50 years of friendship

Alumni Relations

Monday 1 September 2025

Anne Cockburn (BSc 1975) and Jennifer ‘Jenny’ Peat (MA 1975) reflect on their friendship that began at the University of St Andrews. After reuniting for Alumni Weekend 2025, the pair discuss their student memories and enduring friendship as they mark 50 years since their graduation.

Beginnings at St Andrews

Jenny spent her childhood summer holidays in the East Neuk and longed to study in this beautiful part of Fife. She went on to apply to the University of St Andrews for a joint degree in French and German. “I perhaps wrongly imagined it would just be more sun-filled days spent on the beach!”, says Jenny.

Anne was born and raised in Edinburgh. While initially contemplating either the University of Stirling or the University of Aberdeen, her siblings, Katie and David, were studying at St Andrews, and enjoying the experience so much that she decided to join them.

The Abbotsford Cottage years

In her first year at St Andrews, Anne stayed in what she describes as the ‘coldest room in the world’ over the arch in Golf Place. Jenny spent her first two years in Chattan (now McIntosh Hall). Anne moved into Chattan in her second year, becoming a familiar face to Jenny, who often spotted her around their accommodation.

Towards the end of her second year, Anne was lucky enough to discover that Abbotsford Cottage – set back from North Street, opposite Murray Place – was available to rent for four students.  Anne and her flatmate each agreed to invite an additional girl to join them and make up that four. As a result, Anne and Jenny were introduced over 50 years ago. The pair warmed to one another instantly and have remained close friends ever since.

Jenny remembers one of the perks of living in the cottage: “With draught sherry available across the road at a licensed grocer, we could fill an empty bottle inexpensively there and not feel we were missing out on the Chattan sherry parties”.

The friends spent two years at Abbotsford Cottage, and when Jenny spent a term abroad in Germany, Anne kept her in the loop about life in St Andrews, writing letters with tales of the Kate Kennedy Procession and May Dip.

Treasured memories

Anne remembers their time at St Andrews fondly, adding: “We both worked hard but enjoyed many parties at the cottage.  We also delighted in long walks along the West Sands and in-depth conversations about all manner of things, including our aspirations and the meaning of life.”

The ‘Auld Grey Toon’ holds a special place in Jenny’s heart. She remembers a haar-swathed St Salvator’s spire on the way to her evening Philosophy lectures, the smell of bacon rolls from the Old Union – costing six and a half pence –and the infamous power cuts of the early 1970s, which left her wandering around the Chattan halls by candlelight. Like many students, Jenny also participated in the St Andrews tradition of Academic Families, which allowed her to share experiences with others from different faculties. She recalls that she was ‘grateful for a caring senior man and senior woman’.

Jenny also remembers a special birthday from their St Andrews years. “Anne’s 21st stands out as she had ordered a 21-foot baguette from Fisher &Donaldson.  We had to extricate it from the shop delicately to keep it all in one piece, wander into the traffic on Church Street, then walk down Market Street, one of us at each end of the loaf.  Only Anne could order a foot of bread for every year of her life!”

Ever to excel

Anne thoroughly enjoyed studying for her Psychology degree. Her 21 fellow students were a tight-knit group – in their third year, their professor, Mike Walker, even invited them all to his house where his wife cooked everyone pancakes! 

Although the pair’s courses were completely different, this didn’t stop Anne roping in Jenny to assist with organising data for her dissertation, with the aforementioned sherry provided to sweeten the deal. 

Jenny studied Fine Art (now History of Art) in her first year and credits her lifelong love of art history to this time. After a substantial lunch at Chattan, she says, it would have been easy to nod off, but not with the wonderful Professor John Steer introducing them to the glories of the Italian Renaissance – she found it ‘impossible not to be transfixed’ by his lectures.

Modern languages, too, was a close-knit community, especially in the German department. The cohort enjoyed various social events, including games of squash at Butts Wynd, and the Honours class spent a memorable weekend at The Burn near Edzell.  Jenny has remained in contact with her fellow German students and their Lektor (lecturer), meeting up to reminisce and reconnect over the years. Her love of languages has continued, too. Since graduating, Jenny has studied Spanish and is now learning Italian.

A graduation gift

As a memento of their time shared at St Andrews, Anne gave Jenny a book on St Andrews from the Preservation Trust. Anne had filled the pages with ‘very pertinent and humorous quotations’. Jenny’s favourite was ‘how often you and I have tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky’ by William J Cory. For Anne and Jenny, that line was – and still is – a poignant reminder of their time together at St Andrews.

Life after St Andrews

After graduation, the pair briefly lived together in a flat in Edinburgh before moving to different ends of the UK for work. Jenny took up a post in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow. It was here that, drawn to the close-knit community much like the one she had known at St Andrews, Jenny took up curling. Through this, Jenny met her husband on the ice and went on to have four children together. Later, Jenny returned to study child development, going on to work in a nursery where she taught French to three and four-year-olds, in-between building Duplo towers and splashing water or paint around!

Anne, moved further and further south over the years. She attended Moray House for teacher training, taught in Edinburgh, completed a Master’s degree at the University of Strathclyde and held a research position at the University of Lancaster. When that contract ended, Anne moved to the University of East Anglia (UEA) to embark on a PhD.

Anne joined the staff in 1985 and has been associated with UEA ever since. She was appointed to a chair in 2010, having written several books on effective mathematics education in the early years and – not totally unrelated – teacher stress and wellbeing!  Anne retired in 2013 and might well have moved back to the beautiful mountains of Scotland had she not met Richard on a train back in 1989. The couple later married and settled in Wymondham, Norfolk.

Returning to the ‘Auld Grey Toon’

Last year, Jenny visited Chattan along with some friends from halls and was amazed how little it had changed in 50 years. Upon seeing the beautifully panelled dining room with its stained-glass windows, memories came flooding back of hearty breakfasts shared with friends, dinners sat at the high table beginning with a grace recited in Latin and Sunday lunches rounded off with a cherry pie.

In celebration of 50 years since Anne and Jenny’s graduation, the pair travelled back to St Andrews for Alumni Weekend in June 2025. Over the weekend they reconnected with Anne’s bejantine and new friendships were formed at the After Many Days Club buffet lunch, and at the quiz night, barbecue and Pier Walk.

A lifelong friendship

It wasn’t always easy for the pair to keep in touch. Anne’s holidays were limited and Jenny was busy with work and family life. Regardless, they have always made the effort to schedule get-togethers and kept in contact for birthdays and Christmas. Anne was a bridesmaid at Jenny’s wedding.  In the past 10 years, both have retired and, since then, have managed to meet up more often. 

“When one is a fresh-faced first year, one is keen to embrace every new experience and there is an intensity and depth to the friendships one makes which means they last forever, sharing experiences and happy memories, sad times, stressful times but thankfully joyful times too,” concludes Jenny.

Anne and Jenny believe the pertinent message from the Rector at the time, John Cleese, in the 1971 edition of Praeco, the student handbook produced  by the Student Representative Council, sums up their time at St Andrews. In it, he wrote: “I hope you all have an absolutely super time, and that a few of you manage to get degrees without in any way allowing them to interfere with your education.”

The friends of 50 years are delighted to have had – and to have shared – their ‘education’ at the University of St Andrews.