In October 1979 Imperial College Students’ Union staged a series of protests against government education cuts. Occupation of the Senior Dining Room was one part of these protests. Another took place on Commemoration Day itself. Those who took part in the occupation, together with many others carrying placards and wearing black armbands, joined in a “Funeral March” following a black coffin, held aloft by six students, through the Beit building and on a journey around the Royal Albert Hall. Students were already leafleting the parents and other visitors to the ceremony in the Albert Hall.
STOIC were there to record the event and reporter Bob Powell spoke to a future ICU President John Passmore. Note that the incorrect name was used by Mike Prosser in the studio introduction to the news report.
Peter Mee graduated in economics from University College London. In 1959 he moved to Imperial as assistant planning officer, a position he held for eight years and in 1967 was appointed registrar, a post he held until 1996, then becoming College secretary and clerk to the governors until his retirement. In collaboration with John Smith, the then secretary to the College, he formed the Harlington Trust.
Consistent throughout Peter Mee’s time at Imperial had been his support of sporting activities. He had been president of the IC Union Football Club and chairman of the Harlington Athletic Ground Committee. And the boat named after him by the IC Boat Club has crossed the winning line twice at Henley.
This discussion between Peter Mee and Anne Barrett, the college archivist, was recorded in the college TV Studio in May 2006. It was used, in part, during Imperial’s centenary celebrations in 2007. This is the first time that the full interview has been made available.
In 1979 BBC Radio London obtained a world record for broadcasting for 48 hours non stop. IC Radio were there as part of the attempt and Paul Johnson spoke to Harvey Nadin the newly elected IC Radio manager about this and his plans for the station in the new academic year. However, in January the following year (1980) Harvey resigned from his post. This could well be the only interview with him about IC Radio, unless I uncover something else!
Page 2 of the January 14th edition of the student newspaper FELIX has the report on his resignation.
Some of the tape has been damaged which you’ll see as lines running down the screen.
Today marks ten years since the Imperial College Centenary Ceremony. If you click on the link in the previous sentence you can see the special page that was created with many memories contributed by past & present staff & students. See if you can spot my contribution too. But can you really believe it’s ten years since all the fun and games that marked the centenary of Imperial College from 1907-2007? The overall one-year celebration period was entitled “100 years of living science“. What you will see below are videos from that celebration period. However, in a previous blog I included the celebrations for Imperial’s 50th Anniversary Jubilee in 1957.
Things kicked off in the Great Hall on 30th January 2007 with the Rector Sir Richard Sykes giving his centenary launch lecture.
The highlight of the year was on 9th July 2007 when HM Queen attended the centenary ceremony in the college main entrance. We covered the event with three cameras running on wireless links to avoid any cables. This also enabled us to get shots from the pavement when Her Majesty, along with HRH Prince Philip, arrived and departed, in the royal car. You’ll see the latter at the end of the video. The whole ceremony was also relayed via a web-stream around the World, one of the earliest we had done. One of the cameramen got a lovely shot when the Queen was signing the visitors book just before her departure. Like many of these events you can plan well ahead, but at the time it happens you’ve not really had a rehearsal. As I always say about this type of event, you can’t ask the Queen to do a run-through and camera rehearsal for you! So, it’s nice when you can get some great unexpected shots as you’ll see in the video. Please note that unlike BBC broadcasts of such events, there is no added commentary.
A few days after the centenary ceremony a college-wide/campuses-wide staff party was held. On 11th July 2007 a party was held like nothing Imperial had ever seen, or has seen since for that matter. We covered that party during the entire time, as you’ll see in the video below, which was presented by Darren Queralt.
Because many people, including us, were actually working during the staff party, another event was put on at the end of the year in December. It was the Beach Party and here I am with my colleague Martin Sayers and Rector Sir Richard Sykes all trying to look like it was Summer, even though it wasn’t. And hey, I still had a video camera with me it seems! I must look for that tape…
In January 1979 a mass boycott was organised against the college increasing the price of food on campus. From the 26th January edition of Felix it was reported that:
“The Union is to organise a 24 hour boycott of Southside Refectory in protest against poor quality food and high prices.
The decision by Tuesday’s Union Meeting reverses the recommendation of IC Union Executive to postpone the boycott. Union President Mary Attenborough appealed for mass support for the boycott.”
Mary Attenborough was the 73rd Union President (1978-1979) and here, from May of 1979, she’s talking to Mark Foley about this and the possibility of the union setting up their own ‘snackbar’.
(This edition of Summer Lunch Break was one of the first to contain material originated from the college TV studio in colour, but as we only had the one colour camera multi-camera interviews continued to be recorded in black and white.)
This is one video in a series that we recorded called ‘Academic Interviews’ and it featured Professor Dame Julia Higgins.
Julia has been studying the behaviour of complex materials, particularly polymers, at Imperial College London since joining as a lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Department in 1976. Her research group specialises in the use of neutron scattering techniques to investigate polymer behaviour. She was appointed reader in 1985 and professor of polymer sciences in 1989.
She was elected Dean of the City and Guilds College from 1993 to 1997 and was appointed CBE in 1996. In 1995 Julia was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1999. She was named a Dame in the 2001 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Here, she is talking with Professor Lord Robert Winston.
With the announcement from Buckingham Palace that Prince Philip (1921-2021) has sadly died, I thought I’d look back at two visits by him to Imperial College events.
Strictly speaking, the first one is not an actual visit to the campus but rather to the 1985 City and Guilds Centenary dinner held at the Guild Hall in London. He was the special guest and main speaker at the dinner and this was what he said.
During the Imperial College 2007 Centenary Celebrations a ceremony was held in the main entrance. The college conferred on Prince Philip the Degree of Doctor of Science. Lord Kerr was, at the time, Chairman of the Court and Council, the Rector was Sir Richard Sykes.
In July 2006, John Smith former College Secretary (1979-1989) spoke to the College Archivist Anne Barrett in the college TV Studio.
His recording formed part of the Imperial College centenary celebrations held during 2007 and this is the first time that recording has been seen in full. It’s a great insight into some of the working of the college during his time in office. There are also plenty of stories and memories of things he was involved with. The photo shows him with former Rector the late Lord Flowers.
I haven’t featured any of the ‘entertainment’ interviews made by STOIC before, but this one is relevant. We interviewed Andrew Sachs, famous for Fawlty Towers, 36 years ago in 1980, a few months after the TV studio went into colour production. This was also during the 10th anniversary year of STOIC. His death was announced in the last few days and I thought it was appropriate to re-share this now.
This is another presentation recorded on 29 January 1998 at the Chapman/Whitehead Memorial Meeting. Alfred Whitehead (1861-1947) and Sydney Chapman (1888-1970) were both former heads of the Mathematics Department during the 1920’s.
Philip Davis gave the A.N.Whitehead (photo right) Lecture entitled Mathematical Evidence. Davis is known for his work in numerical analysis and approximation theory, as well as investigations in the history and philosophy of mathematics.
