Give or take a week or two ago it was the 10 year anniversary of the graduation of most of my uni mates. A plan was formulated to have a reunion – what a good idea. During my time in Reading I made some really great friends and it was an absolute delight to regroup and revisit our university and retrace some of our steps. We managed to get all six of the Radstock Road house mates from 1996-97 for the weekend, plus Tom (a honorary house mate). Simon and Gary didn't make the main outing, by Simon caught up with Rob, Lox and John on the Sunday afternoon.
I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to my university friends than to plagiarise some of their photographs, and it gives me great pleasure to so. So here are some photos taken from our reunion weekend, intermingled with some others.
On Saturday, we headed onto the Whiteknights campus and gave the Cybernetics and Computer Science department a visit. Here we can clearly see the three computer scientists outside their department. It is humbling to see the origins of three industry titans. We can also see Lorenzo coveting a girly-frame bike (his was stolen from this spot). We then walked from campus to our old house passing Child's Hall on the way stopping to salute the spot where we had been collectively dis'sed years earlier (Jon and Rob's body language says it all).
Covering old ground in good time, we quickly passed famous landmarks such as Cemetery Junction and Mr Cod. Allowing us to negotiate London Road and return to our old homestead of Radstock Road. Oddly, very little had changed, in fact, our old fridge was outside in our house's front garden.
Here's a mixture of old and new photos from our neighbourhood.
After the nostalgia, we continued our walk into town where we visited some more old favourites (The Purple Turtle, The George Hotel, The Hobgoblin), we also met up with Tom, and by sheer chance, bumped into Curt and Keith at the Hobgoblin who were friends from GARP – a setting where many of the Radstock house mates first met. I think John won his pound back on the human fruit-machine.
I think that a measure of great friendship is that after years of separation you can pick up where you left off. I had forgotten how much common ground I shared with these guys and how much history we had. I have not laughed as much as I did this weekend for a very long time. Good times!
What I found fascinating was to hear how each of our lives had developed since we parted. It was great to hear about new things, reassuring to see hairlines and waistlines, but also amazing that here are the same people I knew, but now in totally different contexts. Just as they all know me and know I've changed there are also constants; despite 10 years, some things have not changed...
