Worcester stag do - 10 years on

For my stag do, I wanted a trip down memory lane and to go back to the best time of my life, my university years. So Philly Poppins and I started at 201 Oldbury Road where we lived for 2 years and it holds many happy memories of BBQ’s, beer challenges, the Spanish terrace, the brown sofa, Beeropoly….We had to stop in Coopertops next door which still hasn’t changed, and everyone looks as you enter the pub. We trundled our normal walk to Uni, past a new sign. Instead of University College Worcester, it’s now just University of Worcester. The tiny library is now closed, there is now an ugly gold building in the centre of town that houses a huge library and learning ‘environment’. So walked through the Edward Elgar building, into the canteen that had the same chairs as 10 years ago, no baguette shop though. We walked through the Quadrangle, to the dance studio and onto the post room and the ‘Dive’. 

As we entered the doors of the Dive, Phil’s heart started to break, it is now called the ‘Pear Tree’, it’s a café that sells panini’s. There is a small bar upstairs that isn’t open on Saturdays and the dancefloor now has table and chairs. I didn’t even know the Dive had windows! He was so heart broken that we had to leave and walk through the halls. We walked past Wyvern, Chandler, and onto the then ‘posh halls’. However, I’ve since found out that there are now 8 categories of halls, and Windrush is third up from the bottom called Standard Plus! It goes all the way up to Ensuite Plus with flat screen TV. We saw out old rooms, the laundry and then walked out the backgate, which is now the front gates. However, instead of a rugby field there is now fake grass, where there was grass and a car park is now huge halls. We walked up to the Wheatsheaf, and Phil’s 4^th year house, then down to the C&A, trouble was it was shut! Home of the amazing Sunday roasts in a Yorkshire Pudding. 

The walk into town now has flood defence. We walked over Sabrina Bridge. As if Phil’s heart wasn’t broken enough, we saw a closed Images. It looked so sad. It now has the huge gold library in front of it, and a bridge into town!. To add salt to the wound, the Language School where he was a cleaner was closed down. Barrels has turned into ‘mode’. We found Tramps, the new venue for the students. We visited Drummonds, the Talbot, walked past the Hot Pork Roll shop, saw the Cathedral, back into Reef that’s now the Slug and Lettuce, onto O’Neils and then the Courtyard for some serious quiz machine.

Back on the train, we stopped at every lamp post, including Lye and The Hawthorns wherever that it. Phil was heart broken but I thought it was positive and cemented the memories of Worcester 1998-2002 in my year. Amazing time.