The ‘Phantom Daubers of Durham’: Durham’s rebellious alumni

By Milly Moore

From painted yellow lines to beer brewed under colleges, Editor-in-Chief Milly Moore asks Richard Adams and Geoffrey Howard how life as rebellious students at Durham University in the 1960’s compares today.

As Geoff and Richard bicker about the chronology of their first meeting, the scene begins to take shape: 1965, a formal dinner at St John’s, a jug of communal custard. A young Richard sits opposite his soon-to-be friend and confidant Geoff.  A student, Mike Harris, refuses to pass the communal custard to Richard, clearly unaware of the capabilities of this mischievous duo yet to be realised. When the jug eventually reaches a bemused Richard, there is almost none left. Geoff notices and says to him, “Pour it over his head”. Richard crawls under the table, as it was forbidden to leave one’s seat at these formal dinners, and pours the remainder of the custard over Mike Harris’ head! And with that marks the formation of the friendship behind “Phantom Daubers”, as they will come to be known.

I bring the nostalgia into sharp focus, asking, “Do you think you would get away with that now?”

“Absolutely not. We’d be out straight away”, Richard scoffs.

This is just one of the many increasingly rebellious pranks that Richard and Geoff recall in their soon-to-be published book: The Phantom Daubers of Durham. The book preserves their often-competing recollections of university life in 1960s Durham.  

When I ask why they decided to write this book, Geoff says in a deadpan comedic tone, “Well, it won’t be long before we’re dead, and it would be good to have stuff written down.” He says the idea came about at a John’s college reunion where Richard would be telling the stories of their undergraduate days and call on “Geoff and his encyclopaedic memory” to clarify the events.

Richard says that at first he wasn’t sure if people would be interested in reading it, but then as they began writing, “the contrast between then and now became more apparent”.

Six decades on, the book acts like a glorified confession that the “Mystery Daubers” have at last been unmasked. The term ‘dauber’, meaning ‘unskilful painter ’, was attributed to the legend of a Durham student in the 1960’s who painted over double yellow lines at night in an aesthetic protest.

I ask the culprits, Richard and Geoff, what prompted this protest? Geoff swiftly says to Richard, “Well, it was your idea”.  Richard, blushing, explains that the yellow parking lines were a relatively new introduction, and that it “completely changed the whole character of the Bailey”, and that “it was in some respects an aesthetic protest, which people could get behind, [against] unnecessary bureaucracy”.

“We committed vandalism under a cloak of righteousness, because there was great outcry from the colleges”, Geoff adds, explaining how he once got caught in the act by a college principal.

Geoff is halfway through painting out the yellow lines when a student stops to condemn him. Minutes later, St Chad’s principal John Fenton appears. Geoff expects trouble. Instead, the principal leans over him and says: “Good fellow, keep up the good work”, and goes back inside.

Sixty years later, the same two men are in front of me, debating whether today’s Durham students have become less rebellious.

“If you Google student pranks in Oxford in the 1930’s, you would think that what we did was absolutely baby stuff. And we were probably at the tail end of rebellion. It’s all kind of gone now,” Geoff says.

If you Google student pranks in Oxford in the 1930’s, you would think that what we did was absolutely baby stuff. And we were probably at the tail end of rebellion. It’s all kind of gone now…

Geoffrey howard

Both Richard and Geoff’s path into university was through religion, applying with the intention of joining the ordained ministry of the Church of England. This religious commitment appears paradoxical to their rebellion against St. John’s College – still referred to as the ‘religious college’ today.

Geoff explains that he rebelled against certain parts of religion, mostly against the teachings of his childhood vicar, who understood the “Bible fairly literally. He preached against drinking alcohol, smoking and dancing. And I, you know, rebelled against those things” Geoff smiles cheekily, referring to the time when he and Richard brewed beer under the floorboards of the college entrance – one of their fondest rebellious escapades.

Geoff says that “I think that what we rebelled against in John’s was people taking religion too seriously… we just wanted to have fun, we removed some of the furnishing out of the chapel on one occasion”.

Richard interjects, “I’m going to challenge you, Geoff, on this because I don’t think it was taking religion too seriously. I think it was not taking it seriously enough…”

“There was a lot of triviality that you thought, why are people messing around with this when the world’s in a mess?” Richard describes being surprised by people at John’s who had ‘fixed ideas’; he believed that “faith was much more about how you lived your life, how you were concerned with others, and how you righted the injustices in the world.”

There was a lot of triviality that you thought, why are people messing around with this when the world’s in a mess?

richard adams

Richard, in his capacity as a visiting fellow of St John’s College, still attends the formal dinners that he used to rebel against. He says that he finds it humorous that they have had to print the rules of the dinners on the back of the menu. Geoff exclaims that it is “absolutely bonkers” and “if we were there today, I can tell you we would break every one of these rules. Those rules are written in order for people to rebel against them”.

“I think the difference, though, Geoff, is that with formals now, you’re opting into them” Richard challenges.

The university that Richard and Geoff entered in 1965 was smaller in numbers; they recall only 40 students in their year at John’s. Meaning that they ate every meal together as a tight, close-knit community.  While Geoff and Richard maintain that they felt like they belonged at Durham during their time there, Geoff recalls moments where he noticed a social divide.

Geoff came from a working-class family in Manchester, recalling that “some of my cohort felt uncomfortable in the presence of a northerner. I don’t think they quite understood me.”

Geoff remembers walking to church on a Sunday morning wearing a pair of jeans, and there were these “chaps from the Southwest who had a go at me for being an inverted snob, asking me, ‘are you trying to make a point?’ I was shocked by it”.

Some of my cohort felt uncomfortable in the presence of a northerner. I don’t think they quite understood me

Geoffrey Howard

When I ask whether he thinks he would feel out of place in today’s Durham, he lightly says, “I, along with Richard, am blessed with total self-confidence and couldn’t care less what anybody thinks of me.”

To which Richard responded, “I think it would be really quite difficult for someone like you to fit into Durham now, Geoff.” Richard explains that he still sees some local, working-class students who have struggled to fit into Durham despite effort from the University encouraging local applications. “When I go and talk to people at John’s formals, it’s much more of a homogeneous group than it was 60 years ago”, Richard says.

When Richard and Geoff were students, they received grants. Their fees were minimal. They lived in college, ate three meals a day together, and, Richard remembers, they even had their beds made for them.

Today the fees for university education in the UK start at over £9,000. I ask them, “Do you think that students have to be more competitive now, almost to earn the value of the degree that they are paying for?”

“Yeah, absolutely”, Richard answers.

Geoff reflects that in 1965 “The number of students who went to University was very, very low, which meant that if you had a degree of any sort, it was sought after… in our day, you just had to get a degree, and you’d get taken on somewhere. So, I think that is probably the biggest driver now. It’s so competitive.”

The number of students who went to University was very, very low, which meant that if you had a degree of any sort, it was sought after… in our day, you just had to get a degree, and you’d get taken on somewhere. So, I think that is probably the biggest driver now. It’s so competitive.

geoffrey howard

Geoff reverses the question to me: “Milly, this is a prediction now, but your work with Palatinate will have a higher standing with a future employer than your degree.”

Richard adds that when they were at University, “You expected the jobs almost to come to you. And in some ways they did, because large companies would organise events where they would present themselves to you towards the end of third year, and suss you out for potential recruitment.”

In 1965, only 4-5% of young school leavers attended university. Whereas, according to UCAS, this year, over 41.4% of 18-year-olds applied for university straight out of school.

Increasing student numbers and fees are accompanied by something that did not exist in Richard and Geoff’s student life – artificial intelligence.  

Geoff says he wouldn’t have used AI to write assignments had it been introduced during his time as an undergraduate; he says it would be “absolutely pointless…it’s not my work. All I’m doing is getting the mark.”

Richard debates, “I would have a different attitude to Geoff.  I would use it to get through an exam and get my degree… because I would really want to get on with the rest of what life was about, and it wasn’t about writing essays.”

Richard reflects that he didn’t believe the university exams and essays helped him in later life; instead, he “took from what was useful” in his degree. He says that his degree in sociology made him feel “much more equipped to analyse and face the real world”, leading him to switch his career path from becoming an Anglican clergyman to developing his ideas on fair trade.  Richard is now an OBE and founder of the UK fair trade organisations Tearcraft and Traidcraft.

Geoff used his degree at Durham to continue in his path to becoming an Anglican clergyman. Now author of the book Wheelbarrow Across the Sahara, detailing his account of his journey across the Sahara Desert, walking 1964 miles carrying his food and water in a specially built wheelbarrow.

Despite their differences in career paths, opinion and recollection of events, the two remain close, made closer still by recalling their time at Durham and comparing it to what students face today.

With some familiarities and many changes between their time at Durham and my present one, the question of what a university is for remains unsettled. For Geoff and Richard, it was a place to test boundaries and to question the world beyond education. The comparison between the university then and now exposes just how much has changed – money, employment, religion and technology. However, the familiar threads of friendship, passion and youth cross both timelines. The question remains unsettled between Richard, Geoff and me as to whether students today would paint over a yellow line. In a university increasingly shaped by competition, cost and career, what will rebellion look like for the students who come next?

Image: Richard Adams and Geoffrey Howard