Earlier this month, I was asked to take part in an event in the Charles Wilson building directly opposite the Glasgow University Union. It was a crisp autumn evening. The leaves on the trees that line Kelvin Way were golden red, and the street itself heaving with fresh-faced students: flushed, expectant and walking open-armed towards all their bright new world was offering.
They’re such a lovely sight, those students: always different, always the same; a reminder of how much changes, and how much endures through the tumult of decades. As yet unmarked by cynicism (however jaded they affect to be) they sweep me off into a nostalgia, not for those days per se, but for the way it felt to be young and vital and have everything still in front of you. I was just turned 17 and so unworldly when I first pitched up at the John McIntyre building wearing Chelsea Girl trousers with braces, an oversized sweatshirt and hair I’m not sure was acceptable even in the ‘80s.
It was pre-internet, so we had to queue up for our matriculation cards and learn how to use the library index system. I remember strolling round the clubs’ fayre and signing up for the debating society, little realising it would be full of Westminster-bound boors, and not my kind of thing at all. And then dancing into the early hours every night of Freshers’ Week, so that, back home after it was over, I fell asleep at Sunday mass.
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