My uni days of queues for PCs and pay phones

MY friends and I had a 23year university reunion this week. We were supposed to have a 20-year one, obviously, but you know, lockdown etc - it took us a while, but we got there. Well a handful of us did so it was not so much of a reunion as a tiny gathering. Still, it’s the thought that counts.

We thought it might be nice to have a wander through Northumbria Uni campus, but we didn’t really recognise any of it. Our old halls of residence had just been raised to the ground - apparently we missed having our photo taken beside it by just two short weeks, which is a shame.

Our respective lecture halls had also been renovated within an inch of their lives but then I guess students expect nicer looking places to study now that they pay at least ten times what we did in uni fees.

Weirdly, the only building that looked completely untouched was the computer centre, although I can’t imagine there is any need for such a space these days. Back then, we used to queue for hours to get our allotted time in front of a PC as absolutely no one had a lap top in those days, not even the rich kids.

I don’t think I even laid eyes on a laptop until at least two years after my graduation.

There used to be banks of pay phones in the student union but these were clearly ripped out years ago.

I remember ringing my mates from them because text messages were 25p each, and only millionaires used their (massive, bricklike) mobile phone to actually make calls on…

Where our old flats once stood is now going to be a centre for health and social equity, which truly shows how much times have moved on - because I don’t even know what that means.

There was zero support like that for students back in our day. Not in any way, shape or form.

Mind you, there wasn’t any social media, either so we didn’t have half the pressures that young folk face today.

Anyway, back to the (mini) reunion. We are all old now. In the face, I mean. I kept turning to people for a chat, and expecting to see a teenager there.

And there sort of was, we just all look like we need a damn good ironing to rid us of laughter lines, crows feet and receding hairlines.

But enough about us menopausal women as the men looked well-worn too.

Our resident heavy metal aficionado had chopped off his flowing locks and his various piercings had clearly healed over, many moons ago.

I asked him if he still enjoyed a mosh pit. He looked horrified.

“No, far too hard on the knees, I hike now instead,” he said.

So, the campus was unrecognisable and we were probably in need of repair work ourselves, but it was great to reminisce on the good old days.

And they were fantastic times made even more so by the fact we barely have any photos of them so none of it was properly preserved for posterity.

So we have to keep it alive with our words which is something that was lost forever with advances in modern technology.

If I had gone to uni just four years later, everything would have been different.

Facebook existed. So did cheap laptops, internet connections, and even smart phones.

Maybe if we had known what we were about to lose, we would have appreciated it all a bit more.

Still, it was nice to have a day of looking back on it all. Even if the modern world has made it somewhere impossible to visit, or replicate, any more…

“We all look like we need a damn good ironing to rid us of laughter lines, crows’ feet and receding hairlines Carrie Carlisle