It's exactly twenty years today since I went to university. Twenty years since I left home for the first time. Twenty years since I met a whole new circle of friends, most of whom were looking equally lost. Twenty years since studying got harder, but more infrequent. Twenty years since I discovered that food comes from the supermarket and not from the fridge, that eventually you run out of clothes that smell nice, and that beds don't make themselves if you leave them for long enough. All in all, twenty years since I became vaguely independent.
My university adventure started with a car journey to destiny, and a selection of my worldly belongings packed into the boot. On arrival my Dad struggled to explain to a traffic warden that he did have to park here thankyou, and that hundreds of other parents would be doing so imminently. My Mum coped with her eldest leaving home by unpacking everything and then going shopping for a tray "because it would be useful" (and it was). The halls of residence were full of suitcases (none of them wheelie), parents (proud but anxious) and children (very soon to be adults). Two classmates from my old school turned up to say hello, before heading off to their own new social lives (and I don't think I saw them again after that). And then I was on my own.
The first week at university was full of 'getting to know you' moments, both planned and unplanned. On meeting someone new, the conversation invariably followed the same threefold path ("My name is..." "I come from..." and "I'm studying...") after which you hoped you still had something left to talk about. At the Freshers Fair everyone was keen to get you to join things, we thought because they had our student welfare at heart, but in fact because their tinpot university clubs, teams and societies would have collapsed without a fresh injection of bodies and money. I avoided joining anything even vaguely sporty, except for the 'Poohsticks Society' which appeared to exist purely for socialising and drinking, and didn't knock on your door at 7am to demand that you come out on a training run. During that first week our student bar organised what is still the very best new wave 80s disco I've ever been to, helped of course by the fact that it was the 80s at the time.
Three liquids became important. Alcohol was freely available, or at least very cheaply available in the student bar, which saved you ever having to mingle with the real people who lived in the city outside. Coffee became the perfect excuse to sit around and talk into the early hours of the morning, and a means of staying awake to be able to do so. And milk was absolutely essential if you wanted people to come round to your room to drink coffee, so it was a constant battle to make sure that nobody had raided your supplies from the shared fridge.
I gradually made some good friends, not least because my parents had had the sense to pack me off with a kettle and a toaster. I was also one of the few people to own a portable TV so everyone came round to watch it, especially when one of my new friends appeared two days running on this brand new quiz show called Blockbusters. Another of my friends had brought a record deck, another his BBC Micro computer, and all of a sudden things didn't look too bad at all.
University was different in those days. They paid you to go, rather than you paying them. My first term's grant cheque was for £408, which may not sound much but it's a darned sight better than getting an instant £3000 overdraft. And there were no tuition fees either in those days, which was just as well given how little tuition I think I actually got. But I learnt a lot, even if most of it was more relevant to life than to my degree course. To any of you just starting out at university or college this Autumn, good luck, and I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I did. The rest of your life starts here - enjoy the independence.
