60 years of memories
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Image: Athavan Natkuna)
"I was one of the four CHE II guys that created the big froth at UEA in 1973. We used boxes of water softener, followed an hour later by potassium permanganate bought from chemists in Norwich to turn it pink and a few gallons of liquid detergent! It was carefully planned and the results stunned us all next morning when we entered the Square from Waveney Terrace. There was froth everywhere! Large boulders rolling around the Square, and even hanging in the trees. One student was having fun playing in the froth!"
Alan Brown
BSc Chemical Sciences and Pharmacy 1971–74
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A clipping from the Eastern Evening News, from 2 February 1973, calling attention to Alan's hijinks.
"My first view of the Square was on interview day early 1972. Still a bit of a building site with the Street and University House yet to be finished but even then it seemed to fit the UEA vision of 'do different.' Unlike the heavily organised open days my sons went on to experience at UEA, this was reasonably chaotic, none of us knowing where to go, away from school and our parents. A third year finally took us off to see a room on the ground floor of one of the Ziggurat blocks. So many of us piled into one room that the only escape was to climb out of the window!
It was a sunny day and we were immediately drawn back to the Square to join actual students, enjoying the spring sunshine. This seemed central to UEA life. Of course later those steps became littered with glasses from the pub. But even before that it seemed a place to meet people – without mobile phones, that was a great deal more haphazard! From the walkway you could easily spot friends and in the winter throw snowballs down and know that you were relatively safe above the Square!
The little stream meandered through the trees into the rectangular pond. Even then some bright spark would empty washing powder into it and for a while increasingly grubby drifts of bubbles would float aimlessly down to the main Square.
Do they still sell posters and old denim jeans there? Do people still shelter in the Chaplaincy on cold days, buying soup and a roll for charity, watching for friends? Are there still ceilidhs and pancake races? Is the Refectory still called Billings?
In my mind that will always be the Square."
Ingrid Marsh née Hitchen
BA English and American Studies 1972–75
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"My wife had to work that day – she worked in Bethel Street in Norwich – but took a long lunch to come and see me!! I got a 2:1 in American History and Literature. Loved my time at UEA, I was a slightly older student in my late twenties. I was at Ruskin College, Oxford prior to UEA.
Following this, on the advice of UEA Subject Librarian Biddy Fisher, I took a postgraduate course at Newcastle eventually starting my career as a librarian/archivist there in 1987, moving to Liverpool in 1994."
Will Reid
BA American History and Literature 1983–86