Blue Remembered Hills

A psychologically strange experience to reassemble with people I first met 50 years ago, feeling no less inadequate and out of my depth now than I did then. An exercise in the deliberate construction of nostalgia, so we began with this iconic, absurd activity which, even when we did it 50 years ago, was grasping at some connection with a history we felt thrust into but did not really understand

We were less than 30 students in 1974. Our studies included a lot of co-operative activities, regular day-trips together and even a study week in a hostel. We formed a clearer group identity than many students. We have held reunion days every ten years or so since leaving. Three of us are now dead, five are not here, twenty (plus some partners) sat down to a formal meal together. Many of us are sleeping in a 750-year-old college. Tomorrow, we reassemble for a garden walk - sorry, a guided tour of the University Botanic Garden - like one of those communal trips

That is quite a lot of commitment from a high proportion of the people involved, after so many years and so many eventful lives lived. I don't know what it says, really, but it feels significant