The first year of university was one of the greatest disappointments of my life. I was one of the youngest in the year, everyone in my archaeology cohort seemed to have been on gap years in exotic and/or underprivileged climes, and International Hall seemed mainly populated by braying trust fund types. Through the Evesham years my Mum had consoled me with romantic tales of how I would meet like-minded people at university who would become my best friends for life. I looked around my student halls and a tiny part of me died. There were of course exceptions but nevertheless my first year was a bleakish mess of insecurities, verrucas, drug scares and unwanted pregnancies (the latter two fortunately not mine).
As hard as it is for those who know me now to believe, I felt pretty timid and shy and frustrated that my Worcestershire-primed gregariousness had taken leave precisely at the time in my life when it was needed the most. Towards the end of the second term I realised that something needed to change and I decided to run as the Specialist Degree Rep. for our student archaeology society ( the unimaginatively monikered ’SAS’) so that I had an excuse to be outgoing and friendly towards my fellow students. The plan worked and I enjoyed a year of event organising, dabbling in student politics and reassuring nervous first years.
The student handbook we lovingly crafted succeeded not only in welcoming 2001’s freshers to the Institute of Archaeology but also gave Rochester’s ex-girlfriend a much-needed glimpse of her replacement. I found his copy of the handbook some months later, peppered with yellow highlighter and a single comment: “She seems like quite a gal but what’s wrong with her face?”
