#eya2022

To conclude our short series of posts about Christmas activities at Strathclyde’s antecedent institution, the Royal Technical College (RTC, known from 1956 as the Royal College of Science and Technology), we look at the annual Christmas Lectures for Young People. These commenced in the 1950s, upon the suggestion of the Scottish Education Department (SED). Popular science lectures for older children were then an established feature of the Christmas season in London…

Christmas Lectures for Young People

The RTC’s annual Christmas Lectures for Young People commenced in the early 1950s, upon the suggestion of the Scottish Education Department (SED). Popular science lectures for older children were then an established feature of the Christmas season in London, and the SED, feeling that ‘Scotland was lagging behind England in this matter’, approached the Director of the RTC, Dr (later Sir) David Anderson, in 1951 with the idea of providing similar lectures for secondary school pupils in the West of Scotland.[1] Anderson responded positively, and the first Christmas Lectures for schoolchildren in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, organised by the RTC in conjunction with the SED, were delivered on 3 and 4 January 1952. The presenter, Dr Charles H. Giles of the RTC’s Department of Technical Chemistry, addressed the theme of ‘Chemistry and Colour Photography.’

Having proved successful, the lectures then became a permanent feature in the RTC calendar, taking place every December. Lectures on two different topics, delivered by separate presenters, were offered each year, with both presenters repeating their lecture a second time so that as many children as possible could attend. In session 1953-1954, external academics from the University of Edinburgh and University College, Dublin were invited to come and deliver the lectures. However, it proved so challenging for them to arrange and rehearse their practical demonstrations at the RTC in advance that, in subsequent years, the speakers were selected solely from the staff of the RTC.

The Christmas Lectures for Young People were carried on by the RTC’s successor bodies, the Royal College of Science and Technology (RCST, 1956-1964) and the University of Strathclyde (1964 onwards). While their primary purpose was to inspire and instruct children in aspects of science and technology, the lectures also served to entertain, and the presenters often chose topics that would appeal to children, such as ‘Pests and Parasites’ (1954) and the aptly named ‘Combustion – Some Burning Questions’ (1958). The photograph above shows Dr P.T. Carter, senior lecturer in the Department of Metallurgy, explaining the principles of jet and combustion engines to some of the children who heard him speak on ‘Metals in the Service of Mankind’ in December 1956 (reference: OP4/191).

In the second of our posts about festive activities at the Royal Technical College (RTC), or ‘the Tech’ as it was popularly known, we look at Christmas editions of student magazines.

The student Editorial Committee behind the Royal Technical College Magazine, which was renamed in session 1924-1925 as The Mask, usually incorporated seasonal stories, cartoons and other features into the Christmas edition, or featured hand-drawn, festive artwork on the front cover. An example of the latter is this caricature of the Student Union’s curmudgeonly but well-loved janitor, Bindle, in the guise of Santa. Instead of toys, Bindle’s Santa sack contains a snooker table complete with cues and balls, a chess board, cigarettes, beer, and other items from the students’ wish-list.[1]

A particular highlight of the Christmas-themed features in the magazine is a tongue-in-cheek take on the pantomime, ‘Cinderella’, which appeared in January 1913.[2] The Tech was known worldwide for the quality of its scientific and technical instruction, and practical, scientific knowledge features prominently in the students’ version of this classic story, where it is deployed to great comic effect. Cinderella’s two ugly sisters are here recast as students of the Tech, studying ‘maths and baking’ (the RTC had a thriving School of Bakery). Instead of having to cook, clean and keep house, poor Cinderella, being ‘as clever as she was good,’ is forced to do her sisters’ maths exercises for them!  

On the night of the Students’ Union dance, Cinders dresses her sisters in their finery and sees them off. Left alone to watch ‘the delta signs and the sums to infinity in the flames of the kitchen fire,’ she expresses a forlorn wish to go and dance with the Union President. Cinders’ Fairy Godmother duly appears, and, by waving her magic wand over a bottle of hydrogen sulphide (H2S - a colourless gas smelling of rotten eggs), some empty cans and a broken alarm clock, conjures up ‘a beautiful new taxi’ to whisk Cinders off to the dance. Instead of providing her with a dainty pair of glass slippers, the Fairy Godmother hands over one of the sisters’ maths textbooks to serve as a dance programme, for no student could be admitted to the dance hall without a programme.

Having danced not only with the Union President, but with all the other student presidents too, Cinderella’s ‘regular swell time’ is curtailed when the clock strikes twelve, and she dashes off, leaving behind half of the maths textbook in the hands of the smitten ‘Nicest President.’ With no glass slipper to be tried on, the President conceives an ingenious way of tracking down his beloved: he announces that he will marry the girl who can solve a test exercise set by the Professor of Mathematics. Will there be a happy ending? Read on below to find out!

[1] OJD/1/2/61, The Mask, vol.XX, no.3, December 1935.

With Christmas time approaching and most of Strathclyde’s students and staff back on campus following the pandemic, many in-person celebrations and festive activities are being planned for the first time in several years. This series of three blog posts looks back at some of the Christmas activities associated with Strathclyde’s antecedent institution, the Royal Technical College (RTC), renamed in 1956 as the Royal College of Science and Technology (RCST) and popularly known as ‘the Tech’. We begin by considering two of the most eagerly anticipated events of all: the students’ Christmas Ball and the Children’s Christmas Party.

Christmas Ball

Organised annually by the Students’ Representative Council (SRC), the Christmas Ball was a major event in the RTC and RCST social calendar and provided a welcome opportunity for students to let their hair down following the end of term exams. To encourage ticket sales, the SRC’s Dance Committee publicised the Ball in the student magazine, The Mask, and in the student newspaper, the Telegraph. The advertisement below was placed in the December 1938 issue of The Mask (reference: OJD/1/2/76).

The Dance Committee (later the Entertainments Committee) invested considerable time and effort to ensure the Ball’s success. In the early years, a hotel in central Glasgow would be booked to host the event: in 1926, for example, the Christmas Dance took place at the Grand Hotel, and in 1930 and 1931 the venue was the Ca’ D’Oro Ballroom. By the 1940s, however, the Christmas Ball generally took place in the RTC’s own Assembly Hall, which doubled as the Exam Hall. The new Student Union building in John Street, which was opened in 1959, later provided appropriate facilities for hosting the Ball and similar functions.

When the Ball was held on campus, the Committee had the unenviable task of decorating the hall for the occasion. In 1944, the RTC’s Navigation Department loaned them some flags for this purpose, ‘and it was [also] decided that the members of the Dance committee should look around the local shops for streamers etc’.[1] In subsequent decades, as the numbers of students studying at the RTC expanded, more resources were available and the new Union building offered increased space and scope for decorations, the Committee’s plans became more ambitious. The early 1960s saw the Christmas Ball organised according to a different theme each year, ranging from ‘Arctic Aurora’ (1960) and ‘Tropical Bally-Ho!’ (1961) to ‘Neptune’s Nocturnals’ (1962: programme pictured below, reference OJA/18/2/3) and ‘Black Friday’ (1963).

Designing and constructing props and decorations for a themed event demanded specific skills for which the Committee turned to members of the Architecture and Building Society, the RCST’s club for architecture students.[2] As the Committee minutes show, the ‘Architects’ club’ chose the theme for the Ball from a shortlist of suggestions supplied to them by the Committee, opting for that which offered the best artistic and practical possibilities.[3] As well as designing and building the set and props, the architecture students also designed the Ball tickets. Unfortunately, we have no photographs of the themed sets and decorations, but they were impressive, at least according to the writer of this letter in the student newspaper of 13 January 1961:

Dear Madam, I feel I must write an appreciation of the decorations for the Christmas Ball. The Assembly Hall and the Fourth Floor landing, were masterpieces in decoration and the spiral of tinsel down the stair well was a magnificent welcome on entering the building. The Architects who de- -signed the “set” as it were, and also everyone who helped in any way with the decorating of the building are to be congratulated on their wonderful achievements. I must, however, deplore the practice carried out at the Ball itself, of stripping the Christmas tree in the Dining Hall of its tinsel so that the female participants in the Ball might be decorated still further. Not only is this tinsel costly, but it did not greatly enhance the coiffures of the ladies who were seen wearing it. To conclude, thanks to the architects, for the splendid decorations and no thanks to those members who spoiled it slightly by ruining the Tree.[4]

The Committee’s labours did not end with decorating the hall, for one of their most important tasks was to engage a suitable band or bands for the evening. The 1950s and 1960s saw combinations of dance bands and jazz bands booked to play at the Ball; by the early 1960s, an additional ‘beat band’ was also booked to play during the interval. The Committee was further responsible for hiring caterers to provide a buffet; arranging the provision of at least one liquor bar; and organising screenings of several short films (mostly cartoons) in rooms adjacent to the main dance hall. If funds permitted, the evening’s entertainment would extend to a cabaret: a ‘Malayan fire eater’, who also performed hypnotism, was booked as the cabaret artist for the Christmas Ball in 1961.[5] Less spectacular (and less dangerous) amusements were also laid on for that year’s event, including ‘Enticing Bingo Sessions’.[6]

As the decades progressed, so too did the hour at which the Ball concluded. In the 1930s, the event tended to finish at 2.00am. In 1944, the students sought permission for the Ball to last all night, but the RTC’s Director, Sir Arthur Huddleston, was averse to the idea.[7] By the late 1950s, however, the Ball was generally scheduled to conclude at 6.00am and ‘breakfast tickets’ were available, entitling each holder to enjoy a hot meal in the early morning before making their way home.[8] In 1960, a double ticket for the Ball cost 25/ and a breakfast ticket cost 3/6d.

Annual Children’s Christmas Party

As well as a Christmas Ball for the students, the Students’ Representative Council of the RTC and RCST organised an annual Christmas party for younger children from local children’s homes, held in the Students’ Union. Transport and catering costs for this event were met from the proceeds of Wednesday lunchtime showings of Fred Quimby’s Tom and Jerry cartoons, organised by the Entertainments Committee. Each student attending the ‘Freds’, as these cartoon screenings were known, was asked to give a donation of 3d.[9]

According to this report in the student newspaper of 13 January 1961, the children’s party was a loud, frenetic, but happy occasion:

   The Children’s party was held in the Union on Wednesday the 28th December. Children from homes and orphanages in Glasgow as well as the children of Union employees were given a first class treat. [To] The music played by the members of the College Music Society, the children enjoyed all their favourite singing games i.e. “The Farmer Wants a Wife”, “The Grand Old Duke of York”, and “Pass the Parcel”. The band survived although surrounded by hosts of inquisitive children who found the microphone a very intriguing gadget. Lemonade, cakes, jelly, fruit and ice cream disappeared at an alarming rate. The children had a break from balloon bursting and musical games in an excellent little film show. Then Santa, alias Ian McClure, gave them each a present before they went home.[10]

A more candid report of the same event appears in another section of the newspaper, revealing that, due to an outbreak of mumps among the younger children at one of the homes, a group of 14-year-olds had been dispatched to attend the party in place of the usual 3-8-year-olds. Unsurprisingly, ‘They did not appreciate the Farmer wants a Wife as much as usual and Santa felt perhaps just the tiniest bit embarrassed . . . by giving “Bunny Painting Books” to mature youths. Luckily they were wrapped.’[11] Despite this hiccup, the annual party was both a welcome source of diversion and entertainment for the children, and a rewarding, if physically exhausting afternoon for their student hosts.

Today, Strathclyde’s students and staff continue to bring Christmas cheer to disadvantaged children in Glasgow through the University’s annual Christmas Toy Appeal. Since its inception in 2016, the appeal has provided approximately 8,000 gifts of toys, which have been distributed to six schools and nurseries and 14 charities. Staff and students wishing to participate in this year’s appeal may hand in donations of new, unwrapped toys to the University of Strathclyde Library until 12 December. Cash donations may also be made by following this link: https://onlineshop.strath.ac.uk/product-catalogue/student-experience/widening-access/christmas-toy-appeal-2022.

[1] OJA/6/1, Students’ Representative Council Dance Committee minute book, 1941-1946: minute of meeting on 10 November 1944.

[2] OJA/6/3, Students’ Representative Council Entertainments Committee minute book, 1958-1964: minute of meeting on 24 October 1960, p.92.

[3]OJA/6/3, Students’ Representative Council Entertainments Committee minute book, 1958-1964: minute of meeting on 9 November 1962, p.214.

[4] OJD/3/1, Telegraph vol.1, no.12, 13 January 1961, p.4.

[5] OJA/6/3, Students’ Representative Council Entertainments Committee minute book, 1958-1964: minute of meeting on 9 November 1962, pp.214-216.

[6] OJD/3/2, Telegraph vol.2, no.7, 8 Dec 1961, p.1.

[7] OJA/6/1, Students’ Representative Council Dance Committee minute book, 1941-1946: minute of meeting on 10 November 1944.

[8] OJA/6/3, Students’ Representative Council Entertainments Committee minute book, 1958-1964: minute of meeting on 4 November 1958, p.8.

[9] OJD/3/1, Telegraph vol.1, no.12, 13 January 1961, p.5; OJA/6/3, Students’ Representative Council Entertainments Committee minute book, 1958-1964: minute of meeting on 4 November 1959, p.44.

[10] OJD/3/1, Telegraph vol.1, no.12, 13 January 1961, pp.3-4.