An Easter canal holiday before finals. It was seriously cold at night and the water levels were very high on the Oxfordshire canal. We stopped at every pub and only made it from Coventry to Banbury and back.
We enjoyed some old-styled pub-games such as indoor skittles.
Living in Skelmersdale was cheap for students. We had a four bed-room townhouse, with two bathrooms and a balcony, which the development corporation wanted to sell us for £5,000. Rather sadly, a year after we left the whole row of five hosues were empty and had been vandalised.
The town centre was fairly grim. A market stall sold chip butties which consisted of a whole bloomer loaf of bread. Mushy peas optional.
Deal was a real surprise and it was along way to go for a job. We rented a sea-front flat just along from the Time Ball Tower, for the first year, which had sash-windows and was so cold in winter.
A summer visit to the Isle of Man for Pat and Juan’s wedding. Pat was to be our bridesmaid in January 1979. On the way back to Douglas for the ferry the car had a puncture and Gus was awarded hero-status for fixing it in time to get us to the port.
