A successful and distinguished history?
Opening the crumbling archives of nouse under the watchful eye of a stern librarian, in a closed off room in the library, reveals a humble stapling of A4 pages, wobbly type with headlines and adverts drawn on to the script. In the top right hand corner of this 1964 relic a price of 6d is warily demanded. And so the paper opens its 40 year history with a strong sense of purpose, and pretentious twist to the language as it explains to the small readership of the University of York its name, “For any who may be puzzled about the choice of title the connotation of the greek NOUS is intelligence or comprehension, OUSE is after the River Ouse chosen to include an indicator of the locality and if pronounced NOOZE this becomes in phonetic form NEWS”.
And its glorious mission? Not just sacrificing social life for the creation of a student newspaper, the founders have a higher goal, “the editorial policy of nouse is progressive i.e. it would not favour a pro-apartheid society for example”.
This grand sense of self echoes throughout the archive, exemplified by N.J O’Neill’s writing on Vietnam on 1964, where he argues, “it is only a matter of time before American Generals issue orders to bomb areas on which the economic foundation of North Vietnam depend, i.e the hydro-electric power plants, the coalfields and steel-works”.
And so it goes on, with the editorial team of 1970 informing us with two solitary stars adorning the mast head of their political leanings and then calling for nothing short of a rise to arms, stating that the ‘revolution on generational lines’. It sounds more than a little grand and naïve in these post Cold War days, but it was this ideology that led to the outrage over informants and the call for Heslington Hall to be occupied (not for the last time) in March 1970, as well as describing Jack Straw, pictured right as “the last hope the NUS has”.
As well as charting world events and exposing scandal on campus, the paper serves as an informal history of the University, with a small time Hendrix setting up in Langwith, and details the tragic events of 1992 when Dr Elizabeth Howe was found murdered.
The radicalism reasonates in subsequent years, sometimes at a more relevant level in 1990, and then again at a higher brow with a few of the 1991-1992 editions being created by the “nouse collective”, until someone demanded their name at the top once more.
The Wentworth murder, July 1992
Students returned to York in the autumn of 1992 to tales of a murder on campus. Dr Elizabeth Howe an Oxford don, visiting the university to lecture at the Open University summer school, was found stabbed and mutilated in her Wentworth C bedroom, now Goodricke D Block (pictured right). The murder weapon, a knife, had been thrown in the lake, but after several fruitless days of searching police divers were unable to locate it, or even retrieve a kitchen knife they threw in themselves.
The ‘Wentworth Murder’ was still being reported on by nouse more than two years later as the accused faced trial. The trial experienced several delays and adjourned initially in October 1994, after the accused “collapsed in the dock after hearing his mother and sister give evidence, convincing doctors that he ws unfit to continue. He has remained in a secure unit ever since”. The then Home Secretary Michael Howard waded in, but the trial remained in limbo after conflicting evidence given by two doctors. Howard submitted a letter to the court “expressing his belief that the accused was now in a state ‘reasonably to be tried’”.
Spies, informants and the Heslington Hall occupation, March 1970
I know it’s hard to believe that our beloved concrete haven could ever have been home to anything but intellectual pursuits and the odd drunken mishap, but the flared decades of the 60s and 70s show a different, and somewhat captivating, side to our uni. The longhaired, paisley-patterned nouse team were quick on the scene for some unbelievable stories. In 1968, they nonchalantly covered the story of a CIA spy circulating campus as if it were an everyday occurrence. According to nouse, there were American students in every British university who were employed by the CIA. York was no exception. One such student found the salary too modest to continue and decided to bare all to nouse. The CIA was on the look out for students who stood out for having potentially dangerous political views and would possibly enter the political scene in the future. It makes you wonder whose name would be found scribbled in a dusty CIA file somewhere.
But when York students weren’t revealing themselves as CIA spies, they were being bribed by the police to act as informants. Just a few months after the CIA exposure, ‘Spy Scandal’ was again featuring in nouse headlines. If you were under the impression that our Government’s ‘War on Drugs’ was a unique tactic, it is nothing compared to the 60s when nouse exposed the Yorkshire police ‘persuasion’ tactics in a bid to battle drug abuse. One student, facing theft charges, was told things would be made ‘easy’ for him if he would keep an eye on certain individuals concerning drugs and politics. Suffice to say, he refused but how many students took them up on the offer?
Nouse needed only to wait two more years for a similarly gripping front-page. The ‘sit-in’ of March 1970 saw us reporting a mass exodus to Heslington Hall, with food, first aid and publicity organised by SRC (SU) committees. But why would students feel the need to venture beyond Derwent bar and occupy Heslington Hall? For political reasons, of course. They demanded access to personal files, which in the heyday of 70s political radicalism, were suspected of containing information on political opinions. The University denied the allegation, arguing that they were purely administrative.
The BNP, Spring 1990
“There is an evil, insiduous presence in York, both in town and, more frigtheningly, on campus”, the opening sentence of nouse in Spring 1990 set the tone of a radical campaign to oust the far right from both campus and York as a whole. Editor Alison Thorpe, (pictured left), remained resolute throughout the year consistently keeping the issue to the fore. She was rewarded in issue 3 of the Spring term when nouse received two letters, alleging to be from the BNP and the National Front, denouncing the paper. The growing covert action by the groups on campus revealed itself in homophobic stickers, appearing on the same day as nouse received its first hate mail. The extent of far right activity on campus was highlighted the previous year by an attack on the car of a visiting disabled student which the letter referred to. Thorpe simply states “The worm responsible for the letter was too ashamed of his or her own opinions to even put their name to it”.
The newspaper was also advised by the University admin to turn a blind eye to the growing action on campus that, “to give these people publicity was to their advantage not their detriment”. Thorpe refused to do so and replied, “We agree with the sentiment but still feel infuriated that these people who were too scared to even reveal their identities should think that WE were at all frightened by the anonymous badly written letter”.
The letter further detailed that the National Front were intending to launch recruitment drives at football matches and protest against the commemoration of the massacre of Jews at Clifford’s Tower 600 years ago, Thorpe gave an unequivocal message that while the isolated incidents of campus can be shrugged off, “a concerted campaign of this kind which Fascists seem to be waging in York is a different proposition. We must show these rascists [sic] that there is no future for them on campus or in the City”.
Loading ...
Just bumping this to the “recent comments” feed on the grounds that it’s more than a bit fascinating.
Well worth the read.