The approach road to the student village
is a long traffic jam of family cars, stuffed full with boxes, pillows,
nervous families, memories and expectations.
This is the very first day at university - parents taking their children and getting ready to say goodbye.
It's one of those big events that never
makes the headlines but will have been ringed in the diaries of hundreds
of thousands of families.
On motorways and trains, more than
421,000 youngsters will be making this symbolic journey. After months of
anticipation, checklists on fridge doors, last meals at home, last
drink with friends, it's now here.
At the University of Sheffield, a stream
of parents arrive with their sons and daughters at the Endcliffe
Student Village. There are balloons, music, banners and the upbeat
banter of student radio in a well-orchestrated welcome.
It's like the first day at an academic
holiday resort. Parents and their teenage children look around the
newly-refurbished student union bar as if they are about to begin one
last family trip.
But under the South Yorkshire autumn
sunshine there's no escaping the poignancy. For parents, this is what
they've always wanted for their children and many will have quietly
dreaded. It's a bittersweet journey.
No one wants to spoil this big first day, but it's no secret that they'll be thinking about the empty room at home.
There are T-shirted volunteers all around ready to help anyone looking lost. They know the teenagers are going to have worries.
And what do the new arrivals most want
to know about? Internet connection, of course. It's their most urgent
concern, say the helpers. Not so much Generation Y as Generation Wi-fi.
Meanwhile their dads, looking
misty-eyed, have the conversations that they have at times of big
emotions. They talk huskily about parking problems and the fleeting
nature of mobile phone signals.
It's a mixture of epic understatement
and Alan Partridge as parents fill the long silences by talking about
the ring roads that have brought them there.
Suitcases and boxes full of gadgets are
lugged along neat paths in the shade of newly planted trees. There will
soon be 3,000 youngsters living here. There's a beach-themed party
already lined up and a whole week of ice-breaking activities.
There's a long gaggle of arrivals
waiting to check in. There are girls who have travelled with clingy
soon-to-be ex-boyfriends; there are siblings suddenly close to each
other instead of fighting.
But the biggest group are mothers,
fathers and a teenager now taller than them. They stand together like
they might have done on the first day of primary school. If there was a
Club 45 to 55, it would look like this.
Their estates and people-carriers look
like the cars bought a few years ago for a young family, the ghosts of
child seats still pressed into the upholstery.
The university has put on a friendly face to help the new students over this threshold.
In fact, universities have had a major
collective make-over in their bid to attract students. There has been a
campus building boom since the increase in tuition fees.
Alongside the rigorous academic stuff,
universities are also selling a leisure experience. It's part-science
park, part-theme park.
The student union bar at Sheffield has
been re-vamped. Forget student unions with sticky carpets and punctured
leatherette. It's now all clean, airy and comfortable and the bar
manager at Sheffield says these days it's driven more by food than
booze.
Even on their first day, it won't be an
entirely unfamiliar environment for the new students. Before they arrive
they will have been using social networking to get to know their future
flatmates. They're bringing enough computer technology to launch a
space mission, so keeping in touch with home should be easier than ever
before.
There is still time for some instant
re-invention. Starting at university is one of the most significant
changes for any young person. They will have spent several weeks
deciding the big academic questions, like what they should wear in the
bar.
The first night is the stuff of myth.
There are people you meet and then spend three years avoiding and people
you meet on a corridor and then become friends with for the rest of
your life. There will be freshers' week stories of excessive drinking,
ineffective cooking and misguided outfits.
These new students are entering their
own soap opera of romance, friendship and ambition. It's a huge
adventure that they've worked hard for years to achieve and for which
they'll be paying for many years afterwards.
But after the small talk over cups of
coffee and a constant stream of text messages, there is no escaping
where this is heading. For many families, if childhood has a final
moment, this is it.
The door closes on a student's room and parents and children go their separate ways