When
I went to polytechnic (I usually say university because it’s easier to say but
although it is a university now technically I went to polytechnic – the reason
why is another story) I kept a diary for the first 10 weeks which was almost
the whole term. I wrote in it every night before turning the light out and
recorded the time of the entry, therefore the time I went to bed.
I
also recorded everything I spent every day and that showed something I would also
associate with modern day students but if I’m honest I knew was just as
relevant to me too – the amount of money spent on alcohol.
I
would say the reason for it was that I didn’t have anything else to do, my
course work was trivial and there were only four channels to watch on TV (and
as I never watched ITV that cut it down to three) but my friends had lots of
course work to do (they were always in the library, somewhere I never went) and
I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to the pub on my own, so maybe it was just the
thing to do.
I always tell people that I didn’t start
reading fiction until I went to university (sorry polytechnic) but I didn’t buy
a single book in my first term, the £28.64 of reading material was mainly
newspapers (the American football paper First Down) and one book off my
course’s reading list (the only one I bought in five years).
The
other thing I tell people is that it only rained twice in Wales, once from
January to June and once from June to December. As I recorded the weather every
day in my diary I can see that I wasn’t exaggerating too much, it rained on 35
out of 73 days which is 45% of the time.
What
things cost in 1986 (very nearly 30 years ago) is also interesting:
Lager 82p
Can
of pop 25p
Loaf
of bread 38p
Corned
beef 87p
Toilet
roll 52p
Swimming 75p
Take-away
burger 68p
Pie
and chips 89p
Chinese
take-away £2.25
I’ve kept a diary on
other occasions over the years but I haven’t recorded any statistics in any of
them – shame I would like to have compared. I can say though that I’ve never
spent as much on alcohol since!
