Ghosts of Sundays Past

Ten years ago I was a post-grad at the University of York's Centre for Mediaeval Studies. Mrs Gruff worked away for long periods and I worked as a pot washer, for £2.50 or £3.00/hour (quite a 'come down' from the £20.00+/hour I had charged as a freelance graphic artist six years before), in a grotty little local restaurant until 02:00. When bus fares, photocopying and other study related expenses had been met I had just ten pounds per week for essentials and food. What was then 'home', a cold and pokey first floor flat in a converted Victorian town house, lay without Micklegate Bar and reaching it involved a ramble along the infamous, drunken lout infested 'Micklegate Run'.

I disliked the CMS and the university, though not the city nor York Labour Party, but one very pleasant memory is of being woken on a bright spring Sunday by Mrs Gruff's clock radio. I cannot now recall the title of the programme (it was not Desert Island Discs) but Mark Tully was the guest and I think he was introducing some of his favourite songs. One of them was Suzanne Vega's Luka. The clock radio sat on a bedside table, less than a foot from my ear and I was woken not by the opening chords but by the line 'my name is Luka, I live on the second floor', which, since I had not previously heard any of Miss Vega's songs, I had not heard before. Fortunately I'm not the panicky type and the song has been a favourite ever since.