News

Mo Mowlam: Tribute to an exceptional Durham graduate

(19 August 2005)

Durham University figures have paid tribute to one of its most admired graduates, the former Cabinet Minister Mo Mowlam.

Dr Mowlam, who gained a BA in Anthropology at Durham in 1971, attended another degree ceremony at Durham Castle in 1999 to receive an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree.

Mo herself once told Durham’s graduate magazine, Durham First, in an interview: “I am quite a determined person and work hard. I enjoy life. I read something that said: ‘You can’t decide when you are going to be born or die, but you can certainly make the most of every day in between.’”

Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman, who conferred the honorary doctorate on her, said: “We will remember Mo Mowlam with great affection. She was an independent spirit and a very committed politician with a refreshing style.

“She spoke with great exuberance and enjoyment about her days as a student at Durham. It was the late 60s and from that time I think she carried a sense of challenge and a passion for fairness all through her career, from student officer, teacher, MP and Cabinet Minister.”

She joined the then all-women Trevelyan College in 1968, in its pioneering days only two years after it opened. She quickly became involved in university politics with the Student Representative Council (SRC), the forerunner of Durham Students Union, and became its vice-president.

Dr Nigel Martin, current Principal of Trevelyan College, recalled Mo Mowlam’s last visit to the college two years ago, during a book launch tour. “She was perhaps the most illustrious of Trevelyan’s former students and she was a delightful speaker. It was very impressive how she took some really awkward questions from students, about such things as releasing murderers in Northern Ireland. She took it straight and gave a non-politician’s answer.”

In the graduate magazine interview, Mo Mowlam described how her student years were marked by a distinctive style of interior decoration. “We were allowed to decorate our own rooms and I had a very large picture of Jimi Hendrix on tin foil. I think it was one bridge too far, as far as the Trevelyan authorities were concerned, but I don’t have any memory of taking it down.”

In October 2003 Durham Students' Union enlisted the support of Mo Mowlam in their campaign for greater discussion about the national impact of higher fees for tuition. She wrote to the President: "I was very impressed with your approach and have written to Charles Clarke [then Education Secretary] in your support. I feel the approach DSU is taking on top-up fees is a great idea, stimulating debate amoungst the public and engaging the policy makers.I would like to give you my full support in this campaign. If I were about to come to Durham University now, as opposed to the late 60's, I fear I would be unable to afford to take up my place."

In 1970 the future colourful member of a New Labour government met the Old Labour stalwart Manny Shinwell when the former Easington MP and minister received an honorary degree at Durham. Young Mo Mowlam was sitting on the platform in her capacity as a SRC officer, wearing fashionable hot pants under her gown.

A contemporary student politician, who worked with Mo on the SRC committee, said in another interview for the graduate magazine: “She was a star, able to move with equal facility among the people who knew which way to pass the port and the people who couldn’t remember which way to pass the next joint…it remains one of the happiest working relationships of my life.”

Trevelyan College has a bronze head of Mo Mowlam by the sculptor Shenda Amery. It shows her in a characteristic pose with her head on one side, propped up on her hand, listening and concentrating – and at the same time challenging and charming those around her.