As the academic year ends, everyone starts to feel a bit nostalgic.

Even within just a year, countless things can change – so trying to imagine all the things that would have changed in fifty years feels staggering.  

One man, however, has been a part of the University of East Anglia for almost that entire duration: Gavin Hudson. He came to UEA in 1979 to study Global Development. 

‘You could either divert into economics, politics or soil science, you had to do of the three courses. And I was in the politics and the social side of it. 

‘I wasn’t a good student. I was very easily distracted. I apologise now to my lecturers. I was difficult. I asked awkward questions, I didn’t do lots of the reading…’ 

At the time, UEA had only been established 16 years prior, with the objective of being more forward thinking than other universities at the time. 

‘One of UEA’s mottos at the time was Do Different. In your studies, everything was broken down into modules, and you could swap between schools, so quite a few of my peers went and did two semesters with ENV. 

‘It was unusual that you could pick and choose through your three years.’ 

The experience of starting university also used to be very different to how it is now.  

‘Open Days didn’t exist. That’s not to say you couldn’t go and visit a university, but the concept of an open day that you see now – six days a year given over to just inviting students to come and visit, show them around campus, show them the rooms, show them the course – that wasn’t a thing.’ 

Life day-to-day as a student was also very different in the early eighties than it is now. 

Nowadays, the library is a database of online resources. Before the internet, however, the system was entirely analogue. 

‘You found your books in the library through an index card system. On floor one of the library, there were rows and rows of little wooden boxes that were alphabetised, and you would search through the box,’ he explains. 

The library shelf numbering system we see today is thanks to this old system. 

‘You would take the card and the book to the front desk, and they would sign and stamp them out to you, and they would then keep the card. So, when the class tutor says, “Everybody get this book out,” if you were slow to the library there was no card in the index.’ 

The campus also used to have a much wider variety of Students’ Union organisations.  

‘Lots of unis had cafes, small supermarkets, bookshops, sports shops, all the things a student needs.

‘[The SU] owned and operated all of those. So, we used to run the shop. We used to have a sports’ shop. There were no internet tickets to get a train. You needed a piece of paper that you would buy here.

‘We took over the bar in ’83. The LCR, the social, party side of it had always been with the union. The university never had any interest in that.’ 

One of the biggest differences of student life was life after dark. Rooms – most of which are no longer used for social events – were booked out for parties.  

‘They just locked the doors at 11:15 and that was it,’ he recalls. ‘It was different. It all happened earlier, the very late-night stuff just didn’t exist.’ 

Going to the pub was also very different before group chats. ‘You would go out with your gang. If you missed the bus, you would probably go to the Wildman Pub because that’s the first pub. You would go in and say, ‘I’m looking for Johnny and the guys, have you seen him?’ ‘Oh yeah, they were here. They’ve gone.’’ 

But Gavin reminds us that, like the UEA rooms, pubs were locked at 11pm by law. 

‘If you wanted to stay drinking, you had to go to a nightclub,’ he says. ‘But you weren’t allowed in the nightclub with trainers, with jeans, with t-shirts!’ 

However different clothing rules in clubs may have been, some things never change—namely, social circles. Gavin describes how these these different groups were called ‘tribes’. 

‘The tribe theory says it’s the way you behave that defines you,’ citing students who play lots of sports as one of these tribes: ‘You’re at university because you just do sport 24/7, but you also like to party, which is why Sports Night is the success it is.’ 

‘I was part of the political group. I was outspoken. I would protest. 

‘Then there’s some academic types. Heads in books. They don’t socialise in anywhere near the same way because they are so focused on that. That’s what drives them. 

‘But we have one commonality. Society is full of different types of people, and a university is a place where people can explore that.’ 

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