It was fitting that Tom Forsyth’s son Davy was on hand to load the table that his dad had helped to build onto the truck that would take it to its new home in Glasgow where the MSc in Human Ecology is now being offered through a new partnership with Strathclyde University. 

The CHE table was built in 1993 by Tom Forsyth from Scoraig in the west Highlands helped by many Human Ecology students. It is made from native timbers of elm, birch and sycamore and the alien timber of sitka spruce with an exotic “arrow” of mahogany filling a space where the wood had dried.

The table has meaning far beyond its physical presence for the CHE community. CHE fellow Alastair McIntosh explained that the logo on the table, an Ancient Celtic triple whorl made of bog oak from near Faslane nuclear submarine base, can be interpreted in many ways that represent values central to Human Ecology.

“Part of the logo appears to be ‘missing’,” he added, “but this is only to suggest that the interconnection of our knowledge can never be total, and that there are some things it is well to accept we will never grasp fully with our understanding because not all is visible.”

For 12 years this beautiful table has been the centre-piece of the library at Roseneath Place and before that Buccleuch Place in Edinburgh. However, as the majority of the CHE’s books are now housed at Strathclyde University (in the MSc students’ study area on the eighth floor of the Graham Hills Building), it was thought that the table should also be there where it can continue to be at the heart of spirited discussions inspired by studying human ecology.

On the evening of Friday January 27th, while Davy and some of his friends loaded the table on-board, a team of Human Ecologists (with help from masters Social Research student Andy) were waiting in Glasgow to heave the table up four flights of stairs to its new room. The driver was Strathclyde Sociology lecturer Will Dinan who has very kindly helped with the move, shuttling loads of books as well as the table along the M8.

The library and table are in a large room which is dedicated to Human Ecology and Sociology postgraduate students. At the moment there is no public access to the room but in due course it is planned that the books will be available to a wider readership. CHE also has large archive of older books, pamphlets and journals of considerable historical interest, that we are keen to make more widely accessible for study. We are in discussions with other libraries and archives with a view to finding this valuable material a permanent home.

Meanwhile, CHE's Edinburgh presence continues from our new office at 54 Manor Place in the West End.