Winter of Discontent: The Hetherington Occupation

Students seize the Hetherington Building at Glasgow University. Image © Hannah TaitHannah Tait

Hannah Tait

From February to August this year, I spent a lot of time inside an ordinary-looking Glasgow townhouse at 13 University Gardens – but the space created within those walls was far from ordinary.
The Hetherington Research Club (formerly the post-graduate club at the University of Glasgow) had shut its doors, depriving the academic community of an important space on campus for socialising and discussion. On the 1st of February 2011 a group of anti-cuts activists entered the disused building through an open fire door, and the Free Hetherington was born. For seven months, the building was occupied 24/7 (with the exception of one eventful day) and became a hub of activism in Glasgow.
But the space that grew within those walls was about more than anti-cuts activism, although that was the core which held disparate opinions together. It was about discussion and debate – I rarely walked through the door without being drawn into an interesting conversation – and it was about trying in our own way to make a safe space and a better world. Of course it was not a utopia; we walk into any space carrying the experiences and the conditioning of the society we inhabit. But it was, more than any other place that I have been, a place where people were prepared to challenge injustice and unacceptable behaviour. We didn’t always get it right, but we always tried. It gave me the courage to stand up for myself and to shout my feminism more loudly. It exposed us all to new ideas and perspectives and it challenged us constantly. Read more of this post