1982: Huddersfield Polytechnic

In 1982, when Dick Lawton was GA President (as blogged last week), I received my 'A' level results and they were good enough to do a degree in Geography. I gained good enough grades for a place at Lancaster University, but went for a Polytechnic course as it was more practical, and also had the advantage of being close enough to home that I could head back home on the train. I started my undergraduate studies in Geography at Huddersfield Polytechnic in 1982. 

Huddersfield Polytechnic had an excellent course, which included a great deal of fieldwork and practical exercises. We went on a fieldtrip to France where we explored limestone landscapes around Besancon, and down to Somerset, where Tim Burt had his tensiometers, and Slapton as well (where my colleague Claire later worked for the FSC). We spent time on Saddleworth Moor exploring landslides, in the labs with Tony Vann exploring soil strength, drawing maps with Rotring pens, programming computers with punch cards and batch processing, and enjoying pints of Theakstons Old Peculier for 50p in the union bar, and peppery meat and potato pies and pancake rolls from the Mei Wah. Compared to the contact time of my own children in their current degrees, we had lectures five days a week and plenty of fieldwork as well.

Images here taken from Huddersfield Alumni Facebook group. There are hundreds of excellent images shared on this group page. I lived up on the top of the hill shown in the middle of the photograph where there is a road heading up to the skyline. Castle Hill is shown top left, with the silhouette of the tower and the pub (now demolished). The mill chimneys top right were just along from where I lived, and I walked over there some days for cracking fish and chips.

My tutor was Tim Burt, who left part of the way through my course for a job at Cambridge University before heading for Durham University. More on Tim Burt nearer the present day, as he's been an inspiration for many years, and is closely linked with the FSC. I did a dissertation on stream ordering methods (the Parkinson method didn't catch on sadly) and spent weeks up in the Peak District up the Snake Pass in great heat measuring stream networks.

David Butcher took over from Tim Burt, and was another wonderful lecturer specialising in water. I specialised in the physical geography topics.

Other lecturers I remember from the course:

Alan Pitkethly (a legend who died well before his time), John Fernie (energy), Jim Wrathall (already featured on this blog - agriculture specialist), Derek Reeve (early exponent of GIS and computer mapping), Lance Tufnell (climate change and glaciation - almost went that way for my dissertation).

I made some lifelong friends and memories, with the Bent St. boys and time at Peckforton Castle amongst them. I remember winters with many snowy days, and a final year at the Ashenhurst halls of residence.

Any other Huddersfield alumni?