Mum's world: Tapping for nappies

BACK in the day before cigarettes cost an arm and a leg and students lived frugally, I was known to bum the odd Marlboro. I returned the favour whenever I got paid for working an occasional shift in the college library. Re-arranging the music section according to the Dewey decimal system kept us all in fags for at least one night on the razz.

I also sponged off my sister who worked in the university. She had access to a Xerox but drew the line when I tried to photocopy a year’s worth of missed tutorials.

Students are renowned for scrounging; for volunteering for clinical trials; for being attracted to road signs and for knowing what time the kebab shop closes. They make no bones about it. But no-one wants to carry a reputation for cadging into later life. Gone are the days of hanging out by the Boole library in the hope of waylaying some smokey stranger or joining some obscure society just to get drink vouchers. Wage-earners are expected to pay their own way — making a recent experience all the more humiliating.