Those were the days my friend

I got a big letter in the post at the weekend from my college. Most of it was a yearbook of sorts, showing the matriculation (joining the college as a 1st year) photo – the big one where the whole year sat in rows in suits and gowns. We all looked so young and fresh-faced, but then it was over half my life ago. Then inside was a collection of the “what I’m doing now” for everyone. Mine was very out of date – no wife, no children, and two companies ago.

There were loooooads of people doing something in the city, generic important-but-boring-sounding law, or management consultancy and unsurprisingly quite a few academics. A handful had got married to each other. Two stood out as quite hard to beat in the Reunion Top Trumps stakes: one has been doing legal stuff for the UN in Cambodia – human rights abuses and so on. The other is presenting Newsnight. Our paths crossed at college so little (i.e. not at all) that I had not even been aware of her until I read the yearbook. I managed to imagine back from how she is to how she was and pick her out in the photo.

I dropped out from that year and restarted in the year below. I’ve lost touch with most people, but I know one is now deputy ambassador to Jordan (the country, not Peter Andre’s ex). Here’s a recent newspaper article and photo, for all you Arabic fans.

la la la laaa la-laa, la la la laaa la-laa …

5 thoughts on “Those were the days my friend”

  1. Someone from the year above me at college is (was, last I heard) an editor on Newsnight. “There were loooooads of people doing something in the city, generic important-but-boring-sounding law, or management consultancy” sounds familiar! At least two more of the women from my year (there were only about 20 of us) are SAHMs.

  2. Not seen this yet (I assume it’s waiting for me at my proper home) but of course the year you dropped out of to start again was the year before the one I dropped out of to start again, so it’ll be people one year ahead of me, or two years ahead of me (if you count my second first year) or three years ahead of me (by the time I got back from the year abroad). This life business gets terribly complicated, doesn’t it. I’ve never told the college anything except my address so they shouldn’t have any out of date information about me, though.

    It was the year above me at school (rather than uni) that did well in media/creative stuff: e.g. the playwright Jonathan Harvey (who wrote Gimme Gimme Gimme) and the comedian Mitch Benn. These are all trumped by a media/comedy person who was a few more years ahead of us at college, though! I am content in my obscurity, however, and likely to stay there for the foreseeable future.

  3. PS I’d forgotten that Evan Harris MP was five years ahead of me at school, but I don’t remember him really. Anyhow, the most important person I met at our college was *you*.

  4. Thanks Bro – the feeling’s mutual. Although, the most important person I met at our university I ended up married to, and even though we succeeded in MethSoc Mr. and Mrs. I don’t mean you ;-).

  5. Ah yes, I was carefully distinguishing between College and University… Those, indeed, were the days, my friend.

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