Chapter One

As I arrived at the Medical School halls of residence on a warm September morning, me belly was full of excitement and anticipation as I was finally breaking free from the security of a middle-class family life in Surrey to live in a very down-to-earth district of South London. As an eighteen-year-old leaving home for the first time, I felt a strong sense of freedom with my family all having moved abroad and my receiving a full government grant; I had complete financial independence.

The residence for first-year medics comprised twelve fairly small modern-looking buildings stacked neatly on a plot opposite a massive grey complex of older buidings that were the residence to thousands of nurses that worked and trained at the hospital. It looked like a typical south London estate apart from these twelve buildings for medics but reminded me that this London medical school would be more like a children’s school in size compared to the other universities I had applied to, but with plenty of nurses around.

I stepped out of the car and scanned the situation watching all the other unfamiliar young adults unpacking cars, saying goodbye to loved ones and greeting each other for the first time. I focused on one pair of guys that were smoking defiantly out in the open, in fornt of the other parents shuffling around with their kids belongings. They didn’t look like my sort of guys, a bit too indie looking with longish hair and scruffie clothes, but what the hell I needed a smoke, so I strode on over to light one up leaving my dad to start the unpacking by himself. I introduced myself and stood there to watch and share this strange experience as if we were already friends, thinking naively that this whole thing would be a walk in the park.

I finally joined my dad to finish the unpacking and load up my small living quarters. It hit me that I would be living with eight other strange guys in much closer proximity than I had with my family at home, sharing a bathroom and kitchen but in a much smaller space. I said my goodbyes with relief rather than sorrow and got to work sorting out my new living arrangements. Eventually all the residents from our three floors had gathered in the middle floor common room to sort out who’s who with an older ex-army chap leading the proceedings. He seemed OK but I thought it was a bit premature of him to take charge like that; nevertheless, it got all the introductions out of the way very efficiently.

There was an introduction party at the medical school bar in the evening as the first event of the freshers’ week. Some events were obviously titled, such as ‘comedy night’ or ‘a day on ice’ but others had intriguing sounding names like ‘VOM’. I spruced up and nervously waited in the common room for other housemates I could go with, ready to take on this new world, or simply have a few drinks and work out who the hell I was going to be friends with for the next five years. The bar was jam-packed with all the first years but also medics from all years there to size you up and of course check out the new bevy of talent that year. Everyone had a name sticker so you could bump into anyone and say, Hi Tim, Rob, Jason…I’m Jack’…yes I know’…’ha-ha!’. It was clear I wasn’t going to make sense of anything that night, but it was a good drinking session and a few people stood out, or try to, mainly the older students by puking everywhere unashamedly or groping anyone in sight, male and female. I thought medics would be a bunch of Hooray Henrys but they didn’t come across that way that night anyway, although they were probably just trying to shock us.

All of the first years had been allocated a second-year student to look after us, playfully called mother if you were a guy and father if you were a girl, so the hot topic between first years was ‘who’s your parent?’. There was one second-year arsehole that had managed to get three daughters which I thought was quite funny. I quickly realised that the second years had all the power and the third years were the officially elected school committee. All the main second years worth knowing had nicknames that weren’t flattering, like ‘Lard’, so pretty obvious there. They also penned the school magazine that came out every few months as a satirical take on life as a medic with all the latest gossip and debauchery. The freshers’ mag had an intro on the 100 or so first years that had made an impression out of the 300-strong new student crop. I was happy to make the list and even happier with my entry, as I’m quite a big guy from a non-public school background they took it easy on me. Some entries were long and cutting and some just said ‘dickhead’ or ‘probably blows goats’.

The second day was a fun-filled day in London on a tour bus visiting all the sites like a tourist, mainly for the northerners amongst us. I was fairly local, but it was a nice day out and I got to meet more like-minded people from the other buildings that I quickly realised would be my longer-term friends rather than my current housemates. There were three of us to begin with that seemed to share similar interests and sense of humour, all from different parts of the UK; Dunk (Duncan), my new best drinking buddy was a Scouse and Dam (Damien), was a rugby player from a rural part of the Midlands. The group grew and shrank with different faces on different occasions but to begin with it was a solid trio.

We were all quite big with a youthful arrogance at that time, and on one night of freshers’ when there was no evening party, to give the first years a chance to rest their livers, we decided to hit the bar anyway. We suited up to meet some proper doctors and nurses after their shifts. Beforehand we each necked half a bottle of spirits and headed up to the bar, which was the hospital bar for staff as well when students didn’t have an event. We proceeded to introduce ourselves, completely smashed, at 6.00pm to any nice-looking ladies there to have a drink after work. I passed out around 7.00pm, rolled out of my chair, had  a little whiskey puke at the feet of my lovely new lady friend and promptly staggered home.

Apparently, the next day we heard that the third-year powers at be, heads of the student committee, were not happy that three first years showed up at the bar at 6.00pm shitfaced and started hassling nurses. This obviously elevated our status as a trio that wasn’t necessarily going to bow down to any traditions or rules in our new home. I felt more confident with these new friends, although we didn’t know each other that well we knew it was best to stick together in this new environment. We hung out together and started slagging off the so-called mothers and fathers and their silly nicknames.

One event apparently was pretty extreme, ‘the annual sports general meetings’ or AGMs, and although most meets were fairly tame, such as the sailing or tennis, football and rowing were a bit wilder, the rugby AGM was to be avoided at all costs especially if you didn’t play rugby. Dunk was a footie man, same as me, but Dam was a good rugby player, so we all went together anyway.

There were three guys dressed as Nazis at the head tables and everyone else piled in around the surrounding tables and everyone else piled in around the surrounding tables with three massive bins in the centre of the room. When everyone was in the doors were locked and Lard got up and casually walked to one bin and proceeded to vomit in it for what seemed like ages, he then just cooly wiped his face with a hanky and sat back donw. Every first year was required to stand up, say your name, and down a pint in front of everyone as they judged us, so boos or cheers followed each. I was shit at this and very embarrassed compared to everyone else that seemed to be able to neck a pint in under five seconds. I don’t remember much after that except guys projectile vomiting and pissing in each other’s faces. i managed to get out of the room at some point, but I really wasn’t sure on what I had just witnessed. Maybe medical life was so stressful that this sort of behaviour was their only release, but I regretted attending anyway. Apparently one chap jumped in one of the bins at the end of the night covering everyone in the room with a mixture of everyone else’s bodily fluids.

The third big event of freshers’ week was ‘VOM’, and we quickly found out this was short for vomit, so it was clear, these medics like to drink and puke. This however was a tactical drinking game whereby yourself and your parent would go around ten allocated pubs in the local area drinking a pint in each and completing a crazy task for points, on the clock as well. My mother was a very nice, petite lady, which was a good thing because we were tied together at the ankles and when she passed away in the fifth pub, I had to carry her the rest of the way. I did hold her hair back as she continuously vomited but most of it went over both of us anyway. On the whole it was another pretty disgusting affair but much more fun than the rugby AGM.

Fresher’s week actually went on for two weeks and for some of us even longer but following the initial shock most first years had learnt more about themselves, such as how they coped with leaving home for the first time, how quickly they were able to form friendships with strangers in similar circumstances but mainly how much alcohol their body could take over sustained periods of drinking. It wasn’t just the puking and hangovers, but after freshers’, most were fatigued with what they called ‘freshers flu’, and some did actually get the flu with a small minority spending a few days in hospital to reboot their kidneys. I was honestly never happier, maybe because alcoholics run in my family, but I was fine, I had discovered a lifelong friend, drink.