A Letter from Durham

This appeared in my school alumni's magazine, The Breconian.

Durham, with its rolling hills and the meandering River Wear, is quite a sight to behold at any time of the year, but is particularly attractive in autumn. Carpets of brown and orange line the cobbled streets while Oxbridge-style colleges are beacons of warmth for students wrapped up against the cold in their Jack Wills blazers, contrasting uneasily with local residents.

The relationship between Durham’s students and the city’s year-round citizens has long been awkward. Neither could happily live without the other, but neither is readily willing to admit this. The university has one of the largest proportions of students educated at public schools out of any higher education institution in the United Kingdom; meanwhile the North East lags in nearly all indicators of prosperity in comparison with the rest of the country.

Generally, though, the two groups stay well apart, for better or for worse. Students reside in distinctly separate areas of town, or in colleges. There are fourteen colleges in Durham (plus another two on a separate campus, in Stockton-on-Tees), which act rather like glorified boarding houses. College rivalries are fierce yet good-natured – one college has a football 9th XI, so it is hard to take all competition too seriously. The obvious drawback to this system is that, typically, there is little social interaction between members of different colleges. Apart from lectures, the vast majority of university activity is undertaken within the college system.

One of the most popular college-initiated activities is the increasingly-infamous Newcastle night. That this has become so popular betrays a distinct lack of variety of entertainment in Durham itself. (Indeed, one satirical student publication listed Durham’s main attraction as its close proximity to the Toon.) With a population of less than 30,000 (around one fifth the size of Cambridge and Oxford, and one tenth of that of Cardiff), this can hardly come as much of a surprise. Indeed, rather more excitement is generated than can be justified at the prospect of a trip to Big Tesco; on the other hand, the recent closure of the ten pin bowling centre has left a definite vacuum in the skimpy list of Durham amusements.

Yet despite its shortcomings, autumn and winter in Durham is almost unbeatable. Certainly there is a need for a copious amount of fleece-lined clothing, and car headlights have to be illuminated seventeen hours a day. But it is a stunning, historical city (the Cathedral, labelled by the university’s outgoing Chancellor, Bill Bryson, as the ‘greatest on Planet Earth’, was completed in 1133) that impresses everyone who is new to it, despite its diminutive size.

Being six hours from Brecon, it is hardly a surprise that OBs have failed to swarm to Durham in the same way as southern universities. It is no less of a shame, though, that this city, tiny but beautiful, flawed yet wonderful, has not been considered by more Breconians. So long as you leave your Jack Wills blazers at home, Durham will welcome you warmly.