Graduation

I attended my graduation ceremony in the Great Hall of Durham Castle on Wednesday 29 June 1999. I travelled up to Durham with my fiancee Cristina, my father and my darling not-so-little brother Stephen. We arrived in Durham late on Tuesday afternoon and returned to Basingstoke the following evening. Since Stephen was driving, he was allowed to be grumpy for the entire two day trip. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast on Gilesgate that was run by a rather eccentric lady with a penchant for cats. She also boasted a huge collection of 'interesting' magazines for people of a certain age. Typical readers of these magazines would describe themselves as being 'young at heart', would express an irrational dislike of young people (i.e. anyone under 45) and would have an unhealthy fascination with June Whitfield and Roy Hudd.

This is my offical graduation photo. It was taken outside the University Library on Palace Green, presumably the idea being that a student would have spent many happy hours studying inside it and that they would love to have a memento. Not actually true in my case. My library was the big chocolate brown one on the Science Site. True, my library had more books in it and better computer facilities, but I certainly wouldn't want a photo of myself standing outside of it.

As you can see, I am wearing a gown in a rather appealing shade of scarlet with purple trim, a scarlet hood, and a black hat akin to either a tea cosy or the sort of thing that an extra would wear in a Shakespearean play. Apparently the design of the gown dates back to Medieval times. It has evidently changed very little since then.

This photo was also used by the Basingstoke Gazette in their Graduation Success column. This is a regular feature where proud parents living in the Basingstoke area can send in stiff looking photos of their offspring in silly outfits, while some anonymous hack writes pithy nonsense about their academic achievements past, present and future. Most of the denizens of this page are freshly graduated BAs or BScs, so to have a geriatric like myself (see the extract below) must have been a real treat for them.

Basingstoke Gazette, Wednesday 11 August 1999

David Barton has successfully obtained a Ph.D. in earthquake seismology from the University of Durham. David's studies involved examining earthquakes resulting from industrial geothermal activity and volcanic unrest in northern California, USA. In his youth, the 28 year old attended The Vyne School and Queen Mary's College. He graduated from Imperial College in London with a BSc in Physics in 1992, and from the University of Durham with an MSc in advanced geophysics in 1994. David is currently working for EDS UK Ltd as a systems analyst.

'In my youth'? I'm 29! I'm not old!

Stephen says that this photo is great improvement on the 'deer in a headlights' look in my BSc photo and the 'grinning bozo Tony Blair look-a-like' in my MSc photo. Thanks for helping to build up my self-esteem, Steve.

The next photograph features Cristina and I just outside University College (a.k.a. Durham Castle). The entrance to the Castle is roughly where the white Police van is situated. (Why a police presence was required for a graduation ceremony in a quiet cathedral city in the north-east of England is beyond me. Durham is hardly South Central LA.) Cristina wasn't too keen on any of the photographs taken of us two together on that day because the wind was blowing her hair around too much. I thought she looked lovely, but I guess I'm biased. I'm really looking forward to her graduation ceremony next summer.

My Ph.D. graduation ceremony was the second my Dad had attended in Durham Castle. Back in December 1994, Dad and Stephen attended my MSc graduation ceremony there. That time I was allowed to wear a relatively sober looking black gown with a purple hood with scarlet trim. Although my Dad had never attended University himself, he is very proud of the fact that Stephen and I did, though I do feel sorry for him having to sit through all those graduation ceremonies.

Talking of the ceremony, the speaker was Sir Peter Ustinov, the Chancellor of the University. His address was, erm..., interesting. It's not every day you see the chancellor of your university impersonating anarchist pigeons and screaming babies while telling the assembled masses how wonderful it is that you spent several years of your life getting an education. At least I didn't fall over when I went up to shake his hand.

The latest of a long line of photographs were I stand on the left, Dad in the middle and Stephen on the far right sporting a rictus grin. It also shows rather effectively that I am the smallest of my family. The photo was taken on the bridge next to Durham County Cricket ground opposite the College of St. Hild and St. Bede. This photo was taken on Tuesday evening just after we had eaten a huge meal at Emilio's, an Italian restaurant on Silver Street.

Unfortunately, that's it for now. There are other photographs, but my brother and father haven't developed their films yet. If any of these photographs are any good, I'll put them up on this web page too.