"The Graduate"

I think it was from about this time onwards that I started really hating having my photograph taken. I don't think I can be blamed really when this is the result; I mean, crooked teeth, zits, scraggy hair and that bloody squint again!

This was the photograph which was taken in September 1978 when I started at the old Yale Sixth Form College, and it was to be pasted into my college student card.

Three years on, and another entry in the Rogues' Gallery stakes. This is the photo I had taken for my student union card when I went up to Aberystwyth in September 1981.

A couple of years or so later, and this is the picture I had to have taken for my meal card at the hall of residence I lived in. Note incipient facial hair.

This was the picture I had taken when I bought my Student Railcard in early 1984. I needed it for cheap travel to Holyhead and over to Dún Laoghaire when I was doing my obligatory three-week residential course in An Cheathrú Rua, County Galway that year.

Looking at it, it's no wonder I was stopped by the Special Branch when I landed back in Holyhead, is it?

And this is what it all ended up in. I didn't bother to go to my graduation ceremony; it was too far, I couldn't afford it, and I was too embarrassed to show my 2:2. This photograph was a professional job, but the plumes are borrowed, alas. As luck would have it, the then-headmaster of the village primary school was a fellow alumnus, so I borrowed his rig for the shoot. I've often wondered since whether I was entitled to wear some of that gear.