Them at 20: University of Sussex alumni share their fond memories of the University

Recently, the latest trend on Twitter is people sharing old photographs of themselves at the age of 20 with the hashtag #MeAt20.

So, we took to Twitter and dug out three Tweets which were shared by Sussex alumni from their time at Sussex University. Fortunately the authors of these Tweets were also able to spare us some wholesome memories of their University experience and you’ll be able to see that not much has changed, really!

Anyway, here are a few stories from Sussex way back when.

‘We lived through the infamous food thief and ant invasions’

Natasha, who lived in Kent House flat 13 at the time, told us about the original ant invasions in Kent House: “Ants would pour out of the sink pipe hole in the wall. I complained to one of the managers who retorted that they weren’t going to eat me alive. I stole his Henry hoover, stuck the pipe into the hole and sucked all the ants out, returned the hoover back to his office.”

Natasha studied Psychology at Sussex from 1992-1996.

Kent House, now apart of the infamous park houses clan, was known for being infested with ants and creepy residents, Natasha told us: ” remember we had a resident on the ground floor who would creep female students out by barging into their rooms at inappropriate times (when they were getting dressed etc), it all ended with someone burning his name into his door with shaving foam and a lighter – he left shortly after.”

Students are notorious for stealing pint glasses or traffic cones on nights out, but maybe in the 90s they did it a little different? Natasha told us that when she would come back from nights out there would be a stolen park bench in the foyer of Kent House and one time someone was cycling round it on a stolen toddlers tricycle.

One of Natasha’s final existing memories of Sussex is the pen fight she had with her friend Dan in a psychology lecture, they were shortly kicked out by the lecturer in front of 100 people.

‘Me at 20? Setting up LG&B Soc stall outside Sussex University Library for Pride week 1989′

Simon, with the blonde hair and pink shirt, was a member of the Sussex LGBTQ+ society at during his time at Sussex. He remembers dying his hair blonde for the first (and only) time.

Simon recalled events of 1989 Pride week in Brighton, he said: “We did go quite to town for that week, with a concert in Falmer House and the stall outside the Library and covered the campus with home-made posters and put a banner up on the front of Falmer House above the entrance to campus.”

‘The University of Sussex was just six years old when I arrived there in the autumn of 1967’

Robin Lustig, a current author and Sussex alumni, studied Politics in the School of African and Asian Studies (AFRAS) during his time at Sussex. He told The Sussex Tab about his previous position at the University as editor of the student newspaper ‘Wine Press’.

Robin shared a chapter of his memoirs with us, ‘Is Anything Happening?’ revealed what life was like at Sussex for a student who studied there just six years after it was built.

He described his experience at Sussex University as “The time of flowered shirts and long hair (men), and miniskirts and the Pill (women).”

He explained that British education in the 60’s was surreal, nothing can compare to it: “There was a real sense that we were in the vanguard of the deep social changes under way: the liberalisation of the laws on abortion and homosexuality, the introduction of the contraceptive pill, the rise of the feminist movement.”