Tag Archives: University of Southampton

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Southampton @ 15

29 April 1952. A memorable day. Hartley University College, Southampton was granted a royal charter by Her Majesty The Queen (the first of her reign) to award its own degrees, and became the University of Southampton. As Her Majesty celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, so does the university with an interesting of program of events next month, on 14 May.

The University of Southampton is my alma mater. I graduated in July 1970 with a BSc combined honours degree in environmental botany and geography, after three very happy years there.

Studying at Southampton, 1967-1970

Anyway, having written in detail about the academics, I thought I’d put together a few anecdotes and tales of being a student at Southampton in the late 60s.

Mid-afternoon, late September/early October 1967. Almost 55 years ago, and I was searching for a seat on the train chartered by the university’s Student’s Union taking freshers from London’s Waterloo Station to Southampton.

Finding the last empty seat in one compartment, I sat next to Neil, a law student from Hemel Hempstead. Like me, Neil was heading to South Stoneham House, one of the university’s halls of residence on Wessex Lane, about a mile east of the Highfield campus, as were several others in the same railway compartment. Neil and I remained firm friends over the course of our degrees, and are still in touch today.

South Stoneham House – in its heyday.

Swaythling station, on the outskirts of the city, was the first stop where those joining South Stoneham, Connaught, and Montefiore halls were taken by coach the short distance to their destinations.

I had a room on the 6th floor as did Neil. Next door to me was John, also signed up for botany and geography. A couple of days later we discovered there were only five of us on that particular degree course.

Thus was my introduction to hall life, and looking forward to the next three years at the university.

So why had I chosen and ended up at Southampton? The university was not my first choice when I sent in my UCAS application the previous December. That honor went to King’s College, London to study for a degree in geography.

Back in the day, it was normal practice for all applicants to be interviewed. But, in February 1967, when the call came through to attend several interviews, I went down with the flu and had to reschedule all of them. Southampton was extremely accommodating. I contacted the university to say that I’d be in London on a certain day, and could I come on to Southampton the following day.

So, several weeks later, and on a bright, sunny, and quite warm day for the time of year, I was interviewed for about an hour by Dr Joyce Lambert, an ecologist and Reader in the Department of Botany, and Dr Brian Birch, a biogeographer and Lecturer from the Department of Geography.

I met them in the Geography department that, in those days, was based in the Hartley Building on the first floor at the rear, above the university administration offices and behind the university library.

The Hartley Building on University Road, Highfield, now the university library only.

I felt the interview had gone well. It’s hard to explain but I knew the moment that I walked through the doors of the Hartley Building that I could be very happy at Southampton. It just felt right! And a week or so later I received a generous offer of 3 Cs (in biology, geography, and/or English literature/general studies.

The first week at Southampton, Freshers’ Week, passed by in a blur. For many of us, this was our first time away from home. Freedom! Not only did we have to get used to the hall of residence regime, make new friends, there was the whole of the university to explore, very much smaller than it is today.

It was probably by the end of that week that we had our first introduction to the departments and our personal tutees. Joyce Lambert was my tutor in Botany, and Brian Birch in Geography, thus renewing directly my acquaintance from the interview. And also meeting the other members of the botany and geography cohort: Jane, Stuart, and Michael.

(I later learned that one of the combined honours students in the year ahead [1966 intake] reputedly was or became an infamous Mossad agent and assassin. I have had that ‘confirmed’ by someone who knew her).

Our course structure was explained, and in the case of geography we had to sign up immediately for a weekend of field trips around Southampton at the end of the first week of teaching. On one of those days we were taken to the northern outskirts of the city, and then as a group of more than 50 students, walked back into the city with the physical and historical geography features explained along the way. All in the pouring rain! Welcome to geography fieldwork.

Also at the end of Freshers’ Week, the Students’ Union organized the annual ‘Bun Fight’, where all the societies made pitches to recruit and welcome new members.

I signed up to join the English and Scottish Folk Dance Society, although I’d never danced a step before then. And dancing remained an enjoyable pastime during my three years.

Dance as if no one is watching . . .

From that initial folk dancing experience, I helped to found the university morris dance side, the Red Stags, at the beginning of my second year in October 1968.

Sticks and hankies – a tale of Red Stags

The Red Stags are thriving 54 years later, as a mixed male/female Border morris side, but no longer associated with the university.

One other thing I remember about Freshers’ Week were the short trips around the city in the Toastrack, a 1929 vintage Dennis bus, owned and maintained by the Southampton University Engineering Society since 1958.

In the late 60s, Southampton was engineering-heavy, and about one quarter of all undergrads were studying for one engineering degree or another.

In South Stoneham House there were shared rooms in the original Queen Anne mansion but single occupancy ones in the 16 storey tower block erected in 1964. It was all male, fewer than 200 students all told. And woe betide any student with a girl in his room, or attempting to smuggle one out, after the curfew hour of 9 pm. Each room had a wash basin, and there were two baths and toilet/showers on each floor.

The accommodation included breakfast and dinner Monday to Saturday, and breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea on Sundays. Dinner was always formal, and we had to wear a black gown. A bit pretentious, I guess; Southampton trying to emulate an Oxbridge college in some respects.

I enjoyed life in South Stoneham, and when, towards the end of my first year I discovered I’d not secured a place for my second year, I decided to stand for Vice President of the Junior Common Room (JCR, as opposed to the Senior Common Room comprising the Warden and several faculty members who had rooms in hall). Being duly elected, I was automatically allocated a room, moving up to the 13th floor, with a south-facing view over the gardens and the banks of the River Itchen, and all the way down to Southampton docks.

As Vice President I took responsibility for various entertainments, including the Stoneham November dance and fireworks, as well as the May Ball. Neil and I also took on the firework display, and I had a budget of £20 or so (almost £400 today) to source appropriate display fireworks. I was called before the Bursar who gave me a ticking-off for storing the fireworks in my room, and ordering me to put them safely in the basement under lock and key.

For the May Ball, we developed a Parisian theme and review. A great success. I wonder if anyone recognizes a few faces.

In my third year, Neil and I moved into digs at No. 30 University Road, just down from the recently-opened University Administration Building and bookshop (now the Student Services Centre). After I left Southampton in 1970 many of the houses on that side of University Road were taken over by the university as departmental expansion space. No. 30 has now been demolished.

In the late 60s the university was beginning to expand, and new buildings were being put up. Just a year before I arrived there, Botany moved from an old building (now demolished I believe) that stood next to the Hartley Building to Building 44 (now named the Shackleton Building and housing the Geography and Psychology departments) along with geology. Of course Botany no longer exists as a separate department, merging with Zoology (and others?) after I’d left Southampton.

In my second year, Geography moved from the Hartley Building to the new Arts II, which now houses the Southampton Business School and the Music department (formerly located around the Nuffield Theatre).

And talking of the Administration Building. The late 60s were a radical time at Southampton, and rumors abounded that the new building would be occupied within days of its opening. And it came to pass, with the Vice Chancellor (Professor Sir Kenneth Mather FRS) having to remain in his old suite of offices until the students were evicted and the extensive damage repaired. Not the best of times.

Professor Mather came to Southampton from the University of Birmingham where he had been head of the Department of Genetics. He taught a course on population genetics to a class of third year botany and zoology students, and often claimed he was the only teaching Vice Chancellor in the country. After retiring from Southampton, he returned to Birmingham, keeping an office in the School of Biological Sciences. By 1981, I was also a faculty member at Birmingham, and Professor Mather had an office just down the corridor from mine. We often shared Southampton anecdotes.

During my first year I had to attend two field courses. The geography course was held in Swansea in late March 1968 just after the end of the Spring term. We stayed in one of the university halls of residence there, making field trips to see the legacy of the industrial revolution in the Swansea Valley, and the physical geography of the Gower Peninsula. The weather was mixed. It was warm enough on some days for bathing suits on the beach, but on the final morning we woke to almost 12 inches of snow!

I attended two botany field courses. The first, in July 1968, was based near the Burren in County Clare in the west of Ireland. We had a great time.

“There isn’t a tree to hang a man, water to drown a man nor soil to bury a man”.

A year later, we spent two weeks in Norfolk, which coincided with the first Moon landing by Armstrong and Aldrin.

The Man [on] the Moon (updated 20 July 2019)

I guess I was lucky to attend both botany field courses. Until 1970, the university did not allow any students to resit exams they had failed. One strike and you were out, even if the failed course was an ancillary one. And large numbers of students were asked to leave, even at the end of their second year. I scraped my first year ancillary geology course by a whisker.

It all came to a head in 1969 when a very large number (almost 50% if my memory serves me right) of second year chemists failed one or more exams and were expelled. That was a step too far. There was a student uproar. The expelled students were not re-admitted but resit exams were introduced the following year.

Apart from the folk dancing, I guess I spent more than my fair share of time in the pub or the Student Union bar (in the old building), sometimes playing squash in the new Students’ Union building that had been opened in 1967. There were two pubs close to the university on Burgess Road, both now closed perhaps even demolished. I favored the Crown & Sceptre (above) over The Gate, and held my 21st birthday party there in November 1969.

In the summer term, we often had lunch on Saturday at a pub on Woodmill Lane (they did an excellent ploughman’s) on the bank of the River Itchen. It looks as if it’s no longer there. Across the road was a pitch and putt course.

Not having a car, I hardly ever went to the New Forest, but Bursledon on the Hamble River was much more easily accessible by train. My girlfriend Liz and I often missed Friday evening dinner in our respective halls for a pub meal at The Jolly Sailor overlooking the river (where they had an amazing selection of fruit wines). This pub featured several times in the BBC production Howard’s Way over six series from 1985 to 1990.

I joined the Folk Club that was held every Sunday evening in one of the Union bars. Tim Hart and Maddy Prior (later of Steeleye Span fame) were frequent performers at the club.

I even performed once or twice myself. And in February 1969, the Red Stags made their debut at a ceilidh that I organized, attended by several hundred students

I can remember attending only three rock concerts, and all during my first year, held in the Old Refectory.

The first was the Alan Price Set (former keyboard player with The Animals) on 25 November 1967. Then there was Pink Floyd on 26 January 1968 (without Syd Barrett) and supported by T-Rex. I can’t find a gig date for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown; in fact Southampton University is not even listed on several web lists. But he did perform because I remember him launching into his iconic Fire, and setting his hair alight!

Anyway, these are just a few of my Southampton memories. Good times, and an excellent launch pad for a later career in international agricultural research and academia.

On graduation in 1970 I moved to the University of Birmingham to study for an MSc in genetic resources conservation, and then completed a PhD on potatoes from Peru in 1975. I spent more than 8 years with the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru and Costa Rica from January 1973, and another 19 years at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines from 1991. In between, I spent a decade teaching botany at Birmingham.

Returning in 2010, I now just have happy memories of my time at Southampton and the successful career that stemmed from those first years. In 2012 I was awarded an OBE for services to international food science, and I like to think that in many ways it was a culmination of a career in science that began at Southampton in 1967.

 

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Morris dancing and genetic resources – an unlikely combination

I was never much good at taking exams. That is, until I studied for my Masters degree in Conservation and Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources at the University of Birmingham in 1970-1971. So how come I improved?

It was exactly 50 years ago, Tuesday 1 June 1971, when I sat the first of four written exams over consecutive days. It was also the day after the Late Spring Bank Holiday, the 31st and the last Monday of May. I spent that day—all day, in fact—Morris dancing in Lichfield, a town in south Staffordshire famous for its three-spired medieval cathedral, the ‘city of philosophers’ according one of its famous sons, Samuel, Dr Johnson.

Let me backtrack a few years.

Soon after arriving in Southampton in October 1967 to begin my undergraduate studies at the university, I joined the English & Scottish Folk Dance Society in the Students’ Union, although I’d never danced before. Then, a year later, I co-founded (with Dr Joe Smartt, a genetics lecturer in the Department of Botany) the Red Stags Morris that is still dancing today although no longer associated with the university for many years now.

The Red Stags dancing outside the Arts Faculty in March 1970 at a university Open Day. I’m the second dancer from the left, facing Joe Smartt, with Dudley Savage from the Winchester Morris Men playing the fiddle.

As I described in that earlier post about the Red Stags, we were supported from the outset by the Winchester Morris Men, and during the summer term we would join them when they danced out around the villages and pubs of Hampshire. Such a beautiful county.

Each Late Spring Bank Holiday, the Winchester Morris Men would also organize a Day of Dance, beginning in late morning and lasting well into the evening, and probably visiting half a dozen villages in the process (and their hostelries). The Red Stags joined the 1969 Day of Dance around the New Forest and ending up in Winchester by early evening. By then, we’d developed some dancing skills in the Headington and Adderbury traditions and didn’t embarrass ourselves among much more accomplished dancers. Here is a group of photos taken on that particular Day of Dance, 26 May.

Move on a year. In May 1970, the Late Spring Bank Holiday (25 May) fell on the day before my Final exams were due to start. The weather was glorious, just the sort that was never conducive for exam revision. Joe Smartt encouraged me to take that last day off from revision and join the Morris tour. Peer pressure was too great. I declined, and that’s something I have regretted ever since. Those final few hours of revision didn’t help me one iota, and my exam performance over the next week was only satisfactory to say the least, not the glory I hoped for (but didn’t really expect).

Nevertheless, I was accepted on to the MSc course at Birmingham, and moved there in September 1970, full of anticipation for this new field of plant genetic resources, and looking forward to joining a new Morris side.

There were two choices in Birmingham: Jockey Men’s Morris Club or Green Man’s Morris and Sword Club [1]. I chose the latter. One of the people who’d encouraged me to join the folk dance society at Southampton, Dr Edward Johns, had moved to Birmingham and had joined Green Man a couple of years previously.

I danced with Green Man on a weekly basis for the next two years before I moved to Peru in January 1973. When I returned to the UK in 1981, I rejoined Green Man, and became Squire (club chairman) in 1982 for a year. Unfortunately I developed arthritis in my knees and my doctor discouraged me from from dancing. So, by about 1985 or ’86, my dancing days were over.

That’s me, fourth from the right.

One of Green Man’s traditions, something they did for at least 50 years, was leading the Lichfield Bower Procession (a community event dating back to the 12th century) each Late Spring Bank Holiday. This is a procession around the city, of a couple of miles at the very least. And Green Man would dance the Bower Processional, with arms outstretched and carrying leafy boughs (typically elm in the past) the whole way, but with frequent stops to take refreshment on board.


In 1971, I was again faced with the same dilemma: should I spend the last day before exams doing some last minute revision, or head off and forget my exams fears by enjoying a day of Morris dancing, and my first Lichfield Bower?

Actually, I’d more or less made the decision some months previously. Morris dancing it was. During the MSc course I had upped my game and really learnt how to study more effectively and, more importantly, how to organize myself in preparation for the written exams. Everything went to plan, and by the end of May I felt I’d done all that I could to prepare myself for the coming week of exams. I was ready and primed, so to speak.

So, without any last minute feelings of guilt, just after breakfast I joined my fellow club members traveling to Lichfield, and spent the next twelve or thirteen hours dancing, and consuming not an inconsiderable amount of beer in the process, probably at least twelve pints over the course of the day.

I don’t think I got to bed much before midnight, but then had one of the best night’s sleep I’ve ever enjoyed. Not a care in the world, waking up the following morning fully refreshed and relaxed and ready to take on whatever the exam threw at me.

And the outcome? Well it’s plain to see.

During the 1980s, when I was teaching at the University of Birmingham, I gave my own students the same advice: Don’t spend the final day before exams trying to cram last minute information. Take the day off, do something completely different to take your mind of the coming exams. Relax, have a good time, and then have a good night’s sleep.

I know hindsight is a wonderful thing. I just wish I’d taken my own advice back in 1970.

[1] Sadly, in 2017 Green Man’s Morris and Sword Club decided that the side was no longer viable. With ageing members and not recruiting new blood, the club was no longer able to put up a side of six dancers and musician. Thus came to an end 60 or more years of dancers from a club that had provided two Squires of the Morris Ring, John Venables and Ray King. Click here to read a short account of how and why Green Man came to an end.

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In the blink of an eye, it seems, 50 years have passed

The first week of October 1967. 50 years ago, to the day and date. Monday 2 October.

I was setting off from my home in north Staffordshire to the port city of Southampton on the the UK’s south coast (via London for a couple of nights), to begin a three year BSc Combined Honours degree course in [Environmental] Botany and Geography at the university. I was about to become a Freshman or ‘Fresher’. Not only anticipating being away from home for the first time (although I’d always been sort of independent), I was looking forward to the excitement of ‘Freshers’ Week’ to make new friends, discovering new activities to take up.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 4 October, I joined the ‘Freshers’ Special’ from Waterloo Station in London, a train chartered by the Students’ Union, and met several fellow students in the same compartment who remained close friends throughout my time at Southampton. Unlike mainline rail services, our train stopped at the small suburban station at Swaythling, and hordes of Freshers were disgorged on to the platform and into buses to take them to their respective Hall of Residence, several of which were close-by.

I’d accepted a place in South Stoneham House (becoming Vice President of the Junior Common Room in my second year in autumn 1968), comprising a sixteen floor tower (now condemned for habitation as there’s a lot of asbestos) alongside a rather elegant Queen Anne mansion built in 1708.

I later discovered that the grounds had been landscaped by Capability Brown. Quite a revelation considering my interest in these things nowadays associated with my membership of the National Trust. It’s sad to know what has happened to South Stoneham in the last decade or so.

I had a room on the sixth floor, with a view overlooking Woodmill Lane to the west, towards the university, approximately 1.2 miles and 25 minutes away on foot. In the next room to mine, or perhaps two doors away, I met John Grainger who was also signed up for the same course as me. John had grown up in Kenya where his father worked as an entomologist. Now that sounded quite exotic to me.

Over the course of the next couple of days, I met the other students who had enrolled for Combined Honours as well as single honours courses in botany or geography, and others who were taking one of these as a two-year subsidiary or one-year ancillary subject.

We were five Combined Honours students: Stuart Christophers from Devon, Jane Elliman from Stroud in Gloucestershire, another whose name was Michael (I forget his surname; he came from Birmingham), John and me. Failing his exams at the end of the first year in early summer 1968, Michael was asked to withdraw, as were about one third of the botany class, leaving fewer than twenty students to head off to an end-of-year field course in Co. Clare, Ireland.

End of first year field course in Co. Clare, 27 July 1968. Dept of Botany lecturers Alan Myers and Leslie Watson are on the left. Beside them is Jenny ? Back row, L-R: Chris ? (on shoulders), Paul Freestone, Gloria Davies, John Grainger, Peter Winfield. Middle row: Nick Lawrence (crouching), Alan Mackie, Margaret Barran, Diana Caryl, John Jackson (Zoology with Botany subsidiary), Stuart Christophers. Front row: Jill Andison, Janet Beasley, Patricia Banner, Mary Goddard, Jane Elliman, Chris Kirby.

As ‘Combined’ students we had, of course, roots in both departments, and tutors in both as well: Dr Joyce ‘Blossom’ Lambert (an eminent quantitative ecologist) in Botany, and Dr Brian Birch, among others, in Geography. However, because of the course structure, we actually had many more contact hours in botany, and for my part, I felt that this was my ‘home department’.

Three years passed quickly and (mainly) happily. The odd pull at the old heart strings, falling in and out of love. I took up folk dancing, and started a Morris dancing team, The Red Stags, that continues today but outside the university as a mixed male-female side dancing Border Morris.

And so, in late May 1970 (the day after the Late Spring Bank Holiday), we sat (and passed) our final exams (Finals), left Southampton, and basically lost contact with each other.

In developing this blog, I decided to try and track down my ‘Combined’ colleagues John, Stuart, and Jane. Quite quickly I found an email address for Stuart and sent a message, introducing myself. We exchanged several emails, and he told me a little of what he had been up to during the intervening years.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find any contact information for John, although I did come across references to a ‘John Grainger’ who had been involved in wildlife conservation in the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The profile seemed right. I knew that John had stayed on at Southampton to complete a PhD in ecology. Beyond that – nothing! Then, out of the blue in late 2015, John contacted me after he’d come across my blog and posts that I had written about Southampton. We’ve been in touch ever since.

To date, I’ve had no luck tracking down Jane.

Why choose Southampton?
Southampton was a small university in the late 1960s, maybe fewer than 5000 undergraduates. There was no medical faculty, and everything was centred on the Highfield campus. I recently asked John why he decided to study at Southampton. Like me, it seems it was almost by chance. We both sat the same A level exams: biology, geography, and English literature, and we both applied for quite a wide range of university courses. He got a place at Southampton through clearing; I had been offered a provisional place (Southampton had been my third or fourth choice), and my exam results were sufficiently good for the university to confirm that offer. I’d been very impressed with the university when I went for an interview in February. Instinctively, I knew that I could settle and be happy at Southampton, and early on had decided I would take up the offer if I met the grade.

John and I are very much in agreement: Southampton was the making of us. We enjoyed three years academics and social life. It gave us space to grow up, develop friendships, and relationships. As John so nicely put it: . . . thank you Southampton University – you launched me.

My story after 1970
After Southampton, I moved to the University of Birmingham in September 1970, completing a MSc in conservation and use of plant genetic resources in 1971, then a PhD under potato expert Professor Jack Hawkes in 1975. Thus began a career lasting more than 40 years, working primarily on potatoes and rice.

By January 1973 I’d moved to Peru to work in international agricultural research for development at the International Potato Center (CIP), remaining in Peru until 1975, and moving to Costa Rica between 1976 and 1981. Although it was not my training, I did some significant work on a bacterial pathogen of potatoes in Costa Rica.

I moved back to the UK in March 1981, and from April I taught at the University of Birmingham in the Dept. of Plant Biology (formerly botany) for ten years.

By 1991, I was becoming restless, and looking for new opportunities. So I upped sticks and moved with my family to the Philippines in July 1991 to join the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), firstly as Head of the Genetic Resources Center until 2001, and thereafter until my retirement in April 2010 as Director for Program Planning and Communications.

In the Philippines, I learned to scuba dive, and made over 360 dives off the south coast of Luzon, one of the most biodiverse marine environments in the country, in Asia even.

Retirement is sweet! Back in the UK since 2010, my wife Steph and I have become avid National Trusters (and seeing much more of the UK than we had for many years); and my blog absorbs probably more time than it should. I’ve organized two major international rice congresses in Vietnam in 2010 and Thailand in 2014 and just completed a one year review of the international genebanks of eleven CGIAR centers.

Steph and me at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland in mid-September 2017

I was made an OBE in the 2012 New Year’s Honours for services to international food science, and attended an investiture at Buckingham Palace in February 2012.

Receiving my gong from HRH The Prince of Wales (L); with Philippa and Steph after the ceremony in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace (R)

Steph and I met at Birmingham when she joined the genetic resources MSc course in 1971. We married in Lima in October 1973 and are the proud parents of two daughters. Hannah (b. 1978 in Costa Rica) is married to Michael, lives in St Paul, Minnesota, and works as a group director for a company designing human capital and training solutions. Philippa (b. 1982), married to Andi, lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, and is Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University. Both are PhD psychologists! We are now grandparents to four wonderful children: Callum (7) and Zoë (5) in Minnesota; and Elvis (6) and Felix (4) in Newcastle.

Our first full family get-together in the New Forest in July 2016. Standing: Michael and Andi. Sitting, L-R: Callum, Hannah, Zoë, Mike, Steph, Elvis, Felix, and Philippa

Stuart’s story (in his own words, 2013)
I spent my first year after Southampton teaching English in Sweden and the following year doing a Masters at Liverpool University. From there I joined Nickersons, a Lincolnshire-based plant breeding/seeds business, acquired by Shell and now part of the French Group Limagrain. 

In 1984 I returned to my native Devon to run a wholesale seeds company that fortunately, as the industry rationalised, had an interest in seed-based pet and animal feeds. Just prior to coming home to Devon I was based near York working with a micronutrient specialist. A colleague of mine there was Robin Eastwood¹ who certainly knew of you. Robin tragically was killed in a road accident while doing consultancy work in Nigeria.

This is my third year of retirement. We sold on our business which had become centred around wild bird care seven years ago now and I stayed on with the new owners for four years until it was time to go !

Stuart has a son and daughter (probably about the same as my two daughters) and three grandchildren.

John’s story
John stayed on at Southampton and in 1977 was awarded his PhD for a study that used clustering techniques to structure and analyse grey scale data from scanned aerial photographs to assess their use in large-scale vegetation survey. In 1975 he married his girlfriend from undergraduate days, Teresa. After completing his PhD, John and Teresa moved to Iran, where he took up a British Council funded lecturing post at the University of Tehran’s Higher School of Forestry and Range Management in Gorgan, on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea.

Alice, Teresa, and John at the Hejaz railway in Saudi Arabia, c. 1981/82.

By early 1979 they were caught up in the Iranian Revolution, and had to make a hurried escape from the country, landing up eventually in Saudi Arabia in February 1980, where John joined the Institute of Meteorology and Arid Land Studies at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. Between Iran and Saudi Arabia there was an ‘enforced’ period of leisure in the UK, where their daughter Alice was born in December 1979.

John’s work in Jeddah included establishing an herbarium, researching traditional range conservation practices (hima system), and exploring places with intact habitats and interesting biodiversity. This is when his career-long interest in and contributions to wildlife management took hold, and in 1987 he joined a Saudi Commission for wildlife conservation. The work included an ambitious programme of establishing protected areas and breeding endangered native wildlife species for re-introduction – particularly Arabian oryx, gazelles and houbara bustards. The photos below show some of the areas John visited in Saudi Arabia, often with air logistical support from the Saudi military. 

In 1992, he was recruited by IUCN to lead a protected area development project in Ghana where he spent an exhausting but exhilarating 28 months doing management planning surveys of eight protected areas including Mole National Park. Then in 1996, the Zoological Society of London appointed him as  the project manager for a five year, €6 million EU-funded project in South Sinai to establish and develop the Saint Katherine Protectorate. John stayed until 2003, but by then, Teresa and he had separated; Alice had gained a good degree from St Andrew’s University in Scotland.

With a range of other assignments, and taking some time out between in Croatia, South Africa and other places, he was back in Egypt by 2005 to head up a project aimed at enhancing the institutional capacity of the Nature Conservation Sector for planning and implementing nature conservation activities. By 2010, and happily settled with a new partner, Suzanne, John moved to South Africa for several years, returning to Somerset in the past year. Suzanne and John were married in 2014. Retirement brings extra time for pastimes such as sculpting (many stunning pieces can be seen on his website), and some continuing consultancies in the wildlife management sector.

But I can’t conclude this brief account of John’s career without mentioning his thoughts on what being at Southampton meant to him: I have many reasons to be grateful to Southampton University – the degree involved me in the nascent environmental movement and provided me with the general tools and qualifications to participate professionally in the field. It was I think in the years that I was a postgraduate that I learned the true value of being at university and to become intellectually curious.

John sent me a more detailed account of his post-Southampton career that you can read here.

What next?
Fifty fruitful years. Time has flown by. I wonder what others from our cohort got up to? I have some limited information:

  • Allan Mackie went into brewing, and he and I used to meet up regularly in Birmingham when I was a graduate student there.
  • Peter Winfield joined what is now the Department for Agriculture & Fisheries for Scotland at East Craigs in Edinburgh.
  • Diana Caryl married barrister Geoffrey Rowland (now Sir Geoffrey) who she met at Southampton, and moved to Guernsey, where Geoff served as the Bailiff between 2005 and 2012. She has been active with the plant heritage of that island.
  • Mary Goddard completed a PhD at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge (awarded by the University of Cambridge), and married Dr Don MacDonald from the university’s Dept. of Genetics.
  • Zoologist John Jackson (who took the subsidiary botany course for two years) completed a Southampton PhD on deer ecology in the New Forest, and spent many years in Argentina working as a wildlife coordinator for INTA, the national agricultural research institute.

The others? Perhaps someone will read this blog and fill in some details. As to geography, I have no contacts whatsoever.

However, through one of the earliest posts on this blog, Proud to be a botanist, which I wrote in April 2012, I was contacted by taxonomist Les Watson, who was one of the staff who took us on the first year field course to Co. Clare, and by graduate student Bob Mepham, who had taught a catch-up chemistry course to students like John Grainger and me, as we hadn’t studied that at A Level, and which was a requirement to enter the Single Honours course in botany. Another botany graduate, Brian Johnson, two years ahead of me and who sold me some books he no longer needed, also commented on one post about a field course in Norfolk.

I’m ever hopeful that others will make contact.

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¹Robin Eastwood had completed the Birmingham MSc course in the early 1970s when I had already left for Peru. If memory serves me right, Robin did start a PhD, and was around the department when I returned from Lima in Spring 1975 to submit my PhD dissertation.

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I wrote this story, looking back on my degree course, in October 1967. I added this link today, 10 July 2020, exactly 50 years since I graduated from Southampton with my BSc in Environmental Botany and Geography.

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“Education isn’t what you learn, it’s what you do with what you learn.” Anon.

degreeThere’s been quite a bit in the news again recently about the value of a university education, after George Osbourne, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the scrapping of maintenance grants from the 2016/17 academic year. From that date, grants will be replaced by loans, adding yet further to the financial loan burden that university students are already facing to pay their tuition fees through loans. These financial challenges are making some (or is it many?) prospective students question whether they really do want or need a university education. Add to that the pressure on prospective students to study a subject that ‘should contribute’ more effectively to society and the economy, it’s no wonder that students are beginning to have second thoughts about going to university.

Also, with the publication of this year’s university exam results, the issue of grade creep is once again on the political agenda, since more than 50% of all students have graduated with a so-called ‘good’ degree. In the UK, this is a First or Upper Second (2:1) Class degree.

So why have these issues now attracted my attention?

Life on the south coast
Early July 1970. Forty-five years! It’s hard to believe. Yes, it’s forty-five years since I graduated from the University of Southampton with a BSc degree (not a very good one, I’m afraid) in Environmental Botany and Geography. There again, no-one in my year gained a First in botany, only a couple in geography. They didn’t hand out many top degrees in those days. More than 70% of students today are awarded a First or Upper Second. What is interesting from my point of view is during my high school years, going to university was not a foregone conclusion, or even an expectation for that matter. However, a university education was something that my post-war generation did begin aspire to. I was only the second person in my family to attend university.

55 Ed & Mike

Graduation Day, July 1970 at the University of Southampton, with my Mum and Dad, Lilian and Fred Jackson. Was I ever that young looking?

Now, although I didn’t exactly excel academically at Southampton, I wouldn’t have traded those three undergraduate years for anything. Some of the best years I have ever spent. Ah, the enthusiasm of youth. Did I ever have second thoughts? Never. I was extremely fortunate that my parents were very supportive, even though it must have been hard financially for them at times. My elder brother Ed had (in 1967) just graduated from the London School of Economics (with a First in geography) when I started at Southampton. So my parents were faced with another three years of support, even though my tuition fees were paid by the state, and I did receive a maintenance grant which Mum and Dad had to top up.

I guess I was lucky that Southampton took me in the first place, and didn’t throw me out after my first year. I never was very good at taking exams, well not in those school and undergraduate years. I only found my métier once I’d moved on to graduate school in 1971.

I went for an admissions interview at Southampton in early 1967 and immediately knew that this was where I wanted to study at, if they offered me a place. So once I received the results from my high school A-level exams (in biology, geography, and English literature, but not quite what I’d hoped for, grades-wise) I was on tenterhooks for a couple of weeks waiting for a response from the university. I was earning some cash, working as a lorry (truck) driver’s mate for a company based in Leek called Adams Butter. We delivered processed butter to retail outlets all over the UK, often being away from home for several nights at a stretch. Then once we delivered our load of about 25 tons of butter, we would head to the nearest port to pick up another 25 tons of Australian or New Zealand ‘raw’ butter, in large 56 lb frozen packs. I soon got fit throwing those boxes around.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I arrived back at the depot after a long day on the road, and my father had kindly left a brief message with the dispatcher on duty: “Southampton wants you!” Obviously elated, I began to make plans to start my university life in October. The rest is history.

Back to the Midlands
Having graduated, I still didn’t know what the next stage of my life held. I’d applied to The University of Birmingham for a place on its newly-established MSc course Conservation and Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources in the Department of Botany. In February 1970 I’d been interviewed by course director Professor Jack Hawkes, and was offered a place, but with no guarantee of any financial support. It wasn’t until mid-August that I received a phone call confirming that he had been able to secure a small maintenance grant (just over £6 a week for the whole year, equivalent to about £80 a week today) and payment of my tuition fees. Undaunted at the prospect, I quickly accepted. And what a joy studying at Birmingham was. I certainly found an area of plant sciences that I could really immerse myself in, the staff were (on the whole) inspiring (particularly Trevor Williams with whom I completed my thesis), and I knew that I’d made the right choice.

But still there was no guarantee of gainful employment in my chosen field. That is until Jack Hawkes invited me to consider a one-year position in Peru. As things turned out, I did make it to Peru, registered for a PhD (which I completed in 1975), and made a career for myself in international agricultural research and academia. I received my degree from the Chancellor of the University, Sir Peter Scott, renowned ornithologist and conservationist, and son of ill-fated Antarctic explorer, Captain Scott at a graduation ceremony at the University of Birmingham on 12 December 1975.

20 Ed & Mike

Graduation on 12 December 1975, with Professor Jack Hawkes on my right, and Dr Trevor Williams on my left. I’m with my Mum and Dad in the two photos above.

Was it worth it?
When I decided to study botany at university I had no idea whether this would lead to a worthwhile career. Actually, it was not something I considered when applying. I just knew I wanted to study plants and geography, and then I’d see what life had in store for me afterwards, assuming I did actually graduate.

Steph studied botany at Swansea University (BSc 2:1), and we met at Birmingham when she studied for her MSc (also in genetic resources conservation) in 1971-72.

1972 002 Steph MSc

Steph’s MSc graduation in December 1972. This was about three weeks before I headed off to Peru. Steph joined me there in July 1973, and we were married in Lima in October that same year. We both had considerably longer hair then – and darker!

I think there was more expectation that our daughters, Hannah and Philippa, would go on to university, from our point of view and theirs. Indeed, having had the advantage of attending an international (and quite competitive) school in Manila, and studying for the International Baccalaureate diploma, university was the logical next step. And they both chose psychology (with an anthropology minor)—it wasn’t planned that way, that’s how it turned out.

Hannah originally started her university years at Swansea University in 1996, but after two years she transferred to one of the top liberal arts colleges in the USA: Macalester College in St Paul, and graduated BA summa cum laude in 2000 (left below, with the gold tassel). She then went on to the University of Minnesota to complete her PhD in industrial and organizational psychology in September 2006 (right below).

Philippa joined Durham University in 2000, and graduated in 2003 with her BSc (2:1) Honours degree (left below). After spending a year in Canada, she returned to the UK in 2004 and spent six months of more searching for a job. Eventually she secured a Research Assistantship in the Brain, Performance and Nutrition Research Centre at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne. After a couple of years she decided to register for a PhD and she was awarded her doctorate in December 2010 (right below).

So we’ve all benefited from having attended university, and have gone on to have successful careers. But I still believe it was the overall experience of university life as much as the academics that contributed those benefits. Unlike students today, we were fortunate not to have racked up significant debts while studying, and already Hannah and Philippa and their spouses are making plans for college education for their children—should they opt to follow that option.

I think the words of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) are appropriate and as good today as when he wrote them in his essay ‘The Idea of a University’ in 1852: If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society… It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.

I’m not sure that we do achieve those lofty ideals today as perhaps they aspired to in Newman’s day. There are just so many students moving through the system, the pressures to achieve are greater. While I was teaching at The University of Birmingham (for a decade in the 1980s) I became even more convinced that a university education is, in itself, worthwhile. This is often the first time that a young person leaves home, and has the opportunity to grow up away from the ever-watchful eyes of parents. Not everyone takes to university it must be said. But I think the majority who do make it to university would agree that, just like me, the three years they spend studying—and playing—are not three years wasted. It also makes it especially worrying that politicians are increasingly threatening the very existence and roles of universities, as is happening, for example, in a high profile way at the University of Wisconsin.

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First impressions: two weeks in 1967

It was the first week of October, or thereabouts. 1967. I was headed to Southampton to begin a three-year undergraduate course in botany and geography at the city’s university.

Like all students in the UK, I’d applied for admission to six courses at different universities: King’s College, London (geography); Aberystwyth (zoology and geography); Southampton (botany and geography); York (biology); Queen Mary College (combined sciences); and Newcastle (botany and geography). I don’t really remember my priority list, but I do know that King’s was my first choice and Southampton was my third. I had interviews at King’s, Southampton, Queen Mary, and York; I never heard from the other two before I made my choice. The interview at York was a disaster. I was asked to describe Krebs Cycle, not something with which I was at all au fait. In fact, at a later date – at Birmingham – I came across something that an obviously bored student had written on a bench in one of the lecture rooms in the School of Biological Sciences: ‘I wouldn’t know Krebs Cycle if it ran me over‘. I couldn’t have agreed more!

Because I’d been off school with flu, I wasn’t able to make interviews at several universities on the dates requested around February or so in 1967, so had to try and reschedule these. My dad and I drove to the various campuses, and in fact ended up visiting York, King’s, and Southampton in the same week! The King’s interview went quite well, and I was offered a place. I can’t remember now who interviewed me, only that he was a Professor of Geography and had taught my elder brother Ed (1964-1967, in the Joint School of Geography between the London School of Economics and King’s).

Joyce Lambert in 1964

The day I visited Southampton was a bright sunny day, and even warm for that time of the year. In those days, the Department of Geography was housed in the Hartley Building (which also housed the library and various administrative departments), and I had a 1 hour interview with Dr Joyce Lambert* from the Department of Botany and Dr Brian Birch from Geography. The interview must have gone well because a few weeks later I received a conditional offer in the post. My place at Southampton was guaranteed if I received the necessary exam grades.

I accepted that offer. In fact, almost as soon as I walked through the front door of the Hartley Building I knew I would accept an offer from Southampton. I just had this immediate feeling of well-being. And my instinct didn’t let me down. I had three wonderful undergraduate years there.

In the late 60s, Southampton was still quite a small university, with only about 4500 undergraduates. After all it had received its own charter only in 1952; prior to that its degrees had been awarded by the University of London. Today there are more than 16,000, and the expansion has been phenomenal over the past 45 years since I graduated. A medical school opened not long after I graduated, and the botany department merged with other life sciences and moved to another campus location about a mile away. The Centre for Biological Sciences is now back on the main campus.At the end of my first year, in 1968 or early 1969, the geography department (now geography and environment) moved to a new building (part of that late 60s expansion that benefitted Southampton), but is now housed in the Shackleton Building, actually the old botany building 44 where I studied for three years.

However, to return to that first week in 1967. I may have difficulties these days remembering what I did last week, but my early memories of Southampton are crystal clear.

The tower block of South Stoneham House. I had a room on the west-facing sixth floor (shown here from Woodmill Lane) in my first year, and a south-facing room on the 13th floor in my second year. This block, constructed in the 60s, has been decommissioned because of an asbestos problem.

I was lucky to secure a place in one of the halls of residence, South Stoneham House, and had sent a trunk with clothes and other belongings on ahead of my arrival. The Students Union had organised a special train from London Waterloo to carry new undergraduates – or Freshers – to Southampton, and arrange transport at the other end to everyone’s accommodation. I stopped with my brother Ed for a couple of nights in London. He had just started his first job after graduating from LSE that summer. I bought his bicycle and on the day of my train to Southampton, I hopped on that bike and rode it through the rush hour traffic from his flat in Kilburn across the Thames to Waterloo. I left it at the station and returned to the flat to collect my suitcase. At Waterloo I retrieved my bike from the Left Luggage office, deposited it on the train and then searched for a seat. In those days, railway carriages were generally not open plan as they are today, but had a corridor down one side and compartments with seat for eight passengers. I remained close friends with three of the other seven in that compartment for the rest of my time at Southampton, and have kept in touch with one, Neil Freeman, ever since. We were even assigned rooms on the same floor at South Stoneham House.

Neil studied law, and in fact my close circle of friends was generally outside either botany or geography. Another law student who became a good friend was Malcolm Forster. I did lose contact with him but did come across his name a couple of years ago and briefly made contact then. Recently, however, he came across one of my blog posts and left a comment.

They often say that first impressions last longest. Well, these two in February and October 1967 certainly remained with me. Choosing Southampton over other universities was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Three great years, and good friendships. What more can you ask for?

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* Who received the nickname ‘Blossom’ from several generations of botany students.

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“There isn’t a tree to hang a man, water to drown a man nor soil to bury a man”.

So said – or words to that effect – an army officer named Ludlow during Oliver Cromwell’s campaign of persecution throughout Ireland between 1649 and 1653.

And what was he referring to? The Burren – located in the west of Ireland, in County Clare, and one of the most impressive – and ostensibly bleak – landscapes anywhere. I have visited Ireland three times, and each time I made a beeline for the Burren.¹

The Burren is a landscape of limestone pavement, or karst, one of the largest expanses of such in Europe, covering an area of more than 200 km². The Burren National Park – the smallest in Ireland – covers an area of only 1500 ha. Although ‘devoid of trees, water and soil’, it is nevertheless an incredibly biodiverse environment, with an impressive array of wildlife.

Luxuriant plantlife among the grikes and clints.
Limestone pavement or karst.
Right beside the ocean.
Limestone pavement ‘meadow’.

Dryas octopetala

Botanically, the Burren is fascinating, with Arctic-alpine plants growing alongside those more typical of the Mediterranean, as well as both lime-loving (calcicole) and acid-loving (calcifuge) species. One of the signature species of the Burren is the mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) which is found throughout the Alps and far into the north of Europe. But here on the Burren it grows almost at sea level. There is also an impressive list of orchids that have been recorded here.

The Burren attracts many tourists wishing to have a special ‘botanical experience’ to discover all manner of plants among the grikes and clints of the limestone pavement. And it was in July 1968 that I first visited the Burren, participating in an end of first year undergraduate field course from the University of Southampton. Based in the small town of Lisdoonvarna (famous for its annual matchmaking festival), the course was led by tutors Mr Leslie Watson (a plant taxonomist) and Dr Alan Myers (a plant physiologist/ biochemist). We were a small group of only about 19 students who had survived the end of year exams when several of our colleagues who had failed were required to withdraw from the university. There were no re-sits in those days! The group included four students (including me) studying for a combined degree in botany and geography, and one zoology student who would continue with botany as a subsidiary subject into his second year. The others were all ‘single honours’ students in botany.

Back row (standing), L to R: Chris ? (on shoulders), Paul Freestone, Gloria Davies; John Grainger; Peter Winfield. Middle row, L to R: Alan Mayers, Leslie Watson, Jenny ?, Nick Lawrence (crouching), Alan Mackie, Margaret Barron, Diana Caryl, John Jackson, Stuart Christophers. Front row (sitting): Jill Andison, Janet Beasley, Patricia Banner, Mary Goddard, Jane Elliman, Chris Kirby.

Spending two weeks on the west coast of Ireland could have been a disaster, weather-wise. But how fortunate we were. Almost two weeks of perfect sunny and warm days. Apart from several days exploring the Burren – in clear weather and in fog! – we had day trips to the mountains of Connemara, along the beaches close to Lisdoonvarna (where I did a short project on brown algae), and a ‘free day’ to search for ‘Kerry diamonds‘ – actually quartz crystals – on the Dingle Peninsula, about 100 miles south of Lisdoonvarna.

Close to Lisdoonvarna are the spectacular Cliffs of Moher², rising over more than 120 m from the Atlantic Ocean – next stop North America! Part of our interest was to look for fossils in the shale layers that make up the cliffs.

But all work and no play makes Jack(son) a dull boy. We had plenty of opportunity of letting our hair down. Every day when we returned from the field we were pleased to see a line of pints of Guinness that had been already been poured in readiness for our arrival, around 5 pm. In the evening – besides enjoying a few more glasses of Guinness – we enjoyed dancing to a resident fiddler, Joseph Glynn, and a young barmaid who played the tin whistle. Since I had spent the previous year learning folk dancing, I organized several impromptu ceilidhs.

Joseph Glynn of Limerick, July 1968

Joseph Glynn of Limerick, July 1968

All too soon, our two weeks were over, and we headed back to Dublin via Limerick to catch the boat train from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead and on to our homes from there. We arrived in Holyhead in the early morning, and I had to travel to Stoke-on-Trent where my parents would pick me up. Leslie Watson also came from Leek, and we were headed in the same direction together as he was taking the opportunity of visiting his parents there. I remember that we cheered ourselves up around 6 am or so on Crewe station, taking a wee dram from a ‘smuggled’ bottle of raw poteen, a traditional spirit distilled from potatoes or grain, whose production was outlawed and remained illegal until the 1990s.

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¹ Landscapes photos of the Burren used from Wikipedia under its Creative Commons licences – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren, where all attributions are filed.
² Photos of the Cliffs of Moher used from Wikipedia under the respective Creative Commons licences – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher, where all attributions are filed.