More about the podcasts

Series Editor: Chris Garrington
Series Director: Paul Thompson

• Podcast 1: Introduction

  An introduction from Paul Thompson

  This introductory podcast features an interview with the man behind the podcast project, Paul Thompson. A Research Professor in the Department of Sociology, Paul Thompson talks of Essex as “one of the places where oral history in Britain originated”.

  When he moved to Wivenhoe in the 1990s, Professor Thompson initiated an oral history project based in the town, which grew to involve many enthusiastic local residents. There are now over 60 interviews with Wivenhoe residents in the archive, many of whom worked at the University. The oral history archive is held at the Colchester Museum Resources Centre, as well as at our Albert Sloman Library.

  The interview was carried out by Chris Garrington, herself a former University employee, who edited together this series of podcasts based on the archive interviews.

• Podcast 2: Sir Albert Sloman’s vision

  Sir Albert Sloman’s vision

  This podcast examines founding Vice-Chancellor Sir Albert Sloman’s vision for the University and how others saw it at the time.

  “A new university enjoys the immense advantage of a clean slate; unhampered
  by precedents and by established structures, its plans can be freer, more daring, more experimental.”
  

  Sir Albert Sloman, 1963 Reith Lectures

  Sir Albert Sloman saw a university which would be interdisciplinary, where subjects would inter-relate, often with an international focus that looked beyond the West, and be taught by leaders in their fields. Class and social barriers would be broken down by attracting not just some of the best and brightest students from around the world, but also many of the older men and women in the area who had never had the chance to go into higher education.

  Some of the early staff attracted by Sir Albert’s vision talk about the “bright, imaginative, adventurous” undergraduates who might otherwise have gone to Oxford and Cambridge – and academics who were upset at the idea of not having a Senior Common Room where they could escape from the students.

  Interviewees

  • Dawn Ades, Professor of Art History
  • Martin Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Language and Linguistics, first came to Essex in 1974
  • Joanna Bornat, PhD student, now Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Open University
  • Peter Frank, former Professor of Russian Politics in the Department of Government
  • Maurice Kimmit, former Professor of Physics, now Visiting Professor at the University’s Physics Centre
  • Anthony King, appointed Senior Lecturer in Government in 1966, now Essex County Council Millennium Professor of British Government
  • Alastair McAuley, Reader in the Department of Economics
  • Gabriel Pearson, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studiesfor over 30 years
  • Paul Thompson, Research Professor in the Department of Sociology, first came to Essex in 1964
  • Peter Townsend (died 2009), founding Professor of Sociology

• Podcast 3: Sir Albert Sloman – the man

  Sir Albert Sloman – the man

  The third of our 50th Anniversary podcasts considers founding Vice-Chancellor Sir Albert Sloman, with some of those who worked with him discussing his “formidable skill” and “excellent eye for people of exceptional ability” – as well as his shyness.

  “Was he a good Vice-Chancellor? Yes, he created – from scratch – a great university.”

  Sir Denis Forman, former executive in the British film and television industry and honorary graduate of the University of Essex

  Sir Albert Sloman was a former wartime RAF fighter pilot who became the founding and longest serving Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex. The interviewees in this podcast tell of a man who was “scrupulously fair-minded” and “insisted on hiring the best”.

  Sir Albert Sloman died in July 2012. You can read former Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Ivor Crewe’s assessment of his life and work on our website.

  Interviewees

  • Sheila Cardy, former Secretary to the Registrar
  • Sir Ivor Crewe, Vice-Chancellor, 1995-2007, and Lecturer and Professor in Government at Essex for more than 35 years
  • Robin Dixon, former Secretary to the School of Comparative Studies
  • Sir Denis Forman, former executive in the British film and television industry and honorary graduate of the University of Essex
  • Anthony King, appointed Senior Lecturer in Government in 1966, now Essex County Council Millennium Professor of British Government
  • Margaret Law, former Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor
  • Gabriel Pearson, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies for over 30 years
  • Peter Townsend (died 2009), founding Professor of Sociology

• Podcast 4: Essex architecture

  The first Vice-Chancellor and the campus architect Kenneth Capon were appointed on the same day in October 1962.

  In this, the fourth in our Creating a University series of podcasts, staff and students from the early days talk about the vision these two men had for 'a harmonious composition of towers and terraces floating in the lap of its wooded valley'. They reminisce, too, about life at the University of Essex before the buildings went up – with lectures in Nissen huts and departments based in the old stable blocks at Wivenhoe House.

  “A space-age cultural city in the sky with a Manhattan Island silhouette”

  East Essex Gazette, 25 October 1963

  Interviewees

  • Dawn Ades, Professor of Art History
  • Sir John Ashworth, founding Professor of Biological Sciences
  • Peter Haine, Physics student, 1964-67
  • Jules Lubbock, Visiting Professor in the Department of Art History
  • Gabriel Pearson, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies for over 30 years
  • James Sutherland, structural engineer and designer
  • Peter Townsend (died 2009), founding Professor of Sociology
  • Margery Wilson, Literature student, 1971-74

• Podcast 5: Studying at Essex

  It was, they say now, “something different”, “very exciting” and even “probably the most positive experience of my life”. In the fifth of our 50th Anniversary podcasts, students who came to the new University of Essex in the 1960s and 70s talk about their memories of campus, classes, teachers and tiddlywinks.

  “Our first students will still be in positions of influence and responsibility in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.”

  Sir Albert Sloman, 1963 Reith Lectures

  It was a place of political awakenings, and one where barriers were broken down – where a politics lecturer could play football with his students. But it was also intellectually challenging, a place where your views were listened to and an opportunity to make lifelong friends and, in some cases, partners.

  Interviewees

  • Peter Avis, Maths student 1964-67
  • John Dowden, Maths PhD student, 1963-67, the University’s first student and now Emeritus Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
  • Peter Haine, Physics student, 1964-67
  • Nicolette Hardy, Literature student, 1966-69
  • Christine Hinton, Sociology student, 1967-70
  • Margery Wilson, Literature student, 1971-74
  • Peter Wyatt, Government student, 1966-69