An Earthquake and Fred Singleton, an inspirational educator

the epicentre of last night's earthquake

the epicentre of last night's earthquake

Last night at 18.41, I experienced my first earthquake. It was measured 4.8 on the Richter scale and shook my building considerably more than the trams which rattle past outside. My first reaction was that this must have been an earthquake,very frightening.

I had just come back from the planetarium where I’d seen a show on the wonders of our universe and was reminded of how tiny and fragile our planet is and the need to look after it well. There was little significant damage in this earthquake, the biggest in Hungary for 26 years, but there have been other earthquakes in this part of the world over the last 50 years which have caused serious loss of life and damage, in Skopje in 1963, Montenegro in 1979 and in Bucharest in 1977.

The Skopje earthquake in Macedonia

At the end of  October this year I attended the Macedonian teachers’ conference (ELTAM) and the first thing in the programme was a reference to the July 26 1963 earthquake in which over 1,000 people were killed, 80% of the city was destroyed and more than 200,000 people were left homeless. The railway station clock has been left there

the one building I was particularly interested in seeing at the Macedonian ELTAM conference last year

the one building I was particularly interested in seeing at the Macedonian ELTAM conference last year

showing the exact time of the earthquake, 5.17.

One inspirational teacher

In our lives we come into contact with many teachers, some inspirational, some less but one person who had a huge impact on my life was Fred Singleton, the head of the Yugoslav Studies department at Bradford University. Part of my Eastern European Studies degree involved a strand on Yugoslav studies and we ended up studying in Belgrade in 1979 and in that same year I travelled with Fred to Dubrovnik where he was giving a paper at a conference. One thing I’ll always remember about Fred is him telling me how he and a group of students from Bradford helped out after the earthquake in Skopje.

Fred Singleton, an inspirational teacher

Fred died in January 1988 and I attended his funeral in Ilkley, Yorkshire, travelling up from Brighton where I was working in a language school at the time. He was a Yorkshireman but also a real citizen of the world. He served in the Royal Navy on the minesweeper HMS “Aurora” in the Mediterranean and it was then that he made his first contact with Yugoslavia and its peoples and a relationship was born that would soon become an important part of his life, both personal and professional.

Fred's book on the history of the Yugoslav peoples with Lake Bled on the cover and his beloved Julian Alps in the background

Fred's book on the history of the Yugoslav peoples with Lake Bled on the cover and his beloved Julian Alps in the background

After the war, he joined an international student brigade determined to make his own contribution in rebuilding war-devastated Yugoslavia which meant more to Fred than just taking part in the construction of the main road between Belgrade and Zagreb. It meant paving a road towards a future that would engage a good part of his interest and equip him with knowledge of the country and its peoples that would end up with him writing many books and articles about Yugoslavia.

Fred studied geography and history at Leeds University, gained his BA and MA there as well as his teaching qualifications and in 1963 became a lecturer in geography at Bradford University and became chair of  Yugoslav Studies in 1977, the year I started at the university on my Eastern European Studies course.

Shortly before his death he was still attending conferences throughout Europe, although he had officially retired. His last one was in Kragujevac. He was also a keen supporter of the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik, the place he was bound for when we visited Dubrovnik together in 1979. As Vice-President of the British Yugoslav Society, Fred worked untiringly for the development of better relations and understanding between East and West, and more broadly, for world peace.

He was a Socialist, an active member of the Labour Party and stood for the European Parliament for North Yorkshire in 1979, the first direct elections to the European parliament. I canvassed for him in his campaign. His was particulary motivated by the fight against racism and the promotion of international peace.

On Fred's initiative Skopje became twinned with Bradford

On Fred's initiative Skopje became twinned with Bradford

He was keen to build bridges between countries and peoples and was instrumental in setting  up the twinning of Skopje and Bradford. This was as a result of  his organisation of student brigades from Bradford to help the earthquake-stricken Skopje-in 1963. That

Students helping out in the aftermath of the Skopje earthquake

Students helping out in the aftermath of the Skopje earthquake

friendship and cooperation, forged as a result of helping out after the earthquake, still live on today. In fact one of the students on that brigade inevitably fell in love with a Macedonian girl, Vaska, whose family I visited in the March of 1979 in Ohrid. I got a bus from Dubrovnik through the mountains of Montenegro and Kosovo to the beautiful lake Ohrid, especially to see them. Vaska became secretary of the Yugoslav Studies department in Bradford.

Lake Ohrid Macedonia

Lake Ohrid Macedonia

Academics with a real interest in people as well as their subjects

Fred also used to work for the Worker’s Educational Association and taught miners in Yorkshire. The WEA provides access to education and lifelong learning for adults from all backgrounds, and in particular those who have previously missed out on education. It was here that he met the great historian E.P. Thompson, whose most famous work was “The Making of the English Working Class”. I met Edward Thompson at rallies in the eighties for European Nuclear Disarmament and he too had been to Yugoslavia after World War 2 to help out on rebuilding one of the railways in Bosnia. Edward said about working on the railway in Yugoslavia that “it would not interest the great transatlantic academia, it is about building a railway with wooden wheelbarrows, which is not a proper academic subject but it is an activity where we carry out our obligations to our neighbours and society”.

I was reminded of all this last night while talking about the earthquake and how Fred Singleton had been a great inspiration for me while at university in not only teaching me about Yugoslavia but instilling in me a love of all the parts of ex-Yugoslavia and teaching me how to live. Many people went to Haiti last year after one of the most devastating earthquakes ever.

A-group-of-pupils-writing-haiti

Many classrooms look like this now in Haiti and there is an enormous amount of work to do but I can’t help thinking that part of our role as educators is to instill in our students a responsibility to and solidarity with our fellow human beings.  Has anybody else had a teacher who inspired them in the way that Fred inspired me?

11 thoughts on “An Earthquake and Fred Singleton, an inspirational educator

  1. Excited to read this text. I was fourteen when the earthquake struck Skopje, but joined the working brigades that helped in the aftermath, clearing the ruins and building the first temporary prefabricated houses. We did have students from Bradford in the brigade.
    A few years later, I became a student at the Department of English language and literature, and met Vaska and Mel: THE Vaska mentioned in your text. I remember their wedding in Ohrid, but haven’t heard from her since.
    As far as I know, our lecturer, Graham W. Reid, who most certainly deserves the description “one very inspirational teacher”, came to Skopje as a result of the Bradford-Skopje brotherhood (the Macedonian expression for twin-city is brother-town/city).
    Thank you for this text, which brought back so many fond–and some sad–memories.

  2. Hi Ekaterina,

    thanks ever so much for getting back to me with this. How long did you work in that brigade for and do you have any photos of it? I know they have some in the archive at Bradford University.

    Great you knew Vaska and Mel, such a wonderful story. And I wonder where Graham Reid is now. It would be good to know if anyone reading this knows.

    I think that this kind of thing is really in the spirit of international co-operation and solidarity and really what inspired me to start writing this blog a year ago.

    Thanks so much for this again, you’ve made me day!

    all the best
    mark

    • Hi Mark!
      Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos. It was such a terrible summer: our homes ruined (we slept in tents for several months), some friends and relatives killed, and, as I said, I was just fourteen. Not only that I didn’t have a camera, I didn’t even think of making any records (except for writing a diary, probably like most young teenage girls). We (the brigade) worked during the summer of 1963. Later, I believe it was october or november, I started attending high school in the adapted barracks we had actually put up (the Nikola Karev High School). I’ve seen some photos in the album Skopje 1963, published shortly after the earthquake.
      I wonder If I can get in touch with Vaska again. She might remember me by my maiden name, Ekaterina (Kate) Yotova.
      Graham Reid, who was a lecturer at the Dept. of English for nearly two decades, and his wife, Peggy Reid, (who joined him in the late sixties or early seventies), retired and went back to England a few years ago. He made a great impact in the growth of the English Department and in our culture in the widest possible sense, and was awarded the title Professor Honoris Causa at Sts Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. It should’t be difficult to locate him.
      Thank you, Mark.
      All the best,
      Ekaterina

  3. Thank’s for that memory of Fred. I travelled with him to Slovenia in 1956 and to Helsinki and St. Petersberg shortly after the U2 Incident in1960.
    He was indeed an inspiring teacher and an engaging travelling companion and I owe to him a lifelong interest in and enthusiasm for the countries we visited together.
    Charles Beresford,
    Dunedin,
    New Zealand

  4. Thank you Mark for this lovely piece. I look after Special Collections at the University of Bradford which contains the University’s archive, a collection of objects presented to students who helped in the Skopje reconstruction not to mention Fred Singleton’s own archive (which is vast, sadly not catalogued in full yet). It’s always good to read personal pieces about individuals who have been so important in the history of the University.

    • Hi Alison,

      I can’t believe I’ve just read your lovely comment. I am standing in the turska carsija part of Skopje at the moment (old town) drinking a glass of beer from Prilep (DAB) showing this blogpost to a friend from Prilep. Amazing! Next time I am in Bradford I shall definitely get in touch. Tomorrow I’m going to go the museum here where I think there are some pictures of the people from Bradford clearing up the earthquake. It was on Fred’s initiative that Skopje and Bradford are twinned, wasn’t it?

      Best Wishes

      Mark Andrews

  5. Thank you Mark and Alison, it is heartening to read these warm comments with a real resonance. Dad said we live on through our relationships with people. This is a lovely thing to see. Ann

  6. What a wonderful and well-deserved tribute to Fred. My wife and I met him during our years at Bradford University. Over the years I made many visits to Skopje in order to carry our joint research projects at the Cyril and Methodius University there. We learned so much from him about the politics of the country and met many people there who knew him personally and who spoke fondly of the help he gave to the country. We also visited Finland regularly (and still do) and were amazed at how knowledgeable he was about that part of the world also!

    Norman Gough
    Emeritus Professor

  7. Interesting to hear about mr. Singleton. I just came across his name when I tried to find out about Finlands membership in the comecon trade union.

  8. Only just found this wonderful blog whilst nostalgia drove me to find more about Fred Singleton’s life. I was a student at Bradford 1963-66 and spent a lot of time with Fred, walking in the Yorkshire Dales, staying at his cottage in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, baby sitting for Fred and Elizabeth (If I remember correctly) as well as joining the Skopje brigades over a long period in the summer of 1964. We flew out for the first camp in July and returned to the Uk in mid September in Fred’s VW camper van via the Julian Alps. What a great expedition and a great man. I and my friends owe him so much. Loved the photo of Lake Ohrid too. We spent two or three days there, so beautiful.

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