YSJ love stories 2023

Since 1841, our students have made lifelong connections whilst studying with us. Some of our alumni have even been lucky enough to meet ‘the one’ because they studied with us! Last year, we posted a selection of YSJ love stories, and this year we’ve got another six love stories from our alumni community.

From meeting when they moved into their accommodation, to deciding to make a go of it during the pandemic, we hope you enjoy some of our alumni love stories this Valentine’s Day.

A pandemic romance

I met Frank Short in 2014 after he graduated – he knew my housemate and frequently came back for visits. We quickly realised we were both big film and TV nerds, and got on very well.

Unfortunately, we were both seeing other people at the time, so we just remained friends.

Cut to 2019, when both of us had just come out of our long term relationships, we decided to meet up for coffee to cheer each other up. This turned into a meal then into a cinema trip – it wasn’t a date, but it might as well have been!

Then Covid arrived. So to stop ourselves from going insane during lockdown, we started virtually watching films and chatting about our interests. But then, we started pretend (at first) flirting and then had a moment when we just said “oh… you’re not joking anymore!”

Once we were able to meet outside we  jumped at the chance for a REAL date, and we haven’t looked back since!

– Emma Gullon

It all started in Heworth Croft…

My husband and I met when we had just started at York St John in 2002. We instantly became firm friends when we shared halls – D Block at Heworth Croft.  He even helped my dad carry in all my furniture on the first day, which my dad joked about in our wedding speech.  We actually got together on Valentine’s Day, 2003 – So this year we will have been together for 20 years! We are both teachers, got married in 2011 and now have two gorgeous boys.  We have such fond memories of York St John and like to visit York often.

– Rebecca Smith

A bus journey to romance

Ryan and I met in 2006 whilst Ryan studied Theology and Religious studies and I Sports Studies and PE. We met after the Tri-Varsity in Hull. Ryan played Rugby League and I was on the Swim Team. We sat together on the bus for the return journey and hit it off straight away. As the responsible team members making sure all our team were safely on the bus, we chatted all the way home. 

We were inseparable. After finishing University in 2008, we decided we didn’t want a long distance relationship so I moved from County Durham to South Yorkshire to live together. We got married in 2010, had 2 beautiful children and enjoy showing them the world. 

York St John brought us together and for that we are truly grateful. We love to call back from time to time and reminisce about the best years of our lives and show our children where our story began 17 years ago. The friends we made at university are more like family and will remain lifelong friends. 

You are our York St John (2005-2008)!

– Caroline Critchlow

It’s all thanks to MPS

I met my (now wife) in September 2015 when I had joined the Musical Production Society (MPS). I had just started my first year studying Psychology and she was starting her second year in History. We were all going to be performing in ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ musical. I was cast first and she was later cast as my wife in the show as somebody had left the society. From then we began to get to know each other as friends in the society and got together in May 2016. Sat with each other in the library her final year of Uni and my second, she became choreographer in the society. I was performing as well as on the committee as Social sec and Charity Officer.

Later I got to watch her graduate at the Minster (as she did me the following year). Speaking of the York Minster, I proposed to her and we got engaged in the Chapter House inside York Minster a couple of years later. In August last year we got married.

She is amazing. The best thing to have happened whilst studying there was meeting her (earning my degree is a close second!) We both have fond memories of York and YSJ and we will be coming to the YSJ Alumni afternoon session on the 22nd July, the first time back at YSJ as husband and wife.

– Stephen Allen-Mitchell

It must have been fate

Martin Pickett (BEd Mathematics) and Jane Porter (BA Mathematics and Community Studies) first met at The Limes. But they soon realised they could have met much earlier when they grew up one street apart in Ormskirk! Despite this, they didn’t ever (knowingly) meet until they arrived at York St John!

Fast forward a few years and they got married in 1986 and now have two daughters and two grandsons.

54 years and counting

We were at St John’s in 1965 to 1968. I was in the first proper intake of women – we had new accommodation blocks built for us, very cutting edge at the time!

I studied Primary Education and Tony was Chemistry, Secondary. We were in the same English group but didn’t  actually start going out together until the second year when he knocked on my door on the pretext of needing help for an essay…

We got engaged the following May and married in October 1968. He started his career at Shenley Court in Birmingham and I was in a tiny village school near Coventry. My parents lent us the deposit of £240 for our first house, an Edwardian terrace.

We eventually moved to Birmingham and had four sons, moving to North Yorkshire in 1988. I did supply and then was a class teacher for ten years before retiring . Tony was head of a Secondary School on the coast.

We have been married for 54 years and went back to Grays Court (once the English Department) for our Golden Wedding Anniversary in 2018. We have 9 grandchildren now…

We often visit York as we live in a village on the North York Moors. We have fond memories of St John’s. So many people of our era met and married (and stayed married?) from that time.

– Margaret