Electronic memories

I saw some old friends in Paris a couple of weeks ago and asked to see photos of their children, but being octogenarians and frail, they don't do electronic, and they have no photos.  From a shared holiday, we have photos of us and their children in the 1970s, and of their mother, and of their father in 1968.  It bothered me to lose a similar memory, and I'm glad to see that, Gillian Rose, an Open University lecturer has brought this up as a problem to consider within the social sciences.

The Open University - Social Sciences

The Open University - Social Sciences Here is the Friday Thinker: Almost everyone owns at least a few family photographs, whether pasted into albums or saved on computer hard drives. Over the past decade, more and more of our photos have become digital. But has the shift to digital images changed what we do with our family snaps and how we feel about them? Why might this matter to social scientists?

A digital divide separates my old friends from visual and tangible memories of the last ten years.

Made in Dagenham

I went to see this film, Made in Dagenham, with a neighbour. We were growing up around the time these women machinists at the Ford factory were striking for equal pay after management had regraded them as unskilled, with consequent low pay. After weeks on strike, the women met Barbara Castle, who in getting them back to work, also initiated the equal pay act. That was May 1968.

On Friday 13 May 1968, I took my maths GCE. In May 1968, my neighbour received a letter about an accounting apprenticeship she'd applied for. It read,

"Dear Miss R, thank you for your application. The vacancy is for a male."

It was attitudes from similar managers of such organisations that limited my choice of career. It's thanks to the women of Dagenham that we have the Equal Pay Act, and that women now expect to be able to apply for all sorts of jobs, not limited by their sex. And, if it hadn't been for that Labour government, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now at the Open University.

OU on BBC

Did you see this programme last night? You've got a week to watch it. Remember how in the sixties people didn't go to university. The Open University was controversially new.

In the sixties lots of people didn't expect to get a degree. People didn't expect and weren't expected to get a degree. Lenny Henry, who presents the programme, is an OU graduate and he tells you what it was like when you saw all these people around you with degrees and you hadn't.

The Open University was controversially new, an opportunity helped by the advent of television, and Michael Young realising that in the USSR they were using radio to educate people and telling Harold Wilson. Fancy that! The OU came out of soviet Russia.

There was hostility. But Jennie Lee argued for it. Thank goodness for these people. I suspect in today's climate we'd never get the OU going because there aren't politicians who would take it as seriously.

OU fortieth

The Open Unlimited photos are on their flickr page here. If you look very carefully, you will see me in some of them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40682471@N05/

Degree ceremony

Husband and I took today off to attend the OU degree ceremony at Milton Keynes for my MRes. We were going to nip out of the office at lunch time for a few hours, but thought step daughter #3 was going to come with us, so we would leave home later, get an official group photo and have a nice lunch before the ceremony. However, SD#3 must have missed out a syllable (she's been practising her glottal stops) when she told us that she wasn't coming so we didn't realise until 11 o'clock this morning.

Nevertheless, we got an official photo and had a nice lunch beforehand. We found our seats, watched the great and the goods process on to the stage, listened to eulogies on those who were receiving honorary doctorates and applauded the graduates. The graduates were presented to Will Swann, director of students, the doctorates came first then the masters then those who'd received degrees. There were two differences from when I received my first degree:

1. Then there were postgraduate degrees, and BAs, but now there are doctorates, masters, and all sorts of types of named degrees: BAs, BSc, diplomas, certificates and even foundation degrees. That reflects a change and huge expansion in what the OU offers, from around 40 courses in the seventies to over 400 now.
   
2. Then I knew only the people I'd come with - my neighbour and all his family - and we'd all come in his green single decker bus. Now I recognised some of the people on the stage because now I've been an associate lecturer for nearly twenty years, and because as a full time student I get to know faces on the campus. And it was nice after to raise champagne together with someone who works in our building.
   

I think I was prouder of my first degree because it took so much effort and a change in self-belief to get it. Here are some photos of husband who believed in me and supported me through it, and my proud parents when I went to get my BA.