister's and that evening we all went out to dinner.

From left to right: Terry, Annie, Bill, Wyn

The next day we took a taxi to a café in Fore Street, Topsham next to Annie's old flat.   Bill Tupman and Terry Rees (Dame Teresa Rees) were already there.   terry passed away in October 2023: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/25/dame-teresa-rees-obituary  Bill and Annie passed away this year, as did Mike Hawkins who could not join us on that day., although he was able to come to my 70th birthday party.

Mike was a competitive weightlifter.   He was a very down to earth person with a good sense of humour who lightened up the day.   He lived in lodgings which were still available then.  A Physics postgraduate was also there whom I got to know and a typically sardonic school master from the boys selective school.  In his youth he had been a member of a pop group called the Classics who went round village halls in the Swindon area.   Turning up at one venue, one girl was heard to say 'Oh no, it's those ****ing Classics.'   Ian Gordon was a temporary lecturer at Exeter at this time and Mike later joined up with hm in a successful politcs team at Kingston.

Bill and Terry in conversation at the café

Terry and Bill on the Topsham Ferry

After coffee we walked to the Topsham Ferry and crossed the river.  Bill and Annie walked ahead and Terry and I walked together.   It was if it was not forty years since we had met.  We talked in the open and friendly way we always had.   Arriving at the Swan's Nest pub, where the decor and carpet seemed to be the same as in the 1970s, we were joined by a number of former staff members including my supervisor Jeff Stanyer.

Malcolm Shaw, still teaching at 90

How had this reunion come about?   In 2015 I was contacted out of the blue by Terry Rees who sent me a series of satires I had written about the Exeter department in 1969/71.  We then set about contacting our contemporaries with the idea of organising a reunion.  I had lost touch with Annie Phizacklea after she had retired early from Warwick and gone to live in Spain.   I managed to contact her by email and she said that she was in England and could come.

She did not say where she was in England, until a casual conversation with the late Bob Fine from Sociology, who was a neighbour, revealed that she was back in Leamington!   I asked her to meet me for coffee the next day at a Portuguese place in Regent Grove not too far from where she lived.  I was standing in the queue when I heard a 'boo' behind me and there was Annie.

Coffee with Annie

After the reunion, I cooked lunch for Annie on the following Sunday and we continued our conversation about times gone by and our lives since Exeter.  We then met regularly for lunch, sometimes at a restaurant, but quite often Annie would cook me a delicious vegetarian meal, sometimes letting me have fish.   I ferried her to and from Birmingham Airport when she went to her place in Spain and to various medical appointments when she developed cancer.   When I was in pain after a knee operation, Annie was round in ten minutes and cooked me a meal.

With Annie at a birthday lunch

First year at Exeter here: https://uniexeter6971.blogspot.com/2023/08/my-first-year-at-exeter.html