Skip to navigation | Skip to main content | Skip to footer
Menu
Search the University of Manchester siteSearch Menu StaffNet

Manchester students' WW1 experiences feature in new radio series

14 Apr 2016

In Scenes from Student Life, a new 10-part series currently airing on BBC Radio 4, presenter Ellie Cawthorne guides listeners through nearly 900 years of British student life

In addition to Manchester, Ellie visits the University of St Andrews, St Johns College Cambridge, Trinity College Cambridge, Oxford University, University College London, Royal Holloway London and the University of Essex, where she hears from academics, alumni and current students. Some themes recur from the start, like social mobility, protest and ‘bad behaviour’ and some come controversially late to the party, like the participation of women. 

Letters from Manchester students serving in WW1 are the focus of the eighth programme. A Letter from the Trenches (to be broadcast on Wednesday, 27 April) looks at how the experience of students as soldiers, and soldiers as students, transformed individuals and institutions. Herbert Eckersley, a history undergraduate, writes a letter to his professor from the trenches. He was killed in action near Ypres in November 1917 and the last letter he wrote to Professor Tout just 15 days before he died expresses the hope that he will soon be back in Manchester and working on his thesis. An irony - this history student died making history.

Professor Tout was especially close to his students. We have unrivalled access to this rare archive of letters to him from the front lines, from male and female students serving in the forces and support services in World War I. It gives an insight into the impact of war on students, the aspirations of individuals, and the bonds within their communities in the institutions they were part of.

Remarkably, the letters escaped the censor's pen, so reveal details of World War I scrubbed out from much other correspondence. Learning from its mistakes, and the disproportionate loss of life and scientific and academic talent in WW1, the government had a more strategic approach to the use of students and university premises in the Second World War. A veteran shares his memories of the post-war university boom, and historian William Whyte explains how higher education was part of a post-war Allied plan for the 'deNazifacation ' of education. 

A number of colleagues at the University were involved in the making of this programme and put a lot of work into it.

Listen online at BBC Radio 4 or download the podcast on the BBC Radio iPlayer app.

The remaining programmes are:

  • A Gift of Raisins (Monday, 18 April) - It's October 2015 and 2,000 new students at St Andrews University celebrate Raisin Weekend. 
  • Town and Gown (Tuesday, 19 April) - The tension between university students and local people flared up into a bloody battle in Oxford on February 10, 1355 - known as the St Scholastica's Day Riot. 
  • The Wits (Wednesday, 20 April) - University brings together talent of all kinds.
  • The Diarist and the Blogger (Thursday, 21 April) - Recording Cambridge student life in 1690 was Abraham de la Pryme, member of St John's College.
  • Lords and Sizars (Friday, 22 April) - In 1805 Lord Byron, a new arrival at Trinity College Cambridge, wrote to his friend requesting '4 dozen of wine', plus port, sherry, claret and Madeira.
  • Stuffed Crocodiles and the Chrysler Building (Monday, 25 April) - Royal Holloway College 1896 and 2016.
  • The Curious Incident of the Brown Dog (Tuesday, 26 April) - The seemingly innocuous statue of a small dog, in Battersea Park in London, was the focus of some of the most vocal and violent anti-vivisection protests. . 
  • A Very Essex Protest (Thursday, 28 April) Ellie tells the story of the Inch Affair at Essex University in 1968, whose impact influenced generations of students and how universities treated them.
  • Home and Away (Friday, 29 April) Ellie finds out about the changing experiences of students studying away from their native countries on the global campus - foreign students in the UK, and UK students abroad.

To tie in with the series, Ellie has also selected five student-themed programmes for BBC Radio 4 Extra. This diverse selection of programmes is a lively celebration of the student experience, warts and all. Scenes from Student Life will broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from Monday, 18 to Friday, 29 April at 1.45pm – 2pm.