8.30 am. The walk to the School for a morning of PhD and MA tutorials. As I moved from hour to hour, I travelled from a borehole project in Kenya, to ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland, to the English countryside, and, finally, to the sublime landscapes of the Mid West. As a teacher, one can encounter in the course of a day an extraordinary and exhilarating diversity of subject, approach, personality, and perception. What these students have in common, however, is a maturity of commitment and insightfulness that impresses to the same degree.

2.00 pm. Mr Croft drove Dr Webster, Dr Cruise, and I to the campus, where we robed — courtesy of the long-established, distinguished, and not a little Dickensian sounding J. Wipple & Co. — and sauntered self-consciously to the Great Hall, looking like escapees from a Tudor costume drama:

Our Ceremony was, so we were told, the largest (and no doubt the longest) in the university’s history. It was heartening to see the ground floor awash with fine artists, art historians, historians, and educators all awaiting official validation:

There is a measure of predictability that becomes, and is of the essence of, ritual. But that doesn’t undermine the significance of an occasion that’s sober and celebratory in equal measure. To become a graduate is no mean achievement. (As ‘midwife’ to some of those students, I can vouch for that.) I have three degrees, but graduated in absentia for each. My undergraduate peers in Fine Art decided, en masse, that we’d attend the ceremony only if we could dress in a smock and beret. The authorities would have none of it.

As staff, we are there to cheer on our team, principally:

But it did go on, so. For two hours! ‘I’ll count the spotlights again, to pass the time’:

By the end, I was clapped-out and dehydrated.

All of our leavers will be substituted by a new third year in September, but none of them will be replaced:

Some will return as MA students, others will remain in close contact, and yet others will surface again only when they need a reference. That’s fine. As staff, like parents, to all we say: ‘You’ll always find a home, an ear, and support’ at the School of art, whenever you need it’.

What a happy-sad day: