For this month’s Christmas investigation into the deep vaults of the Concrete Archive, we’re travelling back twenty years to the 3rd of December 2003. Although the paper doesn’t look particularly festive if you only glance at the front page, inside is a whole treasure trove of Christmas celebrations and ‘Concrete humour’ (a specific sort of tone that was used in many of Concrete’s papers around this time- half sarcastic, half empathetic and all in all very light-hearted!).

Page 10 and 11 are particularly hilarious, with a group of Concrete writers and editors coming together to pitch ‘a guide to making gifts and decorations that you could, but probably shouldn’t, give to those you love this Christmas’! They start the piece by describing the art of making a Christmas reindeer. If any of you are interested, apparently this is what you will need,

‘One wire coat hanger (We know you haven’t listened to Mommy Dearest and should have one in your wardrobe), One pair of ruined (not soiled) panty hose or stockings (Please do not use new stockings, you are a student after all and cannot afford it), Paper, Glue or a stapler if you are a real heathen’.

Throughout the article, the crafts get progressively more bizarre, with plenty of innuendos being made about the fairy on top of the tree and even a Christmas robin made out of brown sugar and kidney beans. Still, the instructions for the knitted penguin are remarkably instructive- I mean, who knows what you’ll learn in Concrete?

On a more serious note, the paper has several exceptionally well-written articles. Perhaps the most poignant is Edward Mooney’s look into ‘Christmas with a twist in China: the festive season without religion’, which is a particularly thought-provoking and poetic opinion piece.

‘[On the Forbidden City] It’s empty. In the frost and snow it becomes every Chinese painting you’ve ever seen. It’s the empty heart of China; the carefully controlled remembrance of times past, with a healthy dose of rejection’

However, the UEA didn’t freeze in time during the Christmas period, there was still very much going on in terms of final essays, union council meetings and the ever-growing challenge of a rapidly growing university. To aid this, Vice Chancellor David Eastwood introduced the four faculty school system that is in place today. Needless to say, at the time it was not very popular, with the Dean of Economic and Social Sciences, Barbara Goodwin being quoted as saying,

‘There is no single way of organising a University which is better than others…It would be folly to undertake reorganisation for its own sake.’

Out of everything though, what caught me most by surprise was an article called ‘UEA Years: We Trawl Through Concrete’s Archives to Reveal UEA’s History’. I would very much like to have seen the writer’s reaction if they were told that a baby of three months old at the time would have been writing an archive article about their archive article in 20 years’ time- it’s all very meta isn’t it? Still, it’s a brilliant way to end a truly ‘Wonderful’ year and as we look to the future of the UEA and of Concrete, it begs the question…will a baby of three months old today be writing an archive article about this archive article in 20 years’ time?

Editor: Jim Whalley