Derek Jones, the Channel 4 producer behind Science Line, also established relationships with many of the university adult education departments across the UK. There were a lot more of them then! Many of us set up events specifically intended as follow-ups to Channel 4 documentaries. At the end of the TV programmes there would be an announcement that such events would happen and contact details for a list of them. This was a couple of years prior to widespread computer ownership and the emergence of a widely accessible internet. It was still necessary to announce a phone number and have people telephone for further details. I remember particularly a day school to explore fundamental physics - relativity, black holes, cosmology, quantum, mechanics - as a follow-on to A Brief History of Time. Made by the great Errol Morris this programme was first and foremost biography of Steven Hawking, so there was lots of room for a more in-depth discussion of the scientific ideas. With the Channel 4 publicity push we attracted 70 people, a lot for one of our day schools, many of whom were not aware Glasgow University offered this sort of thing for the public. Some of them may still be coming to our courses and events for all I know. I particularly remember three guys who had left home (Crewe, if I remember correctly) at 5.00 AM to join us. They went to several of the university events ("we were at Cambridge's but yours was better!").
Another such day event took a scientific look at some of the various nightmares offered by science fiction: enviromental catastrophe, alien invasion, intelligent machines taking over. If I remember correctly there was a series of documentaries with the collective title of "New Nightmares". We (Ann Karkalas and I) had fun mixing up the science fiction and science fact elements, very much also a theme of the Channel 4 documentaries. The lineup of speakers for our day school mixed literary types and academics. Lisa Tuttle contributed as a science fiction writer. Ann had discovered that she lived in Argyll so was - more or less - local and available without spending a fortune on air fares. I'd never heard of Lisa Tuttle and was intrigued that such a person would have somehow descended on my native heath. I found a book of her short stories and was very impressed. In person I remember somebody surprisingly unassuming, given the strong, steady eye of those stories, and also, well, slightly guarded. Maybe she was wary of academics (an understandable reaction). Before she spoke I wasn't sure how she would come across but I remember a very interesting, thoughtful presentation which went down well.
I came across Lisa Tuttle's name again today, by accident. I was somehow surprised to learn from her blog that she still lives in Argyll and has even set a fantasy tale on an isolated peninsula reminiscent of Kintyre. It was strange also to learn that she has worked as a temporary librarian in Campbeltown Library, where as a teenager I scoured the shelves every few weeks, when new books came in, looking particularly for those bright yellow Gollancz science fiction covers.
Perhaps we'll see Ms Tuttle at another of our events one of these years - hope so. Anyway, steeped as it must be in the feel of Kintyre and mid-Argyll, I bet that "The Silver Bough", this newest, peninsular novel, is really good and that you and I will enjoy it.
PS (added next morning) I should note the other speakers on that day: Peter Meadows addressed global environmental threats; we had a double act from Chris Boyce and Duncan Lunan on extraterrestrial life and alien invasion; Susan Stuart spoke about artificial intelligence, saying much more interesting things than her remit would have suggested. I still get a kick out of the jumbling together of several different academic disciplines.
