Awae tae yer rooms & flee!

Doctor Bob Purdie; The living incarnation of Scottish Presbyterian austerity; teetotal mortifier of the sinful flesh & gaunt practitioner of penitential self-denial. In the words of Fizzy Crowley, this was a man who, when he went to the beach, would sooner sit on a spike than indulge in the decadence of a deckchair or the idolatry of a sandcastle; a man who sandpapered his kneecaps & slept upside down on the stairs, wrapped in a horse-blanket.

Indeed, he was a man who made Ian Paisley look like a debauched & decadent party animal.

He was known as “The Screaming Skull” & “Skeletor” & was the terror & nemesis of first-term politics students.

He once got me a gig in London, playing squeeze box for an SNP Burns’ Night Supper. We travelled there by train. On the return journey, late at night, the train pulled out of Waterloo with Dr Bob sitting opposite me in full Highland dress, leaning forward with an intense look of seriousness & concentration on his face. He was quoting Robbie Burns to me. It went something like;

"Yon brochan noo And Skean Dhu
Wi’ Irn Bru & lairy
Aye, Alex Salmond auld, auld barn
Wae’ bannocks braw & hairy

Yon moose aboot ma hoose is loose
And Strachan aye is loamin
Frae Lassie tae hae Famous Groose
And gae with her a ‘roamin

Sae Auchtermuchty cannae gelp
Nae deep-fried Mars Bar girdie
Fae we can croon wi’oot a spoon
Wha pint o’ Buckie Birdie”

That’s how it sounded to me, anyway.*

Adjacent and facing me sat two elderly women. They looked at me with expressions of great sympathy & compassion, shaking their heads slowly in the unspoken message of “you poor young man, cornered on a night train by a drunken Scot”.

Then there was the time when he decided to learn to ride a bike. Students flocked out of the college to see him, helmeted & bicycle-clipped, wobbling perilously down Worcester Place. Conscious of the unwanted attention, he stopped his bike with a combination of skidding feet & inexpertly applied brakes, nearly toppled over, then – fixing each of us in turn with his chilly gaze – came out with the immortal line: “Awae tae yer rooms and flee!”.

I once went to see him when I needed to access the Bread & Soup fund. He was resident tutor at Walton Street at the time. His room was exactly as I’d expected. Devoid of ornamentation or decoration & with a hard wooden chair in the middle of the floor. On this penitential stool sat Dr Bob, a tartan blanket draped over his knees. I seem to recall an absence of carpets & a bare light-bulb, but perhaps that is my imagination. He listened to my tale of woe, his penetrating gaze seeming to say “Aye, but I hae’ nae doot that ye’ve been able tae afford a dram or twa”. He didn’t need to say it & I duly squirmed! He kindly allowed me my train fare to Wales, though.

Doctor Bob's Tutorial Chair

Another time, he was drawing the raffle at the Ruskin Eisteddfod. The first prize was a bottle of whisky. He told us, before making the draw, that he’d bought a ticket himself & was earnestly hoping to win the alcohol. This was met with puzzled astonishment. He then explained that this was so that he could have the pleasure of “pouring it doon the drain before yer very eyes!”. All jest aside, he was a Ruskin tutor in the finest tradition; a real character who had, himself, once come to our college as a student. He had an immense wealth of knowledge & political understanding to which his fortunate students gained access. People will remember him as a demanding taskmaster, but one who gave all support necessary to reach the standards which he expected his students to attain. As the saying goes, “Nothing’s too good for the working class”: Doctor Bob’s take on this was that no standard was too high to be aspired to by working class students.

His austere exterior concealed genuine warmth, empathy & dry wit.

I raise a glass to him. Slàinte, Doctor Bob!

*Apologies to Scottish comrades. I never could get the hang of the Lallans tongue. And I did have two years’ worth of sheep jokes!