My first visit to UCSA was in 1976 to see Space Waltz playing a seated gig in the ballroom. I remember a light show courtesy of the cars driving past on Ilam Road; and, afterwards, hearing 'Paint It Black' wafting across the still evening. It was a night that suggested possibilities that were then beyond my experience as a sixth former at a single sex, Catholic boys school. My next visit, two years later, was the first day of Orientation, and the Detroit Hemroids played in the Shelley Common Room. A few months later The Enemy rewired my expectations of music in the Ballroom. Over the next five years I spent way too much time in that sprawling complex with Radio U (pre-RDU) and temporary studios in dressing rooms and meeting rooms before we got our first permanent home in 1981 (after Students Against The Tour moved out). I discovered more nooks and crannies working on the bars. I remember Saturday nights in the upper common room doing the aftermatch for the rugby club (with the senior players drinking their fines of a quart of beer for every minute they were late for the pre-match meeting) and then a surreal hour shooing out the last of them while GUSS (?) (gay students club) set up for their disco. Nice piece Emma. Thank you.

A couple of thoughts spring to mind. Firstly, I'm no fan of Cameron but I'm also not much impressed by Ashcroft who seems to have a rich man's sense of entitlement that cannot allow him to countenance not getting his own way (shades of Charles Saatchi and the way he went after Nigella Lawson?). Secondly, just how many other establishment figures in England may have done same initiation?