a glasgow caledonian university 20th anniversary ......a glasgow caledonian university 20th...

A Glasgow Caledonian University 20th Anniversary Celebration:

The Dough School in the1950s and 1960s

Wednesday 10 April 2013, 2.00pm to 4.00pmThe Saltire Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University

Presented by the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare

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The Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s

Brighter futures begin with GCU 2


‘ It was very special. If you’d said ‘Dough School’ to half of Scotland, they knew what you were talking about.’

Anna Johnstone

In 2012 we began to examine the history of the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science, known locally, and by many of its alumni, as the ‘Dough School’. This institution had its roots in the Glasgow School of Cookery, founded in 1875, and took its name following a merger with the West End School of Cookery in 1908. In 1975, the College adopted the name of Queen’s College, and in 1993 it merged with Glasgow Polytechnic to form Glasgow Caledonian University.

We focused on the experiences of women who had studied at the Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s. Following a coffee afternoon with alumni from this era in July 2012, we carried out a series of oral history interviews with former students, in which our respondents reflected on their decision to study at the College; their experiences while students of the Dough School, and their subsequent careers. These interviews, which will be added to the Glasgow Caledonian University Institutional Archive, form the basis of this leaflet and the accompanying exhibition, ‘A Glasgow Caledonian University 20th Anniversary Celebration: The Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s’. We have also drawn upon

recollections noted down by attendees at the July coffee afternoon.

Taken alongside materials from the Institutional Archive, these new interviews provide us for the first time with an insider’s account of what life was like for the students of the Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s. Interviewees recalled the demanding, wide-ranging nature of the courses they studied and the strict discipline of the College. However, they also brought to light memories of friendship, mishaps - and rule bending! In an era when women’s work within the home was prized, the courses offered by the Dough School enabled many women to apply scientific knowledge relating to diet and nutrition to everyday life in a wide range of careers.

We would like to warmly thank the University’s archivist Carole McCallum for her assistance, knowledge and enthusiasm for the project. Carole is the co-author (alongside Willie Thompson) of Glasgow Caledonian University: Its Origins and Evolution, and we recommend this richly detailed account if you would like to know more about the history of the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of

Domestic Science. We’d also like to thank the alumni office which has generously facilitated this event, and our colleagues Carol Barry (Programme Leader for the current BA/BA (Hons) Fashion Business Programme) and Dr Jennie Jackson (Lecturer in Human Nutrition and Dietetics) for their assistance with today’s events. We are very grateful to Lindsey Becket at DARO for allowing us to reproduce part of an interview that she did with Phyllida Law, Scottish Actress, author and mother of Emma and Sophie Thompson, who was also an ex-student of the Dough School. The full interview can be read in the April 2013 edition of the Alumni Magazine. Funding from the Wellcome Trust and DARO has supported this event. Above all, we would like to thank all the alumni who attended the coffee afternoon last July, who generously contributed their time to tell us about their experiences, who brought in items they had made as students, or who have previously contributed to the archival collections. Without you, there would be no exhibition!

Dr Vicky Long and Rhona Blincow, Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, Glasgow Caledonian University, April 2013.

A Glasgow Caledonian University 20th Anniversary Celebration: The Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s

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‘ It was thought that you would have this career until you got married.’

Jessie Vivers

IntroductionIn the second half of the nineteenth century, Glasgow faced a number of health problems. A rapidly growing population led to overcrowding in inner-city areas which, combined with inadequate sanitation, fuelled outbreaks of epidemic disease and led to a heightened

infant mortality rate. The establishment of the Glasgow School of Cookery and the rival West End School of Cookery was in part a response to the poor health of many of the city’s inhabitants, for both schools envisaged that they could improve the city’s health records by educating working-class women about diet and nutrition. Both institutions rapidly expanded their functions to include the training of domestic science teachers. In 1919, the College moved to new premises on Park Drive. In the interwar years it provided certificate and diploma courses for women aspiring to become housekeepers, domestic science teachers, laundresses, domestic servants, dieticians, cooks and dressmakers.

Following the cessation of the Second World War, reconstruction policies sought to tackle housing shortages and slum housing conditions, and to redress Glasgow’s poor health record. In the aftermath of the War, women’s domestic roles as housewife and mother were idealised. Their working careers received less attention, as it was often assumed that women would leave the workforce for good when they married. Jessie Vivers recalled, ‘It was thought that you Miss Gibson

would have this career until you got married.’ ‘Somebody actually said to my father, “Why are you bothering educating a girl? She’ll get married”’, recalled Ann Marshall. ‘Fortunately’, she observed, ‘I had enlightened parents!’

Studying at the Dough SchoolOur interviewees’ experience of the Dough School typically commenced with an interview for their course. Many recalled being interviewed by Miss Gibson, Principal of the College between 1947 and 1962, whom Margaret Howie remembered as ‘very gentile’. Their motivations for applying to the College were mixed. Susan Duffy explained that ‘to go into a career such as teaching and to go to Dough School had quite a high status...I was living Mum’s dream!’ A number of our respondents, like Duffy, commented on the College’s prestigious reputation, noting that it was viewed almost as a finishing school. For some, studying at the College was a stepping stone to their desired career or a compromise: Anna Johnstone, for example, wanted to be a dietician, while Jessie Vivers had hoped to become a PE teacher.

However, the personal factor was also

‘ Somebody actually said to my father, Why are you bothering educating a girl? She’ll get married, Fortunately, I had enlightened parents!’

Ann Marshall



‘ My mother had a frustrated ambition to go to Dough School, so she brainwashed me into thinking it was a good idea!’

Sheila Dunbar

College Prospectus 1949-1950

significant. A number of interviewees were inspired to apply because family members or teachers had studied there before them. Jan Winch’s mother and grandmother had both studied at the Dough School, as

had Anna Johnstone’s mother and aunts. Other interviewees were urged to go by family members who had wanted to study at the Dough School, but had not had the opportunity. ‘My mother had a frustrated ambition to go to Dough School’, Sheila Dunbar explained, ‘so she brainwashed me into thinking it was a good idea!’

In this era, the College’s teaching provision focussed on courses in domestic science, needlework, institutional management and dietetics. In the mid-1950s, students could study cookery, laundry work, housewifery, needlework and science in relation to domestic science for the three year Diploma I course, or needlework, dressmaking and tailoring, millinery and crafts, textiles, art and embroidery for Diploma II. The four year Diploma III course combined aspects of Diplomas I and II. In 1961, a new three-year diploma course in institutional management was added to the curriculum, and over the course of the 1960s the certificate courses offered by the College were removed from the curriculum.

Many graduates believed that the breadth of

the College’s courses and the emphasis upon perfection provided a training which equipped them for life. Fiona Weir, Catherine Taylor and Jan Douglas believed that the course imparted ‘great transferable skills which we have all used in our careers’. ‘Dough School gave us great standards’, they concluded. Rigorous scientific content was embedded within many of the College’s courses. Susan Duffy explained how she ‘developed a love of science from the course. We had a super science teacher, Miss King…and she really introduced (me) to science, to chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology…and I absolutely adored these subjects.’ However, the education provided to students was frequently practical and applied: Jean Macfarlane and Alice MacMillan remembered studying home plumbing and the efficiency of a kettle during their course, and achieving the Electricity for Women Certificate. Students also received practical experience of household management by making beds and cleaning toilets in the student hostel (this latter task, unsurprisingly, was not a popular chore!). Learning was equally rigorous on the Diploma II course, where graduates recalled having to collect a specified number of garments in different colours and fabrics for their laundry

‘ We were called by our surnames.’

Sheila Dunbar

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classes which had to be ‘displayed artistically’ after rinsing in seven basins of water in which the temperature diminished.

Didactic learning methods appear to have predominated at the College, as Jan Winch explained: ‘you were taught very much how things had to be done; you had to roll pastry a certain way, you had to iron a shirt a certain way.’ ‘You weren’t trained to challenge and think deeply’, she reflected. Similarly, one graduate who had studied for Diploma III in the 1950s recalled that ‘the processes were taught step by step, then working in pairs we would repeat the recipes step by step. There was never any discussion about methods used.’ Many graduates of the College subsequently entered the teaching profession, and as this alumnus explained, ‘we were taught the correct process so that out in schools all pupils would be taught the same traditional method’. Some respondents recalled having to lower their standards when they started to teach.

The regime at the College was undeniably rigorous, and many interviewees viewed it as a continuation of school. Jan Winch, for example, likened it to ‘a strict boarding school’,

while Jean Macfarlane and Alice McMillan described the experience as an ‘extension of school, as we were governed by bells!’ Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, students were required to wear different coloured overalls for different subjects; one day Jean Macfarlane spilt acid on her green science overalls and had to patch pocket the hole! However, a number of our interviewees were amenable to this structured learning approach and did not rebel. ‘We were very...hauden doon’, recalled Jessie Vivers. Similarly, Sheila Dunbar explained that ‘you just toed the line. Perfection was our standard and nothing but perfection would do’. ‘We had a lot of fun’, recalled Ann Marshall, ‘but we didn’t push the boundaries’.

Other students, however, bridled a little at the strict regime. Rosemary White described her course as ‘an intense learning experience’ and remarked that it ‘took years to de-stress’. She remembered how collectively her class had rushed a piece of homework assigned by the English teacher due to the pressure of coursework - ‘preparation for practical cookery, starching aprons, science homework, washing overalls, finding stuff for practical laundry work,

learning the copious notes on cookery theory and nutrition theory’. Rosemary described how Miss Calder ‘thundered into our needlework class’ and ‘we all got roared at’. Yet, she reflected, ‘it can’t have been all that bad – I taught for forty years and still do supply.’ Other students also struggled to balance their workload. One alumnus who studied Diploma II in the 1960s described the Dough School as ‘very institutionalised. Very strict.’ The workload on her course was so heavy that she went to the Summer Ball and then stayed up all night to complete her special studies log book, which had to be submitted the next day!

As part of their course, students were required to stay in the College’s model flat for a week. For some, this was a very serious matter to be approached with trepidation. Catherine McKail, for example, found the experience of catering for her lecturers nerve-wracking, explaining ‘you were scared to do anything wrong’. Other students viewed the week in the flat as an opportunity for fun, pranks and dares. Susan Duffy remembered cleaning the flat, planning menus and entertaining Miss Calder for tea (Principle of the College from 1963 until 1976). ‘It was good fun’, she recalled,


‘ We had a super science teacher, Miss King…and she really introduced (me) to science, to chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology…and I absolutely adored these subjects.’

Susan Duffy

‘ ...you were taught very much how things had to be done; you had to roll pastry a certain way, you had to iron a shirt a certain way.’

Jan Winch



One of the laboratories

Cake icingDressmaking

‘ Perfection was our standard and nothing but perfection would do.’

Sheila Dunbar

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‘ A group of us met in one of the large hostel bedrooms in hostel 9D and made coffee and hot chocolate on a one plate electric cooker which we hid under the bed.’

Beryl Harley

‘ We had a lot of fun, but we didn’t push the boundaries.’

Ann Marshall

1954 dietetic students in hostel



she did have an awkward moment when she spilt a jar of ink over the dining table just before the lecturers arrived for dinner! This was not the only mishap to take place in the flat: Anna Johnstone took part in an Ouija board session, but afterwards discovered that the Hepplewhite table in the flat, ‘the pride and joy of the Dough School’, was covered in circles. Fortunately Johnstone and her friends were able to remove the marks before they were noticed! Isabel Telford, Ann Todd, Eleanor Dick, Eileen McLeod and Jean Rankin mischievously served spaghetti to the staff members during their tenure at the model flat, in the hope that their lecturers would struggle to eat this. They were disappointed when their lecturers simply cut up and eat the spaghetti without ado!

‘I think a lot of the skills [we learned] have died out’, Jan Winch reflected in her interview. Indeed, a number of our respondents remembered learning skills at the College which they never used afterwards, such as patching wallpaper, making lampshades, making up starch and making haggis from scratch. Occasionally, things went wrong. One student described making a pair of leather gloves which did not fit her hands, because her

tutor refused to accept that she had such long fingers. Another student literally ‘spiced up’ her education by accidentally dipping her cheese straws into cayenne pepper, as opposed to paprika. This mistake only came to light when the tutor tasted the straws! Sometimes mistakes eluded detection: one student attempted to make scones in a test, and was praised for her good biscuits. Occasionally, the students actively subverted the rules. Susan Duffy, for example knitted two baby jackets: one for her own assignment, and one for a friend who struggled with knitting! Susan, who was awarded the Isabella Gray memorial prize for Household Management and a Distinction in Dress and Design, had a flair for expressing her creativity within the confines of the College’s regulations. Thus, Susan progressively chose her favoured colours of black and purple for her fashion assignments, and incorporated fashionable Indian design principles into a toy elephant.

To what extent had the Dough School regime liberalised over the end of our period? Fiona Wier, Catherine Taylor and Jan Douglas, who studied between 1969 and 1973, believed that customs at the Dough School were changing,

for they were the first intake allowed to wear trousers! Susan Duffy, who also started at the College in 1969, noted that the Student Union housed very up-to-date facilities, including Friday night discos. However, she remarked ‘it was very much the swinging sixties, and Dough School was not swinging at that time!’

Socialising at the Dough SchoolMany students travelled into the College on a daily basis, but those who lived further afield resided in the College’s hostel. Life within the hostel divided our interviewees. Ann Smith, for example, remembered feeling ‘terribly homesick’. Many, however, had very fond memories of their time here, and spoke warmly about the friends they had made. ‘Hostel life was a bit prison-like but very enjoyable with lots of enduring friendships made’, recalled one formed student who had studied Diploma II in the 1960s. Beryl Harley remembered how ‘a group of us met in one of the large hostel bedrooms in hostel 9D and made coffee and hot chocolate on a one plate electric cooker which we hid under the bed’. The hostel operated a 10.30pm curfew from Sunday to Thursday, extended to 11.15 on Fridays and Saturdays. Residents were allowed a few

‘ I think a lot of skills (we learned) have died out!’

Jan Winch

Making a bed Hoovering the flat Laundry

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‘ Boyfriends got as far as the porter’s desk; no further.’

Ann Smith

late night passes a term, enabling them to occasionally stay out until midnight or 2am. Beryl and her friends Alexa Welsh, Jean Wilson and Sheena MacDonald enjoying the dances held at the vet school on a Friday night. This finished at 11pm, allowing the ladies to get back to the hostel before curfew! Jean Wilson and Margaret Goodie were lucky enough to share the only double room in the hostel. This had the added advantage of overlooking a flat roof, enabling Jean and Margaret to climb through the window and sunbathe.

On a day to day basis, the Student Union offered a space to take a quick break with fellow students and enjoy a Chelsea bun, as Jean Macfarlane and Alice McMillan remember doing. Lunches, recalled one group of friends who had studied Diploma III between 1959 and 1963, ‘were often not particularly nice, including prune jelly.’ For many students the College Ball was a highlight of the social calendar. This event was held at the Plaza and operated a soft drinks bar, although Beryl and her friends enjoyed a babycham and brandy at the Star Bar beforehand. They remember that Miss Gibson wore a long purple dress while Miss Taylor (Principle Lecturer in Domestic

‘ Sandra and I went to the Dough School Ball in our third year and it was quite funny because everyone had identical dresses because we had all made them… so I counted at least ten dresses in my style!’

Sheila Dunbar

Photo courtesy of Elspeth Smylie

Brighter futures begin with GCU

‘ Some people were reluctant to invite me over for dinner, fearing that as one is a Home Economics person one is bound to be a Domestic Goddess…I wish!’

Rosemary White

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Science) wore a grey dress. ‘Sandra and I went to the Dough School Ball in our third year’, recalled Sheila Dunbar; ‘and it was quite funny because everyone had identical dresses because we had all made them… so I counted at least ten dresses in my style!’

A Woman-Only Space?The Dough School, Sheila Dunbar observed, was ‘a college that was run by women and full of women’. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the only men to be found on College premises were porters and maintenance staff, and, as Anna Johnstone noted, ‘we used to joke that workmen always came in twos’. Only in 1969, the very end of the period studied for this project, was the first full-time male staff member appointed. Patricia Fitzgerald recalled that one lecturer refused to allow male students to enter the Park Drive buildings, ‘despite our pleas to let them in’.

The exclusion of men from the College extended to the hostel – at least officially. Ann Smith recalled that boyfriends ‘got as far as the porter’s desk; no further’. In practice, however, students devised ways of sneaking male visitors into the hostel. During Rag Week

there was a raid on Dough School and Ann Smith remembered her boyfriend at the time, Jimmy, having to hide in the wardrobe when the warden came in saying, ‘Girls, girls, you mustn’t go out…there’s boys!’ While spending her week in the model flat, Susan Duffy snuck a boy friend in and out of the building via a window in the basement of the building, ‘simply for the “dare” and excitement of the ploy!’

Careers A number of our interviewees chose to study a particular diploma as a means of attainting their desired career. Many, for example, studied at the Dough School in order to qualify as a Domestic Science Teacher and entered this career after graduating. Jan Winch’s first post after qualifying was in Greenock High School where the Head of Department was her aunt Margaret Nicol. However, Susan Duffy trained to teach Home Economics, but decided it wasn’t for her after three months in her first job. Miss Calder was very supportive to her and asked if she had considered primary teaching which led her to take this up.

Other courses, such as the Institutional

Management Diploma, were far more open ended. Patricia FitzPatrick believed that the breadth of her course ‘allowed me to chose and work in a wide variety of posts’. After graduating, her jobs included positions in school meals, commercial catering, advising on basic nutritional cookery and budgeting in adult/community education and running her own catering business. Similarly, Sandra Ritchie believed that the depth of the course ‘allowed you to do a wide spectrum of jobs – management jobs that would encompass all the subjects in the curriculum.’ Her career encompassed posts in school meals, Clydeside College, Manager of the dining rooms at Royal Bank of Scotland on Buchanan Street and Manager of the White House in Glasgow.Many of our interviewees gave up work to raise a family. However, most returned to work after their children had grown up. Marion Campbell studied Catering Management and Advanced Cookery before taking up a catering post at the Scottish Television Centre. The hours here were very long, and Marion subsequently took up a post in the canteen at Babcock and Wilcox, before her appointment as Manageress of the Ceylon Tea Centre on Buchanan Street.

‘ a college that was run by women and full of women.’

Sheila Dunbar

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Marion loved this post, which she stayed in for three years before leaving to marry and bring up children. This was not, however, the end of Marion’s career. Years later, Marion met up with another Dough School alumnus, and together they established their own cookery business. Promoted solely through word of mouth, this very successful business ran for fourteen years before the pair retired.

Undoubtedly, the College’s diplomas equipped its graduates to undertake a varied array of demanding careers. They did not, however, equip graduates to meet all of life’s eventualities. ‘When I got married, I was in charge of a place that cooked for hundreds’, Ann Marshall recalled, but I had never cooked for two!’ Rosemary White found that some people were reluctant to invite her over for dinner, fearing ‘that as one is a Home Economics person one is bound to be a Domestic Goddess…I wish!!’

Diet and NutritionGlasgow has a long history of comparatively poor health outcomes, linked to poverty, housing and diet. As unemployment rose in the interwar years, attention focussed on the

difficulties of maintaining an adequate diet which would preserve health and prevent deficiency diseases. Some believed that educating women about budgeting, shopping and preparing health meals could resolve these difficulties. Others, however, such as Scottish scientist John Boyd Orr, questioned whether those on the lowest incomes could afford an adequate diet.

The Dough School had long been interested in questions of diet and health. The Glasgow School of Cookery and West End School of Cookery had both been founded with the purpose of educating working-class women in cookery, and during the First World War College staff provided cookery demonstrations to working-class housewives. Most of the College’s courses imparted knowledge of diet and nutrition, and those students who became Domestic Science teachers after graduating in turn applied this knowledge in the classroom.

Dietetics, which had been taught at the College since 1925, was formulated into a diploma course in 1954. Students on this postgraduate diploma course received training in nutrition and diet therapy, biochemistry, bacteriology,


‘ I knew I was definitely going to do something in the…professions supplementary to medicine. ‘

Elizabeth (Betty) Hudson

physiology and chemistry, and undertook a six month placement in a hospital dietetics department. The course offered some women an opportunity to establish a career in a relatively new field of health and medicine.

Elizabeth (Betty) Hudson had been awarded a diploma in Home Management Teaching at Edinburgh College of Domestic Science with the intention of becoming a teacher. However, she understandably questioned this decision when two girls in the school she was teaching in picked up bread knives and started to lay into each other. She decided to study dietetics at the Dough School because ‘I wanted to deal with people with illness and disease’. Ann Busby’s family had a tradition of work in the medical sector, and her uncle worked as a GP in ‘one of the less affluent areas’ of Glasgow. While studying for the Institutional Management Diploma at the Dough School, Busby realised that ‘it was definitely the scientific side I was interested in’. She decided to apply for the dietetics course afterwards, as ‘I knew I was definitely going to do something in the…professions supplementary to medicine’.

‘ The clinics were a real strength in those days, It was an education for me…anything that you had to say to them [the clients] had to be extremely practical.’

Ann Busby



Basic food groups

‘ It was a very concentrated course and it was hard work.’


‘ Every part of the day was full of something. We had to wear unifoirm for everything.’

Susan Duffy

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The atmosphere on the postgraduate diploma in dietetics appears to have been more informal than other diploma courses. ‘There was only four in my cohort’, Ann explained, ‘so it was chatty’. The course included lectures given by hospital consultants, and Elizabeth described visiting Rottenrow Maternity Hospital, where she stayed to watch a caesarean operation, and the renal unit at the Glasgow Royal, where she fainted! ‘Visits to hospitals made us feel as though we were progressing towards employment in the NHS’, she explained. Ann was taught by Mary Andross, who she remembered as ‘a very interesting and inspirational woman’. During the First World War, Andross had worked for the Ministry of Munitions Inspectorate on Poison Gases. She joined the College as a lecturer in 1925, and served as Head of Department between 1940 and 1965. During the Second World War, Andross demonstrated to housewives how to can and bottle fruit, and publicised the vitamin C content of dog-rose hips.

Andross believed that dietetics had a role to play in the wider community, as well as the hospital, and Ann became Glasgow’s first

community health dietician: one of only three in the UK at this time. Dr Nora Wattie, the principle medical officer of health for maternity and child welfare in Glasgow, recognised the need to have a dietician’s involvement and Ann worked in health and welfare clinics and with health visitors in Cowcaddens, Bridgeton and Drumchapel. ‘The clinics were a real strength in those days’, Ann recalled. ‘It was an education for me…anything that you had to say to them [the clients] had to be extremely practical’.

Elizabeth got a job at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the renal unit in 1968, and was appointed the first specialist renal dietician in 1974. Throughout her career, she collaborated with colleagues in the unit to devise new diet-based approaches to managing kidney failure. Like Ann, she reflected in her interview on questions of finance and diet. ‘People blame a shortage of money for their bad health and I don’t know that it’s as simple as that’, she commented. Yet, she acknowledged that she took her patients’ finances into consideration when working out a diet plan. Not all Elizabeth’s patients struggled to afford a suitable diet, however. ‘I remember someone

who was terribly posh…and I presume very wealthy’, Elizabeth recalled, ‘and I had given him advice about a low protein diet and he said, ‘I just had a TINY little bit of pheasant last night.’

The Significance of the Dough SchoolA good deal has now been written about the history of pioneer women doctors and scientists who campaigned to secure equality for women in these sectors. By contrast, the work of women who applied scientific knowledge to everyday life, industrial contexts and interpersonal interactions has been overlooked. This oral history project has sought to redress this balance by highlighting the important and at times pioneering role played by the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science and its graduates, who imparted their knowledge in classrooms, canteens, hospitals and communities. Well-equipped by the broad ranging nature of the College’s courses, these capable graduates of the Dough School combined family life with varied career paths in the socially conservative post-war era, many maintaining friendships with fellow students which persist to this day.

‘ I remember someone who was terribly posh…and I presume very wealthy and I had given him advice about a low protein diet and he said, “I just had a TINY little bit of pheasant last night”.’


‘ How you did your course was as important as the end result.’

Ann Marshall



although Caledonian University, it is still possible to detect some continuity between the workings of the Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s, and the operation of the University today. For example, it appears that the family tradition of attending the Dough School has persisted to some degree. Sandra Ritchie, for example, studied at the Dough School in the 1960s, while her son later studied a BA at GCU. Commenting on the breadth of the curriculum her son studied, Ritchie reflected that ‘it was interesting to see how many things he did that we did’. Indeed, there are clear parallels between the subjects taught at the Dough School in the 1950s and 1960s, and the subjects offered to today’s students, although admittedly the curriculum has been updated! For example, students on the Diploma II course in the 1950s could study needlework, tailoring, dressmaking and millinery, while today the University offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in fashion, marketing and retailing. Indeed, the annual GCU fashion show is as much a feature today as it was some sixty years ago. Similarly, the School of Health and Life Sciences offers an undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics and a postgraduate diploma

in dietetics. Indeed, two of our interviewees, Elizabeth Hudson and Ann Busby, lectured at Glasgow Caledonian University, many years after studying at the Dough School. How much has the ethos of Glasgow Caledonian University changed since the post-war years of the Dough School? It is striking that many of our interviewees for this project came from a middle-class background, and were expected to buy their own course materials on top of their course fees. This could add considerably to the expense of the course for, as one graduate recalled, ‘only the best quality fabrics and threads etc. could be used with silk being preferred.’ Indeed, some of our

interviewees ruminated on the rather exclusive nature of the Dough School. Ann Busby, for example, acknowledged that ‘our training had been rarefied’, while Jan Winch remembered the challenges of imparting the Dough School approach when teaching, reflecting ‘I think we were trying to impose middle-class values on kids who may not have come from that kind of background’. Today, by contrast, Glasgow Caledonian University leads the way in widening access to higher education, working with schools, children and families in the community to raise educational aspirations in young people and their families.

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‘ To my astonishment, both my daughters are excellent cooks. Emma does a wonderful soufflé without even thinking about it which always amazes me, it’s a gift. Sophie is also famous for her 5 hour lamb.’

Phyllida Law

Phyllida Law’s experience of the Dough School‘The Dough School teachers didn’t know quite what to do with three girls doing a Housewifery course , so we were sent to wash down the lavatories with vinegar in the rinsing water, and we’d sit and smoke, shrieking with laughter!’ recalls Phyllida Law, Scottish actress, author and matriarch of the famous Thompson acting dynasty. Phyllida, herself a famous actress, is mother to actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson, and wife of the late Eric Thompson, actor and producer.

Following a brief (and as she puts it ‘miserable!’) spell as a student studying Medicine then French and History, she was sent by her mother to do a Housewifery course at the Dough School. The course was designed to prepare young ladies for married life and looking after their husbands. Her mother, Margaret Cockburn Orr, had attended the Dough School herself to study cookery during the First World War. She told a young Phyllida about an amusing time as a student when she had been to a rugby match with a boy (who it later emerged was her brother) which was considered to be scandalous, and had been

spotted and reported to the Principal of the Dough School who gave her a stern talking to over the matter. Her mother, Phyllida’s beloved Granny, who was a “tiny, terrifying wee lady”, was so furious she marched to the Dough School and gave them a piece of her mind.

She recalls those three months at the Dough School as being ‘enormous fun’. ‘There were three of us who were great friends. We spent most days weak with laughter and did such silly things! One day we were put in a cami knicker-making class where I was absolutely hopeless and a disaster with the graph paper used for patterns,’ she laughs. In the cookery classes, she recalls making drop scones and being asked to wash up afterwards, turning the tray upside-down and sending the freshly baked scones flying all over the classroom. ‘We really did try very hard and did learn some valuable skills, but despite our best efforts we were just hopeless!’

Phyllida still uses her original cookery book from her days as a student, proclaiming proudly that the ‘old recipes are still the best’. She keeps a copy at home in London and another ‘down the glen’ at her home in

Ardentinny, Scotland, owned by the family for the last 53 years. Her daughter Emma also has her grandmother’s original Dough School cookery book with notes still in the margins, a treasured family heirloom. ‘Mother was very good at cooking venison,’ Phyllida remembers. ‘It’s very good if you bury it in the garden for a week and put a wee bit redcurrant jelly to it’ she says, adopting a broad Glaswegian accent to emulate her mother.

When I ask whether the culinary skills have been passed down the family, she replies with amusement: ‘To my astonishment, both my daughters are excellent cooks. Emma does a wonderful soufflé without even thinking about it which always amazes me, it’s a gift. Sophie is also famous for her 5 hour lamb!’ Before I leave I ask if she has any advice for young graduates, to which she replies: ‘Don’t run away to theatre school! No seriously, if you’re doing any kind of cookery, carry on until you can make a good soufflé!’

by Lindsey Becket

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Note:Stories and quotations included in this leaflet have been taken from memories jotted down by alumni in notebooks at the July 2012 coffee afternoon, and from oral history interviews undertaken by Vicky Long and Rhona Blincow with a number of alumni in 2012 and 2013. We have accredited the quotation where possible, however in some instances the notebooks were either unsigned or represented the views of a group. Many respondents gave their surnames before and after marriage, although in some instances it was not always clear which way round these were! We apologise for any errors.

Alexa Welsh/ Thomson, 1956 -1959 Alice McMillan/Blease, 1969-1973Ann Busby/McDougall, 1957 Ann Gregory/Beddie, 1961-1965Ann Marshall/Dobbie, 1961-1965 Ann Smith/Smith, 1961-1965Ann Todd/Brown, 1959-1963Anna Johnstone/Guy, 1957-1960Beryl Harley/Gedge, 1956 -1959 Catherine Taylor/ Ross, 1969-1973Eileen (Isabel) Macleod/Bingham, 1959-1963Eleanor Dick/Dale, 1959-1963

Elizabeth (Betty) Hudson/Sloan, 1966-1968 Elizabeth Neilson/Russell, 1962-1965Elspeth Smylie, 1957Fiona Weir/ Allan, 1969-1973Isabel Telford/Gardner, 1959-1963Isobel Barnard/Campbell, 1962-1965Jan Douglas / Walker, 1969-1973Jan Winch/Levak, 1956-1960Jean Macfarlane/Maddock, 1969-1973Jean Rankin/Currie, 1959-1963.Jean Wilson /Stewart, 1956 -1959Jessie Vivers/Riddle, 1957-1960 Mairi Black/Gibson, 1949Margaret Finnie/Britt, 1962-1965Margaret Goudie/Munro, 1956-1960Margaret Howie/Carter, 1962-1965Marion Campbell/Dalgleish, 1960-1961Patricia E. FitzPatrick/Pert, 1965-1967Rosemary White/ Inglis, 1965-1969.Sandra Loudon/Tennent, 1962-1965Sandra Ritchie /Cameron, 1965-1967Sheena MacDonald/Nicolson, 1956 -1959Sheena McNair, 1956-1960Sheila Dunbar/Haddon, 1962-1965Susan Duffy, 1969-1973

Brighter futures begin with GCU

Written by Dr Vicky Long,Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare,Glasgow Caledonian UniversityCowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA

www.gcu.ac.uk/cshhh

Supported by the Development and Alumni Relations Office, Glasgow Caledonian University and The Wellcome Trust.All images are provided courtesy of Glasgow Caledonian University Institutional Archive unless otherwise stated.

© Glasgow Caledonian University 2013. Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity, number SC021474

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