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To the University on Friday evening for the Essex Alumni Christmas Party.

Cripes.

@AnnaJCowen and I have somehow managed to avoid the annual reunion for some seventeen winters now. But being back in Wivenhoe, and with a curiosity that sadly wasn’t around during our days as Essex undergraduates, we thought we would do the Christmas campus thing.

The tickets didn’t hint at a dress code. It probably wasn’t appropriate to wear an old PWEI T-shirt for nostalgia sake. Times change, bands move on and graduates grow up. Some of them even take to sporting a cravat to help hide away the years.

Despite being on our Wivenhoe doorstep, the campus hasn’t been much of our concern since the Great Escape. We’ve been to the lovely Lakeside Theatre a number of times, but The Station rather the SU Bar seems to fit in with all this middle age nonsense.

The Alumni event itself was incredibly well organised, if a little under subscribed. Held in what we think was the old Oliver Tambo Room (aha!) the Level 2 Bar has certainly seen something of a cultural makeover from two decades previous.

Back in the day and it was all Psychedelic Society discos, cans of Stella on a wooden trestle and strange aromas drifting out across the campus at 2am. By day and the Oliver Tambo Room reverted to the unofficial accommodation for Pee Wee, an Essex early ’80s drop out who somehow just managed to hang around.

No sign of Pee Wee in Level 2 on Friday night, no strange aromas either. Instead we had a wonderful maitre d and a Christmas buffer for the feeding of the 5,000 that didn’t turn up.

I didn’t take my traditional eights cans of Bowman’s Bitter smuggled into the bar. But with a hapless member of the bar staff that managed to pull half a pint of booze, half a pint of froth, I’ll know better for next time.

My time at Essex was one of discovery and friendship. It only seemed right then that we met some old new faces at the Alumni party. @AnnaJCowen and I came close to being the oldest swingers in town (steady,) apart from a charming chap from the Class of ’80.

Blimey.

Stories were swapped about the changing Essex landscape. Middle-aged moans were muttered about the loud music and the limited booze range at the bar. We were brave enough to venture into the SU Bar, only to find a half empty environment that looked more like Monday lunchtime at suburban Harvester.

A quick dash back to Wivenhoe and we made last orders at The Greyhound. The booze was back on form, and yet more new conversations and friendships followed. For all the merits of an academic background, drinking and dialogue remain the two most valuable skills that I picked up. I’m still putting the theory into practice.

Chin chin.