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• Friday August 18 2000 The Guardian A fresher climate Welcome to Prince William's A-level grades (A, Band C) are good enough to ST ANDREWS whether the isolated Fife town of St Andrews is ready for him get him into his chosen university. Gerard Seenan goes to see utside the chip shop, the tallest of the three girls - the one with the not-yetbroken-in shoes, gold hooped earrings and, owing to some creative use - of peroxide, a vaguely badgerish Advertisement Wild life ... a group of freshers at St Andrews, where the posh students are renowned for stripping off PHOTOGRAPH MURDO MACLEOD ( : appearance - is excited. "I can't wait. Hic's gorgeous," she screams with teenage enthusiasm. "I'd give him one." Her friend, in 2 barely decent miniskirt, is also thrilled. "God, it'll be great. Imagine getting off with him." Prince William, second in line to the throne, must he reassured. Should he ever feel the need to tear himself away from essays on the Bauhaus's influence on cubism or symbolism in Botticelli, he will find a warm welcome waiting for him among the battered haddock, chipped potatoes and teenage acne of St Andrews. Not that he is likely to experience such low-rent pleasures. St Andrews, particularly the St Andrews encountered by those of such wealth and breeding as the almost heir apparent, is not that sort of' place at all. The isolated and quietly dignified File town is famous for two things: golf and its prolificacy of publicschool-educated students. Both are apparent wherever you look. On a clear day it is possible to sit on the beach and gaze on for miles as rich more hacks than students - during term they make up 25% of the population - student association president Marcus Booth threw a press conference. An obviously well-brought-up sort of chap, he was delighted. St Andrews would take Prince William to its beer-soaked bosom. And the British press would no doubt respect his privacy, but if that continental lot tried they would get not a jot of gossip, not even from some cashstrapped fourth year. "If continental paparazzi come here then I am sure the whole community will close ranks and let them know that their activities are just not on," says Booth. In Ogston's cafe bar, a few students, claiming to be too poor to be able to spend their summer discovering the real Thailand, were distinctly underwhelmed. "What's he studying? History of art. That'll be a doss for him, then," said one. who, perhaps wisely, asked not to be named. Although the four-year MA(Hons) in history of art has a reputation for hardly any lectures but a lot of library work", the university was yesterday making it clear that academic discipline would be required. M me Japanese businessmen and Americans in plus fours happily hack their way round the Old Course, before disappearing in a blaze of flying fairway. In the tat shops in town there are practical golf-themed tea towels (£1.99) and, for the golfer who desires nothing so useful, a themed paperweight (€7.99). All this awaits the man who will be king. When the telephone rang in the jungle deep in Belize yesterday morning and Prince William's Eton housemaster, Andrew Gailey, crackled down the line the news that the young prince had done rather better in his A-levels than his parents, the prince's attentions must have turned from the Welsh Guard operations he was enduring to St Andrews. In Fife they were certainly thinking about him. The rumour broke on Wednesday and the tabloids descended. According to yesterday's Sun, it was all undergraduate sex on the fairways and three-in-a-bunker romps at St Andrews. Social anthropology graduate Kev Head, however, told the Guardian he was unconvinced. "It's a bit cold for that." he says. There is, though, plenty of nakedness for Prince William to contemplate. As befits a university where, reputedly, anything between 40% and 75% of undergraduates - the university does not keep figures - hail from public-school backgrounds, there is a lot of getting your kit off at St Andrews. Members of the rugby team have an annual streak down Market Street. There's also the Kate Kennedy club, founded in 1926, whose nine male members, in between dressing up in women's clothing, commemorate Bishop Kennedy's apparently fetching niece by taking their clothes off and larking about in the - somewhat chilly North Sea. Yesterday, though, there was none of that. It was all terribly serious. Prince William had an A in geography, a B in history of art and a C in biology; there was no need for an abuse of royal prerogative on this occasion: he had earned himself a place at Scotland's oldest university. The students' association was instantly animated. As the town, for the first but probably not last time, revelled in S for the riotous social life, it 60011 wanes, apparently. "I don't think students here are any worse than anywhere else," savs Mike Edwards, assistant manager of Ogston's. "It's difficult to tell who has got money and who hasn't because they all spend above their means. They're all much alike: they get drunk, they get off with each other." There are plenty of places to get drunk in St Andrews, but there's not a lot else to do. Clubbing is of the type that used to feature on The Hit Man and Her; the students' union is the main focus of social activities. There are, of course, lots of balls. For a man familiar with dressing in the faux Victoriana of Eton, there will probably seem nothing strange in sitting down to dinner in an academic gown. For others, life among the 16th century buildings can get a bit much at times. "This is such a small place and can become claustrophobic," says student Alex Worsick. "At times you have to escape to Dundee to find civilisation - and that's something I never thought I would hear myself say." But if Dundee has better nightlife than St Andrews, the Fife town is, at least, far prettier. The university is spread around the town, its ancient buildings as much a part of the fabric ofSt Andrews as the Old Course. Students tend to stay in halls and the prince will have the choice of the original character of St Salvator's or the modern facilities of New Hall on the outskirts of town. Wherever he goes, though, even in the isolation of Fife, there will be those who come hoping to catch a glimpse. Walking through St Mary's College quadrangle, Ike Goldberg, from Wisconsin, is elated to hear that St Andrews will next year boast a new royal resident. "Your prince is coming here? That would be something tosee. Perhaps they could add it to the tour itinerary," he says, only half joking. F - r
Article from 18 Aug 2000The Guardian(London, Greater London, England)
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