N-n-n-n-n-n-n-nineteen.

This was written, at very short notice, after all the professional writing graduates had been exhausted. It’s a piece for and about being at St Peters College, Oxford.

“I could hear New Block before I could see it. Huge, block rocking beats of house music were thumping out across college. I’d brought a kettle, clothes, sports kit, books, and a small casette player. Someone else though, had clearly brought woofers, tweeters and an amplifier that went up to eleven.

That person was Moussa. Incredibly cool Moussa from London. He was on the ground floor, like me, as were Kevin, Andy, Chris, Phil and no doubt some others whose names and faces have slipped away over the years.

It’s1990 and this is now home. I’m in New Block, which was then genuinely new. I’ve said an impatient and ungrateful goodbye to my Mother (who didn’t tell me until years later that she only cried when she got back to the car) dumped my kettle, clothes, sports kit, and books, and I’m off to the bar. Where the promise is that it might get ‘messy’.

And here I am again. In New Block. Except now its 2013. It did get ‘messy’ in 1990. That night, and for the next three years. Moussa left after a term, shortly after Operation Desert Storm commenced. The events weren’t connected. St Peters simply wasn’t cool enough for him and he went back to London and studied at the Ministry of Sound. Chris and Phil became lifelong friends of mine. Andy went on to become a don. Kevin found God — or perhaps it was the other way around — married Hilary and that’s all I know.

I’m back in New Block for the Gaudy. Noone knows quite how to pronounce it, or what to expect.

The first part of the evening — we all pretend to be grown ups. There is champagne in the quad, and while there is the occasional exclamation of delight as people meet each other, the atmosphere is subdued. It is a little like the first day of term, except noone asks what A levels people did, but its adult equivalent — ‘and what do you do?’

A presentation from the Master follows in the Chapel. He is excellent. Engaging and informative. But the powerpoint format only serves to increase the strangely businesslike air to the occasion. We are not working. We are not networking. We are reunioning.

It is about now that I begin to receive cheeky texts and messages from friends sat in other rows — we are beginning to regress, to return to our student state of mind. The hands on the clock in the Porters Lodge must be spinning backward. Ivor has arrived to repair bicycles during the evening and night shift. Alan and his enormous set of keys are unlocking and preparing the bar. The faces in photographs behind the bar morphing into those from more distant times — whom Alan will tell you were so much more fun than you will ever be.

Dinner in hall and the evening begins to catch alight. The warmth and conviviality of the room — lit up with so many good memories for all, is a delight. I am on top table. “Are you a major donor?” asks a well meaning but ill informed friend. There is an excellent speech by Matt Jukes, and a highly competitive historical quiz on our years at college from the Master. Now there are no witty texts, facebook messages, or Skype updates from friends around the room. We have put away the childish things that never leave our adult hands. We are enjoying the here and now wrapped up in the there and then of the past.

To the bar. All formality and reserve gone now. Rounds of drinks become huge, unwieldy, reaching out and drawing new and different people in each time, such is the desire to buy someone you know a drink to show you that you care. The bar is a bear hug of friendship and happiness. Something else curious is also happening. Truths are emerging. The intensity of the bond forged at college is burning off the protective armour that we put on each day to deal with life. The impossibly consistent success at work, the perfection of marriage, the blessing of such wonderful children becomes interspersed with “My wife nearly died.” “I think he might be a functioning alcoholic” “It just hasn’t turned out like I thought it would” “My son died.”

The night does not become negative. As it draws on, and we can feel it coming to an end, it becomes more intense. We rage against the coming of the light of Sunday morning. In a world where we largely stay in touch via digital social media platforms , with all the opportunities that those offer for embellishment, edit and evasion, here is real honesty and openness. These people truly know us — and we them.

I woke up in New Block. After a night of pretending to be nineteen, I felt ninety. In a moment of midlife crisis I had decided to cycle to Oxford from my home in Bristol. It had been seven hours of leisurely fun. The Master and I had exchanged brief notes on saddle chaffing over dinner. Now I had to get home. My head was pounding so hard I thought Moussa had moved in next door. I’m too old to call my mother to come and get me — she would rightly say no anyway, and so, after a wonderful night off, I’m going to have to pretend to be grown up. I put on my headphones, select a 90’s indie playlist on Spotify, wearily climb on to my bike (that hopefully Ivor’s spirit has serviced overnight) and wobble off back to my family.