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In conversation: Wolfson Hall at 60

A milestone in the life of our iconic Wolfson Hall of Residence has been reached this year, with the hall, on our picturesque Garscube campus, turning 60 years old. In conversation are original Wolfson resident Dr Barry Evans (BSc 1968) and Reese Kirkpatrick (MLitt 2020), current resident warden, who compare their experiences of the much-loved student abode, six decades apart. 

BARRY EVANS: I came to Wolfson Hall in 1964 when it opened, to study chemistry – I shared a room in D block with a school friend in first year. I graduated in '68, and eventually went into the rubber and plastics industry. 

REESE KIRKPATRICK: I did my undergraduate degree at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, close to my home. They had a study-abroad agreement with UofG so I came here for six months, fell absolutely in love and decided I had to come back. So I did my Masters degree in English Literature here, which is when I got a job as a resident warden at Wolfson. This is my fourth year as warden of the hall.  

BARRY: Wolfson was one of the first mixed-sex halls of residence in the country – so the women were living in A block and C block, and the men were in the other blocks. I suppose it sounds strange now, but there were strict curfew instructions that everybody had to be out of everybody else's room by 10PM at night. Jocelyn Bell (Burnell, BSc 1965) stayed here the first year I was here. She went on to discover pulsars at Cambridge.

REESE: I've lived at most of the halls of residence at the University that are closer to the main campus – Kelvinhaugh St, Cairncross House and Murano St – but Wolfson’s so quiet and peaceful. It's beautiful out here. 

BARRY: Well, before the Science Park was here, it was countryside. You could walk out through a farm gate and into the field, down to the bridge. There were cows in the field with a ‘porthole’ in them where they'd been studying the ruminants, and of course you had an awful lot of sheep. It was ideal for the vet students who were staying here – they’d do lambing at Easter time.  

"There was only one TV room, so that wasn’t great if the TV was out of use ... I mean, everybody used to dash back and watch The Magic Roundabout at quarter to six!" – Barry 

REESE: Generally about 60% of our residents are vets, because the vet school is right here, and that attracts Americans in particular, because going through vet school here is much more straightforward compared to the US. We get a handful of Canadians every year too, so there's generally a lot of good-natured riffing between the Americans and Canadians. 

BARRY: From a social viewpoint, it gave a great opportunity to meet anybody and everybody. We had people from South Africa, Japan, China, India ... a whole range of religions, and a whole range of political views. What about entertainment – what do you do for entertainment now?  

"You eat together, chatting at big, long tables. We spend so much time together, getting to know each other and bonding in the dining hall, because you sit like a family." – Reese 

REESE: We throw events basically every week. We have movie nights, game nights, craft nights ... pumpkin carving every Halloween that is so busy that last year, all the slots filled up in less than 15 minutes.  

BARRY: We used to have wine and cheese parties. There was a record player in a corner of the common room – the hall supplied jazz, classics, and we often ended up having a dance at the weekend. We had all the daily newspapers delivered, and there was a raffle for Cosmo Cinema [now the Glasgow Film Theatre] tickets. You'd be in the dining room, they’d suddenly draw the raffle and you'd find that the performance started at 6:30, so you literally had to drop everything and go. The good thing about being here, in probably your first year away from home, was that all the food was done for you [Wolfson is still the only catered hall at UofG]. You were looked after – it was great. The weekend was effectively just salad and cheese, though! 

Barry holding a picture of himself in the same room at the 1967 Hall Ball cabaret. He was impersonating the Prime Minister of the time, Harold Wilson.

REESE: Well, now we do brunch at the weekend – because nobody's getting up at 8:00am to eat breakfast then! But Sunday is a fry-up – everyone loves it ... black pudding, haggis, the lot. 

BARRY: We only had two disasters I can remember, food-wise. One night, we had salt in the custard, that they tried to bring back with bags and bags of sugar, and another night, they suddenly had the idea they'd do sheep's heart. So everybody got a heart, and the only people that were happy were the medical students, because they were dissecting it. 

REESE: Our whole menu is very diverse now. Ricky the chef will listen to the international students who say they miss a certain food, and he'll add it to the menu, try it out and see how it goes. The staff put so much devotion into making this feel like a home. So there's always somebody here, somebody to call on. You’re never alone. 

This article was first published October 2024.

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