Wednesday 20 April 2016

Returning to my Old Stomping Ground

We met up with family last weekend in the beautiful city of Winchester. It's about mid way between us and I have fond "memories" of the time I spent living there as a student. Now I say memories, but frankly I think I must have walked around with my eyes closed most of the time as I really didn't know many of the famous landmarks save for the cathedral. I must have walked through the city gate countless times but never took on board that it had a city wall....it will come as no surprise though to hear that I do recall many of the hostelries and their exact locations! I'm not one for looking back generally but I did enjoy our stroll around.

One of the pubs reminded me of the time my friend J [still an exceedingly good friend] and I decided to do a three legged pub crawl for Rag Week. Now it would have been doable had J been my height, but she's considerably taller which posed a bit of a problem when we had to go up or down steps. Somehow we managed...the drunker we got the easier it somehow seemed to become. We must have looked a sight for we were dressed up as Vyvyan and Neil from "The Young Ones" at the time....I never did find the long wig which got lost en route. Being hugely organised and ones for forward planning....that will have a mad scramble that afternoon to pull it all together then we pondered how we were going to be able to run chains across the punky denim jacket. Mustering every ounce of our student ingenuity we denuded every sink in our Hall of its plug....these too were discarded as we weaved our way from tavern to tavern. I can report that we were not flavour of the month the following morning with our fellow housesharing students but nobody snitched on us to the College thankfully!

For anyone of my vintage who remembers this classic series this remains my favourite clip!


Having a son on the point of going to Uni I definitely think I shall stick with the ignorance is bliss policy with regards to an on campus high jinks he might get up to!

Arilx

6 comments:

  1. I would not want my kids to know one tenth of my Wednesday night antics in college. Quarter beer night is not a challenge to see how much you can drink before the taps went back to $1.00.

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  2. I agree Sam....certain things are better left unsaid!
    Arilx

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  3. Only Wednesday nights, Sam? My evil antics were every night, and better not discussed.

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  4. Oh! Oh! I was at Winchester 1978-82. I loved it. Favourite pubs were The Wykham Arms (still nice but much more upmarkert) & The Bush out at Ovington (that relied on finding a friend with a car.) We used to climb St Catherine's hill at night - dodging the traffic on the main road. A bit more difficulot now there's a motorway in the way. When were you there?

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    1. 1985-1988. I too remember climbing St Catherine's Hill....if I recall correctly it was usually summertime and I drank copious quantities of red wine when I got up there. The Wykeham Arms is still very civilised...they put your crisps into wooden bowls! Had a ball while I lived there...lovely little college [King Alfred's] Arilx

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  5. Ye-e-es... if my boys did half the things I did .... I shudder at the thought!

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All work and no plays makes for a very dull day.....

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