who of note was a contemporary of yours at school or university?

[hatwoman]

I went to college with this man

who is Rachel Cusk?

dino - noooooo!
I had a candida infection the whole time I was there, uni was a complete disaster, spent most of my time sitting in my room crying, as was depressed too.

She's a rather smug novelist and also a writer of a non-fiction book about being a mother which seems to divide you lot right down the middle.

there were so many Rachels at St Hildas. Also double barrelled names, it could be very confusing.

She's a novelist.

That sounds grim, nightynight .

oh, thank you.

not a contemporary, nut Sam McBratney was one of the primary school teachers at my school when i was there (althogh i wasn't in his class). he wrote that children's book 'Guess how much I love you' (with nutbrown hare in it).

worst years of my life, dino. Wish I could go back and have them again, only not ill.
still, on the bright side, I am now completely recovered thank god

Yes, irritatingly precocious (RC that is). I also used to know someone who was her editor at whichever publishers it was. Even after slashing the original manuscript by 1/3 it still managed to have the most cringingly purple prose style of any novel I've ever read. Compared with "Oranges are not the only fruit", which also won the Whitbread first novel prize, I reckon it must have been a thin year.

Jealous? Moi?

ok snowleopard. I'm confused! I meant the first year of uni. oct 1989. I am assuming you did a language where everyone spends their first year at a different uni. apparently they've stopped that now because everyone hated trying to arrive in the second year iyswim.

the person I refer to who did your subject is married to a twin who was the year below us. they now have 2 kids. we went on holiday with them last year. t'other twin was at oxford too.

Dh reckons your initials are LH?

ok. easy way to identify me. I had a particular fondness for bossing 8 strapping men around...

Alan Titchmarsh. But he is a good few years older than me. He was in the same class as my then boyfriend's big brother.

hatwoman - did they really do that? I'd have hated that! Not only the arriving in 2nd year thing but the leaving 1st year friends behind!

Ah, so you were with that fraternity who dipped their cox in the river. I used to hear them trotting off at some ungodly hour and pulled the duvet over my head, thanking all imaginary deities that I was not a Morning Person and was not obliged to be!!

Oh dear HW, we've wandered right off the path! (Told you i didn't know many people!) I'm not LH and didn't do a language - I actually dropped out for a year after first year (matriculated 1988) and rejoined a different year when I came back. Also I got the twin thing wrong... don't know them.

As for the 8 - you probably bossed a boyfriend of mine around but I had nowt to do with rowing (much to Roger Bannister's dismay)

Erm...Glen Roeder.

Not very impressive. And he'd left by the time I got there.

Dh played football with Rob Lee. That's not very impressive either, is it?

As I'm tall and (was then) gangly I was constantly pursued by strange morning types wanting me to do it... they got nowhere

Message withdrawn

And not forgetting the marvellous Hobnob.

I avoided flashy people at Oxford - nearly neurotically I think. There were a few I started off knowing (rather the Line of Beauty sort of characters) but can remember deliberately not pursuing them. Sounds prissy - but actually I think I was just scared of what ambition & vocation looks like in an adolescent. (It is quite scary, isn't it?)

I was braver at my post-grad uni in the US, where I came across Elizabeth Wurtzel of Prozac Nation. She had very very lovely glossy hair.

Botbot - he was WAY too out of it to speak to me We thought he was a bit of a prat really....
I was the quiet nerdy one

pmsl "strange morning types wanting you to do it"?? you should be careful what you type .

also pmsl at how far off the track we'd got. ok back to the drawing board. you matriculated the same year as dh...

Hang on, I did go to college with someone from 5 Star.

I went to college with [[http://www.jonathankerrigan-online.co.uk/ Jon Kerrigan

I went to college with Jon Kerrigan

And what was DH's subject?

yes UQD - japanese - they did it throughout the uni - and i think quite possibly at other unis too. they all did their first year at sheffield. a friend of mine did it and said it was all round shit!

engineering. he had a very blonde engineer friend

I am going to bed to ponder the idenity of snowleopard. I'll be back in eth morning.