Wow. It's not often in my life that I come across someone who also went to Lampeter! Even though I went there 10 years after you (and it was part of the University of Wales by then) I still recognised the magic you wonderfully encapsulated in your description. I did become an academic (albeit not until many years later) and I must admit, when I look around my current city-centre-former-polytechnic-university I realise how special Lampeter was. Thank you for reminding me again, and I'll definitely be signing!
What stories. I had a friend who went to Lampeter in the late 70s. He was strange and beautiful and I bet he fitted right in. I'm sorry your experience at Brookes was not a good one. I worked there in the 2000s for 14 years or so - it was a good place to be then as an academic. I don't know about before or after.
Strange and beautiful sounds right. Oxford Brookes was a good place, it just wasn't good for me, and to be honest, I didn't spend enough time there. Real life very much took my focus in those years. x
Really well done. Sounded true for a moment and I was lost, one of your unseen cohorts, dressed as a practicing Druid. Signed the petition. My mother’s ancestors are from Aberdyfi.
What a perfect moment to find this thank you, Katy. Particularly grateful for your memories as this morning I seem to have fallen off again. Fallen off my imaginary horse.
I just missed you at Lampeter, I was there 85/86 before stupidly quitting after a strange and beautiful year. A persuasive friend coaxed me up to Manchester where I got a 2:1 and lasting trauma.
My recollection is I only had to read two subjects at SDCL but one of them, psilocybin, was compulsory. Joking, the magic there was bigger than that.
When you take a fork in the road that doesn’t suit you - you going to Oxford, me going to Manchester - do you run alongside yourself a little, somewhat adjacent? Is that why no-one can buy me a Christmas present I like? Do you luck out and get back on the old straight track or do the forks keep bad forking?
I’m fifty-eight. I’m jumping in my van, It’s about four hours to Lampeter and when I get there Conti’s will still be there and the coffee will be frothee and cost a quid. Great platoons of beautiful wild people will be pouring down from Tregaron smelling of woodsmoke and pure freedom. It’s gonna be such a fine Saturday.
thank you for bringing me into your magic...and then the reality of crashing into the "established" world. i felt crushed. oh what "higher" education can be if we allow it to breathe and expand. instead we want to stuff it into some tiny box. here's hoping the young folks (and those who are older and perhaps "wiser" and tired of establishment ways) dissolve the boxes and find new ways of co-creating. love this post Katy.
Wow! What an incredible, off-the-wall, experience! Everyone should have this. Actually everyone should be able able, mentally, to benefit from such an experience -- which I fear I wasn't even in the heady days of 20 years earlier, although doubtless it would have been good for me! I latterly knew the chief librarian at Lampeter (George Lilley; he died a few years ago in his 80s) but being a grown-up I never got this sense of the magic from him.
And, it was so wonderfully well written; it's a good thing it wasn't any longer otherwise I would have stayed up all night just reading for the sheer magic. Brilliant! xoxoxo
I went to a Catholic university in the States (no, I'm not Catholic) that had a haunted library. Graduated with a degree in Marine Biology and English - the first and the last to do that.
Wish I had known about Lampeter, though. Sounds awesome.
I know I say this all the time (and have been saying it for years) but you are the most fabulous writer.
Thank you. xx
Wow. It's not often in my life that I come across someone who also went to Lampeter! Even though I went there 10 years after you (and it was part of the University of Wales by then) I still recognised the magic you wonderfully encapsulated in your description. I did become an academic (albeit not until many years later) and I must admit, when I look around my current city-centre-former-polytechnic-university I realise how special Lampeter was. Thank you for reminding me again, and I'll definitely be signing!
Amazing. Yes, it's so rare to meet anyone else who went there!
Ahhh what a treat to peak through this unknown window into your university past... I love your energy in this writing! ❤️
xx
Wonderful. I’d never heard of Lampeter but I feel I’ve just visited a special place.
Ah, thank you. x
Love your writing, love this capture of the past.
Thank you. x
Love this, love you
Ah! Thank you. Love you, too. xx
A beautiful eulogy to a magical place.
Thank you. xx
What stories. I had a friend who went to Lampeter in the late 70s. He was strange and beautiful and I bet he fitted right in. I'm sorry your experience at Brookes was not a good one. I worked there in the 2000s for 14 years or so - it was a good place to be then as an academic. I don't know about before or after.
Strange and beautiful sounds right. Oxford Brookes was a good place, it just wasn't good for me, and to be honest, I didn't spend enough time there. Real life very much took my focus in those years. x
Wonderful writing and memories, Katy. Sounds a very special place.
Thanks. It was. x
Really well done. Sounded true for a moment and I was lost, one of your unseen cohorts, dressed as a practicing Druid. Signed the petition. My mother’s ancestors are from Aberdyfi.
It's all true!
Mistyped: “Sounded true AND for a moment I was lost…”
This sounds like the most amazeballs place Katy, oh to recreate a corner of the world where it was safe to gather this way.
What a perfect moment to find this thank you, Katy. Particularly grateful for your memories as this morning I seem to have fallen off again. Fallen off my imaginary horse.
I just missed you at Lampeter, I was there 85/86 before stupidly quitting after a strange and beautiful year. A persuasive friend coaxed me up to Manchester where I got a 2:1 and lasting trauma.
My recollection is I only had to read two subjects at SDCL but one of them, psilocybin, was compulsory. Joking, the magic there was bigger than that.
When you take a fork in the road that doesn’t suit you - you going to Oxford, me going to Manchester - do you run alongside yourself a little, somewhat adjacent? Is that why no-one can buy me a Christmas present I like? Do you luck out and get back on the old straight track or do the forks keep bad forking?
I’m fifty-eight. I’m jumping in my van, It’s about four hours to Lampeter and when I get there Conti’s will still be there and the coffee will be frothee and cost a quid. Great platoons of beautiful wild people will be pouring down from Tregaron smelling of woodsmoke and pure freedom. It’s gonna be such a fine Saturday.
thank you for bringing me into your magic...and then the reality of crashing into the "established" world. i felt crushed. oh what "higher" education can be if we allow it to breathe and expand. instead we want to stuff it into some tiny box. here's hoping the young folks (and those who are older and perhaps "wiser" and tired of establishment ways) dissolve the boxes and find new ways of co-creating. love this post Katy.
Wow! What an incredible, off-the-wall, experience! Everyone should have this. Actually everyone should be able able, mentally, to benefit from such an experience -- which I fear I wasn't even in the heady days of 20 years earlier, although doubtless it would have been good for me! I latterly knew the chief librarian at Lampeter (George Lilley; he died a few years ago in his 80s) but being a grown-up I never got this sense of the magic from him.
And, it was so wonderfully well written; it's a good thing it wasn't any longer otherwise I would have stayed up all night just reading for the sheer magic. Brilliant! xoxoxo
Gorgeous portrait of the uni years
I went to a Catholic university in the States (no, I'm not Catholic) that had a haunted library. Graduated with a degree in Marine Biology and English - the first and the last to do that.
Wish I had known about Lampeter, though. Sounds awesome.
Gotta love a haunted library.