The year is 1964, the Beatles are at the top of the pops, the first portable televisions are on sale, and Keanu Reeves was born. But, this all pales into comparison to the establishment of Nouse.
In celebration of Nouse’s 60th birthday this year, its founding co-editor Bryan Merton joined our AlumNouse series for an interview.
Bryan enrolled at the University in 1964, a year after its opening cohort. Bryan described what the university was like in its early days “exactly 60 years ago”.
“In its second year there were only 400 students altogether in the whole university. Heslington was a building site: there were bulldozers and diggers everywhere. It was a very exciting time.
We were the Baby Boomers and York was where we found our place and our voice. The country was changing, throwing off the dowdiness of postwar Britain and putting on the glad rags of the swinging 60s.”
Grace: “What was it that made you want to go to York?”
Bryan: “I’ve always been interested in new things, being in at their start and seeking to shape their development. In exciting ways in the 60s, universities, particularly new universities, were at the forefront of that change. It was a very exciting time.
And why York? I’d always wanted to go north. I had come from London and wanted the experience of living in a very different part of the country. And I wanted to be part of the change and expansion of higher education that a new university – as it was known then – represented.”
With the colleges not yet established in Bryan’s first year, he joined Langwith in his third year after firm instructions from his father.
“He had said I hadn’t done enough work in the first two years which was probably true – sorting out the newspaper was much more fun than learning about social administration.”
We then spoke about how and why Bryan decided to set up Nouse.
“It was in a Philosophy lecture; we had this very boring Australian lecturer who used to stand at the front of the lecture theatre and talk at us for an hour. It was very dull, and there were no seminars to follow up so we never got to explore or talk about the ideas and methods we were meant to have absorbed.
And as I was sitting there doodling, trying to get a grasp of what he was saying, I nudged the chap next to me called Richard Mann and I said ‘I’ve got an idea, why don’t we start a newspaper?’”
“And he said ‘Yeah, let’s! Why don’t you think up a name?’ That’s how Nouse came to me: I saw an association and elision of the purpose of the enterprise and the name of the river running through the city. And I’m absolutely delighted that, like the river, it’s still running after these last 60 years!”
Richard went on to have a career in journalism and sadly died a few years ago. He and Bryan had lost contact on graduating in 1967, until 2014 when “[they] were contacted shortly before the 50th anniversary by [our] predecessors.”
“I was on a musical odyssey in the southern states of America at the time, but we made contact and decided we would go. It was a big event. We were asked to make speeches. Richard promoted the value of a career in journalism if you wanted to make a difference. And espoused, with some conviction, the importance of a free press”.
“I talked about how we ran the newspaper, as far as I could remember 50 years on.”
Grace: “So you had the idea, the name, but what came next? What were the steps you took to actually make it happen?”
Bryan: “Well we couldn’t do it just on our own, so we had to build a team. It wasn’t hard to find people who wanted to join. We created a team of people, about eight of us, who would do everything from thinking of articles and stories, then writing them up and getting them printed off. In those days there was no internet and no computers, so you used to have to type every article out on a manual ribbon typewriter and print the master copy on a stencil skin which you attached to the drum of a Gestetner printer, apply the printing ink and set the drum spinning. It was a messy, noisy and exhausting process and we worked through the night on a diet of Nescafe and Players No 6 cigarettes. Richard preferred mini-cigars!
We got a grant from the Student Union. We didn’t take money from the University because we valued our independence and anticipated that we might have critical things we wanted or needed to say. We very much saw Nouse as representing the student voice.”
Bryan explained to me the kinds of articles written for Nouse in the 60s.
“A lot of it was about the University itself, reporting on developments from a student perspective. We would also report on the politics of the Student Union which had established a lively and inevitably controversial Student Debating Society. We used to get outside speakers from the worlds of politics and journalism.”
“The integration of the university with the city wasn’t without its problems. It was new for the city to have students and we weren’t universally well received, especially in some of the pubs by the youth of the city. There was a kind of rivalry, if you like, between the ‘Leather Jackets’ from York and the ‘Corduroy Jackets’ from the University. And the pubs were lively places, they used to have rock bands playing. We used to go and soak up the vibe, and sometimes the vibe could be a little bit hostile, on occasion escalating to fisticuffs.
And on the cultural side, we would report on gigs including the Jimi Hendrix Experience performing on a makeshift stage in the refectory of the recently opened Derwent Hall.
We would also report on excellent student drama performances such as a memorable production of Shakespeare’s Richard II in the Kings Manor courtyard.”
“York also formed part of a student initiative The New Universities Festival’, which I’m sure no longer exists because the ‘new universities’ are not ‘new’ anymore. So we were part of a consortium which included Lancaster, Sussex, East Anglia and later Essex and Kent all established in the mid-60s. And every year we would congregate at one of the universities where there would be a lot of music, dancing, experimental, arts, drinking, and well you know what students are like when they get together” – he chuckled – “It was a kind of high-energy cultural exchange, really.”
Grace: “And how does it feel to see the legacy you left behind at York? I mean we have a team of over 60 editors, and so many writers.”
Bryan: “60! Do you have editorial meetings?”
Grace: “Yes, once a week”, I laughed.
Bryan: “Oh, that is amazing. So how do I feel about it? Well I feel excited and proud of it really. I have to say, when Richard and I came back for the 50th anniversary, there were students there and ex-students who’d gone into careers in journalism. And they came up to us and said how grateful they were that we had set up the newspaper because it gave them the chance of a way-in to journalism and they’d made careers out of it. I have to say that I was quite touched and moved, by these statements of gratitude.”
“We didn’t do it with a view of it necessarily lasting that long, but it has and that’s because there’s always been an enthusiasm among young people for doing media and journalism.”
Upon leaving York in 1967, Bryan decided to move to Bristol to study for a PGCE, a teaching qualification. “I didn’t know what I was going to do in 1967, but I’d always toyed with the idea of teaching. I’d had some very good teachers in school, and some very good teachers at university, and some really crap ones too! So I thought I’d like to try teaching.”
“Half-way through the first term, during one of the tutorials, the tutor asked if anyone was interested in going to teach in Africa. And I thought, I had been sitting in this seminar for six weeks and the experience was beginning to feel like a continuation of what I had been doing at York. And I felt that here was a chance for doing something active and adult. So, I went and taught at a government secondary school in the north of Nigeria, and I really found it fascinating and so different from anything I had experienced back home. “After a year in Nigeria, I came back to Bristol, finished my PGCE, and got my first teaching job in Bristol. The students were interesting, but the teachers weren’t so, except for one or two. And I realised the kids really weren’t thriving – not just in my lessons, but in other people’s lessons too.”
So, while teaching poetry at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, to students clearly more interested in the weekend ahead, Bryan was surprised to be invited by them to visit their local youth club.
“They didn’t much take to the poetry, but they said they were going to the club afterwards, and would I like to come along. They said ‘We’re much nicer outside of school, than we are in school’ – and they were! So I went down there and I thought this is how I want to work with young people.”
Bryan left his job in teaching to pursue a career in youth and community work, moving to a new town in South Wales and then to London to run an experimental community education centre in Spitalfields in London’s East End for the Inner London Education Authority. He was later encouraged to apply to join Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) for Schools as a specialist in youth work and adult education. “Youth unemployment was high and I thought there was an opportunity to influence policy.”
Bryan worked for HMI for 12 years in the days pre-Ofsted, reporting on work around the country, and seeking to improve the standards and quality of youth work.
“So that’s what I did until I was 50. I then worked as a freelance consultant for charities, local authorities and the government: trying to influence policies and services so that they better responded to the needs of young people.”
Bryan retired about five years ago, but in reflection on his career he commented: “I’d like to think I had been able to make a little difference. I think public service is really important. We need young people with drive, imagination and talent. And I think we need to help them cultivate more of what I like to call the 3 R’s: Resilience, Resourcefulness and Resolve.”
I think we have a lot to thank Bryan for, as student journalists at York, as young people for his commitment to youth work, and as people for his dedication to public service.
I’d like to thank Bryan for taking part in the AlumNouse series. It is particularly special to have interviewed him ahead of Nouse’s 60th anniversary, and we hope there are many more anniversaries to come.
Want to get involved? Whether you are a current UoY student and want to write for AlumNOUSE, or you’re a York alum and want to share your story, please contact me via my email: grace.bannister@nouse.co.uk.
