I was looking through a lot of old pictures and letters recently and found this one of myself on Wick Gala Day (the county town of Caithness). My parents thrust me and my brother into the fray every year, dressed up in some amusing costume (I appear to be a dead Saint) to extract money from the sometimes slightly inebriated Wickers watching the Gala Week Procession, to which we travelled from Belfast every July. It was good fun – in the end – but quite a daunting prospect for teenagers (though I'm proud to say my bro Graeme and myself often got prizes for our bonzer sized collecting tins.)
Of course, it's always dangerous to make claims about the past. I notice my Wikipedia entry has been queried several times where it's suggested I was the first female and non-Conservative Sabbatical President of Oxford University Student's Union. Apparently students had already elected a lefty gal, Emily Wallace in 1971. I'm delighted to hear Oxford students had radical tendencies in the 70s, but the correction also puzzled me because it was university staff at the time of my election and the student newspaper Cherwell who suggested I was the first gal -- not myself. Ploughing further into Wikipedia, perhaps I've found the answer.
When Emily was elected, OUSU didn't yet exist but was called the OUSRC. Apparently it "adopted its contemporary constitution in 1974, changing its name to the Oxford University Student Union." So I guess both versions of history are true. I hope it's OK to say I'm proud to have been amongst the first female and non-Tory Presidents of the Oxford student body, because it was a devil of a job to get elected in what had been a "safe seat" for Tory boys for many years. I'd be very interested to know more about Emily's campaign – in the case of myself and deputy (and fellow Scot) Morag McDermott, an older group of political hacks set up the Progressives to unite all the left behind just one set of candidates, and it worked. Looking back though, it all seems very self indulgent. We took ourselves so seriously – and inevitably there was a fall. After ballot box rigging forced a rerun of the next Presidential election, my successor was the head of the Bernadista Silly Party. This President bore a striking resemblance to Bernard Levin and the main plank of his manifesto was free beer at General Meetings. Jings. After that sobering re-awakening with reality I tended to get involved in more practical politics, like the feminist magazine Lilith and a direct action group that occupied the "milk-round" recruitment interviews of companies active in apartheid South Africa and Namibia. Every Wednesday an assorted bunch of us would meet in St Anne's college and practice "non-violent-direct-action". Two leading lights were Achim Steiner who is something in the United Nations now and Alex Thompson of Channel 4 who's married to my best friend Sarah. I'd love to know what happened to another direct action stalwart Adrian. Innocent agitation. Those were the days.
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