Saturday 31st October 2015. 

Halloween. A lone young man is at Barbican Tube platform, staring glumly at the screen of his phone. It’s a typical sight for 2015, except he is dressed as the Incredible Hulk.

* * *

Wednesday 4th November 2015.

(photo by Mum)

My graduation ceremony, for my BA in English from Birkbeck, University of London. Mum and my brother Tom attend.

For a while I wasn’t sure whether I’d attend. Graduation ceremonies are entirely optional to graduates. The diploma certificate is sent out whether one attends the ceremony or not.

Early on in the four-year course, I was umm-ing and err-ing about attending my ceremony. Then Dad became too ill to travel, and Mum had to look after him. A further reason to decline presented itself when I was walking past the LSE, and saw a group of young students standing outside in their gowns. They reminded me how graduation is mainly associated with students in their early twenties; the ones who get those inspiring ‘commencement’ addresses (though some time after writing this I found out such speeches are mainly an American tradition). These ceremonies are as much a rite of passage as they are benchmarks of achievement.  Watching these pert young students in their gowns, I felt a bit too ‘commenced’ in the tooth to join them.  No, a ceremony wasn’t for me.

And then Dad died. And time passed. And the ceremony came around. Mum wanted to go – assuming I did. This time I had to admit I was curious. I felt an anxiety of the era: that looking at a computer screen to get one’s results, or receiving them in the post, isn’t a proper memory. This is why people dress up at Halloween more than ever, or go to festivals more than ever, or go to dressed-up graduation ceremonies, or have big weddings. They crave a life beyond screens. This means going to a special place, wearing special clothes, performing a symbolic act. So I said yes.

Graduating in public isn’t cheap. It’s £45 to hire the gown, including the mortar board and hood. Then there’s the guest tickets for relatives and friends at £33 each. Still, this does include wine, buffet food (both of which are quite decent) and Birkbeck Alumni mugs. Thankfully, I discovered that the pricey portrait services can be waived. I’m not keen on a formal portrait as it is, and in my dark mind I can’t help associating those images with tabloid reports of murder. ‘HAPPIER TIMES… Mildred on her graduation day. The inquest continues.’ 

Students can also get a photo taken for free at Birkbeck’s publicity stall. This was all I wanted by way of an image, really. Proof.

(from Birkbeck’s official Facebook page)

For the ceremony itself, Birbeck borrows a venue from one of its Bloomsbury campus neighbours: Logan Hall, in the Institute of Education, Bedford Way, off Russell Square. The architecture is pure 1970s Brutalism – lots of wide, unsilly lobbies that now have a vintage feel. It’s a close stylistic relative of the Barbican Centre. I especially like the little ‘airlock’ rooms that funnel out from the Logan Hall doorways.

The ceremony begins with a procession onto the stage by the gaudily-gowned ‘platform party’, which includes the Master, Professor David Latchman, the ceremonial President, Baroness Joan Bakewell, and the School of Arts Executive Dean, Professor Hilary Fraser. There’s also a few tutors, including Fleur Rothschild, who taught me how to fix my recurring essay problems. And there’s a gentleman in white gloves who carries a ceremonial mace.

The actual graduation performance is a simple but symbolic act of ‘going forth’. As Professor Fraser announces each name, the student comes up to one side of the stage, walks across  to shake hands with the Master and the President, then returns to their seat via the opposite side. No mention of First Class, or Second Class – all graduates are equal. However, if the student has won a prize for an ‘outstanding achievement’ during their studies, this is the one time it’s publicly announced. Today I had my name read out as the joint winner of the John Hay Lobban Prize, ‘for a student who is judged to have shown the greatest promise in English Literature’, and as the winner of the Stephen Thomson Prize, for my work on the Writing London module.

Learned today: PHD grads (who shared the ceremony) have to kneel on a Special PHD Cushion, so they can be anointed with a Special Hood.

Also learned: Birkbeck graduation colours can trigger pangs for Liquorice Allsorts.

There’s no honorary degrees or commencement speeches, but Baroness Bakewell’s speech does include advice. She mentions the current hot topic in academia  – whether Germaine Greer should be allowed to speak at university events, in the light of her unkind thoughts on transgender people. While not judging Professor G’s words, or indeed the petition to stop her speaking, the Baroness suggests that today’s graduates be mindful of both the content of their public statements and the proportion of their public responses. My own thoughts lean to a third party – the way the media stir up heated reactions as a kind of spectator sport.

At the wine reception afterwards, I chat to fellow graduates: Hester, Colin, Kim, Keith.

Keith: Would it be corny if we did that thing where we throw our mortar boards in the air?

Me: Yes.

Keith: Let’s do it.

Me: Okay.

(photo by Mum)

After this photo is taken,  we retrieve up our hired mortar boards from the dry and clean Brutalist floor. Only unthinking graduates would throw up their hats outside, with the mud and wet pavements.

I then realise the hat I have is in the wrong size. There follows a sheepish amount of label checking and hat swapping. It’s a scene that must follow every photo of group hat-throwing.

Afterwards, to an Edwards family dinner at Smollensky’s restaurant in Canary Wharf, where cousin Jonathan had his wedding reception. Mum opens the curtain that looks out onto Reuters Plaza, then closes it again when it exposes our table to the huge dot matrix sign on the building opposite, which displays Reuters news headlines in a constantly moving, ticker-tape fashion. ‘We don’t want to have our dessert serenaded by the latest on ISIS, do we.’

* * *

Thursday 5th November 2015. 

To Dulwich Picture Gallery with Mum, for the big MC Escher show. Even though it’s a wet Thursday lunchtime, and the gallery’s slightly out of the way for most tourists, the exhibition is packed. At times I feel in danger of becoming one of Escher’s animal tessellations, my body precisely filling the space between two other visitors.

The show is billed as ‘The Amazing World of MC Escher‘, which is a telling indication of his critical reputation. The title rather consolidates his image as a circus showman, a maker of absorbing posters for maths classrooms and dentists’ surgeries, rather than what this exhibition reveals him to be: a fine surrealist artist in the vein of Leonora Carrington. One early woodcut is a simple, charming rendition of a white cat, from 1919. The cat was a gift from his landlady. I’m reminded of my own late landlady, Mrs Wilson. For 20 years she gave each tenant boxes of chocolates at Christmas. Sometimes at Easter too.

Random kindnesses. The zip-pull on my shoulder bag falls off. I go into Ryman’s on Regent Street and ask if they sell something I could use as a replacement – a luggage keyring, perhaps. The assistant says, ‘Let me try something.’ He takes a large paper clip from a drawer, carefully bends it into shape and fixes it onto my bag. It works perfectly. No charge.

Tags: birkbeck, graduation, halloween, smollensky's