When Tony Macdonald walked across the stage of the Wills Memorial Building today it marked half a century spent working for the University.*

Mr Macdonald became an electronics technician in 1969, after a childhood spent tinkering on his family’s Hertfordshire farm and an aborted attempt at an engineering degree in Bath.

His curious and wandering mind found fertile soil in Bristol’s Department of Physiology, although he admits the job was initially a stopgap while he made ends meet with his folk band.

“I thought I’d be here six months,” Tony laughed.

“Life on the farm was quiet and quite insular. I spent most of my time making fireworks and fiddling with valve radios and other bits on my own. I was a bit of a loner really, and then suddenly I was in this place full of people, in a huge city – it was quite overwhelming at first.

“But I learnt to love it all: the students, the academics, the ideas, all of it.”

As a technician Tony supported academics; designing and building equipment that helped them test their theories and teach their students.

On a “shoestring budget” he created mini masterpieces that played small but significant roles in research that travelled around the world.

“Nowadays universities have bigger budgets and you can buy a lot of the things you need for experiments, but back then if you needed something you just had to make it,” he said.

“I remember being in a lab at midnight, with a muscle spindle attached to one of my machines. The excitement in the eyes of the academic seeing his theory play out before his eyes is something I shall never forget.”

During his 50 years at the University, Mr Macdonald worked with some of the world’s brightest students, PhD researchers and academics.

He was also a constant guiding hand for a trainee technician programme which produced highly talented technical staff for the future, and led seminars that showed technicians in similar roles how their work supported important research.

But the father-of-two is equally proud of his union work, which began at an Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs (ASTMS) meeting in 1971. At an invitation for volunteers, Mr Macdonald found his hand being thrust in the air by a friend. The rest, as they say, is history.

Over the next 35 years the ASTMS merged several times with other unions, eventually becoming Unite, and Mr Macdonald held Vice-Chair and Chair positions on them for more than 20 years.

He also spent a record tenure on the University’s governing board and became a pension trustee.

Robert Massie, current Unite Branch Secretary, and the person who nominated Mr Macdonald for the honorary degree, said: “As a trade union officer his approach was widely regarded as constructive but firm, with a well-honed ability to understand the issue from different perspectives which often led to him achieving a win-win solution.”

Mr Macdonald retired in June 2019, aged 71, after 50 years with the University. His work as a pensions trustee continues.

His honorary conferral was delayed from 2020 because of the pandemic. Today he received his honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the first in-person graduations at the University of Bristol in two years, where, fittingly, he spoke in front of hundreds of graduating Science students.

Mr Macdonald still loves the “moment of creation”, be that of a hand-built machine or a perfect folk riff on his guitar, which he continues to play with passion – although dreams of a record deal have faded.

Robert Kerse, the University of Bristol’s Chief Operating Officer, paid tribute to Mr Macdonald, calling him a “thoroughly decent man”.

“Tony’s dedication to the University is unmatched,” Mr Kerse said. “As a union chair he was tireless and tough but always fair, and on our governing body his counsel was always highly prized.

“Technicians are often the unsung heroes of universities. They create the conditions in which research – some of it world-changing – can flourish. And Tony can count himself among the very best technicians.”

In retirement Mr Macdonald is playing and creating music, doing more photography and spending time with his two grandchildren.

“I loved my time with the University,” Mr MacDonald said. “I’m hugely self-critical, but there were a few things I made that I could’ve patented and a few songs I wrote that weren’t bad.

“More than anything, though, I’ll miss the people. Our teams are always bigger than the sum of their parts, and I will miss everyone dearly.”

Not a bad sentiment for a man who once considered himself a loner.