Life After DPIR - Mr Harry Barnes

Alumni 1960, Ruskin College

Summary

I discovered the existence of Ruskin College when attending a Fabian Society Summer School there in 1959. Another young man attending the week's school who had just graduated from Oxford University said ‘this college is for people like you’; that is, for adults who had an interest in political and economic affairs but lacked the normal formal qualifications required to undertake a University Diploma course.

When the next opportunity arose, I successfully applied for a place at the college to study full-time on their two-year course for the Oxford University Diploma in Economics and Political Science. As with other entrants, I obtained a place by submitting an essay, obtaining references and attending an interview.

My fellow students and I were thrown into a new world where we supported each other, socialised and developed new skills. There were weekly essays to write, follow-up tutorials, seminars, outside speakers and a range of lectures to attend. We also shared our social lives - joining the college Cricket Club, its choir, sharing a washing up rota, producing the college magazine and end-of-year plays.

The close links we developed are illustrated by the fact that when I married a year after obtaining my Diploma, a fellow Ruskin student was best man at our wedding. By that time I was studying at Hull University, alongside three other colleagues who had been with me at Ruskin.

When I subsequently obtained a place as a tutor for Industrial Day Release Courses at Sheffield University’s Extramural Department, it was the Ruskin experience I drew upon. My students, who were from areas including mining, the steel industry and the railways, shared similar backgrounds to many of us when we embarked upon our studies at Ruskin. Indeed a good many of my ‘day release’ students subsequently moved on to Ruskin and other adult colleges.

When I later became an MP, my adult education experience remained with me. One of my parliamentary colleagues had had a room opposite me during our time together at Ruskin; others had also attended the college, whilst several more were my former ‘day release’ students.

I feel enormously proud of the collective achievements of all those who studied with me for the Diploma, and of how the course opened doors for us - which might otherwise have remained tightly closed.