Ah! The Corridors Of Our Youth!
65ers reminiscing their way down Long Corridor.
Last week, one of our most committed groups of alumni returned for their annual visit to the campus. Malcolm Gill and his group of former P.E. students (most graduated in 1965) had requested a campus tour with a difference, having had the customary Heritage Trail Tour in previous years. They wanted to see the corridors!
By which they meant those corridors that ring the Quad, now containing offices and classrooms, but study bedrooms when the group came to St. John’s in 1962 and lived there as Year 1 students. They liked that the corridors retained their original names – Temple, Walker, Long, Chapel, School and Nottingham, and enjoyed that about half retained their original skinny corridors with rooms to either side. Some rooms had been knocked through to make larger office spaces, but there were still a few that are now as tiny as they always were!
Ronnie Blackburn admires the new ’65-entry book as Malcolm Gill and Keith Atkinson remember rugby names in the Heritage Room
Corridors such as Nottingham were almost unrecognizable since the corridor that used to run down the centre, now directly overlooks the Quad. On our tour around the corridors, many memories were stirred and associated stories recalled.
During their visit, the group also spent some quality time in the Heritage Room, and several of the group supplied missing names to photos in the Rugby Union and Football binders. The ability to remember former teammates from more than 50 years ago never fails to astonish, and those binder pages have dutifully been updated!
Following the campus visit, the group retired to the Black Swan for lunch, and doubtless more stories and updates! See you next year, Malcolm and friends!
