60 years of memories
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A photograph of Suffolk Terrace from Norfolk Terrace taken in September 1972 by Nigel Rayner (MA Development Economics 1972-73)Two of the most iconic and best recognised elements of UEA, the Ziggurats and the Broad in front of it, were an essential part of student memories. Students would hop out of their windows and take part in activities in the field in front of them.
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"From my room in Suffolk Terrace, I could watch the Broad gradually emerge and fill with water. Regretfully, I don’t remember it really playing a huge part in my student life. I’m sure there were still cranes there and it wasn’t really somewhere 'to go'. But it was a growing presence and the autumn mists would roll up towards the terraces, following the glorious big sky sunsets and shroud the Broad from sight.
"The Ziggurat fields however were busy. Particularly during the forgotten hot summer of 1975! There seemed to be endless football matches with teams of variable sizes kicking the ball towards little piles of t-shirt goals. Unlike now, we could climb out on to the roof, chatting across the blocks, speakers dragged out to fill the air with a varied cacophony of music, friends spotted across the divide between the terraces, finals done and put to one side along with the anxiety of waiting for results.
We had done it, finished our three years, survived corridor parties, endured the Siberian blasts which gusted through the concrete wind tunnels, eaten at Mac’s Caff and Captains A’s, made life-long friendships and enduring memories – soon we would change the world but there would always be a bit of us left on the Plain. After all we were there when UEA was, itself, a restless teenager with a determination to 'do different.'"
Ingrid Marsh née Hitchen
BA English and American Studies 1972–75
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concrete sonnet
we tip our hats!
those ziggurats
to be mended
on the long schlepp
I ascended
as step by step
in days long gone
they caught my fall
four decades on
I still recall
on Norfolk clay
the concrete flats
at UEA
those ziggurats
John O'Donaghue
BA English Literature 1988–92
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