Communal Life – page 2

(continued from previous post)

Back in the late 1980s I remember talking to a former president and vice-president of the Students Union of an art college and them telling me that once they had attended a London conference dealing with student welfare and they had had their travelling expenses covered by the National Union of Students (NUS), and I thought that that sounded like a bit of alright as trips to London were still enough of a novelty for me then. “He who is tired of London is tired of life,” as Dr Johnson said. I did not think that a handful of years later I would be president of the Students Union at the same art college. I wish I could say that I was democratically elected by the college’s student populace based on my sparkling personality and outspoken commitment to improving the welfare of students on both a local and national level, but the truth of the matter is that I was self-appointed as were all of the executive because no-one else wanted to take up those roles. There were about five of us taking on about ten positions which meant we were all doubling up with more than one title. I was, for instance, also Publicity Officer as I had a rudimentary knowledge of DTP. The only other member of the executive I can remember was the Treasurer who was the child of the sitting local Member of Parliament – I think the US equivalent would be the Congressperson – although they themselves never became “famous”. The only really famous graduate of the college I can think of is not a visual artist, but is a musical artist, David Gray, and although we might have overlapped I do not recall meeting him, and I guess that he would anyway have been hanging out in a different social circle – with the cool crowd. My motives for becoming President were not totally altruistic, I have to confess, as I was playing the long game – should I ever graduate I thought it would look good on my CV/resume. Halfway through my term as President the NUS called a demonstration in London to protest against what the sitting government had said was in the offing – tuition fees for undergraduates. You might find this hard to believe but when I was a student in the UK if you showed enough aptitude for or knowledge in a subject and got through the application process and interview to be accepted onto a course in a higher-education institution then, generally speaking, the government would cover not only the cost of your education but also give you something called a maintenance grant which was a contribution towards your living costs and the materials you needed to follow your course. There are bound to be students of all political persuasions (or with no political views at all) in a college but I thought that this cause – to prevent the introduction of tuition fees for future generations of students – was non-partisan enough to get the full support of every student at the college; I thought I would have to limit the number of students who would go up with me to London. In the run-up to the rally in London I went around the college, interrupting classes and buttonholing groups of students in my endeavours to get them to join me on the trip to London. However, I failed to enlist a single other person to go. I could understand it if people were put off by the prospect of spending several hours in my company – I would be the first to admit I am not the life and soul of the party – but I explained in my entreaty that I had arranged with the President of the Students Union of the teacher-training college which sat next door to us that we were going to share the minibus that they were sending up with their cohort of protesters. We got on with those students; there was no animosity or even rivalry between us and we were allowed use of their [subsidised] Students Union bar as well as their superior library. I attribute work pressure for the lack of take-up from my college to make the journey. Art and design is a notoriously difficult field to break into and even though it was some months before finals or exhibitions needed to be thought of (the NUS took that into consideration) art students were always in a state of continuous assessment, and couldn’t learn just the minimum needed to pass exams and pray the right questions turned up.

(continued)