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Students at the Bishop Lonsdale College Campus on Chevin Avenue, Mickleover, in the early 1970s

The Mickleover campus of Derby university which is set to be demolished

Maxwell Craven being tackled by two "large opposing backs with aggressive inclinations"

Maxwell Craven reminisces about his days as a student at the University of Derby's Mickleover site when it was a college in the 1960s, including the time he was flattened in a game of Rugby.

I was accepted on the first ever Bachelor of Education four-year course when it was still a college in September 1966, to read history and secondary education.

For the first year we had to travel to the Mickleover campus of what had been the Derby Diocesan Training College. The previous year its name had been changed to the more stylish Bishop Lonsdale College of Education.

The campus was then only four years old and was universally known among the staff as the New Site.

We travelled there from our halls of residence on Uttoxeter New Road by corporation trolleybus, which dropped us at the junction of Chain Lane and Uttoxeter Road, where there was a turning sweep.

We then walked to Western Road, a turning opposite a cabbage field with a golf course behind – there was no A38 then – and then down Chevin Avenue, a mid-1930s cul-de-sac which ended at the gates of the campus.

An alternative route involved going from the bus stop down the side of 276 Uttoxeter Road (one of three college lodging houses) and across the playing fields to the site on a narrow path.

The whole place was then very new and devoid of trees. The top of the bald hill on which it sat was very exposed. After prolonged rain, the concrete flagged path from No 276 used to undulate with the hill, which was like a great sponge and made ominous squelching noises.

When the A38 was cut through in 1968-70, the area was drained and has been dry and stable ever since.

This phenomenon affected the college buildings, too. As you arrived, the main block was facing with the assembly hall to the right, ending with the principal’s house, set slightly back. The whole court was closed from the west by the gymnasium.

To the left was a three- storey block faced with a series of angled bays with balconies, which was the FitzHerbert hall of residence for women.

Beyond it was a fine landscaped lawn with the refectory and students’ common room behind it .

The hall looked very odd, as the second storey was unfinished. It sported a series of bare concrete ribs and was the result of the architects failing to take on board the unstable nature of the hill. At the last moment, the top storey had to be omitted.

Due to this, extra accommodation had to be provided elsewhere and so an extra wing was built beyond the landscaped garden on the far side of FitzHerbert Lodge.

The college’s entrance was to the right of the main block and had a wooden sign which proudly bore a giant representation, in trendy glass fibre, of its new coat-of-arms.

Granted in 1950, the design was by the late Tom Wrigley, then principal of the Art College. I hope the university will rescue this artefact prior to demolition and incorporate it somewhere else.

In 1970-71, a new library was built on great pre-stressed concrete legs to replace one at the old Uttoxeter Road campus, with further lecture rooms adjoining.

A couple of years later, a new students’ union building was added, opening just after my presidency of the union, after which the staff took over our old common room.

This was a shame, as the new building was as dark and cavernous and the old common room was light, airy and elevated.

From its easterly windows, I can recall seeing distant steam billowing from the cutting at the bottom of the grounds by Humbleton, coming from the daily freight train heading west on the ex-GNR Friar Gate line.

It always appeared during morning coffee break in that rather frosty autumn and winter of 1966-67.

The swimming pool, backing on to the houses in Western Road, came after my time, as did the staff car park on the former walled garden.

The coming of the A38 rendered the surviving sports pitches much dryer – so much so that in my sabbatical year, I was persuaded to take part in a charity rugby match early in a dry May.

I played on the wing but in the second half got dropped by two exceedingly large opposing backs of seriously aggressive inclinations, which was like being flung violently on to concrete.

Even my assailants later felt constrained to ply me with conciliatory drinks after the match! Had it happened a few years earlier, when the ground was always soggy, one would have been more likely to bounce.

Another pleasure was the walk from 276 Uttoxeter Road across the fields to breakfast in the refectory which took us right by the principal’s house, so we could wave facetiously at poor Amy Sephton, struggling with her cornflakes.

The refectory food would today be considered exceedingly unhealthy but suited us, although, at a later date, I did lead a food strike at the college over charging and had the dubious pleasure of an official visit from the then president of the National Union of Students.

He was a North London-born fire-breathing socialist with a funny voice called Jack Straw. Now, I wonder what happened to him?

• The University of Derby's Mickleover site is due to close imminently.

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