- Homerton College, Cambridge
The question on everyone’s lips on July 1st 1989 which can now be answered!! Sitting here writing a blog post about how I can’t believe it’s TWENTY years since graduation. It was another glorious hot day, we’d had a month since finals ended doing May Week stuff for the last time, clearing the house, burning notes, drinking more fake champagne – and plenty real stuff. Most of us had jobs to go to in September so we were released from that feeling of needing to spend the summer working 
and then, one final burst of ceremony.
me, JUly 1st 1989 at college
The official Cambridge website describes graduation far better than I could do, but for those of you who haven’t seen one – yes it really is that formal, you process from college ( or in our case half way as it was a bit further away that a lot of them) and process into Senate House in ranks of four, lots of Latin and bowing & kneeling and the the deed is done and you walk out the back and round the lane onto the Senate House Lawn to wait for your guests to emerge. A Very British way to graduate! 
It was pretty warm under that lot though – we’d been ( quite literally) pinned into the finery at college that morning checked off against lists of rules , rubrics & regulations regarding gown length, hair length & colour, earrings, rings & heel height. We’d turned up with the requested four stout safety pins (don’t ask me what the boys did but we girls all had our hoods pinned right through our shirts and attached to the front of our bras – they’re very heavy!) hair clips and spare tights ( just the girls again) and there was to be no unpinning however warm it got until well into the evening! I also seem to remember a lot of fuss about the correct angle of the ties & bands the guys were wearing.
I am deeply appreciating the irony that having shed the gown and burnt* the notes, here I am twenty years later, knee deep in essays once more preparing for a time and a job when dressing up in slightly archaic clothing will not be considered unusual!
So, here I am twenty years on, Happy Graduation anniversary to any Homertonians of ‘89 who happen to chance on this, and here’s to the next twenty!
- me again!
*ps don’t tell, but the note burning was only selective – the privilege of learning from some of the great historians was far too good to burn!! they’re in the attic ( the notes that is not the professors..)
Kathryn said,
July 1, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I kept all my notes for ages and ages….did actually embark on a PhD til funding ran out, which kind of justified it but when we were moving to curacy I finally accepted that I wasn’t ever going to do anything academically remarkable,and binned them then.
Happy anniversary! I was 7 years ahead of you, graduating from Trinity in 1982…very very odd to contemplate son going thro same process in 2 years time!
Tim Gray said,
July 2, 2009 at 11:04 am
Hi, what a fascinating post! I work as a Library Assistant at Homerton College (since 2001 – so long after you were there). We have just had this year’s graduation here! Visit our weblog (link above).
What will we be doing in 20 years? « Homerton College Library weblog said,
July 2, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] Posted on Thursday, 2 July 2009 by homlib A Homerton student who graduated 20 years ago answers the question: The question on everyone’s lips on July 1st 1989 which can now be answered!! Sitting here [...]
Richard Frank said,
July 15, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Hiya… sorry to see that Twitter have been idiotic and suspended your account – let us know you if you reappear in a new guise… and in the meantime, the twitterverse misses your tweeting!
Richard Frank said,
July 15, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Oops – posted my comment accidentally as a “reply” to the track-back… which it wasn’t… so here it is again, in case you miss the ‘best wishes’:
Hiya… sorry to see that Twitter have been idiotic and suspended your account – let us know you if you reappear in a new guise… and in the meantime, the twitterverse misses your tweeting!