It’s parents’ lives that really change as university begins

W

alking down Perth Road, Dundee, the other day I passed a car on the kerb with its boot open. A couple in their fifties were hauling out bed linen and pans, relaying them into a tenement with Tibetan prayer flags hanging in the window.

A stack of white plates was removed and set down, revealing a huge Tupperware filled with roast potatoes. A young woman emerged from the building, ignored all the sensible house things her parents were struggling with, made a beeline for the plastic box and carried it in smiling.

Standing on the pavement I was spun back to September 2007, when I arrived for freshers week at the University of Strathclyde’s James Blyth Court. They were student halls, yes, but decent — solid, red-brick and mid-rise.

James Blyth Court taught me how to make home