I’ve just spent a
bloody lovely weekend with old friends from uni. I love the fact we still keep
in contact and all make an effort to get together now, but the annual
reconvening of us all as a wider group is a relatively recent thing.
I went to university
in a very small town in the middle of Wales. Chances are you won’t have heard
of the town, Lampeter (unless you’re a peer of my time there!). But I can
guarantee you’ll heard of a nearby town, Llanddewi Brefi, yes, as in the Little
Britain “Only gay in the village” sketch. When I was at uni Little Britain as a
show didn’t exist, and I never had cause to visit Llanddewi Brefi, kinda wish I
had though.
The town itself is
tiny, although having just looked it up on Wikipedia it tells me that Lampeter “is
the third largest urban area in Ceredigion after Aberystwyth and Cardigan”. This surprises me greatly, and actually made
me laugh out loud. But, now I think about it, although the town centre itself
is tiny, the outer lying areas are quite sprawling so it’s probably bigger than
I give it credit for! The university is a large part of the town, and adds a
significant amount of people to the population between October and June each
year. Sadly the university as I knew it no longer exists, it’s still there as
an academic institution but owing to its incredibly small size, it was merged
with Trinity University College and the subjects and facilities have changed
somewhat since my time there.
But, the purpose of my
post today isn’t to give you a history lesson of the university, the Wikipedia page gives you that! My point of reference here is
the people I met, the friendships I built, the overall experience I had, and
the legacy Lampeter has left with me.
I started uni in Sept
2000, to study English Literature and Classical Studies. The choice of subject
was simple for me really, I loved English at school, always had done, and I’d
having chosen Classics as an A-Level I was enjoying it and it was one of my
strongest subjects. I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do with my life career
wise, but had a genuine interest in studying the subjects further (and move
away from home) so when my Head of Year (who I had a great relationship with
and was almost a friend to me, well as much as a teacher can be!) mentioned
Lampeter as having a great Classics department, I checked it out. I made a
quick visit, fell in love with the place, made the entry requirements in my
exams and I was off.
All my friends who
were also going to to uni were off to big city ones, Sheffield, Manchester,
York, De Montford etc, and I was heading to the smallest one in the country.
Lampeter Uni was smaller in terms of numbers than my high school. But sure,
that was part of its appeal? I wasn’t a
city dweller, never had been, and I was looking forward to a small community of
students. What I didn’t factor in was just how small the community was…!
I’m a friendly person
and will talk to just about anyone. (Yes, I know, you’re all shocked by this
and thought me the quiet, retiring type) As such I didn’t have any issues making
friends with the people in my hall, but as my first year progressed and my
personal circumstances changed, I realised I needed a job to be able to
survive. The union bar recruited every year, so having some bar experience
before coming to uni I applied for a bar job and got it.
The acquisition of
this job significantly increased my social circle, although I didn’t realise it
at the time. Although I got on well with everyone I worked with, other than Jo,
I didn’t hang around with anyone I worked with beyond work itself. Yeah we used to have a wind down after work
and have a good few drinks together in the small hours of the morning after
we’d cleaned up etc, but my main socialising remained with those I lived with.
Looking back, I’m not really sure why this was. I graduated in 2003, and kept
in close contact with those I’d lived with for my time at uni, but I lost
contact with those I worked behind the bar.
Fast forward to 2006/7
and the emergence of Facebook. I
re-connected with a few of the people I’d worked with behind the bar in
Lampeter, and the relationships grew. Then in 2009, 2 of them (who’d met at
uni) announced their engagement and the wedding would be back in Lampeter. I was honoured (and genuinely surprised) to be
invited. Surprised for the main reason that although I’d gotten on well with
both of them, and we’d reconnected through Facebook, I’d not seen them since
leaving uni in 2003. My acceptance of the invitation was an easy one, the only
thing I was a bit wary of was the fact that I was returning to Lampeter,
essentially on my own, and this worried me slightly. Yes, there’d be a good few
people there I knew from my days behind the bar, but again, we’d not seen each
other since 2003. We might hate other now!
I needn’t have
worried, the wedding served to remind us all just how much we all got on, and I
think the weekend made us all wonder why we hadn’t kept in contact as a larger
group. Sure, there were pockets of people who’d kept in contact over the years,
but not as a wider group. We had an amazing weekend and got up to some good old
Lampeter mischief, much to the chagrin of the townsfolk, and we all walked away
from the weekend promising we’d get together again soon. It’s easy to make
promises to keep in touch but for it then to fall by the wayside, but we were
all true to our word and since the wedding we’ve met up at least once a year.
 |
| Possible aformentioned mischief. Yes, that's a fountain, and those are bubbles.. |
Some of us did the
same course, but we weren’t all in the same year. The common demoninator between us all is
working behind the bar, or for the door security. We had our own little
community and we all have great memories of various shifts, events, clientele
and of the university in general.
It’s interesting to
speak to other friends about their experiences at their different universities,
as although they all speak of those 3 or 4 years with fond memories, and some
are still close friends with people they met there, my experiences at Lampeter
are somewhat different. I’m not saying my experiences were better, just very
different. My busiest week of my 3 years of uni contained a whopping 11hours of
lectures….11 hours! There were only approx 1500 people in the entire uni. We
had one bar, and one ‘extension’ (the clubby bit). We had about 4 buses a day
through the town if we wanted to visit the wider world of Camarthen or Aberystwyth.
The nearest cinema was in Aberystwyth, (about 40 miles away). You’d groan at
the thought of having to walk ALL the way from your hall of residence to the
supermarket, because it was all of a 5 minute walk but in Lampeter terms that
was MILES away. We had films screened in the Arts Hall most weeks because the
cinema in Aber wasn’t accessible for everyone. But they wouldn’t be the most
recent ones, a few months old generally. The phone signal was abysmal; you’d
change networks once you arrived to be on the best one (O2 or Orange if I
remember rightly). If you stayed in town accommodation you could just about
guarantee that Mr Jones was your landlord, and it was the same guy, smelt very
strongly of farm manure, wife owned the café on the High Street. There were no
real clothes shops to speak of, one kind of hippy place, and one that got
random bits of clothes but nothing really suitable for students! And if you
wanted videos, DVDs, CDs or records you went to Hags on Bridge Street, a shop
run by the town Mayor that acted as a
lending library for DVDs etc. I could go
on but you get the general idea.
In its own little way
Lampeter was awesome. You knew everyone, everyone knew you (not necessarily a
good thing!). You were never more than a 5 walk from home, unless you ventured
up to the Cwmann Tavern or the Quarry (and even then they were only 15 mins!).
And a vodka and coke in the union bar cost you £1. When we went back in 2010
for a wedding, it was still only £1.20. No joke. I think there were 7 of us in
the group before the round in the pub cost more than £10.
 |
| The same fountain 12 hours later.... |
The town itself hasn’t
changed much, same people, same format. The university itself is very different
though. I genuinely think we were one of the last good sets to attend. A few of
us in the circle stayed on for a few years because of work for the uni itself
and they said it changed. The merger with Trinity college has been a big contributor
to this, with less students staying on campus. As such, the union isn’t open
every night like in our day, and the social scene is very different, also
contributed to by the fact that all rooms have wifi now. We didn’t have this
luxury, to use the internet we trudged to the computer building then it seemed
only right you’d stick your head in the union and see who was in. If no-one
was, you’d chat to whoever was working. That’s just the way things were. It was
awesome.
I have very fond
memories of Lampeter, and always will have. I built some very strong
friendships there, as did a lot of my peers. And I’m very glad that the little
bar community has gotten together again. Since the wedding in 2010 we’ve not
been back to Lampeter in our group….we need volunteers for the next wedding
there! Otherwise we’ll just head back and cause some more havoc, amid the crys of “Bloody Students!”, said in a very thick Welsh accent. Oh the memories!
Am with a different
set of uni mates this weekend, one of whose son I’m godmother to. See, strong
connections...
Until next time, take
it easy.
Much love.
Sandra.
x
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