The November 1985 issues of Student are now live! This month: famine relief underpants party revealed to be a hoax; University urged to boycott South Africa; Scottish Mining Museum opens. Read more below…

7 November 1985: An Undergarment Hoax

• An advert in the previous issue inviting students to an underpants party to raise money for Famine Relief in Africa is revealed as a hoax, along with much outrage from those who turned up sporting just their underwear…
• Female contraception makes the headline as controversial anti-pill campaigner Victoria Gillick pulls out of debate at Edinburgh University.
• Liz Lochhead, at the time writer in residence at Edinburgh University, inspires another piece looking at Scottishness and Feminism

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14 November 1985: Communists fight Conservatives

• Heading this week’s issue was the great success of the Leukaemia Appeal, students traveled to Biggar to personally present the £1,500 cheque to Ian Botham.
• Edinburgh Professor John Erickson, Head of the Department for Defence Studies, was selected by the BBC to act as a specialist advisor for their coverage of the Geneva Summit.
• A political debate between the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Federation of Conservative Students escalated to the point where police were called to the Chaplaincy.

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21 November 1985: Apartheid Boycotts in EUSA shops 

• Students call to remove more products of South Africa from university shop, the oranges seem to have caused particular uproar!
• What’s up, Chuck? Student visits a lecture given by Chuck Jones creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
• Norman MacCaig, Scotland’s foremost poet at the time, celebrates his 75^th birthday in this issue, with some philosophical insights on the writing of poetry and the poets “role” in society.
• Donald Trelford, previous editor of the Observer, gave the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Lecture. Trelford has since become famous for something else – being, at the age of 76 and 6 months, the oldest new father.

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28 November 1985: Miners and Monarchs in the spotlight

• Victoria Gillick is forced to take another bitter pill as police were called to escort her to a debate at Edinburgh University.
• André Brink, prominent South African author, was interviewed by Student after giving a lecture on “Writers in a Closed Society.”
• The Scottish Mining Museum plunges into industrial history with the opening of the Lady Victoria Colliery. The museum will focus on the Victorian era and the human experience of the miners.
• “Defence of the Realm” premiered in Edinburgh this month, Student interviewed the executive producer, producer and one of the stars asking how closely the film mirrors contemporary Britain.

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