Blast from the Editorial Past
Julian Hammerton and Charlotta Salmi delve into the Nouse archive for you and find out what made front page news in the consequtive freshers’ weeks editions from 1965 to 1967
Ugly Buildings,1965
Freshers admiring the beautiful sights of campus may be shocked to know the Lord Mayor was reported by Nouse in 1965 as expressing “his and apparently the Queen’s, views that the pre-fabricated stonework of York [University] is ugly and externally inferior to the grand old red brick facades that cover most of Britain’s universities”. Although admitting that the new college buildings were hardly “calculated to arouse the undegraduate body to a frenzy of acclamation” as they arose from “the mud-covered concrete of Heslington” Nouse felt the architecture wasn’t inferior but “revolutionary”!
Derwent’s Betsy “Must Go” in 1966
In a somewhat less exciting Freshers’ week edition, Nouse reports: Betsy, the “dilapidated vehicle” of Derwent JCR chairman, John Atkinson, is ordered to be removed from the Heslington student car park by University Administration. Peter Smith of the University, who was according to Nouse “a character well-known, if little-heeded by most car owners” remained ignored however as the car, a campus legend, was not moved and left to gather “leaves and abuse”.
University Challenge Record Defeat, 1967
In 1967, it was York University’s recent defeat in University Challenge which worried the Senior Common Room Committee (the old Student Union) in freshers’ week. After the loss to Cardiff University by “a record margin of 225-15” the SRC decided it was time to act and held a meeting to discuss the “haphazard” way students were being selected to represent the University in the competition. The poor selection process proved to be the organizer inviting a few select friends and “someone for sport”.
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