(This is an updated version of something I posted 20 years ago, on the 20th anniversary, and 10 years ago, on the 30th anniversary, of my friend’s death)
About 43 years and 3 weeks ago the soon-to-be late lamented You and Yours had one of those “off to University” shows, helping parents and about-to-be new undergraduates to understand what the first few weeks of University was going to be like.[1] Although fitting the latter category, I only listened because at the time You and Yours was among my regular listening. One comment struck me, and has stayed with me ever since. A woman in her thirties, commenting on Freshers’ Weeks, said that “in that first week of college you meet people who will be your friends for the rest of your life”.
I was skeptical. And it hasn’t been true for me. I’ve kept in much closer touch with several friends from secondary school than anyone from college (I did meet CB sometime in 1984, but only for a few minutes, and not again till Sept 12, 2001, so he doesn’t count; I’ve recently reconnected with someone else I was close to, but we hardly saw each other for 35 years). My first day at Bedford College was spent almost entirely with a girl called Alison who decided the next day to leave (not, I hope, because she spent the first day with me, but because she was trying to escape her home town of Egham, to which my college suddenly announced it was moving).
But it was also that week that I met Adrian.