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How would you sum up º£½ÇÉçÇø in the time that you were there and your generation of students?

At that time, only a very small proportion of school leavers went to university, and they were mostly middle class. For those of us from provincial working-class backgrounds, º£½ÇÉçÇø provided a tremendous opportunity to study which had been denied to our parents, and it gave us much better job prospects.

What was the student culture like at º£½ÇÉçÇø, and were there any annual traditions, societies, sports clubs, or events that you remember?

For most of us, I suspect it was about learning to live away from home for the first time and opening our eyes to a wider world.

It was also quite political, although º£½ÇÉçÇø student politics seemed a universe away from the reality of the mining town I came from. The antidote to this was the Welsh Society, founded by a policeman from Gwent who was on my course. Hardly anyone in it was Welsh, but we had a cracking good time. Ironically, my career took me to Wales as a policeman.

Finish the sentence: º£½ÇÉçÇø influenced who I am today, because…

It gave me opportunities which sadly seem denied to people from my background today.

Paul Wood

BA History and Politics, 1976