I arrived in Leeds in 1976, to do a postgraduate degree at the university and first moved into a shared house in the Woodhouse area, up a hill to a residential road, nice and quiet, with a mix of families and students, all pretty well behaved and getting along, and to some extent, interacting, swimmingly. The house was terraced, furnished with faded glory – period pieces like marble-topped wash stands and armoires, wind-up gramophones, etc were still in the house from before it was rented - there was a bathroom/WC shared between the 6 rooms, single glazing, no shower, no central heating, just our own electric fires, and we thought it was luxury. There was a tiny yard at the back, just big enough for the bins; and a narrow back alley, too tight for a car but the milk float could get down it, except that time we’d thoughtlessly built a snowman right in the middle and no one got milk til he melted. Next door was a Caribbean family with young children one side, an older family the other. There was a scattering of student houses round about but families predominated. Noise wasn’t an issue in the neighbourhood. If we had the occasional party, the music would have been from a record or tape player, and not amplified. I went back to visit that area last year. Houses were all barricaded and barred and thumping music blasted, while rubbish spilled out. The back to backs are long gone.

The Ridge was close at hand and I could walk along from there, out through a fellmonger’s yard and on to Otley, about 10 miles; the university was an easy stroll and town not so very much further. Money was tight so the bus was rarely an option and few students had cars. Shopping was often at the big covered market and I’d go round and round searching for the cheapest mince. Oh my – wouldn’t touch that now. Other stalls sold chitterlings and tripe, vegetables, fruit, and bread (I wondered, on my first visit there, why the baker asked if I wanted my bread cooked – of course I did – turned out she’d asked did I want it cut – but I was a Southerner). I always stopped by the Merrion Centre if the marvellous Emmett flying machine was due to perform, as it did on the hour, every hour. I’m so glad it’s coming back.

Lots of students drank at the Swan with Two Necks, or the Packhouse, where the landlord called all the girls Petal; and we ate at Chucks, the curry house, if flush (50p for a decent meal), or Sweaty Betty’s chip shop, but mostly we cooked at home and ran a kitty and a rota for cooking. We could all cook, and home-made pizza was a regular – never dreamt of buying one – way too dear. If someone’s parents had been to visit they might have donated a tin of tuna – such as that was way beyond our regular budget, though we ate well – just not a lot of meat or fish, except perhaps mince and mackerel, that were cheap.