The 2020s started with Concrete in full-throttle – we had a new motto (‘Striving for truth’), co-hosted a 24-hour mental health chat show with Headucate and UEA:TV and put out the annual sex and drugs survey (despite some push back from the printers!). However, events were soon put on a different course when the outbreak of Covid-19 pushed Concrete online for its remaining three issue cycles of the academic year.
It’s fascinating now to look back on EiC Chris Matthews’ final print editorial from 10th March 2020, explaining the pandemic basics like regular handwashing and that strange new term ‘self-isolation’ which would soon become so familiar to us all.
Of course, just 13 days later lockdown was announced and the Media Office closed its doors, but Concrete continued from home. As Chris told us, “My deputy Jess Barrett and I had to keep things running at a vital time for Concrete as we kept students informed about the latest Covid info and university restrictions and repercussions.” It wasn’t all about policy though, as Oliver Povey also remembers interviewing members of the university football team about the impact of the pandemic on them. Everyone worked hard to keep content coming in a very different world, as Chris recalls, “We also had to train the new team remotely on Concrete’s systems. Thankfully we had a stellar team who all stepped up in an unprecedented time of need.”
That new team was led by Sam Hewitson for 2020-21, and it was perhaps the year of Concrete most affected by the pandemic. Concrete returned to the Media Office (albeit socially distanced) and to print in September 2020. This period saw us adopt our current front-page design, move towards Home of the Wonderful having actual articles (at this stage focused on societies) and add ‘Lifestyle’ to ‘Travel’ to make a ‘Travel & Lifestyle’ section. Meanwhile, as Venue Deputy Editor Roo Pitt highlighted, our current Agony Aunt section, then called Vera Venue, was also started.
The team’s first front-page story was on UEA providing Covid tests and face masks to all students, the writing of which co-writer Emily Kelly remembers as one of her stand-out moments. It was a strange time to be at university, with socially-distanced teaching rooms and lots of online seminars, but as Sam put it in an editorial title, “Campus may be dead, but Concrete isn’t!” (I’ve also got to give the second issue of the year a mention for being when I joined Concrete, and it was definitely a great distraction to be writing articles when you were stuck in your room all day!)
Unfortunately, November 2020 brought another lockdown, and after two in-print editions, Concrete remained online for the rest of the academic year. Two fully-layed up publications were uploaded to Issuu (including a US Presidential Election special), before the rest of the year saw articles being exclusively posted on our website. However, the team still worked equally as hard – as William put it in an editorial, “the standards set at the beginning of the term are still maintained” – and produced perhaps some of Concrete’s most important journalism, recording the UEA student experience of pandemic university life.
Concrete finally returned to full-time print (albeit with a reduced number of issues) under the leadership of Dolly Carter in September 2021. Although there were still Covid precautions in the Media Office, the paper was now back in full flow! Dolly also introduced a new online breaking news team (which Deputy Editor Sam Gordon Webb says was “an ambitious development”), as well as a podcast called ‘Concrete Conversations’, whilst Venue Deputy Editor Hamilton Brown recalls how the arts supplement was redesigned in “the space of three days”! Our current News Senior Writer, Jamie Bryson, also pointed out to us that it was at the 2021 Big Meet (where new members come to learn about Concrete) he met his now fiancé (and then future EiC) Libby Hargreaves!
Perhaps some of our biggest developments of this year were around our Science coverage. Dolly spearheaded a paper-wide focus on climate change reporting, also collaborating with UEA on their ‘Report for the Future’ schools project in November 2021.
‘Climate Change Corner’ was also introduced to the Science section, alongside other regular feature ‘Bizzare Science’, by Mariam Jallow, leading to a Best Science Section win at the SPA Awards that year! This started a particular strength for the paper in Science reporting that has been continued by her successors George Barsted and Rana Dawood, who achieved nominations for the award in two further consecutive years!
February 2022 saw the release of our 30th anniversary issue, and Hamilton fondly remembers running “around the Square with party hats and balloons,” for our anniversary photo shoot (as do I!), whilst the Spring term also saw Libby transform Home of the Wonderful into the full celebration of all things UEA that it is today!
2022-23 saw Libby take the reigns (and I became one of the Deputy Editors). We defined a clear focus on local and student news and renamed the Agony Aunt Anne Glia (Venue Editor Louise Collins’ idea!). Our first issue presented us with an extraordinary national situation in the death of the Queen, whilst by our third issue we’d already become the first team to cover the accession of two Prime Ministers. Further big topics like the cost-of-living crisis and UCU strikes dominated the first half of the year.
Then in January, we were faced with the news of UEA’s financial deficit and the risk of redundancies. I still remember our emergency meeting in the Media Office deciding what coverage we were going to produce and who was going to write it. In the end, myself and Louise wrote the front-page article investigating what was going on, with Louise using her university connections to source comments, whilst I trawled through UEA’s financial reports. It remains one of the aspects of Concrete Louise and I are proudest of (and I’m very glad I jumped in at the last moment in that meeting to say I’d write it with her!). Meanwhile, Libby wrote about senior staff expenses which got an equally good reception, and the issue as a whole really helped to re-establish Concrete on campus after Covid!
It wasn’t all so serious though! The early days when Libby, Louise and I spent quite a few late nights in the office were particularly fun (and a bit crazy!). As Louise recalls, “I’ll forever cherish my time singing and dancing in the Media Office with my fellow senior editors during layup week” – I for one remember being serenaded with Taylor Swift a few times! Livewire’s Deputy Station Manager Izzy Millen also remembers “Generally messing about in the Media Office,” so we clearly made an impact!
Another major development in that year was mine and Louise’s relaunch of A Week in Concrete in the Spring (after a PPP (Post-Pub[lication] Pub for the uninitiated) on Valentine’s Day with just us because everyone else was off not being single – lots more fun than it sounds!). Venue Deputy Editor Ray Khawaja particularly remembers enjoying discussing the Sex Survey on the show, whilst Science Editor George also became a key part of the team towards the end of the run. Over the summer, I also uploaded those shows to Spotify for the first time (and you can still find them there now!), and the show continues this year with me and Eve.
We ended the year by organising the Concrete Awards. As Badriya remembers, “From sitting on the floor of the LCR blowing up balloons to standing on stage announcing the winners of the prizes, it was the perfect way to finish my time at Concrete.” It was a great year, but given we were all crying at each other’s final editorials I won’t go back into that now!
And that brings us up to this year! Eve and I took over as Co-Editors-in-Chief in a change to the structure. In Concrete we made some changes to the sections – Features moving towards investigations and student interest topics, while Travel and Lifestyle were separated out and Puzzles were reintroduced at the suggestion of our Puzzles Editor Cal Paul-Moola. I also came up with the new Concrete Archive segment and Eve suggested moving Anne Glia into Concrete. Meanwhile Venue was changed to be the same size and page-length as Concrete, and both Concrete and (especially) Venue had a bit of a makeover! In collaboration with Livewire, we also brought back the Concrete and Livewire Christmas Meal after a Covid break (and generally we’ve been very collaborative with the radio station, despite some friendly disputes over ownership of our mascot, King Kong-crete!).
Last month we won Best Publication in the Midlands at the Regional SPAs (very exciting!) and that just about brings us up to today – issue 400! In many ways the Concrete of today feels a world away from the one started in 1992, but reading through the many comments we’ve received from alumni, it’s clear the great experience and joy it provides its contributors has been a constant. We love you Concrete – happy 400 issues!
Top Image: Concrete/Eve Attwood (2023 Christmas Meal – From L to R: Back: Matthew Stothard (Co-EiC), Eleanor Radford (Features), Jamie Bryson (News Senior Writer, Sofia Royal (Sport), Molly Warner (News), Cordelia Gulbekian Faram (Travel), Ore Adeyoola (Film), Sankavi Naresh (Global Senior Writer), Sophie Handyside (Books); Front: Rana Dawood (Science), Innes Henry (Photographer), Mia Galanti (Lifestyle), Lily Taylor (Music))
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