Education Archives - Page 17 of 22

Gray’s Fashion Students – Talent Beyond Their Years

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

May 092013

hexagon_dress_fashion_show_daniel_mcavoy_photography-2

By Suzanne Kelly.

“Don’t expect too much; these are only 2^nd and 3^rd year fashion students” was the caveat for a recent show by Gray’s School of Arts fashion students.

They were all a year or two at least from their final degree fashion show, and could hardly be expected to do more from their outing as fledglings.

The Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen, headquarters on Holburn Street was the venue; the links between it and Gray’s stretch back many years now.

If anything, having such a beautiful setting and bringing collections in front of professional weavers and other craftspeople might well have proved daunting.

No one – not even the course instructors, technicians and course leader knew quite what would happen.

Stunning

The organisation, the students’ speeches, the elegant wine and canapé reception were polished. But the calibre of the work on show was beyond all expectations. There wasn’t a piece on show which couldn’t have been in a final year student’s collection. Imaginative, daring, colourful works were all on show, but perhaps the biggest surprise was the number of pieces which could have instantly translated to retail.

Standouts

A man’s slightly oversized tweed coat had an asymmetrical back seam; it moved beautifully. A tweed tulip-style short-sleeve dress in an earthy gray-green featured brightly coloured orange silk insets at the hem, rising to differing heights towards the model’s waist; it was an elegant and wholly modern and refreshing use of tweed.

The orange inserts caught the eye and made for an amazing colour contrast with the muted colours of the body of the dress as the model walked.

Other tweed pieces for women were eminently wearable. These outfits were sophisticated and ideal for work, and quite timeless.

A simply cut sleeveless dress featured dozens (if not hundreds) of delicate, possibly hand-painted hexagons of multi-coloured material, probably silk. The overall impression these hexagons and colours gave was three-dimensional, kinetic, elegant, highly original and extremely. pleasing.

A long, romantic dress tightly fitting then cut with high, thick fringe at the skirt melded several types of fabric dyeing/printing together beautifully; the colours were muted but large patterns made it a very striking piece.

Memorable work came from every collection; there were beautiful blouses (a blue and white number seemed ready for high-end retail), skirts, asymmetrical coats…

Designers and Sponsors

The collections were Tweed Outerwear, Covered, Body of Space, This Place is Dreaming, Knack & Knave, Anarchy, Colour Against Conformity and Alternative.

As a final piece of professional fashion show tradition, goody bags were supplied containing gifts from Lush Cosmetics and literature from some of the sponsors, which were The Aberdeen Weaver Incorporation, The Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen, Amicus Apple, Lush, The Athenaeum, and Daniel McAVoy Photography. The makeup for all the models was done by one person – Emma McMahon – who also had work in the show.

The Future

Gray’s School of Arts Libby Curtis spoke briefly at the end of the show; she genuinely seemed as surprised by the calibre of the show and the organisation as the rest of the audience. A member of Aberdeen Weavers had very positive things to say as well.

Recognition is growing for the Fashion arm of Gray’s, and this trend seems set to continue. At the final degree show last year, the list of awards, prizes and internships won by the graduates made for a long, impressive list.

This crop of students look set to raise the beam further. They look set to succeed on a foundation which clearly encourages experimentation, creativity, and collaboration. There seems to be no fear of tradition or elegance, and no reliance on sensationalism or gimmickry. This will be a crop of students to watch.

Dickens Fellowship Meet Again: Wed April 24

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Apr 222013

Thanks to Dr Paul Schlicke who has reminded Voice that local Dickens fans are planning to meet this week.

Paul informed Voice,

“As previously intimated, at the next meeting of the Aberdeen branch of the Dickens Fellowship we will discuss Hard Times Part 2, Reaping.

“Feel free to join us, whether or not you managed to attend last month’s discussion of Part 1, Sowing.

“We will meet from 7-9 pm on Wednesday 24 April at Grampian Housing Association, 74 Huntly Street, 300 yards up from the Catholic Cathedral, at the corner of Huntly Street and Summer Street. There is free parking adjacent.”

The venue’s also near enough to Union Street and Rosemount to travel by bus. Last month’s meeting had a lower than expected turnout, but the weather, which prevented some from attending, is improving.

Some believe that his writings are as relevant in the current austere age as they have ever been.

If you have read any or no Dickens, or are just curious about the continued interest in an author who was born over 200 years ago, you’ll be made welcome.

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The Paris Commune of 1871: Part 2

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Mar 282013

Last week marked the 242^nd anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune was one of the most important examples in history of people taking control of their own lives and reorganising their society. In the second part of Simon Gall’s two-part analysis of the Commune through the eyes of some important progressive scholars, we examine its destruction by the French government in May 1871, but learn how its legacy lives on and how it has influenced and inspired the generations since.

The Downfall of the Commune

On 21 May, Versailles troops entered Paris and spent seven days massacring “defenceless Men, Women and Children”.

They were “cut to pieces” and “shot down in hundreds by mitrailleuse fire”.

There were random street executions and accounts of people being buried alive after the firing squads had failed to do their jobs properly.

Marx wrote, “Even the atrocities of the bourgeois in June, 1848, vanish before the ineffable infamy of 1871” and continued, “the great problem…(was) how to get rid of the heaps of corpses…after the battle was over. About 30,000 Parisians were shot down by the bestial soldiery, and about 45,000 were arrested, many of whom were afterwards executed, while thousands were transported or exiled.”

Opinions on the Commune

The Communards were endlessly praised by socialist writers the world over for their determination and bravery in attempting to bring about a new society, but many also offered their own analysis of what went wrong. All realised that the cards were stacked against the Commune from the beginning.

Indeed the situation led Peter Kropotkin to write, “The Commune of 1871 could be nothing but a first attempt. Beginning at the close of a great war, hemmed in between two armies ready to join hands and crush the people.” Nevertheless, scholars gave their opinions on the movement.

Peter Kropotkin was both heartened and disheartened by the Commune.

He saw traces of Anarchism in its governance, “By proclaiming the free Commune, the people of Paris proclaimed an essential anarchist principle, which was the breakdown of the State” and recognised its historical importance when he stated that with the movement of the “Commune of Paris a new idea was born”, and that it was “to become the starting point for future revolutions.”

In the months following the fall of the Commune, the luxury of hindsight meant that he was able to ponder calmly what he felt went wrong.

The first problem he noted was, “It neither boldly declared itself socialist nor proceeded to the expropriation of capital nor the organisation of labour. It did not even take stock of the general resources of the city….nor did it break with (in practice) the tradition of the State, of representative government…..they let themselves get carried away by the fetish worship of governments and set one up of their own.”

He felt that the Commune went some way towards realising the vision of a stateless society

He felt that this led to elected representatives falling out of touch with the electorate. He proposed that they had lost the “inspiration which only comes from continual contact with the masses” and had become “paralyzed by their separation from the people” and that “they themselves (had) paralyzed the popular initiative.”

In 1892, he continued his observations on the Commune, noting that the hunger that plagued Paris had been instrumental in the downfall of the revolution, the “Commune perished for lack of combatants. It had taken for the separation of Church and State, but it neglected, alas, until too late, to take measures for providing the people with bread.”

Mikhail Bakunin joyously claimed that, “Revolutionary Socialism (Anarchism) has just attempted its first striking and practical demonstration in the Paris Commune.” He felt that the Commune went some way towards realising the vision of a stateless society. Federated Communes, delegates bound by the imperative mandate, and the concept of instant recall were concepts which Bakunin had been discussing since around 1848.

He continued, “I am a supporter (of the Commune), above all, because of it was a bold, clearly formulated negation of the State.”

Whilst being careful to never lay blame at any Communard door he observed, “The proletariat of the great cities of France, and even of Paris, still cling to many Jacobin (radical bourgeois) prejudices, and to many dictatorial and governmental concepts. The cult of authority – the fatal result of religious education, that historic source of all evils, deprivations, and servitude – has not yet been completely eradicated in them.”

To him, the influence of the Jacobins “was the great misfortune for the Commune” because “they were paralyzed, and they paralyzed the Commune….they lacked the time and even the capacity to overcome and subdue many of their own bourgeois prejudices which were contrary to their newly acquired socialism.”

Karl Marx wrote one of the most comprehensive accounts of the Paris Commune, praising the revolution with the best of words, “Working mens’ Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them.”

launching a resolute offensive against Versailles would have crowned its victory in Paris

He was immensely proud of what the Commune had achieved, despite being unconvinced about it at its inception. When he heard of the plan to overthrow the Government, he called the plan “a folly of despair.”

He changed his tune and began watching in awe as the proletariat of Paris took the reins. The movement had such a profound effect on their thinking that in 1872 he and Friedrich Engels edited the Communist Manifesto stating that, it was, in places out of date and declared “that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.”

Later, Marx would call the Commune “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour.” After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels wrote in March 1891, “Look at the Paris Commune.That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” using the Commune to prove their thinking.

In a letter to Dr. Kugelmann, Marx pointed to two mistakes the Communards made.

The first was that “They did not want to start the Civil War”. This point was pondered by Lenin years later. He felt that the Communards should have marched on Versailles because “launching a resolute offensive against Versailles would have crowned its victory in Paris”. He wrote that the hesitation “gave the Versailles Government time to gather dark forces and prepare for the blood-soaked week of May.”

He felt that the Commune aimed to achieve something very important – anti-parliamentarianism

The second mistake in Marx’s eyes was that the Central Committee of the National Guard “surrendered its power too soon, to make way for the Commune.” Presumably Marx thought that the Central Committee should have kept things under tighter control for longer, or perhaps decreed more reforms before resigning.

Lenin too paid tribute to the people of the Commune.

He wrote that the events and their actions were “unprecedented in history. Up to that time power had, as a rule, been in the hands of landowners and capitalists, ie the hands of their trusted agents who made up the so-called government.” He noted its importance as a grassroots movement by stating that “no one consciously prepared it in an organised way.”

He felt that the Commune aimed to achieve something very important – anti-parliamentarianism. It was to be “a working body” that sought to combine the work of the executive and legislative branches of government into one.

This was vital for Lenin as it stopped Parliament from becoming just a talking shop for “the parliamentarians must themselves work, must themselves execute their own laws, must themselves verify their results in actual life, must themselves be directly responsible to their electorate.”

However, he criticised the Commune for not “expropriating the expropriators”. He noted that large organisations, such as the Bank of France had not been targeted. The Communards could have made use of the capital. Also, he wrote that there was “no workers’ party, the working class had not gone through a long school of struggle and was unprepared.”

Despite his criticisms, Lenin diligently noted that “the chief thing which the Commune lacked was time – an opportunity to take stock of the situation and to embark upon the fulfilment of its programme…The Commune had to concentrate primarily on self-defence…it had no time to think seriously of anything else.”

Conclusion

The Commune is held up as proof by both anarchists and socialists of how their ideas and theories work in practice. The anarchists saw it as a negation of the state and the socialists saw it as the functioning Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

It is still the subject of much analysis and discussion in academia and among activists and trade unionists around the world. It has been examined on numerous occasions by the arts. La Commune Film is one example.

It has inspired and continues to inspire people in search of alternative ways of living.

References and further reading

M Bakunin The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

F Engels Introduction to The Civil War in France

F Engels Reflection in Introduction

P Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread

P Kropotkin The Commune of Paris

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune – Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 – Marx’s Analysis

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune – Lessons from the Commune

V Lenin In Memory of the Commune

K Marx The Civil War in France

K Marx Letters to Dr.Kugelmann on the Paris Commune

Dickens Fellowship Foregathers Once Again

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Mar 252013

By David Innes.

Aberdeen’s nascent Dickens Fellowship meets again this week. Anyone who has an interest in this literary and journalistic master and his peerless work is welcome to attend and participate.

It’s informal, friendly, fun and informative. We cannot guarantee Pickwickian brandy and hot water, but there will be coffee available.

We’ll meet on Thursday March 28 at 19:00 and will conclude before 21:00.

Thanks once again to the kind hospitality of Grampian Housing Association, 74 Huntly Street, Aberdeen, we’ll be meeting in the centre of town.

The GHA offices are at the crossroads of Huntly Street and Summer Street. There is ample car parking and the venue is only 400 yards from Union Street and regular bus services.

This time, we’ve decided to discuss Hard Times (1854). Although many will have read the whole novel, our discussions will concentrate on the opening section, Sowing, which comprises chapters 1 – 16, including the wonderful satire of Chapter 2, Murdering The Innocents.

Dr Paul Schlicke will be happy to answer any queries about the group. You can contact him by e-mail at p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk

The Paris Commune of 1871: Part 1

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Mar 212013

This week marks the 242nd anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune was one of the most important examples in history of people taking control of their own lives and reorganising their society. In the first part of Simon Gall’s two-part examination of the Commune through the eyes of some important progressive scholars, we take a look at how the Commune came about, its short history and its structure.

The experiment ended in May 1871 when it was destroyed by the French government, but its legacy lives on and it continues to inspire. The Commune was the subject matter of the Socialist and Anarchist anthem, “L’Internationale”

The Commune and its importance.

“Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

“Paris inflicting a mortal blow upon the political traditions of the bourgeois radicalism and giving a real basis to revolutionary socialism (anarchism) against the reactionaries of France and Europe….Paris destroying nationalism and erecting the religion of humanity upon its ruins; Paris proclaiming herself humanitarian and atheist, and replacing divine fictions with the great realities of social life and faith in science.” – M Bakunin – The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

“It was an event unprecedented in history. Up to that time power had, as a rule, been in the hands of landowners and capitalists, ie the hands of their trusted agents who made up the so-called government.” V Lenin – Lenin on the Commune – 3 – In Memory of the Commune

“The direct antithesis of the Empire was the Commune.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

“The political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour.” – K Marx – The Civil War in France

Overview

In 1871, the citizens of Paris took control of their own destinies and sought to break with the idea of bourgeois government, by seizing Paris and moulding it into something new.

On 18 March, they proclaimed the Commune and began dismantling the old Bonapartist structures of government.

People grew excited at the prospect of being masters of their own lives as the Commune began promulgating revolutionary decrees. However, after only 72 days, the rebellion was ferociously crushed by Government troops in a seven-day massacre.

Tens of thousands lost their lives but the idea lived, and still lives on. The experience of Communards changed political thinking forever and provided a sort of blueprint, or the beginnings of a blueprint, for future revolutions.

Lenin wrote of the Commune,

“The significance of the Commune, furthermore, lies in the fact that it endeavoured to crush, to smash to its very foundations, the bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucratic, judicial, military and police machine, and to replace it by a self-governing, mass worker’s organisation in which there was no division between legislative and executive power.” – Lenin on the Commune – 6. Bourgeois Democracy

Who what when where why?

In July 1870, French Emperor Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III) declares war on Prussia. However, only three months later, he and his General, MacMahon, are captured along with more than 80000 soldiers at the Battle of Sedan. On hearing the news, the workers of Paris storm the Palais Bourbon and force the legislative body to proclaim the fall of the Second Empire.

By evening, the provisional Government of National Defence (GND) is formed, “All Parisians capable of bearing arms had enrolled in the National Guard and were armed” and the Third Republic is proclaimed.

In the next few weeks, Bonaparte’s forces surrender and, by October 31, the GND is ready to begin negotiations with the Prussians, but the Parisian workers rebel. The enemy reaches Paris but is only allowed a small corner of the capital by the Parisians. The Prussians disarm the city’s Mobile Guard but permit the National Guard to keep their weapons.

The revolutionary sections of the National Guard form the Central Committee to coordinate matters inside Paris and the newly-formed government of Adolphe Theirs flees to Versailles in March.

On the 18 March, Theirs sends government troops to disarm Paris but the soldiers refuse to carry out their orders and instead turn their guns on their Generals Claude Martin Lecomte and Jacques Leonard Clement Thomas. Some soldiers join the Commune. Thiers is outraged and the Civil War begins.

The Paris Commune was elected through universal suffrage on the 26 March 1871.

The Structure of the Commune

The Paris Commune

“made use of two infallible means. In the first place, it filled all posts – administration, judicial and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any time by the same electors. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers.” The maximum wage was set at 6000 francs, providing “an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism…even apart from the binding mandate to delegates to representative bodies.”

The Commune was to spread across France. It was to be the structure of even the smallest hamlets.

“Rural Communes of every district were to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates (with the imperative mandate) in the central town” and was to be a “working body, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.”

Marx noted that the Municipal Councillors were “naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class.”

Decrees and Actions of the Commune

28 March

The Central Committee of the National Guard dissolves itself after decreeing the abolition of the Police.

30 March

The Commune abolishes conscription and the Army and declares the National Guard, comprising everyone who can bear arms, to be the sole armed force.

The Commune remits all payments of rent for dwelling houses from October 1870 until April 1871, with the amounts already paid to be used as future rent payments.

Foreigners elected to the Commune were confirmed in office. “The flag of the Commune is the flag of the World Republic”

1 April

Maximum wage set for Commune at 6000 francs (£4)

2 April

The Commune decreed the separation of Church and State. It abolished all state payments for religious purposes (priests’ wages etc) and all property was to become national property.

5th April

In response to the daily shooting of Commune prisoners by Versailles troops it was decreed that NO prisoner of the Commune should be shot.

6th April

La Guillotine was brought into the street by the National Guard and publicly burned “amid great popular rejoicing.”

8th April

Religious symbols, pictures, dogmas and prayers were excluded from schools.

12th April

The Commune decides to destroy Napoleon’s victory column, made from smelted weapons captured from a fallen army, as a symbol of nationalistic chauvinism.

16th April

Review of closed factories with a view to organising worker’s control of those factories in the form of co-operatives. The co-operatives were to federate into one great co-operative union. In the end 43 factories were organised this way.

30th April

Pawnshops were closed as they were “in contradiction with the right of the workers to their instruments of labour and to credit.”

5th May

The Commune orders the razing of the Chapel of Atonement which had been built in expiation of the execution of Louis XVI

9th May

The Versailles army closes in on Paris and captures its first Parisian fort.

10th May

The Treaty of Frankfurt is signed by Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor, and Thiers the head of the French Government. The conditions were set out mainly by Prussia as they were in the strongest position. The deal was that France would pay Prussia 5bn Francs in indemnities over a shorter period of time than first agreed and Bismarck would continue the occupation of Parisian forts until he “should feel satisfied with the state of things in France”, making him the “supreme arbiter in internal French politics”. In return, Bismarck would release the remaining “100,000 French prisoners of war to help crush revolutionary Paris.”

References and further reading

M Bakunin The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State

F Engels Introduction to The Civil War in France

F Engels Reflection in Introduction

P Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread

P Kropotkin The Commune of Paris

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune – Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 – Marx’s Analysis

V Lenin Lenin on the Commune – Lessons from the Commune

V Lenin In Memory of the Commune

K Marx The Civil War in France

K Marx Letters to Dr.Kugelmann on the Paris Commune

In part 2 of Simon’s brief overview of the Commune, he will detail its destruction, the lessons that writers and political historians have learned from it and how its influence still permeates radical and progressive thinking nearly 250 years later.

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Dickens Fellowship Meeting A Success

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Mar 072013

Aberdeen’s embryonic Dickens Fellowship had a most successful meeting last week, with lively discussion of Scenes from Sketches by Boz. David Innes reports, with thanks to Dr Paul Schlicke and to Grampian Housing Association for the kind hospitality.

Several of the group spoke warmly of their favourite Scenes, why they found them to be especially moving, horrifying or entertaining and how they gave insight to Dickens’s own radicalism at a time of significant political and social upheaval.
A query as to why the passages are written by ‘we’, revealed that this was a journalistic tradition, claiming and emphasising collective adherence to a principle, which Dickens skilfully utilised in Sketches by Boz.

Prose fiction was still regarded as inferior to formal writing in the early nineteenth century, so Dickens was a hugely influential in gaining narrative fiction its due respect.

The group discussed how, with so little formal education, the author became such a formidable wordsmith, yet despite his love of theatre why he was such a poor playwright. We found out that in writing his fiction, he acted out, in the privacy of his writing den, each character’s dialogue as it took shape. The theatre was an incalculable influence on his writing and his dramatic sell-out reading tours in later life.

As ever, where open friendly conversation takes place, we became diverted occasionally and discussion of Scenes led to brief examinations of Dickens’s views on contemporary transport, his ability to document conviviality and vitality and his not always kind treatment of his friends and loved ones.

We move on to discussion of a novel at our next meeting, and the choice is Hard Times, concentrating on the first section ‘Sowing’ (chapters 1–16). The meeting will again be held in the Grampian Housing Association, 74 Huntly Street, at the corner of Huntly Street and Summer Street, on Thursday March 28 from 1900 to 2100. There is free parking in the GHA car park.

Meetings are open to all. Anyone who has an interest at all in this master storyteller will be made welcome. You can e-mail p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list

Dickens Fellowship Meet Again

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Feb 182013

The city’s fledgling Dickens Fellowship will be meeting again on Thursday 21 February at 1900, in a room kindly provided by Grampian Housing Association, 74 Huntly Street. Dr Paul Schlicke reveals more.

“In light of the sparse attendance at our last meeting when we were treated to an exhibition of Dickens treasures in the University Library, it’s crucial that we have a decent turnout, if our organisation’s to carry on and grow. Please make an effort to attend if you are at all interested in Dickens’s work and life. At this meeting, we’ll be discussing Scenes from Sketches by Boz”, he wrote in a message to nearly 50 individuals who have registered an interest in participating in a Dickens Fellowship.

Dr Schlicke is keen to welcome suggestions regarding the sorts of events which might prove most popular in future.

“We attracted huge audiences for Miriam Margolyes and Jim Naughtie, but they were obviously high profile events. We had respectable attendances for academic lectures over the past 12 months, but we’re not in a financial position to bring speakers in from outside.

“Last year was special, it being the author’s bicentennial, so the University paid for those who came to lecture as part of the 2012celebrations. I’m uncertain whether or not there would be much interest in turning ourselves into a reading group, so any thoughts as to what might be organised to attract 20 or more participants regularly would be welcome.”

In closing, Dr Schlicke spoke in glowing terms of the work done on the recently re-opened Dickens Museum in London’s Doughty Street after a £3m facelift.

“It is simply wonderful. After worrying times only a few years ago, the Museum’s financial position is now decidedly healthy, and a bright future is in prospect. Following a gala celebration held there for Dickens’s birthday on 7 February, it has been open daily. It is well worth a visit!”

For this week’s meeting, there is parking opposite Dana Petroleum’s offices, with access from Kydd Street. Tea and coffee will be available. It would help in planning for numbers if you could let Dr Schlicke know if you plan to attend.

p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk
http://www.dickensmuseum.com/

MSYP Slams Proposal To Cut College Funding

Aberdeen City, News No Responses »

Feb 022013

A local Scottish Youth Parliamentarian says the government is ‘creating a lost generation.’ With thanks to Kenneth Watt.

Earlier this week Kris Chapman ( pictured ) of Aberdeen City Youth Council, who is also a Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYP), met the President of Aberdeen College Student Association to discuss the drastic effects and implications which the Scottish Government’s proposal to cut £34.6 million of funding to Scotland’s Colleges would have on Aberdeen.

Following their meeting Mr Chapman said:

“The impact and long term ramifications this will have on Aberdeen, not only for those attending college now but those who would be looking to do so in the future, will be hugely significant to the North East.

“Our colleges across Scotland, just like Aberdeen, play a vital role in shaping our nation’s future, helping to provide a much need skilled workforce to help re-energise our weak economy. I therefore finding it baffling that at a time when we should be investing in to our future to ensure that they have the skills for tomorrow, the Scottish Government is pulling the rug from under our young people’s feet and creating a lost generation.

“We have already seen that the number of support staff drop by more than half. Aberdeen College’s campuses have decreased from four to two and the North East region’s only Service Engineering course has been dropped, forcing those in the Grampian region who would have studied to now look to Glasgow or Ayr.

“We are losing our young talent from the North East.

“If these cuts are to go ahead then it will see Aberdeen College’s budget slashed by up to 50% in the next few years.

“I strongly urge the Scottish Government to rethink these proposals, to invest in our colleges and fund Scotland’s future for generations to come.”

Summing up the situation, Lani Baird, President of Aberdeen College Students’ Association said:

“In these tough economic times, with such high unemployment, we need to recognise the role that colleges play, and ensure that they are well-funded.

“Aberdeen, Banff and Buchan, and other colleges in the North East have the ability to change communities and lives, whether it’s by creating opportunities for people to enter post-16 education for the first time, or by giving them the opportunity to return to education to learn new skills for new jobs.

“If we’re to protect students in the northeast and throughout Scotland, we need to fund our colleges.

“In the coming days, we will be asking MSPs from all parties in the north-east to listen to our students and work together to reverse the £34.6M cuts proposed for colleges, and fund Scotland’s future.”

Commenting after the discussions between Kris and Lani, Chair of Aberdeen City Youth Council Barry Black noted:

“Aberdeen College is vital to our economy and society. Not only does it provide an alternative route to University, it supplies the skills and qualifications essential to open up to doors to many careers. It is also essential for lifelong learning.

“In Aberdeen, we will have a huge skills gap in the energy sector by 2020 and we cannot hope to fill that gap through training and re-training people wishing to go into the energy sector without well-funded Further Education.”

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Grumpy Jack’s Corner No 2: Paper Power

Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Jan 142013

In the second of a new series of topical commentaries, Duncan Harley reflects on Life, the Universe and Everything. A sideways look at the world and its foibles.

Carnegie Libraries

Scotland has a tradition of public education second to none and libraries have been at the forefront of the disbursement of knowledge since the establishment of the Leadhills Miners Reading Society in Lanarkshire.

Founded in 1741, it is the oldest subscription library in the British Isles.

Research by The Carnegie UK Trust in 2012 shows that Scots still love libraries, with over three-quarters believing they are either very important or essential to their community, with 61% reporting having used a library at least once in the last year – a higher figure than any other part of the UK.

The Trust is one of over twenty foundations established by Andrew Carnegie in the 19th Century and almost certainly funded a local library near you.

The name of the game was:

“improvement of the well-being of the masses of the people of Great Britain and Ireland by such means as are embraced within the meaning of the word charitable and which the Trustees may, from time to time, select as best fitted from age to age for securing these purposes, remembering that new needs are constantly arising as the masses advance”.

The result was a massive step forward in the emancipation of the working folk of Scotland.

This image above is of Inverurie’s Andrew Carnegie Library. Built in 1911 as an addition to the rather striking Italian style 1863 Town Hall, it has a rather functional and even stern appearance. This was I am sure down to the architect, one Harbourne Maclennan, who seemingly was a specialist in designing papermaking factories, including those in Culter, Stoneywood and Woodside in Aberdeen.

Mind you, in many ways it is quite apt a designer of the means of producing paper should be instrumental in the experience of the end user.

“Titanic sinks, North East Man Loses Pound in Broad Street”

On Saturday I purchased the Independent and the Guardian at a cost of £3.90. Somewhat unusually, I even took a peek at the Sun and the Mail but I would try to avoid the Sunday Post the next morning, which is quite easy since it only has made-up news no one would believe anyway.

Billed on its website as:

“a colourful, upbeat paper, with pages packed with news, views and features of a particularly Scottish flavour and part of Scotland’s culture for many years, successfully retaining the best of the old with the zest of the new”.

I feel quite dizzy when confronted with a copy. Recent front page headlines include “Esther Blasts Savile Probe” and a “Free Photo Print For Every Reader”.

The victims of Savile and 1370 redundant Jessops staff members will no doubt be very amused.

I digress. I bought the newspapers because I am a voyeur of all things odd. We all are to some extent, I think.

Folk used to turn up at public hangings in Aberdeen city centre. The condemned person would be forced to walk out of the townhouse windows onto the scaffold, make a wee speech in front of the assembled crowd, then hanged for all to view. There are many contemporary accounts of such judicial killings in the book Hangman’s Brae by Norman Adams, which I highly recommend.

One is a somewhat heart-rending recount of the execution of Kate Humphrey in 1830. Convicted of the murder of her husband, her last words were:

“I die innocent, I loved my husband, I love my life, Jesus Christ have mercy on my soul.”

Upon which her body dropped. It took six minutes for her to die and afterwards her corpse was transported to Edinburgh to be dissected at Dr Alexander Munro’s dissecting rooms. A sad end, indeed, but good reading if you like that sort of stuff!

I have to report, however, that I am so far unable to read about that Savile man in my newspapers of choice. It’s not because I am a coward or a wimp. It’s not because I cannot face the issues. It’s not because the issues are unimportant.

In fact, it’s the opposite.

When that man in Dunblane, whose name should never be mentioned, murdered all those children a few years ago, the site of the atrocity was demolished, the law in Scotland was changed to prohibit the ownership of guns without good cause and the press focused mainly not upon the perpetrator but on the victims and the need for change. Rightly so, in my opinion.

In the case of Savile, the reporting often seems to be sensational in the extreme and directed purely towards the selling of newspapers at the expense of good, unbiased articles. The victims seem to have been somewhat sidelined.

I sincerely hope those who suffered at Savile’s hands can have closure on what is an horrific situation. The press, however – including that newspaper we all like and love in the North East, which carried “Savile Victim in Aberdeen” as a front page headline – should back off and show some respect.

That headline seemed to be proclaiming that Aberdeen was not going to be left out of the scandal.

The oddest thing about Savile is that for decades he was known by many in power to be a rapist, paedophile and sex offender, yet they did nothing much about it until after his death.

Reminds me of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, somehow. Actresses, bishops and even policemen loved to have their photographs taken with the jolly pair. They kept order in the East End of London, after all, and most importantly, they loved their old mum.

Mind you, they did have an unfortunate habit of nailing folk to coffee tables to convince them of their errant ways.

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A Dickens Of A Night

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Dec 142012

Peering out over the High Street’s rimed cobbles from ‘neath their frosted brows, one might easily mistake these spectral figures as characters from some long-forgotten Victorian melodrama. But no, this is Old Aberdeen. They are, in fact, local Dickens enthusiasts, gathering for the last time in the great man’s Bicentennial Year. David Innes reports.

“No fog, no mist, clear bright, jovial stirring cold” is how Dickens described Christmas Day in A Christmas Carol.

He might have been describing conditions in Aberdeen on Thursday 6 December, but while the wintry weather was without doubt a factor in keeping numbers low, those who braved the temperatures and icy underfoot conditions to attend the event at the new university library enjoyed a one-off treat.

The university is proud to possess one of the best Dickens collections in the world and it was a privilege to be present when the first editions of all his works were laid out for examination and enjoyment.

With special thanks to Keith O’ Sullivan, the University of Aberdeen’s Senior Rare Books Librarian. Thank you, Keith.

Particularly worthy of mention are the two first editions of Oliver Twist (1838). Until publication of this novel in its constituent parts, Dickens had used the pen name ‘Boz’. He had decided, however, that his own identity be used when the book was published in collected form.

The first edition was published by George Bentley before Dickens’ wish could be granted. It was only delayed by a week, as the Boz edition sold out and the imprint with the author’s own identity was offered for sale.

The entire Sketches by Boz series is also part of the University’s collection. It was surprising to see that each part was priced at one shilling (5 pence), expensive for the times.

Theatre posters of interest and lesser-known works were also displayed, each adding to the overall picture of the hugely-talented man still loved by millions, two hundred years after his birth.

Due to the low numbers, formal business was suspended for the evening but dates of future meetings, based around discussion of specific writings from the great man’s output, were agreed. Everyone on the mailing list will be contacted in advance of these meetings, the first of which is scheduled to be held on 21 February 2013.

If you wish to be added to Dr Paul Schlicke’s e-mail circular, drop him an e-mail p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk

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