The great Newcastle escape
I’m standing with my brother, pints of cheap pints of lager in our left hands. The bar is busy but not rammed and we’re still able to get the attention of the black t-shirted students manning the optics and pumps. The cavernous hall in front of us is filled with a heady mix of cigarette smoke, beer, nerves, hormones and anticipation. A mass of mostly 18 and 19-year-olds recently released from their families and home collide in the shadows, glowing cigarette tips peppering the gloom. It has all the signs of having a messy ending but for now we’re riding a wave of hope and expectation. It’s Monday 11 September 1989 and its’ Fresher’s Week at Newcastle Poly.
We’d got the bus into the city centre campus from Matthew’s third-year house in Fenham where I was staying while I sorted out my accommodation. He was in his final year at the university, I was at the Poly, and I’d missed out on halls because despite putting Newcastle Poly down on the application form a year earlier, I never thought I’d end up here. I had filled in accommodation forms for Manchester University though thinking I’d be there studying French and Italian not in Newcastle studying French and Spanish.
No, I was in Florida on a last-minute holiday with my cousins when my A level results landed, having left behind hastily scribbled Plans A, B, C and D and the next phase of my life in a ringbound notebook left on the sideboard by the phone. By the time I spoke to mum across a crackly phone line with more than 4000 miles separating us she’d accepted Newcastle Poly’s offer of a place for me to study French and Spanish and that she’d booked me and my brother on a National Express coach from the Junction 19 layby of the M1 at Milton Keynes with a promise to follow with my belongings once I found my own place to live. My brother now my temporary landlord and chaperone. It was a lot to take in.
We chat giving off what I hope are quietly confident, ‘yeah, I know what I’m doing’ vibes, my knees twitching with the music, head gently nodding. We’re on the first floor of the union building, behind us are large windows overlooking the concourse and empty library silhouetted by a darkening sky. Earlier the union building had been full of high street banks with their offers of free railcards juxtaposed with students selling the Socialist Worker. The staircase full of wide-eyed confused teenagers. Daytime this hall is the restaurant, all scraping chairs and tables covered with plates of baked potatoes and pile ‘em high salad bowls, now full of self-conscious teenagers holding pints of cheap lager slouching on low slung chairs marking the dance floor boundary. But no one’s dancing. We’re too busy trying to look cool while playing the ‘maybe you’ll be my friend’ game.
‘What course are you on?’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Did you take a gap year?’
‘Which hall are you in? Are you in Lovaine? Which flat?’
I catch the beat of these circular conversations and the Irish, Mancunian, Yorkshire, Scottish accents, but I don’t hear any other southerners. I sway with the beat, using it as a chance to subtly look around, scan the crowd. I make a decision.
‘Matthew? I think it’s time for you to go. I need to do this on my own now.’
‘What, really?’ He looks at his watch, it’s only 9 – 9.30pm.
‘Yep, it’s lovely hanging out with you but as long as you’re here I won’t meet anyone.’ As I release him from his big brother duties I think, hell Harriet, what are you doing? There’s a faint flapping of butterfly wings in my stomach but they’re pushing me forward, not holding me back. I remember and instantly discard repetitive school reports despairing of my timidness, my ‘low profile’ and reluctance to ask for help. Teachers exasperated at the curtain of blonde hair hiding my voice and face. I don’t know where this rush of confidence, this clarity of thought comes from. Maybe somewhere on the M1 north of Leeds, family, friends, school, doubt and expectation safely in the rear view mirror. Or maybe it was that first pint at Bacchus in the Bigg Market, a swift one to get the evening going.
As Matthew heads to the exit, I turn around and feet squelching on the beer spilt floor, walk towards the bar. There’s the girl I’d spotted earlier, shoulder length brown hair, an open face and easy smile, cigarette in hand. Floral shirt, loose jeans and boots not quite matching my own floral shirt, chunky loafers and newly bought short black skirt. Thanks student grant. I catch her eye, smile a hello and introduce myself; thudding heart silenced by the shouted voices and music and explain that I’m on my own, nodding towards my brother’s departing back.
‘Hi, hello’ a northern Irish accent, ‘I’m Catherine, how are you? Look I’m just taking these drinks to that lot over there, come on, join us. That’s your brother is it, will he not stay? Are you not in halls then?’
Shouting above the music, I follow her towards a small group standing by the dancefloor and settle my face into what I hope is a friendly, not too eager or God forbid, desperate, smile. I lean into the comforting burr of her northern Irish accent, storing it up for my next conversation with mum, knowing she’ll be pleased I’ve met an Irish girl. ‘Of course your grandmother’s family were from Cork, but your grandad was born in Belfast’.
The opening chords, thudding beat and shrieks of Black Box’s Ride on Time builds. It’s the sign we’ve been waiting for and a chaos of freshers collectively drop their pints on the tables and flood the dancefloor. Smiling, dancing, jostling, happy. All jutting elbows and nodding heads. It’s infectious and I’m in the middle of it. I lose Catherine, but it’s fine because I’m riding a wave of euphoria and cheap lager. Free to have another drink, free to dance, free to chat to whomever I want. No more lurking in the shadows, voice loud and clear, for tonight at least.